Biden and Ukraine exposed

[jj3jordan 2,053]

NY Post article exposes Joe Biden and his dealings with Hunter. 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjZqMbEn7XsAhVKXKwKHWWMDisQFjAKegQIBBAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnypost.com%2F2020%2F10%2F14%2Femail-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad%2F&usg=AOvVaw3zvaHFtwOubbKj6VlHG5jX

An earlier email from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf.

[AUDub 11,148]

Careful guys. This is quite possibly bull****. 

 

[TitanTiger 20,482]

Why has the far right become such suckers for wild ass conspiracy bull****?

[1716AU 728]

Well, they think that China will be invading from Canada once Biden becomes president, so why do we believe they actually can think like adults...

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

35 minutes ago, 1716AU said:

Well, they think that China will be invading from Canada once Biden becomes president, so why do we believe they actually can think like adults...

Well that's just stupid.  It would much more of a surprise attack if China just dug directly through the earth.

[DKW 86 7,424]

Are we going to criticize people for believing unproven crap now?

Lets start with
1) RUSSIANS!!!!!!
2) Collusion!
3) Impeachment!

We have literally watched over the last four years as this country has WASTED political capital, time, a million trees worth of paper, and several tankers of ink and whatever else you want to count having a DC Elitist community circle jerk over 2-3 Stories that cumulatively amounted to little more than nothing. Let's start the criticism there. 

We now have:
FBI Agents that have admitted to falsifying testimony on sworn affidavits for FISA Warrants...
FBI Agents that have proactively changed/altered emails such that the emails were reversed in meaning that was factual.
Strzok's own notes from January 2017 say there was no factual reason to go forward with Crossfire Hurricane. 

[TitanTiger 20,482]

On that note...

 

Quote

Fox News portrayed it as one of the biggest scandals in American history. Then it fell apart

 

New York (CNN Business) — It was a conspiracy that Fox News portrayed as one of the greatest — if not the greatest — political scandals in American history.

Tucker Carlson called it a "domestic spying operation" that was "hidden under the pretext of national security." Laura Ingraham characterized top Obama administration officials as having been "exposed." And Sean Hannity flatly declared it to be the "biggest abuse of power, corruption scandal" the country had ever seen.

That was back in May. This week, however, the conspiracy theory collapsed when The Washington Post reported that a Justice Department investigation into the supposed scandal quietly ended with no charges.

 

The narrative pushed by Fox News was centered on the routine intelligence practice of "unmasking." A document declassified in May by then-acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, who has been criticized by Democrats and career intelligence officials as the most overtly political person to serve in the position, revealed that several Obama administration officials had "unmasked" a US citizen mentioned in intelligence reports. 

 

Information about Americans is anonymized in US intelligence reports for privacy reasons. But there are instances when US officials who read these reports need to see the full picture. To make that happen, they need to provide a justification to the intelligence agency that produced the report. If the agency grants that request, the information is "unmasked," and the name is revealed.

 

The person in the intelligence reports ended up being Michael Flynn, who served as President Donald Trump's national security advisor before being fired for lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russia. The Obama officials who requested the "unmasking" of the US citizen, however, wouldn't have known Flynn's identity until after he had been "unmasked."

During the transition, Flynn's name would've appeared in intelligence reports because of his highly irregular contacts with foreign officials, including phone calls with the Russian ambassador and a meeting with a delegation from the United Arab Emirates. Obama-era national security officials have said they "unmasked" Flynn while trying to decipher these unorthodox diplomatic dealings. 

While the procedure of "unmasking" is commonplace in national security matters, happening thousands of times each year, right-wing media portrayed the act as nefarious. The essence of the narrative they pushed was that President Barack Obama and members of his administration, including then-Vice President Joe Biden, participated in a "deep state" plot to improperly use the levers of government to win the 2016 election. The supposed scandal was colloquially referred to by its proponents as "OBAMAGATE."

 

Attorney General William Barr eventually commissioned a federal prosecutor to look into the matter. The Post reported on Tuesday that the inquiry ended without finding substantive wrongdoing and that the probe's findings would likely disappoint conservatives who believed "unmasking" was tied to a political conspiracy against Trump.

News that Trump's Justice Department had concluded without charges being filed landed with a thud on Fox News. Martha MacCallum covered it on her Tuesday night show, but a search of transcripts did not turn up any other instances in which Fox covered it on air. The story was briefly featured on Fox News' homepage before being removed Wednesday afternoon. Even when it was featured on the network's website, it was not given the same play as the initial unmasking stories were in May. 

