Politico squashed negative stories about Hunter Biden laptop, Biden family: report

Tara Palmeri, now at Puck, interviewed her former colleague Marc Caputo, who is now a reporter for Axios, on Palmeri's "Somebody's Gotta Win" podcast.

“Politico, my former employer, and I knew at the time, didn’t do itself any favors," Caputo said, regarding Politico downplaying the Hunter Biden laptop scandal during the 2020 election. "I was covering Biden at the time, and I remember coming to my editor and saying, ‘Hey, we need to write about the Hunter Biden laptop.’ And I was told this came from on high at Politico: Don’t write about the laptop, don’t talk about the laptop, don’t tweet about the laptop. And the only thing Politico wound up writing was that piece that called it disinformation, which charitably could be called misinformation, at the least."

Politico's article "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say," featured an open letter signed by 51 intelligence officials claiming that the material from Hunter Biden's infamous laptop had "all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence operation" days after The New York Post published its bombshell story on the laptop in October 2020.

Caputo also claimed that he had written a report in 2019 based on opposition research from a rival Democratic campaign of then-candidate Joe Biden about a "tax lien" of Hunter's surrounding his work at Ukrainian energy company Burisma. He said, “And I wrote what would have been a classic story, saying, you know, ‘The former vice president’s son was slapped with a big tax lien for the time that he worked for this controversial Ukrainian oil concern, or natural gas concern, which is haunting his father on the campaign trail.' That story was killed by the editors.' And they gave no explanation for that either. So that the general experience - obviously the public doesn't know about those things." Caputo provided Fox News evidence that the original Word document of the article was created on May 8, 2019.

Palmeri, who broke the story of Hunter Biden's gun incident that led to a felony charge for lying about his drug use on a gun form, said “I spent three months on it, I went to the laptop shop, and I did all of the reporting in Delaware, and I did all of that. But yeah, it had, it had to be like much- it had to be 100% nailed down. I had everything, you know, the police reports… I’m a solid reporter. But I do wonder if it could have if it would have been published a little quicker if it was a different type of story."

Palmeri told Fox News, "I certainly had to push very hard to get that reporting published. Like, it was a constant, 'Hey, when are we going to do this? Hey, when are we going to get this out there? Hey, when we're going to do this?' Because it was so difficult. Like it was kind of a known feeling that like, it's gonna be difficult to report stuff that's really tough on the Biden administration and family. It's just like a culture." Palmeri told Fox News Digital. "And I think when the culture is that a reporter has to push so hard that it just creates a feeling that there's not an interest in that type of reporting. And ultimately, you know, we work to be published and to get our editors to support our work."

Palmeri speculated, "I think a lot of people there, including reporters, wanted to get on the good side of the new administration. And so I could understand the reluctance to put out a piece like that within the first few months."

She also claimed her editors wouldn't run the story unless she was able to link it to a federal agency. She told Fox News, "It had to be about the fact that the Secret Service was involved. I just think the fact that, you know, the president's son is getting in a domestic dispute that involves a gun being thrown out next to a school is pretty shocking. And the police had to be involved."

She continued, "I think they preferred that angle because I think it increased the gravity of the situation. The fact that the Secret Service may have been improperly used to cover up what could have been a crime if the gun was found and used by someone else. The blanket fact that he lied on the gun form, which I had. I had the gun form and I pointed out that he lied on it. But in the piece, we downplayed it and said, ‘Although many people lie on gun forms and are not prosecuted for it’ which is true, by the way. But it's not like the headline wasn't ‘Hunter Biden lies on gun form,’ which is a felony. That was not the headline even though I had the gun form in which he lied."

Palmeri added, "They felt like for it to be worthy of being published, it had to rise to that occasion that a federal department was involved and they misused power, basically. Like the crime itself was not important- was not worthy of just running the story on that alone. In fairness, they wanted to make sure the story was buttoned up, but they also felt like it needed to be elevated beyond the crime, the obvious crime which we had from the form. We had to nail down that element of the Secret Service part."

A spokesperson for Politico told Fox News that the claims by their former reporters were "bullsh*t," and that they had "a case of false memory," adding that its reporters "led the way on wide-ranging reporting on the business dealings of Joe Biden’s closest relatives" as well as its verification of the laptop. Politico said in a statement, "Our editors uphold rigorous standards, ensuring every story is thoroughly vetted and ‘buttoned up’ before publishing. This approach reflects our unwavering commitment to accuracy and accountability—principles that have guided us and will continue to do so.”