We know there will be innumerable hearings into Hunter Biden’s alleged “laptop” when the Republicans take control of the House in January. Every committee and subcommittee, from House Oversight to the House Subcommittee Work Group on Which Toilet Disinfectant to Use in Capitol’s Public Lavatories will hold hearings on the concocted “scandal” about Hunter Biden’s love life and business dealings in the coming Congressional session.
Democrats would be smart to ask one question every time a Republican brings up Hunter Biden’s laptop, and it will completely derail the GOP mud-throwing effort. The question: “Which unverified set of Hunter Biden’s laptop data are you referring to, Congressman?”
By asking that simple question–one which essentially asks the provenance of the premise of Republican outrage–Demorcrats will flummox GOP members for one reason: they don’t know what they’re talking about… again. How do we know? Because there are at least five distinct sets of files being floated out there as “Hunter Biden’s laptop,” and only one of them is actually verified from a laptop that has yet to be confirmed to be Hunter Biden’s.
While Jim Jordan and Matt Gaetz pound their manly chests declaring they’ve got Hunter Biden’s laptop, Democrats simply ask a very pointed question the American people can understand: “Prove the data are real,” because Republicans have no bumper sticker response to that because they don’t know which of the data sets they’re referring to:
The original (Set A): Undoubtedly, there is an authentic “Hunter Biden laptop” out there somewhere. In fact, they’re likely many: Over decades, people switch out electronics regularly. There’s also the strong possibility that the files were hacked from one or more cloud account(s) and placed on the physical laptop to disgrace Hunter Biden when they became public. So yes, we concede that a meta “Hunter Biden laptop” exists somewhere, though no one (not even the FBI) has verified the copy of a hard drive turned over to the FBI by John Paul Mac Isaac, the legally-blind Wilmington, Delaware owner of a now-closed strip mall computer repair shop whose name we’ll abbreviate to JPMI. And while a physical laptop computer has been in FBI custody since December 2019, the FBI has not confirmed it ever belonged to Hunter Biden; it simply confirms it got the laptop from JPMI, who claims it came from Hunter Biden.
This is a rather important point: as the premier criminal scientific operation it the world, the FBI has multiple ways of confirming the ownership of a computer. The simplest is fingerprints: the owner’s fingerprints would be all over a computer, from the cover to the keyboard. The more complicated is to track hardware and software registration details, bills of sale, file origins, “fists” which exhibit typing and writing styles distinctive to the user, etc. Yet the FBI has yet to publicly verify it’s been able to confirm the ownership of the laptop.
I want to point out that JPMI’s story is unreliable. He claimed in a book passage by the New York Post, that he spent a long time with the person reeking of alcohol who dropped off three laptops just before his shop closed one day in April 2019. JPMI, who described himself as “a guy at the back of a 1980s strip mall” got a name, a Washington, DC phone number and email address from the man matching publicly-available information for Hunter Biden one can find by doing a quick Google search. The man came back days later with a portable hard drive on which he wanted files transferred. That was the last JPMI saw of the man; JPMI says that he because of his sight problems, he could not identify the individual if he saw him again, telling Fox that he “can’t be 100% sure” it was actually Hunter Biden who came into his shop.
JPMI decided to not just fix the single salvageable laptop, but to poke around in the personal files on the machine. He claims he couldn’t do anything to recover the data from the other two machines; they were too damaged by a liquid that was spilled on all three laptops, which itself is a curious feat.
The files sent by JPMI to Rudy (Set B1): Now we come to the second set of files, designated Set B1. JPMI admits to cloning the hard drive, which he said had financial information and “the most [homemade porn] I’ve ever seen in one place.” He sent one copy to the FBI; he sent another to Rudy Giuliani.
The files sent by JPMI to the FBI (Set B1A-baseline): Presumably, this is the same set of files JPMI sent to Rudy who, as we’ll see shortly, invited fuckery with the file set. But this set is what the FBI is basing its assessments of “Hunter Biden’s laptop” on, so it’s important to bookmark it. This set becomes baseline for this explanation not because it’s the original set of files, but because it’s the only set to be in the hands of an entity using “chain of possession/evidence” practices to preserve evidence. Again, I’m using the term “evidence” not as having all pieces verified as authentic, but as the starting point for specified set of documents.
The files Rudy brought back from Ukraine (Set B2): This is where the Legend of Hunter Biden Laptop arises in conservative circles. As Time reported, after Rudy got his hands on a copy of the files (Set B1), documents purporting to be from Hunter Biden’s laptop started circulating around Ukraine, specifically among a bunch of Russian-aligned politicians and agents. Various versions of documents get circulated, some with obvious alterations and changes to content and file structure.
