On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre became agitated after being bombarded with questions regarding the latest scandal involving President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
Nearly a half-dozen reporters posed queries in response to newly released testimony from two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers indicating that Hunter Biden once invoked his father to threaten a Chinese business partner for payment.
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond began by inquiring about Hunter, who pleaded guilty to federal tax and gun crimes earlier this week.
“The president invited his son, Hunter, to the state dinner last night,” Diamond began. “I’m wondering if you could take us into the thinking and decision-making of why the president decided to …”
Jean Pierre then interrupted him by stating that she would not remark on a “personal family discussion.”
Diamond, unsatisfied with the response, persisted: “If Hunter Biden were not the president’s son, would he have invited someone to dinner who had just reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors?”
“Well, a couple of things,” Jean-Pierre said. “Again, that’s his son. It’s a family member. It is not uncommon for family members to attend events at the White House. Look at past presidents. I’m sure you have, so that is not uncommon.
“As it relates to anything related to Hunter, I’m just not going to respond to it from here.”
According to a video of the briefing, at that point she began to lose the press room.
Another reporter stated that Diamond’s query was “not unreasonable” before increasing the pressure on Jean-Pierre as the tension increased.
“Steven,” she said, visibly upset. “Steven, I just answered the question. I just said … I just… It’s not up to you how I answer the question.”
The press secretary snapped at Steven Nelson of the New York Post when he pressed her for a more substantive response.
“Steven,” she uttered, visibly distressed. “I just answered the query, Steven. I just said … I just… It does not depend on you how I respond to the inquiry.”
Mainstream media reporters push back on Karine Jean Pierre not answering questions pic.twitter.com/Nrqxhrla3U
— • ᗰISᑕᕼIᗴᖴ ™ • (@4Mischief) June 23, 2023
Thursday during a press conference addressing allegations that the Biden administration interfered with U.S. Attorney David Weiss’ investigation of the president’s son, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Missouri) revealed the existence of IRS whistleblowers.
An IRS agent told Smith’s committee that agency investigators discovered messages from an iCloud search warrant in August 2020, but prosecutors “denied investigators’ requests to develop a strategy to investigate the messages and denied investigators’ suggestion to obtain location information to determine where the texts were sent from.”
More on this story via Conservative Brief:
One message investigators managed to obtain was sent via the WhatsApp platform from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017. CONTINUE READING…
