Belated scoops: Why 2 top newspapers are finally covering Hunter Biden
The Washington Post and New York Times are now doing the kind of journalism they’re capable of when it comes to the president’s family
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}It’s taken 16 months, but The Washington Post and The New York Times are finally starting to report aggressively on the president’s son.
What took so long?
That’s not clear, and neither paper has exactly explained why–or acknowledged any misjudgment in minimizing the Hunter Biden allegations in the weeks before the 2020 election. No mea culpa, no evidence of any journalistic soul-searching.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}They deserve credit for getting into the game, even if they’re playing catchup at this late date. But you have to wonder: Is there concern that Hunter Biden might be indicted, and these news outlets didn’t want to be seen as treating it as an out-of-the-blue development after a very long silence?
US President Joe Biden(Right) is comforted by his son Hunter Biden and First Lady Jill Biden after being sworn in during the 59th presidential inauguration in Washington, DC on the West Front of the US Capitol on January 20, 2021, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
It was the New York Times that recently reported that the federal criminal probe of Biden is actively moving ahead, examining possible tax fraud, lobbying violations and money laundering. The paper also said Biden had paid off more than $1 million in back taxes. In the process, the Times said it had confirmed the authenticity of the emails on the laptop Hunter left at a Delaware repair shop.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}That, of course, was reported by The New York Post in the fall of 2020–and ignored or downplayed by most major news organizations. Twitter, as you’ll recall, blocked anyone from sharing the tabloid’s reporting–which two of the nation’s most prestigious papers now say is true. Several outlets dismissed the reports as Russian disinformation. NPR called it a non-story.
It was an incredibly embarrassing episode that helps explain why conservatives don’t trust the MSM. They believe the press was doing nothing less than protecting Joe Biden in the final stretch of the election.
Now comes The Washington Post with a detailed report on Hunter Biden’s lucrative dealings with a Chinese energy conglomerate.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In this screenshot from the DNCC’s livestream of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, addresses the virtual convention on August 20, 2020. (Handout/DNCC via Getty Images)
Starting in 2017, and in just over a year, the Chinese firm and its executives "paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle," the paper says. This is based in part on "emails contained on a copy of a laptop hard drive that purportedly once belonged to Hunter Biden."
Again, that is way late. So why the very long delay?
The story says the Post, in late 2020, repeatedly asked Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon to provide the laptop’s contents but were refused or ignored. Okay. But in June 2021, the paper did obtain a copy from activist Jack Maxey, who was working with Bannon and had gotten the drive from Giuliani.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}That was a long time ago. Why didn’t The Washington Post, which says it verified the communications through cryptographic signatures from tech companies, jump right on it? No explanation.
Could the political winds have shifted, with Biden far more unpopular than he was last summer? Just a thought.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}In fairness, the Post says it "did not find evidence that Joe Biden personally benefited from or knew details about the transactions with CEFC," the Chinese firm, "which took place after he had left the vice presidency and before he announced his intentions to run for the White House in 2020." No smoking gun there.
The New York Times confirmed the authenticity of Hunter Biden's infamous laptop this week. (Randy Holmes via Getty Images)
And the Times says Hunter Biden may well not be indicted because of the complexity of the case, or may face only a civil suit.
After the Times got the story through customs, so to speak, I thought television news beyond Fox would jump on it. But MSNBC, CNN and the broadcast networks didn’t touch it. The other day CNN finally hosted a legal expert who said there’s a realistic chance that Hunter Biden would be indicted.
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Everyone has known all along that the younger Biden, an acknowledged drug addict, has been engaging in global influence-peddling. No one thinks he was hired for his energy expertise. His father may have been out of office in this instance, but everyone knew he might run for the White House. Plenty of family members of Washington officials engage in this kind of buck raking, but that doesn’t make it right.
Can anyone seriously doubt that major news outlets would have showed such restraint if Donald Trump Jr. was under investigation for questionable deal making?
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The Washington Post and New York Times are now doing the kind of journalism they’re capable of when it comes to the president’s family. It sure took them a while to get there.