Orwellian ‘memory hole’ in action? Stealth removal of CNN clip supporting Biden sex assault claim proves MSM’s double standards

A ‘Larry King Live’ episode that backed up a sexual assault claim against presumed Democratic nominee Joe Biden vanished from Google Play after CNN grudgingly reported on it. Have the MSM’s double standards finally crushed #MeToo?

Nearly 30 years ago, the mother of Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who accused Biden of sexual assault, called into ‘Larry King Live’ to ask for advice about what a staffer who’s had to leave her post because of “problems” might do, besides run to the press. The call – vague, but troubling in its implications – was published in transcript form by the Intercept on Friday after a listener dug it up from CNN’s archives. CNN reportedly confirmed with Reade later that night that the anonymous voice on the show seeking advice for her daughter’s “problems” was indeed her mother.

CNN finally published a lengthy, disclaimer-riddled story on Saturday, printing – for the first time since Reade first publicly shared her story in full last month – a detailed account of Reade’s alleged sexual assault at the hands of then-Senator Biden, her boss at the time. The outlet accompanied the long-awaited story with a seven-minute segment discussing the ‘Larry King Live’ call-in. That same day, the 1993 episode which included Reade’s mother’s phone call vanished from the show’s Google Play page.

Not only was the August 11, 1993 episode quietly removed, but whoever was responsible actually renumbered the subsequent episodes in an apparent effort to make the deletion less obvious. Google’s political leanings have been an open secret since the 2016 election, and the revelations of multiple whistleblowers have shown they aren’t above ideologically motivated censorship.

© Screenshot of Google Play page for Larry King Live, season 3

While it’s not clear who gave the orders to pull the episode, its disappearance is part of a sad pattern of double standards that has seen the media establishment work overtime to memory-hole inconvenient allegations against the Democratic Party’s anointed candidate. In George Orwell’s ‘1984’, historical events that don’t suit the Party’s narrative are quietly excised from the historical record and incinerated via an actual “memory hole” – and while there’s no evidence that any footage was physically destroyed here, the net effect is the same. The episode is not readily accessible on CNN’s own website, though the outlet did run a small clip in its belated TV coverage of the allegations. 

While CNN had published a small story on its website the previous week mentioning Reade’s claim, the network incredibly waited an entire month after she went public in March with her detailed accusation before mentioning the case on air, spending most of that segment attacking Reade’s credibility and defending Biden. 

The segment focused on “debunking” the Larry King call-in, raising the question of whether the network would have covered Reade on air at all had the clip not surfaced. Clearly, there are many both inside and outside of the Biden campaign who would like to see the clip vanish off the face of the Earth. 

But the cable news network was far from alone in ignoring Reade. The New York Times notoriously waited three weeks before running what was essentially an attack piece on the former senate staffer, masquerading as coverage of the allegations, and other MSM outlets marched alongside it in lockstep, some even adding their own smears.

Despite their newfound enthusiasm for the principle of “innocent until proven guilty,” the same outlets were unrelenting in their zeal as they reported on every minute detail of the sexual assault accusations against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. They barely stumbled over the fact that some of the allegations against the would-be Justice lacked anything like the supporting evidence present in Reade’s case. The mantra then was “believe women” no matter what – Kavanaugh was to be convicted in the court of public opinion even when his accusers’ claims fell apart. In one notorious case, NBC actually sat on information that discredited a star “witness” rather than risk damaging the narrative. 

Even as evidence continues to emerge to buttress Reade’s claims – a former neighbor and a former co-worker both confirmed to Insider on Monday that Reade told them about the assault in detail in the mid-1990s – the networks are maintaining their code of dishonor. 

Biden has been officially declared off-limits by the massive political machine that whistleblowers at CNN and elsewhere have acknowledged controls what stories make it to air and what languishes on the cutting-room floor. As the establishment circles its wagons around the Democrats' 2020 pick – now armored in the endorsement of former President Barack Obama himself – the pretense of “believing all women” has crumbled into dust.

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