WashPost ‘Fact Checker’ Joins Assault on Free Beacon Crack-Pipe Subsidy Story

Amazing is the way that “independent fact-checkers” appear to “correct” the conservative reporting that has embarrassed the Biden administration. Snopes first tried to claim Washington Free Beacon’s story about plans to offer free drug paraphernalia including crack pipes. for harm reduction was “Mostly False”. Here we are Washington Post Pinocchio-peddler Glenn Kessler is taking a turn, but only as an “analysis.” He said it was “complex”.

Kessler’s headline was Viral article that unleashed ‘crack pipe’ firestorm relied on assumptions.” Glenn, yes, assumptions existed because Biden’s bureaucrats wouldn’t provide details! 

Brent Scher, the executive editor of The Free Beacon responded to our queries. “You are correct that the spokesman did not specifically say pipes in response to our questions, one of which was what is in the smoking kits,” he said in an email. “The team said that they wouldn’t specify the contents of the kits.. They confirmed that these kits could be used for smoking crack. We did follow-up. We reported on the fact that crack pipe funding would be provided by the government based upon the information found in the crack-smoking kits. This is what smoking kits are.”

Kessler, however, let the government accuse the conservatives “jumping at conclusions”, when they weren’t specific. 

Jorge Silva (HHS deputy assistant secretary of public affairs) stated in a phone interview, that Hauf reached a conclusion that wasn’t justified. He noted that Garrett’s statement made clear the kits would need to follow federal, state and local laws — a sentence that did not make it into the article.

“He never asked, and we never confirmed,” Silva said. “I honestly don’t know how that would have been answered.” He said that if Hauf had asked about funding pipes, Garrett would have checked with the SAMHSA legal department to see if an answer could be provided. But instead, Hauf “misrepresented that a spokesman confirmed that.”

The Free Beacon did not mince words when it replied: 

It is absurd to believe that the administration has a story. Pipes are included in existing harm reduction programs all over the country. They also include smoking tools for crack addicts. Take, for example, a program from California’s Department of Public Health, which openly advertises glass pipes. Other programs in cities such as Annapolis, Md., New Haven, Conn., and Seattle, Wash., all include crack pipes in their smoking kits….

Even though crack pipes won’t be funded despite the White House’s denial, the administration will not say that it didn’t intend to. When asked, the department didn’t respond. New York Times if glass pipes were ever allowable under the grant provisions,” the paper wrote on Thursday evening.

Biden’s administration is like many Democratic institutions. It has a tendency to dismiss inconvenient stories and call them “misinformation”, but not actually discrediting them.

If the bureaucracy feels embarrassed by an incident, they may try to revise their policy or pretend that they didn’t mean to do something controversial like providing taxpayer-funded paraphernalia for drug use. 

The Leftist Twitter claims this is Fake News. Scher says it was made up. 

This is Brent Scher, executive editor at the Free Beacon, which started the fake Biden admin “crack pipe” story.

Just now, he admitted to @washingtonpost that it was essentially made up: “You are correct that the spokesman did not specifically say pipes in response to our questions.” pic.twitter.com/ibHHQpGWHy

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) February 11, 2022