Wall Street Journal News and Opinion Sides Clash on Hunter Biden Texts
On Thursday evening Kimberly Strassel, a Trump-booster for the Wall Street Journal opinion pages, published a column claiming that text messages from a business partner of Hunter Biden “raise questions” about Joe Biden’s involvement in a deal with a Chinese company.
Hours later, the news side of the Wall Street Journal shot down some of those questions.
The new reporting came after Tony Bobulinski, an ex-business partner of Hunter’s, claimed at a press conference organized by the Trump campaign that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s efforts to form a joint venture with the Chinese energy firm CEFC in 2017, when the former vice president was out of office.
(Joe Biden has denied any involvement in Hunter’s foreign deals, ever since another Murdoch property, the New York Post, first reported on files from the wayward son’s alleged laptop.)
Both Journal pieces were based on text messages provided by Bobulinski. Despite apparently being based on the same material, the two pieces reached different conclusions: Strassel used the texts to insinuate that Joe Biden was involved in the deal, while the news side of her own paper found no actual evidence that he was.
The news side of the paper reported the following:
Text messages and emails related to the venture that were provided to the Journal by Mr. Bobulinski, mainly the spring and summer of 2017, don’t show either Hunter Biden or James Biden discussing a role for Joe Biden in the venture.
The Journal also reported that the venture never received any funds and had no formal role for Joe Biden:
The venture—set up in 2017 after Mr. Biden left the vice presidency and before his presidential campaign—never received proposed funds from the Chinese company or completed any deals, according to people familiar with the matter. Corporate records reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show no role for Joe Biden.
James Gilliar, an associate of Hunter and Bobulinski on the project, denied any knowledge that Joe Biden was involved in a comment to the Journal:
I would like to clear up any speculation that former Vice President Biden was involved with the 2017 discussions about our potential business structure. I am unaware of any involvement at anytime of the former Vice President. The activity in question never delivered any project revenue.
Strassel spends much of her column describing the texts, focusing on their vague mentions of a figure assumed to be Joe Biden. But the references are mere possibilities, presented as avenues for investigation (a task the news side of her paper seems to have taken up for her).
Strassel’s conclusion, notably, is light on conclusions. Instead of providing evidence of wrongdoing, she settles with raising questions:
The former vice president is running on trust and good judgment. The Hunter tale is at best the story of a wayward son and indulgent father. At worst, it is an example of the entire Biden clan cashing in on its name with a U.S. rival. As Mr. Biden refuses to answer questions about this case, voters will have to make up their own minds. But given Hunter’s exploits in China, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and elsewhere, much more is yet to come—in the next week and a half and potentially in a Biden presidency.
This is not the first time the Wall Street Journal opinion side — which tends to have a pro-Trump bent — has clashed with reporting from its newsroom.
In July, 280 staffers from the Wall Street Journal signed a letter criticizing the paper’s opinion section for spreading misinformation.
“Opinion’s lack of fact-checking and transparency, and its apparent disregard for evidence, undermine our readers’ trust and our ability to gain credibility with sources,” the letter to new Journal publisher Almar Latour read. “Many readers already cannot tell the difference between reporting and Opinion. And from those who know of the divide, reporters nonetheless face questions about the Journal’s accuracy and fairness because of errors published in opinion.”
