Like much of the rest of the leftist news media, CBS tried to suppress the news about Hunter Biden's infamous laptop and the emails it contained when it came to light in 2020 after the New York Post broke the story in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. It was such a taboo subject for CBS that when President Donald Trump brought up the subject during an October 2020 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl, it was edited out of the final broadcast as you won't see here.
Fortunately, the Trump campaign recorded the segment left on the 60 Minutes cutting room floor so you can see Stahl claim over and over that the information on Hunter Biden's laptop "can't be verified":
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Lesley, you’ve discredited yourself. When you say that you’re not going to cover Biden, you’re going to ask him what flavor ice cream he has, okay.
LESLEY STAHL: That’s not me.
TRUMP: Instead of, “Why did Hunter get three and a half million dollars from Moscow?” Instead of, “Why is an energy company paying your son $183,000 a month, or whatever they’re paying him?” And he has no experience in energy. You discredit yourself. I don’t have to discredit you.
STAHL: So this story about Hunter and his laptop, some repair shop found it, the source is Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani.
TRUMP: I don’t know anything about that. I just know it’s a laptop and they haven’t-
STAHL: And you’re making this one of the hottest, most important issues...
TRUMP: I don’t know about the two gentleman you mentioned.
STAHL: It’s an important issue-
TRUMP: It’s a very important issue to find out whether or not a man is corrupt, who’s running for president. Who’s accepted money from China, and from Ukraine, and from Russia. Yeah, I think that’s an important issue.
STAHL: All these things have been investigated and discredited.
TRUMP: It’s incredible the way you can try and say this and sit there and look me in the eye and say it. He accepted money, his family, from Russia, from Ukraine, from China and from other places. His brother who didn’t have experience became a big builder in Iraq, without experience. Take a look at what’s going on, Lesley. And then you say that shouldn’t be discussed? It’s the biggest scandal out there, Lesley.
STAHL: And you think it’s the biggest issue to campaign on?
TRUMP: I think it’s one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever seen, and you don’t cover it. You want to talk about-
STAHL: Well, because it can’t be verified.
TRUMP: You want to talk about insignificant things.
STAHL: I’m telling you.
TRUMP: Of course it can be verified. Excuse me, they found a laptop. Lesley, listen.
STAHL: It can’t be verified.
TRUMP: What can’t be verified?
STAHL: The laptop.
TRUMP: Why do you say that? Even the family hasn’t… The family on the laptop… He’s gone into hiding for five days, he’s gone into hiding.
STAHL: He’s preparing for your debate.
TRUMP: Oh, it’s taking him five days to prepare? I doubt it, I doubt it. Okay, go ahead.
At the time, Stahl felt safe in saying that despite the New York Post breaking and verifying the validity of the emails on Hunter Biden's laptop because almost all the rest of the media, including CBS News, refused to even investigate the story beyond reciting denials of its validity by intelligence agencies, which were subsequently proven wrong.
On Thursday, one of the media outlets at the forefront of Hunter Biden laptop denialism, the New York Times, finally admitted the validity of the laptop and the damning emails it contained. The New York Post editorial board sarcastically welcomed this very very belated admission by the Times:
First, the New York Times decides more than a year later that Hunter Biden’s business woes are worthy of a story. Then, deep in the piece, in passing, it notes that Hunter’s laptop is legitimate.
“People familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Mr. Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity,” the Times writes. “Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.”
Authenticated!!! You don’t say. You mean, when a newspaper actually does reporting on a topic and doesn’t just try to whitewash coverage for Joe Biden, it discovers it’s actually true?
...In the heat of the presidential race of 2020, the Times never missed a chance to cast doubt on the laptop, saying the information was “purported” and quoting a letter from former Democratic officials who claimed — with no evidence — that it was Russian disinformation. As recently as September 2021, the Times called the laptop “unsubstantiated” in a news story.
Why was it unsubstantiated? Because of willful ignorance and the Times’ curious lack of curiosity. Hunter’s business partner Tony Bobulinski came forward immediately after The Post’s reports and confirmed that the emails bearing his name were legitimate. The Bidens didn’t even deny it was true! They just deflected, with the media’s help, saying it was a dirty trick or not a story. Mostly, the press just ignored it.
...How did the Times “authenticate” the laptop? It doesn’t say. Unlike The Post’s reporting, which detailed exactly how we got the files and where they came from, the Times does a hand wave to anonymous sources. No facts have changed since fall 2020. They knew the laptop was real from the start. They just didn’t want to say so.
And most of the rest of the media, including CBS, also knew that the laptop was real from the start which is why 60 Minutes needed to suppress that portion of its interview with Donald Trump. And the constant emphatic denials of the laptop's authenticity by Lesley Stahl makes it especially embarrassing. Perhaps this could be a good time for Stahl to retire because she will be unable to avoid commenting on how wrong she was for providing political cover for Joe Biden if she remains in the public eye.
