Glenn Greenwald posts Biden article The Intercept refused to publish where he tears into 'biased' journalists for 'making excuses' for Joe - and shares his editors' demands to 'narrow down' his corruption claims

  • Greenwald wanted to publish an article on The Intercept about media bias towards Joe Biden 
  • His argument was that the majority of outlets have refused to question Biden aggressively over his son's business dealings abroad
  • The biggest question is over emails the NY Post revealed in which it is suggested that Biden met with a Ukrainian businessman 
  • Greenwald, in his article, condemned Facebook and Twitter for censoring that article
  • He also mapped out how multiple journalists from left-leaning outlets had refused to cover the story
  • He said they 'don't want to know' and that there are clear prejudices 
  • His editors wanted to revise the piece and make it less suggestive that Biden had ever done anything wrong 
  • Greenwald, outraged, said he was being censored and tendered his resignation 
  • SCROLL DOWN TO READ GREENWALD'S FULL PIECE  

Glenn Greenwald on Thursday night. He resigned from The Intercept

Glenn Greenwald on Thursday night. He resigned from The Intercept 

Glenn Greenwald has posted the article The Intercept refused to publish in which he slams the media for their 'obvious' bias towards Joe Biden and has also released the emails with his editors in which they told him to edit the piece to make it less suggestive that Biden has ever acted unethically. 

Greenwald resigned from The Intercept- the website he co-founded - this week after a row over the article. 

It started with a recent story by The New York Post about Hunter Biden, his emails to a Ukrainian businessman and the suggestion that Hunter introduced that businessman to his father Joe when Joe was the Vice President, at a time when Hunter was also on the businessman's payroll.  

It raises serious questions about whether Biden used his influence as Vice President unethically because, in the months after the purported meeting, he pressured Ukrainian officials into firing a prosecutor who was pushing down on the businessman. 

Facebook and Twitter censored the Post's article within days, claiming invariably that it needed to be fact-checked and that it didn't meet policy standards. 

Even though neither Joe nor Hunter have denied the emails' authenticity, no journalists have aggressively taken either of them to task over the story.

Greenwald wanted to use the chain of events to highlight how the media has become biased but his editors, Betsy Reed and Peter Maas, rejected a first draft of it, calling for it to be revised and edited down. 

Specifically, they said he needed to tone down any suggestion that Biden had acted corruptly.  They also said it was acceptable that much of the media ignored the story because they did not have access to the hard-drive the files came from, even though the Post did. 

Greenwald refused then resigned, sharing a blog post on the subject.  On Thursday night, he published the unedited article in full on his own website and he has since published it on DailyMail.com. It can be read in full at the bottom of this article and here.  

He has also published his email exchanges with Reed and Maas, where he says his work should not become subject to the 'whims' of editors. 

The article says the bigger scandal than the emails themselves is the media's 'clear' bias.

It is titled 'THE REAL SCANDAL: U.S. MEDIA USES FALSEHOODS TO DEFEND JOE BIDEN FROM HUNTER’S EMAILS'.  

 

Greenwald published the unedited article on a blog on Thursday night. This is his introduction to it

Greenwald published the unedited article on a blog on Thursday night. This is his introduction to it

It maps out how the media has become so 'eager' for Biden to win that journalists are 'ignoring' vital pieces of information and stories. 

'In the two weeks since the Post published its initial story, a union of the nation's most powerful entities, including its news media, have taken extraordinary steps to obscure and bury these questions rather than try to provide answers to them,' Greenwald wrote. 

He called Facebook and Twitter's censorship of the story 'highly unusual' and pointed out that Facebook's decision, at least, seemed to have been made by a 'long-time former Democratic Party operative'. 

He was referring to their communications director Andy Stone who announced the decision on Facebook. 

Greenwald then singled out journalists for refusing to discuss or report on the story. 

The emails were revealed along with photos of Biden's son Hunter, among other things, with a crack pipe in his mouth

The emails were revealed along with photos of Biden's son Hunter, among other things, with a crack pipe in his mouth

He mentioned 60 Minutes reporter Leslie Stahl and CNN's Christiane Amanpour, both of whom said on air that they can't be verified and that is why they shouldn't report on them, even though no one, including the Bidens, has claimed that they are fake. 

He also made the point that no such standard was applied to The New York Times' vilification of Trump's taxes in 2016. 

'That a media outlet should even consider refraining from reporting on materials they know to be authentic and in the public interest because of questions about their provenance is the opposite of how journalism has been practiced. 

'In the days before the 2016 election, for instance, the New York Times received by mail one year of Donald Trump's tax returns and -- despite having no idea who sent it to them or how that person obtained it: was is stolen or hacked by a foreign power? -- the Times reported on its contents,' he writes. 

