CHR - When Legacy Media Gaslights Its Audience

TOP LINE

This week, the Hunter Biden IRS whistleblowers were vindicated. They were promoted to leadership positions at IRS headquarters by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent where they will advise on badly needed cultural reform.

Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler were so severely retaliated against by previous IRS leadership that independent government investigators found in their favor.  As they told me in October for our investigation “Bucking the Bureaucracy,” they believe the retaliation was designed to bankrupt them, and to drive them to suicide.

This week’s headline from CBS News, “Once Sidelined IRS Agents Who Investigated Hunter Biden Promoted By Trump Administration” caught my attention.  I knew firsthand how CBS News executives worked overtime to bury both the IRS whistleblowers and the government records they brought forward after Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal collapsed in the summer of 2023. 

While CBS News initially led on the IRS whistleblower story( our team secured the first interviews with Shapley and Ziegler,) once Hunter Biden faced felony gun and tax charges, the network scaled back coverage. I found the CBS headline stunning and disingenuous because CBS News was part of the sidelining! 

DEEP DIVE

As the senior investigative correspondent and lead reporter on the Hunter Biden story, an assignment I did not volunteer for, I had broken major headlines for the network.  I was not surprised to see this week’s CBS News update sanitized and my investigative reporting at the network erased.

In my role, I witnessed how executives in the CBS News standards and legal departments, the network’s editorial gatekeepers, demanded language in my reporting that appeared to undercut Gary Shapley, Joseph Ziegler and protected the Biden family.  Every CBS report had some kind of disclaimer such as, “During the presidential campaign, Joe Biden consistently maintained that he was not involved in any of his son's business dealings and the White House has continued to deny any connection exists.”  

After Hunter Biden’s plea deal for tax and gun charges fell apart, the CBS Network coverage took gaslighting to a new level.  With a growing body of evidence, including internal IRS records provided to Congress that showed how the Biden IRS and Justice Departments blocked the probe, CBS News executives insisted on an editorial stance that seemed to further shield the Biden family.

This video about the IRS Hunter Biden records was so popular on X, a senior CBS “standards” executive demanded extended reviews of my future social media posts on Hunter.

Become a paying subscriber to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.

Already a paying subscriber? Sign In.

A subscription allows you to:

• • Support Catherine Herridge Reports
• • Access Credible Investigations
• • Access Exclusive Content