Hunter Biden

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118871176#Comment_118871176

Media opinion supported it could be Russian Disinformation, and media opinion also supported it as 100% authentic. But I don't see how these peoples clear speculation requires retraction, it's not asserting it was, for a fact, Russian Disinformation. Just like everyone may have an opinion on the outcome of a court battle: does the half of people who call the case verdict wrong get exiled as complicit liars, guilty of helping the accused get away with a criminal agenda, or are they just court-watchers who called it wrong? That's the absurdity of the conspiratorial aspersions being thrown at 'the Media' here, for having assholes and opinions on their **** nauseating 'panels.' Those people have basically as much information as you or I, and they get paid to make hot takes that don't get the network in trouble and drive commercial sales.

Discussion of the Chain of Custody of the Laptop in question is obfuscation, how?

Overheal

POTUS via spox Ron Klain:

“Of course the president’s confident this his son didn’t break the law,” Klain said. “But most importantly, as I said, that’s a matter that’s going to be decided by the Justice Department, by the legal process, and something no one at the White House has any involvement in.”

“Is the president confident his family didn’t cross any ethical lines?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“George, the president is confident that his family did the right thing. Again, I want to be clear. These are actions by Hunter and his brother. They’re private matters. They don’t involve the president. They certainly are something that no one at the White House is involved in.”

https://www.mediaite.com/news/george-stephanopoulos-confronts-wh-chief-of-staff-ron-klain-about-hunter-biden-is-the-president-confident-his-son-didnt-break-the-law/

I think saying it 'doesn't involve POTUS' is a bit coarse, it very obviously involves him politically, but maybe the DOJ won't see it that way. That doesn't mean Congress might not see it that way, or voters.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118875186#Comment_118875186

POTUS also has confidence in the work his wife was doing when she was vice president. Or when Michelle Obama was vice president. In fairness it's not clear which one he thinks was vice president.

https://twitter.com/DontWalkRUN/status/1510291320379785216

Overheal

It's hum drum WH PR. But, if Hunter is indicted for breaking the law this is gonna be another egg in their face.

KieferFan69

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118866617#Comment_118866617

I don’t know much about bidens son apart from that he is a drug user. I feel it is his right to use drugs so I see no Shane in that. Which terrible thing he did?

Dr. Bre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118875856#Comment_118875856

No Shane ?

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118875942#Comment_118875942

Some people write in accents

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118871373#Comment_118871373

I'm sorry but your argument is just empirically wrong. This is not "media opinion", this was meant to be news from what are supposed to be the most reputable outlets including "the paper of record" The NYT, WaPo and Politico. It's one to to say that they couldn't verify the email archive but they went much further and labelled the email archive as "Russian Disinformation" - a concocted lie that not single person in one of those newsrooms thought to be true because all the information to verify the email archive was available from the start but they chose instead to perpetuate the lie that the archive was "Russian Disinformation".

New York Post Published Hunter Biden Report Amid Newsroom Doubts - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say - POLITICO

Hunter Biden: FBI probing if New York Post story tied to Russia (usatoday.com)

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118876952#Comment_118876952

Your evidence doesn’t show I am “empirically wrong” it shows for example, newspapers quoting US intelligence officials who may have labeled it Russian disinformation.

If the media reports on a statement, is the newspaper lying about what the statement was?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118879186#Comment_118879186

When they repeat something which they know to be false then Yes. Why didn't they apply the same level of scepticism to the claims of Russian Disinformation as they did with the archive, considering not a single person in those newsrooms believed those claims because all the indicia used to verify authenticity of large archives e.g. Snowden and Wikileaks was there from the start with the Hunter Biden archive. They pretended it wasn't real because they were sacred the truth would hurt Biden. That's the reality.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118879553#Comment_118879553

How would they have known this was false? Those former Intel pros signed an open letter and they didn’t themselves claim it was, for a fact, Russian disinformation, in their letter they say the exact same thing everyone else was saying at the time: this is beyond suspicious, given the nature, sources, and blatant political timing. I’m not sure where you think they crossed an ethical boundary here. Have you read the article you posted or the letter it reports on?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118879601#Comment_118879601

That letter was the excuse that these outlets needed so they could lie with a straight face. These people lie so much that even "the news" that there were 50-plus signatories had to be taken in good faith because the letter also listed nine signatories who “cannot be named publicly” but “support the arguments in this letter”.

Where was the same level of scepticism to the claim of "Russian Disinformation" as there was with the archive? These same intelligence officials who have lied compulsively about WMD and NSA spying are now darlings of the Democratic party who go on to present the "news" at some of the biggest corporate media outlets in the U.S. and yet again they have been caught in another bare face lie about this email archive.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118879671#Comment_118879671

K, so it sounds like you keep trying to find nails for your "The Media lied" hammer. But there are none.

