Below is my column in The Hill on the continued media blackout on evidence of influence peddling and corrupt practices by the Biden family. The coverage of the recent disclosure of dozens of LLCs and bank accounts used to funnel up to $10 million to Biden family members captured the growing concerns over a de facto state media in the United States. Under the current approach to journalism, it is the New York Times that receives a Pulitzer for a now debunked Russian collusion story rather than the New York Post for a now proven Hunter Biden laptop story.
Here is the column:
This week, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) tried to do the impossible. After he and his colleagues presented a labyrinth of LLC shell companies and accounts used to funnel as much as $10 million to Biden family members, Donalds tried to induce the press to show some interest in the massive corruption scandal. “For those in the press, this is easy pickings & Pulitzer-level stuff right here,” he pleaded.
The response was virtually immediate. Despite showing nine Biden family members allegedly receiving funds from corrupt figures in Romania, China and other countries, The New Republic quickly ran a story headlined “Republicans Finally Admit They Have No Incriminating Evidence on Joe Biden.”
For many of us, it was otherworldly. A decade ago, when then-Vice President Joe Biden was denouncing corruption in Romania and Ukraine and promising action by the United States, massive payments were flowing to his son Hunter Biden and a variety of family members, including Biden grandchildren.
Last year, I wrote a column about how the media were preparing a difficult “scandal implosion” to protect the Bidens and themselves from the backlash from disclosures of this influence peddling operation.
The brilliance of the Biden team was that it invested the media in this scandal at the outset by burying the laptop story as “Russian disinformation” before the election. That was, of course, false, but it took two years for most major media outlets to admit that the laptop was authentic.
But the media then ignored what was on that “authentic laptop.” Hundreds of emails detailed potentially criminal conduct and raw influence peddling in foreign countries.
When media outlets such as the New York Post confirmed the emails, the media then insisted that there was no corroboration of the influence peddling payments and no clear proof of criminal conduct. It entirely ignored the obvious corruption itself.
Now that the House has released corroboration in actual money transfers linking many in the Biden family, the media is insisting that this is no scandal because there is no direct proof of payments to Joe Biden.
Putting aside that this is only the fourth month of an investigation, the media’s demand of a direct payment to President Biden is laughably absurd. The payments were going to his family, but he was the object of the influence peddling.
The House has shown millions of dollars going to at least nine Bidens like dividends from a family business. As a long-time critic of influence peddling among both Republicans and Democrats, I have never seen the equal of the Bidens.
The whole purpose of influence peddling is to use family members as shields for corrupt officials. Instead of making a direct payment to a politician, which could be seen as a bribe, you can give millions to his or her spouse or children.
Moreover, these emails include references to Joe Biden getting a 10 percent cut of one Chinese deal. It also shows Biden associates warning not to use Joe Biden’s name but to employ code names like “the Big Guy.” At the same time, the president and the first lady are referenced as benefiting from offices and receiving payments from Hunter.
Indeed, Hunter complains that his father is taking half of everything that he is raking in.
None of that matters. The New York Times ran a piece headlined, “House Republican Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by President Biden.” That is putting aside evidence against all the family members around Joe Biden. It also ignored that other evidence clearly shows Biden lied about his family not receiving Chinese funds or that he never had any knowledge of his son’s business dealings.
The fact is that the Times may indeed be trying for another Pulitzer Prize. The newspaper previously won a Pulitzer for the now debunked Russian collusion story. It was later revealed that this story was based on a dossier funded by the Clinton campaign and placed in the media by Clinton officials. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward warned the co-winner The Washington Post that the story was unreliable but was ignored. The Pulitzer Committee refused to withdraw the award.
What Donalds fails to appreciate is that this is sometimes how Pulitzers are made. Roughly 100 years ago, New York Times reporter Walter Duranty won the Pulitzer for his coverage of the Soviet Union despite serving as an apologist for Joe Stalin. Duranty refused to report on actual conditions from mass killing to starvation in the “worker’s paradise.”
Thus, when the Soviets were starving to death as many as 10 million Ukrainians, the Times ran a Duranty story with the headline “Russians Hungry but Not Starving.” He not only spinned Stalin labor camps that killed millions but also attacked reporters who sought to uncover the truth.
Years later, Ukraine and various groups demanded that Duranty’s prize be rescinded, but the Committee insisted that there was no “clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception.”
What is most impressive about this week is that all but a few outlets seem to be angling for the next Duranty Pulitzer.
In discussing modern Russian propaganda, researchers at the Rand Corporation described it as having “two distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions.”
Sound familiar?
Today we are seeing a much more dangerous phenomenon. The coverage this week has all the markings of a state media. The consistent spin. The almost universal lack of details. The absurd distinctions.
It is the blindside of our First Amendment, which addresses the classic use of state authority to coerce and control media. It does not address a circumstance in which most of the media will maintain an official line by consent rather than coercion.
