Diving into the “Hunter Biden computer”

Since 2020, the “Hunter Biden’s computer” has occupied a unique place in the imagination of the Trumpist right, who believe they have found there the proof of the criminality of the first family of the United States. Undeniably, it will serve as an exhibit in the investigation that Republicans in the House of Representatives intend to conduct in 2023 to determine whether Hunter Biden’s business compromises his father. Hence the importance of diving into it ourselves.

(New York) The Hard Drive

the New York Post revealed the existence of “Hunter Biden’s computer” on October 14, 2020, about three weeks before the 2020 presidential election. The conservative tabloid itself has never seen this computer, but it obtained, through Rudolph Giuliani and Steve Bannon, two allies of Donald Trump, a copy of the hard drive of a MacBook Pro.

According to a story that Hunter Biden and his lawyers still refuse to confirm, the son of the future president took the damaged laptop to a Delaware repair shop on April 12, 2019 and never got it back. The shop’s owner, a Donald Trump supporter, turned the computer over to the FBI on December 9, 2019, wanting an investigation into its contents. He had previously made two copies of the hard drive, one of which ended up in Giuliani’s possession in September 2020.

The hard drive contains 217 gigabytes of data, including 130,000 text messages, 154,000 emails, over 2,000 photos and over 1,000 videos.

After analyzing one of the copies of the hard drive, two experts hired by the washington post managed to authenticate 22,000 emails, only a fraction of the total. They found that the data had been accessed and copied multiple times by people other than Hunter Biden. And while they couldn’t find any compelling evidence of tampering, they couldn’t rule out the possibility.

Some media, like washington post and the New York Times, published in 2022 a few articles on “Hunter Biden’s computer” based on the emails they managed to authenticate. Other media, such as New York Post and the DailyMail of London, were much less circumspect.

But none have gone as far as Miranda Devine, columnist at the New York Post and a native of Australia, the homeland of his boss, Rupert Murdoch, who loosely released the data from his copy of the notorious hard drive in a 224-page book titled Laptop from Hell.

The identity of the “big guy”

Emails authenticated by the washington post cover a period from 2009 to 2019, when Hunter Biden acted as an advisor to companies based in China and Ukraine and explored business opportunities in several other countries. Joe Biden served as vice president from 2009 to 2017.

Some of the authenticated emails relate to a deal Hunter Biden hatched with Chinese energy services and finance conglomerate CEFC, for which a company set up by Joe Biden’s son and uncle, Jim Biden, received $4.8 million.

According to right-wingers, another email, which was not authenticated by the washington post, directly implicates Joe Biden in his son’s affairs. In an email dated May 13, 2017, James Gilliar, associate of Hunter Biden, summarizes how the shares of an entity created by five partners in another project with the Chinese conglomerate CEFC will be distributed. After writing that four partners would receive 20% of the shares, except Jim Biden, who would obtain 10%, he adds: “10% held by H for the ‟big guy”? Everyone seems to agree that “H” refers to Hunter Biden.

But who is the “big guy”? For many Republicans, there is no doubt, it is Joe Biden, who was no longer vice president at the time. One of the recipients of the email, Anthony Bobulinski, himself claimed as much. On bad terms with Hunter Biden, Bobulinski was invited by Donald Trump to attend one of the 2020 presidential debates.

But Gilliar, the alleged author of the email, denied Bobulinski’s assertion in an interview with the wall street journal in 2020. Another detail: three days after the email of May 13, 2017, a draft agreement creating the new entity was distributed among the partners. It did not mention Joe Biden and gave Jim Biden 20% of the shares.

The project with the Chinese conglomerate never produced any income. Republicans are focusing on another email that they say contradicts Joe Biden’s statement that he was never involved in his son’s business. Vadim Pozharsky, adviser to the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, is the author of this email authenticated by the washington post and dated April 17, 2015. At the time, Hunter Biden was receiving up to $50,000 a month to serve on the board of this company that was trying to get its reputation back on its feet. In the email, Pozharsky thanks Hunter Biden “for [l]invited to Washington and [lui] given the opportunity to meet [son] father and spend some time together.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden’s team and his son’s lawyer denied that such a meeting took place. In June 2021, the fact checker of the washington post raised the possibility that Joe Biden crossed paths with the Ukrainian during a dinner held in the private room of a restaurant in Washington, where the vice-president passed by to greet an old acquaintance.