Where was the same level of scepticism to the claim of "Russian Disinformation" as there was with the archive?

In other words you're asking if Giuliani/Bubolinksi etc. had the same credibility as national intelligence experts who have worked as career professionals in the field of counterintelligence? What do you think?

Overheal

Also, you still haven't answered an earlier question of mine, what's obfuscating about discussing the chain of custody of the laptop? Seems as relevant as talking about the chain of custody of the steele dossier etc. in other threads, no?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118879822#Comment_118879822

No interest in discussing Steele Dossier, chain of custody or whatever else. It's very simple, either the email archive was real or it was fake. It was real and it was obvious from the very beginning that it was real. Major media outlets chose not to report that fact and instead claimed that they couldn't verify the archive even though all the evidence to verify the archive was available from the very start. But they didn't stop there, they went a step further and laundered the lie that the archive was "Russian Disinformation" while Big Tech suspended accounts and algorithmically supressed the NY Post story.

So the next time you hear someone claiming that disinformation comes from random YouTubers, Facebook or QAnon sites, remember these articles and videos that were spread all over the internet right before the 2020 election that contained nothing but blatant lies. The organisations that spread the most disinformation and crave disinformation agents as their employees are the same ones who demand censorship of the internet in the name of stopping it. Over and over, the media corporations that claim to oppose "disinformation" spread it more aggressively and destructively than anyone.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118880240#Comment_118880240

It was real and it was obvious from the very beginning that it was real. Major media outlets chose not to report that fact and instead claimed that they couldn't verify the archive even though all the evidence to verify the archive was available from the very start

Where, supposedly?

Washington Post's full spread about this when it broke: https://wapo.st/3jb3pLf

How do we know the email is authentic?

We do not. The New York Post published PDF printouts of several emails allegedly taken from the laptop, but for the “smoking-gun” email, it shows only a photo made the day before the story was posted, according to Thomas Rid, the author of “Active Measures,” a book on disinformation. “There is no header information, no metadata.” The Washington Post has not been able to independently verify or authenticate these emails, as requests to make the laptop hard drive available for inspection have not been granted. The New York Post said it obtained the material from former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a personal lawyer to President Trump.

There also is no indication that Hunter Biden replied to the email.

Moreover, another alleged email published by the New York Post contradicts the notion that Hunter Biden could influence his father. “What he will do and say is out of our hands,” Hunter Biden wrote in an email that the New York Post said was sent April 13, 2014.

So far, only about 22,000 of the 129,000 emails in the archive were able to be verified. https://wapo.st/3uRcYEN

* Links should be free to view for the Month of April, 2022, earlier free links in the thread may have already expired.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118880423#Comment_118880423

In that case, you better tell the WaPo because their editorial board just admitted that the corporate media owes the country a reckoning for the falsehoods they spread about the Biden docs before the election: Opinion | The Hunter Biden story is an opportunity for a reckoning - The Washington Post

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118880488#Comment_118880488

..Did you read it? I don't see where the editors in this piece said the corporate media owes any such thing or was guilty of spreading falsehoods. Can you extract the quote?

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118880632#Comment_118880632

The Editorial is filled with self-justifying caveats about why it was reasonable to have gotten the story so wrong. It downplays the full extent of the joint CIA/media/Big Tech lie until the last line for the WaPo to acknowledge the following: "The lesson learned from 2020 may well be that there’s also a danger of suppressing accurate & relevant stories." Who would have thought concealing truth to sway an election might be bad? But at least the Post now stands alone in admitting the fraud and that an accounting is due.

Overheal

This context doesn’t necessarily exonerate every action of every publication and platform. It makes obvious sense for newspapers to wait to verify information before turning it into a story; the harder conundrum is what to do with true information that comes from a hack, and harder still is how to treat true information that hasn’t been stolen but has been selectively shared to further an agenda. Social media sites face a tougher choice when it comes to whether and how to dampen the spread of a story when they’re unsure of its truthfulness or origins. None of these dilemmas have easy answers. The lesson learned from 2016 was evidently to err on the side of setting aside questionable material in the heat of a political campaign. The lesson learned from 2020 may well be that there’s also a danger of suppressing accurate and relevant stories.

Doesn't sound like the scorching indictment you seem to think it is.