Greenwald said the truth of the matter was that 'these journalists are desperate not to know' about anything that could harm Biden's election chances. 

'A media outlet that renounces its core function -- pursuing answers to relevant questions about powerful people -- is one that deserves to lose the public's faith and confidence. 

'And that is exactly what the U.S. media, with some exceptions, attempted to do with this story: they took the lead not in investigating these documents but in concocting excuses for why they should be ignored....

'The reality is the U.S. press has been planning for this moment for four years — cooking up justifications for refusing to report on newsworthy material that might help Donald Trump get re-elected. 

Greenwald singled out journalists Leslie Stahl and Christiane Amanpour as among those who have refused to properly question the Biden emails, saying on air that they can't be validated
Greenwald singled out journalists Leslie Stahl and Christiane Amanpour as among those who have refused to properly question the Biden emails, saying on air that they can't be validated

Greenwald singled out journalists Leslie Stahl and Christiane Amanpour as among those who have refused to properly question the Biden emails, saying on air that they can't be validated

Greenwald also shared snippets from other articles where journalists say there is no proof Russia was involved in the emails being released, despsite suggesting as much

Greenwald also shared snippets from other articles where journalists say there is no proof Russia was involved in the emails being released, despsite suggesting as much

'One major factor is the undeniable truth that journalists with national outlets based in New York, Washington and West Coast cities overwhelmingly not just favor Joe Biden but are desperate to see Donald Trump defeated.' 

In his first response to Greenwald's draft, his editor Peter Maas told him that 'significant revisions' were needed. 

'Glenn, I have carefully read your draft and there is some I agree with and some I disagree with but am comfortable publishing.

'However, there is some material at the core of this draft that I think is very flawed. 

 'A media outlet that renounces its core function -- pursuing answers to relevant questions about powerful people -- is one that deserves to lose the public's faith and confidence.

'Overall I think this piece can work best if it is significantly narrowed down to what you first discussed with Betsy — media criticism about liberal journalists not asking Biden the questions he should be asked more forcefully, and why they are failing to do that.

'Betsy agrees with me that the draft’s core problem is the connection it often asserts or assumes between the Hunter Biden emails and corruption by Joe Biden,' he said. 

He went on to say that Greenwald made 'vague' remarks about certain aspects of Biden's business dealings, and that the piece should focus more on media bias. 

'I think the draft could work if it is revised and shortened to focus on the sections about liberal media bias, about Joe Biden not being directly asked questions as much as he should (using your submitted questions to center that), and how all of this contributed to sub-optimal amounts of reporting on the corruption allegations, which, although they aren’t backed by any evidence implicating Joe Biden himself, nonetheless reveal greater detail about how his family has used his name for profit. 

'This version could be around 2000 words, which is enough to cover the ground I’ve outlined here. I realize that I’m asking for a significant revision, but it’s what I believe the draft needs, and Betsy concurs.

'Please let me know what you think. Bests, Peter,' he signed off. 

Some of editor Peter Maas' response to Greenwald about his article where he told him to 'narrow it down' to make fewer suggestions that Biden had actually acted corruptly

Some of editor Peter Maas' response to Greenwald about his article where he told him to 'narrow it down' to make fewer suggestions that Biden had actually acted corruptly 

Greenwald replied, refusing to make the suggested edits because he said they were core to the piece. 

'Hi Peter - Thanks for reviewing this promptly.

'I don't agree that the sections regarding the serious questions raised by the emails that Biden should have to answer are either unnecessary or inaccurate. 

'While I'm willing to talk about any specific factual inaccuracies you think are present, I'm not willing to remove those sections -- in part because I think that discussion is important in its own right, but also because the discussion of why the media should be pursuing this story more aggressively, and why they were wrong to try to bury it, requires demonstrating that there's a real story here that deserves coverage,' he said.

He goes on to say he was 'careful' in his presentation of the facts and that he does not, anywhere, suggest there is proof of Biden acting unethically. 

'But if the Intercept's position is that it won't publish any article by me that suggests that there are valid questions about whether Joe Biden engaged in wrongdoing, then I think we should agree that the Intercept's position is that it is unwilling to publish the article I want to publish about the Democratic front-runner. 

'Under my contract, if TI decides it does not want to publish something I want to publish, then I have the right to publish it elsewhere, which is a right I would exercise with this article.

'Given the obvious time urgency of the article with the election approaching, I'd appreciate you're letting me know ASAP about what you want to do. Thanks,Glenn,' he said. 

Greenwald then sent another the following morning to emphasize his point. 

