Tucker: The Biden family got rich from selling influence abroad
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' host accuses the mainstream media of concealing the Hunter Biden story from American voters
Editor's Note: This article is adapted from Tucker Carlson's opening commentary on the Oct. 29, 2020 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
It's been obvious for decades now that the Biden family has gotten rich from selling influence abroad. Joe Biden held a series of high-level jobs in the U.S. government. Based on that fact and that fact alone, Biden's son and brother approached foreign governments and companies -- sovereign wealth funds, energy conglomerates, Third World oligarchs and dictators -- and they offered to exchange favors from Joe Biden for cash.
The polite term for that practice is influence-peddling. Sometimes it is legal under American law, sometimes it is not. But it has always been the economic engine of the Biden family. They've never done anything else. Until recently, no one debated this fact. Several liberal news organizations, in fact, have written detailed stories about the Bidens' secret business dealings over the years. Look them up, assuming you still can.
It's only since Joe Biden received the Democratic nomination that anyone in the media has claimed otherwise. This week, we introduced you to one of the Biden family's former business partners, a man called Tony Bobulinski. Bobulinski confirmed more conclusively than anyone ever has what the Bidens have been doing.
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On two separate occasions, Bobulinski met personally with Joe Biden to discuss the family's business deals in China. Biden has repeatedly denied knowing anything about those deals. Joe Biden is lying, and Tony Bobulinski proved it.
It was a major story and not just because it happened here. We only interviewed Tony Bobulinski in the first place because nobody else would. There was a complete media blackout on his story and there still is. In the last three days, and we just checked, the name Tony Bobulinski has not been mentioned a single time on any other television network. Finally Thursday, it fell to J.D. Durkin, an anchor on a small financial news channel called Cheddar, to bring up the story. Here's his exchange with Biden campaign national press secretary Jamal Brown:
DURKIN: There were more accusations made this week on that most-watched Fox News interview a couple of nights ago from Tucker Carlson. Did those meetings happen, as they have been alleged, when Joe Biden was a private citizen?
BROWN: We're not going to waste any time on this smear campaign, because it's just another distraction to distract, again, away from four years of Donald Trump's reckless policies and his failed leadership. And I'm not going to accept the premise of the question. We have five days to keep our eyes on the prize, and again, that is to vote Joe Biden as the next president of the United States.
DURKIN: OK, fair enough.
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"We're not going to waste any time on this smear campaign," says Brown. In other words, "We don't feel like answering a simple fact-based question of relevance to voters in the days before an election. So we're not going to, and we're not embarrassed to admit that we're not going to, because no one has the courage to make us answer, including you."
"Fair enough," says Durkin. There you have it: The state of the American news media in October 2020. Keep in mind, Durkin is still one of the bravest people in journalism. At least he asked, sort of.
The rest of them pretend it's not really a story, but it is a story and it's not going away. Late Thursday, James Rosen of Sinclair confirmed that the FBI opened a criminal investigation into the Biden family -- "Hunter Biden and associates" -- last year, apparently on suspicion of money laundering. That investigation is ongoing. Less than a week before an election, we learn this.
What else will we learn? Well, very little if the people in charge have their way. Our professional class has dismissed from day one the revelations about the Biden family as part of a Russian intel operation. There's no evidence for that, no matter how many people repeat it. There never has been evidence. There never will be evidence. It is totally untrue. And yet the public is buying it anyway, we're sad to report.
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Voters have been cut off from the facts, which, of course, is the point of shutting down the free flow of information. When all the news you receive is manufactured propaganda, you are apt to believe it. Why wouldn't you believe it? You have no alternative.
Here are the effects: A new Harris survey out Thursday conducted by longtime Democratic pollster Mark Penn found that 51% of respondents believe the New York Post is disseminating "Russian disinformation." It's hard to imagine a scarier or more depressing result than that. You assume the "Today" show and "The View" and the rest of it is just harmless garbage, but it's not. They are liars and their lies have consequences.
How do you maintain a democratic system when reality itself has been banned? That's something we're going to have to figure out.
Glenn Greenwald has thought a lot about that question. Greenwald is a traditional leftist, committed above all to forcing transparency on people who hold power. Years ago, Greenwald co-founded a news site called The Intercept. Thursday, he resigned. In a statement, Greenwald explained why:
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"The Intercept's editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I removed all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression."
Greenwald's full statement is up at an Internet platform called Substack, which is not yet censored. No matter who you plan to vote for next week, we recommend that you read it.
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