Reporters grill White House spox over latest Hunter Biden developments
Reporters took turns grilling White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the latest developments in the growing Hunter Biden scandal.
A new study has found that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has offered very few direct answers to questions pertaining to the scandals plaguing President Biden and his son Hunter.
The conservative-leaning Media Research Center (MRC) analyzed Jean-Pierre's responses to questions asked at White House press briefings from Jan. 1 through June 30 of this year, which covers Biden's classified documents controversy and the corruption allegations being investigated by GOP lawmakers.
"Analysts found that while reporters asked Jean-Pierre 252 questions about either of these topics, only six received a definitive answer," NewsBusters media editor Bill D'Agostino wrote Wednesday.
The study found that Biden's spokeswoman fielded 217 questions about the classified documents controversy but only five of them, or "just 2%," were "concretely answered." Meanwhile, just one of the 35 questions pertaining to the corruption allegations that have been leveled against the Biden family were addressed.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE LINED WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT COCAINE FOUND IN WHITE HOUSE
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has directly answered roughly 2% of questions pertaining to scandals plaguing her boss President Biden, according to a study from the Media Research Center. ((AP Photo/Susan Walsh))
As noted by D'Agostino, the vast majority of Jean-Pierre's responses pertaining to the classified documents she had deferred to White House Counsel's Office.
NewsBusters' report outlined the five questions she specifically answered, but most pertained to her own knowledge of the controversy and not President Biden's.
The one question Jean-Pierre answered regarding Hunter Biden and the corruption controversy being leveled by government whistleblowers came from Fox News White House Correspondent Jacqui Heinrich.
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE SPARS WITH REPORTERS, REFUSES TO ANSWER HUNTER BIDEN QUESTIONS IN TESTY EXCHANGES
"Senator Chuck Grassley made some statements yesterday on the Senate floor, saying that this foreign national on the FBI 1023 form apparently has 15 recorded conversations with Hunter Biden and claims to have two with the President… is the White House aware of any recordings in which the President might be on tape speaking to a Burisma executive?" Heinrich asked June 13.
"So the President spoke to this. I think he was shouted a question about this at the Thursday press conference. I’m just going to quote him and say, ‘It’s malarkey,’" Jean-Pierre responded at the time.
The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was pressed by reporters about the cocaine that was allegedly found in the West Wing over the weekend. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Last month, Jean-Pierre was bombarded with questions about the growing Hunter Biden scandal after the House Ways and Means Committee released explosive testimony from IRS whistleblowers who alleged misconduct in the handling of the tax probe investigating the president's son.
Among the findings was an alleged WhatsApp text message Hunter Biden sent to a Chinese business associate using his father as part of what Republicans say was an illicit scheme. The White House Counsel's Office repeated its claim that the president "was not in business with his son" and that Justice Department decisions in its investigations are done "independently" without White House involvement.
During the June 23 briefing, Jean-Pierre deferred most of the questions to the White House Counsel's Office.
Jean-Pierre rarely offers information when it comes to corruption allegations facing President Biden and his son Hunter. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
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MRC's NewsBusters jabbed President Biden's commitment made in January 2021 that his administration would "bring transparency and truth back to the government" in the wake of its study finding a lack of transparency.