Greenwald says the media is 'eager' for Biden to win

Greenwald says the media is 'eager' for Biden to win 

In that email, he argued: 'This is the first time in fifteen years of my writing about politics that I've been censored -- i.e., told by others that I can't publish what I believe or think -- and it's happening less than a week before a presidential election, and this censorship is being imposed by editors who eagerly want the candidate I'm writing about critically to win the election.

'I'm not saying your motive or anyone else's is a desire to suppress critical reporting about the Democratic presidential candidate you support in order to help him win. I obviously can't know your internal motives. 

'It could be that your intense eagerness for Biden to win -- shared by every other TI editor in New York -- colors your editorial judgment (just as it's possible that my view that the Democratic Party is corrupt may be coloring mine) '. 

He called it 'disturbing and extreme' that the editors wanted to make so many changes. 

'What's happening here is obvious: you know that you can't explicitly say you don't want to publish the article because it raises questions about the candidate you and all other TI Editors want very much to win the election in 5 days,' he fumed. 

Greenwald did not publish any response from Maas. He shared what Reed said in response.  

'Our intention in sending the memo was for you to revise the story for publication. 

'However, it's clear from your response this morning that you are unwilling to engage in a productive editorial process on this article, as we had hoped.

'It would be unfortunate and detrimental to The Intercept for this story to be published elsewhere.

'I have to add that your comments about The Intercept and your colleagues are offensive and unacceptable,' she said.

Greenwald tendered his resignation afterwards, and published a blog post on the subject. 

He has since gone on Fox News, claiming the CIA and the Democrats are 'in bed' to boost Biden's election chances and thwart Trump's. 

'The CIA and the deep state operative became heroes of the liberal left, the people who support the democratic party. They are now in a full union with the neocons and the Bush Cheney operatives, the CIA, silicon valley and Wall Street.

'That is the union of power, along with along with mainstream media outlets, that are fully behind the democratic party which is likely to at least take over one branch of government, if not all of them, in the coming election and that's a very alarming proposition because they are authoritarian, they believe in censorship and suppression of information that exposes them in any kind of a critical light,' he told Tucker Carlson on Thursday night. 

THE REAL SCANDAL: U.S. MEDIA USES FALSEHOODS TO DEFEND JOE BIDEN FROM HUNTER'S EMAILS

Glenn Greenwald

Publication by the New York Post two weeks ago of emails from Hunter Biden's laptop, relating to Vice President Joe Biden's work in Ukraine, and subsequent articles from other outlets concerning the Biden family's pursuit of business opportunities in China, provoked extraordinary efforts by a de facto union of media outlets, Silicon Valley giants and the intelligence community to suppress these stories.

One outcome is that the Biden campaign concluded, rationally, that there is no need for the front-running presidential candidate to address even the most basic and relevant questions raised by these materials. Rather than condemn Biden for ignoring these questions -- the natural instinct of a healthy press when it comes to a presidential election -- journalists have instead led the way in concocting excuses to justify his silence.

After the Post's first article, both that newspaper and other news outlets have published numerous other emails and texts purportedly written to and from Hunter reflecting his efforts to induce his father to take actions as Vice President beneficial to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, on whose board of directors Hunter sat for a monthly payment of $50,000, as well as proposals for lucrative business deals in China that traded on his influence with his father.

Individuals included in some of the email chains have confirmed the contents' authenticity. One of Hunter's former business partners, Tony Bubolinski, has stepped forward on the record to confirm the authenticity of many of the emails and to insist that Hunter along with Joe Biden's brother Jim were planning on including the former Vice President in at least one deal in China. And GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who appeared in one of the published email chains, appeared to confirm the authenticity as well, though he refused to answer follow-up questions about it.

Thus far, no proof has been offered by Bubolinski that Biden ever consummated his participation in any of those discussed deals. The Wall Street Journal says that it found no corporate records reflecting that a deal was finalized and that 'text messages and emails related to the venture that were provided to the Journal by Mr. Bobulinski, mainly from the spring and summer of 2017, don't show either Hunter Biden or James Biden discussing a role for Joe Biden in the venture.'

But nobody claimed that any such deals had been consummated -- so the conclusion that one had not been does not negate the story. Moreover, some texts and emails whose authenticity has not been disputed state that Hunter was adamant that any discussions about the involvement of the Vice President be held only verbally and never put in writing.

