In the 2020 election's home stretch, the New York Post published a story about the Democratic nominee's son. The Democratic nominee's campaign immediately and angrily dismissed the story as 'Russian disinformation,' without evidence -- and without actually denying that the Post's sourcing was authentic. Much of the media fell in line, uncritically repeating that denial, and certainly not demanding supporting proof from the Democratic nominee's campaign. Large social media platforms censored the story, or intentionally made it harder to access. Twitter blocked the newspaper's entire account for weeks. In case you've forgotten the details, here is an excerpt from the original report:
Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post. The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month. “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads. An earlier email from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf. The blockbuster correspondence — which flies in the face of Joe Biden’s claim that he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings” — is contained in a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer. The computer was dropped off at a repair shop in Biden’s home state of Delaware in April 2019, according to the store’s owner.
Numerous allegations about the younger Biden's overseas business affairs have been raised and substantiated by at least some evidence, calling into serious question his father's blanket denials. The Biden campaign and their news media and Silicon Valley allies effectively squelched this potentially-unhelpful issue by deploying the baseless 'Russian disinformation' claim, to which former intelligence officials eagerly lent their reputations and expertise. Months later, after Biden was elected president, we learned that Hunter Biden had in fact been the subject of a federal investigation related to these matters since 2018. Politico reported the probe focused on Biden's taxes, foreign ties, and possible money laundering. As for the infamous laptop, many observers noted that the campaign had never explicitly denied that it was real, in spite of their credulously-parroted 'disinformation' misdirection. In a new interview, Hunter Biden admits that the computer "certainly" could have been his:
Months after it was alleged that a laptop revealed Hunter Biden's business interests in China and Ukraine, the president's son tells Tracy Smith that the laptop "could be" his
— CBS Sunday Morning ?? (@CBSSunday) April 2, 2021
Watch the full interview this weekend on #CBSSunday pic.twitter.com/DhtY5IcPeg
It could have been his, or he could have been hacked, or it could have been stolen, or it could have been Russia. He doesn't know. "For real." What an answer. Who knows whether the underlying controversy or scandal would have altered the outcome of the election if it had been properly covered and adjudicated, rather than censored and downplayed by people whose job is to be skeptical of politicians' claims. There's a case to be made the in a close election -- remember, Trump only lost the decisive states by roughly 44,000 total votes -- that it could have made a difference. There's also a case to be made that there were much bigger factors on voters' minds than this kerfuffle, even if it had received substantially more attention. Regardless, the coordinated effort to nip this possible threat in the bud among the Democrats, the media, and Big Tech -- at the eleventh hour, with very high stakes -- is instructive and highly disturbing.
The censorship occurred against a bona fide news story, with documentation. The actually unverified claim was the "Russian disinformation" deflection, which served as the basis for crushing the news story. Talk about collusion. And the people who did the crushing continue to present themselves as society's vanguards of truth against misinformation. Feeling reassured yet? Finally, how could Hunter Biden (supposedly) not know whether is laptop was stolen? It turns out he has an alleged history of misplacing personal belongings. This recent story never gained much steam:
On Oct. 23, 2018, President Joe Biden’s son Hunter and daughter in law Hallie were involved in a bizarre incident in which Hallie took Hunter’s gun and threw it in a trash can behind a grocery store, only to return later to find it gone. Delaware police began investigating, concerned that the trash can was across from a high school and that the missing gun could be used in a crime, according to law enforcement officials and a copy of the police report obtained by POLITICO. But a curious thing happened at the time: Secret Service agents approached the owner of the store where Hunter bought the gun and asked to take the paperwork involving the sale, according to two people, one of whom has firsthand knowledge of the episode and the other was briefed by a Secret Service agent after the fact. The gun store owner refused to supply the paperwork, suspecting that the Secret Service officers wanted to hide Hunter’s ownership of the missing gun in case it were to be involved in a crime, the two people said. The owner, Ron Palmieri, later turned over the papers to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, which oversees federal gun laws.
The White House has denied the president had any knowledge of or involvement in the bizarre and partially-disputed incident. And they'd never lie to us, would they?
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