Hello, friends. Welcome to Friday!

Politico "reporters" admit Politico's cowardly, partisan editors killed their stories about Hunter Biden's laptop.

We are real news, Mr. President.

A pair of former reporters at venerable DC-focused outlet Politico slammed "cowardly editors" at their ex-outlet for burying stories about Hunter Biden's laptop -- as well as other major stories -- contributing to a false narrative that "misinformation" was being spread about Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden before the 2020 election.

Puck News scribe Tara Palmeri hosted Axios senior politics reporter Marc Caputo on her "Somebody's Gotta Win" podcast for Inauguration Day to discuss their mutual frustration with what they saw as Politico's mishandling of Biden family coverage.

"Politico did that terrible, ill-fated headline: 51 intelligence agents, or former intelligence agents, say that the Hunter Biden laptop was disinformation, or bore the hallmarks of disinformation," Caputo carped. "Turns out that story was closer to disinformation because the Hunter Biden laptop appeared to be true."

"But then Facebook also pulled all stories down about the Hunter Biden laptop, and I think Twitter did at the same time, too," added Palmeri.

"Correct, they punished The New York Post, that didn't help," Caputo went on, referring to The Post being locked out of its Twitter account due to what was later revealed as back-channel pressure from the FBI.

"I was covering Biden at the time," he added. "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, however, noted that he'd also had a story, which broached the topic of Hunter Biden's work for the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, "killed" by an editor as Joe Biden was fighting for support in the Dem primary.

A Politico rep pushed back on the characterization in a statement to Mediaite, which first reported on the airing of grievances.

"Seems like a case of false memory, given that across the years they referenced, POLITICO journalists lead the way on wide-ranging reporting on the business dealings of Joe Biden's closest relatives," the rep noted.

...

Caputo, however, noted that he'd also had a story which broached the topic of Hunter Biden's work for the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings "killed" by an editor as Joe Biden was fighting for support in the lead-up to the 2020 Democratic presidential primary.

"In 2019, a rival presidential Democratic campaign of Joe Biden's gave to me the tax lien -- the oppo research -- the tax lien on Hunter Biden for the period of time that he worked at Burisma," he recounted.

Palmeri questioned whether other editors were uneasy about an extensive report she co-authored on US Secret Service agents reportedly trying to quietly nab a copy of a federal gun-purchase form the president's son filled out.

"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.

It was scrapped without explanation, the veteran reporter vented, saying readers "don't understand the dumb decisions of cowardly editors that are made above us."

...

"I spent three months on it, I went to the laptop shop, and I did all of the reporting in Delaware," she recalled. "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."

"It was the beginning of his administration, it was a honeymoon period -- you know what I mean?" she suggested.