Beyond that, the Journal's columnist Kimberly Strassel reviewed a stash of documents and 'found correspondence corroborates and expands on emails recently published by the New York Post,' including ones where Hunter was insisting that it was his connection to his father that was the greatest asset sought by the Chinese conglomerate with whom they were negotiating. The New York Times on Sunday reached a similar conclusion: while no documents prove that such a deal was consummated, 'records produced by Mr. Bobulinski show that in 2017, Hunter Biden and James Biden were involved in negotiations about a joint venture with a Chinese energy and finance company called CEFC China Energy,' and 'make clear that Hunter Biden saw the family name as a valuable asset, angrily citing his 'family's brand' as a reason he is valuable to the proposed venture.'

These documents also demonstrate, reported the Times, 'that the countries that Hunter Biden, James Biden and their associates planned to target for deals overlapped with nations where Joe Biden had previously been involved as vice president.' Strassel noted that 'a May 2017 'expectations' document shows Hunter receiving 20% of the equity in the venture and holding another 10% for 'the big guy'—who Mr. Bobulinski attests is Joe Biden.' And the independent journalist Matt Taibbi published an article on Sunday with ample documentation suggesting that Biden's attempt to replace a Ukranian prosecutor in 2015 benefited Burisma.

All of these new materials, the authenticity of which has never been disputed by Hunter Biden or the Biden campaign, raise important questions about whether the former Vice President and current front-running presidential candidate was aware of efforts by his son to peddle influence with the Vice President for profit, and also whether the Vice President ever took actions in his official capacity with the intention, at least in part, of benefitting his son's business associates. But in the two weeks since the Post published its initial story, a union of the nation's most powerful entities, including its news media, have taken extraordinary steps to obscure and bury these questions rather than try to provide answers to them.

Joe Biden (right) his son Hunter Biden (left)

Joe Biden (right) his son Hunter Biden (left)

The initial documents, claimed the New York Post, were obtained when the laptops containing them were left at a Delaware repair shop with water damage and never picked up, allowing the owner to access its contents and then turn them over to both the FBI and a lawyer for Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani. The repair store owner confirmed this narrative in interviews with news outlets and then (under penalty of prosecution) to a Senate Committee; he also provided the receipt purportedly signed by Hunter. Neither Hunter nor the Biden campaign has denied these claims.

Publication of that initial New York Post story provoked a highly unusual censorship campaign by Facebook and Twitter. Facebook, through a long-time former Democratic Party operative, vowed to suppress the story pending its 'fact-check,' one that has as of yet produced no public conclusions. And while Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologized for Twitter's handling of the censorship and reversed the policy that led to the blocking of all links the story, the New York Post, the nation's fourth-largest newspaper, continues to be locked out of its Twitter account, unable to post as the election approaches, for almost two weeks.

After that initial censorship burst from Silicon Valley, whose workforce and oligarchs have donated almost entirely to the Biden campaign, it was the nation's media outlets and former CIA and other intelligence officials who took the lead in constructing reasons why the story should be dismissed, or at least treated with scorn. As usual for the Trump era, the theme that took center stage to accomplish this goal was an unsubstantiated claim about the Kremlin responsibility for the story.

Numerous news outlets, including the Intercept, quickly cited a public letter signed by former CIA officials and other agents of the security state claiming that the documents have the 'classic trademarks' of a 'Russian disinformation' plot. But, as media outlets and even intelligence agencies are now slowly admitting, no evidence has ever been presented to corroborate this assertion. On Friday, the New York Times reported that 'no concrete evidence has emerged that the laptop contains Russian disinformation' and the paper said even the FBI has 'acknowledged that it had not found any Russian disinformation on the laptop.'

The Washington Post on Sunday published an op-ed -- by Thomas Rid, one of those centrists establishmentarian professors whom media outlets routinely use to provide the facade of expert approval for deranged conspiracy theories -- that contained this extraordinary proclamation: 'We must treat the Hunter Biden leaks as if they were a foreign intelligence operation — even if they probably aren't.' 

   

Even the letter from the former intelligence officials cited by The Intercept and other outlets to insinuate that this was all part of some 'Russian disinformation' scheme explicitly admitted that 'we do not have evidence of Russian involvement,' though many media outlets omitted that crucial acknowledgement when citing the letter in order to disparage the story as a Kremlin plot:

Despite this complete lack of evidence, the Biden campaign adopted this phrase used by intelligence officials and media outlets as its mantra for why the materials should not be discussed and why they would not answer basic questions about them. 'I think we need to be very, very clear that what he's doing here is amplifying Russian misinformation,' said Biden Deputy Campaign Manager Kate Bedingfield about the possibility that Trump would raise the Biden emails at Thursday night's debate. Biden's senior advisor Symone Sanders similarly warned on MSNBC: 'if the president decides to amplify these latest smears against the vice president and his only living son, that is Russian disinformation.'