The episode marks yet another instance in which Fox News and its hosts have dishonestly hyped an innocuous national security procedure into a supposed scandal, only to later watch it quietly fall apart before moving on to feed something else to their audience.

A Fox News spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday. 

It's difficult to overstate how much Fox News promoted the unmasking story in May, never mind promoting it as an insidious plot against Trump.

As the coronavirus death toll neared 100,000 people in the US, Fox News practically dumped coverage of the disease to focus on "OBAMAGATE." After Grenell declassified the related documents in May, mentions of key words related to the supposed scandal spiked on the conservative network as mentions of words related to the coronavirus dropped.

And it wasn't just pro-Trump propagandists on Fox News, such as Hannity and Ingraham, who went all in on the story. Fox News anchors such as Bret Baier, who the network promotes as covering the news in a no-nonsense "straight news" way, also elevated the story on their programs. 

Baier, for instance, hosted the right-wing commentator Mollie Hemingway to discuss the supposed scandal without challenging her assertions, despite them being out of lockstep with what the national security community was saying.

The topic was featured in countless other news segments on the network in which pundits would chew over the declassified documents.

CNN's Marshall Cohen contributed reporting.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/14/media/fox-news-unmasking-obamagate/index.html

 

[TitanTiger 20,482]

Aaaaand, as predictable as the sun rising in the East, Trump is pissed that the Attorney General of the United States won't behave like Trump's personal attorney and do his bidding:

Quote

Trump 'not happy' with Barr, won't commit to keeping AG in potential second term

The Justice Department found no evidence of wrongdoing and declined to release its report publicly or to file any charges in Obama-era "unmasking."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trump-not-happy-barr-won-t-commit-keeping-ag-potential-n1243489

 

[TitanTiger 20,482]

The NY Post story is falling apart:

 

Quote

A quick guide to Trump’s false claims about Ukraine and the Bidens

Glenn Kessler

This is one of those complex stories that consume Washington but frequently confuse ordinary Americans. Trump appears to be counting on that confusion to offer a fog of claims and allegations to make it appear as if Biden had done something wrong. So here’s a quick guide to Trump’s statements — and the truth.

 

False: Biden pushed out a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating his son 

Trump has falsely claimed that Biden in 2015 pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Viktor Shokin, the top Ukrainian prosecutor, because he was investigating Ukraine’s largest private gas company, Burisma, which had added Biden’s son, Hunter, to its board in 2014.

There are two big problems with this claim: One, Shokin was not investigating Burisma or Hunter Biden, and two, Shokin’s ouster was considered a diplomatic victory.

Biden was among the many Western officials who pressed for the removal of Shokin because he actually was not investigating the corruption endemic to the country. Indeed, he was not investigating Burisma at the time. In September 2015, then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt publicly criticized Shokin’s office for thwarting a British money-laundering probe into Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.

“Shokin was not investigating. He didn’t want to investigate Burisma,” Daria Kaleniuk, of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Action Center, told The Washington Post in July. “And Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation, but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation.”

In a 2018 appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations, Biden bragged about his role in Shokin’s removal, saying he had withheld $1 billion in loan guarantees as leverage to force action. But Biden was carrying out a policy developed at the State Department and coordinated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

The Ukrainian prosecutor was regarded as a failure, and “Joe Biden’s efforts to oust Shokin were universally praised,” said Anders Aslund, a Swedish economist heavily involved in Eastern European market reforms. Getting rid of Shokin was considered the linchpin of reform efforts, but U.S. officials had a list of changes the government needed to make before it could obtain another loan guarantee.

In December 2015, Biden traveled to Kiev and decried the “cancer of corruption” in the country in a speech to the parliament. “The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform,” he noted. Shokin was removed from office three months later, and Biden announced April 15 that the loan guarantee would go forward; the agreement between the United States and Ukraine was signed June 3.

One can certainly raise questions about Hunter Biden’s judgment in joining Burisma’s board at a time his father had a high-profile role in working with Ukraine’s government. But by continuing to claim that Biden “did” something for his son, Trump persists in spreading a false narrative about a diplomatic maneuver hailed at the time as a step toward reducing corruption in Ukraine.

 

False: Hunter Biden made a killing on a China deal 

At various times Trump has claimed Hunter Biden “made millions of dollars from China” or “walks out of China with $1.5 billion in a fund” after hitching a ride with his father on Air Force Two. But there is no evidence to support those statements.

