{"id":1440987,"date":"2022-04-15T19:14:42","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T23:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1440987"},"modified":"2022-04-15T19:14:56","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T23:14:56","slug":"washington-post-fact-checkers-new-approach-to-suggest-hunter-biden-laptop-disinformation-ignoring-key-documents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/washington-post-fact-checkers-new-approach-to-suggest-hunter-biden-laptop-disinformation-ignoring-key-documents\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington Post Fact-Checker\u2019s New Approach to Suggest Hunter Biden Laptop Disinformation: Ignoring Key Documents"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">28<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fwashington-post-fact-checkers-new-approach-to-suggest-hunter-biden-laptop-disinformation-ignoring-key-documents%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1440987&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p class=\"subheading\">The media\u2019s recent embrace the Hunter Biden laptop as a legitimate source of news is a major win for accountability reporting. Unfortunately, that has not meant an end to media gatekeeping about which lines of inquiry can be considered legitimate news.<\/p>\n<p>In his latest dispatch, for instance, <em>Washington Post<\/em> fact-checker Glenn Kessler <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2022\/04\/08\/unraveling-tale-hunter-biden-35-million-russia\/\">takes issue<\/a> with former President Donald Trump\u2019s (characteristically sloppy) allegations about a mysterious $3.5 million wire transfer from Yelena Baturina, a Russian billionaire, to a company connected to Hunter Biden. \u201cHe brought it up yet again recently, prompting us to finally resolve what\u2019s going on here,\u201d Kessler <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GlennKesslerWP\/status\/1512411479705849866?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet\">announced<\/a> on Twitter.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"D-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B1\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<figure id=\"gmxrevmore\" class=\"H\"><\/figure>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">In the last weeks of the 2020 election, Trump 42 times claimed that Hunter Biden received $3.5 million from a Russian billionaire. He brought it up yet again recently, prompting us to finally resolve what&#8217;s going on here. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/JBbYyTCqRU\">https:\/\/t.co\/JBbYyTCqRU<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GlennKesslerWP\/status\/1512411479705849866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 8, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Instead of fully leveraging the <em>Washington Post\u2019s<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/technology\/2022\/03\/30\/hunter-biden-laptop-data-examined\/\">access<\/a> to original documents, Kessler\u2019s analysis relies on the word of anonymous sources, some with ties to the businesses under scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p>A little backstory: In December 2013, Hunter Biden helped start a Chinese private equity fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). The American partners held their interests in the company through a shell company called Rosemont Seneca Thornton. Senate investigators later revealed that Yelena Baturina, the billionaire ex-wife of Moscow\u2019s longtime mayor, transferred $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton on February 14, 2014, raising concerns about Hunter Biden\u2019s possible relationship with the Russian oligarch.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B2\" class=\"a8d\"><\/figure>\n<p>That\u2019s where Kessler raised an important objection:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><strong>[A]lmost as immediately as Rosemont Seneca Thornton was created,<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>the partners decided to dissolve it, according to a person with access to the board minutes\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Within a year, Chinese corporate records reflected that the foreign investors in BHR were Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC, with 20 percent, and Thornton Group LLC, with 10 percent.\u00a0<strong>Corporate records <a href=\"https:\/\/opencorporates.com\/companies\/us_de\/5481769\">show<\/a> Rosemont Seneca Bohai, the replacement corporate vehicle, was formed on Feb. 13, 2014, the day before the Baturina transfer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>In theory, for Hunter Biden, Rosemont Seneca Thornton was no more<\/strong>.\u201d [Emphasis added]\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>So, in this telling, Hunter Biden had no reason to be involved with Rosemont Seneca Thornton at the time it received Baturina\u2019s millions.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_20670956\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-20670956\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/GettyImages-607518096.