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Hunter Biden's Laptop Authenticated, and the Networks Gave It 22 Seconds

After 51 former intelligence officials suggested in October 2020 that the New York Post's laptop story had the hallmarks of Russian disinformation, the New York Times, the Washington Post and CBS News each authenticated material from the laptop. Prosecutors later used it as evidence at Hunter Biden's 2024 gun trial. The networks that amplified the disinformation framing gave the authentication almost no airtime.

Mar 16, 2022
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Whose side it served: Democrats

Near-silence on the authentication spared outlets and a campaign that had treated the story as likely Russian disinformation.

What the record shows

The New York Times authenticated emails from the laptop in a March 16, 2022 story, and the Washington Post published its own forensic authentication on March 31, 2022. On Nov. 21, 2022, CBS News reported that an independent forensic review it commissioned found 'no evidence of tampering or fabrication' in its copy of the data. In April 2023, former CIA official Michael Morell testified, according to House Republicans who released excerpts, that a call from Antony Blinken, then a Biden campaign adviser, set the 51-signer letter in motion. At the June 2024 gun trial, FBI agent Erika Jensen matched the laptop's serial number to Apple records, and prosecutors read Hunter Biden's texts from it to the jury. The Media Research Center found that ABC, CBS and NBC news programs skipped the NYT authentication on March 16, 2022; after the Washington Post's confirmation on March 31, ABC and CBS still ignored it and NBC gave it 22 seconds, the last mention through April 18, 2022 (reported by Fox News). CBS's own November 2022 review drew 'years late' jabs from conservatives (Mediaite).

In their words

“CBS News forensic review: "no evidence of tampering or fabrication" (Nov. 21, 2022)”— · source
The other side

Authentication of a data copy is not proof of every claim made from it: CBS noted other circulating copies contained files added after April 2019, and on cross-examination Jensen said she could not verify the contents were untouched before the FBI collected the laptop. Morell also testified that Blinken did not direct him to write the letter.

Sources

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