In December 2013, Hunter Biden and one of his daughters flew from Japan to China with Joe Biden on Air Force Two as the vice president embarked on a diplomatic mission.

Twelve days after he flew to Beijing, Hunter Biden joined an advisory board of a fund called BHR Partners, which had announced it would try to raise $1.5 billion. The New Yorker magazine reported that during the trip Hunter Biden arranged for his father to shake hands with Jonathan Li, who ran a Chinese private-equity fund and was one of the partners who had formed BHR.

But while Joe Biden was vice president, Hunter Biden was only on the board of the advisory firm that did not directly invest, but instead advised those who did. George Mesires, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, said he only took an equity stake in 2017, after Joe Biden was no longer vice president.

Mesires told The Fact Checker that the investment management company “was capitalized from various sources with a total of 30 million RMB [Chinese Renminbi], or about $4.2 million, not $1.5 billion.” Because Biden acquired a 10 percent minority interest, his “capital commitment is approximately $420,000,” Mesires said.

“To date, Mr. Biden has not received any return or compensation on account of this investment or his position on the board of directors,” Mesires added.

 

False: Biden lied about talking to his son 

After the reports on Hunter Biden’s business deals emerged, Joe Biden told reporters: “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”

Trump claimed that this was a lie because “he’s already said he spoke to his son.” But Biden had not. Instead, Trump appeared to be referring to a line in the New Yorker profile: “As Hunter recalled, his father discussed Burisma with him just once: ‘Dad said, “I hope you know what you are doing,” and I said, “I do.” ’”

That’s not much of a discussion. In any case, Biden never said he spoke to his son, as Trump claimed he did.

 

False: Democratic senators also threatened Ukraine’s aid

Trump claimed that three Democratic senators — Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) and Robert Menendez (N.J.) — “implied that their support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine was at stake and that if they didn’t do the right thing they wouldn’t get any assistance.” He later referred to “senators that threatened him with votes and no money coming into Ukraine if they do things.”

Trump suggested this was the “real deal,” unlike allegations that he held up military aid to force the Ukrainian government to investigate the Bidens.

Trump is referring to a letter written in 2018, and it does not say what he claims.

The letter, written to the special prosecutor at the time, Yuriy Lutsenko, expressed concern about a New York Times report that Ukraine had stopped cooperating with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election to avoid upsetting Trump. The letter does not threaten a loss of aid, though it notes that the Times article said that the freezing of cooperation was motivated by a worry that Trump would cut off aid. (The article was titled: “Ukraine, Seeking U.S. Missiles, Halted Cooperation with Mueller Investigation.”)

The letter noted the signers have supported efforts to build Ukraine’s democracy and expressed “disappointment” that some lawmakers in Kiev were trying “to avoid the ire of President Trump.” The senators then ask a series of questions, seeking to clarify whether the Times report was correct and whether the Trump administration had encouraged the government not to cooperate with Mueller.

Lutsenko never responded. Since the letter was sent, the three senators have voted for nearly $870 million in additional aid to Ukraine, with Leahy and Durbin (members of the Senate Appropriations Committee) voting in committee on Sept. 26 for an additional $448 million in fiscal 2020, an increase over 2018 and 2019.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/09/27/quick-guide-trumps-false-claims-about-ukraine-bidens/

 

 

Conservatives need to stop discrediting themselves by running with these wild-eyed horse**** stories.  If I didn't know better, I'd almost think they're being trolled - but they are so gullible and willing to believe anything that fits their narrative, they fall for it every time.  And it makes them look as dumb as a bag of hammers.

[I_M4_AU 7,838]

2 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

The NY Post story is falling apart:

So, you’re quoting a WaPo article as proof of the Post article falling apart?  The same WaPo that ran with unsubstantiated stories of Trump being a Russian asset?  This is why some people watch FOX News to see the other side of things.  I believed the Russian thing for a long time until I realized I was lied to.

What is more disturbing is FB and Twitter censoring the story without *fact checking* anything. Not allowing the public to even read about the information.  Where is the investigative journalism?  Why would that be?  Biden has such a lead, even this story won’t erase it.  Talk about an ego, Biden has one and it is missed placed, just like Trump’s 

[TitanTiger 20,482]

10 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

So, you’re quoting a WaPo article as proof of the Post article falling apart?  The same WaPo that ran with unsubstantiated stories of Trump being a Russian asset?  This is why some people watch FOX News to see the other side of things.  I believed the Russian thing for a long time until I realized I was lied to.

