https://greenwald.substack.com/p/emails-with-intercept-editors-showing
Following are the communications I had over the last week with Intercept editors regarding my article on Joe and Hunter Biden, which they refused to publish absent the removal of all sections critical of the front-running Democratic presidential candidate whom they uniformly and enthusiastically favor. This is the final exchange that precipitated my resignation from The Intercept and First Look Media, though, as I set out in my article of early today, by no means the sole or primary reason for leaving.
Recall that under my contract, and the practice of The Intercept over the last seven years, none of my articles is edited unless it presents the possibility of legal liability or complex original reporting, and not one of my articles in the last fifteen years — published with dozens of major media outlets around the world — has ever been retracted or even had appended to it a serious correction.
This article should never have been subject to the whims and views of editors at all, let alone this heavy-handed attempt to protect Joe Biden:
Oct. 27 “story memo” from Intercept Editor Peter Maas (emphasis added):
Glenn, I have carefully read your draft and there is some I agree with and some I disagree with but am comfortable publishing. However, there is some material at the core of this draft that I think is very flawed. Overall I think this piece can work best if it is significantly narrowed down to what you first discussed with Betsy — media criticism about liberal journalists not asking Biden the questions he should be asked more forcefully, and why they are failing to do that.
Betsy agrees with me that the draft’s core problem is the connection it often asserts or assumes between the Hunter Biden emails and corruption by Joe Biden. There are many places in which the explicit or implied position is a) the emails expose corruption by Joe Biden and b) news organizations are suppressing their reporting on it. Those positions strike me as foundations to this draft, and they also strike me as inaccurate, and that inaccuracy undercuts narrower points that are sound.
There are a couple of published emails and texts in which Hunter Biden or his business partners suggest or hint that Joe Biden might be aware of, or involved in, their dealings with China. Those passages have gotten the most attention, justifiably, but they are vague. In one of the China emails, for instance, there is reference to “the big guy” — who might be Joe Biden or might be someone else — and it’s unclear whether Joe Biden, even if he is the big guy, was aware of an ownership share being discussed for him. Some of the most serious accusations, and potential corroboration, come not from the hard drive but from Tony Bobulinski’s short press conference in which he didn’t take questions, before he turned up at the debate as Trump’s guest. As the Wall Street Journal news story on this matter reflected, it is newsworthy that someone has come forward alleging that Joe Biden was involved in Hunter’s China dealings, and that Joe may have met some of Hunter’s business partners. But it’s very significant that the Journal found no corroborating evidence either of Joe Biden’s involvement in any such deals, or those deals being consummated. These are major issues that I feel undermine the draft’s thesis and are downplayed in the draft.
In addition, I feel there are substantive problems with the way you present the material on Ukraine. As your draft notes at one point, “It is true that no evidence, including these new emails, constitute proof that Biden’s motive in demanding Shokin’s termination was to benefit Burisma.” However, there are many places in the piece where you say that the material raises serious questions about Biden’s motives, yet you never present any evidence that supports such questions. You can certainly note that Shokin’s successor let Burisma off the hook, but that’s not evidence he was installed by Biden in order to achieve that end (indeed, it appears from the quote Taibbi cites that Biden initially had no idea who Shokin’s proposed successor was). Despite years of reporting by a lot of journalists, American as well as Ukrainian, as well as an exhaustive GOP-led U.S. Senate investigation, no evidence has surfaced of Biden acting corruptly with respect to the replacement of Shokin. (Taibbi’s findings are equivocal, I believe.) The reasonable conclusion, by now, would be that it most likely didn’t happen.
A connected problem is that your draft asserts there is a massive suppression attempt by the entire major media to not report out these accusations, but then doesn’t explore how major news organizations have done significant stories, and those stories, such as the Journal’s, have not found anything of significance. The Times has also reported on the China deal and found the claims wanting. There are other pieces I can point to. You should give full notice to those –but once you do, the draft’s overall thesis on suppression starts to wobble. Please note that I nonetheless believe you still have a valid albeit narrower argument about the failure of many journalists to confront the Biden family directly and aggressively with relevant questions about the materials and the legalized corruption of Hunter Biden that they document.
A somewhat related aspect that I don’t think the draft gives fair notice of: the New York Post and perhaps the Wall Street Journal appear to be the only major news organizations that possess the contents of the hard drive. Maybe other news organizations have the archive and haven’t mentioned it, but absent evidence of that, I do think any story about a shortage of in-depth reporting on the archive would have to prominently note that most news organizations do not possess it. You spend quite a bit of the piece explaining why authentication efforts have been more than sufficient to satisfy any reasonable requirement of verification, but a key reason news organizations have cited for their lack of full confidence in the documents is their inability to access the hard drive; your draft does not mention that. It is hard to report on and authenticate an archive you do not possess.
Lastly, I think the disinformation issue should be handled with greater complexity. I think it’s totally right to point out the haste with which some journalists and experts are talking about Russia’s hand. But the argument that some people make about disinformation, and that I think you should address, is the way the materials are being used by Giuliani, the rightwing media, and Trump, to support an exaggerated and false narrative – a narrative that is not supported by the materials themselves. And I do think you should treat the origin story of the hard drive – that it came from the Delaware repair store – with a bit more skepticism. It’s true that nothing has emerged yet to significantly undermine it, but it remains a very strange story surrounded by many unanswered questions.
Returning to my suggestion at the top of this memo, I think the draft could work if it is revised and shortened to focus on the sections about liberal media bias, about Joe Biden not being directly asked questions as much as he should (using your submitted questions to center that), and how all of this contributed to sub-optimal amounts of reporting on the corruption allegations, which, although they aren’t backed by any evidence implicating Joe Biden himself, nonetheless reveal greater detail about how his family has used his name for profit. This version could be around 2000 words, which is enough to cover the ground I’ve outlined here.
I realize that I’m asking for a significant revision, but it’s what I believe the draft needs, and Betsy concurs. Please let me know what you think. Bests, Peter
Senior Editor The Intercept
My response that evening:
Subject:Re: Hunter Biden storyDate:Tue, 27 Oct 2020 22:55:36 -0300From:Glenn Greenwald <glenn.rio@theintercept.com>To:Peter Maass <xxxxxx@firstlook.org>, Betsy Reed <xxxx@theintercept.com>