Once upon a time, I believed in institutions like the FBI, major media, and the so-called “independent” fact-checkers that claim to guard the truth. After the Hunter Biden laptop saga, that trust is gone. What happened in the final weeks of the 2020 election was not journalism or neutral fact-checking. It was a coordinated effort to suppress damaging information about a presidential candidate’s family, and the fact-checkers were willing participants.
Here is the plain timeline of the cover-up:
December 2019: The FBI seizes Hunter Biden’s laptop from the Delaware repair shop owner, John Paul Mac Isaac, via subpoena. FBI forensic examiners authenticate the device and confirm it has not been tampered with. They have it for nearly a full year before the election.
Early 2020 onward: The FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force repeatedly briefs social-media companies about an expected Russian “hack-and-leak” operation involving Hunter Biden and Burisma. The warnings are so specific that when the New York Post story drops on October 14, 2020, the platforms already view it as fitting the “disinfo” pattern.
October 14–19, 2020: The Post publishes emails from the laptop. Twitter blocks all links to the story. Facebook throttles its distribution. Fifty-one former intelligence officials (many with Biden ties) sign a letter claiming the story “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Joe Biden cites that letter in the final debate. The FBI, which has known for months that the laptop is real and not Russian, issues no public correction, only silence.
Post-election: Major outlets (NYT, Washington Post, CBS) quietly authenticate thousands of emails and the laptop itself in 2022–2023. No front-page retractions. No apologies. Just a slow, mumbled walk-back.
Now let’s look at how three of the most prominent fact-checkers handled it:
PolitiFact:
October 15, 2020: “A look behind the NY Post headline”: called the emails “not verifiable,” emphasized the odd chain of custody.
October 19–20, 2020: Rated wilder claims false, but treated the entire laptop story with heavy skepticism.
June 2021: First shift: “Over time, there has been less doubt that the laptop did in fact belong to Hunter Biden.” Still insisted it proved “no wrongdoing” by Joe.
2023 onward: Now routinely cites the emails as real when fact-checking Republicans. No formal retraction of the 2020 pieces.
FactCheck.org
October 15, 2020: “We have no way to verify that the email is authentic.” Highlighted the Giuliani connection as suspicious.
2021–2022: Continued to treat the story as unproven when Republicans raised it.
2023–2024: In impeachment-inquiry articles, they now reference specific laptop emails and data without any “unverified” caveats. The shift happened quietly; no correction article.
Snopes
October 15, 2020: Focused on the strange provenance but did not debunk authenticity.
November 22, 2022: Reported CBS forensic expert concluding the data is authentic and belongs to Hunter.
February 2023: Covered Hunter’s lawyer demanding investigations into people who accessed “his” laptop, an implicit admission it was real.
Where were the screaming front-page headlines when these organizations finally admitted the laptop was genuine? Where were the editorials confessing they had helped suppress a legitimate story three weeks before a presidential election? Nowhere. The quiet pivot was the tell.
And what was actually on that laptop(besides drugs and smut)?
Emails that, had voters seen them unfiltered, could easily have changed the outcome:
An April 2015 email from Burisma advisor Vadym Pozharskyi thanking Hunter for arranging a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden.
A May 2017 email about a CEFC China Energy deal that ends with “10 held by H for the big guy?” , widely interpreted (and confirmed by Hunter’s former partner Tony Bobulinski) as 10% for Joe Biden.
Multiple references to Hunter leveraging “my guy” (his father) for access and pressure on foreign governments while Joe was Vice President and point man on Ukraine policy.
Polls taken after the fact (including ones cited by PolitiFact itself) showed that a significant share of voters, especially independents and even some Democrats, said they would have changed their vote had they known the full, verified story in October 2020.
This wasn’t an isolated failure. The same pattern of government-favored suppression has repeated:
The Steele dossier / Russian collusion hoax, Opposition research funded by the Clinton campaign and DNC, filled with unverified claims, used to obtain FISA warrants on the Trump campaign. The Mueller report mysteriously found no collusion conspiracy; the DOJ Inspector General documented serious FBI errors and omissions. Fact-checkers spent years defending or soft-pedaling it.
COVID lab-leak theory: Dismissed for years as a “conspiracy theory” by the same fact-checkers and government officials, even though the FBI, Department of Energy, and now a growing consensus of scientists consider it the most likely origin. Early suppression protected China and certain U.S. funding sources.
Twitter Files revelations: Internal documents showed FBI and other agencies flagging and suppressing true stories (laptop, COVID origins, election integrity) while amplifying others. Government officials literally had a back channel to Big Tech to shape what Americans could see.
This is the nature of effective propaganda: it works on everyone. Even the most vigilant among us can fall prey to it at times. But the most vulnerable are those who smugly believe that only their political opponents are susceptible to propaganda, while they themselves are somehow immune. The hoaxes listed above have become so deeply ingrained in the public consciousness that tens of millions of Americans still absolutely believe them to this day, despite mountains of contrary evidence. We have long since passed the point where news outlets pay any real price for outright lying.
Consider prestigious prizes awarded for the false narratives above: In 2018, The New York Times and The Washington Post were jointly awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for their coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russi, reporting that relied heavily on the now-discredited Steele dossier. Those Pulitzers have never been retracted.
You would think that once the truth emerged, these organizations would voluntarily return the prizes in a show of journalistic integrity. But that would require shame , and shame is in short supply among today’s elite media. I am tired of being lied to. I am tired of two-tiered justice where one family’s scandals are memory-holed, and the other’s are weaponized. I am tired of fact-checkers who only partially “evolve” their positions after the damage is done and the election is over. The American people deserve better. We deserve the truth in real time, not convenient narratives from institutions that have repeatedly shown they will selectively protect the powerful at the expense of the public. Until fact-checkers and our government start treating every story with the same rigor, regardless of whose ox is gored, they have forfeited any claim to my trust.
Past behavior predicts future actions. The lies persist, as does the lack of accountability.
Until truth is applied equally and consequences follow deception, these institutions do not deserve our trust.
Support Independent Local Journalism — High Country Advocate was created as a real alternative to regional media that too often silences dissenting voices while taking sides in the political struggle. Producing in-depth, unflinching reporting like this series and others is expensive: servers, editing, research time, and legal review all add up quickly. If these articles have informed you or given you new perspective, please consider supporting HCA with a paid subscription — every subscriber helps keep this reporting strong and independent. 