The lives of family members of politicians and government employees should be completely on-limits for news coverage, provided that could be newsworthy, because using one's family is one method of laundering corruption.

Let's say for example you need a permit approved by the CITYNAME Department of Buildings. CITYNAME is slow to process permit applications, but it is common knowledge that using a particular expeditor consulting company actually helps to get your permit approved quickly. It would definitely be newsworthy if that consulting company was owned by a spouse, sibling, parent, cousin, etc. of someone in the building department. I personally know someone who was not able to open up a store in a city I lived because the inspector literally said something was deficient and recommended some local company nearby to "fix it" for approximately $50,000.

It is a similar reason why working in an investment bank, at least in the US, you have to agree that both you and your close family members must agree to trading restrictions so as not to pose a conflict of interest with any of the bank's clients. If such a restriction was not in place, then it would be easy to just pass insider information to your spouse or brother and have them make money based on news that is about to be announced.

Yes, using one's family can be used to launder money. But it can also be used to smear others. And because of that some prudence is required. And since all of the facts on that particular case have come out by now - or at least, given the ones that did come out without knowing whether or not that is exhaustive - I'd say the NPR made the right call.

It is unfortunate that the news would have been too close to the election, so I have some understanding why some news organizations handled the story they did.

I liken this to the Google, and other tech companies, interviewing process. It is better to miss out on a good hire, than hire (or elect) someone that was a false positive for good. So based on reasonable doubt or suspicion, a story like this should cause anyone connected to be considered not a good choice for government employment anywhere since it could cause the US to be taken advantage of by any relevant other countries.

They didn't just pass on the story, they put out negative commentary about it by calling it a distraction without even bothering to explain how they arrived at that.

There's a reason for that:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/13/hunter-bi...

> The article said that more than 50 former senior intelligence officials, including five CIA chiefs, had signed a letter saying the release of the emails “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

It’s weird to give a reason why NPR didn’t do something by citing an article from February of the following year.

The story was suspicious for many reasons, is the point.

And that’s why our intelligence apparatus is not a trusted source. Individuals within this institution are willing to game their status for reputation and sell it to the highest bidder. Look how the Pentagon is handling the leak of the Ukrainian papers, not to mention corporate journalist condemning the leak.

> not to mention corporate journalist condemning the leak

I'm sorry but what are you talking about? Leaks of sensitive information are supposed to be supported by every journalist, why? What if they serve 0 whistleblowing purpose, and are just a security incident. "That's good too!" Why?

The accusation you make that "corporate journalists" are pro government is just projection, because you clearly believe that every journalist should be anti-USG by default.

> Individuals within this institution are willing to game their status for reputation and sell it to the highest bidder.

I mean no offense by this, but you clearly don't understand how this works. Ex-intel officials don't speak up often, if at all. They hate having a public opinion, it goes against all their training. They only do so in extreme situations.

Of course you have a handful of ex-intel folks that do the opposite to try and have a career in media, but that's not what that letter represented.

Journalists will chime in on leaks/hacks when their is a way to leverage them ideologically. What is considered whistleblowing is part of the political process. If the same journalists jump on calling something whistleblowing when it serves democrats yet calling something else an unfortunate leak, it is an example of serving corporate/political interests above the public.

Do you not know what corporate journalists are? You can put it in the scary quotations but it doesn't make the term go away. It is an understood term. It exists. You can't scare-quote out of existence.

"you clearly believe that every journalist should be anti-USG by default" What in the world are you talking about? And you're accusing me of projection?

"Ex-intel officials don't speak up often, if at all. They hate having a public opinion, it goes against all their training. They only do so in extreme situations" Incorrect. They were happy to chime in in the fake Russia hoax scandal. The Steel dossier was poofed into existence by Hillary Clinton and our intelligence institutions were giddy to grind their ideological axes against Trump. It really shot their reputation. Read what the journalist Glenn Greenwald has to say about how agents in those institutions use their status to confer status to spurious claims for the purposes of politics.

Are you really going to say that our intelligence apparatus are trustworthy? The FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. They're trustworthy; is that what you're saying? I would love to hear your logic and any evidence you have in that direction.

> Journalists will chime in on leaks/hacks when their is a way to leverage them ideologically. What is considered whistleblowing is part of the political process. If the same journalists jump on calling something whistleblowing when it serves democrats yet calling something else an unfortunate leak, it is an example of serving corporate/political interests above the public.

I have no idea what you are trying to say.

> Do you not know what corporate journalists are?

