‘You’re a criminal for not reporting it’: Trump targets media while continuing to push unverified Hunter Biden story
President Donald Trump has called a reporter “criminal” for not reporting the controversial Hunter Biden story amid continued attempts to push unverified accusations against Joe Biden and his family.
In an interview with reporters on Monday, Reuters correspondent Jeff Mason asked the president why his campaign was suggesting the Bidens were criminals.
“He is a criminal,” Mr Trump replied. “He’s a criminal. He got caught, read his laptop and you know who’s a criminal you’re a criminal for not reporting it.”
“You’re a criminal for not reporting it,” he repeats.
Before walking off the president concluded: “Let me tell you something. Joe Biden is a criminal and he’s been a criminal for a long time and you’re a criminal and the media for not reporting it.”
The remarks come in reference to a controversial story published by The New York Post on Hunter Biden’s Ukraine links.
The unverified article claims that Mr Biden’s son arranged for a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm to meet with his father, who was then vice president, when he was in charge of US policy toward Ukraine.
Mr Biden’s campaign has condemned the claims and said: “The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of the story.”
They have also said that a review of Mr Biden’s official schedule finds no record of such meeting.
Facebook and Twitter limited the spread of the story last week and said they would rely on fact-checking partners to decide if the story is legitimate, but until then will be "reducing its distribution on our platform.”
Mr Trump has been tweeting in reference to the story for days, hitting out at Mr Biden and also lashing out at Facebook and Twitter for limiting its spread.
“So terrible that Facebook and Twitter took down the story of ‘Smoking Gun’ emails related to Sleepy Joe Biden and his son, Hunter in the @nypost,” he tweeted on Wednesday.
“It is only the beginning for them. There is nothing worse than a corrupt politician. REPEAL SECTION 230!!!”
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act designates tech companies as platforms rather than publishers, protecting platforms by meaning they’re not legally responsible for the content of their users.
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