“Illusion Of Influence”: The Media Moves The Goalpost Again On Biden Corruption Coverage

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

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.