On Wednesday, Twitter stopped its users from sharing a New York Post story about Hunter Biden. The story includes an email that allegedly proves Hunter introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive of a Ukrainian energy firm in 2015.
Twitter said it censored the story because it violates the platform’s “Hacked Materials Policy.” The policy states that Twitter does not permit “the use of our services to directly distribute content obtained through hacking that contains private information, may put people in physical harm or danger, or contains trade secrets.”
Facebook said it also took action to limit the spread of the story, but the details of how Facebook did that are not clear. Other social media platforms, like YouTube, have adopted policies to prevent hacked materials from being shared.
The policy is no doubt a reaction to the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks in 2016 ahead of the presidential election that the US claims were hacked by the Russian government. Such policies could prevent future WikiLeaks-style dumps from being shared on the internet.
It’s worth noting that the claim that Russia hacked the DNC and stole the emails is still up for debate. It was revealed by declassified House testimony from 2017 that the private cyber-security firm CrowdStrike, where the claim first came from, had no proof that emails were “exfiltrated” from the DNC server.
Issues have been raised over the chain of custody of the leaked email and pictures of Hunter Biden published by the Post. The email and photos allegedly came from a laptop that was dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in 2019. The Post also published subpoenas that showed the FBI seized the computer.
But the shop owner said he made a copy of the hard drive and gave it to the lawyer of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, an ally of President Trump who gave the copy to the Post. Former White House strategist Steve Bannon was also involved and told the Post about the hard drive’s existence in September.
Despite these issues, it’s still possible the email is real. Hunter Biden landed a high-paying job on the board of a Ukrainian gas company after the Obama administration orchestrated a coup in country. Joe Biden stands accused of leveraging a US loan to Kyiv to pressure Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor investigating corruption at the company.
This story confirms reports from other sources awhile ago. A more plausible reason for anti-social media to censor it is because it shows the allegations of Biden corruption in relation to Ukraine have substance and should be openly investigated.
The allegations were openly investigated by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, chaired by Sen Ron Johnson.
They concluded a few weeks back that Hunter Biden’s position with Burisma gave the appearance of impropriety and made it “awkward” for State officials. They also concluded that VP Biden faithfully executed official US policy, developed at the State Dept with consent from Congress, including that all 10 witnesses interviewed by the committee testified that Biden did not alter the policy because of his son.
They found no evidence of “Biden corruption in relation to Ukraine”.
Mitt Romney adviser Joseph Cofer Black was on the board with Hunter Biden. It’s bipartisan corruption.
Isn’t Pelosi’s son involved in something similar? The way Kushner is used by Trump to make deals smells of similar corruption.
There are likely only a handful of Congress Critters who aren’t corrupt.
For the record, I don’t like US policy toward Ukraine (same now as it was then). But VP Biden executed it above board.
Hunter was hired for his last name. He made “up to” $50K per month- $600K annually. It sucks, it smells. But it pails in comparison to the current executive family.
“President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner has sold his stake in a company investing in Opportunity Zone projects offering tax breaks he had personally lobbied for in Washington […]
The $25 million minimum value of Kushner’s stake at the end of last year is up sharply from three years ago when it was valued at at least $5 million”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/jared-kushner-sells-stake-in-company-using-tax-breaks-that-he-lobbied-for-2020-03-02
“Ivanka Trump’s company won approval for three Chinese trademarks on the same day her father agreed to lift sanctions on ZTE, a Chinese telecommunications company that even a key Trump security adviser admitted is a national security threat. […]
And two days before Trump’s ZTE tweet, a Chinese construction company proposed a $500 million loan for a project in Indonesia that includes Trump-branded hotels, residences, and a golf course.”
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/ivanka-trump-trademarks-zte-sanctions-792082cf4f36/
Or the 3400 conflicts of interest Trump’s businesses cause.
https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/president-trumps-3400-conflicts-of-interest/
I don’t think anyone honestly doubts that there was corruption in the Hunter Biden/Burisma dealings.
Precisely HOW MUCH corruption there was from Joe Biden personally is the question, i.e. did he participate in an access-peddling scheme, did he use the power of the White House to influence investigations in Ukraine away from his son (he seems to have publicly confessed to that part), etc.
None of that excuses Trump’s violation of “the Supreme Law of the Land” via no fewer than three clauses of the US/Ukraine treaty on mutual assistance in investigations, and the way the Post got this story smells bad — does the president’s personal attorney really get to ratfuck through FBI evidence rooms and take and use anything that might be useful as an “October surprise” vs. the president’s opponent? — but the shiny “ethical superiority” paint job on Joe Biden is definitely flaking off.
