Below is my column in The Hill on recent interviews by Hunter Biden, which appear to incriminate him in a possible federal felony. What is most striking from a journalistic perspective is that Biden’s book is a target rich environment for reporters with references to his alleged influence peddling, abandoned laptop, and drug abuses. Yet every major network and newspaper that interviewed Biden skillfully avoided any damaging questions. It was no small feat to delicately avoid obvious problems in his account while seemingly interviewing him on those subjects. Reporters would raise the laptop of Burisma contract and then just shrug and move on without any serious followup. The glaring contradictions were left unaddressed like admitting that he was a crack addict during the time he was receiving massive contracts from foreign companies due to his unestablished “expertise” on energy issues. The conflicts with his own father’s accounts were entirely ignored. The protective press cocoon around Hunter and his father remained intact.
In the end, it is not the possible crime by Biden but the demonstrable collusion by the media that is more of the story from these interviews.
Here is the column:
News anchor Lester Holt recently declared that “it has become clearer that fairness is overrated,” adding that “the idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in.” Fortunately for Hunter Biden, that world is the one in which he lives and thrives. In interviews about his memoir “Beautiful Things,” some reporters either misstate the facts of his prior scandals or ignore certain leads, including potential evidence of a federal crime.
Facts, like fairness, appear overrated to much of the media today.
Hunter Biden spent the last few months evading questions, particularly during the 2020 election, when an abandoned laptop apparently belonging to him was found to have hundreds of embarrassing photos and emails showing drug abuse and raw influence-peddling. He reportedly is under investigation for possible federal tax violations linked to his foreign dealings.
Yet, one of the “beautiful things” in Hunter’s life is a media that imposed a pre-election blackout on the laptop story and continues to wrap him and his father in a protective press cocoon. That was evident in an interview by National Public Radio this week. The article by NPR senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving stated categorically: “The laptop story was discredited by U.S. intelligence and independent investigations by news organizations.” That is entirely and demonstrably false. Widely criticized for that false statement, NPR issued a tepid “correction” for the article that now states: “Numerous news organizations cast doubt on the credibility of the laptop story.”
There was, of course, an easy way to confirm the facts, rather than citing other news organizations which also failed to pursue the story. Elving and NPR were interviewing Hunter — so why not simply ask him if the laptop was his?
CBS News did ask that question and received a bizarre answer from Hunter that it might be his, or it might not be: “There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was the — that it was Russian intelligence.”
Or, perhaps, it could be alien technology from the Andromeda Galaxy.
Hunter is denying any knowledge of the laptop’s authenticity, roughly seven months after its existence was disclosed by the New York Post and even longer since it reportedly was seized by the FBI. During that time, the story presumably was researched by the Biden campaign and by Hunter’s own lawyers. U.S. intelligence concluded it was not Russian disinformation, even though Joe Biden claimed it was. His campaign brought forward 50 former national security officials to endorse this unsupported claim. The other parties on many of these emails have confirmed the authenticity and the FBi seized the laptop as evidence (which Hunter and his lawyers have been addressing in months of discussions with prosecutors). Yet, Hunter claims that he is entirely unsure if the laptop is his or possibly the work of Russian intelligence.
One might expect some effort to explore that issue with a followup question: “How can you remember details from your period of addiction going back 20 years, detailed in your book, but you cannot remember this laptop?” Or: “Even if you cannot remember your own laptop, you’ve seen the pictures and emails — are those authentic?”
Instead, the media showed the flag and then left the field.
The media did little better with the facts confirmed by Hunter. The media now has facts implicating Hunter not just in a federal crime but in the very crime the administration is making a priority as a policy matter. In his book and in interviews, Hunter says he continued to use drugs during campaign season. He wrote in 2019 that he was “done with the world of politics, of figuring out how to go out on the campaign trail with dad, if it came to that, as I would have in any other election year. I was a crack addict and that was that.”
