“Hacked materials.” “Russian disinformation.” “Unsubstantiated.”
One year ago, The Post revealed that Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop carried proof he sold influence while his father served as vice president — and his dad, now president, knew it. Yet most other media treated the story itself as the scandal, reporting only on vague claims that sought to undermine it rather than rushing (as they would’ve under the last president) to advance it themselves.
And Twitter and Facebook rushed to block it, squelching vital information even as America voted.
None of them has learned any lesson except that it worked: Big Tech and Big Media got their way, at the expense of our democracy.
In short: They got away with it. All of them. From the Bidens, to social-media companies, to the press.
Though the media have (mostly) stopped pretending we got anything wrong, most outlets still don’t even mention these revelations — even in stories where they’re highly relevant, such as Hunter’s ongoing art-show grift, which looks a blatant effort to solicit funds from those hoping to win the president’s goodwill.
Again: They had no decent justification for their partisan censorship. Neither Biden has ever disputed a sentence of The Post’s reporting.
Not our scoop that, at his son’s request, then-veep Joe Biden met with Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, which hired Hunter as a well-paid board member, despite his lack of experience in energy and Eastern Europe.
Nor Hunter’s laptop e-mails suggesting Daddy would benefit from a deal with a state-connected Chinese firm: The share breakdown included “10 held by H for the big guy” — which Hunter’s ex-partner Tony Bobulinski confirmed meant Joe.
Bobulinski went public because countless Big Media orgs dismissed The Post’s reporting as “Russian disinformation.” He knew that wasn’t true and authenticated the e-mails publicly.
But that was just the second excuse they tried. The first is the one Twitter used to justify blocking users from sharing the story as well as locking The Post’s account for weeks, namely the claim we used “hacked materials.” No, our reporting explained how it all came from a laptop Hunter plainly forgot at a repair shop, whose owner thus gained full rights to the abandoned computer, files and all. Nor did either Biden accuse The Post of hacking. And Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted at a congressional hearing that censoring the story was a “total mistake.”
But he didn’t make that admission until March — months after the election.
Data show that in the days following our October 2020 report, searches for how to change an early vote spiked. Even though social media tried to bury the story — which taxpayer-funded NPR said wasn’t worth reporting and called “discredited” — some readers got the goods.
The Post’s Miranda Devine has detailed many other shocking stories from the laptop, with texts suggesting Joe paid for Hunter’s drug-fueled stay in Los Angeles that had the Secret Service concerned. And still the Bidens don’t deny a thing, while other media sit silent.
One outlet, Politico, now finally admits we had the goods because its own reporter, Ben Schreckinger, got “independent” confirmation of some of the e-mails. Yet almost a year after it had already been confirmed by people like Bobulinski, The New York Times still called our reporting “unsubstantiated” — though hours later, it quietly deleted that word from its story.
Big Tech never suffered from its censorship and continues to censor. On Monday, for example, Google suspended the YouTube account of the American Principles Project over a video arguing that “Big Pharma and the medical community are profiting off of transgender people.”
The continued blackout suppresses discussion of vital questions, such as: Has Hunter’s influence-peddling affected not just Joe’s work as veep but his presidency? Why is the prez so reluctant to investigate the origins of COVID? Hunter still hasn’t, as promised, sold his stake in the Beijing-connected firm.
Big Media and Big Tech don’t want you asking such questions. We’ll keep asking them. They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it again.