Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

“Illusion of Influence”: The Media Moves the Goalpost Again on Biden Corruption Coverage
Jonathan Turley ^ | August 11, 2023 | Jonathan Turley

Posted on 08/12/2023 7:30:42 AM PDT by george76

With the new disclosures in the Biden corruption scandal, the media has, again, pivoted to avoid acknowledging the obvious. It now has a new demand before it will fully recognize or report on the scandal. Of course, after long repeating denials of Joe Biden that he ever knew about his son’s foreign business deals, the media must now recognize that Hunter was selling influence and access. So they have added yet another task: show Joe Biden actually accepting money.

It is what in literature is called the “impossible task” demand like the Slavic tale of a Tsar ordering a suitor “to go there he does not know where” and to “get that he does not know what.”

A direct bribe given to Joe Biden in an envelope or a direct deposit is obviously not impossible. Call it the “highly improbable task,” After all, former Rep. William Jefferson was found with cold-hard cash in his freezer. However, among professional influence peddlers, a direct payment to the principal would be viewed as sacrilegious — enough for a lifetime ban from the major corruption league.

Jefferson was an amateur. The Bidens have been in the influence peddling business for decades and Hunter told his Chinese contacts that they are “the best” at what these foreign figures wanted from them.

Only a certifiable moron today would deposit any of the $20 million documented by the House committees in an actual account of Joe or Jill Biden. Those accounts are subject to continual monitoring and potential subpoenas.

Instead, the Congress has found dozens of shell companies and accounts used by the Bidens to help conceal the transfer of millions to Biden family members, including grandchildren. This includes references to bills of Joe Biden being paid out of joint accounts and benefits from deals that might include free offices. At the same time, these foreign sources sent direct money to the Biden Family Fund, a financial legacy that Joe Biden would leave in the form of millions of foreign contributions. At 80 with millions in wealth, Joe Biden is likely more motivated by moving wealth to his descendants than himself.

There were also alleged deliverables. Recently, Devon Archer confirmed that Hunter’s Ukrainian clients wanted the help of the Bidens in removing Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin. Biden would later insist on his being fired as a condition for a billion dollars in U.S. aid.

For years, the media insisted that there was no evidence of influence peddling or evidence contradicting the President. While most of these reporters required little to push false accounts of Russian collusion or Russian disinformation (including the dismissal of the Hunter Biden laptop), they are now demanding a virtual confession from the President or an actual deposit slip to his bank account.

When confronted with the transfer of millions and what Devon Archer now calls “categorically false” denials by the President, the media seems positively exasperated like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland. It is insisting that the public should not assume that the influence sold was influence realized. They just need to believe in the Bidens and the “illusion of influence.” When Alice says that she “cannot believe impossible things,” the Queen snaps back “I daresay you haven’t had much practice. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!”

The media has shown that it is possible to believe six impossible things to avoid the reality of the Biden scandal. Accordingly, the media now will accept that there was influence peddling but will treat it as “an illusion” until a direct payment is shown to President Biden himself rather than his family.

In this final demand, the media is relying entirely on the skill of the Bidens in hiding payments and avoiding such incriminating deposits. Biden himself has laughingly taunted reporters and asked “where’s the money?”

When confronted on his calling Hunter and his business partners roughly 20 times, he and the White House have pointed out that he merely discussed the weather and pleasantries. The media has largely ignored that only a moron would conduct “business” on a speakerphone at a dinner at the popular Cafe Milano. The point of the calls was to prove the bona fides of Hunter selling influence and access to his father.

The Bidens have perfected what Uncle Earl Long said was the key to maintaining corruption:

“Don’t write anything you can phone. Don’t phone anything you can talk.

Don’t talk anything you can whisper. Don’t whisper anything you can smile.

Don’t smile anything you can nod. Don’t nod anything you can wink.”

The true illusion was the Bidens in getting this scandal to disappear in front of millions. As I wrote years ago, the key to this Houdinesque trick was to get the media to invest in the deception like audience members called to the stage. The reporters have to back the illusion or admit that they were part of the deception. Even with millions funneled to the Biden family and acknowledgments that they were “selling the [Biden] brand,” it cannot be enough.

Even the use of a ridiculously complex array of two dozen entities to transfer money without any known purpose, it cannot be enough.

It is far easier to demand to see something no self-respecting Beltway bandit would commit: that after creating this labyrinth of shell companies and accounts, the Bidens went ahead and just did the equivalent to a Venmo payment directly to Joe and Jill Biden. It may not be impossible but it is as improbable as Hunter Biden being an energy expert.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: biden; bidencorruption; coldcash; coldhardcash; corruption; fjb; freezer; jonathanturley; media; msm; turley; williamjefferson
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

1 posted on 08/12/2023 7:30:42 AM PDT by george76
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: george76

Standards that will never be applied to Trump. Do they think we won’t notice?


