Miranda Devine

Miranda Devine

Politics

Liberal media’s pass on sloppy Joe and scandalous Hunter Biden: Devine

The witness protection of Joe Biden🦄 by theಌ media is starting to look like election interference.

Exhibit A: The Senate interim report released Wednesday detailing millions of dollars Joe Biden’s son Hunter received from co♋rrupt foreign oligarchs and companies while his father was vice pr🦹esident.

Despite its obvious 𒀰news value, the report immediately was pilloried by influential media outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post as “inconclusive” partisan echoing of Russian propaganda.

“Republican Inquir💃y Finds No ­Evidence 🎶of Wrongdoing by Biden,” was the Times’ headline.

“GOP’s Hunter Biden report does💟n’t back꧂ up Trump’s actual conspiracy theory — or anything close to it,” said The Washington Post.

“GOP senators’ anti-Biden report repackages old claims” was another typical headline dismissing th🃏e 🎐­report, this from Politico.

Yet there are new and damning allegations in the report about Hunter’s ability to leverage his father’s position as vice president 🌜into riches for himꩵself and his friends.

The old allegations were damning enough, anyway, despite the fact they have been flushed down the memory hole. Take Hunter’s $50,000 monthly payment for sitting on the board of Ukrainian natural-gas firm Burisma Holdings, despite no relevant experience and a history of drug problems, at a time when his father wa♐s in charge of𓃲 US policy toward Ukraine.

But here’s just one of the new revelations: Hunter received a $3.5 million wire transfer in 2014 from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former ꧂mayor of Mosco꧂w, and a billionaire friend of Vladimir Putin.

Now that’s real Russian collusion.

Give🌜n the gravity of the allegations, you would think that the ­media pack following Joe Biden would have asked him a question yesterday abꦑout the report.

Hunter Biden
Hunter BidenDNC via USA TODAY NETWORK/Sipa USA

But reporters didn’t even though Biden took questions on three occasions during a visit to North Carolina, the most available he🌞 h🌼as been to the press since he retreated to his basement in March.

At 10 a.m. at the Wilmington airport in Delaware, Biden answered three questions: how he was prepari𒊎ng for next week’s debate; whether US relations with China will be a “zero-sum game” if he is elected; and was he “still vetting potential Supreme Court nominees?”

On the tarmac in Charlotte, NC, he was asked, “What gives you the sense that ♚you can win?”

Seriously. Talk about softballs.

There were more questions at about 1:30 p.m., after he delivered a telepromp𓂃ter speech:

  • What would he like to see for Historically Black Colleges and Universities?
  • What is he going do about the minimum wage?
  • What are his plans for “educational equity”?
  • Will small businesses get COVID relief?
  • How do you reimagine the Justice Department and its Civil Rights division after four years of Trump?

Finally, at Charlotte on the way home at about 6:30 p.m., Biden fielded more questions, about the Breonna Taylor ruling, Iran and what he thought about Supreme Court contender Amy Coney Barrett.

Nothing all day on Hunter Biden.

Here are some more allegations from the interim report, “Hunter Biden, Burisma, and 🅰Corruption: The Impact on US Government Policy and Related Concerns,” authored by Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa):

  • Hunter and his family were involved in a vast financial network that connected them to foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe.
  • Hunter had business associations with Ye Jianming, Gongwen Dong and other Chinese nationals linked to the Communist government and the People’s Liberation Army. Those associations resulted in millions of dollars in cash flow.
  • Hunter opened a bank account with Gongwen Dong to fund a $100,000 global spending spree with uncle James Biden and aunt Sara Biden.
  • Hunter paid women who were nationals of Russia or other Eastern European countries who appear to be linked to an “Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring.”

You can read it for yourself.

But none of it was of interest to a media that spent almost four years reporting every false, unsubstantiated, salacious and ultimately discredited rumor that President Trump colluded with Russia to win in 2016.

The lack of curiosity about a documented scandal on the eve of the presidential election involving one of the𒐪 candidates is staggering.

Conservatives show respect

When conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died in 2016, the venom spewed by the left was gl🌱eeful and instantaneous.

“Scalia was a monster and no one’s job entitles them to res𝓀pect,” was a typical social media b꧑urn.

Former Democratic Senate candidate and Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland joke☂d that it “happened at a good time.”

How different was the respectful reaction from conservatives to the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg?

As she lie༒s in repose, let us celebrate her remarkable life, but also be honest about the causes she championed, which were anathema to conservatives.

They included: taxpayer fundingꦯ of abortion, partial-birth abortion, transgender bathrooms, prostitution, coed prisons, lowering the age of consent from 16 to 12 and replacing Mother’s Day and Father’s Day with “Parent’s Day.”

As corrosive as those progressive causes are, conservatives remain generous 🅠to the woman who wanted to give them the force of law. Only one side demonizes those who don’t share their values.

A royal nuisance

It’s fine if Prince Harry and Meghan Markle want to regurgitate Democratic talking pointsꦍ in a po🌠litical video to boost Joe Biden’s lackluster campaign.

It’s a free countꦰry, even if Harry is ineligible to vote here. Americans are used to foreigners weighing in on domestic politics.

However, the queen’s grandson and his pushy American wife need to be cut loose before their woke activism becomes a contagion throughout the House of W🧔indsor.

The key to the British monarc🐲hy’s enduring popularity is impartiality. The Sussexes thumb their 🌃nose at the concept.

They might claim they didn’t favor any one candidate in their Time 100 video, but Meghan doesn’t hide her antip🃏athy for the president she once labeled a misogynist, and for his part, P🥃resident Trump on Wednesday declared: “I’m not a fan of hers.”

It🌄’s not hard to read between the lines when Harry says: “As we approach thiꦉs November, it’s vital that we reject hate speech, misinformation and online negativity.”

They are making millions off a royal🌺 tradition they d⛎on’t respect. Let them campaign as commoners, just another pair of Hollywood B-listers.

Anti-blue boo-hoo

It’s amazing how often BLM-Defund-the-Police sympathizers call the cops when they’re in trouble. It happened on Saturday in The Bronx, when a group of angry Italian-Americans confronted protesters agitating to remove the Christopher Columbus statue in D’Auria-Murphy Triangle Park.

Judging by the hot tempers 🍸and blue language, th🐷e statue foes would have been toast if the NYPD hadn’t swooped in.