Yet reporters appear to forget that basic journalism means asking about ramifications for his most recent scandal, including his possible action of a federal gun offense. Many of these are the very same reporters or news outlets that ran speculations about crimes allegedly committed by the family of Donald Trump. His latest scandal involves a missing gun and raises the issue of drug use and a possible felony. The Secret Service is said to have intervened in the incident, though it denies that, after a gun was thrown into a trash bin in Wilmington by Hallie Biden, widow of the deceased brother of Hunter. At the time, she was in a relationship with Hunter and had feared what he might do with the gun.
To get the revolver back, Biden answered “no” on the firearms transaction record that asked whether he was an “unlawful user of, or addicted to” a narcotic drug or any other controlled substance. Lying on that federal form can lead to prosecution under several provisions. The United States code makes it a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison to “make any false or fictitious oral or written statement” to obtain firearms. Although prosecutions are rare, the commission of a possible felony by the son of a president is presumably news, especially when that president is voicing the need to tighten and enforce our gun control laws.
Yet none of this matters when you are in the business of shaping rather than reporting news. Even a leading journalism professor with Stanford University has declared that journalism now needs to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” Once free from notions of fairness or objectivity, reporters are at liberty to ignore news in favor of a narrative. Things can be true but misleading.
As Lester Holt said in receiving the Edward R. Murrow Award for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism, giving “two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect” today’s world — a gravity-free media world in which allegations of gun offenses, influence-peddling and other abuses hold little weight.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley.
While Turley yet again takes aim at “the gravity–free media world” for “ignoring news in favor of a narrative” Reuters/Ipsos released a poll today which shows 6 in 10 Republicans believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump due to widespread voter fraud. About half of Republicans believe the January 6th Capitol siege was largely a non-violent protest or was the handiwork of left-wing activists “trying to make Trump look bad.”
The poll shows the majority of Republicans dutifully believe false narratives relentlessly peddled by Trump & the conservative media. Yet Turley never chastises the conservative media for ignoring verifiable facts in favor of a narrative when it comes to President Biden being certified as the winner of a free & fair election.
It’s hard to forget Trump pardoned Manafort, who was convicted & sentenced for bank fraud, tax evasion, & hiding millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts. Trump also pardoned Roger Stone, who was convicted & sentenced for repeatedly lying to Congress & witness tampering. And Trump pardoned Steve Bannon, who was facing charges of diverting millions of dollars in donations from thousands of unsuspecting Americans for his own personal expenses.
Meanwhile Turley is laser-focused on Hunter Biden’s drug abuse, child support payments & alleged influence peddling. JT is clearly presenting overwhelming evidence of glaring double standards in more ways than one.
JT is clearly presenting overwhelming evidence of glaring double standards in more ways than one.
Underneath JT’s photo is a “Search” box. Plug in Bannon, Stone and you will be presented any number of posts JT made on this blog regarding those figures. Once you’ve read those posts and perhaps the comment’s section, then tell us what double-standard you’re talking about. That is if you’re not being a willfully ignorant, legal American, Democratic party patriot.
Olly, I’m hardly surprised that a fine person like yourself is so eager to label anyone you disagree with as willfully ignorant. You also wrongfully assume I’m a Democrat. But don’t let that get in the way of your carefully crafted narratives, Olly.
Turley may well believe that whatever Hunter BIden is accused of doing is far worse than the crimes Manafort & Stone were convicted & sentenced in federal courts for. But when Turley chastises the media for not keeping people properly informed, he routinely remains tight lipped about why the majority of Republicans believe false narratives about Trump winning the election in a landslide & Biden supposedly not receiving 81.2 million legal votes. That’s the double standard I’m talking about.
I applaud Turley’s efforts to take aim at any media members & elected officials who relentlessly refrain from keeping their readers, viewers, listeners & supporters properly informed.
Have a nice day, Olly.
That’s the double standard I’m talking about.
So you were merely peppering your double-standard allegation with Stone and Manafort for what, flavoring? Perhaps JT refrains from challenging those disputing the election results because he understands how the legal system works. Without a forensic audit of the states in question, the results may be certified, but the process to get those results have yet be to thoroughly examined. Kind of like certifying George Floyd is dead because Chauvin killed him, but no autopsy was ever conducted. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn JT is not weighing in on the competing narratives surrounding the 2020 election because he may be called to testify if/when Congress holds hearings regarding it. In the meantime, I rest assured knowing if he goes on the attack, he’s basing that on solid legal standing.
