Drew Holden Profile picture
Sep 21, 2021 21 tweets 15 min read Read on X
🧵THREAD🧵

I don’t know if folks remember how bad the smear campaign was about NY Post’s Hunter Biden laptop reporting was, so quick trip back down memory lane.

Beyond the full-court press from Twitter & Facebook, the media & Dems worked overtime to shut down the story. Look ⤵️
It’s worth starting with @CNN. They brought on James Clapper to call the scoop - confirmed today by Politico - “textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft.” @brianstelter had a program about how it was obviously fake. @apbenven had an “anatomy” of it.

Where’s the follow up, guys? ImageImage
I mean, for crying out loud, @NPR went through the trouble of explaining why they weren’t going to report on the story!

Can we revisit that? ImageImage
@MSNBC went all in on this. They had a member of Congress, @CongressmanRaja, on to spread misinformation about it being a “Russian influence operation.”

@JoyAnnReid called it a “Russian hatchet-job”

@kylegriffin1 said it “appears to contain disinformation”

All lies. ImageImageImage
A lot of the original narrative was framed up by @politico, who ran a story that a bunch of former intel types disputed the findings (without seeing them, of course).

Today Politico announced that they had confirmed two of the key underlying details. ImageImage
Might be a good time to update this fact check, @washingtonpost Image
There were a bunch of elected officials who repeated this bogus allegation. Here are just a few.

Obviously we had chief Russia conspiracy theorist @RepAdamSchiff. But we also had @davidcicilline, @BillPascrell and @ChrisMurphyCT, among others.

Where’s the accountability? ImageImageImageImage
I want to pause to drive a point home: in the weeks leading up to an election, big tech, the Democrats and the corporate press worked together to bury a damaging story about one of the candidates, and they succeeded.

If you can shrug that off, I don’t know what’s wrong with you.
There were a ton of the usual suspects pushing this false narrative. I don’t have room for all of them but I wanted to point out some of the more egregious ones.

@joelockhart and @ThePlumLineGS, anything more from you guys? Still convinced it’s Russian disinformation? ImageImage
How about from @EvanMcMullin and @DavidCornDC? Care to follow up? Image
Never change, @brhodes ImageImageImageImage
And you, @McFaul? Do you still stand by your belief that this is a “hit piece so false that Twitter won’t even post it”? Or might there be something else afoot?

And I suspect @TVietor08 is right that folks haven’t learned the lessons of 2016, just wrong about what the lesson is. ImageImage
Wherever Russian conspiracy theories go, the Never Trump crowd is rarely far behind.

This was the case here as ever. @davidfrum @MaxBoot ImageImage
And this from @kurteichenwald is unhinged, even for him. Image
So, where is the follow up? Where are the fact checkers? Where are the social media warnings about these lies being disinformation?

Not a peep.

A fundamentally shameful episode. And one we aren’t likely to see any of the perpetrators of it revisit.
There are a lot more examples from a thread I did back when the story first broke, linked here:
Also worth pointing out: the smear here worked in both directions. Not only was Biden the blameless victim of supposed disinformation, but Trump was the reported bad guy pushing the (supposed) conspiracy theory.

Days before the presidential election between the two.
Quick addendum. @McFaul reminded me of a long thread he had on this subject, part explanation, part apology. Some of that is below.

A couple points: ImageImage
First, I certainly don’t dispute that Russia actively uses disinformation to target the US. Or that Rudy Giuliani has proven himself an unreliable narrator, to put it mildly, when it comes to just about anything.
But he elides an important distinction here. It wasn’t that he “automatically questioned the veracity of [Giuliani’s] claims,” as he says.

He wrote those claims off completely as a malicious lie, helping feed into an effort to bury a real news story as “disinformation.” ImageImage
As I’ve told him, I don’t expect I’ll be able to change his mind now that he‘s “MOVING ON FOREVER ON THIS!” but it’s obvious that he hasn’t actually taken any responsibility for helping to bury a since-verified, damaging story about the now-president days before his election. ImageImage

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More from @DrewHolden360

Oct 14
Quick 🧵thread🧵

With the news that Trump freed the hostages and brokered an Israel/Hamas ceasefire, I thought it would be a good time to check in on the folks who compared the president to Hitler over the last few years, for reasons that I hope are obvious to you.

