Almost four years after you could have been banned on (then) Twitter or Facebook for posting news articles about the Hunter Biden laptop, it was authenticated this week in a federal court by an FBI agent as genuine.
Briefly, President Biden’s son Hunter, during an alleged period of heavy drug use, dropped of his laptop at a computer repair shop and failed to pick it up. The shop owner eventually called the FBI and it was turned over to them in 2019. This matters not because of the salacious pictures of Hunter Biden in various stages of undress and sexual encounters with prostitutes that were on the hard drive, but because of allegations there was financial data and email communications regarding the Biden family engaged in unsavory business arrangement with entities in China, Ukraine, and elsewhere.
The laptop was introduced into evidence in a federal trial where Hunter Biden is accused of illegally purchasing and possessing a firearm because there is evidence on the computer related to that charge. It may also be used in upcoming trials relating to his tax avoidance or other crimes.
The FBI was put in a difficult position during the 2020 presidential campaign because it is highly unusual to comment about potential evidence in a case that has not yet been brought. The same thing happened in 2016 when Inspectors General publicly referred the Hillary Clinton classified emails investigation to the FBI. Or when FBI Director James Comey announced in March of 2017 that a counterintelligence investigation had been opened on President Trump’s campaign.
I have less sympathy in the last example because by March of 2017, Comey knew the Crossfire Hurricane investigation was built on a foundation of sand, and he should have known not to announce investigations, especially counterintelligence investigations while they are on-going. This was a lesson he failed to learn a year earlier by announcing that no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges against Clinton before turning the investigation over to prosecutors.
Then things got very political with the laptop. The Biden business dealings were relevant in the 2020 election campaign between President Trump and candidate Joe Biden. Because, while as a then private citizen, some or all the Biden’s business dealings may have been lawful if not swarmy, they may have also swayed voters on Election Day. Many of the contents of the laptop leaked because the shop owner made copies of the hard drive which made their way to media. (More on this below.)
We know from congressional testimony that to blunt the criticism of the information in the laptop, then campaign aid Antony Blinken (now Secretary of State) reached out to former acting CIA Director Michael Morell and asked him to draft a communication that labeled the laptop Russian disinformation. The request included a reference to a potential talking point for Biden to use during an upcoming presidential debate.
Which is exactly what happened during the debate when Trump brought up the laptop information. Biden retorted that, (paraphrasing,) “fifty intelligence folks said it’s Russian disinformation.” In fact, fifty-one former intelligence officials including four CIA directors signed the letter claiming the laptop had all the hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation.
One on-board CIA officer is alleged to have helped facilitate passing the letter around for signatures, which is particularly troubling. CIA employees are not supposed to be involved in partisan politics.
For all that intelligence experience, nobody apparently thought to pick up the phone and call Hunter Biden and ask if the laptop was real. To this day, none of these intelligence officials have (to my knowledge) admitted they were wrong.
Neither has much of the mainstream media who either suppressed the story in 2020, and/or have failed to follow up on it since. Some of them continue to stand by their reporting. No reporter has asked President Biden if he now regrets, or was wrong about his statement during the 2020 debate.
The latest hobby horse for laptop deniers is that the FBI agent who testified this week the laptop was authentic and not altered, was merely a summary witness and not a forensics expert. They also like to note that much of the information in the public domain is from a copy of the hard drive, laundered through Rudy Giuliani; where the theory goes, the Russians inserted fake info into it. To my knowledge, there is zero evidence of this. What matters now, is that the actual laptop was validated in court by the FBI.
In fact, President Biden’s DOJ now labels the notion the laptop is not genuine “a conspiracy theory.”
While the testifying agent may not be a forensic examiner, it is highly likely that when the FBI took possession of the laptop, a forensic examination was completed. The testifying agent would know this. There would be reports in the file. Some of the best computer forensic examiners in the world work for the FBI.
When asked by the prosecutor if the laptop had been altered, (which he did,) even if she didn’t do the examination herself, she would know this and have to testify to that effect. If the laptop were found by the FBI to have been altered, that would be exculpatory evidence required to be turned over to Hunter Biden’s lawyers before trial. Hunter Biden is entitled to call his own experts to testify about the validity of the laptop and its contents.
The FBI has been wrongly criticized for dragging out the laptop story for four years by not publicly validating it before now. That criticism belongs with Special Counsel (and former US Attorney) David Weiss, who tried to run out the clock on all the Hunter Biden investigations until he was admonished by a federal court judge for a sweetheart deal he tried to slip past the Court.
The FBI was correct to abstain from commenting about the laptop until this week, and should only comment about investigations and evidence if and when they make their way into the judicial system. The fifty-one former intelligence officials were wrong to inject their uninformed opinions into a presidential election, and they should now retract their letter.
What I’m Watching: Catching up on old seasons of NYPD Blue – I missed a lot of that show when it was on in real time. Some baseball and Golf Channel as well. Want to improve your swing? Watch the LPGA. It’s all about technique not power.
What I’m Listening to: The Wall Street Journal turned me on to a podcast called Acquired. There are only a dozen episodes a year, but they are long and in-depth, deep dive stories on big companies and corporate leaders. Pretty fascinating.
What I’m Reading: I just finished Matterhorn by Christopher Reich. Great spy yarn.
What’s New: I have two new books coming out in the next month. I would have never planned it this way, but I cannot control the timing of the FBI approving the manuscript of my books that are FBI related. Department Echo – A CJ Hawk -FBI Thriller https://amzn.to/48EN71D comes out on June 25th.
Fairfax Station, the second book in the Detective Kiki Diaz Thriller series, https://bit.ly/3wo3DIY comes out on July 9th.