Overheal

Weeks in to having thousands of the emails verified and we've seen no apparent uptake from anyone but the staunchly anti-Biden outlets, Fox and NYP, continuing to try and drive this story. In the weeks since there seems to be no coalescing event, or piece of information in the emails, that serves as a 'smoking gun,' a Watergate break-in, just a demand for a special counsel, and apparent clickbait (see, Biden in photoshopped image, a thing very credible papers of record do when they talk about issues which they claim are serious crimes etc. - or bonus, "Sure looks like" as a serious headline for a serious crime they are seriously pretending to take seriously. Seriously.)

A special counsel continues to make no sense, Hunter is not a federal employee, an elected official, he has no professional ties to the WH other than as the son of the President, he isn't a stand-in for the administration at the UN even, he doesn't collect a paycheck. Additionally, it tries to accuse Hunter and Joe Biden of corruption/crimes at a time when Joe was a private citizen, therefore I don't know what federal corruption crime they think they are going for: one email chain they focus on is from May 2017, in which Hunter Biden was trying to schmooze a 10% stake in a Chinese company, Sinohawk Holdings, as corroborated by Tony Bobulinski, the same gentlemen who coordinated with the Trump campaign to time his statements on this matter to make it a political hit job hours before a scheduled presidential debate. Many of Bubolinskis claims about the Bidens behavior is not corroborated by evidence as I understand it, a lot of it hinges on his word.

Even if you assume it's true the Bidens wanted a 10% stake in the holdings firm I don't know that would be a crime, if they are private citizens, and it just sounds politically bad for their optics only, far from rising to need to special counsel investigate them. Clearly, nobody has been able to show in the years since 2017 that Joe Biden did or is still benefiting from what appeared to be a deal in progress at the time. You don't need a Special Counsel to do that, just follow the money, wherever it is.

So of course, I guess you would need to keep the right wing fervor in the headlines by focusing on .... something, anything to make a new article to attract ad clicks and keep spreading noise on the Democratic agenda. Um, 'Hunter Biden calls Noah Axelrod an asshole because he talked dad out of running in 2016' yeah okay, Hunter probably wasn't alone in thinking that. But let's keep people mad about this story anyway, how dare Hunter do that, so unprofessional for a private citizen to say in an email. Grr.

While NYP and Fox find the time to fill the airwaves with this like it was a missing Malaysian Airplane, and "10% for The Big Guy lol" seeps into daily conversation, there have been no real active developments in the Hunter Biden investigation for several weeks; the Grand Jury still sits to deliberate the prosecution's efforts to indict Mr. Biden, for improper tax filings, and working as an unregistered FARA lobbyist. No other reported focuses of the Grand Jury, no indication of a conspiracy investigation centering on the President. Insofar as I know, it's not a federal crime to call someone an asshole or to 'look like a liar' to an outlet predisposed to be biased against you.

It all just looks like GOP Misinformation Strategy: sow the disinformation, get people so chattered up about it that it becomes a distraction, and then compel a political investigation to look into the things you knew were actually bullshit the whole time but helped you win a couple midterms.

That last line may infuriate some conservative readers, since it also happens to be a similar strategy employed by the DNC when it pertained to Trump-Russia (particularly, claims by Adam Schiff which didn't match hype), and matters like Trump Jr. meeting with Russians at his Big Guy's Big Tower, yet the fact remains that's how politicians play the voters, so why get swept up into another Trump-Russia with Hunter-China?

https://www.newsweek.com/hunter-biden-criminal-charges-what-we-know-1697347

Overheal

In 2019 as part of the GOPs rousing call to chase down Hunter Biden leads, they accused a DC lobbying group, Blue Star Strategies, of using Hunter Biden's name to secure dealings with US officials while it did work for Burisma holdings. The claims were even repeated in articles of impeachment introduced against Joe Biden by reps like Marjorie Taylor Greene. The group refuted this, telling the Senate in testimony they never used Hunters name to secure US official parlance. A DOJ probe has finished 2.5 years of investigating the matter and found no wrongdoing by Blue Star according to their attorneys.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/17/burisma-blue-star-strategies-doj-probe/

...

Tramontano has maintained that the firm did not coordinate its activities with the younger son of then-Vice President Biden, who was on Burisma’s board at the time. Blue Star’s service to Burisma involved a "range of government, public affairs, and legal services,” she told Senate Republicans in response to a December 2019 letter, which included “discussions with appropriate government and non-governmental organizations regarding Ukraine’s energy security needs.”

At the time, Blue Star Strategies did not disclose its work for Burisma as part of filings required of “certain agents of foreign principals” under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

Tramontano’s attorney, Peter J. Kadzik, said the firm “fully cooperated” with the DOJ probe, the existence of which was reported last year by Politico, which said one focus of the federal investigation was whether the lobbying shop had failed to comply with disclosure requirements.

