Russian disinformation about joe biden. Howie the story took a sharply different turn when joe bidens son acknowledged the Justice Department is investigating his taxes. He insists he acted legally and appropriately and that sparked new questions about the medias past conduct. It was ignored and it was intentiointentionally ignored yu because most of the media knew it would impact the electorate against joe biden and that to me is a bigger scandal than any of these revelations about hunter biden. C envelope n roll cnn rolled its eyes, dismissed it as russian disinformation. Most Media Outlets deemed it unworthy mentioning at all. It turns a ought all of them were lying. A lot of democrat, it will strike them as political that the investigation seems to have its origins around the time joe biden was beginning his run for president. The news that the pamly member of an incoming president is under federal investigation is a big deal. No persons above the law including of course president ial Family Members. Now, in this era, the probe raises many questions about how the incoming President Administration will handle a probe. Howie joining us to analyze the coverage, ben domenech, gillian turner, and ray suarez, washington core upo corresponder euro news. Ben, critics of fox news said it was overplaying the hunter biden laptop story during the campaign. Now that we know about the federal investigation of his taxes and other matters, is it fair to say that cnn, msnbc and other outlets were underplaying the story and are still underplaying the story . They werent just underplaying it. They were lying about the story. I mean, the simple fact is, there is no proof, theres never been any proof that this was russian disinformation. There is simply no evidence to support that argument. Despite the fact that you had people like john brennan, michael mcfall, mike mor morale and others of claiming otherwise. There was no evidence to support that claim and yet its one they made over and over again but howie, to me the biggest and most disturbing part of the story isnt the behavior of cable news outlets, its the fact they went along with what represents from my perspective the biggest suppression, the censorship of the American People on a news story that weve ever seen done by the actual most powerful Media Companies in america, social media. Facebook and twitter, making the choice to cancel and to suspend, to even ban in some cases people who shared this story invading their private messages to prevent them from sending it privately and not just posting it publicly and making arguments in favor of that that were ultimately supported by many members of the media who claim to be for freedom of speech, information and thought, all things these social Media Outlets are clearly opposed to. Howie i think the social media giants have damaged their reputation. Gillian, the managing editor of npr said were not going to waste time on a story that really isnt a story. That was the mindset in some quarters. Were not going to waste time on it except to completely dismiss it and try to debunk it by calling it misleadingly, like ben said, russian disinformation. A key aspect of this story emerging now is not just that hunter biden has acknowledged this is going on, this investigation, its that there are actually four distinct probes into his finances going on, led by the fbi, led by different states. So the idea that it is somehow a madeup story has been proven ridiculous. The other thing to note here real quick is i think the story is bringing maybe not yet but over the coming days and weeks and maybe months as it goes on a real reckoning for not just the news media but really for the washington establishment in the sense that this story gets right at the sort of ugly underbelly of a lot of what goes on in washington. Its like when you lift up the rock and you see everything thats underneath it. Its going to make a lot of people uncomfortable because theyre going to learn some hard truths about what government officials do when they leave office before they rotate in and out. Theyre not going to like it. Howie influence peddling a way of life inside the beltway. Ray, the Biden Transition Office preempted an inquiry by cnn by putting out its own statement. Dont all the media need to acknowledge now and there is a newly disclosed email from a hunter Biden Associate saying he hadnt reported 400,000 that he received in income from the Ukrainian Energy giant burisma. Doesnt everybody need to acknowledge this is serious business. Its certainly serious for hunter biden and re reputationay serious for joe biden, could cast a shadow over the opening months of his administration now that its been acknowledged that hunter biden is under active investigation. The status of of the delaware laptop and the hard drives and whether or not theyre russian plants have nothing to do with whether or not hunter biden misstated income on his income tax returns. Hes been under investigation for two years and this laptop that emerged in delaware from a legally blind computer salesman may have things on it that were put in there by the russians, may have things on there that were put on by hunter biden. These are two separate things that track on two separate paths. Whether hunter biden is guilty of Money Laundering and tax evasion can be true at the same time that its true that that was a russian plant. Lets wait for the story and continue to investigate