Mainstream media is catching up on Hunter Biden scandals: Devine
New York Post columnist Miranda Devine, who broke the news of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in 2020, says left-wing media has kept their audience 'in the dark' until recently when the investigation gained momentum.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie slammed liberal media outlets that "had it wrong" on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal during ABC's "This Week" on Sunday.
"The New York Post had it right during the campaign last year and the Washington Post and the New York Times had it wrong," Christie said.
In 2020, the New York Post was the first outlet to publish emails that allegedly came from Hunter Biden's laptop in 2020, suggesting misconduct in his foreign business ties that implicated his father, now-President Biden. Twitter initially suspended the outlet from tweeting out any information about the report. But weeks later, following public outcry, the social media platform backed down and said the suspension was a mistake. Other outlets first dismissed the laptop story as "fake." Yet last week, the New York Times and Washington Post were among the outlets who finally verified the report.
"Our policies are living documents. We're willing to update and adjust them when we encounter new scenarios or receive important feedback from the public," Twitter Safety said on its official account. "One such example is the recent change to our Hacked Materials Policy and its impact on accounts like the New York Post."
"Is the Washington Post supposed to report on a hard drive that it did not have at the time? That was given to Rudy Giuliani. I mean it's not an easy call if you're an editor," Ruth Marcus, the deputy editorial page editor for the Washington Post, said during the discussion on "This Week."
Hunter Biden walks to Marine One on the Ellipse outside the White House on May 22, 2021. (Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)
Christie responded, noting that the paper "reported on a lot of stuff regarding Russian infiltration about the Trump campaign" which "turned out to be dead wrong."
George Stephanopoulos first posed a question to Marcus, noting, "many on the right have said it's too little too late for the Washington Post to come forward now after dismissing these claims all through the election."
Marcus said she "didn't represent" the Washington Post newsroom, but rather the opinion side.
"I think that all news organizations, not just the Washington Post, faced a very big dilemma as they tried to figure out how to deal with the reporting about that laptop in real time," Marcus said, also blaming the "efforts" of Russian disinformation.
The Washington Post building in the nation's capital. (Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images)
"You don’t want to jump at that and report something that’s wrong. On the other hand you don’t want to put a finger on the scale. I don’t, as a journalist, am for one side or the other. So I won’t second guess the decisions made. I think there’s a lot of interesting reporting to be done. I’m really glad we are looking at this now. Hunter Biden is not the first political relative to take advantage and make money off of his father’s access and power, but it’s not a very attractive story," she continued.
Christie also slammed the "Russian disinformation" excuse and noted that in 2016 and 2017, Hillary Clinton's campaign was "paying for that dossier."
"Operation Crossfire Hurricane was all about the potential infiltration of the Trump campaign by the Russians. The basis of that was the dossier," Christie said. Marcus interjected and noted "most news organizations" did not publish the dossier.
President Joe Biden answers questions during a news conference at the White House on Jan. 19, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
"What they did was aggressively pursue that and call it as if it was fact," Christie continued. "With the Hunter Biden case, Twitter took the New York Post Twitter account down because they reported on the Hunter Biden laptop which now turns out to be completely true."
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The Washington Post editorial board called for a "reckoning" Sunday over the media's reporting on the Hunter Biden story.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain told Stephanopoulos that President Biden was confident that his son "did the right thing."
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