Hunter Biden's former business partner releases emails about 2017 Chinese energy company deal
Tony Bobulinski tells Fox News the Biden family 'aggressively leveraged' its name in foreign business dealings; Mike Emanuel reports from Washington.
EXCLUSIVE -- Rep. Jeff Duncan, R-S.C., sent a scathing letter to NPR president and CEO John Lansing on Friday, condemning the nonprofit media organization for admitting it wouldn’t cover the ongoing scandal surrounding a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden.
“Your organization is among a whole host of mainstream media outlets that have proven not to be dedicated to reporting unbiased news to the American people. While other outlets do not receive taxpayer funds, NPR does. Because of such willful neglect, NPR should not receive another cent from the taxpayers,” Duncan wrote to begin the letter.
The letter from the Republican from South Carolina was obtained exclusively by Fox News.
Earlier in the day, NPR public editor Kelly McBride explained that her organization decided there are “many, many red flags in that New York Post investigation” that unearthed a laptop allegedly owned by Hunter Biden that contained damning emails, texts and photos and suggested Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden had knowledge of, and was allegedly involved in, his son’s dubious foreign business dealings.
NPR SLAMMED FOR DISMISSING COVERAGE OF HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP SCANDAL AS A 'WASTE OF TIME'
NPR has ignored the scandal surrounding a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden which contained emails revealing his foreign business dealings.
McBride’s justification of NPR’s decision to skip the bombshell story included a quote by managing editor Terence Samuel, who called said his organization didn’t “want to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions.”
NPR did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Duncan addressed that specific comment in the letter to NPR’s president.
RATCLIFFE SAYS HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP, EMAILS 'NOT PART OF SOME RUSSIAN DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN'
“Your organization stated that they would not be reporting on the Biden family’s corrupt business dealings because they find the reporting, emails, text messages, and corroborating witness statements to be a ‘distraction.’ Distraction is an interesting word choice since it does not call the Biden news illegitimate or fake,” Duncan continued. “Rather, NPR is fully admitting its legitimacy and is choosing to bow out and exclaim ‘distraction’ since the news is devastating to the Biden campaign and the leftist cause.”
Duncan accused NPR of not reporting news that would hurt the Democrats since the 2016 presidential election.
Duncan then said, “It’s been clear since the 2016 election that NPR will not report on anything that would hurt Democrats, in an effort to try and defeat President Trump.”
The Post rocked the political world last Wednesday with an initial report that revealed a 2015 email Hunter Biden allegedly received from a member of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, who appeared to thank him for "giving an opportunity" to meet his father, then-Vice President Biden.
The former vice president had long claimed that he did not talk to his son about his business dealings, but evidence from the laptop seems to contradict that point. Additional allegations related to the laptop have since come out, including an email that appeared to detail a business arrangement involving a Chinese company and members of the Biden family -- but NPR won't cover any of it and much of the media has gone to great lengths to avoid reporting on the scandal.
“Just because NPR finds the Biden news a distraction doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Any true journalist would seek to expose the truth, comb through the documents, and report on the corroborating evidence – not call it quits,” he continued. “The news and corroborating emails and texts surrounding Joe and Hunter Biden will have vast implications on our country should the former Vice President win the election. If Vice President Biden was beholden to China when he served in the White House, how could the American people ever trust him again? Our nation deserves outlets that report the news – not outlets who believe they are the arbiter of truth.
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Duncan then noted that NPR “ran wild with the fake Steele dossier” and hasn’t issued an apology or retraction, referring to the discredited anti-Trump dossier authored by ex-British intelligence agent Christopher Steele.
The dossier contained claims about alleged ties between Donald Trump and Russia that served as the basis for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants obtained against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
“The American people see right through the bias. They know exactly why organizations like NPR, Google, Twitter, and Facebook are censoring unfavorable news on Joe and Hunter Biden. It’s because the Trump Presidency broke your profession and now you have shuttered all credibility,” Duncan wrote. “You can’t have it both ways – you can’t choose to report on the fake Steele dossier and not the real Hunter Biden scandal. If you think you can have it both ways, you deserve to operate on your own dime.”
NPR is an independent, non-profit media organization and its journalists “are trained in the ethics and practices of journalism which prevent outside groups from influencing their objectivity, story selection, and reporting,” according to the organization’s website. NPR notes that it is “funded in significantly different but interrelated ways” and elaborates on its website.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
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