Fox News Suddenly Quiet On ‘Biden Bribe’ Story They Pushed Relentlessly — After Source Charged for Lying
Over the past eight months or so, viewers of Fox News were served hours of coverage focused on an alleged bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden and Ukraine. Much of that coverage was based on an FBI informant who made bombshell claims.
But on Thursday, the man behind the allegations — which were also at the center of the Republican impeachment inquiry into Biden — was arrested and charged with making it all up. It’s enormous news for anyone paying attention to this story.
Alexander Smirnov is a former FBI informant, now accused of lying to the FBI and creating false records tied to claims that he made about President Biden and his son Hunter’s dealings with Ukrainian energy company Burisma. For almost a year now, House Republicans have championed these now totally discredited claims. And Fox News was there to promote the latest development every step along the way.
“This is the big prize, right?”
That’s how Fox News anchor John Roberts breathlessly described the “1023 form” at the heart of the allegations that President Biden and son, Hunter Biden, received $10 million in bribes from Ukrainian businessmen. Roberts went on to read excerpts from the report, which cited a “confidential human source.”
“Quote, They — and this is Burisma — hired Hunter Biden to, quote, protect us through his dad, from all kinds of problems…It costs $5 million to pay one Biden, and 5 million to another Biden. Confidential Human Source mentions Zlochevsky — this is Mykola Zlochevsky, who was the founder of Burisma — might have difficulty explaining suspicious wire transfers that may evidence any illicit payments to the Bidens. Zlochevsky responded he did not send any funds to The Big Guy,” Roberts read.
It was but one of 158 times the term “1023” was mentioned on Fox News over the past six months, according to the television transcript database TVEyes.
The 1023 form was initially produced by Senator Chuck Grassley. Some coverage of the news included the very important caveat that the form was never meant to go public because it was considered unreliable. Over time, that caveat went away, particularly on Fox News. Before long, the 1023 form was presented as “proof positive” that the Bidens were corrupt in the conservative mediasphere.
The form sparked a raft of obsessive coverage on Fox, particularly on the network’s highly-rated prime time programming, which enforced a narrative among Fox’s largely conservative audience that the Biden family is corrupt. Rep. James Comer (R-KY) was not just the useful idiot leading the narrative with ubiquitous appearances on Fox News but also leading impeachment efforts from his position as chair of the House Oversight Committee.
But guess what? We now know that much of his finger-wagging and teeth-gnashing was based on a lie.
In words that are often — probably incorrectly — attributed to Winston Churchill: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
The salacious narrative of Biden corruption to the tune of millions fueled Fox News coverage for months. The complete decimation of that narrative has gone almost entirely unnoticed.
Since news broke of Smirnov’s arrest late Thursday afternoon, it has barely been mentioned on Fox. To the credit of Bret Baier, correspondent David Spunt covered the news on Special Report Thursday evening. Fox News prime time — the principle profiteer of the original narrative — ignored the story entirely. On Friday, the story has been covered three times so far, each time as a standard news report without any of the context that this indictment is the equivalent of a sledgehammer to the Biden family corruption narrative that has been pervasive on Fox for the last few years.
If Fox News were dedicated to responsible coverage and even a whiff of journalistic standards, this portion of the story would be getting far more coverage. A news consumer who only got their news from Fox would hardly be disabused of their assumptions that Biden and his family take millions in bribes from foreign governments. It’s something Fox won’t do because it’s not what the viewers want. As we know, those desires must be respected over telling the truth. Corporate profits hang in the balance.
This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.