The media simply fails to see the story. Of course, it can always look to the president for enlightenment. Just before his son received a massive transfer of money from one of the most corrupt figures in Romania, Biden explained to that country why corruption must remain everyone’s focus. “Corruption is a cancer, a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy,” he said. “Corruption is just another form of tyranny.”
It is just a shame that no one wants to cover it.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.
You say of the media: “The media simply fails to see the story.” I will quibble: “The media decides to not see the story.”
The New York Times has the motto “All the news that’s fit to print.” Indeed, they have determined that all this news is simply not fit.
You can tell the media reporters who are guilty based upon the dogs that do not bark. A true reporter would be outraged at the range of the conspiracy that was pushed on this nation. Some may be white-washing the report, but some are suspiciously quiet. Those are the guilty parties.
The old gray whore does whatever her deep state pimp requires of her, no questions asked.
Gee so who didn’t know we were under a coup?
that the 2020 election was a fraud after we went to bed with Trump having all but won the election, then 5 states shutting down in concert together (that’s organization) then waking up to trump losing in all the states the next morning?
that ivermectin wasn’t horse paste?
That the vaccines weren’t tested and were in fact human experiments?
The bible has a sculpture “Study to show thyself approved”. the same could be said for life, “Study to keep thyself alive and abreast of the facts/truth”.
You all are missing the real point. Yes, it is obvious the Bidens are corrupt. Yes, most legal media are little more in 2023 than the mouthpiece of the Democratic Party.
The POINT is that the legacy media (plus a heck of a lot of new and social media) see Biden (and his family by extension) as THE TRUMP KILLER. He got rid of the man they hated like no other (even more than Reagan or NIXON). Their relief was overwhelming. A mediocre political at best and now in his dotage, Biden is headed for FDR levels of reverence and fame… because of this alone, not any accomplishment (and in total denial of glaring failures).
Nobody voiced this more than Sam Harris (interview on Triggernometry). He said it did not matter if Hunter had the bodies of 100 dead children in his basement (*that Hunter presumably raped & murdered). He was willing to overlook that, because TRUMP is the existential threat and the end of our democracy… so it is worth the lives of 100 dead children. This is easily looked up, the whole interview. It is chilling.
So no, the laptop doesn’t matter and bribes do not matter and senility does not matter. Biden could be sodomizing goats on the White House lawn in a Satanic worship ceremony and it will not matter… because he is THE TRUMP KILLER and he will kill Trump again in 2024, and the left only cares about that.
TRUTH.
I think you’re onto some truth there Lola.
Proof of wrongdoing is no longer enough. The political operatives in charge of the FBI/AG/CIA/NSA will never allow the guilty parties to be held to account. These agencies are usually responsible for criminals to justice. What happens when the “police” are the criminals? Who will prosecute the crime when the prosecutors themselves ARE criminals? Our system was not designed for such a scenario. Congress and our courts are similarly compromised and thus useless.
And let’s be clear….we can see propaganda from the size of their ears! Big data have antennas cut for size. And they all got big ears. For discernment pururposes….people when someone with big ears tells you someting….they got antennas in their ears. They are puppetts! Now with five g the antennas will not be as big. But we as a world know our humans. We know how many the maximized in the Ukraine taking there mill stones away blaming it on soviets. Millions dead. We know. And we know the ones with big ears are chopping block! We know! And we humAns k is the day and time…that they do not know! And then they are hung. From what I’ve been told. Lanes 86 545499a! They and their will be hung….some and many with little antennas and ears! By 5 g
A big ears means they have an antenna cut….a little sad means they have a 5 g antenna cut…as part of their hive…you wanna remain an american..? You gotta look at people’s ears! If they are puny they are in their hive….and 5 g cpntolled. If they are big they are latent anteneas. From am nazis.! You all need to discern! In the first few seconds who you deal with and the scope of their demons they may not even be aware of!
Ryan Goodman: “Cut through the hype and cut to the chase of the #DurhamReport: Durham says it would have been a “sensible step” for the FBI to open Crossfire Hurricane as a preliminary investigation. It comes way at the end — page 295″
Asha Rangappa: “Not sure who needs to hear this, but Crossfire Hurricane was not an investigation into Trump. It was an investigation into Russian intelligence activity, and whether that activity was targeting people in Trump’s campaign (it was)” “I’ll be interested to see how Durham argues that there was no predication in the Russia probe when the DOJ’s OIG found the opposite AND a Republican-led Senate Intel Committee found that Trump’s campaign manager was, in fact, in frequent contact with a Russian intel officer”
Durham says it would have been a “sensible step” for the FBI to open Crossfire Hurricane as a preliminary investigation. It comes way at the end — page 295″
What a dishonest representation.
That little snippet is explaining the corrupt FBI had no cause to employ spies, and lie to get FISA warrants. He has three bullet points explaining that ALL that could be considered legal is a preliminary investigation, that would not have violated every ones constitutional rights.
