NPR issued a correction on Thursday to a book review that claimed U.S. intelligence discredited the story surrounding a laptop believed to have belonged to Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.
Revised now is a line in the review of the upcoming memoir, Beautiful Things: A Memoir, which details the 51-year-old’s battle with drug addiction. Where it once said the laptop story was “discredited by U.S. intelligence and independent investigations by news organizations,” has been replaced with a line that says: “Numerous news organizations cast doubt on the credibility of the laptop story.”
At the bottom of the review, which was published on Wednesday, is an update that says: “A previous version of this story said U.S. intelligence had discredited the laptop story. U.S. intelligence officials have not made a statement to that effect.”
The review was written by Ron Elving, senior editor and correspondent on the Washington Desk for NPR News, who is also a professorial lecturer and executive in residence in the School of Public Affairs at American University, according to his biography.
Now-President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, along with many in the media, dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story, which emerged in October, as being part of a Russian disinformation operation, without evidence. Concerns about Biden gained broader attention late last year after multiple outlets reported that he is being federally investigated in connection with his taxes and potentially related to his overseas business with China and other countries.
During a presidential debate, Joe Biden dismissed the laptop emails as part of a “Russian plan” and inaccurately cited a letter from dozens of former intelligence officials. “There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what [Trump’s] accusing me of is a Russian plan [or plant],” he declared.
Former President Donald Trump retorted, “You mean the laptop is now another ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax?” Biden said, “That’s exactly what I was told.”
Biden was referring to a Politico report that over 50 ex-intelligence officials, including Obama CIA Director John Brennan, signed a letter in an article by Natasha Bertrand titled “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” The title was misleading because the signatories never called the laptop “Russian disinformation.” They cited another article claiming that “federal authorities are investigating whether the material … is part of a smoke bomb of disinformation pushed by Russia,” but stressed that “we do not know whether these press reports are accurate.” The officials claimed the laptop “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” but admitted that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement.”
Trump’s director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, said last year that “there is no intelligence that supports that, and we have shared no intelligence with Chairman Schiff or any other member of Congress that Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign.” A senior intelligence official told the Washington Examiner that “the IC and DOJ are in lock-step on this: there is absolutely zero evidence or intel that the laptop or the information contained therein is a Russian op.” And a federal law enforcement official confirmed with the Washington Examiner in October that the FBI and DOJ agreed with Ratcliffe.
NPR’s news editor, Terence Samuels, said in October, the outlet wasn’t covering the laptop story because “we don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories.”
A recent report on 2020 foreign election influence released in March by President Joe Biden’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Kremlin-linked operatives “sought to use prominent US persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to US officials and audiences” and that “Russian state media, trolls, and online proxies, including those directed by Russian intelligence, published disparaging content about President Biden, his family, and the Democratic Party, and heavily amplified related content circulating in US media, including stories centered on his son.” But it did not reference the Hunter Biden laptop story and reached no public conclusions related to it.
The ODNI report also concluded that Iran had worked to undermine Trump’s reelection and that China hadn’t sought to influence the election one way or another, but with a minority view from the national intelligence officer for cyber saying China did take some steps to hurt Trump’s chances.
A number of media figures, including MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, initially claimed the ODNI report had dismissed the Biden laptop story before largely backtracking.
“In case you’re still wondering if the Hunter Biden laptop story came from the Kremlin,” Defense One reporter Patrick Tucker said Tuesday in a since-deleted viral tweet at the time, “ODNI’s new unclassified report says yes.” After being challenged by the Washington Examiner and others, he deleted his claim.
John Paul Mac Isaac, the Delaware computer repair shop owner who came into possession of Biden’s computer, told the New York Post that he made a copy of the hard drive and provided it to a lawyer for former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who was a lawyer for Trump at the time. Mac Isaac said he also provided a copy to the FBI after the younger Biden never picked up the hardware after dropping it off for repairs in April 2019. The outlet reported that emails from the hardware showed evidence of a possible meeting between Hunter Biden, then-Vice President Joe Biden, and a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm, which the now-president denied took place as was described in the reporting. The newspaper also detailed Hunter Biden’s financial dealings with shady Chinese businessmen.
When the New York Post attempted to post the articles on its Twitter account, the social media company claimed that doing so violated its rule against sharing “hacked” materials. The day after Twitter blocked the New York Post’s mid-October stories on Biden, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted, “Straight blocking of URLs was wrong, and we updated our policy and enforcement to fix. Our goal is to attempt to add context, and now we have capabilities to do that.”
But the company continued to lock the New York Post’s Twitter account, insisting that the outlet delete its Biden story tweets, despite no longer apparently violating any Twitter policies. Two weeks later, the New York Post tweeted out a “Free Bird” newspaper headline, and the outlet celebrated, writing, “Twitter backed down Friday in its battle with The Post and unlocked its main account after a two-week stalemate over the Hunter Biden expose.”
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff repeatedly declared on CNN that the laptop was a Russian plot, claiming without evidence that “this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin.”
After being asked in December if he still thought reports about his son were Russian disinformation, Biden replied, “Yes, yes, yes. God love you, man — you’re a one-horse pony, I tell you.” Biden said during the presidential debate in late October that he has “not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.” The president has denied any knowledge of his son’s overseas business dealings and involvement in any wrongdoing.