Simple way to settle this, Olly. JT, if you ever take time to read the comments section, is Olly right that you aren’t weighing in on “the competing narratives surrounding the 2020 election” because you may be called to testify if/when Congress holds hearings regarding it?
I sent JT an email with a link to this thread.
Turley is focusing somewhat on the Biden Clan Syndicate.
SM
If a copy of the files were copied before the laptop was turned over to the FBI it seems it would be easy to check the IP address of each email and file to determine where they came from. Could it be that easy?
@JC… are you trying to ascertain the ownership of the laptop?
Or are you trying to show that the data isn’t Russian misinformation as Bidens claim?
The first is trivial to prove.
Apple can track the hardware back to an apple account. So you can easily find out if its Biden’s laptop or not.
Now the more difficult issue. Showing that it wasn’t hacked.
The repair store owner could show chain of custody and his claim to the laptop once it hit his store.
Hacking the laptop would mean that the Russians had to have access to it prior to Hunter’s damaging it.
Also the Russians planning on it being damaged. (which would be a very difficult thing to pull off if you think about it.)
Turley: you’re becomingly laughingly predictable. How much do they pay you to try to breathe credibility out of the (non) Hunter Biden story? That, plus your attacks on anyone not a Democrat make you look foolish. Then, there’s your sad efforts to create the false narrative that Derek Chauvin didn’t kill George Floyd. Do you need the money?
you’re becomingly laughingly predictable.
Pot, meet kettle.
When I see a post by Natasha, I just skip it; Natasha is either stupid or lying, so why waste time on it?
Because with somewhere around 30+ million unique views on this blog, there might be one person sitting on the fence and I don’t want them to fall on the wrong side. Think of it like this story:
One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, “What are you doing?” The youth replied, “Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don’t throw them back, they’ll die.” “Son,” the man said, “don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can’t make a difference!” After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said…” I made a difference for that one.”
It was once the case that Bill Clinton and his brother Billy took the prize for “white-trash-made-good.” Now Hunter Biden, with his guns, crack smoking and sleeping with his sister-in-law has grabbed top prize!
I know right? If only he’d paid a porn star to spank him with a rolled up magazine and looted his own charities like the higher class amongst us are prone to do.
No, the rolled up magazine incident involved you and a $20 street hooker. You only had $10 to your name so that’s all you got.
LIke clockwork, Turley. Time for a Loomis column next up, no?
Here’s a story for many of your followers here. Might help them in balancing their checkbooks…
https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2021/04/05/new-york-times-trump-campaign-duped-donors-sot-newday-vpx.cnn
EB
You lowt me at “CNN”
…lost…
I don’t care. Your aversion to reality, which is no doubt harmful to your checking account, really has no effect on me personally. Thought it might be a good report to put out there for you as a public service though.
EB
“Contributors had to wade through a fine-print disclaimer and manually uncheck a box to opt out.
“As the election neared, the Trump team made that disclaimer increasingly opaque, an investigation by The New York Times showed. It introduced a second prechecked box, known internally as a ‘money bomb,’ that doubled a person’s contribution. Eventually its solicitations featured lines of text in bold and capital letters that overwhelmed the opt-out language.”
Well that’s strange. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are deemed righteous canceling users that accepted the terms of agreement, but the Trump campaign is deemed to be conning the donors that also accepted the terms of agreement. Caveat emptor. Leave it to the lawyers to craft ways to abuse the users.
Actually, the fact the campaign returned $64 million shows they knew they were being fraudulent and were way outside ‘cancelled’ territory. But it certainly is a great terms to rail on about on fox news though, right???
EB
But it certainly is a great terms to rail on about on fox news though, right???
Since when did you need a legitimate reason to do that?
I never do anything without a legitimate reason, Olly.
EB
Alienation from the political establishment translates to a comparable distrust of an oppressive elite media. As revealed in a June 2018 Axios poll:
“Overall, a strong majority of Americans, 72%, believe ‘traditional major news sources report news they know to be fake, false, or purposely misleading.’ Of those, 53% of Democrats and 79% of independents feel that way.”