What is more disturbing is FB and Twitter censoring the story without *fact checking* anything. Not allowing the public to even read about the information.  Where is the investigative journalism?  Why would that be?  Biden has such a lead, even this story won’t erase it.  Talk about an ego, Biden has one and it is missed placed, just like Trump’s 

I'm adding a Post article, on top of the Twitter thread pointing out multiple gaping holes in the story that AUDub posted.  Deal with the claims in question and the Post's takedown of them.  If they are wrong, show where they are wrong.  Complaining about the source is not a response.

[I_M4_AU 7,838]

8 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

I'm adding a Post article, on top of the Twitter thread pointing out multiple gaping holes in the story that AUDub posted.  Deal with the claims in question and the Post's takedown of them.  If they are wrong, show where they are wrong.  Complaining about the source is not a response.

I’m trying to point out that why doesn’t the WaPo do some investigative journalism as they did 4 years ago.  The left leaning media is very impressive, Webster Dictionary changed their definition of *sexual preference * over night after the Senator from Hawaii brought it up during the SCOTUS hearings:

Merriam-Webster dictionary has changed “sexual preference” to be an “offensive” term — after Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was accused of being “anti-LGBTQ” for saying it.

Barrett was attacked Tuesday by Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, who claimed the respected judge deliberately used the term during her confirmation hearing.

“It is used by anti-LGBTQ activists to suggest that sexual orientation is a choice. It is not. Sexual orientation is a key part of a person’s identity,” Hirono said, in remarks she also tweeted later that day.

https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/merriam-webster-lists-sexual-preference-as-offensive-after-scotus-spat/

Somehow, I couldn’t find an article about this in the WaPo.

The left leaning media is running interference for Biden before any real investigating, surely you see this.

 

[SocialCircle 570]

14 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

I'm adding a Post article, on top of the Twitter thread pointing out multiple gaping holes in the story that AUDub posted.  Deal with the claims in question and the Post's takedown of them.  If they are wrong, show where they are wrong.  Complaining about the source is not a response.

One of the emails is very clear. Hunter got him an audience with the VP of the US.  Joe told us all he has never spoken to Hunter about his business dealings.  Joe is a liar.  The voters will ultimately judge whether this is a big deal or not.  It is clearly corruption. 

[TitanTiger 20,482]

1 minute ago, I_M4_AU said:

I’m trying to point out that why doesn’t the WaPo do some investigative journalism as they did 4 years ago.  

That's what they did.  They put the claims in the NYP article up to basic research and scrutiny of known facts.

 

1 minute ago, I_M4_AU said:

Merriam-Webster dictionary has changed “sexual preference” to be an “offensive” term — after Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett was accused of being “anti-LGBTQ” for saying it.

Barrett was attacked Tuesday by Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, who claimed the respected judge deliberately used the term during her confirmation hearing.

“It is used by anti-LGBTQ activists to suggest that sexual orientation is a choice. It is not. Sexual orientation is a key part of a person’s identity,” Hirono said, in remarks she also tweeted later that day.

https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/merriam-webster-lists-sexual-preference-as-offensive-after-scotus-spat/

Somehow, I couldn’t find an article about this in the WaPo.

The left leaning media is running interference for Biden before any real investigating, surely you see this.

 

If you want to start a thread about the sexual orientation dustup - which I probably agree with you on anyway - feel free.  But it has nothing to do with the NYP article or the various cross-examinations being done by other, and better, news outlets.

Here's another one for you, this time from the AP:

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-ukraine-elections-134406f28e826380924bbcf773d2c05a

[TitanTiger 20,482]

Just now, SocialCircle said:

One of the emails is very clear. Hunter got him an audience with the VP of the US.  Joe told us all he has never spoken to Hunter about his business dealings.  Joe is a liar.  The voters will ultimately judge whether this is a big deal or not.  It is clearly corruption. 

The NYP story can't even authenticate that the emails are actually from Hunter Biden, nor that the laptop in question actually (or ever) belonged to him.  So no, the emails are not "very clear."

[TitanTiger 20,482]

6 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Somehow, I couldn’t find an article about this in the WaPo.

Also, it was there.  Learn how to Google:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/14/sexual-preference-coney-barrett-hirono/

I mean, damn, I literally typed "washington post sexual preference amy coney barrett" into the search engine and it was at the very top.

[I_M4_AU 7,838]

2 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

That's what they did.  They put the claims in the NYP article up to basic research and scrutiny of known facts.

