Ari Fleischer: Mainstream media committed 'dereliction of duty' on Hunter Biden coverage
Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer discusses the media blackout on Hunter Biden coverage during the 2020 presidential campaign.
"The press was derelict in its duty" by not following up on the New York Post's reporting about Hunter Biden's overseas business dealings, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told “Outnumbered Overtime” on Thursday.
“The New York Post was on to something and the news got suppressed,” added Fleischer, a Fox News contributor.
The weeks leading up to the presidential election saw an unprecedented media blackout surrounding the Post's explosive reporting. It was even revealed through recordings leaked by Project Veritas that CNN President Jeff Zucker and CNN Political Director David Chalian urged staff to avoid the scandal.
After the Post's reporting was dismissed and characterized by members of the media as a "baseless conspiracy theory," a "smear campaign," and "Russian disinformation," Wednesday's confirmation from Hunter Biden that his “tax affairs” were under investigation in Delaware was ultimately too much for the media to ignore.
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On Thursday, Fleischer pointed to questionable financial transactions involving Hunter Biden and the wife of a former Moscow mayor.
“The press ignored that story too,” Fleischer said.
“This is serious,” he added. “I can’t think of the last time that there was an actual ongoing federal criminal investigation of a president’s child.
“I don’t know that that’s ever been done, so this is real serious from a criminal point of view and of course it raises immediate issues about Joe Biden and his appointment to [be] the attorney general and the White House’s future influence on a future attorney general and the Department of Justice,” he continued.
“I can’t imagine Biden won’t get pressured into appointing independent counsel to handle this investigation.”
Host Harris Faulkner asked Fleischer what he would say to the critics who say “President Trump’s children have been looked at too,” referencing the Russia probe.
“There was not a formal criminal probe of one of the Trump children,” Fleischer responded. “It was a generalized probe about collusion to see wherever it took them and it took them to [Former Trump campaign chairman] Paul Manafort, it took them to other places, but there was never anything this specific.”
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He noted that there was no “sufficient evidence against the Trumps,” adding that “apparently” there is “against Joe Biden’s son.”
The president-elect has not said whether he’ll commit to keeping the Delaware U.S. attorney investigating his son in his position in the new administration. The Biden team did not respond to Fox News' repeated questions about the matter.
Fox News’ Morgan Phillips and Evie Fordham contributed to this report.
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