From LifeSiteNews

By Calvin Freiburger

Top political news outlet Politico spiked unfavorable coverage of presidential son Hunter Biden and the contents of his infamous laptop computer, according to former Politico reporters Tara Palmeri and Marc Caputo.

Top political news outlet Politico spiked unfavorable coverage of presidential son Hunter Biden and the contents of his infamous laptop computer, two of its former reporters alleged in a recent podcast.

In the months before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post released a series of bombshell reports about a laptop belonging to Hunter that was delivered to and abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop. The laptop contained scores of emails and texts detailing the Biden family’s international business activities that exploited Joe’s political office by offering access to the highest levels of the federal government and the various worldwide connections made through that office. The story was initially maligned as “disinformation” but eventually acknowledged as real long after Biden was safely elected.

Puck News reporter Tara Palmeri and Axios reporter Marc Caputo, both formerly with Politico, recently sat down for a discussion on Palmeri’s podcast, the Daily Caller reported, during which they discussed the media coverage of the story.

“Politico did that terrible, ill-fated headline: 51 intelligence agents, or former intelligence agents, say that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation, or bore the hallmarks of disinformation. Turns out that story was closer to disinformation because the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be true,” Caputo said.

“I mean, Politico, my former employer and I knew at the time, didn’t do itself any favors,” he went on. “I was covering Biden at the time, and I remember coming to my editor and saying, ‘Hey, we need to write about the Hunter Biden laptop.’ And I was told this came from on high at Politico: Don’t write about the laptop, don’t talk about the laptop, don’t tweet about the laptop. And the only thing Politico wound up writing was that piece that called it disinformation, which charitably could be called misinformation, at the least.”

“Yeah, I mean, I had a hard time — you know I wrote some pretty serious reporting on Hunter Biden, which actually ended up getting him prosecuted — the story on the gun,” Palmeri agreed. “Cause it was hard to get it done. I spent three months on it, I went to the laptop shop, and I did all of the reporting in Delaware, and I did all of that. But yeah, it had, it had to be like much, it had to be 100% nailed down. I had everything, you know, the police reports, every, like, you know, I’m a solid reporter. But I do wonder if it could have, if it would have been published a little quicker if it was a different type of story. It was the beginning of his administration; it was a honeymoon period — you know what I mean?”

“Since we’re spilling tea about our former employer, I still have a copy of the story on my external hard drive. In 2019, a rival presidential Democratic campaign of Joe Biden’s gave to me the tax lien — the oppo research — the tax lien on Hunter Biden for the period of time that he worked at Burisma,” Caputo added. “And I wrote what would have been a classic story saying, you know, ‘The former vice president’s son was slapped with a big tax lien for the period of time that he worked for this controversial Ukrainian oil concern, or natural gas concern, which is haunting his father on the campaign trail.’ That story was killed by the editors, and they gave no explanation for that either.”

A spokesperson for Politico responded to the Caller, calling their former journalists’ allegations “bullshit” and claiming the publication delivered a “nuanced understanding of the dealings of James Biden, Hunter Biden, and other relatives of the president, along with the ethical questions they raised. Notably, POLITICO was the first to confirm that Hunter Biden’s laptop contained genuine material and to report on the gun incident that led to his conviction.”

The statement does not elaborate on how much time elapsed between that eventual confirmation and the stories Caputo and Palmeri allege were spiked.

Former President Joe Biden issued a sweeping pardon for his son in December 2024 for any federal offenses “which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014, through December 1, 2024, despite repeatedly denying he would do so before the election.

The move not only saved Hunter from whatever sentence he might have received for his conviction on multiple felony counts for tax evasion and illegally purchasing a gun while under the influence of drugs, as well as from any future investigations, but also helps protect the president himself from such cases leading to legal jeopardy for the father.