What does Fox News, the New York Post, and the UK’s Daily Mail have in common? Their stock in trade is tabloid “journalism.” The Post and the Mail are upfront about what they do to make a buck, but Fox News still insists that in traffics in legitimate “news.” With two weeks to go before the election, it was the Post which “broke” the “story” about a Trump supporter who copied and hacked into the hard drive of a laptop computer that Hunter Biden left in his shop for repairs. John Paul MacIsaac claimed that he became “worried” about some of the content on the drive, and feared that he “might be killed” by a Biden associate for being in possession of it--just your average, ordinary, paranoid, lying right-wing conspiracy nut. MacIsaac informed the FBI, no doubt hoping for his 15 minutes of fame, and eventually passed on a copy of the contents to Rudy Giuliani’s attorney, and the rest is “history.”
There is no doubt that Giuliani had already shared with Sen. Ron Johnson the minimal amount of “useful” information from the laptop for Johnson’s already forgotten partisan political hack-job “investigation,” which I am sure that he and Donald Trump are deeply disappointed supplied nothing that could be described as “criminal” or against any law, except as an opportunity to hang their own “interpretations,” which are highly suspect to begin with, given the obvious motivations and hypocrisies behind them.
Like that of the Post, the Daily Mail’s “expose” had a higher quotient of prurience than of actually content. Why would Hunter Biden leave a laptop behind if he didn’t think anything of real interest to a “normal” person was in it, let alone trust anyone with three of his laptops? Apparently the Post and the Mail thought that people would be “interested” in seeing “selfies” of Biden’s mug, and him sitting in his bathtub. Or a receipt with his signature to bill him for the repairs. Talk about “desperate”--and inconsequential nonsense.
The “smoking gun” evidence suggesting malfeasance was, as noted before, part of the Johnson’s “report.” Yes, private citizen Hunter Biden did seek out private investment from foreign sources for private businesses. Did Joe Biden meet with a Burisma official, as one of the emails suggests he may have? He says he didn’t, but even if he did, so what? Who was the “big guy” who Hunter Biden was allegedly holding equity for? The better question was it “illegal?” No. It is the Trump desperadoes who make it all sound so “sinister.” Apparently it is now “news” again because we learned that Giuliani didn’t receive all of his information directly from the Russian intelligence agents and pro-Russian Ukrainian politicians who he spoke to and doubtless siphoned-off to Johnson, who along with other Republicans are acting like this is “new” information.
According to the Mail, Republicans will investigate e-mails “from Hunter’s Ukrainian business partners that appear to show a Burisma energy executive being introduced to Joe Biden when he was vice president. That was before Joe Biden lobbied for the firing of a prosecutor--Viktor Shokin--who had investigated the company.” The truth was that in that quagmire of corruption that is the Ukraine, one corrupt official acts against another because they have an ax to grind and like to make threats; Shokin was briefly investigating Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky, who was accused of using his power as Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources from 2010 to 2012 to issue oil and gas leases to companies he owned.
But Shokin was also hugely unpopular in the Ukraine, accused of being a tool of the Russians and refusing to prosecute police and pro-Russian officials for the extra-judicial killings of protesters. In fact, by the time Shokin was forced by mass street protests to “resign” in 2016, he had already allowed his investigation of Zlochevsky to lapse. One must be obliged to point out that it was Zlochevsky's activities--not Burisma--that was being investigated, and that currently there are two well-heeled Americans sitting on the company’s board. Furthermore, The Financial Times noted last year that
EU diplomats working on Ukraine at the time have, however, told the FT that they were looking for ways to persuade Kiev to remove Mr Shokin well before Mr Biden entered the picture. The push for Mr Shokin’s removal was part of an international effort to bolster Ukraine’s institutions following Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the armed conflict in the eastern part of the country. “All of us were really pushing [former Ukrainian president Petro] Poroshenko that he needs to do something, because the prosecutor was not following any of the corruption issues. He was really bad news,” said an EU diplomat involved in the discussions. “It was Biden who finally came in [and triggered it]. Biden was the most vocal, as the US usually is. But we were all literally complaining about the prosecutor.”
An EU diplomat told the Times that “Is there a problem in my view that while Biden was Mr. Ukraine his son was anywhere near it and getting paid for it? Yes, that’s a problem. But [they allege] that he tried to push out Shokin [because of that]. That’s a complete fabrication and has been debunked several times — but Giuliani keeps repeating it.”
Trump political hack and Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe--who has been busy doing Trump’s bidding and downplaying and suppressing information about Russian interference in the election--told Fox News that the FBI was in possession of the laptop, but “Without commenting on any investigation that they may or may not have, their investigation is not centered around Russian disinformation and the intelligence community is not playing any role with respect to that.” But isn’t it fair to say that the actions of both Giuliani and Johnson suggest that in their own ways they been the tools of Russian operatives and disinformation to effect the election--if not acting as agents of Russia in their blinded efforts to ensure the reelection of Trump?
What in reality is this new “scandal” really about? According the Mail, “The e-mails also included a picture of Hunter with what appears to be a crack pipe and an 11-minute sex and drug video that is yet to be seen,” and I’m sure that Deadspin is eager to get their hands on it for a couple hundred thou. What is it that we are supposed to “infer” then from the FBI’s retaining possession of the laptop’s contents? According to Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, who was responsible for that completely insane Trump interview, this might suggest “evidence” of “child pornography,”--which her guest, Johnson, accepted without a shred of shame in a well-if-you-think-so-it’s-possible way.
Meanwhile, the desperate Trump is calling on William Barr to appoint a “special prosecutor” to investigate these conspiracy theories and non-crimes. Fox News and other right-wing outlets are “wondering” why other mainstream news outlets have shown little interest in these tales; the question should be, why are they?
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