US Republicans Call for Congressional Probe Into Media, Big Tech Over Silencing Hunter Laptop Story

Several Republicans have called to hold US mainstream media and Big Tech companies accountable for hushing the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 after one mainstream media outlet, The New York Times, finally admitted the authenticity of the contents of the said computer – almost 17 months after the original publication.

House lawmaker Claudia Tenney (R-NY) has lambasted the actions of both mainstream and social media as they tried to discredit the story about Hunter Biden using his father's elevated position for profit and engaging in "shady" deals with Chinese businesses. She called to conduct an investigation into their actions should the GOP take back Congress in the 2022 midterms.

Her call was echoed by Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, who argued that the Big Tech companies that hushed the story must face "accountability". She lashed out at the US authorities, who often lament about "disinformation in Russia", but missed it "right here at home".

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) also joined the fray, urging to hold those who invented and spread the claim that the Hunter laptop story was "Russian disinfo" responsible. Such a claim was made in a Politico article published soon after the New York Post broke the first news on the contents of a laptop that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden. The idea that the laptop story was invented by Russia was also backed by numerous US intelligence officials, both former and current, according to several media reports.

One of the leading Republican candidates in a race for a Pennsylvania Senate seat, Dr Mehmet Oz, also vowed to back the initiative to probe the silencing of the story about Hunter Biden in 2020, if he wins election in the 2022 midterms. He argued that it was just one example of the media silencing anything that "would shine a light on the corrupt Biden family".

The story that was released by the New York Post in September 2020 came mere months prior to the presidential election. It suggested that Biden lied when he said that his son's business dealings never crossed paths with his political career. One of the emails recovered from the laptop's drive indicated that Hunter organised a meeting between his father and his partner on the executive board of Burisma – a Ukrainian gas company, which offered Hunter Biden a job soon after the coup in Kiev in 2014 backed by the Obama-Biden administration.

The various correspondence from the laptop also suggested that Hunter Biden partnered with a Chinese businessman with alleged ties to the Communist Party and held a stake in a joint venture for the "Big Guy" – a nickname allegedly referring Joe Biden himself. The venture was organised not long after Joe Biden's visit to China as vice president.

According to a survey conducted by The Media Research Centre, around half of those who voted for the current US president did not know about the laptop story, which was taken down on the world's main social media platforms and ignored by practically every major network, except for Fox News. The same survey showed that around 10% would have changed their vote if they had known about the story at the time, potentially changing the outcome of the presidential race, which Biden won with 51.3% of the overall vote versus Trump's 46.9%.

The New York Times recently became the first US mainstream media outlet to recognise the authenticity of the files obtained by the New York Post in September 2020 as the newspaper published a story about a federal investigation into possible violations of the tax code by Hunter Biden. Neither The New York Times, nor social media platforms, nor intelligence officials, who insisted on the "Russian disinfo" version, have offered their apologies in the context of this revelation.