'Do We Have A De Facto State Media?': Legal Scholar Lambastes Media Blackout On Biden's $10 Million Pay-to-Play Scandal

George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley recently published an article where he accused corporate press's refusal to cover the foreign funding of the Biden family revelation as a worrying sign of them acting like state-run media. 

He wrote that even after Representative Byron Donalds (R-FL) and his colleagues "presented a labyrinth of LLC shell companies and accounts used to funnel as much as $10 million to Biden family members" and tried to get the press interested in these shocking findings, the press took a different angle. As Turley revealed "Despite showing nine Biden family members allegedly receiving funds from corrupt figures in Romania, China and other countries, The New Republic quickly ran a story headlined 'Republicans Finally Admit They Have No Incriminating Evidence on Joe Biden.' For many of us, it was otherworldly. "

Professor Turley noticed that this was not the first time the press ran interference for Joe Biden as he cited the Hunter Biden laptop expose and the press's reaction to it as Russian disinformation despite many of them two years later conceding that the laptop was authentic. 

He wrote, "But the media then ignored what was on that 'authentic laptop.' Hundreds of emails detailed potentially criminal conduct and raw influence peddling in foreign countries. When media outlets such as the New York Post confirmed the emails, the media then insisted that there was no corroboration of the influence-peddling payments and no clear proof of criminal conduct. It entirely ignored the obvious corruption itself." 

Turley blasted the media's insistence on direct payments to Joe Biden as being the only form of valid evidence of a pay-to-play scandal. He noted, "Putting aside that this is only the fourth month of an investigation, the media’s demand of a direct payment to President Biden is laughably absurd. The payments were going to his family, but he was the object of the influence peddling."

"The House has shown millions of dollars going to at least nine Bidens like dividends from a family business," the legal scholar said. "As a long-time critic of influence peddling among both Republicans and Democrats, I have never seen the equal of the Bidens."

The law professor noted similar schemes in other influence-peddling cases of indirect methods of payment and he also cited some of the emails of the Hunter Biden laptop as receiving money from Hunter Biden's business dealings and the use of code names that allegedly refer to Joe Biden. 

Professor Turley warned that "[t]oday we are seeing a much more dangerous phenomenon. The coverage this week has all the markings of a state media. The consistent spin. The almost universal lack of details. The absurd distinctions."

Turley also took to Twitter to make similar points. He tweeted, "Do we have a de facto state media? The coverage of the recent disclosure of $10 million in payments to Biden family members notably fits the past standards used to denounce Russian propaganda patterns and practices."

Do we have a de facto state media? The coverage of the recent disclosure of $10 million in payments to Biden family members notably fits the past standards used to denounce Russian propaganda patterns and practices. https://t.co/Z91QodM4Hz

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) May 15, 2023