When groundswells reject entrenched political classes and their associated media, status quo assessments from affiliated institutions cannot provide the way ahead. They will certainly not have the confidence of those who repudiated them; not least because their elite assessments are risibly irrelevant to the lives of an actual groundswell that is becoming self-aware of its own conclusions even as it realizes its own isolation. For those claiming the groundswell as their base, battle lines are forming that will force a choice between the people they claim to lead and their cloying need for acceptance from an establishment already in repudiation. Pgs. 8-9
https://unconstrainedanalytics.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Unconstrained-Analytics-Left-Strategy-Tactics-231120.pdf
“Or, perhaps, it could be alien technology from the Andromeda Galaxy.”
I remember that Star Trek episode from my distant youth in Sinope. Permit me to fill in the details for the Professor:
The Milky Way is invaded by a ferocious horde of sexy illegal aliens from Andromeda Galaxy. These days, it would be a very-flabby Androgyny Galaxy in black leotards 🙁
Anyway, the head coyote turns one of Kirk’s ensigns into a block of salts and crushes it, arousing Kirk’s moral outrage. Being a block of salts myself, I found this depressingly predictable.
Kirk uses his powers of… er, uh… persuasion to convince the luscious lady alien into a becoming a Republican. This gives Kirk that advantage he needs, and the rest of the episode is a mopping up operation.
Alas, if only life were that easy.
I am still wondering why this brave, valiant warrior for justice (Hunter Biden) didn’t vindicate his rights in a tort action for defamation? Maybe one of my leftist, moral bettors can explain why.
antonio
Professor Turley, I do not always agree but find your commitment to free speech and the facts refreshing; but I do worry about your physical safety and social standing. You keep writing posts like this and I won’t be surprised if you receive a visit from the Brave Masked Wonderful Warriors of Antifa ™ or BLM. At the very least, you may well lose your “good white” card and stop receiving social invites from your colleagues.
I am being a bit sarcastic but I truly do admire your work. I see you as a good, traditional liberal in the mold of Daniel Patrick Moynihan or Hubert Humphrey; unfortunately there are few of those types still around.
Meanwhile here is another corporate media report on a recent “white supremacist” attack on Asians:
Elderly Asian Woman Stabbed To Death While Walking Her Dogs In California
The “white supremacists” have struck again.
New York Post:
“An Asian woman was fatally stabbed while walking her dogs in California in what cops are calling a random attack.
Ke Chieh Meng, 64, was out with her two small pups in Riverside around 7:30 a.m. Saturday when she was stabbed and left on the ground bleeding, KTLA-TV reported. …
Meng’s suspected attacker, Darlene Stephanie Montoya, 23, was identified by police as a transient. She was arrested near the scene and charged in what police described as a “completely random” attack. …
“We’re going to try to research [the suspect’s] drug-abuse history and her mental-health history,” Railsback said, adding that cops are nonetheless “not closing the door on anything.” …”
No, it was just a homeless, mentally ill Hispanic drug addict in a random street crime. This can’t be used as fodder by the corporate media to push the “white supremacy” narrative.
Naturally, it hasn’t stopped them from doing it anyway. The truth doesn’t matter. There are all these rallies going on around the country against “anti-Asian hate.”
Austin-American Statesman:
“Chuck Guo, one of the event organizers, said Saturday’s rally was held in front of the monument to recognize the progress that has been made by Black civil rights activists.
“I think we should stand in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, because we have a common foe: white supremacists,” Guo said. “As long as there is white supremacy, there is hate.” …”
What the hell does any of this have to do with “white supremacy”?
The common thread in all of these attacks is that no one can find a single ideologically motivated “white supremacist” who is responsible for any of them. While it is true that Asians are being victimized by the upswing in violent crime (the police were demonized and defunded last summer), it is also true that it has nothing to do with “white supremacy.” More often than not, Asians are being assaulted by their fellow People of Color (POC) who live in the same cities.