2 posted on 08/12/2023 7:41:46 AM PDT by Spok (Recovering from the Dunning-Kruger effect.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: george76

Now that the deep state has all the players in place the game is theirs.


3 posted on 08/12/2023 7:53:15 AM PDT by John 3_19-21 (Until we turn off the corporate media, good news/bad news, links, and references, they win.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: george76

The fix is in. If only there be ten righteous always comes to mind. 🙏


4 posted on 08/12/2023 8:02:07 AM PDT by FES0844
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: george76

I am shocked that they admit that he was selling the illusion of influence. That means the Chinese THOUGHT they were buying influence. That means Hunter intended that they think they were buying influence. But was it really just an illusion? Joe sure has been a friend of China and Ukraine. The prosecutor got fired. The Moscow mayors widow did not end up on the sanctions list. Joe did not put up much of a fight on the Chinese balloon or on Covid and he did subsidize Chinese sola panels.


5 posted on 08/12/2023 8:19:33 AM PDT by Brilliant
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: John 3_19-21

It’s hard to be anything but pessimistic. If the MSM/Deep State can protect a bumbling, creepy, corrupt liar like Biden despite a pile of evidence he took millions in bribes from our counties enemies what hope is there?


6 posted on 08/12/2023 8:22:14 AM PDT by gibsonguy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Spok

“Illusion of influence” is a weasel phrase, meant to plant doubt and confusion, and has no real meaning here. There was no “illusion”, there has been demonstrable fact over and over again. We are not talking about confirming an appointee to office, this is real criminality going off under our noses, and the stink is all over it.

In Trump’s case, there is a strong “illusion of malfeasance” that cannot be demonstrated in any acceptable manner. Accusation is not always relevant to the facts, and indictment is not conviction.


7 posted on 08/12/2023 8:44:23 AM PDT by alloysteel (Take back the rainbow. Its use by LGBTQ is cultural misappropriation.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: george76

The DNC’s National Propaganda Bureaus are really busting their asses covering for and defending the Biden Crime Family. The “media” in this country is toadally WORTHLESS.


8 posted on 08/12/2023 8:44:52 AM PDT by FlingWingFlyer ("There's no cryin' in baseball and there's no ethics in politics!" )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: george76

“Illusion of Influence”

\/

Ooooo.

Look

ANOTHER euphemism in upside down world.

Along the lines I’ve been hearing admin officials being grilled saying

.” I disagree with your characterization of ....”

Spit.


9 posted on 08/12/2023 8:51:37 AM PDT by cuz1961 (USCGR Veteran )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Spok

Evidence? Evidence?
We demand proof positive, beyond any shadow of doubt, in writing, notarized.


10 posted on 08/12/2023 8:53:19 AM PDT by Tupelo (A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: cuz1961

Equivalent to a toddlers

” nuh uh !!! “.

Infantile denial is the coin of the upside down world realm.


11 posted on 08/12/2023 8:53:24 AM PDT by cuz1961 (USCGR Veteran )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: All

Joe Biden’s deep involvement in Hunter’s business schemes
with Chinese,Russians and Ukrainians revealed in
Devon Archer’s full damning testimony to Congress
New York Post ^ | August 3, 2023 | Steven Nelson
Posted on 8/3/2023, 11:05:13 AM by george76

Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer told lawmakers this week that Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings brought the VP’s son onto its board, as “a strongarm tactic,” so that people would be intimidated to mess with them …... legally.

Archer said that Hunter had a well-rehearsed act while at dinner w/ foreign clients, wherein Hunter would ceremoniously announce he was “calling his VP dad in DC” which was Joe’s cue to discuss “niceties and the weather”......not business.

Archer testified Hunter’s phone act was calculated....intended to show his foreign clients they had instant access to VP Biden...... to collect favors once they paid him off.

The telephone act was also intended to give the Bidens deniability and to let Joe Biden off the hook as a criminal accomplice to influence peddling, bribery and money laundering.


12 posted on 08/12/2023 9:14:40 AM PDT by Liz (More tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered ones. St Teresa of Avila)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: george76

The media trying to conflate the beyond a reasonable doubt standard of evidence in the legal system with the if it walks and quacks like a duck standard of proof in the political realm to save their guy politically. Biden’s problem is no one, beyond the age of 4, that is not a dyed in the wool Dem partisan, is going to believe that this duck is not quacking when they go to the polls. The question is whether it is loud enough that Independents and nonpartisans will pull the lever for the other guy because of it. The media hopes not.


