The Bidens: Media Selling A Preposterous Alternate Reality
/It was Wednesday October 14 that the New York Post broke its big story about the Hunter Biden laptop and emails, confirming Joe Biden’s personal involvement in Hunter’s Ukraine/Burisma corruption. The big news the following day was the efforts of social media giants Facebook and Twitter to limit the circulation of this story on their platforms. But how about the rest of the media? Clearly, they were all aware of this story. So, how would they report it? Could they really just ignore a story of this significance in the final stages of a presidential election campaign?
With the passage of a few days, the answer to that question is now in. An official talking point was developed, and somehow got adopted by every single organ of the Democrat media. The official talking point is that the emails are a “possible disinformation campaign” put out by the Russians on behalf of Trump. Yes, it’s the return of Russia, Russia, Russia! Somehow, dozens of media organs adopted this exact same talking point within hours of each other. Is there a source? I’ve gone through about a dozen of these pieces, and every single one that I have found attributes the story to some anonymous source. The sources are not all the same, but supposedly every single one seems to have demanded anonymity. Odd, isn’t it?
Meanwhile, the indications that the emails are genuine have greatly strengthened. I’ll get to that in a bit. But first let’s look at a sample showing the official mainstream media talking point:
From USA Today, October 17: “A tabloid got a trove of data on Hunter Biden from Rudy Giuliani. Now, the FBI is probing a possible disinformation campaign.” Excerpt: “Less than three weeks before one of the most contentious presidential campaigns in history, federal authorities are investigating whether the material supplied to the New York Post by Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump's personal lawyer, is part of a smoke bomb of disinformation pushed by Russia.” Source: “according to a person familiar with the matter.”
From Bloomberg, October 16: “FBI Probed If Purported Hunter Biden Emails Are a Russian Plot.” Excerpt: “The Federal Bureau of Investigation probed whether emails purportedly recovered from a laptop allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son are part of a Russian disinformation operation to interfere in the 2020 election. . . .” Source: “according to a person familiar with the matter.”
From the AP, October 17: “Biden email episode illustrates risk to Trump from Giuliani.” Excerpt: “Giuliani says foreign sources didn’t provide the Hunter Biden emails. He says a laptop containing the emails and intimate photos was simply abandoned in a Delaware repair shop and the shop owner reached out to Giuliani’s lawyer. That hasn’t stopped the FBI from investigating whether the emails are part of a foreign influence operation. The emails have surfaced as U.S. officials have been warning that Russia, which backed Trump’s 2016 campaign through hacking of Democratic emails and a covert social media campaign, is interfering again this year.” Source (relying on The Washington Post): “The newspaper [Washington Post], citing four former [unnamed] officials. . . .”
Business Insider, October 15: “Hunter Biden laptop mystery hints at a Russian disinformation operation, source tells Insider.” Excerpt: “[N]o matter how the laptop, and whatever is on the hard drive, came to exist, the situation looks a lot like a classic Russian intelligence operation. . . .” Source: “according to an Estonian intelligence official with extensive experience in combating Russian spies. . . .”
From CNN, October 16: “US authorities investigating if recently published emails are tied to Russian disinformation effort targeting Biden.” Excerpt: “US authorities are investigating whether recently published emails that purport to detail the business dealings of Joe Biden's son in Ukraine and China are connected to an ongoing Russian disinformation effort targeting the former vice president's campaign. . . .” Source: “a US official and a congressional source briefed on the matter said.”
You could go on all day with this if you want. You’re probably wondering, did any of these guys take the trouble to contact Biden or his campaign to ask if the laptop and its contents were genuine? Don’t be ridiculous. USA Today: “Bates, the Biden spokesman, said any suggestion the former vice president did anything improper is false.” OK, looks like they failed to ask the obvious question. CNN: “George Mesires, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, did not respond to a request for comment.” No problem then. Bloomberg: “‘We have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place,’ campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.” They reviewed the “official schedules,” but couldn’t be bothered actually to ask the candidate whether there was such a meeting? This couldn’t be more lame. The Business Insider and AP stories don’t even contain any indication of attempts to contact Biden or his spokespeople. And of course, not one of these stories ever mentions that neither Joe nor Hunter Biden has yet denied the genuineness of the laptop or of any email on it.
Now, suppose you were actually interested in the question of whether this laptop, and the emails found on it, were genuine communications involving Hunter Biden. What evidence might you look to?
Clearly, you would start with the lack of a denial of authenticity from Hunter or Joe. If these things were not genuine, there would definitely have been a statement contesting authenticity within hours at most of the story breaking. It is now almost five full days, and nothing. That is by far the most important indicator.
Then there is the fact that the laptop contains large amounts of seemingly genuine personal information, photographs, and text messages that match up to what is known about Hunter’s life in the relevant time period. Could all of this have been faked by Russian disinformation specialists? Maybe it’s possible, but it would be an enormously difficult and expensive exercise, where any one mistake would give away the game. So far, on a whole laptop, nobody has found that mistake.
A journalist named Adam Housley has come up with an email dated October 15, 2020, from George Mesires — the lawyer for Hunter Biden identified in the CNN story above — to the owner of the computer store who provided the laptop to the New York Post, demanding the return of the laptop. John Hinderaker at Powerline here has this story. From Housley’s tweet about the email: “You don’t ask for someone else’s computers . . . you ask for your own.” Obviously.
A reporter named Mike Emanuel at Fox News has contacted other individuals who appear as addressees on various of the email chains found on the Hunter Biden laptop, and says that two such addressees have authenticated the emails on which their names appear. “Fox News has obtained more emails purported to be from Hunter Biden’s laptop. From May 2017, correspondence with Chinese energy executives about remuneration packages which two sources have verified to Fox News. It discusses payment for six people, including a reference to ten percent of the equity in the deal be held by H for the big guy. Sources tell Fox News the big guy is Joe Biden. . . .”
Somebody here is living an an alternate reality, and I don’t think it’s me. The “Russian disinformation” line is an obvious and preposterous distraction. At this point we know to a reasonable certainty that the laptop, and the emails on it, are genuine. And that means that we have solid confirmation that Joe Biden was in on Hunter’s corruption.
UPDATE, October 19: Two tweets of note come to my attention this morning. First, from Sohrab Ahmari, op-ed editor of the New York Post, October 18:
It’s now been four days since The Post dropped the first Hunter Files story, and neither Joe nor Hunter has disputed a single material fact. The easiest thing they could do is to say, “That laptop isn’t ours, Hunter didn’t send/receive those e-mails.” Yet they haven’t done that.
Second, from Sean Ono Lennon (of all people), October 15:
It is no longer exaggeration to say that the collusion between social media and media to manipulate our reality for the benefit of their political agendas has reached Stalinist proportions.
H/t, Instapundit. I’ll go with frequent commenter E Olson’s use of the phrase “enemies of the people.” Even that barely begins to describe it.
SECOND UPDATE, October 19: In an interview on Fox News this morning, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has stated explicitly that the Hunter Biden laptop is not part of a Russian disinformation campaign. “Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” Ratcliffe said, adding again that “this is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign.”