I remember the outlets screaming about censorship promising smoking guns REAL SOON NOW and then... quietly letting it fade away. Which isn't a convincing way to prove censorship or media manipulation. Looks more like they jumped the gun on some BS.

I don’t think they jumped the gun. I think they knew they had nothing, but that big outraged headlines and promises of future goods would drive a lot of clicks and make them a lot of money.

And at that point, the damage was done - the first expose was to discredit, eliminate and silence.

And it works.

You mean the one where Rudy Giuliani sat in front of a camera with a "Macbook" purported to be Hunter Biden's even though it was an LG and ole Rudy just wasn't smart enough to know the difference?

> sat in front of a camera with a "Macbook" purported to be Hunter Biden's

I heard they'd been provided with a copy of the hard drive; and have not seen an assertion that they had anything more or claimed to.

Nope. Rudy isn't smart enough to know the difference. He sat on one of Crowder's shows and literally held up an LG and then said that it was one of the hard drives.

Just watch this little link for a few seconds:

https://youtu.be/GureRbH-_Xs?t=346

Now, what use would be shoving a Macbook drive into an LG computer?

That clip isn't the smoking gun you think it is. He doesn't claim that is Hunter's laptop; when asked if he's seen the pictures, he says "this is the hard drive they're on". It could simply be the laptop his copy of the pictures are on.

He probably employed a forensic technician to investigate the laptop, and said technician sent him a copy of the pictures.

Rudy Giuliani and Tucker Carlson claimed to have first-hand access to the information; Tucker Carlson also said that he doesn't wish to reveal any further information because he didn't want to kick a man who was already down.

I remember when people were saying The Intercept was censoring Glenn Greenwald at the publication he co-founded for not jumping on the Hunter Biden story. In retrospect they made the right call to avoid joining their outlet's credibility with the fact that Fox News personalities could, at any time, just decide not to release information on the alleged basis of not kicking a man when he's down.

Since when did any political operative not kick someone from the other side when they were down? When they're down is when you stomp on their face.