It strikes me as a codeword, like "elite". Trump isn't part of the elite somehow despite being a NYC billionaire. I bet you don't consider Tucker Carlson a "corporate journalist" (or "elite") despite being a perfect example of both. You give these labels based on ideology.

> Incorrect. They were happy to chime in in the fake Russia hoax scandal.

Yep here we go. You mean where Russia offered to help Trump's campaign, and he accepted? (that according to the bi-partisan senate intel report). There was nothing fake about it, and very few intel officials said anything about it. Except for the guy that studied third world dictators his whole career and said Trump looked just like one..

> The Steel dossier was poofed into existence by Hillary Clinton

It was opposition research paid for by a Republicans: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/website-with-gop-ties-...

> intelligence institutions were giddy to grind their ideological axes against Trump

National security is famously a conservative profession.

> Read what the journalist Glenn Greenwald

Lol. Truly. Laugh out loud. With no self-awareness you claim all "corporate journalists" are compromised and hold up Glenn Greenwald, a flaming ball of partisan grievance as a source? My word.

"I have no idea what you are trying to say." I don't know. Maybe try reading it then? Are you seriously denying that journalists have ideological commitments that eclipse their journalistic integrity? In 2023? After we've seen so many examples of their collusion with corporations, either with Silicon Valley or Big Pharma. Do you actually have an argument against this?

"It strikes me as a codeword, like "elite". Trump isn't part of the elite somehow despite being a NYC billionaire. I bet you don't consider Tucker Carlson a "corporate journalist" (or "elite") despite being a perfect example of both. You give these labels based on ideology." I don't care what you consider it. The phenomenon is real. Do you truly believe there to be no shared interest between journalists and corporations? Calling it a code word doesn't make it go away conveniently for you. What is your argument here?

"Trump isn't part of the elite somehow despite being a NYC billionaire" Don't give a crap about trump.

" I bet you don't consider Tucker Carlson a "corporate journalist" (or "elite") despite being a perfect example of both." You really need stop projecting. I don't give up a crap about Tucker. He's just as much a corporate hack as anyone else. Don't know why you give him special privilege. Again, do you actually have an argument here? Or is this another failed gotcha?

"Yep here we go. You mean where Russia offered to help Trump's campaign, and he accepted?" "It's worth noting, however, that many other claims in the dossier remain unverified or disputed, and the document as a whole continues to be the subject of much debate and investigation." <- Straight from the mouth of ChatGPT :). Your fait accompli is no such thing.

"It was opposition research paid for by a Republicans" LOL. Imagine thinking that PBS is a neutral, unbiased source lol. This is my point. This is the thing that I am talking about. How can you pretend they are unbiased? Again, from the mouth of ChatGPT,

"Yes, it is widely believed that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) funded the research that led to the creation of the Steele Dossier. In April 2016, the law firm Perkins Coie retained the opposition research firm Fusion GPS to conduct research on Donald Trump's connections to Russia. Fusion GPS then hired former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele to conduct the research. According to campaign finance filings, the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid Perkins Coie over $12 million for legal services, including opposition research." Thoughts?

"National security is famously a conservative profession" LOL. Proof? Or are you we saying things now?

"Lol. Truly. Laugh out loud. With no self-awareness you claim all "corporate journalists" are compromised and hold up Glenn Greenwald, a flaming ball of partisan grievance as a source? My word." Thank you for proving my point. Progressives hate his guts; I know this. You shown yourself to be the progressive partisan. You have no interest in neutrality. No interest in making our political environment more bipartisan. All you know is "Trump bad >:(". That's really sad. I have no love for the guy but people like you remind me why Americans deserve such a pathetic excuse for a president.

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We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines egregiously.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

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> the only reason why this story was blown up as much as it was was because it was used to damage his father politically, not because there was anything of substance there.

Have you reviewed all of the information contained on said laptop? How can you state an opinion and present it as a fact? Do you have any data or evidence that the data contained within the laptop was compromised or had “lack of substance?”

> Have you reviewed all of the information contained on said laptop?

This is not a productive discussion I think so you're going to have to talk to yourself.

Right you haven’t. You present your opinion as fact as you have throughout this thread. I’d ask that YOU please stop pushing your opinion as fact when it is just your opinion.

To be fair, that's pretty much what Terence Samuels did and he stands behind him.

Right, DARVO.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DARVO

Haha, that mentions Trump and Kavanaugh... maybe not the reference you were looking for?

The burden of proof justifying posting stolen materials from the laptop belonging to the family member of a politician is not on the person asking if this is in bounds, it is on the person defending obvious muckraking.

