How the media covered up the Hunter Biden story until after the election

David Harsanyl
New York Post
Thu, 10 Dec 2020 06:40 UTC

© Visar Kryeziu /AP/KJN

Hunter and Joe Biden • Media protected assets

It's now clear that the Hunter Biden story was real, with Hunter himself acknowledging a federal probe into his taxes — one that reportedly began in 2018. Really, it was always clear. Yet when the New York Post broke the details, virtually the entire journalistic establishment and left-wing punditsphere defamed the newspaper, claiming it was passing on Russian "disinformation" or partisan fabrications.

The political media quickly began pumping out process stories about the alleged discord in The Post's newsroom and about the problems with the reporting. In so doing, of course, they did practically no reporting on the substantive allegations that Joe Biden's family had spent years cashing in on his influence.

Tech companies, spurred on by these censorious journalists, shut down the account of one of America's most-read newspapers to inhibit users from reading the story. It was completely unprecedented.

At the time, I argued that The Post used the same ethical and journalistic standards that the media have employed for decades. But, in truth, it exercised a higher standard of professionalism than most outlets reporting on the Russia collusion hysteria did for three-plus years. It certainly exhibited a higher ethical standard than Jeffrey Goldberg did in his Atlantic piece claiming that Donald Trump had besmirched the American military — which political journalists had no problem sharing as irrefutable and unimpeachable fact.

In October, the New York Times ran a piece headlined, "New York Post Published Hunter Biden Report Amid Newsroom Doubts." Today, the same Times reports, "Biden team has rejected some of the claims made in the Post articles, but has not disputed the authenticity of the files upon which they were based."

The crux of the case against disseminating The Post's story was that the emails found on Hunter's laptop may not be real and that there was no way to authenticate them. Apparently, that wasn't true. All reporters had to do, it seems, was ask.

In October, left-wing sites such as the Daily Beast were featuring headlines that read, "Russian State Media Is Desperately Trying to Keep the Hunter Biden Story Alive" and "FBI Examining Hunter's Laptop As Foreign Op, Contradicting Trump's Intel Czar." Today we learn from the same outlet that "evidence of [a money laundering] probe [into Hunter Biden] was apparent in the markings on a series of documents that were made public — but went largely unnoticed — in the days leading up to the November election."

Indeed.

Yesterday, NBC News reported, "Hunter Biden, president-elect's son, says federal prosecutors probing his taxes." But in October, NBC News had "reporters" Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny producing serious-sounding articles such as, "How a fake persona laid the groundwork for a Hunter Biden conspiracy deluge" and "Inside the campaign to 'pizzagate' Hunter Biden" to undercut The Post's reporting.

Ken Dilanian, a leading voice in the debunked Russian collusion coverage, had a mid-October headline that read, "Feds examining whether alleged Hunter Biden emails are linked to a foreign intel operation." It's peculiar that reporters could so easily confirm alleged counterintelligence investigations but not one into the family of the front-running presidential candidate.

Then again, you may recall the interview with National Public Radio's public editor in which Terence Samuel, NPR's managing editor for news, explained: "We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions." It is the default position of many journalists that anything undermining Democrats is by default a distraction.

Another disquieting aspect to this story is how the Department of Justice purportedly participated in burying it. Sources told Fox News, and others, that the DOJ is super sensitive about moving investigations from "covert" to "overt" during an election if they believe it could potentially affect the outcome. Their political sensitivities are irrelevant. We need to know more, but tamping down an investigation to hide it from the public before an election is as bad as accelerating an investigation to smear someone.

Law enforcement is tasked with investigating criminality, not with assessing how their work will shape public perception during an election. Rather than following process, bureaucrats are now making investigatory decisions that could easily be construed as helping politicians who are either their boss, or their future boss.

Moreover, Hunter is not even a candidate for any office. What kind of familial relationships are covered under this friendly DOJ dispensation? Cousins? In-laws? Friends? Anyone with the name Biden? If the DOJ's argument is that Hunter was so close to Joe that an investigation might have affected his father's chances, then, well, that's an important enough relationship that I think voters ought to know about. Shouldn't they be aware of the prospect of corruption?

It's certainly clear now that many of the things Tony Bobulinski, one-time Hunter business partner, claimed about the Biden business enterprise are true. The FBI is not only investigating Hunter's taxes, but reportedly also a money-laundering scheme and his foreign ties to China. Bobulinski had alleged that Joe Biden knew about his family's operations, and that he benefited from them. If this were said of Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio, they would be the focus of frenzied coverage. And rightly so.

At some point, the media was going to be compelled to deal with the Hunter Biden story. He, after all, is now the focus of an FBI investigation. Now, I'm certainly not convinced coverage of the investigation would have changed the outcome of the presidential election (unless we had learned that Joe was involved or aware, for which there is, incidentally, some circumstantial evidence). I don't know if Hunter has done anything criminal.

But I am convinced that journalists thought the case mattered — and for this reason avoided it. They simply abdicated their professional responsibilities to help Democrats win because many don't take their craft seriously anymore. That, we will continue to see, is a potential disaster for the nation.

About the Author:
David Harsanyi is a columnist for The Post and National Review, where this first appeared.

