President Trump has spent a lot of time harping on voter fraud. He may be correct that there were inappropriate actions done by voters and election officials, but he and his team were unable to prove that to our courts in order to overturn the election. Our election laws will be dealt with in a future column. For now, we must address an issue that impacts our elections in an even more meaningful way. That is how our national press censors (suppresses) newsworthy stories that impacted the 2020 election and possibly beyond.
In a prior column, I stated that the Biden campaign skirted answering questions from the national press and they allowed Biden and his campaign to do such. It was obvious that Biden would continue in the same manner once he was president. So far in the transition he and his staff have continued in the same manner. His communications staff allows one opportunity a week for the press to answer questions and then handpicks friendly members of the press to ask a meager five questions. Biden gave his first full interview to a late-night TV host who at one time was funny. The peculiar aspect is they made such a big deal out of hiring a female-only communications staff. It is quite apparent they will be muzzled for most of the time on the job.
The most flaming example of press negligence that manipulated the election is the case of Hunter Biden. President-elect Biden in his limited statements since the election said two things of consequence on this matter. First, that this story is only to get to him. Yes, that is mostly true, but from all accounts (with ample first-hand evidence) Joe Biden was intimately involved in the affairs of his son. Second, Joe Biden stated that his son Hunter is the smartest person he knows. That is a scary statement. Hunter may be smart, but his wisdom chamber is barren. Ordinary people do not leave a laptop with a massive amount of personal data and communications at a store and then do not retrieve it.
The case for investigating Hunter goes back further. When his father bragged openly about getting a Ukrainian official fired it was time to look into the activities. There was a handful of indicators thereafter, but the vast majority of the press ignored them. After the New York Post printed a major story about Hunter’s horse trading (derived from the famous laptop) on his father’s name, it was time for a deep dive. When Tony Bobulinski came forward as the most credible witness you could possibly want, the press should have been acting like bees in a hive. This is a gargantuan story.
Yet the press not only ignored it, they attacked it and anyone giving the story credence. The penultimate act was the mentally weak Lesley Stahl laughing at President Trump on 60 Minutes for even mentioning Hunter Biden’s misadventures. We are all waiting for the mea culpas.
Let us be clear: there are two parties without guilt here. First is Attorney General William Barr. He has been chastised by some for not leaking there is an active investigation into Hunter Biden. Barr did the correct thing. Just because his predecessors in the Obama Administration and all their plants who stayed in the Dept. of Justice during the Trump Administration leaked matters constantly does not make it right. This is not a tit for tat situation.
And it is not the fault of the tech companies. There is certainly much to dislike about Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al. And Twitter should not have suspended the account of the New York Post once they reported on Hunter’s questionable activities. If the press did their job and reported on this story, then the Tech companies could not have branded the few who did as outliers.
No, it is the press in this country that has fully abdicated its rightful position as protectors of the citizenry through the first amendment. If they are only going to report the negative stories on one side and let the other slide, they have created an extremely dangerous situation. Many Americans would have changed their votes if they knew about Hunter and his father and uncle’s involvement in bilking funds from foreign entities for personal profit.
Just focus on the story of the wife of the Mayor of Moscow sending Hunter $3.5 million. Since these reporters were Russian obsessed for over four years, one would think they would jump on that story. Hunter could easily disprove that if not true. The press never forced him to do so.
Or the constant lie by President-elect Biden that he knew nothing about his son’s (or brother’s) business dealings. That was proved to be an absolute falsehood by Bobulinski with concurrent documentation. How about when Hunter flew on Air Force Two to China and received a commitment for $1.5 billion to be invested in a Hunter entity? He flew home and that was never discussed on the plane? The press should have been all over that and asked for the list of people on the plane and interviewed every one of them. The fact Joe knows nothing about this after the plane trip is as plausible as the story when former Attorney General Loretta Lynch met with former President Bill Clinton during the 2016 campaign and only discussed grandchildren. What is it with Democrats on airplanes and lying about what was discussed?
We could have known there was an FBI investigation of Hunter once the laptop was released. One of the documents from the laptop had a FBI case number on it associated with an open money laundering investigation in Delaware. One reporter followed up. Where were all those crackerjack reporters at the NYT calling their leakers at the FBI and finding out whether there was a case. No one cared. But, worse: no one wanted to know.
Now we have a hot mess on our hands. We have a legitimate investigation into the activities of the son of the incoming president that reliable sources have tied to the son’s activities. This is the fault of the press who were blinded by their hatred of Trump and Republicans so much they did not do their assigned and accepted responsibilities.
We may have a legitimate constitutional crisis and it is all laid at the feet of the press. The fraud happened even before we got to the polling booths and unless there is a change, matters will only get worse.