On Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki held her daily press briefing. She addressed most of the hot topics, including difficult subjects like Ukraine, gasoline and a recent shakeup in Biden’s Cabinet.
However, she declined to comment on one subject: Hunter Biden’s laptop.
One reporter asked her about President Joe Biden’s previous statements on the subject. On television in 2020, President Biden called the laptop story “a Russian plant” and “a bunch of garbage.”
“The New York Times has authenticated emails that appear to have come from a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden in Delaware. The president previously said that the New York Post story about this was a bunch of garbage and that it was ‘a Russian plant,” the reporter noted, according to the White House transcript. “Does he stand by that assessment?”
“I’d point you to the Department of Justice and also to Hunter Biden’s representatives,” Psaki replied. “He doesn’t work in the government.”
Certainly, it’s not Psaki’s job to answer questions about Hunter Biden, but it is her job to answer questions about President Biden, who was the subject of that reporter’s question.
Another reporter asked Psaki about her own statements on the subject. On Twitter in October 2020, Psaki shared a Politico headline calling the laptop story “Russian disinfo.”
“You were asked about Hunter Biden’s laptop. You also, in October 2020, dismissed it as Russian disinformation,” the second reporter pointed out. “Do you stand by that assessment?”
“Again, I’d point to the Department of Justice and Hunter Biden’s representatives,” Psaki repeated. “I’m a spokesperson for the United States; he doesn’t work for the United States.”
Again, Psaki can’t speak for Hunter Biden, but she can speak for herself.
After that, she took her last question of the day.
Both Psaki and President Biden had been referring to letter signed by former CIA heads with suspicions about the laptop story.
However, even these CIA heads acknowledged a lack of evidence for their hypothesis about Russiagate 2.0. They simply said, “Experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”
Plus, these ex-heads of the CIA were only voicing their own suspicions, not the official position of the CIA or any other intelligence organization.
In a statement from August 2020, the government’s National Counterintelligence and Security Center acknowledged the Kremlin’s vague, politically motivated smears about President Biden’s corruption… but it lent no support to Psaki’s particular claims about the laptop story.
Psaki pushed a theory without adequate evidence, and now she’s refusing to own up to her mistakes.
Watch the videos here —
The Horn editorial team