As details emerge on Giuliani-Post story, this obvious frame-up looks more like Russian propaganda
Category: News & Politics
Via: john-russell • 4 years ago • 46 commentsBy: devilstower (Daily Kos)
On Wednesday morning, the New York Post broke the genuinely unbelievable story about a soggy laptop with a hard drive that contains emails suggesting that Joe Biden had a previously unreported meeting with a Ukrainian businessman … and video of Hunter Biden having a crack-laced party with a sex worker. Because, sure, if you’re going to have illegal drugs while engaging in illegal sex, you have to be sure to film it, right after the email that’s a threat to your father.
This Donald Trump fantasy reel was then delivered to the Post through the unimpeachable (but definitely indictable) hands of Trump attorney, Rudy Giuliani. According to Giuliani, the source of this supposed mystery computer was a mystery customer who, extremely conveniently, left a Beau Biden Foundation sticker attached when dropping it off at a Delaware repair shop. But the mystery customer never returned—or apparently gave his name. So it was totally understandable that the repair shop guy busted out his best hacking tools and began reading those emails and watching those videos. And absolutely understandable that his first action was to make a copy for Giuliani.
Seriously, the believability factor of this whole story is somewhere worse than a love child between Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster. This is a story so ridiculous, Q would not want to be associated with it, which hasn’t stopped White House Press Sec. Kayleigh McEnany from tweeting out parts of it as if it’s serious. But now at least one aspect of the mystery is somewhat less mysterious, because the repair shop guy has been located. And he’s a peach .
As Daily Beast reports, the apparent start of the journey from wet laptop to Post story inexplicably promoted by reporters from The New York Times and Politico is a shop owner named John Paul Isaac from Wilmington, Delaware. In a question and answer session lasting over an hour, Isaac gives often jaw-dropping and occasionally hilarious responses to questions about how exactly what Giuliani has been searching for happened to come into his hands, and how he then handed it over for appropriate scandal-level attention.
According to Isaac, he has a “medical condition” that prevented him from seeing who actually dropped off the laptop. But that Biden Foundation sticker clued him in that this had to be the Macbook of Hunter Biden. After all, it’s not like the Beau Biden Foundation has a dozen board members, several dozen employees and volunteers, has trained over 9,500 adults to assist in spotting and preventing child abuse, and worked with families in over 20 states. Who but Hunter might have such a sticker?
Isaac then called the FBI, who took the device, but then called him back in for his expertise on accessing hard drives. Or he accessed the hard drive and then contacted the FBI. Or both. All of this is reported at various points in the conversation. “Muddled” doesn’t begin to describe the explanation. Isaac also provides the reason that he copied the drive for Giuliani. That reason is: Seth Rich, as in the right-wing conspiracy theory that Seth Rich was murdered by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) because he knew the “truth” about DNC emails stolen by Russian sources and provided to Roger Stone, WikiLeaks, and Donald Trump.
At various points, Isaac seems to believe the FBI killed Rich, and might kill him. Which makes it difficult to understand why he would have called the FBI in the first place. To make it extra confusing, Isaac at various points claims the FBI didn’t know he made a copy—except they had to know he would make a copy. “They probably knew I had a copy because I was pretty vocal about not wanting to get murdered,” said Isaac. (Complete audio of the interview can be found with the Daily Beast article.)
The biggest problem with the claims in the emails is the same as that in every other Biden did something-something in Ukraine story. That problem is simple: Prosecutor Viktor Shokin was not investigating the company where Hunter Biden was on the board. How do we know that? Not only are there no records of such an investigation in Ukraine, Shokin himself has said as much . In fact, it was Shokin’s refusal to open such an investigation that led to U.K. officials requesting that he be removed from office.
How does the Post story weasel-word their way around this problem? In the most weasel-y way imaginable. According to the Post , Shokin had made “specific plans” to investigate Burisma. So not only did Joe Biden apparently step in to stop the investigation, he stopped it when it was just an idea in Shokin’s head that had not been acted on. Pretty darn clever, that Biden.
It might also be worth a quick look at the author of this Post article. The byline on the story is Emma-Jo Morris, who is listed on the masthead as Deputy Politics Editor at New York Post . Since when? Since today, that’s when. Morris has exactly three stories on her resume at the Post … all of them written on Wednesday. All of them about Hunter Biden. What did Morris do prior to her instant appointment as editor? She booked guests for Sean Hannity.
