As federal prosecutors get closer to deciding whether to charge first son Hunter Biden with a felony for tax fraud and other offenses, the White House press office has refused to allow The Post to attend President Biden’s sole midday public event on Monday.
The Post has closely followed the president’s connections to his relatives’ international business transactions and was the first to publish information from files found on Hunter’s abandoned laptop that connect Joe Biden to projects in China and Ukraine in October 2020.
While speaking about airline regulations in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House, Biden made the incorrect claim that The Post’s article was disinformation from Russia. He was joined by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
At the location, where there is a set for a “fake” White House and around 50 theater-style seats for reporters, 20 of which were empty on Monday, Biden ultimately refused to answer shouted questions.
In the same room in February, Biden made the decision to respond to The Post’s inquiry about whether his family’s ties to China affected his capacity to influence US policy. The absence of “polite” reporters infuriated him, and he stormed out.
The Post is the fourth-largest news website in the US by readership when aggregator MSN is excluded. The Post had the fifth-largest print circulation as of last year, and it is the country’s second-most-read daily online.
White House officials, however, stated in an email on Monday: “We are unable to accommodate your credential request to attend the Investing in Airline Accountability Remarks on 5/8. The remarks will be live-streamed and can be viewed at WH.gov. Thank you for understanding. We will let you know if a credential becomes available.”
The email does not cite “space limitations” as the reason for the exclusion, which was the justification up until recently for the press office’s enigmatic prescreening of reporters admitted to important presidential events that, under previous administrations, were open to all journalists on White House grounds.
Nearly two-thirds of the seats in the White House briefing room, or 73 journalists, signed a letter in June 2022 demanding an end to the enigmatic event prescreening procedure. However, the previously unheard-of access limitations are still in place, and press representatives won’t even reveal the selection criteria to the association’s top officials.
Hunter Biden’s criminal probe, meanwhile, seems to be coming to a close. His legal team had a meeting with Justice Department attorneys on April 26 in Washington, D.C., which might have been the last step before a decision to file charges.
James Biden, the president’s younger brother who collaborated with Hunter on a variety of international deals, and President Biden gained notice by attending church in Washington on Sunday.
Two days after House Republicans subpoenaed the FBI for a dossier alleging that Joe Biden took bribes, the president refused to answer questions from reporters on Friday by falsely stating he would hold a “major news conference” that afternoon.
Instead, Biden sat down for an interview with Stephanie Ruhle, a host on MSNBC, on Friday night. Ruhle was diplomatic in her approach to questions about the first family’s economic connections.
“While there’s no ties to you, your own son could be charged by your Department of Justice … how will that impact your presidency?” Ruhle asked.
Biden replied, “It will not because he has done nothing wrong. And I’m proud of him.”
