[Q4939]
https://thehill.com/people/tony-bobulinski/

Biden’s ‘absolute’ defense of Hunter leaves media and Justice Department in a muddle
thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3257164-bidens-absolute-defense-of-hunter-leaves-media-and-justice-department-in-a-muddle

April 2, 2022
Opinion>Judiciary   by Jonathan Turley, opinion contributor - 04/02/22 10:30 AM ET
The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

“We absolutely stand by the president’s comment.” With those words, White House communications director Kate Bedingfield reaffirmed that President Biden maintains his son Hunter Biden did “nothing [that] was unethical” and never “made money” in China.

Those claims appear demonstrably false 
— and they make the positions of both the media and Attorney General Merrick Garland absolutely untenable.

For the media, the ongoing investigation of Hunter Biden by U.S. Attorney David Weiss in Delaware has presented a growing danger of self-indictment over its prior coverage (or noncoverage). Weiss has called a long line of witnesses before a grand jury, and there is growing expectation of criminal charges against Hunter Biden.

Nothing concentrates the mind as much as a looming indictment.

Thus, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and other media faced the embarrassing prospect of an indictment based on a story they previously suggested was either a nonstory or Russian disinformation. Suddenly, in recent days, they all rushed to declare the story legitimate, 18 months after the New York Post reported it in October 2020.

What quickly emerged, though, was a new narrative: None of this implicates President Biden. On CNN, White House correspondent John Harwood declared, “There is zero evidence that Vice President Biden, or President Biden, has done anything wrong in connection with what Hunter Biden has done.” Anchor Brianna Keilar then added for emphasis that Harwood was making “an important distinction.”

It was important, but not because it was true. While many media figures now willingly admit the legitimacy of Hunter Biden’s abandoned-laptop story, they are avoiding what the emails found on that laptop actually contain. Hundreds of emails appear to detail a multimillion-dollar influence-peddling enterprise by the Biden family, including Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden.

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