The few mainstream journalists who tried merely to discuss these materials have been vilified. For the crime of simply noting it on Twitter that first day, New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman had her name trend all morning along with the derogatory nickname 'MAGA Haberman.' CBS News' Bo Erickson was widely attacked even by his some in the media simply for asking Biden what his response to the story was. And Biden himself refused to answer, accusing Erickson of spreading a 'smear.'

That it is irresponsible and even unethical to mention these documents became a pervasive view in mainstream journalism. The NPR Public Editor, in an anazing statement representative of much of the prevailing media mentality, explicitly justified NPR's refusal to cover the story on the ground that 'we do not want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories . . . [or] waste the readers' and listeners' time on stories that are just pure distractions.' 

 


To justify her own show's failure to cover the story, 60 Minutes' Leslie Stahl resorted to an entirely different justification. 'It can't be verified,' the CBS reporter claimed when confronted by President Trump in an interview about her program's failure to cover the Hunter Biden documents. When Trump insisted there were multiple ways to verify the materials on the laptop, Stahl simply repeated the same phrase: 'it can't be verified.'

After the final presidential debate on Thursday night, a CNN panel mocked the story as too complex and obscure for anyone to follow -- a self-fulfilling prophecy given that, as the network's media reporter Brian Stelter noted with pride, the story has barely been mentioned either on CNN or MSNBC. As the New York Times noted on Friday: 'most viewers of CNN and MSNBC would not have heard much about the unconfirmed Hunter Biden emails.... CNN's mentions of 'Hunter' peaked at 20 seconds and MSNBC's at 24 seconds one day last week.'

On Sunday, CNN's Christiane Amanpour barely pretended to be interested in any journalism surrounding the story, scoffing during an interview at requests from the RNC's Elizabeth Harrington to cover the story and verify the documents by telling her: 'We're not going to do your work for you.' Watch how the U.S.'s most mainstream journalists are openly announcing their refusal to even consider what these documents might reflect about the Democratic front-runner:

 

These journalists are desperate not to know. As Taibbi wrote on Sunday about this tawdry press spectacle: ' The least curious people in the country right now appear to be the credentialed news media, a situation normally unique to tinpot authoritarian societies.'

All of those excuses and pretexts — emanating largely from a national media that is all but explicit in their eagerness for Biden to win — served for the first week or more after the Post story to create a cone of silence around this story and, to this very day, a protective shield for Biden. As a result, the front-running presidential candidate knows that he does not have to answer even the most basic questions about these documents because most of the national press has already signaled that they will not press him to do so; to the contrary, they will concoct defenses on his behalf to avoid discussing it.

The relevant questions for Biden raised by this new reporting are as glaring as they are important. Yet Biden has had to answer very few of them yet because he has not been asked and, when he has, media outlets have justified his refusal to answer rather than demand that he do so. We submitted nine questions to his campaign about these documents that the public has the absolute right to know, including:

  • whether he claims any the emails or texts are fabricated (and, if so, which specific ones); 
  • whether he knows if Hunter did indeed drop off laptops at the Delaware repair store; 
  • whether Hunter ever asked him to meet with Burisma executives or whether he in fact did so; 
  • whether Biden ever knew about business proposals in Ukraine or China being pursued by his son and brother in which Biden was a proposed participant and,
  • how Biden could justify expending so much energy as Vice President demanding that the Ukrainian General Prosecutor be fired, and why the replacement — Yuriy Lutsenko, someone who had no experience in law; was a crony of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko; and himself had a history of corruption allegations — was acceptable if Biden's goal really was to fight corruption in Ukraine rather than benefit Burisma or control Ukrainian internal affairs for some other objective    

Though the Biden campaign indicated that they would respond to the Intercept's questions, they have not done so. A statement they released to other outlets contains no answers to any of these questions except to claim that Biden 'has never even considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any business overseas.' To date, even as the Biden campaign echoes the baseless claims of media outlets that anyone discussing this story is 'amplifying Russian disinformation,' neither Hunter Biden nor the Biden campaign have even said whether they claim the emails and other documents -- which they and the press continue to label 'Russian disinformation' -- are forgeries or whether they are authentic.

The Biden campaign clearly believes it has no need to answer any of these questions by virtue of a panoply of media excuses offered on its behalf that collapse upon the most minimal scrutiny:

First, the claim that the material is of suspect authenticity or cannot be verified -- the excuse used on behalf of Biden by Leslie Stahl and Christiane Amanpour, among others -- is blatantly false for numerous reasons. As someone who has reported similar large archives in partnership with numerous media outlets around the world (including the Snowden archive in 2014 and the Intercept's Brazil Archive over the last year showing corruption by high-level Bolsonaro officials), and who also covered the reporting of similar archives by other outlets (the Panama Papers, the WikiLeaks war logs of 2010 and DNC/Podesta emails of 2016), it is clear to me that the trove of documents from Hunter Biden's emails has been verified in ways quite similar to those.

