Two former Politico reporters spoke candidly about efforts made by their bosses to either slow-walk or completely quash their reporting on the Biden family during their time at the news outlet.
Marc Caputo and Tara Palmeri, now journalists for Axios and Puck respectively, reflected on their time at Politico on Palmeri’s “Somebody’s Gotta Win” podcast.
Caputo called out Politico’s “ill-fated headline” downplaying the Hunter Biden laptop scandal during the 2020 election.
“I mean, Politico, my former employer, and I knew at the time, didn’t do itself any favors,” Caputo said in the exchange, which was shared Thursday on YouTube. “I was covering Biden at the time, and I remember coming to my editor and saying, ‘Hey, we need to write about the Hunter Biden laptop.’ And I was told this came from on high at Politico: Don’t write about the laptop, don’t talk about the laptop, don’t tweet about the laptop. And the only thing Politico wound up writing was that piece that called it disinformation, which charitably could be called misinformation, at the least.”
Caputo was referencing Politico’s report, which had the headline “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,” on the open letter signed by 51 intelligence officials declaring that the material from Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence operation.” The report came days after The New York Post published its bombshell reporting about the laptop in October 2020.
Politico published a report in October 2020 that said 51 intelligence officials signed a letter claiming the Hunter Biden laptop story had “all the earmarks of a Russian information operation.” (Main: (Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images), Screenshot/Politico)
Caputo also shed light on a report he had written in 2019 that stemmed from opposition research from a rival Democratic campaign of then-candidate Joe Biden regarding a “tax lien” of Hunter’s pertaining to his work at Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
“And I wrote what would have been a classic story saying, you know, ‘The former vice president’s son was slapped with a big tax lien for the period of time that he worked for this controversial Ukrainian oil concern, or natural gas concern, which is haunting his father on the campaign trail.’ That story was killed by the editors,’ Caputo said. “And they gave no explanation for that either. So that the general experience- obviously the public doesn’t know about those things.”
When reached out by Fox News Digital, Caputo provided video showing the original Word document created May 8, 2019 of his tax lien reporting on Hunter Biden.
Former Politico reporter Marc Caputo says his bosses “killed” a story about Hunter Biden’s shady finances involving Bursima as his father, Joe Biden, competed in the Democratic presidential primary in May 2019. (William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images)
Palmeri similarly shared an experience at Politico regarding the “serious reporting” she had done on then-President Biden’s son. She had broken the story of Hunter Biden’s gun incident that led to a felony charge for lying about his drug use on a gun form.
“I spent three months on it, I went to the laptop shop, and I did all of the reporting in Delaware, and I did all of that. But yeah it had, it had to be like much- it had to be 100% nailed down,” Palmeri told Caputo. “I had everything, you know, the police reports… I’m a solid reporter. But I do wonder if it could have, if it would have been published a little quicker if it was a different type of story.”
Speaking with Fox News Digital, Palmeri expanded on how her bosses dragged their feet before running her story.
“I certainly had to push very hard to get that reporting published. Like, it was a constant, ‘Hey, when are we going to do this? Hey, when are we going to get this out there? Hey, when we’re going to do this?’ Because it was so difficult. Like it was kind of a known feeling that like, it’s gonna be difficult to report stuff that’s really tough on the Biden administration and family. It’s just like a culture.” Palmeri told Fox News Digital. “And I think when the culture is that a reporter has to push so hard that it just creates a feeling that there’s not an interest in that type of reporting. And ultimately, you know, we work to be published and to get our editors to support our work.”
Palmeri said she first obtained the police report shortly after Biden’s inauguration in late January 2021, but her story wasn’t published until late March 2021.
“I just think if it was a Trump kid, it would have been published much sooner,” Palmeri said. “I just had to work really hard to like- you’re like ‘Hey, what’s going on with the story? Hey, what’s going on with the story? Like, what’s going on with the story?’ We gave the White House a lot of time, like a week or so to respond. I don’t know if that would have been the case for a Trump story.”
The former Politico journalist went on to cite the “honeymoon phase” of the Biden administration as being a factor behind the slowed pace of her story.
“I think a lot of people there, including reporters, wanted to get on the good side of the new administration,” Palmeri said. “And so I could understand the reluctance to put out a piece like that within the first few months.”
Ex-Politico reporter Tara Palmeri told Fox News Digital her story about Hunter Biden would have been published sooner if it was a “Trump kid.” (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Palmeri also suggested her bosses wouldn’t run the story unless she was able to link it to a federal agency.
“It had to be about the fact that the Secret Service was involved,” Palmeri told Fox News Digital. “I just think the fact that, you know, the president’s son is getting in a domestic dispute that involves a gun being thrown out next to a school is pretty shocking. And the police had to be involved.”
“I think they preferred that angle because I think it increased the gravity of the situation. The fact that the Secret Service may have been improperly used to cover up what could have been a crime if the gun was found and used by someone else. The blanket fact that he lied on the gun form, which I had. I had the gun form and I pointed out that he lied on it. But in the piece, we downplayed it and said, ‘Although many people lie on gun forms and are not prosecuted for it’ which is true, by the way. But it’s not like the headline wasn’t ‘Hunter Biden lies on gun form,’ which is a felony. That was not the headline even though I had the gun form in which he lied,” she continued.
“They felt like for it to be worthy of being published, it had to rise to that occasion that a federal department was involved and they misused power, basically. Like the crime itself was not important- was not worthy of just running the story on that alone,” Palmeri went on to say. “In fairness, they wanted to make sure the story was buttoned up, but they also felt like it needed to be elevated beyond the crime, the obvious crime which we had from the form. We had to nail down that element of the Secret Service part.”
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Palmeri suggested Politico’s coverage was impacted by the “honeymoon” period that took place in the early months of the Biden administration. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
A spokesperson for Politico previously released a statement pushing back at Caputo and Palmeri’s comments made on the podcast by touting how its journalists “led the way on wide-ranging reporting on the business dealings of Joe Biden’s closest relatives” as well as its verification of the Hunter Biden laptop, suggesting the former staffers have “a case of false memory.”
“Our editors uphold rigorous standards, ensuring every story is thoroughly vetted and ‘buttoned up’ before publishing. This approach reflects our unwavering commitment to accuracy and accountability—principles that have guided us and will continue to do so,” the statement read.
Politico did not immediately respond to follow-up questions sent by Fox News Digital.
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Several members of the media have reflected on their past coverage of Biden in recent months, particularly after his disastrous CNN debate performance that put his cognitive decline on full display.
Fox News contributor Joe Concha compared reporters speaking out about the Hunter Biden laptop scandal to those who waited to address the former president’s mental decline and legitimacy of the COVId lab leak theory.
“It completes what has become a trend in the media,” he said.