PIERS MORGAN: Can you imagine the howls of outrage if Don Jr. had been under federal investigation for tax fraud and nobody had told the voters while the media looked the other way? This Hunter Biden cover-up stinks

Imagine for a moment that Donald Trump had won the US election last month?

I don't mean won it in the increasingly absurd way HE thinks he won it – i.e. that Joe Biden's entirely legitimate victory was invalid because uncorroborated 'mass voter fraud' made it a 'rigged' and 'stolen' election.

Only a bonkers conspiracy theorist actually thinks that, someone like the President himself whose pathetic elongated temper tantrum is turning into the most unedifying episode of The Biggest Loser ever aired.

No, I mean imagine if Trump had actually won fair and square and was now preparing to be inaugurated for his second term of office?

Then imagine that his victory was quite narrow, like Biden's, and came down to a few thousand votes in the swing states?

And then imagine that just before the election, a major US newspaper had published an explosive story about his son Donald Trump Jr. based around the contents of his personal laptop that revealed extensive dodgy dealings with people from foreign countries, some very unfriendly to the United States, and which even suggested his father may have been involved in some of those dealings?

Now imagine that in this eventuality, and with none of the key elements of the story denied by the Trumps, 90% of America's mainstream media deliberately refused to cover the story, and social media giants like Twitter and Facebook actively suppressed it altogether?

Finally, imagine waking up today to hear that rather than Hunter Biden being formally investigated by federal authorities from the Justice Department over his financial affairs, as is the case, it was Donald Trump Jr.

The media's abject failure to properly report the New York Post's scoop about Hunter was a shameful dereliction of journalistic duty driven by the inherent liberal bias of much of the US media ¿ and I said it as a liberal myself

The media's abject failure to properly report the New York Post's scoop about Hunter was a shameful dereliction of journalistic duty driven by the inherent liberal bias of much of the US media – and I said it as a liberal myself

Imagine waking up today to hear that rather than Hunter Biden being formally investigated by federal authorities from the Justice Department over his financial affairs, as is the case, it was Donald Trump Jr. And that the investigation has been ongoing since 2018 but was 'paused' in case it affected the election. By now, some of you might be screaming that the election was 'rigged' and 'stolen' from Joe Biden, right?

Imagine waking up today to hear that rather than Hunter Biden being formally investigated by federal authorities from the Justice Department over his financial affairs, as is the case, it was Donald Trump Jr. And that the investigation has been ongoing since 2018 but was 'paused' in case it affected the election. By now, some of you might be screaming that the election was 'rigged' and 'stolen' from Joe Biden, right?

And that the investigation has been ongoing since 2018 but was 'paused' in case it affected the election.

And that it has looked at allegations of potential criminal violations of tax and money laundering laws. And that it is now in front of a Delaware Grand Jury with a view to indictment.

By now, some of you might be screaming that the election was 'rigged' and 'stolen' from Joe Biden, right?

And of course, that is exactly what Donald Trump will be screaming all day long today, as he does every day, only this time with some actual evidence to support his otherwise hysterical claims.

I mean, who knows how damaging it might have been if this federal investigation into Hunter Biden's finances had been revealed before the election, and the mainstream media had given it the full Hillary Clinton email treatment that many believe cost her the 2016 election?

I said at the time that the media's abject failure to properly report the New York Post's scoop about Hunter was a shameful dereliction of journalistic duty driven by the inherent liberal bias of much of the US media – and I said it as a liberal myself.

Predictably, and equally shamefully, the media responded by then trying to censor me too: I was dropped from an appearance on Brian Stelter's CNN media show after going on Fox News and lambasting news organisations like my former CNN employers for refusing to follow up the Post's Biden exposé.

Whatever the truth, the bombshell revelation that Hunter's the subject of a formal federal investigation is now a story that even the Trump-loathing mainstream media cannot ignore ¿ however hard some will doubtless try

Whatever the truth, the bombshell revelation that Hunter's the subject of a formal federal investigation is now a story that even the Trump-loathing mainstream media cannot ignore – however hard some will doubtless try

I have no idea if Hunter Biden has broken any laws with his financial dealings. But I do know that a lot of his business activity in places like Ukraine and China raises significant questions, not least because his father was Vice-President during much of it

I have no idea if Hunter Biden has broken any laws with his financial dealings. But I do know that a lot of his business activity in places like Ukraine and China raises significant questions, not least because his father was Vice-President during much of it

They were happy to buy into Joe Biden's line that it was all a hoax driven by nefarious Russians to discredit him.

Now the same CNN is reporting that the federal investigation is 'examining multiple financial issues, including whether Hunter Biden and associates violated tax and money laundering laws in business dealings in foreign countries, principally China.'