With an archive of this size, one can never independently authenticate every word in every last document unless the subject of the reporting voluntarily confirms it in advance, which they rarely do. What has been done with similar archives is journalists obtain enough verification to create high levels of journalistic confidence in the materials. Some of the materials provided by the source can be independently confirmed, proving genuine access by the source to a hard drive, a telephone, or a database. Other parties in email chains can confirm the authenticity of the email or text conversations in which they participated. One investigates non-public facts contained in the documents to determine that they conform to what the documents reflect. Technology specialists can examine the materials to ensure no signs of forgeries are detected.

This is the process that enabled the largest and most established media outlets around the world to report similar large archives obtained without authorization. In those other cases, no media outlet was able to verify every word of every document prior to publication. There was no way to prove the negative that the source or someone else had not altered or forged some of the material. That level of verification is both unattainable and unnecessary. What is needed is substantial evidence to create high confidence in the authentication process.

The Hunter Biden documents have at least as much verification as those other archives that were widely reported. There are sources in the email chains who have verified that the published emails are accurate. The archive contains private photos and videos of Hunter whose authenticity is not in doubt. A former business partner of Hunter has stated, unequivocally and on the record, that not only are the emails authentic but they describe events accurately, including proposed participation by the former Vice President in at least one deal Hunter and Jim Biden were pursuing in China. And, most importantly of all, neither Hunter Biden nor the Biden campaign has even suggested, let alone claimed, that a single email or text is fake.

Why is the failure of the Bidens to claim that these emails are forged so significant? Because when journalists report on a massive archive, they know that the most important event in the reporting's authentication process comes when the subjects of the reporting have an opportunity to deny that the materials are genuine. Of course that is what someone would do if major media outlets were preparing to publish, or in fact were publishing, fabricated or forged materials in their names; they would say so in order to sow doubt about the materials if not kill the credibility of the reporting.

The silence of the Bidens may not be dispositive on the question of the material's authenticity, but when added to the mountain of other authentication evidence, it is quite convincing: at least equal to the authentication evidence in other reporting on similarly large archives.

Second, the oft-repeated claim from news outlets and CIA operatives that the published emails and texts were 'Russian disinformation' was, from the start, obviously baseless and reckless. No evidence — literally none — has been presented to suggest involvement by any Russians in the dissemination of these materials, let alone that it was part of some official plot by Moscow. As always, anything is possible — when one does not know for certain what the provenance of materials is, nothing can be ruled out — but in journalism, evidence is required before news outlets can validly start blaming some foreign government for the release of information. And none has ever been presented. Yet the claim that this was 'Russian disinformation' was published in countless news outlets, television broadcasts, and the social media accounts of journalists, typically by pointing to the evidence-free claims of ex-CIA officials.

Worse is the 'disinformation' part of the media's equation. How can these materials constitute 'disinformation' if they are authentic emails and texts actually sent to and from Hunter Biden? The ease with which news outlets that are supposed to be skeptical of evidence-free pronouncements by the intelligence community instead printed their assertions about 'Russian disinformation' is alarming in the extreme. But they did it because they instinctively wanted to find a reason to justify ignoring the contents of these emails, so claiming that Russia was behind it, and that the materials were 'disinformation,' became their placeholder until they could figure out what else they should say to justify ignoring these documents.

Third, the media rush to exonerate Biden on the question of whether he engaged in corruption vis-a-vis Ukraine and Burisma rested on what are, at best, factually dubious defenses of the former Vice President. Much of this controversy centers on Biden's aggressive efforts while Vice President in late 2015 to force the Ukrainian government to fire its Chief Prosecutor, Viktor Shokhin, and replace him with someone acceptable to the U.S., which turned out to be Yuriy Lutsenko. These events are undisputed by virtue of a video of Biden boasting in front of an audience of how he flew to Kiev and forced the Ukrainians to fire Shokhin, upon pain of losing $1 billion in aid.

But two towering questions have long been prompted by these events, and the recently published emails make them more urgent than ever: 1) was the firing of the Ukrainian General Prosecutor such a high priority for Biden as Vice President of the U.S. because of his son's highly lucrative role on the board of Burisma, and 2) if that was not the motive, why was it so important for Biden to dictate who the chief prosecutor of Ukraine was?

