Hunter Biden Defends Himself, So MRC Has A Hissy Fit

The Media Research Center gets irrationally angry whenever Hunter Biden defends himself. When Hunter took a stand outside the Capitol building by declaring he would take questions from hostile Republican congressmen only in a public forum, not the private session from which they would selectively leak out-of-context excerpts as is their practice, the MRC’s Hunter Derangement Syndrome reached new levels of rage. Nicholas Fondacaro raged in a Dec. 13 post:

In a brazen act of defiance, on Wednesday, President Joe Biden’s delinquent son Hunter publically refused to comply with a congressional subpoena to appear before Congress in the closed committee hearing. It was an act scored by the liberal media when former President Trump’s allies did it, but now that the parties were reversed MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell cheered it on as “extraordinary” during her eponymous show.

She also falsely claimed that Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) was held in contempt for similarly defying a congressional subpoena.

Near the top of her show, Mitchell touted Hunter’s statement to the press outside the Capitol. “A defiant Hunter Biden speaking publically about all of this for the first time,” she announced. She then admitted it wasn’t the first time he spoke publically about his additions since “he wrote a book.” “[B]ut this was really an extraordinary statement today,” she added.

Mitchell followed up by falsely claiming that Representative Jordan had previously been held in contempt of Congress by Democrats for the same thing. “By the way, Jim Jordan ignored a subpoena. He was, you know, in contempt really of Congress for refusing to testify,” she erroneously suggested.

[…]

Ignoring the lies and games the Democrats had played with their Russia Collusion Hoax, Coley suggested it was Republicans who “have a history of cherry-picking things said in private and releasing them publically without context … all in an effort to shape a public narrative.”

Fondacaro is ignoring that there was plenty of evidence to warrant an investigation into Donald Trump’s Russian connections, and that most observers agreed. He also failed to mention that Republicans do, in fact, have a history of selectively leaking private testimony that tends to be disproven when the full transcript is ultimately released. We also don’t recall Fondacaro ever accusing Jordan of a “brazen act of defiance” in defying his congressional subpoena.

Curtis Houck followed with a post playing whataboutism over selective leaks:

[NBC correspondent Garrett] Haake noted that Republicans “argue that this impeachment inquiry — formalizing it — will force the administration to be more responsive to their questions and to their subpoenas” while Democrats “see this entire effort as just a distracting political stunt”.

Haake and co-host Savannah Guthrie then went through the minutiae of why Hunter Biden and his team only want a public hearing while Republicans want both. Hilariously, Haake repeatedly Team Hunter’s demands for a public-only hearing would be “to prevent the committee from twisting his words with what they release.”

Alex Christy spent a Dec. 14 post being angry that Stephen Colbert called out Republicans’ obsession with nude pictures of Hunter:

In December 2022, CBS’s Stephen Colbert proclaimed the reason why conservatives were all upset over Twitter censoring the New York Post story on Hunter Biden’s laptop was because they wanted to see “Hunter Biden’s penis pictures.” Fast forward a year to the Wednesday edition of The Late Show and Colbert was at it again, claiming the only dirt Republicans have on President Joe Biden as they launch their impeachment inquiry is “his son’s penis pics.”

After playing a clip of GOP Rep. Pat Fallon on Fox, Colbert declared, “This started with you not liking Joe Biden and spending a year not finding a crime he committed. It’s just like an episode of Law & Order.”

Of course, as Colbert’s CBS colleagues informed us not that long ago, you don’t need to come committed an actual crime to be impeached, but Colbert continued with a Law & Order parody that included the narrator declaring, “In the criminal justice system, sometimes you really want to have done something bad even if they probably didn’t so you spend many months and millions of taxpayer dollars on an investigation, but the best you come up with is his son’s penis pics.”

[…]

Liberal comedian minds think alike as Jimmy Kimmel has essentially the same thing a few weeks back. Still, Colbert then played a clip of Hunter declaring that “For six years, MAGA Republicans, including members of the House committees who are in a closed door session right now have impugned my character, invaded my privacy, attacked my wife, my family, and my friends, They’ve ridiculed my struggle with addiction. They’ve belittled my recovery and they’ve tried to dehumanize me all to embarrass and damage my father.”

