Former Vice President Joe Biden’s rapid response director, Andrew Bates, attacked CBS News reporter Catherine Herridge over her scoop, which revealed the names of Obama administration officials who had requested documents that led to the “unmasking” of former national security advisor Michael Flynn, calling her a “right wing hack” before abruptly deleting the tweet.
Herridge was the first reporter to obtain a copy of the declassified report, giving CBS News the edge in reporting that officials, including Biden himself, had requested intelligence agencies identify unnamed Trump administration officials listed as having communicated with a Russian official under NSA surveillance.
SCOOP @CBSNews obtains @RichardGrenell notification to congress declassified “unmasking list” Flynn between late 2016 and January 2017 – Read 3 pages provided by NSA here pic.twitter.com/NozVpQlRn2
— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) May 13, 2020
Yates, clearly incensed that his boss was named in the report, responded to the report by calling Herridge names and attacking her reputation as a reporter in a shocking diatribe.
“SCOOP: Catherine Herridge is a partisan, rightwing hack who is a regular conduit for conservative media manipulation ploys because she agrees to publicize things before contacting the target to ask for comment,” Yates snarled.
Bates later deleted the tweet but not before a number Twitter users captured a screenshot.
Andrew Bates deleted the tweet. pic.twitter.com/zElvDs56em
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 13, 2020
Eventually, the Biden campaign, through Bates, issued an official response, but it did not include an apology from their own rapid response director for directly attacking a member of the media. Instead, it accused the Trump campaign of orchestrating a political attack against Biden.
“These documents have absolutely nothing to do with any FBI investigation and they confirm that all normal procedures were followed — any suggestion otherwise is a flat-out lie,” Bates said in a statement.
“It’s telling that these documents were selectively leaked by Republicans abusing their congressional powers to act as arms of the Trump campaign after having them provided by a partisan official installed for this very purpose,” he added. “The only people with questions to answer are Grenell, Sen. Grassley and Sen. Johnson for their gross politicization of the intelligence process,” he said, referring to the two Senators who sent the declassified documents to reporters.
The Biden campaign has made President Donald Trump’s treatment (or, in their view, mistreatment) of the mainstream media a hallmark of their campaign and a statement about press freedom appears in Biden’s stated platform, which goes so far as to call “intimidation” of the media an “authoritarian” tactic.
“A free press is essential to a free society. Tyrants know this all too well. That is why attacking the press and attempting to intimidate independent media is a standard part of the authoritarian playbook,” Biden’s campaign said in a statement earlier this month.
In a targeted attack directly, the Trump campaign used Biden’s own words to respond to Bates’ attack on Herridge.
“Attacking the press and attempting to intimidate independent media is a standard part of the authoritarian playbook,” the president’s campaign said, quoting Biden directly. “Efforts to undermine public confidence in the integrity of fact-based reporting violate our core American values and threaten our very system of government.”
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