13 posted on 08/12/2023 9:27:51 AM PDT by chuckee ( )
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: george76

The fake libtard media protect the crooked President Retard as hard as they try to frame Trump


14 posted on 08/12/2023 12:21:24 PM PDT by NWFree (Sigma male 🤪)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: FlingWingFlyer

Worthless, yes. But more than anything mainstream media is dangerous in acting against the spirit of constitutional free speech, in ignoring political corruption. Very dangerous for freedom.


15 posted on 08/12/2023 12:31:18 PM PDT by aligncare ( Make America Great Again…Trump 2024)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: All

dailycaller.com
HENRY RODGERS
CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT
August 11, 2023

Republican Florida Rep. Greg Steube filed articles of impeachment against Joe Biden on Friday.

The Daily Caller obtained the resolution, which lists Bribery, Extortion, Obstruction of justice, Fraud and Financial involvement in drugs & prostitution as reasons to impeach Biden.

“It’s long past time to impeach Joe Biden,” Steube said after introducing the resolution. “He has undermined the integrity of his office, brought disrepute on the Presidency, betrayed his trust as President, and acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice at the expense of America’s citizens.”

” The evidence continues to mount by the day – the Biden Crime Family has personally profited off Joe’s government positions through bribery, threats, and fraud. Joe Biden must not be allowed to continue to sit in the White House, selling out our country.”

Article 1 states: “Robert Hunter Biden (Hunter Biden) and James Biden sold access to then Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. (Joe Biden) while he was in office from 2009 to 2017 and sold promised access to a future Biden Presidential Administration while he was out of office from 2017 to 2021. Hunter and James appear to have promised official actions by Joe Biden in return for payments and business opportunities from foreign and domestic business partners.

Joe Biden assisted by making appearances, phone calls, meeting with the ‘business partners,’ and knowingly allowing his family members to promise access to him and actions by him in furtherance of these schemes. Hunter Biden threatened business partners that official actions could be taken against them if they did not meet terms or make payments.

In at least one instance, Hunter implied that Joe Biden was aware of these threats and willing to assist in enforcing the threats, potentially through official actions. Hunter Biden attempted to enrich himself and the Biden family by threatening official actions from his father, who he claims was willing to assist in the scheme.

These acts are abuses of power as well as the following federal crimes or conspiracy to commit the following federal crimes: Bribery of Public Officials, 18 USC § 201; Hobbs Act Extortion ‘Under Color of Official Right,’ 18 USC § 1951; Honest Services Fraud relating to use of official position, 18 USC § 1346.”

Article 2 States: “According to testimony from IRS whistleblowers, members of the Biden campaign improperly colluded with Justice Department (DOJ) officials to improperly interfere with investigations into tax crimes alleged to have been committed by Hunter Biden. These acts constitute an abuse of power as well as Obstruction of Justice, 18 USC §§ 1505, 1510, 1512.”

READ THE IMPEACHMENT ARTICLES HERE: (at web site)


16 posted on 08/12/2023 1:51:21 PM PDT by Liz (More tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered ones. St Teresa of Avila)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: All

New York Post ^ | August 3, 2023 | Steven Nelson
Posted on 8/3/2023, 11:05:13 AM by george76

Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer told lawmakers this week that Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings brought the VP’s son onto its board, was “a strongarm tactic,” so that people would be intimidated to mess with them …... legally.

Archer said that Hunter had a well-rehearsed act while at dinner w/ foreign clients, wherein Hunter would ceremoniously announce he was “calling his VP dad in DC” which was Joe’s cue to discuss “niceties and the weather”......not business.

Archer testified Hunter’s phone act was calculated....intended to show his foreign clients they had instant access to VP Biden...... to collect favors once they paid him off.

The telephone act was also intended to give the Bidens deniability and to let Joe Biden off the hook as a criminal accomplice to influence peddling, bribery and money laundering.


17 posted on 08/12/2023 1:54:11 PM PDT by Liz (More tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered ones. St Teresa of Avila)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: GOPJ; poconopundit; Jane Long; Diana in Wisconsin; Grampa Dave; Godzilla; null and void; aragorn; ..

Want On or Off list? Frmail me.


18 posted on 08/12/2023 1:55:23 PM PDT by Liz (More tears are shed over answered prayers than over unanswered ones. St Teresa of Avila)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: Liz

Thank you.


19 posted on 08/12/2023 11:21:27 PM PDT by Robert A Cook PE (Method, motive, and opportunity: No morals, shear madness and hatred by those who cheat.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: george76
"show Joe Biden actually accepting money."


20 posted on 08/13/2023 2:29:34 AM PDT by clearcarbon (Fraudulent elections have consequences.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-24 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson