NPR Corrects Claim that Hunter Biden Story Was ‘Discredited’ by Intelligence Community

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National Public Radio corrected a claim on Thursday that reports about Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop had been “discredited” by the intelligence community.

“A previous version of this story said U.S. intelligence had discredited the laptop story,” NPR noted. “U.S. intelligence officials have not made a statement to that effect.”

The correction came on a review of Biden’s new memoir, Beautiful Things, authored by NPR’s Ron Elving. “The laptop story was discredited by U.S. intelligence and independent investigations by news organizations,” Elving initially wrote.

In reality, then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said the opposite when the laptop became news in October. Speaking in reference to Democrats who floated the idea that the laptop could be part of a Russian “disinformation” campaign, “Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” Ratcliffe said in an interview at the time.

NPR nonetheless made a public display of refusing to cover the issue with an October message on Twitter. “Why haven’t you seen any stories from NPR about the NY Post’s Hunter Biden story?” the publication wrote, before quoting managing editor Terence Samuels. “We don’t want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don’t want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” Samuels said.

The New York Post first broke news of the laptop, which it said “implicated” President Joe Biden in his son’s business dealings with China and Ukraine. In an interview scheduled to air on CBS News on Sunday, the junior Biden said he does not have “any idea” whether the laptop belonged to him, but that it was “certainly” possible.