The latest has the FBI probing into a possible disinformation campaign.
According to USA Today Politics. Reported by Caran Bohan, Kevin Johnson, Matthew Brown and Jeff Neiburg
Published 6:25pm 10/17/2020, Updated 7:09pm 10/18/2020
After a trove a data surfaced on Hunter Biden, via Rudy Giuliani, the FBI got involved.
When the NY Post published the alleged contents of a computer hard drive purporting to document the Ukranian and Chines business activities of Hunter Biden, the newspaper cast the info as "The Smoking Gun."
Enter the FBI
Less than 2 1/2 weeks before the most contentious presidential campaign in history, federal authorities are investigating whether the material supplied to the post by Giuliani, #45s personal lawyer, is part of a smoke bomb of disinformation pushed by Russia.
The inquiry, according to a person familiar with the matter, is at least, in part, aimed at determining whether Russia has set its sights on a familiar target, Hunter's father Joe Biden. The person is not authorized to comment on the matter publicly and asked not to be named in order to speak candidly.
The details of the newspaper's account trace the hard drive to a computer repair shop in Delaware, where a laptop had been left for service last year but was never reclaimed by the customer. Exactly how the material moved to Giuliani, who with #45 has long pushed debunked conspiracy theories about the Bidens, has raised as many questions as the authenticity of the laptop data the president's lawyer provided to the newspaper.
After months of investigation, two GOP led senate committies unveiled a report in September that found no evidence of wrong doing or corrupt actions by the former Vice President in connection with his son Hunter's business dealings in Ukraine.
But #45 and Giuliani have continued to lob allegations at the democratic nominee, despite multiple investigations, including the recent GOP probes, that had found no basis for the claims.
On wednesday 10/14/2020, #45 and his lawyer seized on the NY post story, which focused on the emails purporting to show an advisor of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, thanking Hunter Biden for arranging a meeting for him with Joe Biden, who was VP at the time.
The story provided no evidence that such a meeting ever occurred, and has come under fire for its reliance on questionable sources and documents whose authenticity was not verified. Biden's campaign team told USA TODAY no meeting ever occurred.
FACT CHECK Biden and his allies pushed out the Ukrainian prosecutor because he, the prosecutor, didnt pursue corruption cases. Giuliani, thru his lawyer, declined to provide the material to USA TODAY for examination.
The efforts made by #45 and Giuliani was to dig up dirt on the Bidens and Ukraine was at the center of the impeachment inquiry launched against #45 by House Democrats.
House Democrats last year approved two articles of impeachment---abuse of power & obstruction of Congress.
The impeachment probe was set off by an anonymous whistle blower complaint accusing #45 of using his levels of US diplomacy to try to cajole the Ukraine into pursuing investigations of Biden for #45's own benefit.
#45 and Giuliani have accused Joe Biden of seeking to ouster Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin thwart an investigation of Burisma---a claim independent fact checkers & investigators have debunked.
Shokin was widely publicly viewed by international organizations such as the European Union and International Monetary Fund, as well as anti corruption investigators in the Ukraine, as an impediment to reforming the country's culture of graft.
Biden helped to oust Shokin because the prosecutor was not aggressively pursuing corruption cases.
There was no evidence of wrong doing by Hunter Biden.under
An examination of the matter by Politifact in 2019 said there was " no evidence to support the idea that Joe Biden advocated with his son's interests in mind. It's not even clear Burisma was actively under investigation or that a change in Prosecutors benefitted it."
Last Month, two GOP led Senate committies investigating the claims said in a 87 page report that Hunter Biden's role on the Burisma board was "problematic" but said it was "unclear" whether it ever affected US foreign policy under the Obama administration.
FACT CHECK claims that Hunter Biden received $3.5M from Russia were unproven, lacked context.
The Post said the data received were discovered discovered on the hard drive of a lap top taken to repair shop in Joe Biden's home state of Delaware.
In the newspaper's coverage, the emails are shared as image files, not in a file format that would contain header information and metadata. That makes it harder to analyze and verify the files.
One huge RED FLAG: Anyone who has cognitive skills or reasoning would never forget to claim their laptop and to leave it unattended for that long of a time?????!!!!!!
www.breitbart.com
