Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, February 21, 2024
Joe and Hunter Biden have gotten red-faced recently over how they are being presented to the American public. The father is sensitive about the fact that he faces an impeachment inquiry triggered by his son’s revelations of illegal if not treasonous acts on behalf of his dad scrupulously documented on the infamous “laptop from hell.” Both have had to contend with special counsels during a Democrat administration supported by the Democrat legacy media. Is that fair?
Apparently not. The top two Big Media headlines on AOL’s news feed on Wednesday were more like press releases straight out of the Biden defense team with an assist from the U.S. Department of Justice.
The top story: “Indicted Biden accuser had ‘extensive’ contacts with Russian intel, prosecutors say”.
The report by USA Today explains how Alexander Smirnov, an FBI informant, was charged with lying to investigators about a bribery scheme involving Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and a Ukrainian energy company.
So who is in trouble here? It is certainly not Hunter Biden according to this selective presentation of facts.
Legacy media usually omit this part: Smirnov was a paid FBI source who had been frequently used since the Obama Administration and was deemed to be “highly credible.”
Smirnov “had contact with foreign intelligence services, including Russian intelligence agencies,” prosecutors alleged in court documents on Tuesday, according to the report.
Smirnov’s contacts, the report continues, “included a figure prosecutors called ‘Russian Official 1,’ whom the the informant allegedly described as ‘the son of a former high-ranking Russian government official, someone who purportedly controls two groups of individuals tasked with carrying out assassination efforts in a third-party country.’ ”
Smirnov was indicted last week on charges he lied to the FBI, falsely telling them that executives with now-defunct Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million each in bribes.
A federal judge in Las Vegas on Tuesday ordered Smirnov to be released from custody.
Smirnov, 43, who was arrested last week at Harry Reid International Airport, will remain under electronic monitoring while he awaits a hearing in California federal court on an indictment charging him with making a false statement to federal agents and creating a false and fictitious record.
Related: Special Counsel Weiss arrests FBI informant whose evidence against Bidens had been withheld, February 16, 2024
The second article on AOL’s news feed: “Hunter Biden’s lawyers say prosecutors confused a picture of sawdust with cocaine”.
This is not an Onion headline, it was an actual triple-bylined report by NBC News.
Federal prosecutors mistakenly claimed in a court filing that a photo of sawdust they found while searching Hunter Biden’s electronics was cocaine, attorneys for the Hunter Biden said Tuesday.
“The sawdust picture was used in a court filing detailing incriminating information that prosecutors said they turned up while executing a search warrant of Biden’s laptop and electronics, but his legal team said in court papers that the picture was sent to their client by his then-psychiatrist as inspiration,” the NBC report states.
“Mistaking sawdust for cocaine sounds more like a storyline from one of the 1980’s Police Academy comedies than what should be expected in a high-profile prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice,” the lawyers’ court filing said.
Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell tried to make the best of things: “Our motions expose the special counsel has gone to extreme lengths to bring charges against Mr. Biden that would not have been filed against anyone else. It is time to hold the special counsel accountable and dismiss these improper charges.”
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