On Oct. 15, Chanel Rion, the chief White House correspondent for One America News Network — a pro-Trump cable TV network —
tweeted that she had seen the contents of the hard drive at the center of the New York Post story.
"Drugs, underage obsessions, power deals," she said in the post. "Druggie Hunter makes Anthony Weiner's down under selfie addiction look normal."
The tweet, which was shared more than 53,000 times,
then made its way to 4chan, where users
anonymously speculated that it meant the FBI was investigating Hunter Biden. One user posing as Rion affirmed that speculation, saying the hard drive contained child pornography.
The real Rion
tweeted Oct. 16 that she did not write the posts.
"For the record: I do not post on chat forums," she wrote. "I understand there are hoaxers posing as me."
But it was too late. Social media users dedicated to QAnon,
a baseless conspiracy theory that claims Trump is secretly fighting a cabal of Satan-worshipping, cannibalistic, left-leaning pedophiles,
took the 4chan posts as evidence that the FBI was investigating Hunter Biden for potentially possessing child pornography.
Two weeks until Election Day, social media is rife with attacks on Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden. A New York Post story a
www.politifact.com