The scope of what has become an unprecedented media cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline and son Hunter Biden’s legal issues since before he became president is finally being revealed.

Critics of legacy media have long accused news organizations of protecting the 46th president from negative coverage, especially regarding revelations about his family’s questionable financial dealings and his cognitive decline, which was notably evident during last year’s CNN debate and ultimately led to his exit from the 2024 presidential race, Fox News noted in a Saturday report.

In fact, the report said, efforts to shield Biden from scrutiny reportedly began as early as May 2019, while the primary race for the 2020 Democratic nomination was underway.

Last week, former Politico reporter Marc Caputo revealed a report he had written at the time that utilized opposition research sourced from Biden’s Democratic rivals. The report highlighted a “tax lien” on Biden’s son Hunter related to his work with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

At the time, the former vice president was enjoying a significant lead over other Democratic candidates in the polls.

“And I wrote what would have been a classic story saying, you know, ‘The former vice president’s son was slapped with a big tax lien for the period of time that he worked for this controversial Ukrainian oil concern, or natural gas concern, which is haunting his father on the campaign trail,’” Caputo said on the “Somebody’s Gotta Win” podcast.

“That story was killed by the editors. And they gave no explanation for that either,” Caputo added.

By October 2020, Biden had secured the Democratic nomination and held a narrower lead in the polls against then-incumbent President Trump. The New York Post published its explosive report on Hunter Biden’s laptop, providing unprecedented details about his overseas finances and their potential connections to his father.

“I was covering Biden at the time, and I remember coming to my editor and saying, ‘Hey, we need to write about the Hunter Biden laptop.’ And I was told this came from on high at Politico: Don’t write about the laptop, don’t talk about the laptop, don’t tweet about the laptop,” Caputo said.

The journalist, who has since moved on and is now writing for Axios, recalled Politico’s one and only story about the laptop, which he said came under the “ill-fated headline” that read “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say.”

The report, like many others from the legacy media at the time, made reference to an open letter signed by 51 intelligence officials declaring that the material from the laptop had “all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence operation.”

During his second debate with Trump, candidate Biden referenced the letter as he dismissed The Post’s report about the laptop as a “Russian plant.”

Politico wasn’t the only outlet accused of ignoring Hunter Biden’s laptop. A leaked audio recording obtained by Project Veritas revealed top CNN executives instructing staff not to cover it.

“Obviously, we’re not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden,” CNN political director David Chalian said during an Oct. 14 conference call, the same day the NY Post published its first story on Hunter Biden’s emails.

Former Politico reporter Tara Palmeri, who broke the story of Hunter Biden’s gun incident that led to charges, also said her outlet slow-walked her reporting.

“I spent three months on it, I went to the laptop shop, and I did all of the reporting in Delaware, and I did all of that. But yeah it had, it had to be like much- it had to be 100% nailed down,” Palmeri told Caputo on the podcast. “I had everything, you know, the police reports… I’m a solid reporter. But I do wonder if it could have, if it would have been published a little quicker if it was a different type of story.”

“I just think if it was a Trump kid, it would have been published much sooner,” Palmeri added.

The protection of Joe Biden expanded beyond concerns about his family’s finances to include questions about the president’s own health. The Wall Street Journal reported last month that as early as spring 2021, Biden was experiencing “good days and bad days” that White House staff had to manage.

“Yet a sign that the bruising presidential schedule needed to be adjusted for Biden’s advanced age had arisen early on—in just the first few months of his term. Administration officials noticed that the president became tired if meetings went long and would make mistakes,” the Journal reported.

Other journalists told Fox on condition of anonymity they noticed early on Biden was “stiff” and “old” in his appearance and that his answers to questions were purposefully short as if he were “coached.”