How the media and secret services mislead Americans

Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop — wrongly dismissed as Russian disinformation — became part of the American lexicon four years ago today, on October 14, 2020, sparking a years-long scandal across Big Tech, corporate media and the intelligence community.

“I think virtually every single mainstream media outlet has embarrassed itself,” 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 the paper’s staff eventually dubbed a “laptop from hell.” The infamous laptop was full of shocking videos and photos of drug use, lewd sexual acts and sensitive business communications. The Post revealed this just weeks before then-candidate Joe Biden was set to face then-President Trump.

In an unprecedented act of unified censorship, the bombshell Post report was essentially buried by Big Tech and the mainstream press, silencing an “October Surprise” that many believe could have swayed the election.

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Twitter claimed the story violated its terms of service for hacked material, banned the New York Post from its account for weeks and even blocked users from sharing the link to the story. MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NPR, Washington Post, The New York Times, and a host of other media outlets and social media platforms either promoted the now-debunked “Russian disinformation” narrative or ignored the story entirely.

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Morris, who starred in the first bombshell report, believes the “multiple scandals” that erupted in the wake of her story forever changed the trajectory of technology and media in America.

“It’s definitely changed… the course of technology history, because of course the most glaring example is that… trust in Twitter has completely collapsed… leading to Elon Musk buying the platform,” Morris said.

“After he took over Twitter, the ability of the censors to act has completely changed because he just doesn’t play with them,” she continued. “And Twitter is obviously the main feeder for the rest of the media, which is why this was so scandalous in the era of laptop censorship.”

Flashback: Msnbc, CNN, Cbs told viewers Hunter Biden’s laptop story was Russian disinformation

The Russian disinformation narrative arose in part from an open letter written by 51 former intelligence officials, several of whom endorsed Joe Biden for president this year, saying the laptop had “all the classic hallmarks of a Russian information operation.” The open letter quickly went viral and was parroted by Biden supporters, including his then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki, now an anchor on MSNBC.

“These people have taken the word of spies and, intentionally or unintentionally, completely misled the American public. I’m not sure which is worse,” Morris said.

Biden was quick to quote the letter during a 2020 presidential debate when he called claims that the laptop was authentic “a bunch of garbage” and that only then-President Trump and his allies believed it.

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 crucial. She noted that the scandal was eye-opening because she realized that the American economy had so much influence that the intelligence community was asking technology and media companies to do their bidding.

“Who was the central focus of corruption here? They were companies. 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 spread the false narrative that the “laptop from hell” was Russian disinformation, although the people who followed the saga were subject to investigations by journalists and Congress had “learned so much”.

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

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

Morris’ first Post story centered on a 2015 email from a Ukrainian energy executive to Hunter Biden thanking him for introducing him to his father, obtained from the laptop’s hard drive. Joe Biden was vice president at the time the news broke, and his son then held a lucrative position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, raising concerns about an attempted influence-peddling plot.

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

Morris believes the New York Times was the corporate media’s most egregious villain because the Gray Lady dismissed it as “Russian disinformation” until years later when she subtly confirmed it as a throwaway line deep in a story about Hunter Biden taxes were buried.

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Others believe that NPR was the most ridiculous, as the editor-in-chief emphasized, “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 ones Distractions” when explaining that the taxpayer-funded outlet would not cover the laptop.

Tim Graham, editor-in-chief of the Media Research Center, believes the laptop ordeal was clear evidence that the media is largely biased.

“Everything that has happened since the last election – the timid admission in 2022 by some newspapers and networks that the laptop was real, and the extremely slow and unsuccessful federal prosecution of Hunter – only underscores the media’s emphasis on the Democrat “It’s reliable to the public,” Graham told Fox News Digital.

“The legacy media doesn’t believe in holding Democrats accountable. Curiosity is their most shameful quality,” he continued. “They heard about someone setting aside some of Hunter’s Chinese millions for the ‘Big Guy’ and didn’t want to know if the President was the ‘Big Guy’.”

From “smear campaign” to “Russian disinformation,” liberal media outlets have banded together to dismiss the Hunter Biden story

In one of the most memorable media moments surrounding the bombing story, Trump appeared on CBS’ “60 Minutes” shortly after the story broke and called the laptop “one of the biggest scandals” he had ever seen. However, interviewer Lesley Stahl insisted that there was no way to determine the authenticity of the laptop or its contents.

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

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

Graham believes “60 Minutes” should admit that Stahl was wrong when she insisted the laptop couldn’t be verified.

“CBS never asked or apologized. Because they are shamelessly partisan,” Graham said.

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Jeffrey McCall, a journalism professor at DePauw University, believes the laptop ordeal is one reason news consumers across the country have so little trust in the media these days.

“In retrospect, it is now clear that the establishment media attempted to influence the 2020 election by deliberately omitting coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story,” McCall told Fox News Digital.

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

“So we had the almost unbelievable situation where the mainstream media rejected something that was true and yet promoted something that was false. And these decisions weren’t just mistakes that can occasionally happen in journalism. “They were deliberate decisions to change the public sphere for political purposes,” McCall said.

“Unfortunately, the mainstream media wants to continue to be political activists in the 2024 election cycle. The network debate moderators’ performances 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 viewed as journalistic misconduct. CBS’ controversial editing of Harris’ ’60 Minutes’ interview is yet another indication of the media’s manipulation of election narratives.”

Morris, who knew the laptop was authentic from the start when she first broke the story, 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 some people who, unfortunately, never really got the memo,” she said.

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

Original source of the article: Hunter Biden’s ‘Laptop from Hell’ Scandal Turns 4: How Media and Intelligence Agencies Mislead Americans