Biden White House Slams Fox For ‘Bribery’ Coverage In Blistering Demand For Retractions — Read FULL Letter

The White House sent a blistering letter to Fox News torching their coverage of now-discredited “bribery” allegations against President Joe Biden and First Son Hunter Biden, and demanded retractions from Fox personalities in a scathing letter that Mediaite has obtained.

Special Counsel David Weiss recently announced that Alexander Smirnov — a key informant behind the Republican effort to impeach Biden over his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings — has been charged with lying to the FBI amid a slew of jaw-dropping revelations.

But while Smirnov cools his heels in jail pending trial, those who promoted his claims have done little to correct them — and some have doubled down.

In a letter to Fox News Chief Executive Suzanne Scott, President Jay Wallace, and Washington Bureau Chief Bryan Boughton this week, White House spokesperson for investigations Ian Sams demanded that change:

I write to you about Fox News Channel and Fox News Digital coverage of the false, discredited “bribery” allegation involving President Joe Biden, which Fox outlets have given significant coverage over the past year. In May 2023, Fox began promoting stories of this allegation, pointing to sources who said a “foreign witness” had brought this allegation through “intermediaries” to the Trump Justice Department.

1 Over the following weeks, the network and digital properties continued to promote this story aggressively. On May 10, 2023, Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett wrote that this allegation could prove President Biden committed crimes.2

A June 2, 2023, story cited anonymous sources to report the allegation came from a “highly credible” source.3 A June 8, 2023, story cited anonymous sources to call this a “‘pay-to-play’ scheme.”4

A July 20, 2023, story led with allegations that President Biden “coerced” a foreign national into a bribe. 5 I would cite the number of times Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity promoted this allegation and made false statements about President Biden on primetime television throughout this time period, but the footnote citations would fill multiple pages.

One longtime Fox News host rightly scoffed at the ridiculousness of this discredited allegation. 6

The next month he was reportedly fired from his hosting job and left the network.7 At the time, President Biden accurately dismissed this false allegation as “malarkey,” and instead of reporting on the facts of why the allegation was false, Fox reported that the President was “scorched” by rightwing “commentators across Twitter.”8

As you of course now know, the source of this allegation has been federally indicted for making the whole thing up. As you likely also know, a recent public court filing in this case alleged that this source stated he had been in contact with Russian intelligence operatives. As The Washington Post reported: “Smirnov’s indictment and detention memo suggest the allegations were not only false, but possibly a Russian-inspired smear.”9

Despite this, Fox has taken no steps to retract, correct, or update its reporting on this false allegation from 2023.

As CNN reported recently: “Fox News’ stable of hosts have declined to properly correct the record” and “the outlet’s supposedly non-partisan news website has also failed to update its ‘EXCLUSIVE’ reporting from last summer publicly surfacing the informant’s false claims. Articles by reporter Brooke Singman advancing Smirnov’s bribery allegations remain unaltered on the FoxNews.com website without a correction or mention that the one-time FBI informant has been charged with lying to the federal law enforcement about the very claims she reported.”10 The New York Times likewise recently reported that, instead of acknowledging the latest developments responsibly, Fox News personalities have chosen to respond by pushing new false conspiracy theories.

We feel strongly that all Fox News Digital articles on this topic should at a minimum be updated with editor’s notes informing readers that the source of this allegation has been federally indicted for making it up. We also feel strongly that Fox News Channel television personalities like Hannity and Watters, among others, should inform their viewers on air that they have been sharing a discredited allegation from a source who has been federally indicted for making it up.

In 2020, Fox News’ “Brain Room” research team reportedly warned the network about disinformation on this very topic and from sources just like this.12 Fox even reportedly fired one of its on-air contributors who had been a leader in promoting this disinformation.13 So it is clear that Fox itself, at one point, acknowledged the dangers of promulgating false allegations on this topic from these types of sources – yet, less than four years later, Fox has alarmingly reversed course. This is in need of correction.

My colleagues copied here and myself are happy to address any questions you may have, and we are always available to discuss these matters, or ones like them, with you.

Sincerely, Ian Sams Special Assistant to the President White House Spokesman for Oversight & Investigations

A Fox spokesperson told Mediaite “FOX News Media has reported on all key developments since the announcement that Alexander Smirnov was charged with lying to the FBI, featuring the story prominently. We will continue to report on developments in all aspects of the ongoing investigations, hearings, and trials.”

Read the full letter with links and citations here.