A couple of days ago Jonathan Turley wrote in the New York Post about the big ol' Twitter scandal. Here's a smattering of language from his column:
infamous censorship program . . . silence critics . . . hoax . . . biased and even criminal conduct . . . back channel . . . influence peddling, nepotism, and other forms of corruption . . . censor for the Biden campaign . . . major scandal . . . corrupt selling of access . . . “made man” . . . company’s chief censor . . . open political bias . . . bury a story.
Whew. Like most conservatives, Turley simply assumes that the past four years have been ones of epic Democratic corruption and then proceeds from there. It's a whole private universe for right-wing lunatics.
Even more bizarrely, the supposed point of the column was the revelation that a guy named James A. Baker had emerged as the ringleader of all things corrupt. Note that this is not James A. Baker, the famous former secretary of state, but James A. Baker, the former general counsel for the FBI through 2017 and then deputy general counsel for Twitter. Baker has a pretty solid reputation in DC, but he worked at the FBI during the Trump administration and was therefore around during the Russia probe and everything else the MAGAnauts fear and loathe about the FBI.
Even at that, he didn't really do anything. He passed legal judgment on starting the Russia probe. He agreed to meet with friend-of-Hillary Michael Sussman to review some important information Sussman said he had—and then passed it on for review. He was replaced when Christopher Wray took over and wanted to bring in his own team. He got caught up in some weird and unrelated leak investigation that went nowhere. Donald Trump once wrote a nasty tweet about him. And then he left the FBI, eventually landing at Twitter, where he apparently weighed in once on the laptop controversy, saying:
I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked. At this stage, however, it is reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted. There are some facts that indicate that the materials may have been hacked, while there are others indicating that the computer was either abandoned and/or the owner consented to allow the repair shop to access it for at least some purposes. We simply need more information.
I think you could fairly accuse Baker of being completely unhelpful here, but you sure can't claim he was being a partisan hack. And for what it's worth, there was reason to think the Post story might have been based on hacked material. It turned out not to be true, but at the time there was no way to know that.
Anyway, this is how the right-wingers see things. They live in a world based on the axioms of Russiagate, Biden family corruption, the FBI's malfeasance, and Twitter's obeisance to the Democratic Party. With that as foundation, it's hardly difficult to construct a conspiracy based on James Baker mysteriously popping up everywhere as a puppetmaster for liberal interests.
UPDATE: In possibly the least surprising news ever, Elon Musk fired Baker on Tuesday.
“And for what it's worth, there was reason to think the Post story might have been based on hacked material. It turned out not to be true, but at the time there was no way to know that.”
You keep writing this, but never provide your evidence for the claim. We have no idea if the material the Post story relied on was hacked or not. Other posters called you out on this in your previous post, yet you still persist in laundering this claim into your “center left” ecosystem.
Yes, this utter BS on Kevin's part. Even after all this time, the only thing that has changed from day one when we heard about "Hunter's laptop" is that at least some of the email contents saved in the laptop indeed were Hunter's, but it has never been confirmed if by the most absurd of circumstances his actual laptop landed on the hands of Rudy at just the right time, or if his information was hacked and then conveniently planted in a laptop hand delivered to Trump's lawyer just in the nick of time in an attempt to hurt Biden's electoral chances.
a laptop delivered to the Post by Rudy Giuliani two weeks before the election and rejected by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and others should not have been treated skeptically?
If I'm not mistaken, there is no actual laptop, just an image of a disk drive that is claimed to be from Hunter Biden's laptop. No clear chain of custody. No physical drive to be forensically analyzed.
I have little doubt that there is genuine material Hunter Biden material, pilfered via hacking, with an admixture of other faked and legitimate items, that make up the "laptop". But that it is so tainted that any prosecution based on it would be laughed out of court. No such bar to congressional hearings, however...
People are saying the actual laptop is somewhere in Ukraine, in a secret hiding place along with Hillary's servers.
