CNN's Brian Stelter torched online for flip-flopping on Hunter Biden story he previously called 'disinformation'

CNN's media correspondent Brian Stelter was roundly criticized when he admitted the Hunter Biden laptop story was serious after previously downplaying it as exaggerated by the right wing.

Stelter made the comments during his show "Reliable Sources" as he questioned his guest Michael LaRosa, a former press secretary for first lady Jill Biden.

"What about his son? What about Hunter? Hunter under federal investigation, charges can be coming at any time, this is not just a right-wing media story. This is a real problem for the Bidens," Stelter said.

"Could he decide not to run for re-election given his son?" he followed up later.

LaRosa said that President Joe Biden has not spoken with his family about his son's troubles and that he is focusing on his job in the Oval Office.

Stelter made the comments without noting or without retracting his previous statements downplaying the story as right-wing disinformation.

Damaging information and media from a laptop that Hunter Biden abandoned at a computer shop has been leaking to the media despite initial reports questioning the validity of the story.

"There's a lot about this story that does not add up," Stelter claimed in October 2020 days after the New York Post published a controversial story about the contents of the laptop. "And, I mean, for all we know, these emails were made up, or maybe some are real and some are fakes, we don't know. But we do know that this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine."

He also tweeted a report claiming that the laptop story was being investigated as a possible Russian disinformation campaign.

Stelter did not respond to a request for a comment from Fox News about his reversal, but many on social media had plenty to say about it.

"@brianstelter doesn’t win any prizes for telling the truth two years too late. @CNN was among the worst offenders in 2020 in promoting the 'It’s Russian disinformation' lie about the laptop, which is real and incriminates Joe Biden in his son’s shady foreign business deals," responded Tim Murtaugh, former spokesperson for the Trump 2020 campaign.

"If .@brianstelter were an actual reporter, he'd also talk about how all of this has been known for almost two years, but @CNN and other mainstream media sources smothered the story," said another critic.

"They suppressed the story to win but now, smelling blood in the water, they’re turning on their own. Remarkable," read another tweet.

Critics on the right have accused Stelter of covering the media in a biased way that privileges Democrats while reserving scorn for Republicans.

Here's more about Stelter's bias:

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