To which Colbert added in another jokes that was not told four years ago, “Come on, that’s not fair, Hunter. They also did it to fundraise.”

Christy didn’t dispute Colbert’s assessment.

In another Dec. 14 post, Jorge Bonilla accused anyone of telling Hunter’s side of the story of promoting a “narrative” (as if he’s not being paid to push right-wing anti-Hunter narratives):

After Hunter Biden’s wild press conference in lieu of appearing to testify before the House committees investigating the Biden family’s foreign business dealings ahead of yesterday’s vote on an impeachment inquiry, it appears that the communications strategy is lacking consensus. And on CNN NewsNight with Abby Philip, an opportunity to shape that post-presser consensus narrative.

[…]

Of course, the purest victim in all of this is not Hunter Biden, but the presidential reelection prospects of his father, hence the expression of concern over Hunter’s silent strategy. But then, a reassurance. “It is important that Hunter does not appear guilty” seems like it came from Hunter himself…as does, quite frankly, the whole segment.

There is, of course, no time to examine or discuss any of the public evidence against the Bidens, such as the FD-1023 discussing payments to Burisma or the damning IRS whistleblower testimony. There is only concern for the relationship between Hunter Biden, his appearance of innocence in the face of damning evidence, the electoral prospects of Joe Biden, and the shaping of public perception in a light most favorable to all.

This is little more than crisis comms strategy disguised as “news analysis”.

Bonilla, of course, is promoting right-wing talking points disguised as “media research.”

Clay Waters used a Dec. 15 post to complain that PBS was almost too balanced in reporting on Hunter:

On the Wednesday edition of the PBS NewsHour, host William Brangham neutrally noted the launch by House Republicans of a formal impeachment inquiry into President Biden. Congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins also set the scene in straightforward fashion, observing that House Republicans are aiming to get more leverage in court to enforce subpoenas, especially against Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who has just defied a congressional subpoena to testify behind closed doors as opposed to in public.

Desjardins even relayed data from a new poll from NPR, PBS and Marist, including the rather surprising figure that “24 percent of Democrats saying a Democratic president, they approve of an impeachment inquiry is significant.”

Waters then groused that an expert on impeachment PBS had on “has deep ties to Democrats, including donating to Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns, serving as deputy media director of Al Gore’s first U.S. Senate campaign, and acted as special counsel to former Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) regarding Obama’s nominations of Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor,” then served up more right-wing spin after the expert pointed out there’s no “credible evidence” so far in the Biden impeachment push:

It’s ludicrous to claim there’s no “credible evidence” linking Hunter Biden to his father, which requires ignoring all the phone calls between Joe and Hunter’s clients (where they “only talked about the weather”) and the restaurant meetings and the photographs. Evidence keeps pouring out, like the big checks to Joe from his brother James (never mind, it’s a “loan repayment.”)

Bonilla returned to once again try and make “Acela media” happen in another Dec. 15 post:

As part of the ongoing Acela Media effort to enable Hunter Biden’s new media strategy, MSNBC’s Alex Wagner was joined by Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA), where he was given free rein to smear conservatives and impugn the motives of those who investigate the Biden family corruption. 

Watch as the public flatulator and Chinese spy romancer proceeds, with smiling assent from Wagner, to link the existing impeachment inquiry with the January 6th Capitol Riot[:] […]

The entire interview went pretty much like this, but this clip is representative. All the elements were there for Swalwell. Recovering addict. Personal mistakes were made. A father’s love. No proof of wrongdoing or criminality. MAGA. 

Of course, it wasn’t that long ago that Swalwell saw the value in closed-door hearings in furtherance of impeachment inquiries. None of that mattered to Wagner, who was there to facilitate this new, performatively assertive Biden media strategy. 

We don’t recall Bonilla ever complaining that Donald Trump acted in a “performatively assertive” manner.