What historians find endearing, political journalists find annoying.
For example, historians love to recount the weird little oddities of history: “Did you know that Ben Franklin wrote an essay about farting?” “Abraham Lincoln was a champion wrestler!” (At least, when he wasn’t killing vampires.)
It’s these personal anecdotes and fun odds-and-ends that give history its color — and humanizes its superstars. Turns out, if ol’ Ben were alive today, he’d probably be on podcasts, cracking fart jokes. (Not to pick on Ben: Fart jokes have been around for at least 4,000 years.)
But at the time, the political journalists were probably annoyed: “I became a journalist to cover serious, important issues, and now I have to write about flatulence. Ugh. So insulting!”
Which is why I kinda-sorta understand why so many big-name media outlets were reluctant to cover Hunter Biden’s laptop. Look, I get it: The kid is a mess. He’s an addict, and it’s not his fault that his dad is president. Of all the issues facing the world, the sex, drugs, and crimes of a privileged doofus isn’t high on the list.
And I even understand their incredulousness over the laptop’s origins. The whole story was messy, weird, and gross.
But y’know what? Sometimes, so is history.
And sometimes, the consequences of journalistic errors are permanent. According to a 2022 poll, 79% of Americans believe Donald Trump would’ve won reelection if voters knew the truth about Hunter Biden’s laptop.
This brings us to an eye-popping story that appeared yesterday afternoon in Mediaite. The title reveals the scandal: “‘Don’t Write About the Laptop, Don’t Talk About the Laptop’: Ace Reporters Claim Politico Killed Negative Biden Stories.”
A pair of ex-Politico reporters, Marc Caputo (now with Axios) and Tara Palmeri (now with Puck, as well as her own podcast, “Somebody’s Gotta Win”) recounted the many instances where Politico killed, buried, or “resisted negative stories” about Hunter Biden and his father, President Joe Biden.
Here’s what they said:
Marc Caputo: “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.”
Tara Palmeri: “But then Facebook also pulled all stories down about the Hunter Biden laptop, and I think Twitter did at the same time, too.”
Marc Caputo: “Correct, they punished The New York Post, that didn’t help. I mean, Politico, my former employer and I knew at the time, didn’t do itself any favors. 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.”
Tara Palmeri: “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.”
Marc Caputo: “Yeah! And I remember you consulted with me 'cause you had, you did the original report on the gun, and you came to me like, ‘How do I write about this?’ I’m like, ‘Honestly, I don’t know.’”
Tara Palmeri: “'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?”
Marc Caputo: “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. 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. So that general experience, you know, obviously the public doesn’t know about those things, but as a reporter having witnessed the way in which the two candidates—”
Tara Palmeri: “We just get called, like, ‘the terrible mainstream media.’ It’s like you don’t understand the process there.”
Marc Caputo: “Well, you also don’t understand the dumb decisions of cowardly editors that are made above us.”
As Mediaite noted, Hunter Biden was convicted of three felonies related to Palmeri’s story. Hunter Biden later pled guilty to three additional felonies and six misdemeanor tax charges, before receiving his controversial presidential pardon.
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Politico, like many other mainstream media outlets, published a story dismissing The New York Post’s laptop story as “Russian disinformation” and “election interference.”
Politico responded to the Mediaite story thusly:
Seems like a case of false memory, given that across the years they referenced, POLITICO journalists lead the way on wide-ranging reporting on the business dealings of Joe Biden’s closest relatives. Ben Schreckinger was probably the top reporter in the country reporting on these matters—he literally wrote the book on it.
Through deeply reported coverage—both pre- and post-election—POLITICO provided readers with 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, as demonstrated in the stories below.
And to Tara’s point, yes, our editors uphold rigorous standards, ensuring every story is thoroughly vetted and ‘buttoned up’ before publishing. This approach reflects our unwavering commitment to accuracy and accountability—principles that have guided us and will continue to do so.
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