The people making the claims about the laptop are the ones that need to provide evidence. To date, nothing of substance has been released from the laptop (which has supposedly been in the possession of the parties making the claims for at least 3 years) that validates any of the claims that have been made about the laptop, Hunter Biden, or Joe Biden.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.

> To date, nothing of substance has been released from the laptop (which has supposedly been in the possession of the parties making the claims for at least 3 years) that validates any of the claims that have been made about the laptop, Hunter Biden, or Joe Biden.

The evidence is there for anyone to view it. Just because the media doesn’t seem interested doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be interested. Just because the media doesn’t report on it doesn’t mean it’s not an interesting story.

Here is evidence from the laptop. Sure we can poke holes and say there was no “chain of custody” but if CoC didn’t matter for an election ballots why does it matter here? Just take an unbiased view of the data. Disregard the source and form you own opinion. Without actually looking at the data anything said is an assumption.

Again I may not like the source but I don’t tend to shoot the messenger.

https://bidenlaptopreport.marcopolousa.org/

That is not evidence. What is the crime that has supposedly been committed and what is the evidence that supports that accusation?

Dumping the contents of a laptop and then shouting conspiracies isn't the same as making a claim and then providing evidence for it.

The media doesn't seem interested because there's nothing there. If there was, Fox News, Breitbart, and all the others would be all over it and pushing it daily.

The media seemed to care when the narrative was 51 IC members says the laptop has “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Hell every network ran with that lie and bullshit. Even twitter was involved and we can see the fallout within the twitter files. Some retracted. Some updated when the laptop and data was deemed “authentic”.

It wasn't a lie, though. The supposed smoking gun wasn't there. That's still a classic earmark of a Russian disinformation operation. You take something real and apply something false to it. The laptop may have been real but that doesn't mean that the supposed crimes and other conspiracies surrounding it were real.

That's how I know it's BS and you can't dispute it. The laptop and data can be authentic all day long. You still can't name a crime that it shows evidence of.

Nope it was definitely a lie. Corporate journalist along with their connections in our intelligence institutions colluded to tarnish and bury the story before an election before it had a chance to be assessed properly. I understand not believing the story to begin with and even believing that there was no incriminating content within the laptop (other than Hunter’s dysfunctional life), but there was definitely a campaign to bury the story so that it would not affect Joe Biden’s chances of being elected. The campaign was to call it Russian disinformation. Do you at least admit this much?

No... not at all. If that was true, then why didn't FOX News, Breitbart, or any of the other right-wing media outlets show evidence of these supposed crimes? Why would FOX News bury the story to not affect Biden's chances of being elected? That doesn't even make any sense.

Why do I care what some discredited right-wing outlet covers? They have no credibility to begin with; I am not going to begin questioning their motives. I'll leave that as an assignment for you if you're so interested

It is a lie.

Do you think those 51 IC member would have called it a Russian Disinformation Operation of the laptop was Don Jr? Well I guess that narrative wouldn’t work, since the Democrats have been pounding the drum that Trump was a Putin “puppet”.

I don’t even need to pontificate how the media would have handled it. They would have dug through all the “evidence” and try to find more “crimes”.

The fact is the IC community and Media colluded to bury the story. There was no interest other than the fringe to actually dig through it.

Hell the FBI has been sitting on the laptop for YEARS. It’s not hard to see how these institutions favor one party over another. Time and time again.

Then why are you unable to answer the question. What is the crime you're accusing him of and where is the evidence from the laptop to support that?

It was not a lie. Unless you can prove that any of these claims are true, it wasn't a lie.

> It was not a lie. Unless you can prove that any of these claims are true, it wasn't a lie.

You can keep downvoting me. It’s okay.

Hunter admitted to his drug addiction. Hunter lied on the background check when purchasing a fire arm. The FBI attempted to strong arm the Gun Store Owner after Hallie took Hunters illegal firearm and dumped in a trash can at a supermarket.

There’s plenty of evidence of Hunter’s drug problems and evidence of illegal cocaine usage (unless cocaine and crack are legal and I missed it) Yet no formal charges.

I wonder why?

President Joe Biden conceded that his son Hunter lied on a government form when he purchased a handgun in October 2018—a federal felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The younger Biden was a crack cocaine user at the time, as recounted in his 2021 memoir Beautiful Things. Yet he answered no to this question on ATF Form 4473: "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?"

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2022/10/12/joe-biden-ful...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/06/...

His father needs to be damaged politically when he is flying his son on Air Force 2 to China to make private equity deals.

"Hold 10 for the big guy" as confirmed by ex business partner Bobulinski.