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Former Politico reporters accuse news outlet of killing negative stories about Hunter Biden laptop

Published

2 days ago

6 minute read

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.”

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.

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International

RFK Jr. fires back in defense of vaccine stance amid heated Senate confirmation hearing

Published on January 29, 2025

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From LifeSiteNews

By Emily Mangiaracina

Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. firmly defended his cautious stance on vaccines amid today’s grueling Senate confirmation hearing.

“Are you lying to Congress today when you say you are pro-vaccine, or did you lie on all those podcasts?” pressed Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), suggesting that Kennedy flatly contradicted during interviews his insistence during the hearing that he is not “anti-vaccine.”

Kennedy pointed out to Wyden that he was referring only to a “fragment” of the full statement that he made on the Lex Friedman podcast. “He asked me, ‘Are there any vaccines that are safe and effective?’ And I said to him, some of the live virus vaccines are. And I said, ‘There are no vaccines that are safe and effective — and I was going to continue, ‘for every person.’”

“Every medicine has people who are sensitive to them, including vaccines,” Kennedy continued.

Kennedy has previously clarified that he is not opposed to all vaccines, but has found that, in practice, many of them pose safety problems. He adopted this stance of extreme caution toward vaccines after the mothers of vaccine-injured children implored him to look into the research linking thimerosal to neurological injuries, including autism.

He went on to found Children’s Health Defense, an organization with the stated mission of “ending childhood health epidemics by eliminating toxic exposure,” largely through vaccines.

Kennedy has before stressed that “not one of the 72 vaccines mandated for children has ever been safety tested in pre-licensing, placebo-controlled trials,” something even Dr. Anthony Fauci recently admitted.

If Kennedy is confirmed by the Senate, he will oversee a broad range of health organizations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

In a late October interview, Kennedy shared that Trump has tasked him with cleaning up the corruption in these agencies and ending their conflicts of interest.

In recent years, Kennedy has spoken much about the pattern of corruption and conflicts of interest that he witnessed firsthand during his many years as an environmental attorney. During Kennedy’s presidential run, he discussed how the “corporate capture” of regulatory agencies is the “biggest threat to American democracy.”

According to Kennedy, the problem is pronounced in health agencies. For example, the FDA “gets 50 percent of its budget from Big Pharma” and the NIH “collects royalties when (a) pharma company sells (its) product,” as he explained in an interview last year.

Kennedy and Children’s Health Defense are routinely dismissed as “anti-vax” for openly discussing the scientific evidence regarding the link between vaccines and chronic diseases, including autism, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, and other neuropsychiatric and autoimmune disorders, in some children.

Rather than investigating the science, mainstream media mostly insists these links have been “debunked,” without providing any evidence for their claim.

Kennedy has also called for the removal of fluoride from public drinking water, citing recent studies and a landmark federal court decision that show it interferes with children’s brain development – a concern that has even been flagged by some mainstream public health commentators.

His supporters hope these issues will now receive serious public attention that will lead to policy change.

Kennedy has faced vehement opposition from among establishment professionals, including 77 Nobel laureates who signed a letter urging the Senate to oppose Kennedy’s confirmation as head of HHS.

The New York Times described Kennedy as “a staunch critic of mainstream medicine” who “has been hostile to the scientists and agencies he would oversee.”

To many Americans, those are the perfect qualifications for the next head of HHS.

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espionage

Groups CriDemocracy Watch Calls Hogue Foreign Interference Report “Mostly a Coverup”

Published on January 29, 2025

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A Hogue Commission document shows a 2021 election digital ad attacking then-Conservative leader Erin O’Toole in a Toronto-area grocery store that is linked to a pro-Beijing businessman.

Sam Cooper

Hogue Report Fuels Diaspora Fears Over Ottawa’s Foreign Interference Weakness

Friends of Hong Kong, a non-partisan diaspora group that withdrew from Ottawa’s Foreign Interference Commission a year ago over concerns it would whitewash Chinese interference and endanger diaspora groups, has issued a blistering rebuke of Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue’s final report.

The group argues the 16-month inquiry fails to show the federal government can counter foreign interference.

In a statement detailing their misgivings, the human rights group says the final report “only serves to deepen our serious reservations regarding our government’s willingness and ability to tackle foreign interference.”

The group criticizes Commissioner Hogue for what they deem to be a pattern of “wilful blindness” in assessing the significance of alleged meddling in Canada’s democratic processes. They also take issue with Hogue’s characterization of foreign interference as “isolated cases,” emphasizing that “even one such case is too many for a democracy like ours.”

In February 2024, group leader Ivy Li explained its public statement and decision not to participate, citing concerns about the Commission’s “objectivity and security integrity.” She said these worries partly stemmed from the perception of Commissioner Hogue’s prior professional links to legal networks affiliated with various former Liberal prime ministers, and from a fear that the inquiry would not deeply probe China’s sophisticated, decades-long influence networks in Canada.

“Judge Hogue and her counsel are lacking expertise in how the Chinese Communist Party thinks and operates,” Li said, “[so] they will easily be manipulated in the whole process by Chinese Communist Party proxies.”

Li also pointed to Hogue’s past work at a Quebec law firm with ties to Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien—two prime ministers known for deep political and business connections to the Chinese Communist regime and Liberal-linked industrialists—as a source of concern for Canadian Friends of Hong Kong.

Among the group’s critiques in a statement issued yesterday is a charge that Hogue “downplayed” the threats posed by transnational repression.

“Justice Hogue adds another blow to the confidence of the diaspora communities,” the group’s statement reads, noting many community members live “under constant fear and threats.”

The organization also disputes the commissioner’s assessment that parliamentarians with “problematic relationships” or “questionable ethics” merely acted naively. “It demonstrates a lack of understanding of the extent and threat that such parliamentarians pose to Canadian democracy,” the group warns, expressing fear that Hogue’s approach “will only condone more of such conduct.”

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In addition, Canadian Friends of Hong Kong calls for immediate legislation to implement a Foreign Influence Transparency Registry. They urge that the registry’s scope extend beyond the Lobbying Act to include all political parties, all levels of government, and any appointed public office holders. They also call for granting the commissioner and registry full independence from the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

A second diaspora group, representing Uyghur Canadians, similarly withdrew from the Commission in January 2024. Both organizations cited concerns that senior officials with potential ties to the Chinese government were given high-level access during the proceedings. In a post to X yesterday, Uyghur Canadian group leader Mehmet Tohti wrote: “Downplaying the impact of hostile interference, infiltration, and influence in Canada by the [Commission] not only undermines the gravity of the threat but also sends a dangerous message—whether intentionally or not—that such activities can continue unchecked. … The Commissioner and the commission must recognize that this is not just a policy issue; for many of us, it is a matter of life and death.”

Meanwhile, Duff Conacher, a longtime transparency advocate with Democracy Watch, also took aim at Hogue’s final report, calling it “mostly a cover-up of foreign interference, because it ignores a dozen loopholes in federal laws that allow for secret, undemocratic and unethical spending, fundraising, donations, loans, lobbying and disinformation campaigns by foreign proxies.”

Democracy Watch stated the report “fails to recommend crucial reforms to Canada’s enforcement bodies, which remain politically dependent, slow to act, ineffective, secretive, and unaccountable.” The group added, “Any party that triggers an election before these changes are enacted should be shunned by voters for enabling foreign interference.”

The Bureau is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

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