NBC News reporters pulled back the curtain on their efforts to cover the allegations about Hunter Biden misconduct and how, despite the Trump campaign’s claims of a mainstream media blackout, they were rebuffed in their attempts by the very people pushing the story the hardest.

According to a new NBC News story, Ken Dilanian and Tom Winter, who cover national security and corruption for the network, respectively, made numerous attempts to confirm and vet the claims made by Rudy Giuliani and Tony Bobulinski. But they were never granted sufficient access to further interrogate the ambiguous allegations leveled at Biden and his father, 2020 Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

In the weeks since the New York Post first published a story about materials from an allegedly abandoned Hunter Biden laptop, the Trump campaign has complained that mainstream media outlets have intentionally avoided reporting out stories connected to Joe Biden’s son and possible corruption.

“Both the Wall Street Journal and Fox News — among the only news organizations that have been given access to key documents — found that the emails and other records don’t make that case,” Dilanian and Winter noted, regarding the specific allegation of the former vice president being involved in his business dealings. They then detailed their similar outreach, but had little success.

“An NBC News correspondent asked Bobulinski for an interview and for copies of documents in his possession, but he declined,” the story explained. Instead, Bobulinski told NBC to watch Fox News’ opinion host Tucker Carlson’s interview with him on Tuesday.

Likewise, attempts to get first-hand access to the alleged Hunter Biden emails and laptop ran into obstacles. Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, did grant NBC News some ability to review some of the materials, but did now allow the reporters to do a formal forensic analysis of them.

It was Giuliani who ultimately told NBC News he would not be providing a copy of the hard drive. NBC News responded by asking if, instead of a full copy of the hard drive, he could just provide copies of the full set of emails. Giuliani did not agree to that proposal. NBC News then declined an offer of copies of a small group of emails.

NBC News also attempted to interview the computer store owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, who purportedly turned over a copy of the Hunter Biden laptop hard drive to Giuliani and the FBI. He did not respond.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/2Jo5Hbu