OPINION:
They’re doing it again.
Our corporate news media, which doggedly ignored the burgeoning Hunter Biden laptop story three years ago to protect then-candidate Joe Biden at the end of the 2020 election campaign, is on its way to treating the latest explosive news about Biden family corruption in much the same way.
If you normally get your news from the major legacy outlets (and are also reading this column for some reason), you’ll have to be filled in on what’s been going on with Biden Inc., where the only product is access to the man who is now president of the United States.
Former Biden business partner Devon Archer testified to a congressional committee that Hunter Biden put his father on the phone with foreign businessmen at least 20 times, so that the patriarch could “sell the brand.”
“The brand,” of course, was the allure of the Biden name and the clout that came with it if certain conditions were met — namely, showering members of the Biden family with cash.
The fact that then-Vice President Biden spoke with his son’s benefactors so often exposes the lie that he never had any idea what was going on. He obviously actively participated in the marketing of his own prestige and authority and made those contacts with his son’s moneymen as a personal demonstration of what they were selling.
And it’s been astounding to watch the shifting language in the denials.
For years, the elder Mr. Biden flatly and broadly rejected the accusation that he ever discussed or had the slightest knowledge of his son’s wildly successful overseas financial ventures.
“I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period,” he said in 2019.
Just a few weeks ago, however, the White House press secretary changed that story, moving away from the “never discussed business” verbiage and instead denying that the president was ever “in business” with his son. That’s a denial of something no one was saying, because it’s not as though anyone thought that now-President Biden had a place in a formal corporate structure at Biden Inc.
With the lies collapsing, The New York Times was ready to ride to the rescue.
“It has long been known that the elder Mr. Biden at times interacted with his son’s business partners,” the Times reported, trying to soften the impact of the revelations about the many phone calls with a complete rewrite of history.
Laughably, the Times also bought the spin from Democrats that Hunter Biden was selling the “illusion” of access to his father, as though producing the vice president on the phone were a parlor trick anyone can do once they get the hang of it.
The media also dutifully passed along the cover story from Rep. Daniel Goldman, New York Democrat, who said that when the vice president was on those calls with his son’s clients, he engaged only in casual conversation regarding “niceties about the weather.”
The thing is that it doesn’t matter what they talked about. Getting the vice president on the phone was the point, and Hunter showed that he could produce his dad on demand.
Even through all of this, the media suppression of the story is already in effect.
According to the watchdog Media Research Center, CNN and MSNBC mentioned former President Donald Trump — who was about to be indicted again — a combined 759 times on Monday, while mentioning Mr. Archer — on the day that he testified — only 48 times.
On the day of and morning after Mr. Trump’s indictment, ABC, CBS and NBC devoted almost 71 combined minutes to that story, which contrasted with the paltry 8½ minutes they gave to the Devon Archer story and its aftermath.
So, it’s no surprise that an MRC poll found that regular viewers of liberal news outlets are far less likely to even be aware of President Biden’s scandals and the serious implications that have been revealed.
On the “Line Drive Podcast,” which I co-host, I asked New York Post journalist Miranda Devine if she thought the legacy media could be shamed into finally see the light on this story, she basically said, no way.
“I don’t see that they ever concede their wrongdoing,” Ms. Devine said. “I mean, they’ve got Pulitzer Prizes for the Russia collusion hoax that they haven’t given back.”
Republicans in Congress are openly talking about impeaching the president over this flagrant influence-peddling scheme, and naturally the media are siding with Mr. Biden because, as a Democrat, he’s on their team whether they really like him or not.
So, their strategy is to keep this scandal as quiet as possible, because shielding the president means keeping voters in the dark as long as they can.
• Tim Murtaugh is a Washington Times columnist and vice president for communication strategy at National Public Affairs, a political consulting firm.
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