The establishment media on Friday failed to retract reporting that Hunter’s “laptop from hell” was “Russian disinformation.”
Specifically, the Huffington Post, The Intercept, and MotherJones have failed to retract reporting on a now-debunked Politico story from 2020 that claimed Hunter’s laptop was “Russian disinfo,” according to “dozens of former intel officials.”
The media took Politico’s headline and spread their own disinformation. “Giuliani and the New York Post Are Pushing Russian Disinformation. It’s a Big Test for the Media,” MotherJones published.
The outlet elaborated, “That is, the Post piece, based on an unproven smear, is in sync with Moscow’s ongoing effort to influence the 2020 election to help President Donald Trump retain power.”
The Intercept pushed the same narrative. “This week, a group of former intelligence officials issued a letter saying that the Giuliani laptop story has the classic trademarks of Russian disinformation.”
The Huffington Post also published a similar report. “More Than 50 Former Intel Officials Say Hunter Biden Smear Smells Like Russia,” the publication read.
Though all these publications cited Politico’s now-debunked article that claimed the intel officials believed the laptop was Russian propaganda, the intel letter that Politico reported on actually suggested the opposite:
We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement — just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case. (emphasis added)
The media’s decision to ignore the letter’s line, “… we do not have evidence of Russian involvement,” is surprising.
Perhaps even more surprising is that the New York Times admitted on Wednesday that the information in the New York Post story, which originated from Emma-Jo Morris, who is now Breitbart News’s political editor, was authentic.
Such confirmation, however, has seemingly not fazed establishment media, White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Democrats, or many of the 15 media personalities who pushed the false narrative.
“I think it’s broadly known and widely known that there was a broad range of Russian disinformation back in 2020,” Psaki claimed in response to a reporter’s question about the laptop.
Before the presidential election, Psaki also tweeted the Politico story in defense of her future boss.
When Psaki was questioned Thursday about her false claims, she simply directed the reporter to the Justice Department and Hunter Biden’s representatives, failing to admit her mistake.
Fact-checking organization NewsGuard told Breitbart News “there was no evidence the story was false” but it would only punish media outlets “if any website claimed the laptop had been proven not to be Hunter Biden’s and failed to correct that.”