Veteran investigative journalist Catherine Herridge has spilled the tea over her departure from CBS in 2004 – including the controversy over the Hunter Biden laptop scandal – in which she says she authenticated multiple records as early as October 2000, only to encounter internal resistance which prevented the story from being fully pursued or aired when it was ready. 

Transcript:

This week on "Straight to the Point," a personal message. In 2025, our team bet big on independent journalism. We believe that you were tired of talking points TV, you were tired of the stale predictable formats on Sunday, and that you were open to something new.

A recent Gallup poll reinforced our reporting. It found less than 30 percent of Americans are confident the media covers the news fully, accurately, and fairly. I experienced this myself as a CBS News Senior Investigative Correspondent assigned to the Hunter Biden probe.

After I left, I wanted to be transparent about the blocks I faced at CBS News. At that time, CBS News was under different management and did not comment. I think one of the obvious questions is why am I sitting here talking about my time at CBS News?

I've always had deep respect for my former employers, but in this case, I've had so many questions about my time at CBS. I'm taking a pause and a moment here to try and answer those questions. I think it's better to hear it from me than to hear it from someone else.

I'd wanted to work at CBS News as long as I can remember. The first time I thought about CBS News was when I was an intern at ABC News in London and I was surrounded by so many experienced foreign correspondents. Some of them had been in Vietnam.

Some of them had worked at CBS News. It just seemed that CBS was a place for independent enterprise reporting. I never imagined that I'd be working at 60.