'Limited Hangout': Will Western Media Finally Look Into Hunter Biden Biolabs-Funding Story?
© AFP 2023 / LEON NEAL
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The stories related to the contents of the US president's son, Hunter Biden's laptop have rarely received anything from the mainstream media but the label of "conspiracy" or "Russian disinformation".
The Russian Defence Ministry was the first to point the finger at the US president's son, Hunter Biden, as one of those purportedly involved in financing alleged American biowarfare research in Ukrainian laboratories. On Friday, the Daily Mail rolled out a report, citing emails from the younger Biden's infamous laptop, that appeared to back the Russian ministry's assertions, unearthing details about how Hunter Biden allegedly used his leverage as a board member of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma to pour money into research of pandemic-causing pathogens in Ukraine.
One might suggest that the move by the UK media outlet indicated the readiness of Western journalists to finally look into the long-dismissed allegations around Hunter Biden. But not everyone is so optimistic.
"The Daily Mail report on Hunter Biden and Pentagon money for biolabs is what I would describe in American governmental jargon as a 'limited hangout'", former US Senate candidate and investigative journalist Mark Dankof says.
The term "limited hangout" is used to describe the revelation of a portion of previously hidden information, which occurs when it is impossible to stick to the initial "cover-up" story, so that attention is drawn to it and the rest remains clandestine.
Dankof pointed out that there have been other reports in Western alternative media that covered the story "far more comprehensively, with a fair reference to specific Russian accusations and accompanying evidence".
What the Daily Mail did, he believes, is not about that, as comprehensive reporting from mainstream media outlets would prompt questions about the very core of the Western narrative.
"If there were to be a fair and comprehensive coverage of the role of Nuland, the president of the United States and his derelict son, Hillary Clinton, the Pentagon, and the specific companies and financiers involved in this evil business, the average person in the UK, Western Europe, or the United States would begin to question the entire narrative of their respective governments and media on everything involving Ukraine from February of 2014 onward", Dankof states.
The reason for rolling out a "limited hangout", he suggests, was the remarks by Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland on the US-funded biolabs in Ukraine. In her exchange with Senator Marco Rubio on the subject, Nuland confirmed the existence of biolaboratories in Ukraine, but denied the Russian accusations of the labs being used for the creation of biowarfare agents.
"Yet Nuland committed a major mistake in subsequently expressing alarm that the labs might fall into Russian hands. Why the alarm, unless the accusations are true that the labs specifically exist for the purpose of developing weaponised biological and chemical agents?", Dankof questions.
Independent journalist and writer Daniel Lazare also does not seem to be enthusiastic about the Daily Mail report, deeming it "interesting but [far] from conclusive".
"The Hunter Biden angle is fascinating, but sheds no light on the nature of such research", he says. "It's possible that the labs were engaged in biowar research, but such suspicions are still far from proven".
But Washington's official assurances that there was no biowarfare research in Ukraine is far from being persuasive as well, Lazare notes.
"Given all that, and given America's ample record of lying when it comes to WMDs, we can safely conclude that its assurances regarding the labs cannot be taken at face value and that the US should come clean before the appropriate international authorities", he explains. "That means making all relevant records public and submitting to public questioning concerning all aspects of the labs and their activities".
Hunter Biden and Others
Hunter Biden, however, was not the only one to purportedly funnel money into the alleged bioweapons research in Ukraine. Some of the money for the Ukrainian biolabs was provided by the Pentagon, raising questions regarding how US taxpayer money is being used.
Dankof notes that the decision to finance the Ukrainian laboratories instead of, say, channeling the money into important social issues is "a more important policy and budgetary issue for all of the criminals in the Biden administration". He also slams the "supporters of this madness in both the GOP and the Democratic Party in Congress, and a servile mainstream media in the United States owned and staffed by the elite interests involved in this and in Bush's 'War on Terror' in the Middle East".
"It benefits no average American citizen", he concludes.
Had the mainstream media paid enough attention to the Hunter Biden laptop story earlier, much more damning details would have emerged, Dankof believes, listing "the criminal enterprises of Hillary Clinton just since 2016 and those of Hunter's own father". Aside from this, he notes, the media's more thorough look inside the contents of the "laptop from hell" would have "guaranteed the re-election of Donald Trump, something the American Deep State and its assets in [the] media and social media would not permit to happen".
The Biden administration does not seem to eager to address the issue, even though two-thirds of Americans, according to a recent Rassmussen poll, believe that the story about Hunter Biden's laptop is "important" and warrants further investigation.
The reasons behind the White House's reluctance for such an investigation, Dankof says, are similar to those mentioned above.
"It would begin an unraveling of the real story on Joe and Hunter Biden; the president isn't going to honestly talk about [it] with the American public because he's a crook, as is his son and a whole host of players in the Ukrainian affair since February of 2014 that threatens to engulf all of us in World War III", he says.
Moreover, he continues, the White House appears to be prepared to attack anyone not ready to agree with the official narrative - just like Washington shielded its views on other controversial events.
Among those who have already been attacked by the Western media over their disagreement with the mainstream view, Dankof referred to Tulsi Gabbard, whom Hillary Clinton once called a "Russian asset". Gabbard, for her part, had branded the then-Democratic candidate "the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party".
"This overt character assassination of anyone who defies the official narrative of this criminal cabal compliments their silence on an entire body of authentic evidence on Russia and Ukraine, going back to the beginning of NATO expansion in 1997 and the Bill Clinton-NATO felonious aerial attack on Serbia in 1999", he says. "Some things never change".
Since Gabbard weighed in to voice concerns about the American biolabs in Ukraine, she has yet again been labeled a "Russian asset" and a traitor by a handful of US lawmakers, among them GOP Senator Mitt Romney and Congressman Adam Kinzinger.
In light of the findings by the Russian Defence Ministry, the Kremlin said it will demand an explanation from the United States regarding Hunter Biden's alleged involvement in the financing of biological research in Ukraine, with China also urging Washington to clarify the story around the alleged bioweapons.
According to Russia, the United States has been pouring money into biological research in Ukraine aimed at potentially creating bioweapons or looking into the spread of dangerous pathogens. Aside from Hunter Biden, the Russian Defence Ministry found the US Agency for International Development (USAID), George Soros' Open Society Foundations, and the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention also financed the research, which took place in 31 laboratories across 14 settlements in Ukraine.
Ukraine is not the only country to have hosted the US-funded biolabs, Russia said, noting that similar research was conducted in Georgia, Indonesia, Germany, Azerbaijan and many other nations across the globe. The United States has vehemently denied the allegations, calling them part of a disinformation campaign, but Under Secretary Victoria Nuland in early March happened to confirm the existence of biolaboratories, saying that the US was "quite concerned" that Russian troops might take over the facilities.
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