Beyond the allegations and denials, one thing is clear: Hunter Biden took advantage of his surname and his father’s function to enrich himself. But federal agents charged with investigating his affairs reportedly found no evidence to prosecute him for his work abroad. They would, however, have enough evidence to accuse him of having cheated the taxman and lied during the purchase of a firearm in 2018. As for the most credible media, they failed to find any evidence that Joe Biden took advantage of his son’s business.

The “cash cow” of the family

“Hello, my beautiful son. I miss you and I love you. Dad. On February 24, 2019, Joe Biden sends his son a characteristic text message: brief and affectionate. Hunter Biden, who is then in rehab, responds in a bitter tone.

He complains in particular about an article where members of his father’s entourage mention him as a reason that would prevent their boss from running for president in 2020. “Your team has made me the tax evader, the womanizer, the out-of-control sex and drug addict you’re trying in vain to save. They drew a line under my whole life,” he laments.

Two months later, a few days before the announcement of his father’s presidential candidacy, Hunter Biden returns to the charge in another text message: “If you don’t show up, I will never have a chance to redeem myself. His father replies, “I’m going to introduce myself, but I need you.” The only goal is healing. »

Of all the documents taken from “Hunter Biden’s computer,” the text and email exchanges between members of the first family are the most poignant. They occur during the most turbulent period in the life of the second son of Joe Biden, who has already experienced an unimaginable tragedy during his childhood: at the age of 3, he lost his mother and his 13-month-old baby sister in a car accident. car he survived with his brother Beau, who was 4 years old. That same Beau, Delaware attorney general and Iraq War veteran, died of brain cancer at age 46 in 2015.

To the dismay of everyone else in his family, Hunter Biden, estranged from wife Kathleen Buhle since 2015, entered into a romantic relationship with Beau’s widow, Hallie Biden, in 2016. love is my brother’s ‘high,’ indignant Ashley Biden, half-sister of Hunter Biden, in a group chat where members of the first family take Hallie to task over her relationship with the brother of her late husband.

In Laptop from Hell, Miranda Devine cites a voicemail recorded by Hunter Biden during “a drunken night out in Los Angeles in 2018” to support a controversial thesis: Joe Biden’s son was the “cash cow of his family” and he was tired of not being recognized. “Beau did not take his fucking responsibilities,” Hunter Biden fumes, addressing a friend in this message. A year later, in an email to his daughter Naomi, who was then 25, he added: “I hope you can all do what I did and pay for everything for this whole family for 30 years. It’s really difficult. But don’t worry, unlike Pop [Joe Biden], I will not force you to give me half of your salary. »

In explaining her thesis, since adopted by a host of right-wingers, Miranda Devine does not consider the possibility that Hunter Biden’s remarks, made under the influence of alcohol or drugs, were hyperbolic. She also doesn’t seem to take into account that Joe Biden’s son has mostly been the “cash cow” for drug dealers and prostitutes, according to the revelations surrounding his divorce from Kathleen Buhle.

The hell of sex and drugs

“Come for the pornography, stay for the compromises. Steve Bannon’s aphorism means that the primary interest of “Hunter Biden’s computer” would not lie in the staggering number of photos and videos featuring the son of the President of the United States with prostitutes, often two at a time. It’s the details about his dealings with China that would really matter, according to Donald Trump’s former strategist.

But voyeurs can’t seem to resist Hunter Biden’s obsession with pornography, an obsession fueled by heavy crack and Viagra use. The son of the future president filmed his antics, watched them afterwards on his computer – sometimes forgetting to turn off the camera – and often published them on the Pornhub site under the pseudonym “RHEast”.

The conspirators of the QAnon movement, they take advantage of this obsession to falsely believe that the “Hunter Biden’s computer” contains evidence of his pedophilia.

As of this writing, Hunter Biden is doing better, it seems. He lives in California with his new wife, Melissa Cohen, a South African activist whom he met and married in the space of six days in 2019, and their son, Beau, now 2. He devotes himself to painting, another of his passions. The opening of his second solo exhibition took place on December 9 at a gallery in SoHo, New York, where the price of the most expensive canvas was set at $225,000.

Critics of Hunter Biden claim that he continues to exploit his surname and the office of his father. Some specialists recognize him as an authentic talent as an artist.