We’ve reported extensively on how Israel flattening a building that not only housed a Hamas operations center but also various media outlets including the Associated Press Saturday has become quite a sensitive issue for the internationally known media outlet as well as the U.S. government.

Understandably, Israel has no regrets.

The Biden administration – through Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki – has been extremely cagey on the matter, with Blinken saying he hasn’t seen the evidence Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly discussed directly with Biden about the Hamas link to the building, and Psaki basically taking a “no comment” stance.

But while Associated Press President and CEO Gary Pruitt has insulted everyone’s intelligence by proclaiming they “had no indication Hamas was in the building or active in the building” that particular bureau had been operating out of for 15 years, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has been busy asking some “uncomfortable questions” about what the Associated Press knew about Hamas’ activities in and around the building but didn’t report.

Here’s what he said of the AP on the Senate floor today:

“Why is the Associated Press sharing a building with Hamas? Surely these intrepid reporters knew who their neighbors were. Did they knowingly allow themselves to be used as human shields by a US-designated terrorist organization? Did the AP pull its punches and decline to report for years on Hamas’ misdeeds?

I submit that the AP has some uncomfortable questions to answer. Yet the AP and its fellow journalists are in high dudgeon about Israel’s wholly appropriate airstrike. Leave it to whiny reporters to make themselves the story and the victim when terrorists are shooting missiles at innocent civilians.”

Watch:

"Why is the Associated Press sharing a building with Hamas? Surely, these intrepid reporters knew who their neighbors were. … I submit that the AP has some uncomfortable questions to answer." – @TomCottonAR pic.twitter.com/X80SHZUBEG

— The First (@TheFirstonTV) May 17, 2021

Naturally, Cotton’s questions fauxfended media figures including this Politico reporter and MSNBC’s resident raving lunatic Joy Reid:

Sen. Tom Cotton very clearly suggests here that the Associated Press was colluding with Hamas.

“Why is the AP sharing a building w/ Hamas? Surely these intrepid reporters knew who their neighbors were. Did they knowingly allow themselves to be used as human shields…?” https://t.co/uMloEZu6p6

— Andrew Desiderio (@AndrewDesiderio) May 17, 2021

Behold, the Grand Old Party in the present day… https://t.co/gCWcGODHIA

— Joy-Ann 😷Reid (@JoyAnnReid) May 17, 2021

Unfortunately for the AP and their defenders, the truth came out long ago about the stories on Hamas terrorism that they let slide, as my colleagues noted in prior reports:

What if I told you that a former @AP journalist (@MattiFriedman) had written IN 2014 that Hamas regularly operated in and around the AP office in Gaza? https://t.co/MXdTcCqvOc pic.twitter.com/dlx01utSLS

— Seffi Kogen (@seffikogen) May 16, 2021

Friedman took to the Twitter machine to give some additional thoughts Sunday:

The army legal advisers who approve these strikes were convinced that the intel and the military logic could be defended, meaning they saw proof. And because hitting press offices is a net negative for Israel, the army seems to have had a target it considered worth the fallout.

— Matti Friedman (@MattiFriedman) May 16, 2021

The AP “news story,” which stated without evidence that Israel was targeting reporters to silence them, says nothing about what happened but a great deal about journalism. It’s an enormous problem for sane people just trying to get a handle on complex and disturbing events.

— Matti Friedman (@MattiFriedman) May 16, 2021

I have zero doubt that the AP kept quiet on certain stories because they wanted to maintain their access. But as Bonchie explained over the weekend, that’s not a good look at all for a media outlet that claims to be committed to reporting the truth no matter how ugly and inconvenient it might be. If you have to suppress stories in order to keep access, then what is the point of having the access in the first place?

Reporters and others in the media can be triggered all they want to over his line of questioning, but Cotton’s right in ripping the Associated Press and calling on them to account for what they knew but didn’t report, and if they knowingly acted as human shields for a known terrorist organization. As inconvenient as it is to say, it’s a matter of national and international security.

Flashback: Sen. Tom Cotton Roasts CNBC Reporter in Mic Drop Moment During Debate on Georgia Voting Law