The establishment media in recent weeks have ramped up their examination of President Joe Biden’s involvement in the Biden family business.
Though the scrutiny is shrouded in caveats and deflections, it could represent a departure from how the establishment media cover the Biden family moving forward.
The congressional testimony from Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s best friend in business, appears to have altered the media’s narrative on Joe Biden’s role in the business. Since Archer’s testimony, the media have shifted from reporting on “allegations” levied by Republicans to serious “claims” made by a witness inside the Biden family’s inner circle.
The first example of the media’s change in tune came from Washington Post columnist Henry Olsen, who published an entire article noting his shift in perspective towards the Bidens’ elaborate scheme.
“I have long dismissed the Hunter Biden story as an irrelevant sideshow, but recent revelations have changed my mind,” Olson wrote. “There’s more than enough evidence to merit a thorough investigation of President Biden’s involvement in his son’s business dealings.”
Olsen cited Devon Archer’s testimony as one of the greatest reasons he changed his mind:
In a second instance, Atlantic Magazine columnist Sarah Chayes published an article Wednesday that blamed Joe Biden for permitting the family’s “access-peddling business.”Devon Archer, Hunter’s former business partner, recently testified before the House Oversight Committee that Hunter’s value to these firms was his family’s “brand” — his presumed access to the then-vice president. At the time, according to Archer’s testimony, Joe Biden attended dinners in Washington with Hunter and members of Burisma, the Ukrainian firm on whose board Hunter served. Joe Biden also regularly participated in phone calls with Hunter and his clients, Archer said.
“The biggest problem with Hunter Biden’s access-peddling business may have been that his father, the president, thought it was fine,” she wrote. “For a president and a political party whose brand stresses integrity, that’s a self-inflicted wound.”
Citing Archer’s testimony, Chayes highlighted the elaborate business operation the Bidens conducted:
Archer’s descriptions of the associates’ activities illustrate what I have found to be the typical modus operandi of such networks. His own corporate holdings, as well as those in which Hunter Biden had a stake, were subdivided and recombined in a dizzying array of similarly named entities that makes any attempt to trace money flows exceedingly difficult. The principals looked outside Europe, the U.S., and Singapore for markets “that were less sensitive,” Archer explained, to public scrutiny of questionable business practices—such as Kazakhstan. “It was pretty wild,” he bragged, citing a hastily assembled lucrative drilling project. “We pulled off a lot.”
A third example of the media’s altered tune came from NBC News. Joe Biden, who is reportedly “consumed” with his son Hunter’s scandals, angrily dismisses White House aides who believe Hunter Biden’s controversial history might politically hurt his father, NBC News’ Carol E. Lee and Monica Alba reported.
“Those close to the president have given up trying, even in the most gingerly of ways, to explain to him the potential political fallout,” the report stated:Even as some outlets published a few critical articles about Joe Biden, the media overall continued to defend the Bidens.For months as Hunter Biden’s legal woes persisted and he prepared to mount a public defense against Republican attacks after several years largely staying silent, Biden’s closest political and legal advisers have had to balance their instincts to protect their boss with his parental desire to protect his son, according to the people familiar with the dynamic. That has resulted in tensions between legal teams for the president and Hunter Biden and very delicate attempts by the president’s advisers to explain to him how his son’s elevated public profile may not be in his best interest when it comes to political goals — specifically winning re-election in what could be a rematch of the 2020 race against Donald Trump, these people said.
Hunter Biden receives worse treatment from the Justice Department (DOJ) than an average citizen in his position, New York Magazine’s Ankush Khardori claimed in a 1,500-word article.
Khardori argued that recently appointed Special Counsel David Weiss victimized Hunter Biden because the prosecutor succumbed to political pressure. Republican lawmakers manipulated Weiss’s team with IRS whistleblower leaks, which “strongly suggests that Biden has been treated worse — not better — than typical people in his position,” Khardori claimed:
People get off without criminal charges for failing to pay much larger sums of money than Biden owed to tax authorities. The gun charge is similarly dubious, and the notion that there is a chargeable case against Biden under FARA [Foreign Agents Registration Act] or a related statute — an idea that is basically now taken for granted in conservative media — is also open to serious doubt.
Polling shows public trust in national news media has plummeted in recent years. Six out of ten Americans say the establishment media are to blame for misinformation, a poll revealed in May.
A February poll found 50 percent of Americans say the national media intend to mislead, misinform, and persuade the public. Only 35 percent say most news organizations can be relied upon.
The same poll found 35 percent of respondents say national news organizations, such as CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the Washington Post, and Politico care more about pushing cultural activism than reporting news that interests their readers, viewers, or listeners.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality
