Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said on Monday that the information published by The New York Post that allegedly came from Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of a “Russian disinformation campaign.”
Ratcliffe’s comments came after Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the House Intelligence Committee chairman, said the scandal surrounding the Bidens and a Ukrainian gas company is a “smear” coming “from the Kremlin.”
“Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign,” Ratcliffe said in an interview with Fox Business. “Let me be clear: The intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that. And we have shared no intelligence with Adam Schiff, or any member of Congress.”
Ratcliffe said the FBI is now in possession of the laptop. He said the FBI’s investigation is “not centered around Russian disinformation.”
Issues have been raised concerning the chain of custody of the laptop since two allies of President Trump were involved, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and former White House strategist Steve Bannon. But besides speculation from Schiff and the media, nothing ties the laptop to Moscow.
The first email published by the Post last week purports Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive of the Ukrainian company Burisma Holdings in 2015. Joe Biden has previously said that he never spoke with Hunter about his overseas business dealings.
Hunter Biden landed a high-paying job with Burisma Holdings after the Obama administration orchestrated a coup in Ukraine. Joe Biden has been accused of leveraging a US loan to Kyiv to pressure Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor investigating corruption at the company.
Why did Rudy admit that he gave the “information” to the New York Post, knowing that the Post would not fact check it?
How do you know it was not fact checked, editors fact check as far as they can but dont just publish anything for risk of being sued.
“Giuliani told the Times he brought his documents to the Post because “either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out.” ”
https://news.yahoo.com/giuliani-gave-hunter-biden-story-054726242.html
Who brings a damaged laptop into a repair shop (in April, 2019) and does not return to pick it up?
And now Rudy gets it and, voila’ the “October Surprise”. While it was sitting in the shop all of these months, is there no guarantee that it was not tampered with? Hard drive switched out?
One weird story.
Cozy Bear arranged the laptop delivery.
A crack head does strange things, once Hunter returned a car rental leaving his pipe & gear in there.
Was he a crack head? I thought rich folk used the powder form. Seriously, I didn’t know.
My computer repair shop which I have used several times gives me a receipt and keeps a copy in their books.
A so-called computer shop which does not do this is a fake shop in my book.
“Who brings a damaged laptop into a repair shop (in April, 2019) and does not return to pick it up?”
Answer: Someone strung out on cocaine.
Why would someone strung out on coke even bother to bring a laptop in for repair? Why would the shop fail to get any contact info whatsoever? Why would the repair shop give a full copy of the data from the device to Rudy Giuliani
Maybe the FBI can answer your questions.
The problem with this smear campaign it is doesn’t link the VP to any criminality.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/how-to-not-be-a-useful-idiot-for-the-rights-smear-machine/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=5712&recip_id=484679&list_id=2
Perhaps no criminality but abuse of power & office, dont forget Joe got the prosecutor fired who was investigating Burisma which his son sat on. Joe denied he had anything to do with his sons business yet these emails show he was involved. Trump was impeached for less.
“these emails show he was involved”
Possibly. Given the supposed chain of custody, I’d want to see DKIM signature data or some other way of verifying that the emails are real and unaltered before assuming that they “show” anything.
Thats a fair point we really need an honest investigation to verify the laptops contents are genuine & not been tampered with.
You are careful and suspicious of some claims.
So, do you believe Adam Schiff’s claims that it is all Russian disinformation?
Is the caution all about just one side?
I’m careful and suspicious of most claims. Including Russiagate and its spinoffs.
The prosecutor said he was investigating Burisma after he was removed and after talking to Giuliani. The new prosecutor said there was no investigation. No one in Ukraine verified that there was an investigation when the US intervened.
The emails proport to show a Burisma executive thanking Hunter for the “opportunity to meet” VP Biden, not that he intervened, discussed policy, or that they even actually met.
Biden carried out official US policy. Trump sent his personal lawyer on a clandestine mission to subvert US policy and leverage Congressionally approved funds to force the President of Ukraine to act in a way that would personally benefit Trump.
and no one is listening and the votes are being cast. The US public has had it with all this kind of silly stuff these fake patriots are pushing. We have, We’d like our kids to eat now. Like the socialist Norwegians do, Thanks for asking. Hunter what? Does he have any food? half of america’s kids get no food, but these “patriots are so concerned about some foreign country. It’s a good idea to feed kids. Its a good idea for humans to have work. The Republican’s don’t understand that. So they are about to lose power in all branches of the government. They talk all day but have nothing to offer that makes sense in any way if you do bother to listen. They are indeed done. and you get these well timed obvious silly stuff like this story.
The IMF was hesitant about any further loan $$$ to Ukraine with a corrupt Prosecutor. Neither Obama’s legal mind nor his minority Govt could do much w/o Congress approval.
What is questionable is whether Hunter would ‘give up’ his laptop for repairs to a nondescript entity out in Delaware and who ‘unfortunately’ had links to Giuliani and Trump’s cabal, when a simple call would have guaranteed him a replacement.
Joe Biden has been accused of leveraging a US loan to Kyiv to pressure Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor investigating corruption at the company.
Joe Biden had been tasked by the President, with bipartisan support from Congress, to leverage a US loan to pressure Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor for failing to pursue anti-corruption measures and not investigating corruption in energy (and other) companies like Burisma.
How can Ratcliffe say that it isn’t?
The FBI is investigating the laptop’s origin. Have they ruled out Russia? They had it since December. I assumed the FBI did not share it with the Senate committee investigating Biden in Ukraine because they couldn’t verify the source or the information was otherwise in doubt. Have they verified the source and contents? Was it disinformation from some other source? And since when does the DNI comment on ongoing FBI investigations?
I think Ratcliffe is showing his political ambition. The whole thing smells like a clumsy attempt to sway the election for Trump.
stereotype russian setup. the kremlin google photos account is probably very interesting, =)
A few days ago President Trump publicly demanded that AG Barr must appoint a special investigator for computergate before election day. Barr has not yet answered. At least not publicly.
Meanwhile the voters seem to completely ignore this story by voting in record numbers.
Their concern is mainly SARS-CoV-2 and not computergate.
Lesson: Election tricks must be sufficiently believable to have any impact on elections.
I gues they need some distraction from the fact that millions of dollars for COVID small business loans went to certain White House staff members who are also legally related to the President. But I guess that’s business as usual for this administration.
Oh yes, the laptop with vital internationally important emails that got dropped off at a repair shop – with no information on how to contact the owner – and is never picked up, but then is investigated by the owner, who first copies the data then hands the laptop off to the feds and then gives the copied data to “just a country lawyer” Rudy Giuliani. That sounds 100% legit, but then again, some of these people believe QAnon is real, so hey.