Why the Hunter Biden probe is a litmus test for the media

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Jordan on Hunter Biden probe: ‘Let’s get to the bottom of this’

House Judiciary Committee ranking member discusses the federal probe into president-elect's son

Now the tables are turned.

After four years in which liberals cheered on the Russia investigation and the Ukraine impeachment--not to mention any hint of trouble involving Ivanka, Jared, Don Jr. or Eric--many are in damage control mode over Hunter Biden.

The disclosure by Joe Biden’s son that the Justice Department is investigating his taxes is often getting scant, almost grudging coverage.

And after years of nothing-to-see-here defenses by conservatives when it comes to Donald Trump and his family, many are playing up the Hunter mess like the second coming of Watergate.

Politics ain’t beanbag, folks.

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CNN, to its credit, was looking into the Hunter tax probe, asked his lawyer and the Biden transition office for comment and was told someone would get back to the network. Instead, the Biden team preempted the story with a statement in which Hunter acknowledged the probe and said he did nothing wrong, and his dad defended him against “the vicious personal attacks of recent months.”

This is a major headache that Joe Biden didn’t need as he assembles a government in the face of a pandemic whose daily death toll just exceeded 3,000.

During the campaign, when the New York Post broke that story about Hunter Biden’s laptop--censored by Twitter--the story and interviews with a former partner got plenty of play on Fox News and not so much on its cable rivals. Some news outlets covered it, but without much intensity, and then the story stalled.

Now that the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware is confirmed to be examining Hunter’s taxes, it looks like Fox and the New York Post were right to pursue a story that has taken a more serious turn. But while the New York Times and Washington Post ran substantive pieces yesterday, some in the media are dismissing it as a distraction.

There’s plenty we don’t know. But we have known for years that Hunter Biden has struggled with finances and addiction, and that he was trading on his family name by trying to do foreign deals in industries where he had no expertise. The degree of Joe Biden’s knowledge of these entanglements, despite certain emails and accusations by one Tony Bobulinski, remains in dispute.

We now know that the Justice probe has been going on since 2018 and predates the appointment of Bill Barr. Reports say things quieted down during the fall campaign based on DOJ policy of not taking action that could affect an election, and that subpoenas were recently served, which is probably how the story leaked.

Prosecutors looked into money-laundering allegations as part of the probe but did not find enough evidence to bring charges, the New York Times says.

According to divorce proceedings, the Times says, Hunter and his first wife Kathleen owed more than $310,000 in taxes in 2017, and eventually got hit with a lien for $112,000 that was later lifted. The D.C. government also slapped a $454,000 lien on Biden, which was lifted a week later.

What’s fascinating is that the media’s recent focus has been on any post-presidential prosecution of Trump, and perhaps his family members. Joe Biden told CNN last week that he’ll take a hands-off attitude toward DOJ: “I'm not going to be telling them what they have to do and don't have to do. I'm not going to be saying, go prosecute A, B or C.”

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The Times says “it is possible that one of the last decisions of the Trump Justice Department could be about a potential case against the son of the incoming president, if investigators uncover enough evidence to go forward.”

And that brings us back to the land of political hypocrisy. Will the liberals who cheered on Bob Mueller now support the naming of a special counsel for Hunter Biden? And will the conservatives who joined Trump in decrying the Mueller “witch hunt” say there should be no independent prosecutor for the incoming president’s son?

Don’t hold your breath. The Hunter Biden story will be with us for some time, and that poses a challenge for media people who until now wanted to sweep it under the rug.