The standard answer to the question about Biden's motive -- offered both by Biden and his media defenders -- is that he, along with the IMF and EU, wanted Shokhin fired because the U.S. and its allies were eager to clean up Ukraine, and they viewed Shokhin as insufficiently vigilant in fighting corruption.

'Biden's brief was to sweet-talk and jawbone Poroshenko into making reforms that Ukraine's Western benefactors wanted to see as,' wrote the Washington Post's Glenn Kessler in what the Post calls a 'fact-check.' Kessler also endorsed the key defense of Biden: that the firing of Shokhin was bad for Burima, not good for it. 'The United States viewed [Shokhin] as ineffective and beholden to Poroshenko and Ukraine's corrupt oligarchs. In particular, Shokin had failed to pursue an investigation of the founder of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky,' Kessler claims.

But that claim does not even pass the laugh test. The U.S. and its European allies are not opposed to corruption by their puppet regimes. They are allies with the most corrupt regimes on the planet, from Riyadh to Cairo, and always have been. Since when does the U.S. devote itself to ensuring good government in the nations it is trying to control? If anything, allowing corruption to flourish has been a key tool in enabling the U.S. to exert power in other countries and to open up their markets to U.S. companies.

Beyond that, if increasing prosecutorial independence and strengthening anti-corruption vigilance were really Biden's goal in working to demand the firing of the Ukrainian chief prosecutor, why would the successor to Shokhin, Yuriy Lutsenko, possibly be acceptable? Lutsenko, after all, had 'no legal background as general prosecutor,' was principally known only as a lackey of Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, was forced in 2009 to 'resign as interior minister after being detained by police at Frankfurt airport for being drunk and disorderly,' and 'was subsequently jailed for embezzlement and abuse of office, though his defenders said the sentence was politically motivated.'

 

Is it remotely convincing to you that Biden would have accepted someone like Lutsenko if his motive really were to fortify anti-corruption prosecutions in Ukraine? Yet that's exactly what Biden did: he personally told Poroshenko that Lutsenko was an acceptable alternative and promptly released the $1 billion after his appointment was announced. Whatever Biden's motive was in using his power as U.S. Vice President to change the prosecutor in Ukraine, his acceptance of someone like Lutsenko strongly suggests that combatting Ukrainian corruption was not it.

As for the other claim on which Biden and his media allies have heavily relied — that firing Shokhin was not a favor for Burisma because Shokhin was not pursuing any investigations against Burisma — the evidence does not justify that assertion.

It is true that no evidence, including these new emails, constitute proof that Biden's motive in demanding Shokhin's termination was to benefit Burisma. But nothing demonstrates that Shokhin was impeding investigations into Burisma. Indeed, the New York Times in 2019 published one of the most comprehensive investigations to date of the claims made in defense of Biden when it comes to Ukraine and the firing of this prosecutor, and, while noting that 'no evidence has surfaced that the former vice president intentionally tried to help his son by pressing for the prosecutor general's dismissal,' this is what its reporters concluded about Shokhin and Burisma:

The Times added: 'Mr. Shokhin's office had oversight of investigations into [Burisma's billionaire founder] Zlochevsky and his businesses, including Burisma.' By contrast, they said, Lutsenko, the replacement approved by Vice President Biden, 'initially continued investigating Mr. Zlochevsky and Burisma, but cleared him of all charges within 10 months of taking office.'

So whether or not it was Biden's intention to confer benefits on Burisma by demanding Shokhin's firing, it ended up quite favorable for Burisma given that the utterly inexperienced Lutesenko 'cleared [Burisma's founder] of all charges within 10 months of taking office.'

The new comprehensive report from journalist Taibbi on Sunday also strongly supports the view that there were clear antagonisms between Shokhin and Burisma, such that firing the Ukrainian prosecutor would have been beneficial for Burisma. Taibbi, who reported for many years while based in Russia and remains very well-sourced in the region, detailed:

Taibbi reviews real-time reporting in both Ukraine and the U.S. to document several other pending investigations against Burisma and Zlochevsky that was overseen by the prosecutor whose firing Biden demanded. He notes that Shokhin himself has repeatedly said he was pursuing several investigations against Zlochevsky at the time Biden demanded his firing. In sum, Taibbi concludes, 'one can't say there's no evidence of active Burisma cases even during the last days of Shokin, who says that it was the February, 2016 seizure order [against Zlochevsky's assets] that got him fired.'