the story and continue to report what we find out. Howie right. The question during the campaign was whether joe biden knew about his sons foreign deal making and that still remains unresolved. But ben, the wall street journal reported that attorney general bill barr knew as early as last spring about the federal investigation of hunter biden, didnt say anything publicly and yesterday President Trump retweeted a conservative radio host who said if thats true, the attorney general should be fired immediately. The president added a big disappointment. Im sure youll agree with me that bill barr acted properly in following Justice Department rules against disclosing an ongoing criminal investigation. I certainly do agree with you on that, howie. But i do think its valid for many voters to feel frustrated that this is a piece of information they would have liked to know earlier and certainly the president i think and his supporters are going to feel that way Going Forward, given the Money Laundering in question is tied with joe biden. Joe biden himself made the claim from the debate stage, endorsing the idea that this was misinformation, disinformation, that it was sourced perhaps to russia, something for which, again, there is not evidence to make that claim. At the same time, though, i think that we cant sort of put this in the perspective of just being about the media and the way that the cable news went after this. The way that big tech treated this story should scare everyone. Imagine them doing this on the other side during the 2016 campaign and then afterwards essentially going in front of congress, in front of the people and saying oh, our bad for suppressing peoples ability to share a story that goes to the core of this question about corruption in politics. That should be something of concern to all of us. Howie very fair point. Ray, the New York Times is taking this seriously. It says this is a no win situation for joe biden. Could end up being anything from a distraction to legally perilous. What about conservative pundits who often railed against the bob Mueller Investigation as a witch hunt but who now are pushing the idea of a special counsel for hunter biden . Well, we only have to look back this is a long, long time ago, so maybe a lot of people dont remember. But its 2016 when the head of the fbi revealed that Hillary Clinton was under investigation eight days before the election but did not reveal that donald trump was under investigation. That set democrat hair on fire and it just seems to be a question of whose ox is being gored. The revelation of ongoing investigations in this case came from hunter biden himself and was reported by everybody. Well, it didnt actually come from hunter biden. If we take a look at what happened, and this was very but you zelling to a lot of journalists, it came from the Biden Transition Team which was very odd and something that also needs scrutiny. Hunter biden is not affiliated with the Biden Transition Team. He doesnt work for them, as far as we know. He doesnt volunteer his time or services. A lot of journalists looked at this and said wait a minute, why is the Biden Transition Team speaking on behalf of hunter biden, putting out this statement . Its also howie to follow up on that, joe biden had a press conference on friday. None of the reporters he called on they asked about the pandemic and other important matters asked a question about his sons own statement put out by the transition statement about being under federal criminal investigation. Can you imagine a President TrumpNews Conference where there was a similar situation involving don junior or ivanka or jared and a question not being asked by any of the journalists. We did. Fox news can did. Peter doocy asked him the question. All he would say is he was proud of his son. But no other outlets felt this was worthy of a question. Its worrisome, right. Were at this moment where the election itself is being contested and people are making the case by the thousands that they dont trust the medias coverage. So when we have a situation like this, you would think that gurn of lifts would take it upon them journalists would take it upon themselves to be evenhanded and keep digging. Doesnt matter who the president elect is, doesnt matter who their party is. The job is to keep digging. Howie peter doocy asked the question as the News Conference was over. Is there hypocrisy among liberal commentators who reported on the russian investigation, about any questions raised about President Trumps kids, who think that donald trump should be prosecuted once he leaves office and now theyre saying its kind of unseemly and unfortunate that hunter biden was trading on the family name but its not really that important. The depths of hypocrisy are impossible to plumb. This is something that would be a major story that they would of be clamoring for if it was flipped around. You have big tech and the media working together to offer what is essentially one of the greatest inkind donations, a partisan one, in the closing weeks of this campaign to prevent the American People from even knowing about something that should absolutely factor into this conversation and is absolutely a valid question to raise about what now president elect joe biden knew and when he knew it about the way that his son was selling his name, his family name and gaining profit from it, in very questionable ways, from the Chinese Communist party. Howie all right. Let me get a break here. When we come back, the president s clast election rhetoric after highest setbacks at the highest level and the media push back hard. If you have moderate to severe psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis, Little Things can become your big moment. Thats why theres otezla. 