CNN also reports that the investigation had been 'largely dormant in recent months' due to Justice Department rules that prohibit taking legal actions in cases that could affect an election.

That tells me there's enough meat on the bone of the investigation to warrant genuine concern in the Biden camp.

If I were appearing on Stelter's show this Sunday, I might ask him if he is still comfortable that CNN refused to pursue the Post's story before the election? And what would they have done if it had been about Donald Trump Jr instead?

At the time of the Post story breaking, I also made the point that the Democrats, mainstream media and social media firms could conspire to try to avoid it all they liked, but that wouldn't make it go away and it would come back to haunt Joe Biden if he won the election.

Well, here we are.

Let me be clear: I have no idea if Hunter Biden has broken any laws with his financial dealings.

But I do know that a lot of his business activity in places like Ukraine and China raises significant questions, not least because his father was Vice-President during much of it.

Hunter was paid $50,000 a month to serve on the board of Burisma, a Ukranian energy company owned by a corrupt oligarch, despite having zero experience to perform such a duty; he advised a rich Romanian executive currently facing corruption charges; and he invested in a private equity fund linked to the Chinese government.

These are all facts.

The fact that the investigation pre-dated the emergence of Hunter's laptop is neither here nor there.

The Biden-Harris Transition issued a statement which said: 'President-elect Biden is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.' This was a curiously worded comment, very personal and very defensive, yet not addressing the fact that Hunter is under investigation

The Biden-Harris Transition issued a statement which said: 'President-elect Biden is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.' This was a curiously worded comment, very personal and very defensive, yet not addressing the fact that Hunter is under investigation

And there's plenty more in Hunter Biden's financial back catalogue that is worthy of investigation to establish if the President-elect's son broke the law or used his father's incredibly powerful position to feather his own nest. Or even that Joe himself may have been directly compromised by some of it – something he vehemently denies.

Whatever the truth, the bombshell revelation that Hunter's the subject of a formal federal investigation is now a story that even the Trump-loathing mainstream media cannot ignore – however hard some will doubtless try.

In a statement issued yesterday afternoon by President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris's transition office, Hunter said: 'I learned yesterday for the first time that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware, advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs. I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately, including with the benefit of professional tax advisors.'

There was an additional statement from Biden-Harris Transition which said: 'President-elect Biden is deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.'

This was a curiously worded comment, very personal and very defensive, yet not addressing the fact that Hunter is under investigation.

I can totally understand why Joe Biden is desperate to protect his son.

He lost his wife and baby daughter in a car crash that Hunter survived, and more recently lost his other son Beau to brain cancer.

Any father would feel ferociously defensive towards a child who's had to endure so much trauma, grief and heartache.

Frankly, it would take a heart of stone not to sympathise on a personal level with Joe Biden or indeed with Hunter. It's not massively surprising that a man who lost his mother, sister and brother in tragic circumstances should skid off the rails into drug abuse, alcoholism and womanizing.

But none of this should prohibit perfectly legitimate reporting of the Biden financial affairs.

If you want to be President, you must expect the intense scrutiny that comes with the job for you and your family.

Joe Biden knows this more than anyone after eight years as Vice-President, his family including Hunter knows this, and the mainstream media knows this.

Donald Trump will inevitably use it to fuel his preposterous claims that the election was stolen from him
Joe Biden will now be bedevilled by the growing scandal of Hunter's financial dealings from the moment he enters the White House as President

The cumulative effect of these transparently partisan antics is that Joe Biden will now be bedevilled by the growing scandal of Hunter's financial dealings from the moment he enters the White House as President. Worse still, Donald Trump will inevitably use it to fuel his preposterous claims that the election was stolen from him, and to further convince his easily persuaded supporters that there was indeed a deep-state conspiracy to rob him of the presidency

I find it deeply suspicious that we're only now hearing about the federal probe into Hunter Biden's business conduct, a month after the election.

Why did prosecutors not go public before, given that they started the investigation in 2018?

How did it not leak in an era when everything leaks?

Or did it leak, and once again, the media suppressed it?

This announcement is also deeply embarrassing for all the journalists who have worked so hard to NOT report on Hunter's business conduct lest it damage his father's election chances.

It proves that at the very least they should have taken the New York Post revelations more seriously.

The cumulative effect of these transparently partisan antics is that Joe Biden will now be bedevilled by the growing scandal of Hunter's financial dealings from the moment he enters the White House as President.

Worse still, Donald Trump will inevitably use it to fuel his preposterous claims that the election was stolen from him, and to further convince his easily persuaded supporters that there was indeed a deep-state conspiracy to rob him of the presidency.

As so often in political scandals, it may not be the actual story about Hunter Biden's finances that ends up causing the most damage to his father, but the concerted effort to cover up the story. 

Except that this time, most of America's media is guilty as well.