Remember? ⤵️
You may think the “Trump is literally Hitler” phrase is just a silly joke.

But for years, media outlets and left-wing voices on the internet have insisted that, no, really, Trump is just like Hitler.

Few have done so with as much gusto as @CNN. Image
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Back in 2016, @CNN alleged that Trump rallies were just like Hitler rallies because…Trump had attendees raise their right hands.

That’s what inspired this headline. Image
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Read 24 tweets
Oct 8
🧵THREAD🧵

A newly declassified CIA report on Joe Biden & Ukraine blows the doors off claims from the legacy press, in the lead up to the 2020 election and beyond, that Trump was pushing a “conspiracy theory” about Biden’s corruption.

Remember how the press buried Burisma? ⤵️
First, the facts. The report unearths how Biden blocked the release of intel from Ukrainian sources validating allegations of bribery tied to Biden’s diplomatic push to oust a prosecutor there in 2015, tied to his son Hunter’s work with the gas company Burisma.

More details:
You may remember this story because Biden’s having helped oust a prosecutor in a foreign country to allegedly protect his family’s corruption came up in the 2020 election.

To hear @ABC tell it, that was a “debunked Ukraine conspiracy theory.”

Perhaps a good time to revisit? Image
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Read 24 tweets
Oct 2
🧵Thread🧵

The media are melting down about former FBI director Jim Comey’s indictment, calling it Trump’s “retribution.”

But if prosecuting a political rival is such an outrage, why’d they cheer along when Biden went after Trump, Bannon & Navarro?

Some side-by-sides ⤵️
I want you to help me spot the difference in tone.

With Comey, @CNN put five — five! — reporters on the byline to declare the indictment was an “escalation” in “Trump’s effort to prosecute his political enemies.”

Where was that when Biden’s DOJ indicted Bannon? “A victory” Image
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And @CNN wasn’t any better on Peter Navarro, another Trump aide indicted under Biden.

Rather than an “effort to prosecute…political enemies,” CNN quoted the prosecutor to tell the story.

Why is the claim of the government the framing of the piece under Biden? I have a guess. Image
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Read 24 tweets
Sep 18
🧵Thread🧵

The outrage over Kimmel’s canning is incredibly stupid, but it’s also enormously rich coming from the same media outlets who have cheered the government actually censoring people, particularly during COVID.

Let me know if you can spot the difference in tone? ⤵️
This @CNN headline made me think this story needed a thread.

Kimmel’s suspension is “straight from a European strongman’s playbook,” per @CNN’s @brianstelter.

When Biden cracked down on free speech during Covid, CNN hyped up the effort. Image
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Few promoted the government’s actual attack on free speech more aggressively than the same @brianstelter now calling a comedian’s shelving evidence of autocracy, or something. Image
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Read 18 tweets
Sep 3
🧵Thread🧵

I know there’s a lot going on but we just had a media conspiracy implode that I think captures something important about the corporate press.

Did you hear about how Trump was allegedly going after John Bolton as retribution for his criticism?

Well…follow along ⤵️
We saw a week straight of media suggestions that Trump was abusing the powers of the state to deal out “retribution” to John Bolton following the news that the FBI (“Trump’s DOJ!” headlines rang out) raided his house.

We were in “unsettling” times, to hear @nytimes tell it. Image
The *Editorial Board* at @nytimes put out an even more dramatic statement, asking who Trump’s next payback victim after Bolton would be.

They dubbed the raid “revenge.”

Democracy was in truly troubled waters. Image
Read 24 tweets
Aug 26
🧵Thread🧵

A single poll has bootstrapped a media narrative that DC residents are outraged by Trump’s takeover.

I poked around the cross tabs of the poll — of 600 or so of DC’s more comfortable residents — and I think it’s pretty suspect.

How come? Follow along: ⤵️
Let’s start with the poll. The @washingtonpost talked to 604 people, of whom 90% — 90%! — self-described as living in “very good” or “good” neighborhoods.

So, fine. 80% of people who like where they live in DC are upset. Image
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But even beyond that, it’s worth asking whether this poll really captures DC’s opinion.

In the poll, only 31% describe crime as a “serious” or “very serious” problem in DC.

When @washingtonpost asked this same question in May, *50%* said it was a serious problem.

What gives? Image
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Read 26 tweets

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