Leaked tapes reveal CNN buried the Hunter Biden laptop story

In the latest recordings of CNN's daily editorial meeting, tapped into and released by Project Veritas, network President Jeff Zucker seems to say the liberal network would not be going down "the rabbit hole of Hunter Biden."

The New York Post in October published a series of stories about Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. The stories included emails that appear to show that Hunter Biden in 2015 set up a meeting between an official with the Ukraine energy company Burisma Holdings, to which he was connected, and his father, who was vice president at the time. 

The Biden presidential campaign said they had no record of such a meeting, but couldn't rule out an informal meeting.

Zucker is reportedly heard saying on the tape that he doesn't want CNN to go down the "Breitbart, New York Post, Fox News rabbit hole of Hunter Biden, which I don't think anybody outside of that world understood.”

Project Veritas wrote: "Zucker told his conference call participants he tracks conservative news outlets and he wants CNN reporters, hosts, producers and editors not to match their coverage of the images and correspondence found on Hunter Biden’s laptop."

Another male participant echoed his boss’ sentiments.

“Obviously, we're not going with the New York Post story right now on Hunter Biden, which seems to be giving its marching orders to Fox News and the right-wing echo chamber about what to talk about today,” he said.

“Obviously, Hunter Biden's lawyer is quoted in the New York Post, and we'll just continue to report out, this is the very stuff that the president was impeached over, this is the stuff that Senate committees looked at and found nothing wrong in Joe Biden's interactions with Ukrainians,” he said.

Zucker, the site wrote, "said he agreed with the dismissive coverage from The Wall Street Journal, when it came to reporting on the Biden family’s mixing of private business and public service in mainland China."

“The Wall Street Journal reported that their review of all corporate records showed no role for Joe Biden on the Chinese deal, and yes, I do put more credibility in The Wall Street Journal than I do in the New York Post,” he said.

"Another male said, 'Hey, Jeff, it's just David, on the Burisma story, and we should be awfully careful about that obviously, but I do think there's a media story. What in the world are Maggie Haberman and Jake Sherman doing retweeting that story?'"

Haberman writes for The New York Times and Sherman writes for Politico.