annabenedetti
like marbles on glass
The contents of the laptop were alleged to be Russian disinfo by Joe Biden and his defenders (interestingly, Hunter stayed quiet about it), but it has since been deemed authentic.
Here's a useful flashback to 2020, when they were trying to ascertain if the emails were genuine, and why:
hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo-430276
In the intervening two years, other sources have authenticated the laptop, it seems the current furor is over how long it took the NYT to do it. I don't really care. In the meantime, there's been other, much bigger stuff going on, like a global pandemic, an insurrection, and a war in Europe.
I don't know all of the sordid details, but basically, Hunter "sold influence" overseas by arranging meetings between monied individuals and Hunter's father, who was VPOTUS at the time. Hunter would charge money for this service and Joe would get a cut, which seems like it must be illegal on some level to me.
There simply is no proof of this allegation. Nothing to show it happened.
Then Hunter would go off on days-long crack-smoking binges and get it on with prostitutes--because it's not like he had a real job to go to every day. He was actually dumb enough to take video and photos of himself doing these things, which he stored on his laptop. Then he was dumb enough to bring the laptop to a repair service when it quit working. And then he was dumb enough to forget about it and leave it there. The computer repair guy then discovered the contents of the computer and turned it in, and here we are.
Hunter seems to have lived a troubled life, and he's not out of the woods yet on some of his legal issues, including his not registering with FARA. But those are his problems, and should have no bearing on Joe Biden's presidency, since Joe Biden is not involved. Hunter's planned meeting never happened, and at the same time, Hunter knew the limitations. From the NYT article:
In some of the emails, Mr. Biden displayed a familiarity with FARA, and a desire to avoid triggering it.
In one email to Mr. Archer in April 2014, Mr. Biden outlined his vision for working with Burisma. In the email, Hunter Biden indicated that the forthcoming announcement of a trip to Ukraine by Vice President Biden — who is referred to in the email as “my guy,” but not by name — should “be characterized as part of our advice and thinking — but what he will say and do is out of our hands.”
The announcement “could be a really good thing or it could end up creating too great an expectation. We need to temper expectations regarding that visit,” Hunter Biden wrote.
Vice President Biden traveled to Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, about a week after the email.
In the same April 2014 email, Hunter Biden indicated that Burisma’s officials “need to know in no uncertain terms that we will not and cannot intervene directly with domestic policymakers, and that we need to abide by FARA and any other U.S. laws in the strictest sense across the board.”
He suggested enlisting the law firm where he worked at the time, Boies Schiller Flexner, to help Burisma through “direct discussions at state, energy and NSC,” referring to two cabinet departments and the National Security Council at the White House.
The firm “can devise a media plan and arrange for legal protections and mitigate U.S. domestic negative press regarding the current leadership if need be,” Mr. Biden wrote in the email.
Mr. Biden, Mr. Archer, Boies Schiller Flexner and Blue Star Strategies did not register under FARA on behalf of Burisma. From the NYT:
I have a theory about all of that. I believe that the authorities, the news media, and the Republican establishment all worked together to suppress this story because they knew we had a bigger bullet to dodge--that being the second term of Trump's presidency. We did indeed dodge that bullet, but now we have to deal with this mess.
I disagree. After the Comey boondoggle right before the 2016 election, they were understandably wary. So now this was October 2020, and was it an October surprise, meant to sway the 2020 election? The press had every reason to be careful. Sometimes you have to fall back on Occam's razor, and the simplest explanation is the best.
Last edited: