Before Rudy Giuliani gave the New York Post the documents it used to write its report on Hunter Biden and his foreign business ventures, Trump allies, including a White House lawyer, pitched a similar story to the Wall Street Journal with the help of a former Biden business partner and his own trove of emails.
White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, former White House counsel Stefan Passantino, and Trump ally Arthur Schwartz met with Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender in McLean, Virginia, in early October to provide the outlet with “a cache of emails detailing Hunter Biden’s business activities, and, on speakerphone, a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s named Tony Bobulinksi,” according to the New York Times.
The hope was the venerable, right-of-center national outlet would write a story to “change the narrative” and propel President Trump to reelection with a report that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was aware of his son’s questionable business dealings and even profited from them. The former vice president has denied having any involvement in foreign business dealings with his family and called the story a “smear campaign.”
Before the Wall Street Journal concluded its reporting Giuliani gave a cache of documents, allegedly from a laptop and hard drive that belonged to Hunter Biden, to the New York Post. The New York Post published its first stories on the materials on Oct. 14, five days before the Trump allies expected the Wall Street Journal to publish its report. Aspects of the story have been called into question, and back-to-back reporting claims that New York Post insiders were skeptical of the story. One reporter reportedly even refused to have his byline appear on the story.
Apparently “tired of waiting,” Bobulinksi “emailed an on-the-record, 684-word statement making his case to a range of news outlets” that was published by Breitbart News, the report said. Bobulinksi also delivered a statement to reporters before the final presidential debate and was a guest of Trump at the event in Nashville.
The Wall Street Journal published its story after the debate, though only a small piece of what the newsroom had been working on, and failed to make the news splash sought by the Trump team. “Corporate records reviewed by the Wall Street Journal show no role for Joe Biden,” it said. “Text messages and emails related to the venture that were provided to the Journal by Mr. Bobulinski, mainly from the spring and summer of 2017, don’t show either Hunter Biden or James Biden discussing a role for Joe Biden in the venture.”
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for comment on this report.
