Scandal allegations are piling up for President Joe Biden. What’s the White House response been? Let them eat “Pride” cupcakes.
Instead of answering difficult questions, White House staff decided it’s time to ignore or outright mock journalists looking for answers.
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates tweeted out a picture of “Pride” rainbow cupcakes directed at Fox News.
“Cupcakes in solidarity with @FOXCorp, which @FoxNews is attacking w/ a malicious, still-not-retracted digital article,” Bates said.
The White House’s deputy press secretary then linked to a CNN article by Oliver Darcy headlined “White House rips Fox News as the right-wing channel launches sinister attacks on Biden.”
Here’s how my colleague, Mary Margaret Olohan, responded on Twitter.
“Biden press sec taunting Fox reporters with rainbow cupcakes instead of … actually answering press inquiries about his boss,” she wrote.
Bates “liked” that tweet.
Biden and the Justice Department certainly face serious questions after transcripts of testimonies to the House Ways and Means Committee by two IRS whistleblowers was released Thursday.
The whistleblowers alleged that IRS investigators and Justice Department prosecutors built a serious case of tax fraud and other charges against Biden’s son, Hunter, but the Justice Department higher-ups interfered with and torpedoed the investigation.
In a plea deal offered by the Justice Department, Hunter Biden is expected to plead guilty to lesser tax charges, plus a firearm-related charge, that will not bring prison time. (His court date is set for July 26.)
This is a significant allegation by the two IRS whistleblowers. If true, it could mean that the Justice Department intervened in a case to protect the world’s most powerful politician and his family. Was it done originally to help Joe Biden win the 2020 election?
It’s particularly disturbing given the two indictments of former President Donald Trump, which look politicized. Is this really about ensuring that nobody is above the law, or is it the weaponization of an increasingly two-tiered justice system?
Attorney General Merrick Garland’s response Friday to the whistleblowers’ allegations was to question those who would dare question the government. Garland denied the accusations and followed up with this remarkable statement: “Some have chosen to attack the integrity of the Justice Department. … This constitutes an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy.”
When the government fears the people, we lose democracy, according to the attorney general, I guess.
I’m just thankful that Garland isn’t a Supreme Court justice.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., threatened Garland with impeachment over the allegations about the Justice Department in the Hunter Biden case.
It got worse for the White House. A 2017 WhatsApp message from the younger Biden contradicts the president’s insistence that he didn’t know about his son’s business dealings.
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden wrote in a text message to a Chinese business associate demanding payment, according to documents released by the House committee. “Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight.”
White House officials refused to answer questions about the allegation from a suddenly perky and aggressive press corps. This was the Biden administration’s chance to be Republicans for a day, and it didn’t handle it well.
“Let me save you some breath. If you’re going to ask about this, I am not address—I am not going to address this issue from this podium,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told Newsmax’s James Rosen during the White House press briefing Friday.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was equally uncooperative when pressed for answers.
“The president invited his son Hunter to the state dinner last night,” CNN correspondent Jeremy Diamond said, referring to the White House event Thursday night in honor of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “I’m wondering if you could take us into the thinking and decision-making, why the president decided to … ”
“I’m just not going to get into family discussion, personal family discussion. As you know, Hunter’s his son,” Jean-Pierre responded, referring to the president. “I’m just not going to get into that.”
The idea that this is just “family business” was a little much, even for reporters from CNN, CBS, and The New York Times. They kept pestering her with questions, and Jean-Pierre refused to answer.
“So here’s the thing, and I appreciate the question,” she said to veteran New York Times correspondent Peter Baker. “I believe my colleague at the White House counsel has answered this question already, has dealt with this, has made it very clear. I just don’t have anything to share outside of what my colleagues have shared. And so I would refer you to him and the DOJ. I’m just not going to comment from here.”
The White House Counsel’s Office said in a written statement Friday that the White House had no role in the Justice Department’s decisions regarding the Hunter Biden case and that the president has no ties to his son’s business dealings.
Not much to go on there.
What are we to make of all this?
It seems that the White House has lost control of “the narrative.”
Even the contextualizers in the legacy press can’t quite wiggle out of the reality that these are significant scandals if proven true. Perhaps the White House thinks that Joe Biden and other officials are untouchable, that when the heat is on, they can just walk away from answering questions from the press and the American people.
Or maybe even Democrats are seeing this as the beginning of the end of the Biden presidency.
“Something changed last week inside the Beltway that suggests the people who run the Democratic Party now realize President Biden’s tenure in office is not sustainable beyond 2024,” David Catron wrote in The American Spectator. “The ‘tell’ was not, however, the latest revelation by IRS whistleblowers about his corrupt administration. It was instead the sudden awakening of the White House press corps.”
That could be true. Poor poll numbers, worrying signs of mental decline, and several serious scandals on top of other serious national and international problems certainly aren’t good signs for the president, regardless of what people think of his policies.
The White House’s strategy right now is to mock reporters from Fox, Newsmax, and elsewhere who’ve consistently asked the president tough questions and to ignore the ones who are late to the party but don’t want to seem like obvious regime mouthpieces.
It’s a cynical and seemingly dubious strategy.
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