'Looks like a coverup': Reporter rips media outlets for sitting on hacked Trump materials

The opposition research dossier compiled by Donald Trump's campaign on J.D. Vance was published online after hackers – allegedly from Iran – apparently stole data and shared it with media outlets, but a veteran journalist is curious why it took so long.

The 271-page oppo file was published online by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein, who was suspended from X shortly afterward, and The Bulwark's Marc Caputo examined the contents and commented on some of the noteworthy items he found.

"Vance’s infamous 'childless cat ladies' comment was not listed among the liabilities that the Trump campaign assessed about the then-prospective running mate," Caputo wrote.

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"As to why the Trump campaign’s researchers didn’t include that the cat lady remarks, aides aren’t saying," he added. "The campaign has inveighed against news outlets publishing material that was allegedly obtained by a foreign adversary while declining to confirm the validity of the content. Two other people who independently obtained the Vance dossier, however, both told The Bulwark that the cat lady comments were not in it."

The exclusion suggests that Trump's team either missed the remarks that have come to define the Republican vice presidential candidate or simply didn't think they merited attention, although the document includes dozens of other references to Vance's appearances on Tucker Carlson's show.

"Vance comes across as a right-leaning classical liberal who became a Trump era conservative populist," Caputo wrote. "There was nothing obviously disqualifying in it, which explains, in part, how he got selected for the post."

Caputo said he had not independently verified the document, which could potentially include disinformation planted by the hackers, and he said the material he viewed was not the final version of the oppo file.

"It’s also unclear why the mainstream media outlets that were first given the document two months ago didn’t report on its omission of the cat lady comment — or on the dossier in general," Caputo wrote. "The disparity in treatment between this dossier and the hacked Democratic materials in 2016 is striking, as I noted last month . When a story doesn’t get covered, it needlessly looks like a coverup."

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