If all of this wasn’t shakier than watered down Jell-O, there’s the little problem with how the contents of the hard drive seem to be perfectly in line with what Giuliani has been claiming all along. Trump’s latest personal attorney has been beating the bushes, and paying off criminals, in Ukraine for over two years, looking for anyone willing to provide Biden dirt. It was almost exactly one year ago that Giuliani associates Lev Parnas and Igor Furman were arrested while trying to leave the country. Back in December, Parnas turned over documents to the House Intelligence Committee as charges of election law violations, perjury, falsifying records, and conspiracy against the United States were clearly expanding into “ a broader probe that is looking at numerous people in Giuliani’s orbit.”
Just last month, FBI Director Christopher Wray and CIA officials made it clear that Giuliani’s orbit was a tight circle around Vladimir Putin. That included identifying former Ukrainian legislator Andrii Derkach—Giuliani’s primary contact in Ukraine—as a Russian disinformation agent who was in direct contact with the Kremlin. Derkach worked with Giuliani to spread disinformation about Biden “inside the United States through lobbyists, Congress, the media and contacts with figures close to the president.”
Not only is Giuliani’s October surprise anything but believable, the odds that it’s not a direct ploy to slip disinformation sourced by Russia into the American media appear vanishingly small. Because it’s not just Derkach who is a disinformation agent.
Twitter has now blocked access to the Post story. Good for them. At least someone is trying to stop the flow of Russian propaganda.
Giuliani is headed for jail where he and Trump can wash each others backs
You know Trump will just try and sell Giuliani's ass for extra fruit cups...
"Come and get it...! Fresh Batboy ass, yours for the taking, do I hear four fruit cups? Yes, Jim Bob's at four, do I hear five cups? Roger? I know you can afford it. Do I hear five...?".
That's who Ghouliani reminds me of! I just couldn't put my finger on it!
Good bye Giuliani and good riddance!
This is exactly what it sounds like, a Russian propaganda 'frame-up'
Bannon's filthy hands are all over this also.
November, right after the election, Trump will begin issuing blanket pardons for himself and all his cronies before Biden takes over.
If Giuliani is involved and laughing, he's exaggerating, lying, or both.
Judging by the McGrath -McDonnell "debate" laughter is the new 'go to' for Mitch and Rudy.
How anyone could actually vote for McConnell after that...That was despicable.
Like he could have cared less and knows he is safe....
I saw an add against him where it said Kentucky is continually near the bottom of states in almost everything.
After all his years in office, not much to show for doing anything for the state itself.
Has he always been this ridiculous? I remember the televised image of him walking down the middle of a street in NYC on 9/11, soot head to toe, giving words of encouragement and helping people try to make sense of it all. Then I see his interactions with Trump and feel like I'm looking at the biggest idiot in the US. Now that I think about it, it's like they were trying to out-stupid each other.
It's an obvious frame up, but Biden can't deny that he met with Pozharskyi.
IT's an obvious frame up, but no is denying the veracity of the emails.
Sure.
As Ted Cruz said
TWITTER HAS DISABLED THE LINK to the @nypost story. @jack what the hell??
I don’t know if the allegations are true—Qs that deserve to be answered.
It’s a serious news publication raising evidence of corruption at the highest levels. @twitter shouldn’t act as Biden’s PR team.
Do you honestly believe this bullshit is going to win Trump the election?
Americans take Giuliani for a dishonest buffoon.
Every word of your comment is ridiculous.
Of course not. I doubt any Democrats care about Biden being corrupt.
You'll deflect and blame everyone under the sun and not care if Biden did anything wrong. This act has played out too many times to change now.
What's interesting is how shameless the supposedly independent media is about covering for Biden. I can find all sorts of stories about the Steele dossier, which we know was disinformation, on all the same media sites that won't report this story, even though it hasn't been debunked like the Steele Dossier.
mericans take Giuliani for a dishonest buffoon.
good thing he's not running for President then. If Guiliani claims cancer is bad, it still is bad, even if he's a buffoon.
If I thought you were up to it, we could talk about Trump's corruption vs. Bidens corruption. How many hours do you have for us to go over Trump's corruption ?
How many talking points against a candidate can one throw into a single comment...
Would that be three or four....
Link, please.
I don't know why anyone would think that this would sway a vote for Biden over to the 'president'. If you're not supporting the 'president' at this point, nothing would sway you/me away from Biden, NOTHING.
