The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability in May released findings of more than $10 million received from nationals and dispersed among nine members of President Joe Biden's family, all of it covered by a vast network of more than 20 shell companies. Additional releases have included bank records as well as interviews with IRS whistleblowers and an ex-business partner of Hunter Biden.
More recently, the committee has listed 20 examples of Joe Biden's involvement in "his family's influence peddling schemes."
Leaning on their own understanding
For the most part, reporting on this news has come not from the legacy (mainstream) media but from specialized media outlets such as American Family News, Fox News, Daily Wire, Breitbart, and others.
"It's as if the only thing that would convince the press out there is a Publisher's Clearinghouse-size check with Joe Biden's name on it being found in his garage next to his classified documents. Short of that they would not be interested. They would continue to say that there was no direct evidence," Curtis Houck, the managing editor of Newsbusters, a project of the Media Research Center, said on Washington Watch Friday.
Houck explained that is hardly surprising to those who take the time to delve into the proclivities of those behind the news.
According to MRC research, 25 years' worth of surveys have found that voting habits of journalists are disproportionately Democratic, that their views on topics like abortion and gay rights are well to the left of most Americans, and that they are less likely to attend a church or synagogue. They also tend to be pro-regulation, with most endorsing government efforts that guarantee a job to everyone and to reduce the income gap between the rich and poor.
Houck told show host Jody Hice that if an item relates to the apparent corruption of Joe Biden and his family, the traditional media has another clear goal: election interference. MRC research after the 2020 election showed that swing states were impacted in a major way by the media's lack of Biden family topics.
"Our poll after the 2020 election found that 45% of Biden swing state voters didn't know about Hunter Biden's life of ruin … and that if they did, 9.5% would have abandoned [Joe Biden]," Houck said.
A recent MRC story breaks down the nine biggest Biden scandals and the media's response to them – or lack thereof.
Ignoring the House findings
"We've boiled down the nine biggest single findings thus far by either the New York Post or Congressman [James] Comer or another media source, and we looked at how much coverage has been on ABC, CBS, and NBC – and across all nine scandals there's been zero coverage," Houck said.
Among the ignored stories are:
- The 20 LLCs that the Biden family has used to take in tens of millions of dollars.
- Joe Biden's email pseudonyms used in email conversations while he was vice president.
- 19 White House visits by Hunter Biden business partner Eric Schwerin.
"The most recent example is the hundreds of thousands [of dollars] that was wired from the Chinese business partners of Hunter Biden to him, except he listed his father's address in Wilmington, [Delaware] even though at the time he was living in California," Houck shared.
As the MRC spokesman explained, denial of the existence of evidence against Joe Biden is accomplished mostly by ignoring the story … but also by paying scant attention to it.
"There are two ways that they've been shaping the media coverage of this Biden impeachment inquiry. The first one is not covering it all – and we have a litany of examples that we've chronicled over recent months at Newsbusters," Houck said.
"The other option is if they do cover it, they shape it and they deceive by saying there's no evidence. They just try to speak this into existence."
Seeking the end of curiosity
Either way, he continued, is a disservice to news consumers. "They create this perception in voters' minds that [the House impeachment inquiry] is political, that it's a complete waste of time," Houck said.
But it's also a dumbing down of Americans' awareness, he warns. "They don't want you to be curious – and that's the bigger issue," said Houck. "They don't want you to be searching [online] for this; and that's where Big Tech comes in.
"The media could be curious about [Biden]. In all President Trump's indictments, the media were saying, 'What's next, what's next, what's next? What do we need to investigate further?"
But now it's different, says Houck. "With the Biden family, the onus is on Republicans to prove everything. It's like, 'We're not going to do anything. It's for you guys to prove this.'"