Well, the usually unreliable New York Post reported that the alleged Hunter Biden laptop was turned over to the FBI in October 2020. The FBI, following its long-standing rules (instead of Comey rules) has not made any statements concerning this matter, as far as I can determine. As usual, there are anonymous reports from ‘people familiar with’ the investigations of Hunter Biden; you may make of those what you wish.
It is now received wisdom on the right that the "suppression" of the Hunter Biden Laptop Story™ cost Former Sir the election. A ridiculous poll found that 80% of Americans would have changed their vote if they'd heard about it before the election (never mind that the poll didn't stipulate what "it" was in the question).
So it's fair to assume, is it not, that Former Sir would have devoted a lot of time in the final days of his campaign to explaining what the scandal was, given the enemy news media was censoring it. Here's what he said about it at his final campaign rally:
That was it. The only reference in a speech that ran well over an hour. Even Trump was incapable of explaining what the supposed scandal actually was.
Still the absence of the story from social media was deplorable, was it not? Or was it? Here's the NY Post on October 20, days before the election:
Hmmm. What an odd way to suppress a story.
But none of this matters, of course. The Trumpsters have their narrative that Democrats conspired with Big Tech to censor the biggest scandal of the century, and no facts are going to be allowed to interrupt it.
+1!
"A ridiculous poll found that 80% of Americans would have changed their vote"
I like the idea that the Hunter Biden Laptop Story details are so salacious/significant that they would have changed not only the votes of the 51% that voted for Biden, but *also* most of the votes of the ~47% that voted for Trump.
After over two years, I'm still waiting to hear all of the corrupt information on Hunter's "laptop". Conservative media types have had their hands on it all this time and still the only thing I've heard is that someone referred to "the big guy" in an email.
I remember thinking that's why they made such a big deal about the Hunter Biden laptop. They've been marinating in a right wing conspiracy stew about the "Biden crime family", so if Hunter gets caught on something obviously Joe Biden must have been in on it, right?
As for Turley, he seems to have been a libertarian who drifted into the right wing conspiracy hole over time.
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You know, if you had told me I could make money in my spare time on Hunter Bidesn's laptop, I might've bit.
Giuliani, who was Trump's designated factotum when he extorted Ukraine to produce fictional dirt on Biden, shows up a year later with a disk drive with no established provenance. The press is justified in waiting until it clear all tests for legitimacy, which it didn't, and still hasn't.
I think the NYT got a hold of the copied data a year or two ago and confirmed that the emails appeared to be Biden's. What they also found is that none of them contained anything hinting at corruption or scandal, and that in several Biden actually seems to be going out of his way to remain on the ethical high ground.
I thought a "disk drive" had never actually been produced, just what was alleged to be a copy of what some disk drive had on it.
And why not the actual, physical, foxtrottin' LAPTOP itself? Assuming it ever existed. Why would anyone yank the drive out of a laptop in the first place, unless it was broken (in which case, good luck in getting its contents without involving the NSA)?
IIRC, the FBI has the actual laptop.
According to the New York Post. 🙄
Excitable Boy- I try not to follow the story too much as the whole thing is just small potatoes, nevertheless, do we know the source of the NY Post articles?
It is a bit murky, but this is their cover story.
“Rudy Giuliani provided the materials to the New York Post after they were allegedly found on a water-damaged MacBook Pro left at a Delaware computer repair shop owned by John Paul Mac Isaac..”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controversy#New_York_Post_reporting
Technically, the Biden laptop material *was* hacked. The data was accessed on a private computer Biden (or someone) dropped off at that Delaware computer shop, copied, and given to Rudy Giuliani who gave it to the Post. The question was whether the emails and other stuff on it were legitimately Biden's because there was no firm chain of custody information or anything else to confirm it was legit. IIRC the Post reporter whose name was on the story's byline ended up quitting in protest because the whole things was so sus. In the meantime, other media outlets have confirmed that most of the emails were real -- but that they contain no indication of any wrongdoing. The idea that Twitter should have violated it's own policies to placate Trumpers on this is crazy.
