The Hunter Biden Red Herring
The Much Ado about Hunter's Laptop
To hear Republicans talk about it, Hunter Biden’s laptop contains the double secret, hypersensitive, ultraconfidential plans for the Democrats to take over the world. In hearings this week, they discussed at length Hunter’s laptop by not even focusing on it; instead they went after Twitter for taking down stories about it relatively close to the election.1
We’ve heard this before. Substitute “Hunter’s Laptop” for “Hillary’s email” and you have the same tinfoil hat conspiracy story. News flash: there was no story there either, not to mention in both cases the data was wrongfully and illegally obtained. Republicans seem to have no qualms about crossing legal lines to get the issue they want to feast on. In addition, much like the Hillary emails story, it focuses on someone the right despises.
Hunter has always been a target for Trump and the Republicans. While Joe Biden is relatively well liked, his son Hunter has some sketchy aspects to him. He is an admitted former crack addict and wrote about his drug issues. He has admitted to affiars, including with his brother Beau’s widow after Beau’s death. So personally, he is kind of a mess. Professionally, he has always traded on being the son of a famous politician (not unlike others, such as Ivanka and Don Trump Jr., or Chelsea Clinton, or the Bush Twins) but two enterprises in particular are particularly suspicious to Republicans; Burisma, a natural gas company in Ukraine, and his work on investments in China.
Burisma is a huge target to Republicans, because it is the centerpoint to a number of Biden Conspiracies. Trump and his attorney Rudy Giuliani were so adamant about digging up dirt on Hunter with Burisma, they essentially tried to blackmail newly elected Ukrainian President Zelenskyy by withholding appropriated military aid unless they turned up dirt on Hunter. With Ukraine currently engaged in a war with Russia, and with Russia having openly supported Trump for President, you can see how any information about impropriety would be beneficial to Trump and Russia. To date, there has been no indication Hunter Biden acted inappopriately, only that he received a high paying Board position for basically being a Biden. Trump’s illegal actions led to his first Impeachment.
Hunter’s work in China is even more ambiguous, but again, there does not appear to be anything egregious or illegal there. However, just by implying it, Hunter Biden’s work in China and Ukraine becomes the nexus to a whole slew of conspiracies that Republicans would love to insinuate as scandal for the Biden Family. Hence, this is the reason Republicans fixate on the Hunter Laptop story.
Looking for a good synopsis on the Laptop story, the best I found was actually provided by Wikipedia:
In October 2020, a controversy emerged involving data from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden that was abandoned at a Delaware computer shop. Three weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election, the New York Post published a story presenting emails from the laptop, alleging they showed corruption by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. The story was based on information provided by Rudy Giuliani, the personal attorney of incumbent president and candidate Donald Trump. Forensic analysis later authenticated some of the data on the laptop, including one of two key emails used by the Post in their initial reporting.
Trump attempted to turn the story into an October surprise to hurt Biden's campaign, saying he had acted corruptly regarding Ukraine while in office. The hard drive data had been shared with the FBI and Republican operatives such as Trump advisor Steve Bannon before it became publicly known.
PolitiFact wrote in June 2021 that, while "over time, there has been less doubt that the laptop did in fact belong to Hunter Biden", the laptop "was real in the sense that it exists, but it didn't prove much", as "[n]othing from the laptop has revealed illegal or unethical behavior by Joe Biden as vice president with regard to his son's tenure as a director for Burisma".
In November 2022, CBS News published a forensic analysis it commissioned, which examined a "clean" copy of the data obtained directly from the repair shop operator. That analysis concluded that the "clean" data, including over 120,000 emails, originated with Hunter Biden and had not been altered, contrasting that to other copies circulated by Republican operatives, which "could have been tampered with". The Washington Post reported that experts at their request had authenticated a number of emails, including one that was the subject of the New York Post reporting. The drive analyzed for The Washington Post lacked a clear chain of custody, and was considered "a mess" and "a disaster" from a forensic standpoint by the two analysts.
So to summarize, 1) there is a laptop, 2) the information was given to Republican operatives, 3) those are glaring chain of custody problems and operatives may have tampered with what was on the laptop, and 4) nothing on the laptop implicates President Joe Biden.
America would be a better place if Republicans would, you know, focus on issues and help govern the country. Instead they seem to spend all their time screaming about any allegation, no matter how minor or provable, about someone they don’t like. Its a feature of the Right Wing Ecosystem, not a bug. It’s also a huge sign of what is wrong with the current GOP in it’s current incarnation.
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Hunter Biden has recently obtained new counsel and is suing the owners of the computer shop and purveyors of the material on his stolen laptop. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64495401
The store owner is retaliating claiming defamation2
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebrity/hunter-biden-served-defamation-lawsuit-by-computer-repair-shop-owner-days-before-his-lawyer-called-for-criminal-probes/ar-AA173qUx
PurpleAmerica’s Obscure Fact of the Day
Fifty years ago, Joe Biden, newly elected to the Senate from Delaware, lost his wife and young child in a car accident. His sons, Beau and Hunter survived but were in a hospital for months. At the end of every day in the Senate, Joe would ride Amtrak back to Delaware to be with his sons. He would do this every day as a Senator until they came of age.
PurpleAmerica Cultural Criticism Corner
It’s Super Bowl Sunday! Normally, I would be super excited to watch it, but this year for some reason I am just not into it. Maybe its the teams (Eagles and Chiefs), maybe its the timing (just got back from vacation) and maybe its the halftime show (not really jumping up and down for Rihanna). I don’t know.
But my guess is that 1) the key matchup will be if the KC defense can contain Jalen Hurts from getting first downs with his legs, 2) I don’t think they can, and 3) KC won’t be able to keep up. Expect a shootout. Eagles 37, Chiefs 24.
I think I’m going to watch something else this year.
Outstanding Tweet
And how did the hearings go for Republicans investigating Hunter’s laptop? Well, this is a tame version of events.
Parting Thoughts
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Twitter took them down for one day in an attempt to police and take proactive steps to prevent misinformation and false reporting from proliferating. Twitter quickly changed course due to outrage and by their own admission, made a mistake.
It should be noted that truth is an absolute defense in defamation cases. You can’t win a defamation case against someone if what they allege actually happened.