A woman caught the attention of the mainstream press earlier this week after lavishly praising Vice President Kamala Harris and even claiming that she voted for the VP and President Joe Biden during a press conference.
"It's an honor… I voted for you," says a Univision reporter before asking a question at VP Harris' press conference pic.twitter.com/HsjRtTcJB1
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 8, 2021
Harris was taking questions at a press conference in Mexico City when her chief spokesperson Symone Sanders announced that the “next question will come from Maria Fernanda at Univision,” a well-known Spanish-language media company that’s popular in the US and Mexico.
The woman was permitted to ask the VP a question at the Tuesday presser, one of just five journalists called on by staffers for Harris. Before doing so, however, the woman took the opportunity to tell Harris “it’s an honor because I actually got to vote for the first time as a naturalized citizen, and I voted for you.”
Afterwards, when the question drew the attention of the press, both Harris’s team and Univision said they had no idea who the woman was.
In fact, Univision had another reporter at the event, Jesica Zermeno, and it soon was revealed that the woman who asked the question and said she voted for Harris actually had no connection to the media outlet.
While a reporter by the name of Maria Fernanda Lopez does work for a Miami-based Univision affiliate, she tweeted early Wednesday that she was not the woman who appeared at the Harris presser.
.@UniNoticias reporter to VP Harris: "I VOTED FOR YOU".
As if there was any doubt. pic.twitter.com/6VGRBZLybX— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) June 8, 2021
After the press conference, Univision’s president for news in the US Daniel Coronell said that the individual who asked the question was not employed by Univision, and had no connection to the network.
In Mexico an individual which has no association with @Univision claimed to be a reporter for @UniNoticias in order to ask the @VP a question and to compliment @KamalaHarris. Let it be clear to everyone that Ms. Maria Fernanda Reyes is not part of this media organization https://t.co/edxyzRVlt8
— Daniel Coronell (@DCoronell) June 9, 2021
Harris’s top aide and press chief Symone Sanders tweeted that she would be “looking into” how the mysterious woman was allowed to ask a question.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We are looking into this. https://t.co/5gVsyOoudr
— SDS (@SymoneSanders46) June 9, 2021
Theories quickly proliferated online, with critics of both Harris and Univision suggested the mishap could indicate a major “security breach,” or that the media outlet has not been fully forthcoming about its link to the woman.
#BREAKING: I have a HUGE update to this story about a Univision "reporter" telling Vice President Harris she "voted for" her in November. According to top @UnivisionNews personalities and execs tweeting at @MRCLatino's @BonillaJL, they're claiming she's NOT an actual employee. pic.twitter.com/QVhprd2XzR
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 9, 2021
This means either one of two things:
1. @UnivisionNews and @UnivisionPRTeam are lying to us and they have a journalistic scandal on their hands.2. They broke through the @SecretService and the @VP's press team led by @SymoneDSanders, which would mean this was a security breach.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) June 9, 2021
Yikes, that's a pretty big security breach.
— JellyKind (@JellyKind) June 9, 2021
However, Fox News appeared to get to the bottom of the matter when it spoke to the woman. Fox News reported Tuesday that the woman, Maria Fernanda Reyes, who had asked the question at Harris’s press conference, had been incorrectly identified as a Univision employee. Instead, Reyes is an entrepreneur who spends a lot of time traveling and working with farmers in the US, Mexico, and India, and had been invited to attend the press conference by fellow entrepreneurs.
So far, Harris and her team have yet to confirm whether that’s true or not.
This isn’t the only strange new controversy to emerge from Harris’s trip: she snapped at an NBC News reporter after being caught in a lie about the border.
Via Zero Hedge
