Federal criminal investigation Hunter Biden focuses on his business dealings (Update: DOJ appoints special counsel) (2 Viewers)

[SaintForLife]

Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia and the widow of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, Senate Republicans revealed in their report on the younger Biden’s work in Ukraine.

Baturina is referenced in the 87-page report, which was released Wednesday, addressing her payment to Biden’s investment firm in early 2014.

“Baturina became Russia’s only female billionaire when her plastics company, Inteko, received a series of Moscow municipal contracts while her husband was mayor,” it said in providing background on the businesswoman.

The report described her involvement with Biden as “a financial relationship,” but declined to delve deeper into why the wire transfer was made.

The probe also found that Baturina sent 11 wires transfers between May and December 2015 to a bank account belonging to BAK USA, a tech startup that filed for bankruptcy in March 2019.

Nine of those 11 wire transfers were first sent to Rosemont Seneca Partners, the investment firm founded by Biden and Chris Heinz, stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry, before being transferred to BAK USA.

Hunter Biden received $3.5M wire transfer from Russian billionaire: Senate report

Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia and the widow of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, Senate Republicans revealed in their r…

nypost.com

We all know their is massive corruption on both sides of the aisle. Here is an alleged allegation against Hunter Biden who was allegedly enriching himself because his Dad was Vice President.

 

[SystemShock]

So much for the Russian disinformation narrative.

What We Know and Don’t About Hunter Biden and a Laptop (Published 2020)

President Trump’s allies have promoted claims of corruption aimed at the former vice president’s son in an effort to damage the Biden campaign.

www.nytimes.com

As usual, you didn't read the whole thing.

 

[MT15]

I don’t think that having it be labeled as “disinformation” or not is really all that valuable or helpful. Maybe it is hacked material?

Here’s an interesting quote from the same article, SFL

“The laptop prompted concerns about Russian disinformation because the intelligence community has warned for months about Russian attempts to influence the election, including by spreading disinformation about the Biden family. Russia has conducted a hacking campaign to find information damaging to the Biden campaign, most notably through a hack on Burisma.

Intelligence officials have also warned the White House that Russian intelligence officers were using Mr. Giuliani, who provided the hard drive copy to the tabloid, as a conduit for disinformation aimed at undermining Mr. Biden’s presidential run.”

Here is what we don’t know: we don’t know if that laptop that the FBI has ever belonged to Hunter Biden. We don’t know if what was in the NY Post article actually is what was on the laptop, or is it a smattering of hacked material with a few nuggets added?

We do know that there is no evidence that Joe Biden has behaved corruptly during his long public service career. He has published his taxes all along, he’s been pretty transparent. We know both WSJ news reporters and at least one Fox News reporter have looked into the recent text messages provided by a disgruntled former business partner of Hunter’s and said there is no evidence that Joe was ever involved.

We also know that Rudy is a liar, the computer shop owner is shady, Bannon is a sleazeball who was just indicted for swindling people, and two reporters from the NY Post didn’t want their name on the story.

So basically this story is a loser from the beginning as far as doing anything to move people to think Joe Biden has done anything wrong.

 

[SaintForLife]

I have seen this same terminology in twitter posts, including from Donald Trump Jr., so I will presume it is now the formal talking point but is the "media and big tech worked together to censor the story" really what happened?

The Biden laptop story was published by the NY Post - a media outlet that, despite varying degrees of credibility - is well known across the country. The story has been incessantly amplified by the hour by Fox News, the American news network with more viewers than any other. Op/eds about the Biden laptop story (the story itself, not the attack on the story) appeared in the Wall Street Journal and the Boston Herald - and probably more, I just haven't look further.

Twitter initially blocked the story on the ostensible basis that it contained images of stolen content - Twitter later reversed that position. Facebook didn't block the story. YouTube didn't block the story. Instagram didn't block the story.

And there's certainly no evidence that any of these decisions were made in concert.

So we have a story with obvious credibility issues that was widely available and discussed. It was online. It was on TV. It was in newspaper. This claim that "media and big tech worked together to censor the story" is so obviously not true that it's just unintelligent. What you're really doing is demanding that all media and social media outlets, private enterprises all of them, must cover all stories without judgment as to their quality. Is that really what you believe?

Trust me, if there was evidence that a particular story was truly being censored and shut out of American discourse, I would be right there with you in the alarm. But good Lord, that's not what happened here. The story was and is widely available - everyone knows about it. Fox News chooses not to cover negative Trump stories all the time, but I suspect that doesn't bother you. So why are you and Don Jr. crying about it so much? Your premise is false.

Is Axios in on the talking point as well?

Facebook and Twitter's frantic attempts to stop the spread of the New York Post's Hunter Biden story didn't prevent the article from becoming the top story about the election on those platforms last week, according to data from NewsWhip.

...Between the lines: Critics worried that Twitter's move to disable sharing of the article (it also suspended the New York Post's account) and Facebook's decision to limit its reach may have inadvertently brought it even more attention.

New York Post's Hunter Biden story goes massive on social media despite crackdowns

It was by far the biggest election story of last week in social media engagements.

www.axios.com

Twitter did initially block the story initially and the New York Post Twitter account is still blocked. Twitter had blocked anyone from sharing the article or sending it in a direct message.

The next day Twitter also blocked a different story from the New York Post about Hunter Biden and China.

Facebook restricted the story until it could be fact checked. There hasn't been any update on their fact checking of the article and them stopping restricting the article.

Andy Stone was previously a communications operative for Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

 

[SaintForLife]

Apparently the WSJ news side disagrees with the legitimacy of the story now being pushed by the editorial side and has published its own story. The same newspaper is simultaneously reporting that there is no proof of corruption by Biden and opining that Biden is corrupt. Seems like a mess.