You mean to say that most of the Biden-attributed emails were real in the sense that they were character-for-character copies, I think. If I cut and paste text the quotes are 'real' but one can hardly say they're the original.
There's a good overview of the whole thing here. Tl;dr -- there's still a lot that's very fishy about that laptop and who had access to it both before and after it was dropped off at that computer store, but most of the emails examined by forensic analysts hired by MSM outlets like NYT and CBS appear to be genuine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controversy#Forensic_analysis
However, if you read the articles carefully, they are coy or outright disingenuous about which data appears to be real. I have the sneaking suspicion that the innocuous personal stuff is real and some of the more “explosive” material is of more questionable validity. The CBS team was created and controlled by Catherine Herridge a former Fox reporter, so I am highly suspicious of their work as being unbiased.
From your same Wikipedia link, the Washington Post analysis was much more skeptical of the veracity and chain of custody of the contents.
“ The analysts found that people other than Hunter Biden had repeatedly accessed and copied data for nearly three years; they also found evidence that people other than Biden had accessed and written files to the drive, both before and after the New York Post story. In September 2020, someone created six new folders on the drive, including with the names "Biden Burisma," "Big Guy File," "Salacious Pics Package" and "Hunter. Burisma Documents." One of the analysts found evidence someone may have accessed the drive contents from a West Coast location days after The New York Post published their stories about the laptop.”
You got it in one. The 'real' stuff is so they can claim that this indeed H.B.'s laptop. Then they can turn around and claim that ipso facto the truly dicey stuff has to be Biden's as well.
I'm astounded by the fact someone has to explicitly point out the blindingly obvious to people who claim they just don't get it.
You didn't read my comment, did you? Or were you under the (very bizarre) impression that metadata was not in character form? Or were you not aware that 'binary data', is, in point of fact, character data?
The same day as the Post column, The Hill ran an article by Turley under a different headline, which appears to be identical in content. Turley is now jumping up and down on the shreds of his once-respectable academic reputation, selling the same piece of writing twice. The article is terrible, full of the most pejorative descriptions without evidence, distorting the few facts, and just making up shit, and throwing all of this at MAGAheads eager to swallow anything that makes the enemy (fellow Americans who just happen to support the decent, capable, sympathetic human being who now occupies the White House) look bad.
Maybe Turley has wet brain, as they used to call it back in the day.
I *wish* liberals and Dems were organized enough to actually run a conspiratorial operation like this, but alas...
The MAGA schizophrenia about the FBI amazes, but does not surprise me. It was basically the FBI that handed the 2016 election to Trump with Comey's last minute e-mail investigation. I know some conservatives in the NY bureau of the FBI (yes, the conservative label is probably unnecessarily added there, and we can take that as a given), and it was an article of faith with them that Hillary was the Devil and needed to be stopped. I imagine that Comey felt like he lost control of the NY bureau, and either he brought out the information in his own way, or the NY bureau would go rogue and leak it on their own. Hell, Guiliani was bragging ahead of time about the bombshell they were about to drop on Hillary.
And then suddenly after that, the FBI flips a switch and goes all in for Hillary? And then goes all in for Biden four years later? Logical consistency is not exactly the MAGA hallmark.
What was supposed to have been wrong with the laptop in the first place that entailed the legally blind repairman would have to read through the stored emails, and then, rather than attempt to contact the owner, try to give it to anyone else?
The guy claims someone -- he doesn't know who because, you know, blindness -- dropped it off asking if the shop could recover the data on the harddrive, which had been damaged, but then apparently didn't leave a name or number or anything and never returned to pick it up. Biden claims he has no recollection of ever dropping a computer off at that store, but that it could have been stolen or something.
And I would like to know what is the legality is of copying someone's hard drive and distributing the contents, assuming it is actually someone else's hard drive.
I’m sure you can Google this, but IIRC, under Delaware law the laptop could have been considered abandoned property after one year, but the alleged copying and release of the emails was done months before that deadline. So, a theft of data, apparently.
