CNN's Brian Stelter lets Nina Jankowicz off the hook on the misinformation she peddled during interview
Nina Jankowicz referred to the Hunter Biden laptop as a 'Trump campaign product' in 2020
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CNN's left-wing media correspondent Brian Stelter allowed the former chief of the now-defunct "Disinformation Governance Board" to skate through an interview despite her long history of peddling misinformation.
On Sunday's "Reliable Sources," Stelter spoke with Nina Jankowicz about the criticism she faced after the Biden administration announced its new initiative, which was panned as "Orwellian" and compared to the "Ministry of Truth," with Jankowicz appointed as its executive director.
"These critics - there were many of them, they were incredibly loud," Stelter said. "They say you're just a giant liberal, could never be appropriately hired for this job because you posted disinformation on Twitter yourself."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Well, so there's a lot of things to unpack," Jankowicz responded.
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Jankowicz dismissed the notion that her history of being an outspoken supporter of Democrats would have any impact on her role as the disinformation board's executive director since the board, as she repeatedly asserted, was never meant to control free speech.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}An image of Nina Jankowicz from Twitter and a hand scrolling through 'fake news' (Arkadiusz Warguła/iStock)
She insisted she "did not post disinformation," claiming tweets she made in 2016 which elevated the Trump-Russia collusion narrative were simply "sharing news."
Jankowicz then attempted to dismiss the uproar she received regarding her response to the Hunter Biden laptop controversy by keeping the focus on tweets she made while watching the 2020 presidential debate.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Other people honed in on tweets that were - they were completely stripped of context," Jankowicz said. "The one that the conservatives loved to really amplify was a tweet that they claimed that that made me seem like I was calling the Hunter Biden laptop disinformation when in fact, I was just live-tweeting a debate, you know, saying the exact words that then-candidate Biden and President Trump were saying during a debate - totally stripped of context and people didn't want to look further into the context."
Except her comments about the Hunter Biden laptop went far beyond her "live-tweeting."
Nina Jankowicz discusses the paused disinformation governance board on CNN's "Reliable Sources." (Screenshot/CNN/ReliableSources)
In October 2020, after the New York Post first broke the story about Hunter Biden's laptop, Jankowicz told the Associated Press, "We should view it as a Trump campaign product."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Then, in a Washington Post op-ed she penned days later, she touted the testimony she had just given before the House Intelligence Committee about the threat of online disinformation, where she suggested the laptop had "illicit provenance."
"Regarding Russia and what we have learned, I am not sure that the United States has actually learned very many lessons," Jankowicz testified on Oct. 16, 2020. "I think the past couple of days have shown that we've learned, perhaps, or at least have become more circumspect about how to report on hack-and-leak materials or things that might be of an illicit provenance."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Additionally, she repeatedly promoted the Trump-Russia collusion narrative and praised Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence officer who pushed the now-widely debunked Steele dossier, as a reliable expert in disinformation.
But none of that was mentioned by Stelter, who went on to complain that the government appears unable to tackle disinformation following the Department of Homeland Security's decision to put the disinformation board on "pause."
Stelter did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Brian Stelter, who often decries "misinformation" being shared on social media, failed to press Nina Jankowicz about the misinformation she had promoted before being tapped as the executive director of the "Disinformation Governance Board." (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Vanity Fair)
Stelter is far from the only journalist to let Jankowicz off the hook. Last week, the New York Times went to bat for the "Disinformation Governance Board" and failed to mention the various falsehoods Jankowicz peddled despite having interviewed her, claiming she was "targeted online by false or misleading information about her role" and refrained to delve into what her critics had actually said.
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Following the DHS reversal of the board, Jankowicz was interviewed by MSNBC, CBS, NPR and another time by CNN, none of which pressed her on why she faced such backlash.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Similarly, the Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz, who broke the story about the board's "pause," not only failed to acknowledge Jankowicz's checkered past, she even referred to Jankowicz as the "victim" of "coordinated online attacks."