Is it weird that you typed out every word in your comment except for the word “questions”, which you decided to abbreviate as Q’s? Have they gotten to you Sean? Lol.
For all the whining we hear from the left about "fascism'," this is what it actually looks like. Every major institution in the country , from entertainment, to universities, to tech, to media all working for one party.
These major 'institutions' look to me like they are living the American dream. Doing their jobs and making money.
Fascism my ass.
Oh, I didn’t expect a 21st century progressive to be upset about billion and trillion dollar multi national corporations promoting and enforcing ideological conformity and protecting one party. That’s a feature for them, not a bug. Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state, is their motto.
But equating The profit levels of billion dollar Multinational corporations with the success of America is a surprise. Not only do liberals want to stifle and silence dissent, they now talk like 19th century robber Barrons.
have you come to terms with Being a corporatist yet or are you still in denial?
Hahaha
Odd that you think the entertainment industry is Liberal. Are the majority Liberal? Most likely, yet I don't know behind the scenes. Even so, they are individuals that have a voice, that you seem to be offended by. I am sure you could care less and even defend conservative entertainers, even praise them, for the same thing.
I don't know where you get your info on what someone, such as myself that I consider Liberal, actually is. As it is, what I hear is basically a lie.
Maybe, just maybe, people do not like 1950's train of thought.
This whole thing sounds like bullshit. If he had this info all this time, why all the sudden release it now when it looks like donald is not doing that good.
Oh wait, I answered my own question.
Some anonymous person dropped off an unknown computer that just happened to have a Biden sticker on it, and they mysteriously never come back.
Now how many times have the conservatives said they don't believe anonymous sources?
Then the mans first thought is to run it to Giuliani's lawyer...Uh huh.
And now it is a supposed copy of a harddrive...
I can't wait to get rid of the feeling of constantly being punked by some unseen entity for the last 4 years.
Admit it. You just wanna see Ashton Kutcher.
Only his fine, firm, nekkid behind.
From the article you linked:
Lou Angeli, the fireman who treated truck driver Curtis Dunn at the scene, said this:
To be honest, those of us in fire-rescue here in Delaware assumed that Mr. Dunn had been drinking, based on comments made by police officers at the scene. And in the Delaware fire service, rumors travel from station to station like wildfire.
Until he remarried in 1977, whenever Joe Biden attended a public safety event, parade or spoke during a firehouse banquet, police officers and firefighters would approach him and discuss the accident and the tragedy of his wife Neilia and daughter Naomi falling victim to a drunken driver. Imagine how those discussions must have affected the young Senator.
Later, when Biden was made aware that the stories of Dunn's intoxication might have been nothing more than rumor, he called and apologized to Dunn’s family for any pain his public statements had caused. He never again suggested in any way that alcohol played a part in the accident.
Is the new scandal going to be as big as the YUGE ''unmasking'' scandal?
You remember the Unmasking scandal, it was going to be bigger than Watergate, and Obama was going to prison, he was a traitor.
Two years of listening to Trump babble on about it and what happened. Barr closed the case with no charges.
Watch out Barr the bus is heading right at you. Perhaps Trump will bring back the ''Keebler'' as AG.
Trump 'not happy' with Barr, won't commit to keeping AG in potential second term
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is "not happy" with Attorney General William Barr after the Justice Department's investigation of the Obama administration found no wrongdoing and quietly concluded with no criminal charges.
Trump made the comments to Newsmax TV . He also declined to say whether he would keep Barr on as attorney general for a potential second term.
"Can't comment on that. It's too early. I'm not happy, with all of the evidence I had, I can tell you that. I am not happy," Trump said in the interview.
Trump has praised and criticized Barr in previous interviews, and he has used the Justice Department as a cudgel to go after perceived political enemies.
Recently, news emerged that the Justice Department had concluded an investigation commissioned by Barr into the Obama-era "unmasking" of people named in national security documents related to the Russia investigation — a practice that Trump and conservatives pundits claimed was a political conspiracy.
This is freaking hilarious.
with all of the evidence I had
I wish he could publicly disclose all that evidence, but he can’t because he’s under audit.
I have no idea where Trump could find a bigger ass kisser than Barr. Barr has shown that he has no sense of patriotism, or self-respect when it comes to doing Trump's bidding.
History will not be kind to people like Bill Barr.