The Federal Election Commission (FEC) dismissed a claim from Republicans that Twitter violated election laws just weeks before the 2020 election by suppressing a New York Post report on Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden.
While reporting on the FEC’s decision, The New York Times on Twitter and in its article called story about Hunter “unsubstantiated,” even though it was based on extensive documents obtained from a laptop belonging to the president’s son. Numerous outlets have since corroborated and accepted the laptop story. Even CNN acknowledged that the FBI did receive a laptop purporting to belong to Hunter and that “the assumption is that it is Hunter Biden’s laptop.” Many other outlets tiptoed around the information in an effort to avoid reporting it, such as The Washington Post, which was still forced to admit at least some of the information from the laptop could be verified as true. Outlets continue to couch the story with speculations that the laptop may be fake or stolen or “Russian disinformation,” even though no such evidence exists.