Journalists Reveal How Far Media Went To Cover For Joe, Hunter Biden
The extent of the media’s effort to shield former President Joe Biden from scrutiny—both regarding his cognitive decline and his son Hunter Biden’s legal troubles—is now becoming fully apparent.
For years, critics have accused major news outlets of covering for the 46th president, particularly when it came to his family’s questionable financial dealings and signs of mental decline. These concerns became undeniable during last year’s CNN debate and ultimately contributed to Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, according to a Fox News report published Saturday.
However, efforts to protect Biden from damaging coverage reportedly began as early as May 2019, while he was still competing for the Democratic nomination.
Former Politico journalist Marc Caputo recently revealed that he had written a story at the time based on opposition research from Biden’s Democratic rivals. The piece detailed a “tax lien” against Hunter Biden related to his work with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Despite Biden’s significant lead in the primary polls, Caputo’s editors decided to kill the story with no explanation.
“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… which is haunting his father on the campaign trail,’” Caputo said on the “Somebody’s Gotta Win” podcast.
“That story was killed by the editors. And they gave no explanation for that either,” he added.
By October 2020, Biden had secured the Democratic nomination and was in a tight race against then-President Donald Trump. That month, the New York Post broke the now-infamous Hunter Biden laptop story, revealing extensive details about the younger Biden’s foreign financial dealings and potential links to his father.
Caputo recalled raising the issue with his Politico editors at the time, only to be met with resistance.
“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,’” Caputo explained. “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.”
Instead, Politico’s only coverage of the matter featured a now-infamous headline: “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.” The article cited a letter from 51 intelligence officials suggesting the laptop story bore the hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.
During the second presidential debate, Biden himself used the letter to dismiss Trump’s attacks on the laptop revelations, calling it a “Russian plant.”
Politico wasn’t alone in downplaying or outright ignoring the story. A leaked recording later obtained by Project Veritas revealed CNN executives instructing their staff not to cover it.
“Obviously, we’re not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden,” CNN’s political director David Chalian said in an October 14 editorial meeting—the same day the Post published its first laptop-related report.
Even within Politico, skepticism about editorial decisions lingered. Reporter Tara Palmeri, who later broke the story about Hunter Biden’s gun-related legal issues, recalled how her own reporting faced delays.
“I spent three months on it, I went to the laptop shop, and I did all of the reporting in Delaware,” Palmeri told Caputo. “But yeah, it had to be like much— it had to be 100% nailed down.”
“I just think if it was a Trump kid, it would have been published much sooner,” she added.
Beyond shielding Biden from scrutiny over his family’s finances, media outlets also appeared reluctant to report on his declining health.
The Wall Street Journal recently revealed that concerns about Biden’s stamina and mental acuity were evident as early as spring 2021. Staff members reportedly noticed that he had “good days and bad days” and struggled with longer meetings.
“A sign that the bruising presidential schedule needed to be adjusted for Biden’s advanced age had arisen early on—in just the first few months of his term,” the Journal reported. “Administration officials noticed that the president became tired if meetings went long and would make mistakes.”
Anonymous journalists told Fox News they had also observed Biden appearing “stiff” and “old,” with answers that seemed overly brief and “coached.”
These revelations raise new questions about the role the media played in shaping public perception of Biden throughout his presidency.