Senior political analyst John Avlon killed all irony on Tuesday’s CNN Tonight as he used some sketchy research to accuse Fox News of being obsessed with Hunter Biden. At the same time, Avlon sought to fact-check Republican claims that a legal double standard exists, but didn’t actually address the main point of the GOP’s allegations.
Avlon kicked off his “reality check” by declaring that “there's a lot of doubling down on this idea of a legal double standard, especially in the wake of Donald Trump's 37-count indictment. But does that stack up to the facts? Well, the investigation first was conducted by a Trump appointee, U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, specifically to reduce concern about politicized results.”
The man who works for the network that spent nearly 97 percent of Trump Indictment Day talking about Trump and mentioned him 191 times on May 25 alone accused Fox of being obsessed with Hunter, “But of course, Hunter Biden has been demonized by the right pretty thoroughly. To use just one measure? Get this, a LexisNexis search found that he was mentioned more than 2,200 times on Fox News between 2020 and 2022. For those doing the math at home, that's well over once a day.”
From January 1, 2020, through December 31, 2022 is a time span of 1,095 days which means that Avlon’s definition of obsessive is two mentions per day. Two! Even worse, NewsBusters tried to reverse engineer CNN’s research and could not duplicate the results. A NewsBusters search of Nexus for Fox News transcripts yielded 2,045 mentions of “Hunter Biden” with each transcript providing for several mentions of Hunter.
At the same, NewsBusters searched CNN transcripts for mentions of “January 6th committee” during the same time span and found 2,374 results. NewsBusters also searched for Trump Jr.", "Trump, Jr.", and "Trump Junior" and got 2,440 results despite Donald Trump Jr. never being charged with a crime.
NewsBusters media editor Bill D'Agostino made this helpful explainer video showing our inability to duplicate CNN's research:
Avlon’s shoddy research aside, he also declared:
Now, we know that other Americans who've taken home classified national security documents often receive stiff prison sentences. It happened in several cases recently, as detailed by CNN's Daniel Dale. But willful failure to pay income tax with a guilty plea often does not result in prison time, especially if the money's been paid back with interest. And that's the deal with Hunter Biden's case. He underpaid the IRS by at least $100,000 in both 2017 and 2018 when he was admittedly a crack cocaine addict. He has since paid up and will receive probation.
This doesn’t actually debunk GOP concerns about a “legal double standard” because their argument is that Hunter escaped corruption charges.
After going through the gun charge, Avlon urged viewers to ignore GOP concerns, “So, look, you can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into, as the Irish author Jonathan Swift once wrote. But here's the big picture. The fact that son of the President was investigated by the government and charged is actually evidence that no one is above the law in America. That's a good thing. And that's your reality check.”
Is it really a reality check of your research can’t be duplicated because you didn’t provide your methodology?
This segment as sponsored by Safelite.
Here is a transcript for the June 20 show:
CNN Tonight
6/21/2023
11:31 PM ET
JOHN AVLON: Yeah, there's a lot of doubling down on this idea of a legal double standard, especially in the wake of Donald Trump's 37-count indictment. But does that stack up to the facts? Well, the investigation first was conducted by a Trump appointee, U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, specifically to reduce concern about politicized results. But of course, Hunter Biden has been demonized by the right pretty thoroughly. To use just one measure? Get this, a LexisNexis search found that he was mentioned more than 2,200 times on Fox News between 2020 and 2022. For those doing the math at home, that's well over once a day. So, don't believe the hype. Instead, look at the cops.
Now, we know that other Americans who've taken home classified national security documents often receive stiff prison sentences. It happened in several cases recently, as detailed by CNN's Daniel Dale. But willful failure to pay income tax with a guilty plea often does not result in prison time, especially if the money's been paid back with interest. And that's the deal with Hunter Biden's case. He underpaid the IRS by at least $100,000 in both 2017 and 2018 when he was admittedly a crack cocaine addict. He has since paid up and will receive probation.
Now, the gun charge is a little bit stranger, but bear with me. Basically, Hunter Biden was charged with possessing a gun when he was a drug addict. That is illegal, but rarely charged standalone, unless the gun is used in a separate crime. Get this, over six months from October 22 to March of this year, federal prosecutors filed over 3,800 cases of unlawful possession of firearms according to a database compiled by Syracuse University. But in only three percent of the time, failing to make a false statement to acquire the gun related to the lead charge.
So, look, you can't reason someone out of something they weren't reasoned into, as the Irish author Jonathan Swift once wrote. But here's the big picture. The fact that son of the President was investigated by the government and charged is actually evidence that no one is above the law in America. That's a good thing. And that's your reality check.
