Last week, the New York Times finally admitted that Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop and its contents are not “Russian disinformation,” as many on the left claimed them to be. The outlet admitted that the laptop and its contents are indeed authentic. One CNN anchor, though, is not ready to take this step.
Breitbart News reports that CNN’s Brian Stelter is standing by his false claims about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Breitbart v. Stelter
Following the Times’ report, Breitbart News put out an article identifying 15 media personalities who claimed that Hunter Biden’s laptop and its contents were “Russia disinformation” designed to help former President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential race. The list included Stelter.
It showed Stelter, on his CNN program, reporting, “U.S. authorities [are] investigating if recently published emails [from Hunter Biden’s laptop] are tied to [a] Russian disinformation effort targeting [Joe] Biden.”
Stelter did not like that he was put on the list. Through Twitter, he direct messaged Breitbart asking, “Hey, just curious, when did I claim ‘Hunter Biden’s laptop emails were likely Russian propaganda?’ Can you send me the quote?.”
Breitbart replied:
Glad to see you’re reading Breitbart. Do you stand by your claim that these emails may have been ‘madeup’? And you used the phrase ‘Russian disinformation’ on your show to describe them – do you stand by that? Or are you retracting those comments you made on your show.
Breitbart, here, also included a clip from Stelter’s show as proof.
Stelter goes silent
The show was from October 18, 2020. During the program, Stelter questions the New York Post’s Hunter Biden laptop report in such a way that he makes clear that he doesn’t buy it.
At one point, Stelter said:
For all we know, these emails are made up or maybe some are real and others are fakes — we don’t know. But we do know this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine.
Stelter, back in the direct message, responded to Breitbart by writing, “So . . . you clearly can’t back up your assertion that I claimed ‘Hunter Biden’s laptop emails were likely Russian propaganda’ – – thanks for confirming what you wrote is false.”
Breitbart responded by asking Stelter whether this means that he stands by his statements. Breitbart also told Stelter that it has spoken with a former CNN employee who said that Stelter is “freaking out” about possibly being “a target of or swept up by the internal investigation at [CNN] . . . given [his] closeness to [former CNN president] Jeff Zucker.”
Stelter’s response: silence.