Comment: It is unthinkable that a story this significant to the future of US leadership would be outright suppressed and excused. It smacks of collusion:

[M]edia outlets didn't just ignore the story; they tried to suppress it. Then social media stepped in, preventing the story from being posted (Facebook) and even banning The Post (Twitter).

"The New York Post's controversial 'scoop' involves some shady behavior," huffed Slate. "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say," Politico insisted after 50 top ex-intel officers signed a letter to that effect. The letter offered no proof, and now that claim turns out to be the disinformation.

Many Americans who'd already cast ballots in early voting sought to change their votes after learning of the e-mails, but others never even found out about them, thanks to the pro-Biden censors. How many might've voted differently?

The issues involved aren't just about Hunter, they're about how he traded on his father's name to make money — raising questions about what Joe Biden knew. One e-mail even suggests Joe Biden himself might have been in line for some cash.

All of which raises serious national-security questions. A former business associate of Hunter, Tony Bobulinski, believes Joe Biden is "compromised."

"There are allegations of securities fraud, money laundering [and] a crooked hospital deal with [Joe's brother] Jim Biden," notes Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), who's demanding a special prosecutor to oversee the probe. "If Joe Biden becomes president, then all those prosecutors are in line to be fired next month," he warns.

A special counsel does seem in order, given the deep politicization of the Justice Department under the last Democratic president. Anyone investigating the president's son needs some kind of shield from potential White House interference.

Also in order: a host of explanations, and apologies, to the American people from all the outlets that found this news unfit to print. As one paper's motto puts it, "Democracy dies in darkness."

Many opinions are suddenly surfacing, a situation of 'too little too late':

Media Research Center vice president Dan Gainor told Fox News:

"The news media helped silence a story and alter the results of an election. They are probably laughing in newsrooms all around the country."

The Hill media columnist and Fox News contributor Joe Concha said the New York Post is presumably angry that it was accused of "peddling Russian disinformation:

"This thing was not only dismissed, it was actually suppressed. It only makes you imagine... as far as Arizona, and Georgia and Pennsylvania, those races that were so close, if there was the vigor around the reporting about Hunter Biden as there was around Russian collusion, if the result could have been changed at some point."

Cornell Law School professor and media critic William A. Jacobson told Fox News that mainstream media appears to have "snuffed out the Hunter Biden scandal" in order to help the former vice president's election chances:

"It would have seriously hurt Joe Biden's campaign enough to make a difference in key swing states. Now that the election is over, and the media mission appears to be accomplished, there are no such constraints. Rather than regretting this journalistic malfeasance, the perpetrators likely are quite proud of themselves."

Conservative strategist Chris Barron agrees that CNN and MSNBC essentially helped Biden win the election.

"Hunter Biden's business dealings would have cost Joe Biden any shot at the White House, which is exactly why outlets like CNN and MSNBC refused to cover the issue before the election.

"Any news outlet with even a shred of credibility or commitment to journalistic integrity would view the news of a federal investigation into Hunter Biden as proof that they had erred dramatically in not covering this issue sooner. Alas, CNN and MSNBC care little about credibility and even less about journalistic integrity."

As CNN honchos remain publicly silent, the network dispatched in-house media pundit Oliver Darcy to justify why it initially dismissed the news, blaming Trump and a chaotic news cycle for why it didn't cover the Hunter Biden story until after Election Day. Darcy penned a section of CNN's media newsletter labeled, "Keeping stories in proportion," that claimed the network was chasing the story while simultaneously downplaying its relevance.

"With the news cycle as chaotic as it has ever been, knowing what stories to focus on is as important as ever. Wednesday provided a great example of this, with Hunter Biden confirming he is being investigated for his taxes. CNN had been chasing this news and had asked for comment, which likely prompted the Biden camp to go public.

"Yes, the son of the president-elect being under federal investigation is a big story. There is no doubt about that. But is it a bigger story than the actual president trying to overturn the results of the US election? No, it's not. Is it more important than the pandemic surging across the country killing thousands of people each week? No, it's not. Covering the Hunter Biden story is important, but it should be in proportion."

Darcy's comments are pathetic. There is no justification that eliminates reporting on this story, especially when the media, en group, pre-determine the substance - in relation to their leanings - is 'irrelevant'. Quite the contrary. It proves its significance.

Everyone from former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell to former CNN contributor Steve Cortes have mocked CNN's pivot.

DePauw University professor and media critic Jeffrey McCall, noting there was little scrutiny of Biden's policy plans or his

"routine gaffes, misstatements, and certainly no interest in delving into the Hunter Biden situation. This was 'thumb-on-the-scales' journalism that kept Biden out of controversy and maintained a focus on Trump chaos. It is hard to assess what impact this lack of media scrutiny might have had on the election results, but the impact was certainly not zero. Post-election polling by the Media Research Center showed that over a third of Biden voters were unaware of the Hunter matter at all.

"Gatekeepers at the big media outlets surely have no regrets for how they covered the campaign and their recent modest interest in Hunter Biden will not be a long-lasting agenda focus."

Gainor said the situation brings to mind a quote from blogger David Burge, who once said, "Journalism is about covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving ...but only stories that make the left look bad."