(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Typos, grammatical errors and other mistake are a regular occurrence in print media, but it’s not every day when Washington DC’s supposed newspaper of record can’t correctly identify the sitting U.S. president.
That’s what happened Thursday, when the Washington Post referred to Joe Biden as the “former president” in an article about the Justice Department’s now-defunct plea deal with Hunter Biden.
“Federal prosecutors and Hunter Biden’s attorneys entered a courtroom late last month hoping a judge would approve the plea deal they’d struck, even though they had already publicly disagreed about a key element: what immunity it offered the former president’s son from potential additional criminal charges,” the article said.
The Post has corrected its error, but the original article can be found here.
A gaffe like the Post’s might be dismissed as a sloppy, but innocuous, mistake.
But in this case, the Jeff Bezos-owned publication had three authors writing the story, along with an untold number of proofreaders, fact checkers and other senior editors reviewing it before publication. Moreover, the mistake was made in the first sentence of the story.
Some Post readers viewed the mistake, focusing blaming two of the authors—Devin Barrett and Matt Viser—of being biased against Biden.
Devlin Barrett is a MAGA hack
— Sandi Bachom 📹 (@sandibachom) August 18, 2023
in any event, the article in question did suggest that some Biden’s DOJ would like to see him become the “former” president. Unnamed sources told the Post that “IRS and FBI investigators have been frustrated” with the Hunter Biden investigation, believing it should have been investigated and prosecuted more aggressively.
“The people familiar with the matter said at this point that probe appears unlikely to result in separate criminal charges, though the work is not finished and that view could change,” the Post reported.
“FBI officials are aggressively pursuing the investigation, these people said.”
House Republicans are also looking to examine the details of the negotiations between the DOJ and the president’s son. Reps. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, James Comer, R-Ky., and Jason Smith, R-Mo., announced on July 31 that they’re opening an investigation into the matter.
“The Department’s unusual plea and pretrial diversion agreements with Mr. Biden raise serious concerns—especially when combined with recent whistleblower allegations—that the Department has provided preferential treatment toward Mr. Biden in the course of its investigation and proposed resolution of his alleged criminal conduct,” they said in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Garland responded by giving “special counsel” status to the prosecutor overseeing the Hunter Biden investigation, U.S. Attorney David Weiss. Critics said Garland’s move was designed to prevent Weiss from testifying to Congress.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
