MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell says Hunter Biden saga has 'a lot of smoke' but calls it 'Trump conspiracy theories'
The anchor bashes former President Trump for pushing claims that 'have been discredited by fact-checkers'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell continues to downplay the Hunter Biden scandal even as multiple news outlets have begun verifying the emails from his laptop that were previously avoided during the 2020 presidential election.
Mitchell led a panel discussion on Wednesday condemning former President Trump's remarks in a recent interview urging Russian President Vladimir Putin to look for "answers" regarding Hunter Biden's business dealings overseas, particularly in Russia.
HUNTER BIDEN SAGA: WASHINGTON POST AUTHENTICATES LAPTOP AFTER DISMISSING ‘FAKE’ SCANDAL IN 2020
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Mr. Trump's claims based on a partisan GOP report released before the 2020 election have been discredited by fact-checkers and been denied by Hunter Biden," Mitchell told viewers.
MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell. (Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images) (Photo by: Nathan Congleton/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)
After she and her panelists pummeled the former president, Mitchell complained that "these Trump conspiracy theories are being echoed on Capitol Hill," pointing to an FBI oversight hearing this week when Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., brought up Hunter Biden's laptop.
While agreeing with Mitchell and the other panelists about Trump's behavior, Brendan Buck, a former Paul Ryan aide, told the anchor that Hunter Biden isn't "above scrutiny," citing a new Washington Post report that delved into President Biden's son's multimillion-dollar financial ties to a Chinese energy company.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"He's a shady dude in a lot of ways and I think a lot of people understand that, but there's a difference between fact-based questions being asked and inserting yourself in a way that could cost people's lives in Ukraine," Buck said.
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"And Phil, to that point, The Washington Post's reporting and a lot of other reporting on Hunter Biden has been, you know, disturbing," Mitchell told Washington Post deputy national editor Philip Rucker. "There's a lot of smoke there, but not what President Trump, the former President Trump, is claiming."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"That's right, Andrea," Rucker responded. "What we've done is rigorously try to report out as best we can Hunter Biden's business dealings in China and around the world and my colleagues Matt Viser, Tom Hamburger and Craig Timberg have a great new investigative piece out today on that front. But we're trying to use facts, and what's available publicly and what we as Washington Post journalists can understand about his business record and bring that to the public because he is the son of a president. But it's not dealing in these falsehoods and conspiracies that former President Trump seems to be occupying his time with."
A new report from The Washington Post delves into Hunter Biden's multimillion-dollar business deal with a Chinese energy company. (Photo by Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images)
The Washington Post published a lengthy report on Wednesday about Hunter Biden's "multimillion-dollar" financial ties to the Chinese energy company CEFC China Energy.
"Over the course of 14 months, the Chinese energy conglomerate and its executives paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle, according to government records, court documents and newly disclosed bank statements, as well as emails contained on a copy of a laptop hard drive that purportedly once belonged to Hunter Biden," the Post reported, before writing that it found no evidence that President Biden "personally benefited from or knew details about the transactions with CEFC" which all took place after he left office as vice president.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Washington Post then addressed Hunter Biden's laptop, which was one of several sources on which the report was based.
"The Post review draws in part on an analysis of a copy said to be of the hard drive of a laptop computer that Hunter Biden purportedly dropped off at a Delaware repair shop and never came to collect. The laptop was turned over to the FBI in December 2019, according to documents reviewed by The Post, and a copy of the drive was obtained by Rudy Giuliani and other advisers to then-President Donald Trump a few months before the 2020 election," the Post reported. "After the New York Post began publishing reports on the contents of the laptop in October 2020, The Washington Post repeatedly asked Giuliani and Republican strategist Stephen K. Bannon for a copy of the data to review before the election, but the requests were rebuffed or ignored."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Washington Post confirmed emails from Hunter Biden's laptop first reported by the New York Post during the 2020 presidential election. (Getty images | New York Post)
In a separate report explaining how The Washington Post analyzed Hunter Biden's laptop, the Post wrote, ‘Thousands of emails purportedly from the laptop computer of Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, are authentic communications that can be verified through cryptographic signatures from Google and other technology companies," according to two security experts.
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"The vast majority of the data — and most of the nearly 129,000 emails it contained — could not be verified by either of the two security experts who reviewed the data for The Post. Neither found clear evidence of tampering in their examinations, but some of the records that might have helped verify contents were not available for analysis, they said," the paper went on.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The latest reporting from The Washington Post comes days after The New York Times released its own report authenticating Hunter Biden's laptop.