Investigate Biden family corruption allegations, wherever they lead

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Photo illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Reuters/Getty

While everyone was focused on the verdict of E. Jean Carroll, George Santos’ indictment and CNN’s town hall with Donald Trump this week’s allegations that the Biden family took advantage of their politically powerful patriarch (to the tune of millions of dollars) attracted relatively little publicity. ‘attention .

We’ve long known that Hunter Biden, along with the Joes brothers (Frank and James), took advantage of their famous father and brother.

But a report released Wednesday by House Oversight Chairman James Comer ups the ante as it says 1) the number of families who have benefited is wider (including even Hallie Biden, Beau’s widow Bidens, who was also linked to Hunter Biden), 2) the money came from foreign entities (including Chinese nationals and Romanian businessmen), and 3) some of the payments took place while Joe Biden was vice-president.

You might not like it, but Hunter Bidens’ shenanigans are real news

These foreign sources, in some cases, appear to have laundered money through Biden associates, who then transferred some of that money to the accounts of Biden family members.

Unfortunately, family payments are all too common and generally legal, as detailed in my forthcoming book, Filthy Rich Politicians. Often this happens in a somewhat innocuous form. We find that a really effective way for a company to engage in influence peddling without bribing a member of Congress is [to] hire spouse, Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen, told CBS News in 2012.

Surprisingly, there is nothing unprecedented about foreign governments trying to play this same game at the highest level. As Mother Jones David Corn notes, in 1980 President Jimmy Carter’s brother Billy accepted $220,000 from the Libyans to develop what he called a propaganda campaign to promote the foreign policy goals of dictator Muammar. Gaddafi.

Despite the pervasiveness of this corruption, you might think that such accusations would arouse the interest of my fellow journalists, especially since these allegations implicate the incumbent President of the United States.

The story continues

And above all, you would be wrong.

The tragedy of Americas is its culture of fear, armed with millions of guns

Take, for example, the official newspaper: The New York Times. The reflexive catch of Gray Ladys seems to be that there isn’t there. At least, that’s my interpretation of their title, House Republican Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by President Biden, and the subtitle: After months of investigation and numerous public accusations of corruption against Mr. Biden and his family , the first report of the Premier’s House GOP investigation showed no evidence of such misconduct.

Obviously, the still unknown question is whether Joe Biden, aka the Big Guy, has ever used his position as vice president to repay favors.

Choosing to focus on this, rather than very sketchy circumstantial evidence, is a form of bias. I mean, it’s hard to imagine the Times headlining a story about Jared Kushner’s $2 billion Saudi deal with the words, No evidence of wrongdoing on Trump’s part.

Unless your assumption is that the Republicans made it all up, there are a few legitimate questions worth answering: Why would foreign entities give Biden family members millions and get nothing in return ( as Florida Rep. Byron Donalds pointed out at the Wednesdays press conference, it’s not like the Biden family has a company that could explain the transactions)? And why would Biden family members apparently go to such lengths to set up shell companies to confuse anyone trying to trace the money?

White House goes on the offensive against GOP attack dog Biden

Comer says he’s still in the early stages of an investigation, and that also seems reasonable. For example, Republicans are currently trying to subpoena an FBI document to a whistleblower they believe will substantiate their case.

At least my curiosity is piqued. The Wall Street Journal might have said it better on Wednesday, when it published an op-ed, There may not be definitive proof, but there is plenty of suspicious smoke worth investigating.

So, is it wrong for media personalities to be open to the possibility that Republican investigations might show that there is one out there?

For many people, the answer is a resounding YES!

The idea is that, even by entertaining such allegations, we are engaging in a kind of double-siderism. Bad actors pump incomplete information into the bloodstream so people can legitimately speculate what it might mean, liberal columnist Bill Scher warned me this week. In other words, don’t fall for innuendo, expect the facts.

While few journalists will come out and say this, they don’t have to; the tone of their coverage reflects their confidence that this is yet another GOP scam. The assumption is that Donald Trump and his minions are an existential threat to liberal democracy, and they lie and engage in misinformation to distract us from their abuses.

Fact check: This is generally true. Republicans have done little to engender public confidence. They are often full of shit. There’s also a feeling that whatever the Bidens are guilty of, the Trumps are guilty of something worse. This also rings true.

But in the past, these same assumptions have caused otherwise serious and intelligent journalists and media outlets to make embarrassing mistakes to go out on their skis on the assumption that Donald Trump was a Russian asset.

The right and wrong way to cover Hunter Biden

Many good journalists have assumed (based on the word of experts) that the Hunter Biden laptop story was part of a Russian disinformation campaign. And that same bias has led many to dismiss the possibility that the COVID-19 virus originated in a lab leak from Wuhan (The New York Times headline still reads, Senator Tom Cotton repeats the fringe theory about the origins of the coronavirus).

You would think that, now, the mainstream media would have a little more humility. When we blast stories by following our background, it further erodes our credibility and reinforces the feeling that we are peddling fake news. At one point, it’s hard to blame conservative readers and viewers for taking their business elsewhere.

It is the responsibility of the media to follow the facts wherever they lead. Journalists are supposed to be both skeptical (if your mom tells you she loves you, check it out) and curious.

With my apologies to Ronald Reagan, my advice to my colleagues in the media is: beware, but verify.

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