WHAT WOULD WE DO WITHOUT OUR MORAL BETTORS EXPLAINING THE REAL REASON THESE ATTACKS OCCUR?
antonio
Cut through the crap: Was Hunter’s signature on the computer store’s receipt his? If it was, all options are open. If it wasn’t, who’s was it and who is behind it?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8857893/Documents-Hunter-Bidens-signature-Delaware-computer-repair-shop-receipt.html?ci=42413&si=8321468
Turley writes: “Even a leading journalism professor with Stanford University has declared that journalism now needs to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.””
This is the problem – they all see their roles as that of “social justice warriors”……there is no unbiased, objective “news” or “journalism” any longer. It is all propaganda now.
Corporations are embracing “social justice” in selling food and beverages. And plane tickets. And baseball tickets. And football tickets. And concert tickets. And sneakers. It’s all “social justice” crap-in-your-face now.
Collusion definition: The behavior of the media toward the Biden Crime Family and the behavior of the Biden Crime Family to the media.
Key to the good professor’s observation is media’s avoidance of any uncomfortable/incriminating questions…
Reminds me of mainstream media(NBC,ABC,PBS,NPR) silence on DC killer Noah Green being a follower of Nation of Islam and Louis Farrakhan. It would have been top headlines and top evening news story if he had been a member of Proud Boys…
It would have been an interesting story had the media chose to pursue it. What happened to this young man who had earned a four-year degree in finance, and had a promising future, but threw it all away by essentially committing suicide-by-cop? Why did he get involved with the Nation of Islam, which is usually the province of the dispossessed, down-and-out black strata? He had a bright future but instead turned to drugs and the crazy, hate-filled conspiracy theories peddled by Farrakhan. If the media wants to uplift blacks, then why essentially ignore a story of a young black man who was a success, but was pulled back into the abyss by Farrakhan? Is criticizing or even questioning Farrakhan taboo?
The FBI missed another one. Imagine that.
The Smith Mundo Act was cancelled in 2013
Under Obama / Biden
Look it up
It is legal for the press to propagandist us
Going on 8 years
MUNDT
We’d be better off if the media asked good questions of everyone they interview, left, right, and middle.
Absolutely. Let no party off the hook. Let no politician escape his just desserts. No one is above the law as Trump and Hunter Biden hopefully will soon find out if they are criminally charged and found guilty. I will not question the results of any trial, conviction or sentence of either one. I hope that you Trumpists will accept the outcomes as well and not accept Trump’s protest that he was framed by the Deep State thanks to a corrupt prosecutor, a liberal jury and overseen by a Trump-hating judge…
I’m a liberal, not a Trumpist (God forbid). But I understand how the multiple anonymous commenters can be confused.
Trump is a con artist.
It has gotten to the point where one must be engaged in clinical levels of cognitive dissonance over the evidence of their own two eyeballs (particularly regarding the virus) to believe the mainstream media or the DNC and its various arms about anything. They lie. Straight up. Everyday. White liberals literally need to be told what to think and will say and do anything for approval and a buck. They project the worst of their behavior and attitudes onto society writ large, it is *chutzpah* on steroids, and It occurs to me now that like overgrown preschoolers, many of them have likely lived their entire lives this way.
When was the last time you dug a ditch, baby?
Two levels of justice indeed- one for us and one for the Biden and Trump families. I agree!
More than just those two families; Clintons and Bushes and every connected family versus justice for ordinary Americans, which can be harsh, capricious, and expensive.
The press needs to remember Adams – “…whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence”
Don’t show Hunter’s photo on the blog. He’s as ugly as Hillary.
Once again Americans are being short changed and misled by the media.
The Lefties who post here are going to reliably scream: “What about Fox…?”, but once again, they will wilfully miss the point (the many points).
Just one.
At a time when Dems are trying to increase the legal restrictions on our Second Amendment rights (and obviously our legal consequences), HB demonstrates that the problem isn’t more laws, but uneven enforcement.
Two levels of justice in this country.
I can’t imagine what I could add to your clear and important commentary here other than, “Thank you. I am not alone.” Grave times without a free press.
Amen. I don’t mind MSNBC/CNN on the left or FOX on the right. But I very much resent mainstream media evening news’ (NBC, ABC in particular) leftist propaganda that goes out to the mom-and-pop families across America.