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Wednesday, October 4, 2023
MRC Dishonestly Framed Congressman As Liar For Deviating From Right-Wing Narrative On Archer Testimony
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center spent the days before Devon Archer's closed-door testimony before a Republican-led congressional committee hyping the heck out of it as a yet another attack on Hunter Biden. Afterwards, it labored to frame the contents of Archer's testimony as devastating, even though that wasn't exactly the case. An Aug. 1 post by Curtis Houck whined that one non-right-wing media outlet didn't stick with his preferred right-wing narrative:

After being no-shows on Monday’s NBC Nightly News, NBC arrived via Tuesday morning’s Today to Devon Archer’s damaging remarks behind closed doors to the House Oversight Committee about what he saw in his time as Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner and confidant, including their stint on the infamous Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.

This wasn’t entirely surprising as Today had been the only flagship network morning or evening newscast to allude to the hearing in the run-up to Monday with a seven-second nod on Friday.

[...]

“Ah, we’re following some new developments in the investigations that surround Hunter Biden. His former business partner testifying behind doors on Capitol Hill,” Today co-host Craig Melvin began, tossing to chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander by asking “what did we learn from” what’s leaked out.

Alexander caught viewers up to speed with what’s not in dispute, which was that he was “Hunter Biden’s former business partner” and “answered questions for about four hours”.

Then, the spin games began with Alexander touting the Democratic line that Archer believes Hunter merely “sold the illusion of access to his father” and the elder Biden “was never directly involved in” their shady ventures.

This was despite the fact that “Hunter put his father on speaker phone with clients and former business associates roughly 20 times over ten years”.

But Houck really didn't want the full story of Archer's testimony told; he later complained that another network "gave the other side" by quoting a Democratic congressman, Dan goldman, saying that "he never heard any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden."

Peter Kotara later complained that Goldman was allowed to appear on TV and offer his take:

Tuesday’s Morning Joe brought on Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) and teed him up to play defense for President Biden after the explosive Devon Archer testimony on the Biden family’s bribery and corruption. They contradicted Republican claims about the content of the closed-door testimony, and denied any wrongdoing by then Vice President Biden.

Goldman claimed that despite Archer’s testimony that Biden was on the phone at Hunter’s business meetings, he was only there to merely “say hello” and that Hunter was only selling the “illusion” of influence, as if that didn’t benefit him.

[...]

The problem was, that what Goldman said completely contradicted the Republican statements about Archer’s testimony. Goldman and Comer both were in the room listening to Archer’s testimony, but it was a closed-door session and the transcript currently had not been released to the public. If it is, one side will be exposed as liars.

Kotara didn't explain why the statements from Republicans -- whose goal it is to personally destroy Hunter Biden and his father -- should be trusted. Instead, he unleashed a nasty smear of President Biden and Hunter: "So we were supposed to believe the father who let his son become a crackhead all of a sudden started to care, and they got over Beau’s death by talking with Hunter’s business associates?"

Houck returned for an Aug. 2 post complaining that non-right-wing media was covering actual news instead of Archer:

With Tuesday’s third indictment of former President Trump, the “big three” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC had their ticket out of having to acknowledge the scandals surrounding the Biden family, including reasons to continue skipping Burisma bribery claims and no longer probe Monday’s testimony from Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer.

Houck repeated this talking point while guest-hosting the Aug. 2 NewsBusters podcast.

An Aug. 3 post by Kevin Tober tried to frame Goldman as a liar:

On Monday, after Hunter Biden's business associate Devon Archer testified behind closed doors regarding President Joe Biden's involvement with his son, New York Democrat Congressman Dan Goldman went before the assembled cameras and microphones outside the committee room and lied through his teeth about what was said. While at the time we only had his word vs the word of Republican members who were also in the room, based on his track record, all fair minded observers knew he was lying. 

When the word for word transcript was released Thursday, everyone who read it now knew for certain he lied. Later that morning, CBS News investigative reporter Catherine Herridge called him out when she went on CBS's streaming network to correct the record.

Host Anne-Marie Green first asked Herridge "Why are Democrats and Republicans disagreeing on the context of the transcripts." 

This gave Herridge her chance to correct the lies that were spread by Goldman and others that Hunter Biden had not sought to use his father's influence to shake down foreign governments. "Earlier this week we just had to rely on the characterization from Republicans and Democrats about Devon Archer's testimony," she noted. "But now we can see the full transcript."

"You will recall that Democrat Congressman Dan Goldman said that Archer testified that it was the illusion of access to Joe Biden that Hunter Biden was offering to these clients. But in fact, when you look at the transcript what you see is that phrase, illusion of access, is in Dan Goldman's question. It’s actually not what Devon Archer testified to," she explained. 

