The Wall Street Journal has issued a damning assessment of CNN’s Jake Tapper in his quest to legitimize a tell-all book he’s written about Joe Biden’s administration.

In a scathing takedown, the editorial board at the WSJ pointed out that Tapper dismissed an article they had published in June 2024 highlighting concerns about Biden’s cognitive decline.

Tapper is framing his book, ‘Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again’, as an all-access, behind the scenes glimpse at the choices that led to Biden’s decision to ultimately step aside.

But the WSJ editorial maintains he was one of the leading voices dismissing concerns about Biden before his disastrous debate against President Trump which ultimately paved the way for him to step aside.

‘Whenever someone dared to point out that Mr. Biden wasn’t up to the job, a praetorian media guard assembled to deny it,’ the WSJ wrote.

‘We could quote chapter and verse from many media sources, but one example worth citing is none other than Mr. Tapper.’

On June 4, 2024, just three weeks before the debate, the WSJ published ‘a detailed piece… that those who observed Mr. Biden in person were concerned about his decline.

‘Mr. Tapper quoted a White House dismissal of the story, including a sneer that the Journal is ”owned by News Corp, which is run by the Murdochs,” as if that rebutted the story. 

‘He then interviewed a Democrat who dismissed it. A more curious journalist would have explored if it were true, and maybe even done some of his own reporting. 

‘Only now does he tacitly admit the Journal was right.’

The original article cited as many as 45 sources – all of whom were afforded anonymity due to the sensitive nature of their claims.

Tapper invited Biden ally, Delaware Senator Chris Coons onto his show and himself dismissed the story as ‘mostly based on observations of Republicans.’

During an October 2020 CNN interview, Trump campaign advisor Lara Trump noted how Biden stumbled over his words on the campaign trail and Tapper accused her of ‘mocking’ the president’s stutter.

‘How do you think it makes little kids with stutters feel when they see you make a comment like that?’ Tapper asked her.

Then in 2023, Tapper applauded Biden as mentally ‘sharp.’

The WSJ editorial states: ‘The coverup of Mr. Biden’s mental decline will go down as one of the great scandals of modern politics. 

‘By refusing to admit what voters could so clearly see, Democrats denied their party an open primary. Once Mr. Biden imploded, they handed Kamala Harris the nomination without debate.

‘Had Mr. Biden bowed out in 2023, Republicans might also have been more open to nominees other than Mr. Trump.

‘They would do better to think upon, and seek contrition for, their own role in making it possible.’

The WSJ is not the only news source accusing Tapper himself of being complicit in the very ‘cover-up’ that he purports to expose.

‘Tapper was one of the people leading the Biden defense within the media, so for him to turn around now and condescendingly lecture the media on why they didn’t cover the story better, well, he’s pretty much looking in the mirror when he’s making a statement like that,’ Fox News contributor Joe Concha told the Daily Mail.

This week, after several days of criticism directed at Tapper, even he acknowledged that his hands are not completely clean.

‘I think some of the criticism is fair, to be honest, of me,’ he told CNN colleague John Berman on Wednesday.

‘Certainly, I’m not going to speak for anybody else, but knowing then what I know now, I look back at my coverage during the Biden years and I did cover some of these issues, but not enough. I look back on it with humility.’