Appearing on MSNBC Monday afternoon, NBC News national security and justice correspondent Ken Dilanian actually cheered on the leftist media for trying to squash the Hunter Biden scandal, baselessly claiming the story was “Russian disinformation” and even suggesting it was “dangerous” to talk about the topic. Earlier in the afternoon, anchor Andrea Mitchell openly lied about the story, labeling it an example of “false conspiracy theories against the Bidens.”
“The New York Post story that dropped like a bomb last week, seemingly implicating Hunter and Joe Biden continues to wither under scrutiny, not really dropping like a bomb,” anchor Katy Tur smugly proclaimed in the 2:00 p.m. ET hour, despite evidence corroborating the story mounting every day.
Minutes later, Dilanian warned:
NBC News is reporting that federal investigators are examining whether this – the emergence of these emails, texts, and videos that were supposedly left on a laptop in Delaware, a really fishy story, whether that was actually the product of a foreign intelligence operation. And obviously Russia would be the chief suspect there…
Later on Monday, Fox News correspondent Mike Emmanuel reported on a computer repair shop receipt with Hunter Biden’s signature for the laptop in question.
Dilanian then launched into a lecture, telling viewers to reject the story and applauded the fact that the left-wing press was trying to cover it up:
Now, look, there are so many questions about the provenance of this material. A lot of it does look legitimate, there are pictures of Hunter Biden, there are videos, there are emails. But we have no idea, and neither does The New York Post, whether any of it was doctored or forged or faked. And that’s why the mainstream news media has declined to really touch the story, because it just lacks credibility. And the fact that it appeared in The New York Post and that they chose to report on it extensively, sort says a lot about where we are in 2020 as opposed to 2016, where a lot of news organizations reported on emails that had been hacked by the Russians, Democratic emails, and then leaked. And they were newsworthy and people reported on them. We’re in a much different situation now because we now know that Russian disinformation or foreign disinformation or even dis – you know, campaign disinformation period is as dangerous to our democracy as anything exposed in these emails.
Just a couple hours earlier, on her 12:00 p.m. ET hour show, Mitchell ranted over President Trump using the scandal to attack Joe Biden:
But the whole “lock him up,” false conspiracy theories against the Bidens really is stunning….he’s going after, you know, these Rudy Giuliani-created, you know, false plots that we now have learned could well be tied to Russian intelligence because Giuliani was wittingly or unwittingly meeting with Russian intelligence agents, people who have been designated by the U.S. government as such.
Mitchell pushed the same phony narrative earlier that morning on the Today show.
Again, there has been zero evidence that it’s part of any Russian disinformation campaign, but MSNBC so desperately wants the story to go away that they will say anything they can to help the Biden campaign censor the news.
Dilanian’s DNC-approved propaganda was brought to viewers by Freshly and Rocket Mortgage. You can fight back by letting these advertisers know what you think of them sponsoring such content.
Here is a transcript of the October 19 segment:
2:32 PM ET
(…)
KATY TUR: The New York Post story that dropped like a bomb last week, seemingly implicating Hunter and Joe Biden continues to wither under scrutiny, not really dropping like a bomb. The New York Times is now quoting two employees at the Post who say the primary writer behind the piece, quote, “Did not allow his byline to be used because he had concerns over the article’s credibility.” We should note the Post told The New York Times that their story was vetted and they stand by their reporting.
The Trump campaign is vowing to push the Biden story at this week’s debate, and if all of this – Donald Trump, a presidential campaign, and emails – sounds very, very familiar, well, it should, we’ve been here before. Faced with a daunting run for reelection, the President is returning to his 2016 playbook. As the Associated Press writes today, “Trump’s campaign has tried to weaponize potentially hacked emails about Biden. Trump’s inner circle has been largely whittled down to the familiar faces of four weeks ago. A fundraising email sent late Friday was entitled ‘Lock her
up,’ the rallying cry often used against Clinton.” Oftentimes it feels as thought Trump is simply recycling old material.
Joining me now is NBC News national security and justice correspondent Ken Dilanian to talk about the Giuliani piece to this and Associated Press White House reporter and MSNBC political analyst Jonathan Lemire to talk about the deja vu piece of this. So Ken, let’s get the Giuliani stuff out of the way, these emails that the Post was reporting on, The New York Times today saying that a writer didn’t even want his name attached to it because he wasn’t confident in the sourcing. And there’s also an investigation going on into the source of this information. What can you tell us?
KEN DILANIAN: That’s right, Katy. NBC News is reporting that federal investigators are examining whether this – the emergence of these emails, texts, and videos that were supposedly left on a laptop in Delaware, a really fishy story, whether that was actually the product of a foreign intelligence operation. And obviously Russia would be the chief suspect there, in part because the Post has acknowledged that Rudy Giuliani was the one who provided all this material to them and we know that the U.S. intelligence community has flagged that Rudy Giuliani has been dealing with Russian agents who are trying to peddle him disinformation about Joe Biden’s activities in Ukraine. And the CIA and other agencies went so far as to warn the White House about that last year.
Now, look, there are so many questions about the provenance of this material. A lot of it does look legitimate, there are pictures of Hunter Biden, there are videos, there are emails. But we have no idea, and neither does The New York Post, whether any of it was doctored or forged or faked. And that’s why the mainstream news media has declined to really touch the story, because it just lacks credibility. And the fact that it appeared in The New York Post and that they chose to report on it extensively, sort says a lot about where we are in 2020 as opposed to 2016, where a lot of news organizations reported on emails that had been hacked by the Russians, Democratic emails, and then leaked. And they were newsworthy and people reported on them. We’re in a much different situation now because we now know that Russian disinformation or foreign disinformation or even dis – you know, campaign disinformation period is as dangerous to our democracy as anything exposed in these emails.
TUR: What do you make of the DNI John Ratcliffe saying this was not Russian disinformation, if it was, he would know about this?
DILANIAN: It was a remarkably political interview that the DNI gave to Fox Business this morning, where he made these comments. Very carefully-worded comments. He said there’s no evidence that this is foreign disinformation. He didn’t say that nobody in the U.S. government is examining that possibility, because he can’t say that, because our sources are telling us they absolutely are, along with a number of other possibilities, including that it just could have been domestic actors who prepared this whole operation.
But Ratcliffe, you know, was a Republican conservative congressman who has carried water for Donald Trump and has been accused of politicizing intelligence and was responding to charges made by Adam Schiff and he distorted what Schiff said. Schiff never said this is Russian disinformation, he said that this story called upon the playbook of Russian disinformation when it accused Joe Biden of trying to get a prosecutor fired who was investigating the company on whose board his son served. Because that part of it had already been debunked, Katy.
(…)
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