Turley: Biden campaign got the media to buy into the Hunter laptop 'illusion'
Constitutional law professor and attorney Jonathan Turley on how the intelligence community worked with the Biden campaign to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election.
Constitutional lawyer Jonathan Turley slammed the media for its coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Turley contended that the media uncritically accepted the Biden campaign's talking point that the laptop was Russian disinformation.
"The media immediately said, we're not going to report on this. Even before the letter came out, they were resisting it," Turley said on Fox New's "Brian Kilmeade Show".
"Yet when they get this unsupported letter, they just immediately replicate it. They don't ask. They don't press on where it came from, who was behind it," he continued.
Turley was referring to a letter that was signed by dozens of former intelligence officials that falsely claimed the contents of the Hunter Biden laptop were Russian disinformation.
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WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 12: WFP USA Board Chair Hunter Biden introduces his father Vice President Joe Biden during the World Food Program USA's 2016 McGovern-Dole Leadership Award Ceremony at the Organization of American States on April 12, 2016 in Washington, DC. (Kris Connor/WireImage)
Turley said much of the laptop material, such as the emails, could have been easily verified had the media done its due diligence.
"I think part of the reason is that the Biden campaign really was brilliant in how they handled this. They got the media to buy in to the illusion by calling an audience member to the stage to make something disappear," Turley said.
First Lady Melania Trump, left, and President Donald Trump, center, remain on stage as Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, walk away at the conclusion of the second and final presidential debate Thursday, Oct. 22, 2020, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Turley also compared the Department of Justice's seemingly slow progress in its Hunter Biden investigation to the rapid indictments of various Trump campaign officials.
"I don't see how you can possibly look at these records and not find that he was an unregistered foreign agent. The Department of Justice slam various toward the various Trump officials with these FARA violations, including Paul Manafort," Turley said.
President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, step off Air Force One, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023, at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, N.Y. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
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"There are really strong analogies between this and the Manafort case. So that's an example of how this one seems to be moving at a glacial pace when they seem to move with great dispatch against people like Paul Manafort," he continued.
President Biden is expected to announce his re-election bid next week.
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