Considering the WH admitted to working with Twitter and FB to censor, then later denied it, then twitter exposing FBI and DHS management in censorship, I have a hard time believing anything this administration says. Whats worse is liberals have no issue w/ the censorship AND no issue with it being directed by the government. Scary Jan 6th protesting elected officials after capital police open the doors and pelosi denies extra security, but literally gov officials guiding twitter and facebook on how to censor.

Literally Nazi tactics. Everyone forgets how Hitler took control of the press in German and here we are, the WH "working" with social "media" outlets to control what is disseminated. IDGAF which administration does it, it sets bad precedence and it opens the door to government suppression.
Playing the politic game w/ your question, see what I'm doing here? i'm actually answering your question without posing another question or dancing around it. Progressive liberals have heavily played the race/gender/sexuality card. Every damn story was "black, wnba, lbgtq etc.. player was "wrongfully" detained/arrested/convicted in Russia. EVERY story the media and liberals play is about race and gender. Black man killed by police, the news cycle for months. How about black man runs through crowd killing and seriously injuring dozens? Nope that story was dropped. Or how about the "white male"... Oops non-binary shooter at the gay club in Colorado.. That shit dropped off the map pretty fast. Parkland was in the news for months. Colorado maybe 4 days before his lawyer said he's non-binary.
SO, back to my original question: Do you still think the trade was the best bang for the buck?
I understand your point about the NY times, they denied the Hunter Biden laptop but with Twitter exposing FBI and DHS cooperation into censoring the story, again finding a news outlet that is at least partially honest is a struggle. Stories abound saying both so its an honest question you pose but that begs the question, which story do we believe? Do we chose the narrative we want to hear?
However, this administration has been a shitshow IMHO so I really don't put it past them. I'm not a democrat so I'll be hard pressed to cheer them on. Maybe Biden can impress me by stop selling our oil reserves to china and europe but I won't hold my breath.
You do keep mentioning "my boy Trump" and here is this; I don't have a problem saying he did plenty I do not agree with, however I've yet to hear a single democrat admit the same from their messiah. Its always rhetoric double talk that Trump did such and such, or Trump tweeted mean tweets but Democrats, minus bill mahar, are incapable of saying anything Biden/democrats do is a mistake etc.