When it comes to the saga of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop loaded with sensitive and exposing material, it is fair to say that the media complex in this country comes off looking nearly as bad as Biden Inc. Revealed just ahead of the 2020 election, our press industry worked in collusive fashion to bury the story, desperate as they were to shield Joe Biden and grease the gears to his election.
Today, as the provenance of that computer is now assured as being valid, there are two entities in need of accountability – the journalism industry and the intelligence community that provided the perfect cover for them. Recall, it was a letter sent out with over 50 names from the intel crowd that speculated the story and/or the laptop itself was a product of a Russian disinformation campaign, and this was frequently cited by journalists as all the reason to back away from the story and not commit acts of journalism by investigating the matter.
All of this is coming to a head now as a result of a recent New York Times feature about the investigations currently taking place surrounding Hunter Biden. We covered last week how The Times seemed to acknowledge the reality against their will, but that recognition has for some reason become the official word/ This laptop is, in fact, legitimately a Biden Foundation piece of hardware.
This, despite the fact the laptop was never accurately disproven. Also, there was a hidden admission from National Public Radio nestled at the end of a book review (after that outlet pledged to not cover the story), and Politico was forced to give prior credence to the accuracy when one of their own reporters wrote a book on Hunter. Then was the small matter of further proof – Hunter Biden himself suggesting it was his computer.
So as the media, in general, has been shamed – as if the industry players were capable of such an emotion – what can be said of that garbage letter sent out by the intelligence agents? A list of 51 names, most of which bear credentials from the CIA, signed on to a letter claiming that the story of the laptop had all the earmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign. The echoes of years of Russian collusion talk were unmistakable, as was the paucity of proof.
"It is for all these reasons that we write to say that the arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden's son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."
All of the earmarks, but zero evidence. This letter was designed to do nothing but give the Biden administration a free pass for the election and give news outlets all the reason to avoid doing their jobs. This led to the most outlandish of contradictions; they ignored the physical and provable evidence of the laptop on the basis of pure speculation absent anything concrete. The very real evidence could be dispatched because others declared this sounded like a planted story.
This activity likely swayed an election, and it gave a now sitting president a pass on suspected ethical and possibly illegal activity. Hunter has been freed to write a memoir, pocket a small fortune selling art of dubious merit, and saddling a country with a leader who appears challenged in many ways by diminished faculties. The corruption of the media complex and the exposure of our intelligence community as a purely partisan arm of our government is now apparent.
The New York Post, let us recall, was de-platformed on social media and declared a practitioner of fake news. The Republicans were tarred with springing an October Surprise, and conservatives, in general, were accused of trafficking in Q-anon conspiracies. It was all a lie because the story was proven truthful.
This intelligence letter had notable topline names – James Clapper, Mike Hayden, Leon Panetta, John Brennan – with dozens of others lending heft behind the dispatch through the sheer numbers. The press had to do little more than point to the letter. How could dozens of CIA officials be wrong on such a matter?!
This letter then allowed the journalists to engage in sloth and not do their job of actual investigative work. The most diligence we saw from the newsmakers was in exploring who may have been behind the emergence of this laptop. Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon's names were trotted out as all the reason to ignore the story. Questions were raised on its origins, and speculation was offered behind the concept of the emails being fabricated in classic shoot-the-messenger protocol.
This led to bold pronouncements in the press that anyone taking this laptop story seriously were voices not worth listening to going forward. Jake Tapper, for one, called the claims "crazy," "disgusting," and "unhinged."
Tapper: "The right wing is going crazy with all sorts of allegations about Biden and his family too disgusting to even repeat here. Some of the ones I've seen from the president's son and some of the president's supporters are just wildly unhinged." pic.twitter.com/gtGffC9xLc
— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) October 22, 2020
They have also been proven "accurate." This follows the blueprint established by Jake's CNN colleague Brian Stelter, who was very diligent in ferreting out the various players behind the revelation of this laptop tale, rather than showing interest in looking into the veracity of the story itself. The message: we don't like the players involved, so that excuses us from covering the story at all.
The New York Post, feeling a surge of vindication, reached out to all the intelligence officials who issued this bogus letter, and almost all of them declined to comment. Of the handful who did respond, they said something similar to James Clapper's response.
"Yes, I stand by the statement made AT THE TIME, and would call attention to its 5th paragraph. I think sounding such a cautionary note AT THE TIME was appropriate."
That 5th paragraph is the Emergency Exit inserted in the letter to give them cover.
"We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case."
This is not just clearly a hedge; it is all the reason for the press to have doubted the seriousness of the letter. Looking over this segment, you should have had all the reason to not take this letter as gospel and to delve into the matter of the laptop being a verifiable source. Instead, this letter was seen as a sigh of relief, excusing journalists from doing anything resembling legwork, as well as providing ammunition to lash out at any figures supporting the laptop story.
A biased intel community and partisan news industry teamed up to deride a story, all in support of one political party. This is a statement that is backed up by a mountain of evidence – which also means the journalists will completely avoid discussing these proven details.
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