© REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees on Wednesday released an interim report on their months-long joint investigation into Hunter Biden's role on the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings and his alleged "extensive and complex financial transactions," but also highlighted his questionable transactions with Russian and Chinese nationals.
None of the revelations, however, were given much coverage by many of the major news networks.
CNN and all three nightly news programs on ABC, CBS and NBC avoided the subject. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was the only host on the network to address the Senate report but spent those roughly two minutes of coverage downplaying it.
Trump Jr. blasted the lack of coverage of the Senate report, suggesting a stark double standard between himself and the former VP's son.
"When they thought they had me for something much less significant than direct payments from an associate of Vladimir Putin & direct links to human trafficking/prostitution in Russia, I was front page news for weeks on end but the Bidens get a pass for their corruption as always!" Trump Jr. exclaimed on Thursday.
Trump Jr. was likely referring to the infamous Trump Tower meeting with Russian nationals that he attended during the 2016 election that was intensely scrutinized by both the Mueller investigation and the mainstream media.
The news outlets that did cover the Hunter Biden report, however, portrayed the Senate Republicans' findings as if there were no new revelations.
The New York Times ran the headline, "Republican Inquiry Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Biden." Politico similarly ran, "GOP senators' anti-Biden report repackages old claims" as did BuzzFeed News' "Republicans' Hunter Biden Report is Filled With Old, Unsubstantiated Allegations and Debunked Theories."
The Washington Post went even further to exonerate the former VP with its headline, "GOP senators' report calls Hunter Biden's board position in Ukraine 'problematic' but doesn't show it changed US policy."
Critics also pointed out that many of the written reports neglected to mention the Senate report's key findings regarding Hunter Biden's $3.5 million Russian wire transfer and his business ties with Chinese nationals.
In addition to new findings regarding Biden's ties to Burisma, the report states that Senate investigators found millions of dollars in "questionable financial transactions" between Hunter Biden, who is a son of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, and his associates and foreign individuals, including the wife of the former mayor of Moscow as well as individuals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
According to the report, an investment firm co-founded by Hunter Biden, Rosemont Seneca Thornton, "received $3.5 million in a wire transfer" from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of the Russian capital.
The report goes further and alleges that not just Hunter Biden but other members of the Biden family "were involved in a vast financial network that connected them to foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe."
In one instance, the report stated that Hunter Biden "opened a bank account" with a Chinese national linked to China's communist government, which "financed a $100,000 global spending spree" for the former vice president's brother, James Biden, and his wife, Sara Biden.
Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates on Wednesday blasted the investigation, and Johnson directly, for pursuing a "conspiracy theory."
"As the coronavirus death toll climbs and Wisconsinites struggle with joblessness, Ron Johnson has wasted months diverting the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee away from any oversight of the catastrophically botched federal response to the pandemic, a threat Sen. Johnson has dismissed by saying that 'death is an unavoidable part of life.' Why? To subsidize a foreign attack against the sovereignty of our elections with taxpayer dollars -- an attack founded on a long-disproven, hardcore rightwing conspiracy theory that hinges on Sen. Johnson himself being corrupt and that the Senator has now explicitly stated he is attempting to exploit to bail out Donald Trump's re-election campaign," Bates said in a statement Wednesday.
Comment: House Republicans are also demanding an investigation by the FBI after the Senate uncovered the evidence of corruption. Rep. Jim Jordan is leading the calls for an probe: