Follow the money - Hunter Biden edition
In general, if a reporter asks a question during a White House press briefing about Hunter Biden or his infamous laptop, the reporter is the New York Post’s Steven Nelson — or RealClearPolitics’ Phil Wegmann.
Fox News’ reporter Peter Doocy asked the president about his son’s finances on the campaign trail in 2020.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran this story at the time.
Damaged laptop renews Biden Ukraine questions
WASHINGTON — Material found on a laptop computer undercuts former Vice President Joe Biden’s insistence that he never spoke with his son about the Ukrainian energy firm that paid Hunter Biden some $50,000 per month as his father served as President Barack Obama’s point man in the fight to stamp out corruption in Ukraine, according to a story in the New York Post.
That changed at Thursday’s press briefing when NBC News’ Kristen Welker and CBS News’ Ed O’Keefe and Steve Portnoy asked Communications Director Kate Bedingfield, who was filling in for Press Secretary Jen Psaki, asked about Hunter Biden’s foreign business entanglements.
Portnoy, who is president of the White House Correspondents Association, asked if Biden “might use his pardon or commutation power with respect to either his son or his brother.”
It’s the end of the era when big newspapers dismissed the laptop story, first published by the New York Post in October 2020. Social media giants Facebook and Twitter squelched the story. Thursday’s Hunter Biden questions follow recent New York Times and Washington Post stories on the president’s son’s finances.
The Times reported that Hunter Biden paid a substantial sum in back taxes as a Department of Justice conducts an investigation into his finances.
WaPo reported that its review confirmed CEFC China Energy and its executives “paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle, according to government records, court documents and newly disclosed bank statements, as well as emails contained on a copy of a laptop hard drive that purportedly once belonged to Hunter Biden.”
This is a big turnaround — long overdue — after the papers’ failure to follow the money during the 2020 campaign. The Goliaths proudly ceded the story to the New York Post.
WaPo ran an explainer about the many reasons the paper did not jump on the laptop story when it was hot. Some of the data could not be verified, which prompted the paper to proceed with caution.
It’s a laudable attitude, conspicuously absent during the media stampede after Buzzfeed published the bogus “Steele dossier.”
When Trump was the target, there was a feeding frenzy. With the Bidens in the hot zone, there is patience and there is caution.
Did Hunter Biden’s financial arrangements break the law? It doesn’t matter. His decision to cash in on his father’s elective office is disturbing. He was heedless about the appearance of his arrangement with Chinese concerns (and Burisma). The Bidens showed themselves to be as opportunistic as former President Donald Trump was when he asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskyy to help him dig up dirt on the Bidens.
When the former vice president was running for president in 2020, supporters suggested that his respect for Washington institutions would restore public confidence in elected officials. How’s that working for you?
Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.
"President Barack Obama’s point man in the fight to stamp out corruption in Ukraine"
The fox and the hen house comes to mind.