Comment by qqqwerty | Hacker News Reader

Comment by qqqwerty | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Here is a good explanation of what likely happened[1]. The laptop shows up at this repair shop in early 2019, and the shop owner "declared that because he is legally blind, he could not identify the person who brought it in".

Supposedly, this blind shop owner then gains access to the computer (doesn't say how, was it unprotected?) and it contains lewd videos of Hunter (again, blind shop owner). So he copies the drive (which is likely illegal in Delaware) and then he reached out to the FBI, or the FBI reached out to him, or someone else reached out to the shop owner (i.e. Rudy) and told him to reach out to the FBI. We don't really know because they can't get their story straight on that one.

Months later, and the FBI still hasn't announced an investigation, so they go to Plan B and Rudy hands the (likely illegally ) copied hard drive over to the NY Post.

Even if you believe their story, the shop owner likely broke some laws by copying and handing over PII to NY Post. But I am personally more inclined to believe that either the laptop was planted by someone, or that shop owner (who is an avid Trump supporter) was in on the ruse, and that the laptop/source material was not accidentally left by Hunter.

[1] https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/10/15/1986703/-Dezinfo...

Hunter Biden's iCloud backup was hacked, which isn't too hard. Combine those real photos with some real (and some fake) emails the GRU hacked from Burisma last year, you have a ready-made "October surprise".

The degree in which you "fall for it" is the degree in which you want to see Trump reelected. No one that could fog a mirror would normally believe such nonsense.

The FBI had Hunter Biden's laptop (or really repair shop owner's, since he didn't pick it up or pay the $85 repair bill) since December of last year. This should be fairly easy to corroborate. That's why we aren't hearing on-the-record denials. There's a lot more where that came from, and it's likely real.

The FBI investigated the circumstances in which the Trump campaign ended up with Hunter Biden's photos and emails.

That doesn't corroborate the story, it compromises it.

> it compromises it

How? The laptop does exist, so at a minimum this is not an outright fabrication, allusions to which I've seen several times in the comments here. The veracity of the photos of crackhead Hunter seems to be also beyond reasonable doubt. As is the fact that he was magically getting millions of dollars for things he has no expertise in, for some reason. The veracity of emails can likely be confirmed by the FBI using DKIM.

A better question would be why this did not come up during the impeachment hearings. There's some exculpatory evidence on that laptop.

FWIW, using language like 'crackhead Hunter' is a pretty strong tell that you are a troll. If you want engage in debate on HN, I suggest you clean it up a bit.

And to answer your question, the intelligence community believes that this is GRU disinformation[1]. So that is why this wasn't used in the impeachment hearings. And also why the FBI is not investigating this.

[1] https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/521328-intellig...

There's literally a picture of him with a crack pipe in his mouth. He's factually a crackhead.

Also, you might want to avoid such categorical statements, because one of Devon Archer's business associates has recently flipped and provided his emails as well. Those corroborate the "China" arc of the story. Note that the story you linked is a repost of a WaPo story, which itself has no on-the-record corroboration from ODNI, FBI or DOJ. So I'm pretty sure it's fake news.

Images can be faked. Videos can be faked. I can make a deepfake video using open source tools with a few hours of work. There is a video floating around on the internet that shows Trump in a hotel with women peeing on the bed. Mainstream news doesn't report on that video because the origin of the video is uncertain. NY Post has made zero effort to verify the authenticity of the documents they have. And they are a right wing tabloid, so have no prior credibility to trade on.

And please post links to your sources. Until then, I am going to go out on a limb and assume that the reason you are not doing so is because they are also coming from sites with little to no credibility.

Authenticity of the image is not disputed by Bidens. :-) Hunter Biden also left drug paraphernalia in the rental car when returning it. There's a police report to that effect. His history of addiction to illicit drugs is even corroborated by CNN, which would gladly sweep it under the rug, if it could. Seriously, this is not a good hill to die on.

And the authenticity of the pee tape has not been disputed by Trump :)[1]

Everyone is aware that Hunter has had drug issues. But HN is not the place to be calling someone a crackhead. Go to reddit for that.

[1] https://futurism.com/the-byte/pee-tape-unclear-deepfake

> And the authenticity of the pee tape has not been disputed by Trump

Now you're just making shit up. It has been, numerous times.

> There's literally a picture of him with a crack pipe in his mouth. He's factually a crackhead.

It was a meth pipe. If you got something so basic wrong, why would anything else you said be true?

As if this needed clarification (it very much did not):

https://time.com/5902557/hunter-biden-rudy-giuliani-ukraine/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com