In December 2019, Rudy Giuliani traveled to Ukraine–after the laptop files had been circulated in that country for months–at the bequest of Donald Trump to dig up dirt on alleged Biden corruption in Ukraine. This comes five months after Giuliani threatened the new government of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on behalf of the Trump Administration, in a July 2019 phone call.
The files Rudy gave to the New York Post (Set B3): Giuliani returns to the US with a set of files he dubs “Hunter’s laptop” complete new files added to the collection of documents–files presumably contributed by the Trump-friendly, Russian-aligned Ukrainians–which shockingly show potential malfeasance on behalf of Hunter Biden. Importantly, neither the FBI nor Giuliani can confirm that this set of files matches the set of files turned over by JPMI.
Giuliani didn’t want anyone to probe the authenticity of the batch of files he dubbed “Hunter’s laptop.” He also wanted to make a major splash politically. Legit conservative-friendly outlets like the Wall Street Journal rejected his demands. So he turned to the Rupert Murdoch-run New York Post, a publication of dubious repute, to publish his claims uncritically. Giuliani wanted the story out immediately, without NYP taking time to verify the files’ authenticity. And Rudy demanded five cover stories on the Post about the laptop; Post editor Emma-Jo Morris reportedly told Giuliani he could have “20 covers of the New York Post if you give me this and it’s everything that we think it is.” [It’s a little reminiscent of Junior’s infamous “If it’s true, I love it!” comment about meeting with Kremlin representatives in 2016 to help his father’s campaign.].
On October 20, 2020, weeks before the presidential election pitting Democrat Joe Biden against incumbent Donald Trump, the NY Post published a story proclaiming the laptop to be real and an email it examined–which vaguely referenced a potential introduction of a Burisma executive to then Vice President Joe Biden in 2015–as a smoking gun of corruption, without reporting that no meeting between Joe Biden and the executive ever took place or confirming the authenticity of the one email. Despite the Post’s effort at an October surprise, Donald Trump loses the election badly to Joe Biden.
The files the FBI has on the laptop taken from JPMI (Set C): There is another set of files that deserve mentioning, though meriting little analysis at this point. There was a laptop–in fact, three laptops–that was dropped off at JPMI’s Wilmington shop. In December 2019, the FBI took possession of one Apple laptop and one Western Digital external hard drive from JPMI. The contents of the devices have not been distributed, listed or inventoried publically, so we cannot make an assessment of their validity. Only the FBI truly knows, and it had enough reason to suspect the files being circulated did not match the Set C they held to advise social media companies and other media about the discrepancies.
The files given to the Washington Post (Set D): WaPo received a copy of the incorrectly-named “laptop” files from a Republican activist, Jack Maxey, who said he got the files directly from Rudy Giuliani. This drive contained more than 280,000 user files–documents, videos, chat logs, text messages, etc.–of which two cyberintelligence experts were able to verify less than 10%, 22,000, as authentic by looking at send/receive receipts, file metadata and usage patterns.
The files given to other outlets by the New York Post (Sets E): After much ridicule and cajoling for its lack of vetting of the contents of the cloned hard drive (Set B3), the New York Post distributed copies of what it claimed were the files it received from Rudy Giuliani to other media outlets. While sensationalist outlets like the New York Post and Fox News have claimed the NY Times “verified the laptop,” in fact, the NY Times could only verify the authenticity of a small percentage of the files provided by its cross-town competitor. Again, it’s important to recognize the distinction between some files being verified and all contents of the cloned and augmented hard drive being verified.
That’s all well and good, but how does that help Democrats? Good question, given that MAGA followers don’t care about facts, but then, we knew they would be forever distracted by glitter and shiny keys. That’s not the audience we’re after.
By repeatedly and constantly questioning Republicans’ claims about “Hunter’s laptop,” Democrats can effectively point out that the GOP doesn’t know the source of its own talking points. When Matt Gaetz or Jim Jordan begins questioning a witness about “Hunter Biden’s laptop,” every Democratic committee member needs to raise an objection (which is allowed in Robert’s Rules of Order): “Can you clarify which set of documents you’re referring to when you refer to ‘Hunter Biden’s laptop’ because there are at least five separate sets of documents you could be referring to?”
Jordan’s and Gaetz’s responses will be predictable: “Well, the documents.” To which each Democrat responds, “You must be precise in your reference. Where did you get the documents you’re referring to and can you personally vouch for the authenticity of each document because no law enforcement organization has verified all the documents you’re referencing?”
Of course, Jordan, Gaetz et al will babble on about cover-ups and obstruction and corruption, but they won’t be able to answer the question because they don’t know. Seriously. They don’t know which tranche of documents purported to be “Hunter Biden’s laptop” any specific documents came from.
“Then, Mr. Chairman, I move to exclude any document offered by my colleague because its authenticity has not been established.” And thus ends the story, except on Fox.