And, Taibbi notes, 'the story looks even odder when one wonders why the United States would exercise so much foreign policy muscle to get Shokin fired, only to allow in a replacement — Yuri Lutsenko — who by all accounts was a spectacularly bigger failure in the battle against corruption in general, and Zlochevsky in particular.' In sum: 'it's unquestionable that the cases against Burisma were all closed by Shokin's successor, chosen in consultation with Joe Biden, whose son remained on the board of said company for three more years, earning upwards of $50,000 per month.'

The publicly known facts, augmented by the recent emails, texts and on-the-record accounts, suggest serious sleaze by Joe Biden's son Hunter in trying to peddle his influence with the Vice President for profit. But they also raise real questions about whether Joe Biden knew about and even himself engaged in a form of legalized corruption. Specifically, these newly revealed information suggest Biden was using his power to benefit his son's business Ukrainian associates, and allowing his name to be traded on while Vice President for his son and brother to pursue business opportunities in China. These are questions which a minimally healthy press would want answered, not buried — regardless of how many similar or worse scandals the Trump family has.

But the real scandal that has been proven is not the former Vice President's misconduct but that of his supporters and allies in the U.S. media. As Taibbi's headline put it: 'With the Hunter Biden Exposé, Suppression is a Bigger Scandal Than the Actual Story.'

 

The reality is the U.S. press has been planning for this moment for four years — cooking up justifications for refusing to report on newsworthy material that might help Donald Trump get re-elected. One major factor is the undeniable truth that journalists with national outlets based in New York, Washington and West Coast cities overwhelmingly not just favor Joe Biden but are desperate to see Donald Trump defeated.

It takes an enormous amount of gullibility to believe that any humans are capable of separating such an intense partisan preference from their journalistic judgment. Many barely even bother to pretend: critiques of Joe Biden are often attacked first not by Biden campaign operatives but by political reporters at national news outlets who make little secret of their eagerness to help Biden win.

But much of this has to do with the fallout from the 2016 election. During that campaign, news outlets, including The Intercept, did their jobs as journalists by reporting on the contents of newsworthy, authentic documents: namely, the emails published by WikiLeaks from the John Podesta and DNC inboxes which, among other things, revealed corruption so severe that it forced the resignation of the top five officials of the DNC. That the materials were hacked, and that intelligence agencies were suggesting Russia was responsible, not negate the newsworthiness of the documents, which is why media outlets across the country repeatedly reported on their contents.

Nonetheless, journalists have spent four years being attacked as Trump enablers in their overwhelmingly Democratic and liberal cultural circles: the cities in which they live are overwhelmingly Democratic, and their demographic — large-city, college-educated professionals — has vanishingly little Trump support. A New York Times survey of campaign data from Monday tells just a part of this story of cultural insularity and homogeniety:

Wanting to avoid a repeat of feeling scorn and shunning in their own extremely pro-Democratic, anti-Trump circles, national media outlets have spent four years inventing standards for election-year reporting on hacked materials that never previously existed and that are utterly anathema to the core journalistic function. The Washington Post's Executive Editor Marty Baron, for instance, issued a memo full of cautions about how Post reporters should, or should not, discuss hacked materials even if their authenticity is not in doubt.

That a media outlet should even consider refraining from reporting on materials they know to be authentic and in the public interest because of questions about their provenance is the opposite of how journalism has been practiced. In the days before the 2016 election, for instance, the New York Times received by mail one year of Donald Trump's tax returns and -- despite having no idea who sent it to them or how that person obtained it: was is stolen or hacked by a foreign power? -- the Times reported on its contents.

When asked by NPR why they would report on documents when they do not know the source let alone the source's motives in providing them, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner David Barstow compellingly explained what had always been the core principle of journalism: namely, a journalist only cares about two questions -- (1) are documents authentic and (2) are they in the public interest? -- but does not care about what motives a source has in providing the documents or how they were obtained when deciding whether to reporting them:

The U.S. media often laments that people have lost faith in its pronouncements, that they are increasingly viewed as untrustworthy and that many people view Fake News sites are more reliable than established news outlets. They are good at complaining about this, but very bad at asking whether any of their own conduct is responsible for it.

A media outlet that renounces its core function -- pursuing answers to relevant questions about powerful people -- is one that deserves to lose the public's faith and confidence. And that is exactly what the U.S. media, with some exceptions, attempted to do with this story: they took the lead not in investigating these documents but in concocting excuses for why they should be ignored.

As my colleague Lee Fang put it on Sunday: 'The partisan double standards in the media are mind boggling this year, and much of the supposedly left independent media is just as cowardly and conformist as the mainstream corporate media. Everyone is reading the room and acting out of fear.' Discussing his story from Sunday, Taibbi summed up the most important point this way: 'The whole point is that the press loses its way when it cares more about who benefits from information than whether it's true.'

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