Two ex-reporters for Politico spoke at length about their former employer’s conduct during the Hunter Biden laptop story. They blasted the “cowardly” editors who virtually shut down any story about the laptop, going with the anti-Trump spook community’s fake assessment that it was Russian disinformation. We know that was a lie. Conservatives knew better, while liberals believed any piece of government propaganda that massaged their moral superiority complex.
Tara Palmeri and Marc Caputo both elaborated on how Politico took the wrong course of action with the Bidens, highlighting and reconfirming the liberal media’s penchant to protect the First Family, which prevented much-needed coverage about the president’s mental decline. Palmeri discussed her story about the Secret Service, Hunter Biden, and the gun that went missing, a firearm that the president’s son couldn’t legally own. After that report, Palmieri spoke about how the Biden White House limited her access (via NY Post):
BREAKING: Former Politico reporters Marc Caputo and Tara Palmeri reveal their previous employer blocked negative stories about Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and the infamous Biden laptop.
— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) January 23, 2025
Is anyone surprised?
Caputo disclosed, "I was told this came from on high at Politico. Don't… pic.twitter.com/RZ6igVN3Zc
Puck News scribe Tara Palmeri hosted Axios senior politics reporter Marc Caputo on her “Somebody’s Gotta Win” podcast for Inauguration Day to discuss their mutual frustration with what they saw as Politico’s mishandling of Biden family coverage.
“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,” Caputo carped. “Turns out that story was closer to disinformation because the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be true.”
[…]
“I was covering Biden at the time,” he [Caputo] added. “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.”
[…]Caputo, however, noted that he’d also had a story which broached the topic of Hunter Biden’s work for the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings “killed” by an editor as Joe Biden was fighting for support in the lead-up to the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.
“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,” he recounted.
“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,’” Caputo said.It was scrapped without explanation, the veteran reporter vented, saying readers “don’t understand the dumb decisions of cowardly editors that are made above us.”
Palmeri questioned whether other editors were uneasy about an extensive report she co-authored in March 2021 on US Secret Service agents reportedly trying to nab a copy of a federal gun-purchase form the ex-president’s son filled out to buy a firearm from a Delaware shop in October 2018.
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Palmeri’s treatment after the gun purchase story is likely why no one ever pushed hard about Biden’s mental state. They felt it would help Trump, which was likely the overarching concern, but also the loss of access. That’s not an excuse, and in the end, the fallout and the game to catch up with the media has played since Biden left office has exposed a political operation that was a total circus, incompetent with questions of legality regarding some policy pushes. Was Joe Biden really the president, or were many of his duties staffed out at the behest of Jill Biden and the tight inner circle that ran things at 1600 Penn?
Reporter who broke the Hunter Biden gun scandal reveals that the Biden administration punished her by limiting her access:
— Eric Abbenante (@EricAbbenante) January 6, 2025
Tara Palmeri: "They did it to me years ago, two years ago. But it was like privately, quietly bullying. You know, just keep keep. You know, it wasn't public.… pic.twitter.com/0TdqU4VLVg
The New York Times finally had lengthy pieces about the deteriorating health of Joe Biden and staffers noticing the shortfalls. The news media has learned that these mental slip-ups were noticeable on day one of Biden’s presidency, so who was governing?
Yet, while these are good anecdotes that confirm what we already know, let’s be honest: the media is only acting this way because Joe got caught being a drooling vegetable. The fake theater that covered up his mental decrepitude got blown to pieces when Trump bulldozed him in the June debate, a performance that ended up killing his re-election bid. For years, these folks provided Biden with political cover. This isn’t an act of penance—it’s how people react when their scheme gets busted.
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