Shades of Ashley Biden's diary. Project Veritas? Just sayin'
This is what I find interesting. Kevin Drum dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop story on the grounds that "it was not verified", hence unworthy of publication. Somehow Kevin Drum did not apply the same standard of "being verified" to the (in)famous Steele dossier. He was perfectly willing to accept it based on the enforcement of anonymous deep state actors (I remember Kevin Drum saying, at the time, that the Steele dossier is true because some CIA/FBI officials had said that Steele "is credible").
Lets assume that Kevin Drum has been acting on good faith on this. Perhaps he should write a blog post on this. I suggest a title "I believed a story (Steele dossier) that was proven to be false and fraud, and I dismissed a story (Hunter Biden laptop) that was proven to be 100% true. But hey, my judgement is still good, right?"
Trying to defend Baker as some kind of innocent victim who honestly believed in the stuff that was going on is beyond ridiculous. If Baker really honestly believed in that stuff, he must be the absolute stupidest person on planet Earth. There was so much obvious BS going on with the entire Steele dossier / Trump collusion thing that is does not even pass the smell test. Take Carter Page 4 surveillance warrants. Fraud from the beginning. FBI deputy director admitted in Congressional testimony that without Steele dossier there would have been no Carter Page warrants. FBI knew by late 2016 that the Steele dossier was crap. FBI most certainly knew by the end of Jan 2017 that is was just a pack of BS - they interviewed Steele's main sub source Danchenko, who 1) disavowed the reports (they asked him what he had told Steele, and then they showed him the actual Steels reports, and Danchenko was like "hey, that is not what I told him"), 2) said that he wrote to Steele what Steele wanted to hear, and it was just a "drunken bar talk, said in jest".
Maybe Academy Awards committee should add a new category "Best Playing Stupid" and Kevin Drum can add "Oscar Winner" to his resume.
Actual Kevin Drum statement, verbatim:
“Most of the stuff in the dossier is nonetheless probably wrong. The question is, is any of it right?”
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/01/heres-bit-more-trump-russia-dossier/
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/03/dossier-looking-more-credible-all-time/
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/12/an-updated-look-at-the-steele-dossier/
not to rub it in, but since you like things verbatim and "citations, sources, evidence" here is Kevin Drum in his own words
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/12/an-updated-look-at-the-steele-dossier/
"All things considered, then, the dossier has held up pretty well."
He said that after pointing out specifically all the parts from it that were verified, while also pointing out the ones that had been either debunked, or for which there was no evidence either way.
You need to troll better.
Did you read the Kevin Drum post? You are misrepresenting what he said. He never said "had been either debunked, or for which there was no evidence either way"
What Kevin Drum said is "the dossier includes 15 claims that are now fully or partially supported and 27 claims for which we have no evidence so far" (note there is no "debunked") also "there doesn’t appear to be a single claim that we know with certainty is false"
Is it too much to ask for you to be honest?
My bad for using the word "debunked" your highness, I guess when your points are crap, better to focus on the wording.
The point is that he made an update after two years from the original story, and he categorized the status of the multiple claims from the dossier and found that a good chunk of them had been found to be supported by evidence, while others weren't. Which is the exact opposite of what you wrote in your original rant:
"Somehow Kevin Drum did not apply the same standard of "being verified" to the (in)famous Steele dossier. "
Like I said, troll better. Your kind of BS critique may do the trick with the trolls on Breibart, but you have to bring a better game around here.
I guess you consider yourself a reasonable person who engages in a civilized discussion without resorting to name calling (correct me if I am wrong). Yet your argument consists of "troll better ... Your kind of BS ... may do the trick with the trolls on Breibart".
You sure are judgemental, without actually knowing people. I have followed Kevin Drum for quite a few years. From the days of Washington Monthly, I think, if not before. Sometimes he is very reasonable, sometimes I disagree. I don't comment very often. You call that trolling.
The main thrust of the Steele dossier was that there was a quid pro quo collusion and cooperation between Trump and Putin (Kremlin/Russia). I posted a couple of Kevin's articles, which clearly show that he was taking Steele's dossier seriously and as credible, since there was "proof". Now I put this "proof" in quotes since this is what it was - "proof".