Again, that’s the point.  Homer could have done *basic* research by what have been written, but then you put no thought or effort into these allegations.  Biden’s own statement stated that there was no *official* meeting, but there could have been an unofficial meeting.  Wouldn’t a reporter have follow up questions to this statement?  The WaPo never takes Trump at his word, why not Biden?

Just report evenly, that’s all I’m saying.

[TitanTiger 20,482]

The owner of the computer repair shop was interviewed about this story yesterday afternoon after the NYP story dropped.  Normally I wouldn't offer a link from The Daily Beast, but this one is accompanied by the full audio of the interview so anyone can compare what they say the owner said with the recording if they wish. 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-hunters-laptop-to-rudy-speaks-out-in-bizarre-interview?ref=scroll

A few tidbits that should send off alarm bells for you (and would if this were a story trying to implicate, say Eric Trump, Ivanka or Donald Jr.):

Mac Isaac appeared nervous throughout. Several times, he said he was scared for his life and for the lives of those he loved. He appeared not to have a grasp on the timeline of the laptop arriving at his shop and its disappearance from it. He also said the impeachment of President Trump was a “sham.” Social media postings indicate that Mac Isaac is an avid Trump supporter and voted for him in the 2016 election.

Mac Isaac said he had a medical condition that prevented him from actually seeing who dropped off the laptop but that he believed it to be Hunter Biden’s because of a sticker related to the Beau Biden Foundation that was on it. He said that Hunter Biden actually dropped off three laptops for repair, an abundance of hardware that he chalked up to the Biden son being “rich.”

Throughout the interview, Mac Isaac switched back and forth from saying he reached out to law enforcement after viewing the files in the laptop to saying that it was actually the Federal Bureau of Investigation that contacted him. At one point, Mac Isaac claimed that he was emailing someone from the FBI about the laptop. At another point he claimed a special agent from the Baltimore office had contacted him after he alerted the FBI to the device’s existence. At another point, he said the FBI reached out to him for “help accessing his drive.”

He freely admits that he didn't see that it was Hunter Biden who dropped it off and that he's going on a sticker that was on the laptop for Beau Biden's foundation to make that claim.  He can't keep the timeline straight or whether he reached out to law enforcement first, or whether the FBI contacted him first.  

This is not an interview that should inspire any confidence in the veracity of this story.

[TitanTiger 20,482]

1 minute ago, I_M4_AU said:

Again, that’s the point.  Homer could have done *basic* research by what have been written, but then you put no thought or effort into these allegations.  Biden’s own statement stated that there was no *official* meeting, but there could have been an unofficial meeting.  Wouldn’t a reporter have follow up questions to this statement?  The WaPo never takes Trump at his word, why not Biden?

Just report evenly, that’s all I’m saying.

The story on its face has so many obvious problems, how are you focusing on minutiae like this rather than the story itself?

[I_M4_AU 7,838]

3 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

The story on its face has so many obvious problems, how are you focusing on minutiae like this rather than the story itself?

Has the FBI weight in on this?  I doubt they can if it is an ongoing investigation or they could say they know nothing about it. 

[homersapien 11,373]

1 hour ago, SocialCircle said:

One of the emails is very clear. Hunter got him an audience with the VP of the US.  Joe told us all he has never spoken to Hunter about his business dealings.  Joe is a liar.  The voters will ultimately judge whether this is a big deal or not.  It is clearly corruption. 

And of course you swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. 

 

........"Joe Biden has been blatantly lying about his involvement in his son’s corrupt business dealings,” Trump shouted, claiming those emails are a “smoking gun.”

There are all kinds of problems with the new allegations. The emails — purportedly from Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to Burisma, the company that paid Hunter Biden to sit on its board — show Pozharskyi thanking him for arranging a meeting with his then-vice president father.

But the sourcing of the emails is hilariously suspect. They were supposedly transferred to a hard drive by a Delaware computer repair store owner from a laptop that Hunter Biden supposedly dropped off. But the owner won’t say he’s certain the customer was Biden, and, weirdly, he never returned for it.

Worse, Bannon and Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani — who alerted the New York Post to the story and provided the hard drive — are refusing to make it available to other news outlets. The “smoking gun” email was reproduced in photo form, and one expert told The Post’s Glenn Kessler that it has no traceable metadata.

Meanwhile, the Biden campaign checked Joe Biden’s schedule and found no such meeting, and no one has shown it happened. (If some kind of perfunctory handshake introduction did happen, even that wouldn’t necessarily show corruption.) That gives the lie to Trump’s claim about what this “smoking gun” supposedly proves......."

