Drew Holden is a favorite here at Twitchy for a great reason. He ALWAYS brings the receipts. Twitchy has featured long threads from independent journalist Holden on many topics, from the killing of Iranian General Soleimani (and the media's reaction) to the Covid lab leak theory (and the media's reaction) to the Covid lockdowns (and the media's reaction).
If you're sensing a theme here, no, Holden doesn't like the legacy media very much. And who can blame him?
Yesterday, Holden decided to serve up another heaping bowl of ''Member Berries,' this time with respect to Hunter Biden's laptop ... and, of course, the media's behavior around that issue.
We're sure Twitchy readers remember how the media shamed itself with the laptop -- and participated in clear election interference around the time of its discovery -- but it's always nice to have all of their malpractice collected in a single thread.
So, let's join Holden and walk down memory lane with maybe the most infamous portable computer ever.
🧵Thread🧵
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Do you *really* remember the Hunter Biden laptop story? I fear we’ve lost the plot.
With Hunter’s name in the news I wanted to revisit the extent to which the media went to cover up corruption allegations against—and at the behest of—his father.
Follow along. ⤵️
We've already got out our popcorn. Let's go.
You have to start with the scoop from @nypost and @EmmaJoNYC.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Their lede from October was damning:
“Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government… pic.twitter.com/ESDS29uk1Y
Emma-Jo Morris now works for Breitbart, but in 2020 she worked for The New York Post and broke the story that should have been huge, but was silenced.
The story was fundamentally about Joe Biden’s alleged corruption. It was huge news, on the eve of an election.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
The press leapt to claim the scoop wasn’t legit. And they reframed the issue: now it was about Hunter, not Joe. Here’s @NPR before/after pic.twitter.com/fxI9CraxUz
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Democrats and the media STILL make that claim to this day. 'Hunter Biden isn't running for President. What does his laptop have to do with Joe Biden?'
Only everything.
Social media companies then blocked all sharing of the article, something outlets held up as evidence of the supposed weakness of the Post’s piece. The logic was circular.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Here’s @washingtonpost applauding the move. pic.twitter.com/aJEvPZgj94
As the Twitter Files from journalists including Michael Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, and Matt Taibbi later revealed, social media companies didn't do this on their own, but with encouragement, collusion, and pressure from the federal government.
But the story really turned when @politico claimed the reporting was “Russian disinformation,” according to supposed “experts” who mostly went on a hunch (and partisan intentions, more on that soon). pic.twitter.com/qY7LAw0F3q
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Aah. Enter 'Russian disinformation.' One of the biggest disgraces to the media and the intelligence community in history.
That was the starting gun for the rest of the press, who climbed over one another to repeat the thinly sourced claim. Here’s @pbsnewshour, @BostonGlobe, @HuffPost and @BusinesInsider pic.twitter.com/Tcxpl1qyiU
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
To steal a word that journalists love to place on conservatives, the media downright POUNCED.
It was a mainstream media blackout.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
More of the same from @CNN (@brianstelter), @TheEconomist (this takeaway is…something), @TIME and @thehill (who were better thereafter) pic.twitter.com/r3cFNQNkPx
You can't spell 'journalistic malpractice' without Brian Stelter. (OK, you can, but you get the point.)
One of my favorites was this @CNN clip.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
“Classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work” according to ol’ James Clapper. pic.twitter.com/VDE93oydtn
In addition to lying to America on CNN, James Clapper lied to Congress under oath. He should be in prison.
Speaking of @CNN, this “fact check” does anything but.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Give it a read. pic.twitter.com/S3NogqFHz6
The 'fact checkers' (never a very trusted lot to begin with) also destroyed what was left of their credibility with the laptop, not to mention COVID and everything else they've reported on over the past several years.
Speaking of verbosity, apparently @washingtonpost forgot the first rule of editing: strive for clarity.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Is this clear to you? Not to me. pic.twitter.com/nmPHIXEx4c
Twisting words into misshapen pretzels is a natural result of the mental gymnastics all of the media was performing around this issue.
This @NPR public editor tweet really epitomizes the sentiment. “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories.”
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Care to revisit? pic.twitter.com/dzIpXwQXnB
If Republicans gain control of Congress in 2024, when they strip NPR of its funding (finally), this tweet from Terence Samuels will be Exhibit A. NPR will never live it down, nor should they.
@AP, would you like to revisit these “red flags” and “puzzling” account claim?
