“Mr. President-Elect, on Russian disinformation,” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy began, “Mr. President-Elect, do you still think that the stories from the fall about your son Hunter were Russian disinformation and a smear campaign like you said?”
WATCH:
The New York Post broke the story in a series of explosive reports published over the course of several days. Social media companies rushed to slow down the spread of the story — a strategy which backfired to an extent — and many mainstream news organizations either ignored reporting on it or ran stories suggesting that the reports were part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Top officials pushed back on the claim that the stories were part of a Russian disinformation campaign and mainstream news organizations have since started to cover the story now that the election is over.
Part of the news cycle of damaging stories on Hunter Biden before the election were reports from Fox News and Sinclair Broadcast Group that alleged that Hunter Biden was caught up in a criminal investigation surrounding his financial dealings and that involved his alleged laptop.
CNN’s report said that authorities were investigating “multiple financial issues” including whether Hunter Biden “violated tax and money laundering laws in business dealings in foreign countries, principally China.” Politico’s report suggested that Biden’s brother, James Biden, was also tied up in a separate federal criminal investigation related to a hospital company. NBC News reported earlier this month that a business partner of Hunter Biden warned Hunter Biden that he had not reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in income that he had made from his foreign business dealings.
Joe Biden’s remarks on Tuesday appear to reference more than just the New York Post’s reports and include the reports about his son being under criminal investigation because he referenced his future Department of Justice. The fact that Joe Biden gets to to appoint an attorney general has set off alarm bells among many who worry that Joe Biden’s pick may interfere in the ongoing investigation to help out his son.