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/15/trumps-fake-new-biden-scandal-has-deeper-purpose-bannon-revealed-it/

[homersapien 11,373]

1 hour ago, TitanTiger said:

Also, it was there.  Learn how to Google:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/14/sexual-preference-coney-barrett-hirono/

I mean, damn, I literally typed "washington post sexual preference amy coney barrett" into the search engine and it was at the very top.

Well, he did award you a "thanks" icon.     

[SocialCircle 570]

2 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

The NYP story can't even authenticate that the emails are actually from Hunter Biden, nor that the laptop in question actually (or ever) belonged to him.  So no, the emails are not "very clear."

So you are saying you don’t believe the emails even though they have not denied them? I absolutely believe the emails. Papa Joe had quite the kickback scheme going on. He sold his position for personal gain is exactly what I believe. I wonder if the IRS now needs to be involved in this mess? 

[TitanTiger 20,482]

2 minutes ago, SocialCircle said:

So you are saying you don’t believe the emails even though they have not denied them? I absolutely believe the emails. Papa Joe had quite the kickback scheme going on. He sold his position for personal gain is exactly what I believe. I wonder if the IRS now needs to be involved in this mess? 

What you believe isn't relevant (nor is what I believe).  What is relevant is what proof do we have of the authenticity of the emails and of the ownership of this laptop?  Did you read the thread from Twitter that AUDub posted?  It touches on some of the issues.  I'll reprint that section:

First the information comes from a laptop that was allegedly "dropped off at a repair shop in Biden’s home state of Delaware" and never picked up.

The "shop owner," who is not identified, "couldn’t positively identify the customer as Hunter Biden"

The "shop owner" thinks it was Hunter Biden because of a Beau Biden sticker on the laptop. 

This makes no sense. You drop off an expensive Mac laptop at a repair shop and don't leave your name or contact information?

But then, after claiming the shop owner couldn't identify the customer, the piece includes a receipt that was issued to "Hunter Biden" and includes an email and phone #

So why would the shop owner produce a receipt for Hunter Biden if he didn't know the ID of the customer?

The piece claims the shop owner then alerted the FBI to the existence of the laptop and it was later subpoenaed by a grand jury. 

But the grand jury subpoena shown does not connect the laptop to Hunter Biden.

But this is the important point. Pretending, for a moment, that everything in the story is true (very doubtful) it is totally inconsequential. 

Supposedly one "email" recovered on the laptop "proves" that Hunter once introduced a Bursima exec to his father.

This is a scandal? There is no word on the length of the meeting or what was discussed. 

The New York Post says its significant because Biden then called for the ouster of the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Bursima.

FALSE

The prosecutor was not investigating Bursima

The prosecutor was corrupt, which is why the entire international community was calling for his ouster. 

Replacing the corrupt prosecutor brought more scrutiny on Bursima, not less

...I should clarify that, assuming the email is legit, it doesn't establish that a meeting took place. Just that Hunter offered an "opportunity" to meet his father.
 

At this point, there's a lot of reason to regard the entire thing as suspect.  It could prove to be authentic, but what we have right now certain doesn't warrant any real degree of faith in it.  The AP article touched on this:

ARE THE NEW EMAILS AUTHENTIC?

The actual origins of the emails are unclear. And disinformation experts say there are multiple red flags that raise doubts about their authenticity, including questions about whether the laptop actually belongs to Hunter Biden, said Nina Jankowicz, a fellow at the nonpartisan Wilson Center in Washington. 

The Biden campaign didn’t address that issue Wednesday, but Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, said in a statement to the AP that “we have no idea where this came from, and certainly cannot credit anything that Rudy Giuliani provided to the NY Post.” He added that “what I do know for certain is that this purported meeting never happened.”

Another potential alarm is the involvement of another Trump associate, Steve Bannon, who the Post says first alerted it to the existence of the hard drive and who along with Giuliani has been active in promoting an anti-Biden narrative on Ukraine.

“We should view it as a Trump campaign product,” Jankowicz said. 

Thomas Rid, a political scientist and disinformation expert at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, said it was not clear to him yet whether the emails were hacked or forged but said they “could be either or both.”

“It’s a common feature in these operations that you combine generic content, accurate content, with forged content,” Rid said.

 

[alexava 6,973]

Every time I have taken a computer or anything else to a repair shop they take my name and phone number at least. I mean they have to let you know the diagnosis, cost and pickup time.  Was this discussed?