In fact, the article on the testimony Herridge co-wrote for the CBS website more or less backs up what Goldman said; she didn't accuse Goldman of lying as Tober claimed but, rather, merely claimed that Archer's answers were "more nuanced" than Goldman portrayed them as being:

The transcript shows Goldman used the term "illusion of access" in his line of questioning, and Archer's answers were more nuanced.

He asked Archer, "Is it fair to say that Hunter Biden was selling the illusion of access to his father?"

Archer replied, "Yes."

Goldman followed up, "So, when you talk about selling the brand, it's not about selling access to his father. It's about selling the illusion of access to his father. Is that fair?"

Archer replied, "Is that fair? I mean, yeah, that is — I think that's — that's almost fair."

Goldman asked, "'Almost fair.' Why, 'almost fair?'"

"Because there are touch points and contact points that I can't deny that happened, but nothing of material was discussed," Archer said.

In short: Tober is lying by accusing Goldman of lying. Neveretheless, Tober concluded his post by declaring, "Good to see there's at least one honest reporter at CBS who is willing to call out the disinformation from the left regarding the massive Biden bribery scandal."

After another coverage count by Houck -- which, like before, omitted Fox News -- and another podcast guest-hosting gig where he repeated those numbers, it was back to dishonestly framing Goldman as a liar. Kotara did thte duty in an Aug. 4 post:

On Friday, MSNBC’s Morning Joe hosts doubled down on their flagrant lies they promoted along with Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY) about Hunter Biden’s business partner, Devon Archer.

They claimed that now, with the transcript of the testimony released, that Goldman was correct, and later lamented that other networks were treating the Biden investigation as “equal” to the indictments against Donald Trump.

Co-host Mika Brzezinski opened:

But as we learned from Democratic committee member Dan Goldman, Archer may have actually contradicted [Chairman James] Comer's [R-KY] point. And yesterday, the transcript of that closed door interview was released, confirming Goldman's account. It turns out Archer told the House Oversight Committee that he has no knowledge of Joe Biden altering policy to benefit Hunter. Archer also said he was present for roughly 20 instances of Hunter putting his father on speakerphone in the presence of business associates. Archer said none of the conversations focused on business and that they talked about things like fishing and the weather.

This was one more massive spin to cover up their previous claims about the testimony before the transcript was released. Brzezinski’s dishonesty was shown by the fact that Archer did mention the weather and fishing, but the issue was that he was selling the Biden brand. Archer in the transcript stated that “I think ‘brand’ is the best way to describe it.” This completely dismantled MSNBC’s prior narrative of the “illusion of access” being sold as opposed to actual access to Biden. When the transcript was released, co-host Joe Scarborough and Brzezinski must have panicked and decided the only way to proceed without losing all credibility was to keep up the charade and hope no one noticed any other network’s coverage of the it or read the transcript themselves.

Unfortunately for MSNBC, their perfidiousness was laid bare not only by House Republicans and right-leaning networks like Fox News, but also by their fellow liberal network CBS. Astonishingly, the mainstream left-wing network actually called out Goldman for his lies about the content of the transcript where Archer tells Goldman that his description is “almost fair,” because Hunter is showing off that there is a degree of access.

Despite not actually saying what, exactly, was the "lie" Goldman told, he ranted: "Joe, Mika, and the rest of the MSNBC hosts gave new insight into just how depraved the leftist media really was. In an act of total desperation and terror, they were willing to verifiably lie directly to the world about something as simple as a transcript. For what purpose? To protect the Bidens and by extension, the political success of the Democratic Party. They made it clear that no one interested in honesty can trust them, the media exists solely to spread propaganda for the left." One can more plausibly argue that Kotara and the MRC are spreading lies to benefit right-wing narratives.

An Aug. 9 post by Tober cheered how Fox News and its biased reporters were pushing those very right-wing narratives:

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy is back from his parental leave and he's already making waves in the media. Late Wednesday afternoon, Doocy had an opportunity to ask President Joe Biden, during an event in New Mexico, about Devon Archer's testimony directly implicating him in his son Hunter's overseas business dealings by saying he was put on the phone with Hunter's partners. As you can expect, the President was not happy with the question. In fact, he snapped at Doocy and said it was a "lousy question." 

The exchange did not air live on television but thankfully was caught on camera. Doocy went on Fox during Your World with Neil Cavuto to break the news and let viewers see the exchange.

That, of course, is the media world the MRC wants us all to inhabit: highly biased, with right-wing narratives presented without the faintest criticism.

And none of these posts mentioned that Archer is a convicted criminal who has been sentenced to prison for his role in a scam involving the sale of fraudulent tribal bonds, then lost an appeal on the sentencing earlier this year.


Posted by Terry K. at 8:50 PM EDT
Updated: Thursday, October 5, 2023 2:12 PM EDT

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