Russian disinformation! Ah! That old fallback excuse for liberals to explain away unpleasant news for them. Donald Trump wins the presidency in 2016. And of course, the left has made it perfectly clear they believe he's an illegitimate officeholder due to Russian disinformation. And now we have a bombshell report in the New York Post revealing inconvenient emails suggesting corruption on the part of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Again, Russian disinformation is brought up again to explain it away in Politico.
Although Politico did not definitively blame Russian disinformation (mainly due to lack of proof) as the reason for the emails appearing at this time, Politico's Kyle Cheney and Natasha Bertrand strongly suggested this was the case on Wednesday in "Biden campaign lashes out at New York Post":
The Post’s story drew immediate comparisons to 2016, when Russian hackers dumped troves of emails from Democrats onto the internet — producing few damaging revelations but fueling accusations of corruption by Trump.
There was no immediate indication of Russian involvement in the release of emails that the Post obtained, but its general thrust mirrors a narrative that U.S. intelligence agencies have described as part of an active Russian disinformation effort aimed at the 2020 election.
Of course, by suggesting the email could be Russian disinformation would also mean calling the owner of the computer repair shop where the laptop was left off a liar since it was he who stated he found the emails, and other material relating to Hunter Biden, on it.
The Post story included a screenshot of what the paper said was a 2015 email from Burisma adviser Vadym Pozharskyi to Hunter Biden, thanking him for “the opportunity to meet your father.” But the email doesn’t indicate whether Pozharskyi was describing a meeting that had already occurred or one intended to occur in the future. Nevertheless, the Post reported that the existence of such a meeting undercut Biden’s long-held assertions that he had no involvement with his son’s business dealings.
Politico followed the censorship lead of Facebook and Twitter by not providing a link to the Post story. As a result, it made it more difficult for their readers to see the actual Post story rather than Politico's interpretation of it.
Any reader able to examine the Post's story would notice that Politico conveniently left off the complete Pozharskyi sentence in the e-mail which stated in full, "Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together.” Yeah, so it was more than just an "opportunity" to meet Hunter's father since he stated that he "spent some time together" which obviously means that they had met.
The NY Post article has new info. It has a copy of the email from Vadym Pozharskyi, adviser to the board of Burisma, thanking Hunter Biden for giving him the “opportunity to meet your father.” Joe Biden has denied knowledge of his son's dealings with Burisma. pic.twitter.com/4KytWTcB0F
— Jorge Salcedo (@j_salcedo) October 14, 2020
Here was their convenient act of omission:
The story immediately presented social media companies with a practical application of the same thorny dilemma that has confounded them for the last four-plus years: how to handle unverified or false allegations that become weaponized in the political arena.
Facebook and Twitter handled the "thorny dilemma" by censorship, an ugly but accurate word that Politico preferred to avoid.
Finally, since Vadym Pozharskyi is at the center of this story of this email, instead of conjuring up Russian disinformation, wouldn't it be much more fruitful if Politico did something reporters would do in that bygone era before the internet and pick up a phone to call Pozharskyi and ask him if he actually met Joe Biden?
Flip a coin in the Politico office. Heads, Kyle picks up the phone. Tails, Natasha makes the call.