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Howie the Supreme Court rejected a texas lawsuit friday night, strongly backed by President Trump and 17 republican attorneys general to block the election outcome, his second setback this week in the high court which also refused to hear a Trump Campaign aappeal from pennsylvania. It was a lawsuit, not to put too fine a point on it, to destroy the union. The decision effectively puts an end to Donald Trumps most absurd attempt to stage a coup. It was an attempt that had the backing of many in the republican party. Huge blow, not only to the president but, yeah, 83 of republicans and 26 of independents and even 10 of democrats that have watched and witnessed whistleblowers and eyewitnesses and evidence and video and have concluded this election was never done fairly. Howie the president ripped the high court in an interview with foxs brian kilmeade. Weve proven it. But no judge has had the courage, including the Supreme Court. I am so disappointed in them. No judge, including the Supreme Court of the United States, has had the courage to allow it to be heard. Howie ben domenech, most of the media from National View on the right to atlantic on the left said the texas suit was ridiculous, it was absurd and it would be tossed out. Thats what the Supreme Court did. A lot of Trump Supporters took the criticism of the suit as being against the president but wasnt it really just reporting reality. I think personally this lawsuit was baseless. I think it was fundamentally antifederalist in its approach. Imagine a situation where after the election in 2000, you had every democratic voting state that had supported al gore standing up and saying that floridas approach to voting had disen fradisenfranchised their n voters. Im glad the court made the decision they did. At the same time, i do think that we have a situation here where a lot of the very valid claims that were advanced about squirrely actions within the election are being swept aside in a way that cant give people confidence Going Forward that these things are going to be addressed in between now and the next election, something which is absolutely essential so that people can have faith in the process, particularly if mailin balloting is going to be such a big feature Going Forward of the way that we do elections. Howie gillian turner, the president tweeted of the Supreme Court decision, it was a great and disgraceful miscarriage of justice, he said we didnt get our day in court. Didnt he get a day in court in the sense that nine justices of the Supreme Court would not grant the relief sought by texas and these 17 other states represented by Republican Ags . Yes. Its not as if this was the only suit in the process thus far. Case after case after case has been thrown out by courts all across this country at this point. Judges who were appointed by president s obama and trump have thrown these cases out. Heres the thing. We had the fox news poll come out this morning that showed 70 of President Trump supporters think this election was stolen from him. Thats important. We cant gloss over it. Those are the feelings of potentially tens of millions of americans. They are valid and they are important and they need to be addressed. The problem here was that President Trump tasked Rudy Giuliani and jenna ellis, his legal team, with advocating on behalf of those people in the courts and they have failed at every turn to do a good job with this. They have failed to make a case that has been wellreceived or really even considered legitimately by many judges. So the wrath should start at some point turning to the people who were tasked with making this case. Howie of course. Some of those judges are trump appointed judges. 77 of trump voters saying the election was stolen in that fox poll is the precise figure. Ben, the media are now excoriating the 106 House Republicans that signed onto a friend of the court brief in this texas suit, saying they knew the suit was a hail mary but they did this because they were afraid of any kind of political retaliation from donald trump, even after out of office, engineering a primary challenge against him. What do you make of that kind of criticism of republicans who supported the lawsuit . I dont think that that kind of criticism really stands up because theyre just being partisan actors supporting the party and supporting the leader of the party in donald trump and you saw the same thing happen the last time around with the people who were supporting al gore who wanted to continue counting in florida in 2000, well after the point where it was clear that this was just a weve got to find anything, were desperate for a solution that ends up with our guy winning. So from my perspective, these are two sides of the same coin. They have to make that argument as people who are representatives of their voters who ayou grew with them agree with them largely in this instance and thats not something i hold against them. At the same time, i think that this really could lead to a situation where we dont get a resolution to the questions that gillia