The mainstream media is beginning to acknowledge the Hunter Biden laptop story is "genuine," drawing a mocking "color us shocked" editorial from the New York Post editorial board.
The Post responded to the Politico Playbook report acknowledging the laptop reports "contains genuine files."
"While we appreciate the support, the truth is the Post's reports always have been true, and it's only because the media wants to protect Joe Biden that they keep referring to the laptop as 'unsubstantiated,'" the Post's editorial board wrote in response.
"All of this information is out there," the editorial continued. "Yet the Times still called the laptop 'unsubstantiated' last week (until it quietly corrected the story). And even as Politico credited its reporter, it added, 'While the leak contains genuine files, it remains possible that fake material has been slipped in.'
"What part? The pictures of Hunter smoking crack?"
Reviews of Politico rate the news outlet "high" on facts, but with a left-leaning bias.
Politico's report comes from a review of Ben Schreckinger's book released Tuesday: "The Bidens: Inside the First Family's Fifty-Year Rise to Power."
The book reportedly has third-party confirmation of some of the damning emails contained in the reporting that was original to the Post and shared with Newsmax last October by Rudy Giuliani, Bernie Kerik, and laptop repairman John Paul Mac Isaac, who said they had seen contents of the laptop.
Among the emails confirmed in the book, as Politico reported, are "a 2015 email from a Ukrainian businessman thanking him for the chance to meet Joe Biden" and "a 2017 email in which a proposed equity breakdown of a venture with Chinese energy executives includes the line, '10 held by H for the big guy?'"
Also, former Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski was front-and-center during the October reveal before the 2020 presidential election, acknowledging the legitimacy of the findings in a pre-debate news conference and multiple television appearances.
After President Joe Biden took office, Hunter Biden told CBS the laptop "certainly" could be his, but his attorney Chris Clark declined to respond to questions for the book, according to Politico.
The Biden campaign originally denied the report of the April 2015 meeting with Vadym Pozharskyi, the adviser of the Ukraine energy company Burisma. Pozharskyi also did not respond to requests for comment, Politico reported.
The Post's reporting during the final weeks of the presidential campaign led to major social media outlets blocking the report from being shared with the public, along with The Washington Post.
"It's the perfect example of how Democrats weaponize 'fact checkers' to deflect criticism and enlist social media to censor articles," the Post editorial concluded. "Nothing to see here! (See: the Wuhan lab theory.)
"Consider the level of skepticism brought to bear here. Biden's team lied to us but we'll take them at their word that nothing of consequence happened at this dinner. Email after email, picture after picture are proved authentic from the laptop, but hey, maybe some of it is fake.
"The laptop is 'unsubstantiated' because the media doesn't want it substantiated. We figure that won't change, but thanks, Mr. Schreckinger, for at least bucking the trend."
Politico was founded by former Washington Post staffers, but was sold for a reported $1 billion in August to German media company Axel Springer, which publishes Bild in Germany.
Tuesday's Politico report was under the byline of Ryan Lizza, who has written about national politics, policy, and elections for The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.
The Hunter Biden laptop story came to light in the New York Post in an "October surprise," the long-running political phrase for damning political campaign information that is released right before a presidential election. The 2016 "October surprise" was the WikiLeaks reporting on damning emails from former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, which spawned the Russia investigation and special counsel run by Robert Mueller.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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