WOOF. It was surprising enough they’d even mention it on air, but we naturally thought, “Oh, here we go – they’ll be doing their best to gloss over the whole mess” as O’Donnell’s intro uses lots of “he felts” and then…

“…the stunning claim he was blocked from pursuing leads that could have led to the president himself.”

Color us surprised aka damn near gobsmacked, when reporter Jim Axelrod earnestly and respectfully (!) interviewed IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, allowing him to fully answer really good questions.

They gave the piece almost 3 whole minutes on the CBS Evening News broadcast last night…

🚨 “There were certain investigative steps we 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐝 to take that could have led us to President Biden.”

– IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley👇 https://t.co/nkvuiHB5l2

— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) June 27, 2023

…with hardly a pulled punch to be found.

A few quick exerpts:

[Axelrod narration]…but Shapley said he uncovered conduct that warranted more serious charges.

Shapley: There were personal expenses taken as business expenses. Prostitutes, sex club memberships, hotel rooms for purported drug dealers…

Axelrod: How much did Hunter Biden owe in back taxes?

Shapley: From 2014 to 2019, it was $2.2M…

…[Axelrod narration] …And Shapley told lawmakers that Weiss was blocked from bringing stronger charges…[Merrick Garland clip denying Weiss authority impeded]…

Shapley: I documented exactly what happened, and it doesn’t seem to match what the attorney general or the U.S. attorney seem to be saying today.

[Axelrod narration] Shapley provided lawmakers this contemporaneous email he wrote after an October meeting last year. Shapley says Weiss told him the opposite, that Weiss is NOT the deciding person on whether charges are filed….

….Shapley told us that even before President Biden took office, he was directed to avoid leads involving Hunter’s father…

During his wrap-up, Axelrod points out that Bill Barr was AG during the initial phases of the investigation and may have had rules in place that gave Biden Inc. cover, as well. But the chryon at the end is not something I’d expect to see at the current CBS news, either.

That was a bonafide journalism. For CBS, it was a watershed of sorts, because it was the second one in the space of less than a week. Having run a Catherine Herridge story on the two whistleblowers – WITH TRANSCRIPTS(!) – just last Thursday, CBS was experiencing new-found fits of integrity.

Two IRS whistleblowers allege sweeping misconduct, including interference in the Hunter Biden tax investigation, according to the GOP House Ways and Means Committee chairman and newly released transcripts of congressional interviews with the whistleblowers.

…”The testimony we have just released details a lack of U.S. attorney independence, recurring unjustified delays, unusual actions outside the normal course of any investigation,” Chairman Jason Smith told reporters.

“Testimony shows that U.S. Attorney of Delaware David Weiss tried to bring charges in the District of Columbia around March of 2022 and was denied,” Smith asserted. “Weiss sought special counsel status from the [Justice Department] in the spring of 2022 and was once again denied. Weiss sought to bring charges in the Central District of California in the fall of 2022 and had that request denied in January of 2023.”

Couple these blatant acts of reporting with recent interrogatory assaults by the normally supine White House Press Corps on slovenly prepared White House podium occupiers, and one has to wonder what is going on on circles beyond our pay grade. Has a Bat Signal gone out? Is an anti-Biden ill-wind beginning to blow? Did someone release the hounds of war?

Why are all these media people suddenly rabidly interested in things they couldn’t wipe their noses with, less mind denied the existence of not two weeks ago?

David Catron called the CBS story last week “unusually honest” as part of an article he wrote pondering the very same thing – what gives?

Something changed last week inside the Beltway that suggests the people who run the Democratic Party now realize President Biden’s tenure in office is not sustainable beyond 2024. The “tell” was not, however, the latest revelation by IRS whistleblowers about his corrupt administration. It was instead the sudden awakening of the White House press corps. The same “reporters” who snored through more than two years of preposterous claims by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and her predecessor simultaneously woke up Friday. Correspondents from media outlets CNN, CBS, NBC, and even the New York Times aggressively questioned Jean-Pierre about the metastasizing Hunter Biden scandals.

This wasn’t spontaneous. The word has gone out that regime change is coming. Thus, the “news” outlets that usually repeat Biden’s claim that he and his son never discuss the latter’s business deals actually reported the testimony of IRS whistleblowers who allege political interference in their Hunter Biden investigation. CBS, for example, ran an unusually honest story about the whistleblowers that prominently included full transcripts of their testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee. The committee released the transcripts after it was announced that Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax charges. The two IRS whistleblowers testified that he committed felony tax evasion:…

…There isn’t the slightest possibility that CBS or any of the media outlets noted above would have run a story like this a year ago. Nor would any member of the corporate media have pressed Attorney General Merrick Garland aggressively enough for him to angrily characterize legitimate questions about the Department of Justice as “an attack on an institution that is essential to American democracy, and essential to the safety of the American people.” Garland, like Karine Jean-Pierre and National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, isn’t accustomed to probing questions and he clearly doesn’t like answering them. It will nonetheless be difficult to avoid additional queries from a press corps that has been let off its leash.

What a difference a week suddenly makes. Biden was in his classic, cranky asshat form not two weeks ago, and now? What passes for humble pie from the miserable curmudgeon. The lack of deference from the routinely sycophantic press crush has to be a shock even to Biden’s atrophied nervous system.

…The president’s son pleaded guilty to federal tax offenses and avoided prosecution for illegally possessing a firearm. When reporters asked the president to respond, he simply replied, “I’m proud of my son.”

It was a different Biden from five days earlier when he berated a reporter for asking why a Ukraine FBI informant file referred to the president as “the Big Guy.”

“Why’d you ask such a dumb question?” Biden snapped.

Hey, Jack – we didn’t do it to you.

To paraphrase Eddie Murphy, you and the rest of the Crime Family brought that malarkey on yourselves.

…The Biden family’s audaciousness was just enough to shake a few more White House reporters out of their malaise.

…Newsmax correspondent James Rosen, a familiar irritant to Biden officials, read the text of Hunter’s strong-arming message out loud in an effort to get NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby to respond.

“Let me save you some breath. If you’re going to ask about this, I am not address …” Kirby began.

“I have an abundance of breath, as you know,” Rosen quipped.

I am looking forward to more whistle blowing and more Comer press conferences and more Bojangles softshoe moves from scummy characters like Garland.

This possible scenario also tickles me to death.

…Ultimately, Hunter Biden will himself be called to testify before the House. Maybe he’ll refuse to say anything. That may be best for him. But for his president father, running for re-election, having his son come across like Vito Genovese taking the Fifth dozens of times before questions about shell companies and payments to himself and his dad isn’t a great look.

Nothing about the Bidens has ever been “a great look,” but that would be a truly remarkable scene if Republicans play it right.

And if the press is allowed to continue with their unfettered curiosities and journalisming? Or goes for it, regardless?

Holy SMOKES.

We could have ourselves a righteous old time at last.