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1240\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov (left) and his wife, businesswoman Yelena Baturina, walk at a polling station during parliamentary elections in Moscow on September 18, 2016. (YURI KADOBNOV\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>But emails from Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop show that the board resolution to split Rosemont Seneca Thornton\u2019s stake <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/21581361-bo-hai-hua-mei-bhr-shu-mian-dong-shi-hui-jue-yi-written-board-resolution-2\">was not circulated until October 2014<\/a>, eight months later than Kessler acknowledges. And a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/21581360-your-proposal\">February 2015 email<\/a> to Hunter from one of BHR\u2019s partners confronts him with the possibility of a capital injection from Rosemont Seneca Thornton. And Chinese corporate records, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.qixin.com\/company\/d65265d8-3668-4d69-961d-e106f5a32024\">available to the public<\/a>, named Rosemont Seneca Thornton as a shareholder until June 2015, 16 months after the company was supposedly \u201cno more,\u201d as far as Hunter was concerned.<\/p>\n<p>Strangely, none of those details made it into the fact check.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the laptop is cited elsewhere in the story. Kessler noted that the <em>Washington Post<\/em> did not find \u201csignificant evidence of direct interaction\u201d between Hunter and Baturina on the laptop. Nor did they find records showing that Hunter <em>personally<\/em> received $3.5 million in 2014. Yet, when it came to establishing the timeline around Hunter Biden\u2019s relationship with Rosemont Seneca Thornton, Kessler cites exclusively \u201ca person with access to [BHR\u2019s] board minutes,\u201d as though there was nowhere else to look.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"M-ROS-B3\" class=\"a8d adSo\"><\/figure>\n<p>Likewise, where Kessler acknowledged that Rosemont Seneca Thornton \u201cunexpectedly\u201d lived on under the control of Devon Archer, Hunter Biden\u2019s longtime business partner, he apparently took it on faith that RST continued to exist for the benefit of Archer alone.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_11563137\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11563137\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/joe-hunter-biden-ukraine-golf.jpg\" alt=\"Former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter golfing in the Hamptons with Devon Archer, who served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings with Hunter.\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Devon Archer (far left) with former Vice President Joe Biden (center right) and his son Hunter (far right) golfing in the Hamptons.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Corporate records in Delaware, where Rosemont Seneca Thornton was registered, make it nearly impossible for the public to know who controls the company, but it\u2019s hard to ignore that 10 percent of the stake originally held by Rosemont Seneca Thornton ultimately <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/video\/hunter-biden-still-holds-10-184000359.html\">ended up in the hands<\/a> of Hunter Biden. And it\u2019s also hard to ignore that companies controlled by Archer regularly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.occrp.org\/en\/the-fincen-files\/hunter-biden-partner-secured-millions-for-fund-from-businessman-with-reputed-organized-crime-ties\">accepted<\/a> payment on Hunter\u2019s behalf, as in the case of Burisma.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the knot Senate investigators, law enforcement officials, and reporters across the country are working to unravel. The evidence presented by Kessler does little to \u201cfinally resolve\u201d it either way. More troublingly, his fact check creates the false appearance of clarity by omitting documents directly relevant to the issue at hand that explain precisely why all of this is a mystery in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>The effect of that isn\u2019t to curtail overheated political rhetoric, but to create the impression that the underlying issue is somehow settled and, therefore, further reporting may fall under the dreaded banner of \u201cmisinformation.\u201d For a newspaper <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/opinions\/2022\/04\/03\/hunter-biden-story-is-an-opportunity-reckoning\/\">reckoning<\/a> with the media-wide failure to seriously consider the laptop, that\u2019s a huge step backward. From a fact-checking perspective, it\u2019s outright malpractice.<\/p>\n<p><em>Peter Schweizer is the president of the Government Accountability Institute, a senior contributor to Breitbart News, and the bestselling author of\u00a0<a class=\"x5l\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Red-Handed-American-Elites-Helping-China\/dp\/0063061147\/?tag=breitbart035-20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\">Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Jacob McLeod is the research director at the Government Accountability Institute. Follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/tweetsbymcleod\">@tweetsbymcleod<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The media\u2019s recent embrace the Hunter Biden laptop as a legitimate source of news is a major win for accountability reporting. Unfortunately, that has not meant an end to media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":678,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1440987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/678"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1440987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1440987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1440987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1440987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}