Two years after the New York Post exposed the nefarious contents of the first son’s laptop, CBS News finally bothered to confirm the reporting.
Welcome back to Forgotten Fact-Checks, a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we rehash the Hunter Biden laptop saga, check in on the media reaction to the Colorado gay-bar shooting, and hit more media misses.
Better Late Than Never?
CBS News reported this week that it had conducted an independent review of Biden’s laptop which showed “no evidence” that the laptop hard drive “was faked or tampered with.”
That would have been useful reporting — two years ago.
When the New York Post first reported on some of the contents of the laptop in October 2020, much of the mainstream media and a group of more than 50 former senior intelligence officials dismissed the story as Russian disinformation.
However, the New York Times has since authenticated key files from the laptop, as has the Washington Post.
Now that Republicans are set to retake the House and launch oversight investigations into Hunter Biden’s business dealings, CBS News decided it was finally time to get involved:
CBS News has obtained data from a laptop purported to have belonged to Hunter Biden. The data came directly from the source who said they provided it to the FBI under subpoena.@CBS_Herridge shares what was found during an independent forensic review. pic.twitter.com/uMWf1vB2Zv
— CBS Mornings (@CBSMornings) November 21, 2022
The younger Biden is said to have abandoned his laptop at a repair shop in Delaware. CBS News obtained a copy of the laptop from that repair shop, which turned over the original copy to the FBI after a subpoena.
After analyzing the hard drive, digital forensic investigator Mark Lanterman told CBS News that a voicemail from President Biden in which he tells Hunter he has to “get some help” with his drug problem helps confirm its authenticity. Other recovered images of credit cards, a driver’s license, and a social-security number offered further proof for the review.
“Just the sheer volume of what we’re dealing with, it would be difficult if not impossible to fabricate,” another analyst told CBS News.
One infamous email purportedly detailed a business arrangement between a Chinese company and the Biden family.
Tony Bobulinski, who is listed as a recipient of the email first published by the New York Post, offered further details last year in a statement to Fox News on the correspondence in October 2020, which references a proposed equity split: “20” for “H” and “10 held by H for the big guy?”
“The reference to ‘the Big Guy’ in the much-publicized May 13, 2017, email is in fact a reference to Joe Biden,” said Bobulinski, who says he was brought on as CEO of Sinohawk Holdings by Hunter Biden and James Gilliar, the sender of the email.
Sinohawk “was a partnership between the Chinese operating through CEFC/Chairman Ye and the Biden family,” he said.
Bobulinski said told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson the same thing when the Fox host interviewed him in 2020.
Representative James Comer (R., Ky.), who will soon chair the House Oversight Committee, said there are “troubling questions” about Hunter Biden’s business dealings and President Biden’s brother James Biden, which his committee will dig into now that the GOP has reclaimed a narrow House majority.
“Rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government is the primary mission of the Oversight Committee,” Comer said. “As such, this investigation is a top priority.”
Twitter Meltdown
There was a Trump-related meltdown on Twitter this weekend, but not from the former president.
The media acted like the sky was falling after Twitter CEO Elon Musk decided to reinstate former president Donald Trump’s account on Saturday. Musk polled users, who voted in favor of allowing Trump back on the platform after he received a lifetime ban from the site over the events of January 6, 2021.
For his part, Trump has still not posted from his reinstated account, instead preferring to remain on his own platform, Truth Social.
Nonetheless, journalist Kara Swisher suggested that the tragic shooting at an LGBT club in Colorado Springs that left at least five dead and 25 injured is “inextricably related” to Musk’s decision to restore Trump’s Twitter account:
Only one tweet today since this platform is degenerating by the cell in real time and I don’t have the energy for the screaming numpties today. See the two news stories below? They are inextricably related. pic.twitter.com/ss6QhWfQSE
— Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) November 20, 2022
Multimedia journalist David Leavitt asked, “How many Americans will die because @elonmusk brought @realDonaldTrump back onto Twitter?”
Musk announced one day earlier that he would reinstate the accounts of Jordan Peterson, Kathy Griffin, and the Babylon Bee.
Shortly thereafter, CBS News announced plans to pause its activity on Twitter, saying, “in light of the uncertainty around Twitter and out of an abundance of caution, CBS News is pausing its activity on the social media site as it continues to monitor the platform.”
The platform has faced a period of upheaval since Musk took over, with mass layoffs and a change to the site’s verification system.
Less than one day later, CBS News reversed its decision and announced it would remain active of the platform:
After pausing for much of the weekend to assess the security concerns, CBS News and Stations is resuming its activity on Twitter as we continue to monitor the situation.
— CBS News PR (@CBSNewsPress) November 20, 2022
Headline Fail of the Week
New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait, whose job appears mostly to consist of reading and critiquing National Review, says that “The Right’s Only Regret About Trumpists Is That They Lost.”
In the body of the article, he argues that this publication’s only quarrel with Kari Lake is that she lost. In his exhaustive search through our archives, he must have missed this one. And this one, and this one, and this one. Readers of New York Magazine: Surely you can find someone else to read who respects you enough to try a little harder.
Media Misses
• ABC News’s Jonathan Karl doesn’t seem to understand why Republicans are looking to perform oversight investigations:
ABC’s @JonKarl frets to @SpeakerRyan over House Republicans planning to hold investigative hearings: “Oversight, but dragging in Hunter Biden, Fauci…” #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/H68X05Wz60
— Brent Baker 🇺🇦 (@BrentHBaker) November 20, 2022
• MSNBC Ayman Mohyeldin claims that U.S. leaders “have rolled back reproductive rights” and “are trying to ban the word gay in public schools”:
MSNBC's @AymanM: Will "any of these American pundits grandstanding about human rights [in Qatar] call for the US to be stripped of hosting the 2026 World Cup for the way elected leaders … have rolled back reproductive rights or are trying to ban the word gay in public schools?" pic.twitter.com/9pkC3zIeTq
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 21, 2022
• The Washington Post opinion team’s new leader, David Shipley, reportedly suggested during a recent meeting that the team could be delivering editorials in the form of Instagram comments or haikus, per Semafor. Two employees told Semafor Shipley’s mandate is to “blow the place up.”