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Politico was blasted on social media Monday for hiring Sam Stein – an avowedly liberal reporter – to cover the White House for the incoming Joe Biden administration.
National Review contributor Luke Thompson quipped that Stein, who has worked for the Daily Beast and MSNBC and regularly disparages President Donald Trump and Republicans in his tweets, will play softball as a White House correspondent.
"Putting a Democratic partisan in charge of covering a Democratic White House more or less guarantees that your outfit will carry water for the powerful rather than informing your readers," Thompson tweeted. "That’s a dereliction of duty."
The Atlantic's Molly Ball speaks with Sam Stein at the fifth annual Washington Ideas Forum at the Newseum in Washington November 14, 2013. (Reuters)
But Stein’s proximity to President-elect Biden runs even deeper. Stein’s wife, Jessica Leinwand, previously served in President Barack Obama’s administration as Deputy Associate Counsel at the White House and as a trial attorney for the Department of Justice.
Federal Election Commission records also show that Leinwand had contributed nearly $10,000 dollars to Democrats and progressive organizations – including more than $5,700 to Biden’s presidential campaign.
Leinwand now works for Facebook as a public policy manager – something Stein alluded to in October when he admitted to having "conflicting opinions" on social media companies’ censoring of a New York Post expose on Hunter Biden.
In announcing their new White House correspondent, Politico touted Stein as having a "firsthand understanding of the Obama-Biden era and its team, which you may have noticed is getting a second act now."
"First, to state the obvious, Sam is not his wife," Politico told Fox News when reached for comment. "They are two different individuals with their own thoughts, ideas, and speech."
Politico said it remains committed "to rigorous, non-partisan, evidence-based journalism is long-established and core to our mission."
"That is a commitment we have had with our readers for 14 years and will always have. Accordingly, our employees adhere to POLITICO's standards and values and our journalism speaks for itself," the company said.
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Politico hailed Stein as "one of Washington's leading political journalists for over a decade."
"POLITICO will hold the incoming Biden administration accountable to voters, to the law, and to its own promises, just as did the Trump administration and the Obama administration before that," the company said.
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