Over the course of the past two weeks, the Washington Post and The New York Times have finally admitted that a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden is, in fact, real and that the details of his foreign dealings contained within it are problematic.
Despite the admission, Biden's allies in the media are doing their best to protect the Oval Office.
"It seems pretty clear that Hunter Biden was trading on his father's name to make a lot of money, he's had a difficult life, but until someone makes a nexus between what Hunter Biden has done and official activities of Vice President Biden or President Biden, it's a not-pretty picture, but it's not really of much public import in terms of the policy of the United States or the administration of the government," CNN's John Harwood said this week. "There is zero evidence that Vice President Biden, or President Biden, has done anything wrong in connection with what Hunter Biden has done."
Zero evidence? There's a boatload of corruption. The Washington Post and New York Times aren't the only places to look for information about this story, and what they're now reporting is not only years late, it's the bare minimum. A quick flashback to the 2020 campaign train revives details implicating President Joe Biden himself.
The talking point this week from Biden's defenders, as parroted by Harwood, has been that Hunter Biden simply traded on his family name and everybody in Washington, D.C., does it. That's a distraction and misses the most important point.
The laptop story mattered in October 2020, ahead of a presidential election, because Americans deserved to know if Joe Biden was compromised by a number of shady foreign business dealings. His hands were not clean, and according to Hunter's business partner Tony Bobulinski, Biden not only attended meetings about money being exchanged but deals Hunter made included "10 percent for the Big Guy."
"Hunter Biden called his dad 'the Big Guy' or 'my Chairman,' and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing," the New York Post reported in October 2020. "Joe was called 'the big guy' in other emails on Hunter's laptop or in WhatsApp messages on Bobulinski's phones."
During his time as vice president, Joe Biden gladly enabled his son's behavior at taxpayers' expense.
"At the time, it seemed mildly noteworthy, but not particularly unusual: then-Vice President Joe Biden, traveling to China on an official visit, had brought his son Hunter Biden along [on Air Force Two]. And when the two appeared in public together in Beijing during the 2013 trip, there were all the typical trappings of a mini-family vacation tacked on to a business trip," NBC News reported in October 2019. "What wasn't known then was that as he accompanied his father to China, Hunter Biden was forming a Chinese private equity fund that associates said at the time was planning to raise big money, including from China. Hunter Biden has acknowledged meeting with Jonathan Li, a Chinese banker and his partner in the fund during the trip. The Chinese business license that brought the new fund into existence was issued by Shanghai authorities 10 days after the trip, with Hunter Biden a member of the board."
For years, Biden has excused Hunter's behavior, citing his love for his son. But as the Commander-in-Chief, Biden owes his loyalty to the American people and is obligated to stand up to the very regimes his family profited from. This was true before the election and remains true today.
Not surprisingly, the White House now, which is currently using taxpayer dollars to secretly manage Hunter Biden's new art career, is refusing to elaborate on the situation and insists the elder Biden was not involved. In fact, they're flat out denying many of the foreign transactions, which can be viewed in black and white bank statements and wire transfers, ever occurred.
"I don't speak for Hunter Biden, so there's not more I can say on that," White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield told reporters this week. "I don't have anything further to add from this podium. We addressed this with the Washington Post. We pointed to statements that were made in the fall of 2020 when we addressed these questions. And I don't have anything additional to add from this podium."
The statement Joe Biden made in fall 2020 was that Hunter didn't make money in China at all, which is a lie.
"My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what you're talking about, China," Biden said.
In fact, Hunter Biden made millions.
Given the timing of the Washington Post's and The New York Times' admissions that Hunter Biden's laptop and the details about shady business dealings contained within it are real, one has to assume bigger things are coming. Why are Biden's allies in the media reporting the story more than 500 days after the details were first published in the New York Post? What are their sources telling them about the future of the federal investigation into Hunter Biden's foreign dealings?
Considering the censorship of the story in October 2020, when the New York Post was banned on Twitter for weeks, and media outlets like NPR called the story "not really a story" not worthy of their time, there's something brewing. Given his family's foreign profits over the years, what more will we find out about President Biden's awkward and compromised decision process when it comes to American foreign policy and national security?
The facts of the story haven't changed, but the politics and Hunter Biden's growing legal mess have. Americans have a right to know about the corruption, role and benefit to "The Big Guy."