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
I’m not sure they’ve held up. Piece is still live on your website. pic.twitter.com/M0BJxlz65H
It was ALL Rudy Giuliani's fault. Of course. LOL.
Does @NPR really want to get into a debate about how an outlet’s funding sources could potentially influence coverage?
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Also, did they ever apologize to @EmmaJoNYC? Maybe I missed it. pic.twitter.com/qZKQHpKaYs
Morris deserves an apology from nearly every legacy media outlet.
And of course the smartest people on the internet weighed in. Here’s @jrpsaki, @brhodes, @jonathanchait and @atrupar pic.twitter.com/BhgU58AZZ4
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
HAHAHA. The social media 'influencers' swarmed the 'disinformation' angle like the jackals they are.
Even those outlets who didn’t want to hang their hat on the letter repeated the innuendo. Here’s @nytimes waxing poetic about “Mr. Giuliani’s campaign to undermine Mr. Biden” that supposedly lacked substance. pic.twitter.com/E7FuBWuf0Y
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
But the fiction didn’t hold up long. Apparently, the FBI knew all along that the laptop was Hunter’s and claims of Russian malfeasance were bogus. (H/t @FoxNews) pic.twitter.com/7Aty5mhcKg
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Uh-oh. The truth was starting to come out. That can't be good.
@nypost, to their credit, kept beating the drum on their scoop. Every passing days makes clearer that they were over the target.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Hats off to them for their journalism. pic.twitter.com/Y2bedp4OZL
We often take issue with some of the Post's reporting, but yes. With the laptop story, they deserve all the credit in the world for standing strong on a report they knew to be true and verified.
There were other commendable examples of journalism, such as when @dcexaminer (h/t @AndrewKerrNC and @JerryDunleavy) worked to authenticate the laptop in 2022.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
It was entirely legitimate. pic.twitter.com/LtgYoyCCTr
What wasn’t legitimate, as the @FreeBeacon (h/t @ChuckRossDC) reported in 2023, was the campaign to discredit NY Post’s scoop.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
It was all orchestrated by the Biden campaign to obfuscate damaging news ahead of the election. pic.twitter.com/h3rBWfVTQ1
Imagine that. The Biden campaign was pulling the strings on a story that would reveal Joe Biden's corruption.
This year the laptop and its contents have repeatedly made headlines. Biden’s own DoJ relied on it to bring charges against Hunter. (H/t @NRO) pic.twitter.com/00l36aYpy6
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
And then, the ultimate reversal came this week, when the DoJ introduced the laptop—belonging to Hunter Biden, not manipulated by anyone—in the case in which Hunter was found guilty.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Quite the turn for the narrative. (@FoxNews again) pic.twitter.com/e5eSiGJYOk
Throughout the entire recent trial of Hunter Biden for lying on his firearm application, there was not a single apology issued from any of the media outlets that Holden documented in his thread. Not one.
But it worked. Biden got elected. One poll suggests that, if voters had known the details of the laptop and coverup, that might not have come to pass.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
As NYT has written about previously, that shouldn’t be surprising. People care deeply about corruption. pic.twitter.com/2JiCB6hweG
And there's the rub. They got away with it. They ALL got away with it.
I know the term “election interference” is a contested one these days, but do you have a better description for what the media did here to aid the Biden campaign?
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
Nope. 'Election interference' works for us.
As I said in my newsletter this morning, we’re forgetting why this story matters. (Link is in bio to subscribe). pic.twitter.com/pqI4Eov8H6
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
As many conservatives have noted, even Hunter Biden's conviction this week was little more than a distraction. The REAL story is his father's corruption. The media and the DOJ are still burying that one.
The irony in all of this is that the mainstream media ended up doing exactly what they accused @nypost of doing: running with a narrative that fit their priors, absent evidence, to impact an election.
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) June 12, 2024
I wonder if they realize. I fear they may not.
Oh, many of them probably realize it quite well.
The problem is that they don't care.
It's easy to forget some of the truly horrendous things the media did to influence the 2020 presidential election, not to mention hide the offenses of the Biden Crime Family. Holden brings it all back fresh and it is just as disgraceful now as it was then.
The media destroyed its credibility, but they got the man they wanted into the presidency. And while we can't change that past, we can remember so they can't get away with it again.
As Auron McIntrye famously said, 'You don't hate journalists enough. You think you do, but you don't.'
Revisiting the Hunter Biden laptop coverup thanks to Drew Holden's thread is a pretty good way for Americans to be certain that we keep hating journalists as much as they deserve.
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