More on the WSJ stories:

 

[SaintForLife]

I don’t think that having it be labeled as “disinformation” or not is really all that valuable or helpful. Maybe it is hacked material?

Here’s an interesting quote from the same article, SFL

“The laptop prompted concerns about Russian disinformation because the intelligence community has warned for months about Russian attempts to influence the election, including by spreading disinformation about the Biden family. Russia has conducted a hacking campaign to find information damaging to the Biden campaign, most notably through a hack on Burisma.

Intelligence officials have also warned the White House that Russian intelligence officers were using Mr. Giuliani, who provided the hard drive copy to the tabloid, as a conduit for disinformation aimed at undermining Mr. Biden’s presidential run.”

Here is what we don’t know: we don’t know if that laptop that the FBI has ever belonged to Hunter Biden. We don’t know if what was in the NY Post article actually is what was on the laptop, or is it a smattering of hacked material with a few nuggets added?

We do know that there is no evidence that Joe Biden has behaved corruptly during his long public service career. He has published his taxes all along, he’s been pretty transparent. We know both WSJ news reporters and at least one Fox News reporter have looked into the recent text messages provided by a disgruntled former business partner of Hunter’s and said there is no evidence that Joe was ever involved.

We also know that Rudy is a liar, the computer shop owner is shady, Bannon is a sleazeball who was just indicted for swindling people, and two reporters from the NY Post didn’t want their name on the story.

So basically this story is a loser from the beginning as far as doing anything to move people to think Joe Biden has done anything wrong.

Considering there is no evidence that the laptop is Russian disinformation, I wonder how Brennan, Clapper and the other 48 intelligence officials got it wrong? Russian disinformation has been the common theme here and in the media.

It's still fine to be skeptical of the story and I'm not sure if it's true or not, but we now know that the Russian disinformation claim was complete bullshirt. It might be time to stop believing those anonymous intelligence officials unless their claims are accompanied by evidence.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

More on the WSJ stories:

Clearly an unbiased take, never mind the top of her twitter feed begging her to buy her book subtitled "How Trump Haters are Breaking America." I suspect you would be similarly suspect if I linked to a source on the left selling a book called "Orange Man Bad." But I wouldn't insult your intelligence by linking to that because we both know it would be biased doggerel.

We both know all of this is pantomime and wholly irrelevant to the issues that face this country.

 

[SaintForLife]

Theres no evidence he did. Even the messages are from 2017 I believe, and none of them show Joe took any money.

"The tax returns of Bernie Madoff showed no fraud, tax evasion, misappropriation of funds."

 

[SaintForLife]

Clearly an unbiased take, never mind the top of her twitter feed begging her to buy her book subtitled "How Trump Haters are Breaking America." I suspect you would be similarly suspect if I linked to a source on the left selling a book called "Orange Man Bad." But I wouldn't insult your intelligence by linking to that because we both know it would be biased doggerel.

We both know all of this is pantomime and wholly irrelevant to the issues that face this country.

Superchuck posted an article from her earlier in the thread and that's why I posted the follow-up from her. I didn't see you crying about her article when he posted it earlier in the thread.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

Superchuck posted an article from her earlier in the thread and that's why I posted the follow-up from her. I didn't see you crying about her article when he posted it earlier in the thread.

I'm not much of crier. You started this thread so I guess I'm curious what was the ultimate point?

 

[Saint by the Bay]

I'm not much of crier. You started this thread so I guess I'm curious what was the ultimate point?

It has no point. He often has no point. It’s part of his charm. #AFewGoodMen

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

It has no point. He often has no point. It’s part of his charm. #AFewGoodMen

I still like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

I'm not sure if we're discussing the probability that there is actually Biden corruption or that media covers different stories differently.

I think we all agree that not every story is worth covering, so the question is does this one rise to the same level as other stories that were covered more vigorously by "the media" - really meaning CNN, MSNBC, NYT, etc....

On the surface, this story seems obviously too thin to report on seriously, so I'd be curious to try to do a comparison between this story and some negative Trump story that was as obviously thin.

 

[donato]

I'm surprised this thread is even still going.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

I'm surprised this thread is even still going.

I think there’s a valid discussion here, just not the discussion we’re having. We can’t have the real discussion because there isn’t an intellectually honest participant from the “Hunter Biden’s poor judgement may compromise a Biden Presidency” side.

 

[SaintForLife]

I'm not sure if we're discussing the probability that there is actually Biden corruption or that media covers different stories differently.

I think we all agree that not every story is worth covering, so the question is does this one rise to the same level as other stories that were covered more vigorously by "the media" - really meaning CNN, MSNBC, NYT, etc....

On the surface, this story seems obviously too thin to report on seriously, so I'd be curious to try to do a comparison between this story and some negative Trump story that was as obviously thin.

Try the Steele Dossier and the pee tape specifically.

 

[SaintForLife]

I think there’s a valid discussion here, just not the discussion we’re having. We can’t have the real discussion because there isn’t an intellectually honest participant from the “Hunter Biden’s poor judgement may compromise a Biden Presidency” side.

You sure like to do a lot of lecturing for a demoted administrator/moderator. Don't you know you are supposed to make your posts about the subject and not the poster?

 

[Saint by the Bay]

Never been demoted from anything in my life. You spend an awful lot of time being not even close to right.

 

[SaintForLife]

Never been demoted from anything in my life. You spend an awful lot of time being not even close to right.

Too bad you aren't a moderator here huh? I do notice you often resort to personal insults when you don't agree with what I'm posting. Maybe that's why you aren’t a moderator here.