How the Media and Intelligence Community Mislead Americans

Hunter Biden’s laptop scandal, falsely dismissed as Russian disinformation, entered the American lexicon four years ago today, October 14, 2020, kicking off a years-long hi-tech scandal , the corporate media and the intelligence community.

“I think pretty much every major media outlet was disgraced,” former New York Post deputy political editor Emma-Jo Morris told Fox News Digital.

While at the New York Post, Morris first reported on Hunter Biden’s personal computer, which was eventually dubbed the “laptop from hell” by newspaper employees. The notorious laptop was filled with shocking videos and photos of drug use, lewd sex acts and sensitive business communications. The Post exposed it just a few weeks before then-candidate Joe Biden faced off against then-President Trump.

In an unprecedented act of uniformed censorship, the Post’s bombshell report was essentially buried by Big Tech and the mainstream press, silencing an “October surprise” that many believe could have swung the election.

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Twitter, claiming the story violated its terms of service with pirated material, blocked the New York Post from its account for weeks and even blocked users from sharing the story’s link. MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NPR, the Washington Post, The New York Times, and a variety of other media outlets and social media platforms pushed the since-disproved “Russian disinformation” narrative or ignored the story altogether.

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Morris, who took center stage in the initial bombshell report, believes the “multiple scandals” that erupted after his story changed the trajectory of technology and media in America forever.

“It definitely changed … the trajectory of the history of technology because, first of all, obviously the most obvious example is that … confidence in Twitter completely collapsed … it led Elon Musk to buy the platform,” Morris said.

“Now that it’s acquired Twitter, it’s completely changed the ability of censors to operate because it just doesn’t play ball with them,” he continued. “And Twitter, obviously, that’s why this was so outrageous during the laptop censorship era, Twitter is the main feeder to the rest of the media.”

Flashback: Msnbc, Cnn, Cbs Told Viewers Hunter Biden Laptop Story Was Russian Disinformation

The Russian disinformation narrative stemmed in part from an open letter written by 51 former intelligence officials, several of whom endorsed Joe Biden for president that year, who stated that the laptop had “all the classic features of a Russian intelligence operation.” The open letter quickly went viral and was echoed by Biden supporters, including his then-future White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who is now an MSNBC host.

“These people took the word of spies and completely misled the American public, knowingly or unwittingly. I’m not sure which is worse,” Morris said.

Biden quickly cited the letter during a 2020 presidential debate when he called claims that the laptop was real “a load of garbage” and believed only by then-President Trump and his allies.

Morris says she got into journalism to help Americans have “some kind of control over power and tyranny,” but the laptop censorship made her realize something critical. He noted that the scandal was an eye-opener to the realization that corporate America has so much influence that the intelligence community approached tech and media companies to do their bidding.

“Who was the focal point of the corruption here? It was the corporations. It was Big Tech and corporate media,” Morris said.

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Morris believes there was never any real accountability for the people who pushed the false narrative that the “laptop from hell” was Russian disinformation, although people who followed the saga “learned a lot” from through the investigations of journalists and Congress.

“The real sin in all of this was the collaboration between social media, legacy media and the intelligence community,” Morris said.

“Nobody apologized, and I don’t mean apologized … to their readers and their listeners,” Morris continued. “Not a single one.”

Morris’ initial Post story focused on a 2015 email from a Ukrainian energy executive to Hunter Biden, thanking him for introducing him to his father, which he had obtained from the laptop’s hard drive . Joe Biden was vice president at the time of the message, and his son enjoyed a lucrative position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, raising concerns about attempted influence peddling.

The laptop, which was allegedly left at a repair shop in 2019 by its owner and never recovered, was absolutely authentic and has since been confirmed not only by the FBI, but also by media that previously insisted it was Russian disinformation.

Morris considers The New York Times to be the most egregious of corporate media bad actors, because the Gray Lady dismissed it as “Russian disinformation” only to subtly confirm it years later as a byline buried deep in a story about Hunter Biden’s taxes.

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Others think NPR was the most ridiculous, as its editor-in-chief insisted: “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that aren’t really stories, and we don’t want to waste listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” when declaring that the taxpayer-funded outlet would not cover the laptop.

Media Research Center executive editor Tim Graham believes the laptop test provided unshakable proof that the media is largely partisan.

“Everything that has happened since the last election — the timid admission by some newspapers and networks in 2022 that the laptop was real and the extremely slow and irresponsible federal prosecution of Hunter — only underscores that the media values ​​being reliable for the Democrats before they were reliable for the public,” Graham told Fox News Digital.

“The legacy media doesn’t believe Democrats are responsible. Ignorance is their most shameful trait,” he continued. “They’ve heard of someone reserving some of Hunter’s Chinese millions for the ‘Big Guy’ and not wanting to know if the president was the ‘Big Guy’.”

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In one of the most memorable media moments regarding the bombshell story, Trump appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” shortly after the story broke and called the laptop “one of the biggest scandals” he had never seen But interviewer Lesley Stahl insisted there was no way to conclude the laptop, or its contents, were real.

Stahl’s employer, CBS News, confirmed in 2022 through its own forensic investigation that the laptop and its contents were legitimate. The admission led many Trump allies to vilify “60 Minutes” and Stahl to this day.

The ordeal has continued to haunt “60 Minutes.” The long-running CBS show recently suggested that Trump would not appear on the show for another interview without an apology for the Stahl interview.

Graham believes that “60 Minutes” should admit that Stahl was wrong when he insisted that the laptop could not be verified.

“CBS never followed up or apologized. Because they are blatantly partisan,” Graham said.

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DePauw University journalism professor Jeffrey McCall believes the laptop test is one of the reasons news consumers across the country have so little trust in the media these days.

“In retrospect, it’s now clear that the media tried to sway the 2020 election by deliberately omitting coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story,” McCall told Fox News Digital.

He noted that the “minimal coverage” he received focused on former intelligence officials who falsely claimed the laptop was fake.

“So we had the almost unbelievable situation where the media mostly dismissed something that was true but promoted something that was false. And those decisions weren’t just mistakes that occasionally happen in journalism. They were intentional decisions to disrupt the public sphere for political purposes,” McCall said.

“Sadly, the establishment media continues to want to be political activists in the 2024 election cycle. The actions of the network’s debate moderators demonstrate the activist mindset of these news organizations,” he continued. “The ongoing cover-up of Biden’s cognitive decline earlier this year can now be seen as journalistic malpractice. CBS’s controversial editing of Harris’ ’60 Minutes’ interview is another indication of the manipulation of the media of electoral narratives”.

Morris, who knew the laptop was authentic from the jump when he broke the story in the first place, believes many Americans still believe the debunked narratives.

“There are Americans who are so propagandized by such a corrupt media … I think there are still people who, unfortunately, never got the memo,” he said.

Fox News Digital’s Nikolas Lanum, Gabriel Hays, David Rutz and Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.

Source of original article: Hunter Biden’s ‘Laptop from Hell’ Scandal 4 Years Ago: How the Media and Intelligence Community Are Misleading Americans