CNN assured former President Donald Trump’s campaign that no questions have been leaked to President Joe Biden ahead of the debate years after doing so to Hillary Clinton in 2016, the campaign’s national press secretary said.
The network’s former contributor, Donna Brazile, leaked CNN town hall questions to Clinton’s campaign in 2016, leading the network to part ways with her. Karoline Leavitt, the National Press Secretary for former President Donald Trump’s campaign, said they have reached out to CNN to ensure the questions have not once again been leaked to the Democratic nominee.
“We have asked if those questions have been shared,” Leavitt told Daily Caller Editorial Director Vince Coglianese. “We were told they were not. I can tell you with full certainty, we certainly have not gotten any questions or topics sent to us. That’s a question for the Biden campaign. You’ll have to have one of his spokespeople on the show and ask them directly. We, of course, wouldn’t know that. And we hope that’s not the case. We hope CNN will be fair. We hope they will try and reclaim their reputation as ‘the most trusted name in news’ tomorrow night, and ask good, tough questions of both candidates.”
“And they should ask Joe Biden why he lied on the debate stage four years ago about the existence of the Hunter Biden laptop. That is a key question, and if Jake Tapper and Dana Bash want to prove that they are not liberal activists, then that will be a good question to ask,” she continued.
Tapper and Bash, the debate moderators, have deep ties to intelligence officials who pushed the now-discredited Steele Dossier and the hoax claiming the Hunter Biden laptop reports were Russian disinformation. Tapper published a story based on a leak from James Clapper, former President Obama’s Director of National Intelligence, falsely indicating that Russia coordinated with the Trump campaign in 2016 to hack the Democratic National Convention’s (DNC) emails on the campaign’s behalf. (RELATED: New York Times Deploying 29 Fact-Checkers For Trump-Biden Debate)
Bash was formerly married to Jeremy Bash, a former CIA chief of staff in the Obama administration, from 1998 until 2007. Bash and Clapper were two of 51 signatories on the 2020 letter which falsely insisted that the Hunter Biden laptop story had “all the classic earmarks” of a Russian disinformation operation. The laptop’s contents, initially published by the New York Post, were later authenticated by several outlets including the Daily Caller News Foundation, The New York Times and The Washington Post.
“These are lies that CNN has pushed. For years, they have pushed the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, they’ve pushed the Hunter Biden laptop hoax. Dana Bash, by the way, was married to one of the 51 intelligence officers who said that the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation. You just can’t make this stuff up,” Leavitt told Coglianese.
Biden, whose mental capacity has come into question by voters, has reportedly been practicing and preparing for the debate for an entire week at Camp David. Leavitt said Trump has continued with his “very busy campaign schedule” and meeting with the American people ahead of the debate.