“There was no finding of any wrongdoing," Kadzik added in a statement to The Washington Post, sent in response to a query about the new filing. "To respond to the DOJ request, Blue Star Strategies submitted an administrative filing to explain the purpose of meetings that were held.” Kadzik said the decision to close the investigation was communicated to him directly.

The new filing, stamped May 12 and made “pursuant to guidance from DOJ personnel," involves the firm “adding retroactively a foreign principal for a specific and limited time in 2016." The foreign principal was Zlochevsky, the Burisma owner and former ecology and natural resources minister under Ukrainian President Viktor F. Yanukovych, who was forced into exile in 2014.

An exhibit submitted with the filing states that Blue Star Strategies “was asked in 2016 to help schedule meetings with U.S. Government officials so counsel for Mr. Zlochevsky could present an explanation of certain adverse proceedings in the U.K. and Ukraine involving Mr. Zlochevsky.”

The firm scheduled two such meetings, the exhibit continues, and a firm representative accompanied Zlochevsky’s counsel to the meetings. The firm received a monthly retainer of $30,000 in March and April of 2016, according to the filing, “a small portion of which was allocated to scheduling a meeting for Mr. Zlochevsky’s attorney.”

...

Meanwhile, I haven't heard any updates from the Grand Jury, which is presumably still active. The PC Repair Shop guy is shilling his own novel about it though.

... oh, and 128,755 alleged emails from Hunter Bidens laptop have now been dumped onto the web directly by Garrett Ziegler, aide to Peter Navarro, Trump's henchman who came up with the plan for the January 6 2022 insurrection in what he called the Green Bay Sweep. I'm not sure what the significance of their timing of the release is today, other than it's worth noting several primaries were today; it's unlikely the release had any measurable effect on the election result, unless I've missed some key race somewhere they were trying to influence. The Washington Post was only able to authenticate 22,000 of the emails alleged to have come from the laptop.

Overheal

NBC has analyzed the contents for their face value and found some gossip but not anything to incriminate the President or nothing.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/analysis-hunter-bidens-hard-drive-shows-firm-took-11-million-2013-2018-rcna29462

Effectively, we got details that Hunter already confirmed in previous admissions about being addicted to drugs and going on high dollar benders, enabled by all this cash.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119086239#Comment_119086239

From 2013 through 2018 Hunter Biden and his company brought in about $11 million via his roles as an attorney and a board member with a Ukrainian firm accused of bribery and his work with a Chinese businessman now accused of fraud, according to an NBC News analysis of a copy of Biden’s hard drive and iCloud account and documents released by Republicans on two Senate committees. 

The documents and the analysis, which don’t show what he did to earn millions from his Chinese partners, raise questions about national security, business ethics and potential legal exposure.

A real swell guy. Nothing to see here. Certainly it's not clear whether that's $9.9 million for Hunter Biden and his company and $1.1m for the big guy. Or if the big guy's ten percent was extra.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119086390#Comment_119086390

Prosecutors will suss it out if anything is there.

Still no news from the ongoing Grand Jury.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119086419#Comment_119086419

No doubt. But NBC are certainly not reporting that poor Hunter is just a victim of malicious gossip as you infer. Quite the opposite.

Overheal

What did Tucker Carlson pay to Hunter Biden?

Please, just ask questions about this. It's the Carlson way.

Tucker Carlson and his wife were looking to get their son a leg up in his college application to Georgetown University when they turned to a well-connected Washington friend who had an even better-connected father.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/19/look-time-tucker-carlson-asked-hunter-biden-favor/

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119086460#Comment_119086460

I never inferred that. I said some gossip, not some malicious gossip. Nor juicy gossip, steamy gossip, nor sheep gossip.

hometruths

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119086653#Comment_119086653

Fine, but they reported the facts that "Hunter Biden and his company brought in about $11 million via his roles as an attorney and a board member with a Ukrainian firm accused of bribery and his work with a Chinese businessman now accused of fraud." This is not gossip.

Whatever type of gossip you think it is, there is certainly no evidence it is Russian gossip.

Overheal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119086718#Comment_119086718

No, it's literally gossip, it's reported content from the hard drive, which has a spotted chain of custody. Not gossip would be, an FBI report, a Grand Jury indictment, etc., and if the millions were already reportedly otherwise (which they had been) then, we haven't learned really anything new here, other than that information also reportedly appears on the drive. Having learned nothing new or salacious, then, it's gossip except for the interesting fact to me that it came from NBC and not the usual wash and rinse of eg. Project Veritas via the New York Post or such other BS.