CBS News executive Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews asked Herridge to verify the laptop story. Herridge said she presented the evidence to the exec and never heard anything back. (Credit: Getty Images)
CBS News went to great lengths to squash correspondent Catherine Herridge’s reporting about the Hunter Biden laptop just weeks before the 2020 election, the award-winning investigative journalist claimed.
In her bombshell allegation, Herridge revealed she brought evidence to CBS News executive Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews and “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell in early October 2020 that the laptop contained material about “a million dollar retainer from a Chinese energy firm,” along with business texts and emails from the son of Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
But later that month, Herridge wrote that she was shocked to see “60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl say the laptop “couldn’t be verified” during a tense interview with then-President Donald Trump.
“As I watched the broadcast, I felt sick,” Herridge, who was controversially fired by the Tiffany Network in February, wrote Sunday night in her recently launched newsletter.
“I knew the laptop records could be vetted and confirmed.”
Before Stahl’s segment aired, she was contacted by Ciprian-Matthews asking her if she had “confirmed reporting” on the Hunter Biden story for O’Donnell’s broadcast.
Herridge assured the executive that her extensive reporting included “working the phones, reaching out to people on the Hunter Biden emails for corroboration and cross-referencing court records.”
“I told Ciprian-Matthews the vetted materials included a million dollar retainer from a Chinese energy firm, emails with Hunter Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski as well as Hunter Biden text messages,” she said.
“Asked by Ciprian-Matthews if there was a ‘Hunter connection,’ I responded, ‘Yes, all of them,’” she wrote.
Herridge said that she then provided some of the vetted records directly to Ciprian-Matthews.
But her reporting was never aired.
“I don’t know at this point what happened,” Herridge said.
The journalist noted that based on her experience at the network, she found it odd that CBS News did not task the investigative unit in October 2020 to develop more reporting on the laptop. (Read more: New York Post, 11/4/2024) (Archive)