Former Politico reporters say the outlet canceled negative Biden stories

Two former Politico reporters spoke candidly about efforts by their bosses to either slow down or completely scrap their reporting on the Biden family during their time at the news outlet.

Mark Caputo and Tara Palmieri, now journalists at Axios and Puck respectively, spoke about their time at Politico on Palmieri’s “Somebody’s Gotta Win” radio show.

Caputo called out Politico’s “ominous headline” that downplayed the matter Hunter Biden Laptop scandal during the 2020 elections.

“I mean, Politico, my former employer, who I knew at the time, didn’t do himself any favors,” Caputo said in the exchange shared Thursday on YouTube. “I was covering Biden at the time, and I remember coming up to my editor and saying, ‘Hey, we need to write about Hunter Biden’s laptop.’ And I was told that this came from the top at Politico: Don’t write about the laptop, no “You talk about the laptop, don’t tweet about the laptop and the only thing Politico ended up writing was this article with the title ‘Disinformation,’ which we can call ‘disinformation,’ at least.”

Caputo was referring to the Politico report, which was titled “Hunter Biden Story Is Russian Disinformation, Dozens of Former Intelligence Officials Say,” in the open letter signed by 51 intelligence officials declaring that the material found on Hunter Biden’s laptop bore “all the signs Designed for espionage. “Russian intelligence operation.” The report came days after the New York Post published its stunning report about the laptop in October 2020.

POLITICO Confirms Emails Sent by Hunter Biden on Laptop After Media Breaks ‘Russian Disinformation’ Story Amid Election

Caputo also highlighted a report he wrote in 2019 that arose from opposition research from a rival Democratic campaign of then-candidate Joe Biden regarding a “tax lien” to Hunter related to his work at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

“And I wrote what would have been a classic story that said, you know, the former vice president’s son was hit with a huge tax lien during the period of time that he worked for the controversial Ukrainian oil company, or natural gas company, which his father is hounding on the campaign trail,” Caputo said. : “This story was killed by the editors, and they didn’t offer any explanation for that either. So the overall experience – obviously the public doesn’t know about these things.”

When I arrived before Fox News DigitalCaputo provided a video showing the original Word document he created on May 8, 2019 for his tax lien report on Hunter Biden.

James Clapper accuses Politico of “deliberately distorting” a message on Biden’s laptop as Russian information

Palmieri similarly shared an experience in Politico regarding the “serious reporting” she did on then-President Biden’s son. She broke the story of the Hunter Biden shooting that led to him being charged with a felony for lying about his gun drug use.

“I spent three months setting it up, went to the laptop store, did all the reporting in Delaware, did all that. But yeah, it happened, and it had to be that way — it had to be 100 percent.” “I had it all nailed,” Palmieri told Caputo. “I had all the, you know, police reports… I’m a tough reporter. But I wonder if it would have been possible, or if it would have been published a little faster if it had been a different kind of story.”

Speaking with Fox News Digital, Palmieri talked about how her bosses took their time before publishing her story.

“I definitely had to push hard to get these reports out there. It was constant, ‘Hey, when are we going to do this?’ Wait, when are we going to post this? Hey, when are we going to do this? Because it’s been very difficult, like it’s a known feeling, it’s going to be difficult to report things that are really difficult for the Biden administration and his family, it’s just the culture,” Palmieri told Fox News Digital. “And I think when the culture is such that the reporter has to push so hard that it creates Feeling that there is no interest in this type of reporting. Ultimately, you know, we work to publish and to have our editors engage with this type of reporting. Support our work.”

Palmieri said she first obtained the police report shortly after Biden’s inauguration in late January 2021, but her story was not published until shortly after Biden’s inauguration. Late March 2021.

“I think if it had been one of Trump’s children, it would have been published much sooner,” Palmieri said. “I had to work really hard to satisfy my crush — you’re like, ‘Hey, what’s going on in the story? Hey, what’s going on in the story? Like, what’s going on in the story?'” The White House gave us a lot of time, about a week or so, “To respond, I don’t know if that’s the case with the Trump story.”

The former Politico journalist went on to cite the “honeymoon phase” of the Biden administration as a factor behind the slow pace of her story.

“I think a lot of people there, including journalists, wanted to be on the good side of the new administration,” Palmieri said. “So I can understand the reluctance to release a piece like this during the first few months.”

Palmieri also suggested that her bosses would not publish the story unless she could connect it to a federal agency.

“It had to come down to the fact that the Secret Service was involved,” Palmieri told Fox News Digital. “I just think the fact that the president’s son was involved in a domestic dispute that involved throwing a gun next to a school is very shocking. The police had to be involved.”

“I think they preferred that angle because I think it increased the appeal From the situation. The fact that the Secret Service may have been improperly used to cover up what could have been a crime if the weapon had been found and used by someone else. The overall truth is that he lied on the gun form that I had. I had the model gun and pointed out that he lied to him. But in the article, we downplayed that and said, “Although a lot of people lie on gun models and don’t get prosecuted for it,” which is true, by the way. But it’s not as if the headline wasn’t “Hunter Biden Lies Like a Gun,” which is a felony. She continued: “That wasn’t the headline even though I had the gun he lied to.”

“They felt it was newsworthy, and it had to rise to the occasion that a federal department was involved and they abused power, basically. And the crime itself wasn’t important — it wasn’t newsworthy just on that alone,” he went on. Palmieri to say. “In fairness, they wanted to make sure the story was hidden, but they also felt it needed to rise beyond the crime, the obvious crime that we got from the model. We had to establish that element of the Secret Service part.”

Hunter Biden ‘laptop from hell’ scandal turns 4: How the media and intelligence community misled Americans

A Politico spokesperson previously issued a statement walking back comments Caputo and Palmeri made on the podcast by touting how its journalists “lead the way in wide-ranging reporting on the business dealings of Joe Biden’s closest relatives” as well as fact-checking the information. Hunter Biden’s laptop, suggesting the former staffers have a “case of false memory.”

“Our editors adhere to strict standards, ensuring each story is carefully vetted and ‘policed’ before publication. This approach reflects our unwavering commitment to accuracy and accountability – principles that have guided us and will continue to do so,” the statement read.

Politico did not immediately respond to follow-up questions sent by Fox News Digital.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Many members of the media have reversed their previous coverage of Biden in recent months, especially after his disastrous debate performance on CNN that put his cognitive decline on full display.

Fox News contributor Joe Concha compared reporters who spoke out about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal to those who waited to address the former president’s mental decline and the legitimacy of the coronavirus lab leak theory.

“It complements what has become a trend in the media,” he said.