In the early days of the 2020 Democrat race for the nomination, when most journalists were backing Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders, the conventional wisdom was that Joe Biden was too old, too out of touch, and oh-by-the-way, that Hunter Biden thing makes him a non-starter.
The New Yorker wrote a blistering expose on the former Veep's son with the hopeful title, "Will Hunter Biden Jeopardize His Father's Campaign?" But, by the time Spring of 2020 rolled around, and Biden looked to be a lock for the nomination, thereby making him the one person who could stop Trump, there was a virtual news blackout on all things Hunter.
The legacy, corporate media, and their partners in Big Tech went so far as to ignore, censor, and even punish any promotion of the New York Post's astounding work on the infamous "Laptop from Hell" story just two weeks before election day.
A lot has happened since then. Even The New York Times and Washington Post have independently verified the contents of the aforementioned laptop. But one aspect of the embryonic Hunter scandal from 2019 has remained largely unscrutinized.
Biden's vehement denial that he'd ever spoken with his son about any of his shady deals.
Biden has always maintained that he has never had any discussions with his son, Hunter, about his overseas business dealings. This has always been a critical assertion for the 50-year veteran of DC politics.
"I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings," Biden insisted in 2019 when he was desperately campaigning for the Democratic nomination in Iowa. There he is, aggressively jamming his finger in the face of Fox News journalist Peter Doocy demanding he "ask the right questions."
Joe Biden: "I've never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings. Here's what I know -- I know Trump deserves to be investigated... You should be looking at Trump. Trump's doing this because he knows I'll beat him like a drum." https://t.co/yrMdiaBli8 pic.twitter.com/yGhipRo1ew
— The Hill (@thehill) September 21, 2019
The adamant denial is essential for Biden because it allows him to maintain the tiniest of fig leaves to cover direct exposure to his son's improper lobbying of foreign entities while he was vice president.
By denying he'd had any conversations with his globe-trotting son, he could pretend that although it may not look good that his son was wheeling and dealing and getting paid exorbitant amounts of money for basically no-show jobs, ultimately, it had nothing to do with Joe because he never knew about any of it and they never spoke about any of it.
In short, Biden's laughable escape hatch from the Hunter scandal appeared to be: "Yeah, everyone knows he was making money from Ukraine and China just because he's my son. And, yeah, he probably lied to those foreign entities and said he'd be able to get something from me as vice president in exchange for millions of bucks, but since we never spoke and I never did anything to help him, no crime was committed."
Remarkably, this laughable excuse actually worked with a DC media hell-bent on getting Donald Trump out of office.
But what if Biden lied about talking to his son?
Earlier this year, the New York Post continued breaking news on the contents of the laptop with the revelation that Ukrainian energy executive Vadym Pozharskyi of the notorious Burisma company emailed Hunter in 2015 to thank him for the opportunity to meet his father, the then vice president.
Photos and emails subsequently reported by The Post indicate Joe Biden attended a 2015 dinner at DC’s Cafe Milano with a group of his son’s associates — including Pozharskyi, a trio of Kazakhs and Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, ex-Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov. Baturina is Russia’s richest woman and a 2020 report from Republican-led Senate committees alleges that in 2014 she paid $3.5 million to a firm associated with Hunter Biden.
These multiple connections between Hunter's clients and Vice President Biden stretch the definition of "coincidental" and certainly lead one to believe that somewhere along the line, Biden knew that his son was cashing in on these meetings and probably had even a casual exchange of words about them.
Last Spring, then-Press Secretary Jen Psaki reaffirmed the categorical denial that Biden has never had any discussions with his son about these deals, despite the obvious circumstantial evidence to the contrary.
The case that Biden lied about his unequivocal "I've never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings" has always been batted away by the excuse that Biden was just showing up for a photo-op but had no real knowledge of what Hunter was up to.
Call it a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy that Biden appears to have tenuously maintained with his son. The Sgt. Schulz defense. "I know nothing... I SEE NOTHING!" is pretty much how Biden and his partners in the media have treated all of this.
Until now.
“Hey pal, it’s Dad. It’s 8:15 on Wednesday night. If you get a chance just give me a call. Nothing urgent. I just wanted to talk to you. I thought the article released online, it’s going to be printed tomorrow in the Times, was good. I think you’re clear. And anyway if you get a chance give me a call, I love you.”
That's the voice mail Joe Biden left on his son's phone, according to reporting from the Daily Mail.
The New York Times article that Biden appears to be referring to is about Hunter's shenanigans with the Chinese oil giant CEFC.
Files on Hunter's abandoned laptop previously disclosed by DailyMail.com show that he struck a deal with the Chinese company worth millions of dollars after touting his family connections.
The Times' 2018 story pointed out CEFC's chairman Ye Jianming had been arrested in China and his top lieutenant Patrick Ho had been convicted in the US for bribing African officials to help Iran evade oil sanctions.
It revealed that Ye had met with Hunter at a Miami hotel in 2017 to discuss 'a partnership to invest in American infrastructure and energy deals.'
Now, how could Joe Biden possibly know that Hunter was "clear" if he didn't have a good understanding of the extent of his son's deal with CEFC in the first place? Furthermore, just Biden's desire to discuss the article with his son runs contrary to his earlier, categorical denial of having "never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings," as this specific voice mail was Biden doing just that.
He lied. But we knew that. Now, we have evidence to prove it.
Indeed, this week the response from now-Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was markedly different from her predecessor's just a few months ago. "Well, first, I'll say that what the president said stands. So if he — that's what the president said, that is what stands," she said.
Wait.. what? "IF that's what the president said"? Of course, that's what Biden said. Now we're beginning the equivocation as to whether he said what we all heard him say?
And after the equivocation came the obfuscation.
"We're not, from this podium — I'm not going to talk about alleged materials from the laptop," Jean-Pierre told the ever-curious Doocy.
So he lied. He continues to lie. And now there is evidence to prove he's been lying the whole time.
How much longer will Doocy be the lone journalist to press the White House on these issues?
And will Republicans who are looking to gain control of the House and the Senate actually have the wherewithal to tell the American voters that should they succeed this November, the investigative committees will begin on Day 1 in January?
That's exactly what they should do. They need to give us something to vote for, not just a party to vote against. And, let's face it, those investigative committees would be mobilized if it were the Democrats scrutinizing a Republican president with the same kind of corrupt entanglements.