The evidence forces you to lie, in an attempt to blur how stupid you have been, believing the FBI had cause.
This is just to show all the visitors here how much you lie and misrepresent reality. I will provide a links to people can easily find the report and see for themselves. Not the regulars here don’t already know how you lie.
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/15/1176219884/trump-russia-investigation-durham
He also said that the FBI had reports of a Clinton Russia connection that were not followed up in.
Is it too much to ask to have “tastes great! less filling!” arguments in the stands of sports stadiums? Now Miller has to crap all over men – their main customers – because attractive women in ads are known to sell product. Just like Gillette crapped all over men – their customers too. Do these woke companies really think running an ad consisting of an angry feminist diatribe is likely to induce more men to buy their products?
David Marcus nailed it: “So women in bikinis selling beer is a problem but Dylan Mulvaney in a bubble bath wearing pearls is just fine. Men really do make the best women.”
I can only assure you, as a woman (and mom and feminist) that I would not drink Miller Light even if they tried to sell it using hunky MALE models wearing speedos. And that seeing a young woman in a bikini (in 2023!) is not shocking in the slightest, and doesn’t ruffle a single feather even among the dourest feminists. Heck, women sell stuff to ONE ANOTHER (fashions, makeup) using female nudity or scantily clad females.
I worry FAR far more than Sports Illustrated, which traditionally has shown a model in a swim suit (and as this is not 1911, swimsuits on a woman are not shocking whatsoever), is NOW featuring transgender models and not for the first time. So to them, apparently some MEN are more attractive than actual women…..and their male customers want to gaze appreciatively upon the bodies of surgically transformed MEN dressed as women.
THAT bothers me. Beer ads? even my great aunt, born in 1888, would not have blinked an eye at a women in a two piece swimsuit in an advertisement.
So to them, apparently some MEN are more attractive than actual women…..and their male customers want to gaze appreciatively upon the bodies of surgically transformed MEN dressed as women.
See that’s what I don’t get. Why would a heterosexual man – which is the vast majority of men – prefer looking at a man pretending to be a woman, instead of a real woman? Is that really true?
The professor has clearly hit a nerve, judging by the rabid swarm of left-wing commenters today. That’s how you know when you’re close to the truth, and not just any truth but an important truth.
Meanwhile Biden ridiculously claims the biggest terrorist threat is white supremacy. Like white supremacists are what people are afraid of when boarding a plane or train, or going to Times Square on New Year’s Eve. Riiiiight.
Meanwhile the FBI, CIA and all other security agencies are politically compromised, pushing for complete control by the warmongering, pharmaceutical-addling, information-censoring, border-opening, violent-crime-inducing Uniparty – which always moves left, never right. The only institution of any importance in modern American life that has not become an agent of the Uniparty is SCOTUS, and that’s why so much of the Uniparty’s firepower is aimed at it right now (think Chuck Schumer and his threats of physical violence against the Justices, think the DOJ’s decision not to prosecute the perps outside conservative Justices’ homes, and so on.)
The people doing this to us will be punished. I don’t know exactly when, but one day they will be. When it comes the retribution will be swift and harsh, and the evildoers will receive no mercy. I may or may not live to see that day, but I have no doubt it is approaching, and I am glad for that.
That is why we need Trump back. Who else will vindicate him??
Wen – although a second Trump term would be worlds better than a second Biden term, sadly it would still be insufficient to cure the rot at the core of our institutions such as the MSM.
“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
The white supremacy thing plays REALLY REALLY well (I am sure it was focus tested) among the liberal elites in the Big Blue Coastal Cities… they already deeply fear Mega MAGA, American flags, pickup trucks, Trump and most of all… THE DEPLORABLES. They still blame the deplorables for the COVID epidemic.
I read the NYT several times weekly, concentrating on reader comment forums to stories like this. Their algorithm and editors strongly favor lefty wing comments, which is frustrating but which means it is a TREASURE TROVE of what liberal elites in the Big Blue Coastal Cities think and feel and believe wholeheartedly.
The left were told that with Obama… they would never lose power again and that there would NEVER be another GOP President. Their shock and horror in 2016 was never fully appreciated or documented, but it is palatable and there. Though unseating Trump was paramount (and Biden raised to an FDR like status as THE TRUMP KILLER)… they also deeply fear the voters who elected Trump, often calling them Mega MAGA and deplorables (yes, even after HIILLARY said that statement lost her the vote), and the intense need to label such people and deplatform them, take away power and even votes and DEFINITELY suspend any freedoms of speech… because speech of those you do not like or agree with is (obviously) MISINFORMATION. Their new tact, likely aimed at 2024, is WHITE SUPREMACY… because who on earth embraces that? and it is a sure thing to get black votes.
Will they get smacked down or learn a listen? it is too early to tell. I can hope, of course.
They deeply fear the American flag? Wow.