But it’s no worse than the Russia conspiracy stuff. It’s like Trump is just stepping up and playing the game. And it gets us looking more closely at what is already known about Burisma and Hunter Biden.
Regarding Trump’s violations, how are voters supposed to understand such things? There’s no authority to look to, and we haven’t the time to learn such rules. The US system (democracy/republic) isn’t working in this regard. When everything is corrupt, when every institution lies, the US system can’t function.
The emails are probably fake, but the allegations are likely true. It gets people looking more closely at what was already known: Hunter Biden was a crack head who was paid millions of dollars, almost certainly due to corruption.
What difference does it make? Our elite citizens, who really run this country, have decided that Joe Biden (not Trump, not Bernie) is to get elected.
I feel sorry for the old clown – because of the hollowed-out nature of our economy and because Biden will not be allowed to raise taxes, cut our military, or provide relief for the needy, our nation will go into The Great Depression II. Joe Biden will become the new Herbert Hoover – the scapegoat.
Hunter Biden better hang onto whatever quick bucks he got – no-one is going to pay ‘bupkis’ to have a private word with the new Herbert Hoover.
I dunno. Trump will probably be declared Hoover. Conservatives are usually the fall guys in the fake history. Biden will be a lesser fall guy, maybe, with uber-imperialism posited as the hopeful alternative for 2024. Maybe Harris will be the imperial president to replace Biden. Globalism doesn’t want to paint Harris in a negative light; so, she can’t be the fall person.
Hoover was a good president, ironically.
Trump needs to bring the dang troops home. He gets the elite furious at him, then he does much that they want, sometimes doing worse.
“Socialists” need to focus more on helping people without diminishing freedom. Small businesses are OK. They need to come over to the conservative side. And conservatives need to stop worshiping the market, as well as Israel. The elite would lose if the masses weren’t so stupid.
That’s the most I’ve ever agreed with you.
Luchorpan,
The difference between The Great Depression I and The Great Depression II is that in the 1930s, America still had more resources than people and now it doesn’t; in the 1930s, America laid off its industrial base and now that base is over in China; and in 1930s, America could increase taxes; now it will be – “No Way, Buddy”. America has cut taxes so much that the rich will not pay a dime more – they will pick up their marbles and move to New Zealand, Patagonia, or Israel rather than help America get back on its feet – there no longer is a “common good”. It is – “i got mine and you can go pee off!”
Don’t worry, the masses will soon get “unstupid” – socialism will be America’s only hope.
What does “socialism” mean though? It’s another buzzword with at least 3 definitions (communism, managerial/anti-Marx socialism, worker socialism). It can mean empowering workers or enslaving them.
Belloc’s The Servile State was written against socialism and is in no way for liberalism/capitalism. It warns that capitalism is unbalanced and naturally leads to socialism, strives for a balanced alternative that truly empowers workers.
Without clear definitions of words, it’s difficult for people to communicate or even to think clearly. One poster here said coops, which are often liked by distributists, are “communism.” If the “far left” can’t distinguish itself from the “far right,” what in the heck? Why don’t the leftists stop attacking us if we’re the same, for starters?
Luchorpan,
Maybe we “socialists” are not pure and rigid in a textbook philosophical way – maybe we just want a fair deal (in the old FDR way). How can it be even debated that every working person in America needs and deserves a living wage? How can it even be debated that a millionaire hedge fund broker should pay a larger proportion of his income to taxes than a cab driver has to do? How can it even be debated that America should have national health care?
Again, we don’t necessarily need a rigid. structural socialism – maybe, we just need a fairer deal than we have been getting – and we damned sure are not getting one now with this baloney neo-liberalism or this horse manure “Reagan economy”.
I grew up in the 1950s and that time was a lot more “socialistic” than America has been in the last 40 years.
Don’t forget that the “left” in the US, as well as the Chamber of Commerce “right,” has greatly increased the US population via immigration.
Outsourcing isn’t the only reason the US is arguably low on per capita resources/capital.
To reiterate what I just wrote (which will be below this), many in the US view socialism as literal slavery, meaning forced labour, rape of women, imprisonment, mind control, etc. Similarly, many in the US view capitalism as literal slavery, ie. wage slavery, with similar results. Between the two, socialism is perceived as the more absolute slavery, a “return to slavery” as the natural state of man within society, the highest evolution of total enslavement.
If two sides agree on opposing slavery yet each perceive the other as wanting enslavement, that suggests a lengthy and bloody civil war, similar to a war over religion.
To avoid that, the left in the US needs to fight less and explain more. How can “socialism” balance power such that slavery is avoided? How can our [Plato’s] Guardians be entrusted with absolute and total power over us?
Wanting workers in charge while actually empowering slave masters over workers is major cognitive dissonance.