Let me ask this question. Is the proof still there?
It is a rhetorical question, since I think we both know that this "proof" has, lets say "evaporated". I mean a proof of substantive claims. Like Manafort was the intermediary between Trump and Kremlin (you still have proof of that?). Like Carter Page was scheming with Igor Sechin of Rosneft who had promised him a payoff of many billions of USD (I am not kidding, this is that the "credible" Steele reported) - you still have a proof of that? Like when Trump servers were secretly communicating with Alpha bank servers (this is what Sussman was pimping to Baker; and yes, Steele also had a report claiming that) - you still have a proof of that? Etc. Etc. Etc.
So what kind of proof was that? I may be a simple practical person, but I think if you have a proof of something, it should stand the test of time. Not like one day you have proof and the a few months (or a couple of years) later - "oops sorry, the proof seems to have vanished." I do remember there was this Muller guy who had a budget of whatever millions he wanted and unlimited staff. I remember democrats singing Christmas carols "all we want for Christmas is Muller". He did conclude that "there is no evidence of collusion", which is a legal speak for "it did not happen". So what proof (or "proof") is it that one day you have and the next day it is gone.
I’m not going to spend any more time debunking the rest of the false statements you make, as I’m sure you already know they are bullshit. I just don’t know why you think anyone else here would believe it. We like citations, sources, evidence.
don't be shy. no innuendo. tell us what specific claims I made are bullshit, e.g,
1) Baker as a FBI legal counsel was in the thick of things, and should/would have known, unless he was/is an imbecile
2) FBI interviewed Danchenko at the end of Jan 2017 where Danchenko basically debunked the dossier (in addition to lying about meeting Miller, which FBI also knew shortly after)
3) Carter Page warrants were fraud from the beginning
4) Kevin Drum was dismissing Hunter Biden laptop story out of hand as "unverified" while being more than willing to accept Steele dossier as "credible"
Shorter kk: "YAH, BUTWATTABOUT THE STEELE DOSSIER?!?!"
I don't think you understood the point I was making.
The point is Kevin Drum's double standard - he is insisting on proof and verification of the Hunter Biden laptop story, before willing to publish it, while taking the Steele dossier at face value. Why is that?
1. Kevin never took the Steele dossier at face value.
2. We all make judgements based on our evaluation of the evidence, our experience and the people we are dealing with. I agree with Kevin on this one.
So, is there anything on Hunter's laptop that a reasonable person interested in government ethics should care about?
I really could not care less about Hunter's drug-addled escapades or his attempts to make bank off of being a fail son. Is there anything that implicates actual members of the US government in doing something unethical?
Because all I see is a lot of arguing about provenance and people trying to imply that "email" is a bad word.
This is what has been the Achilles heel of the whole "Hunter's laptop" story, and why no one outside Trump's fanbase cares much about it.
According to the crazies, the emails prove that Joe Biden supposedly abused his position in government to benefit Hunter, the problem with their claims are two:
One is that that some of that supposed nepotism took place when Biden was VP, which means that he couldn't actually deliver anything or benefit Hunter in any way, since the VP has no real powers to do anything. He couldn't assign contracts, make policy, appoint or remove anyone. If anything unethical took place, it would have been Obama who would be on the hook for it, not Biden.
Two, is that later on Hunter supposedly was using his father's name to get big payments from foreign companies, and was also requesting a payment to go directly to his dad. The thing here, is that by then, Biden was already a private citizen completely outside of government and not running for anything. So if he indeed get paid, there is nothing unethical about it.
Funny thing is that Trump actually did in the open, and while in office, everything they accuse Biden of supposedly doing and they couldn't have cared less.
This.
It's like they believed that just revealing there was a laptop with emails on it was sufficient to throw the election to Trump. Given that this is how 2016 went down, I guess it makes sense in their disease-addled brains, but the rest of us have no reason to go along with it.
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