FEBRUARY 16, 2024 UPDATE: On Feb. 15 the New York Post reported the following: “Special counsel David Weiss on Thursday charged the FBI informant who alleged President Biden and first son Hunter Biden were involved in a $10 million bribery scheme with providing false information to the bureau. Alexander Smirnov, 43, was indicted by a California grand jury on two felony counts of making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record for statements he made to the FBI referenced in a June 2020 FD-1023 form that House Republicans have used as evidence in Joe Biden’s impeachment inquiry.”
On Thursday June 8, two massive political stories broke, but ONLY one of them got covered by the broadcast networks.
On June 8, former President Donald Trump was indicted by the Special Counsel in the classified documents case. That very same day it was reported that President Joe Biden had allegedly received $5 million dollars from an executive of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, the same company in which his son Hunter was involved.
Guess which one was exhaustively covered and which one was completely covered up by the networks?
Over four days (June 8-June 12) the Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) broadcast networks predictably crammed their evening, morning and Sunday roundtable shows with a total of 291 minutes of coverage dedicated to the Trump indictment.
But how much did the Biden/Burisma alleged bribery scheme receive?
Zero seconds.
The double-standard is breathtaking.
George Stephanopoulos’s introduction, on the June 9 edition of ABC’s Good Morning America, was representative of the tone of network coverage of the Trump indictment. The moderator of ABC’s This Week, co-anchor of Good Morning America and former Bill Clinton hack, shamelessly greeted his audience this way:
The idea that no person is above the law is a bedrock principle of American justice. And it’s being tested never before now that Donald Trump is the first former president in American history to face criminal charges from the federal government. It’s in the latest in a litany of firsts for a former President; Impeached not once, but twice. Last month, found liable for sexual abuse in a civil trial, indicted in state court for paying hush money to a porn star. His company convicted of tax fraud. And Trump still faces two more possible indictments for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Another first? That former president, defeated for reelection once, is for now, at least the front runner for his party’s nomination. Our team is covering all the angles of this astonishing legal and political story.
A story that ABC or CBS and NBC didn’t have their team “covering all angles” on was the latest shocking development in the ongoing saga that is the Biden family corruption scandal. On June 8 FoxNews.com reported the following:
EXCLUSIVE: President Joe Biden was allegedly paid $5 million by an executive of the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, where his son Hunter Biden sat on the board, a confidential human source told the FBI during a June 2020 interview, sources familiar told Fox News Digital.
The sources briefed Fox News Digital on the contents of the FBI-generated FD-1023 form alleging a criminal bribery scheme between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national that involved influence over U.S. policy decisions.
The FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020, is the FBI's interview with a “highly credible” confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, starting in 2015. Fox News Digital has not seen the form, but it was described by several sources who are aware of its contents.
Make no mistake, the Burisma scandal story and its ties to Joe “Big Guy” Biden has legs. On June 12, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer claimed the FBI has additional informant documents that link then-Vice President Biden to an alleged multimillion-dollar bribery scheme. Also on June 12, Sen. Chuck Grassley relayed that there are audio recordings between the Burisma executive who allegedly paid then VP Biden and Hunter.
Clearly the broadcast networks will continue to obsessively cover Trump’s indictment but to be fair and balanced they would also cover Biden’s scandals — something they (as exposed by NewsBusters) have been reluctant to do.
Special thanks to NewsBusters’ Curtis Houck, Alex Christy and Kevin Tober for contributing to this study.
(It should be noted that because the Trump indictment arrived after the East Coast versions of the June 8 evening shows aired, MRC analysts looked at the West Coast feed for those shows. Also due to live national sports events, the June 10 editions of CBS Weekend News, NBC’s Today and the June 11 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press and CBS Weekend News were preempted.)
