After a wide-ranging interview on Fox News, former Biden business associate Tony Bobulinski’s allegations have failed to make an impact on reporting. The right takes journalists to task for lack of interest while the left is largely silent on the revelations.
Summary
Former business partner with the Biden family Tony Bobulinski sat for an interview earlier this week, detailing his relationship with Hunter Biden and business associates.
- Bobulinski told Fox News that former Vice President Joe Biden’s son and brother, Jim Biden, began soliciting business in Oman, Luxembourg, and Romania while Biden was still Vice President. Hunter Biden’s work in Romania was previously reported last year.
- In the interview, Bobulinski asserted that former Vice President Biden was “the big guy” referenced in an email about compensation from a proposed joint venture with Chinese energy firm CEFC, in which ten percent was to be held by Hunter Biden and earmarked for “the big guy.”
- During a May 2017 meeting in Los Angeles, the former Vice President allegedly told Bobulisnki to “keep an eye on his son and his brother.”
- According to Bobulinski, during the same trip to Los Angeles, he raised the possibility of future political damage to the Vice President regarding the Biden family’s international business with Jim Biden. The Vice President’s brother allegedly laughed away Bobulisnki’s concerns and simply said “Plausible deniability.”
- Biden associate Rob Walker allegedly contacted Bobulinski when Walker learned Bobulinski was going public with his claims. Walker said to Bobulinski: “Ah, Tony, you’re just going to bury all of us, man.”
- Bobulinski said he wanted to come forward to clear his name and rebut comments by Congressman Adam Schiff that the revelations of the Biden family were “Russian disinformation.”
- Jim Biden did not answer any questions when asked about his brother’s knowledge of his family’s international dealings.
- New York Post’s initial reporting, and the actions of Big Tech to limit the spread of the story, led to yesterday’s Senate hearing on the editorial role social media companies play. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted he had no evidence that story Twitter censored from its service was Russian disinformation.
- A separate Senate committee investigating the authenticity of the documents provided by Bobulinski has verified they are legitimate.
- A day after his interview with Bobulinski, Fox News host Tucker Carlson said on his program documents sent to his show from a separate source were intercepted in-transit. He claims a shipping company contacted the show saying the package had been opened and contents missing.
- Many mainstream outlets have largely played down any of the assertions from Fox News’ interview of Tony Bobulinski. As of 8AM October 29th, CNN has no coverage mentioning Bobulinski at all.
- Coverage and commentary on the left continues to focus on how the development of the story impacts its veracity. The New York Times characterized the story as a “last-ditch effort” by the Trump campaign to change the narrative of the 2020 election.
- The Washington Post dismissed allegations because of their connection to Rudy Giuliani, and wrote “Even if the emails in the Post are legitimate, they do not validate claims that Biden’s actions were influenced by his son’s business dealings.” A Senate report published last month came to the same conclusion about the former Vice President.
- Commentary in The Atlantic argues the media has been too easy on Biden, and criticizes journalists for covering the presidential election as though Trump has already lost.
- National Review criticized the continued lack of media interest in covering the Hunter Biden story because of a lack of verified evidence and their disinterest in verifying it, despite “every major news network was reporting on surreptitiously taped conversation in which the First Lady was grousing about Christmas decorations” the week before the original New York Post story.
- An editorial in the Wall Street Journal similarly criticized the media, saying “nearly all of the press is ignoring the story” and that Biden’s strategy is to “run out the election clock” by refusing to comment on the specifics of the allegations.
- The New York Times’ resident conservative columnist Ross Douthat echoed the argument that Twitter and Facebook’s actions to quash the New York Post’s original story was hypocritical, even more so as details of its origin have emerged. Douthat argues it was clearly a case of “don’t let 2016 happen again.”
- The New York Post chastised the media and provides a list of questions the editorial board believes journalists should be asking the Biden campaign after Tony Bobulinski’s interview.
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© Dallas Gerber, 2020
