On Thursday, President Biden commuted jail sentences for nearly 1,500 people and granted 39 pardons, marking the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history. So it was a little odd that ABC, CBS, and NBC all ignored Biden’s pardons and clemencies — unless they were trying not to remind people of the scandalous Hunter Biden pardon.
The PBS NewsHour actually led with this story for five minutes — without any mention of Hunter. NPR’s All Things Considered reported it as well — with no Hunter note.
None of the networks wanted to touch Biden’s decision to grant clemency to Jin Shinlan, a Chinese national (from a family with Chinese Communist Party connections) who pleaded guilty to possession of thousands of child pornography images in 2022. This wasn’t in the Thursday batch, but it was part of the package deal to get three Americans released from China.
Speaking of omission, among these five network evening shows, only CBS briefly noted the new Justice Department Inspector General’s report on the FBI presence at the Capitol on January 6, and that was very brief and vague.
This half a minute was the entire amount of coverage that ABC, CBS, NBC, and PBS gave the DOJ Inspector General’s report on FBI assets being present at the January 6 riot. Even Nikole Killion’s report is remarkably vague, with no numbers of FBI assets on the scene. pic.twitter.com/uoctaqj4kU
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) December 13, 2024
“This report confirms what we suspected,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, told Fox News Digital. “The FBI had encouraged and tasked confidential human sources to be at the capitol that day. There were 26 total present. Four entered the Capitol and weren’t charged, which is not the same treatment that other Americans received.”
They always find time for the softer stuff. ABC did manage their usual story on snow falling and ended with four minutes on Oprah Winfrey’s favorite made-in-America holiday gift ideas, including products from small businesses, minority-owned companies, and those that give back to their communities.
