Unraveling the tale of Hunter Biden and $3.5 million from Russia

[Nevilledog]

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Josh Marshall
@joshtpm
A really good piece. Also an incredibly complicated piece which cld be summed up as tl;dr all the Hunter Biden laptop claims are basically bullshit cooked up by professional gop liars

washingtonpost.com
Analysis | Unraveling the tale of Hunter Biden and $3.5 million from Russia
An irresistible talking point -- that the president's son received $3.5 million from a Russian billionaire -- does not hold up to scrutiny.
9:58 AM · Apr 8, 2022

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/08/unraveling-tale-hunter-biden-35-million-russia/

No paywall
https://archive.ph/ydPE2


Less than 50 days before the 2020 presidential election, the Republican staff of the Senate Finance and Homeland Security Committees issued a joint report with a startling claim — that Joe Biden’s son Hunter had received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, a Russian billionaire and the widow of the former mayor of Moscow.

Trump quickly weaponized the factoid, mentioning it 42 times in the final weeks of the campaign. He sharply questioned Biden during the first presidential debate: “They were the ones involved with Russia, turns out not me, it was the opposite. But why did your son get three and a half million from the wife of the mayor of Moscow?”

An attorney for Hunter Biden denied the allegation in 2020 but it has lived on, especially in the right-wing media. Recently Trump called on Putin to reveal what he knows about it.

Trump’s call-out to Putin inspired us to dig deep into this story again. We interviewed people familiar with the transactions, reviewed property and real estate documents and probed for leads in the emails contained on a hard drive copy of the laptop Hunter Biden supposedly left behind for repair in a Delaware shop in April 2019. None of our sources would speak on the record because of continuing investigations of Hunter Biden and his business practices, but we sought confirmation from corporate filings and other records.

The flimsiness of the allegation was apparent from the start merely by carefully reading the Senate GOP report itself.

*snip*

[uponit7771]

1. K&R,DOJ is spending resources on complete BS 99% **LITERALLY** made up by MAGA Media

The fact the Russian FSB and MoD continues to parrot HB crap to this week is gob smacking

[Bev54]

2. And here is a video that absolutely rips apart the WaPo article about their experts

"examination" of Hunter's laptop. They put out a bullshit story on the laptop which keeps giving talking points to the republicans.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/4/1/2089520/-Hal-Sparks-Expertly-Destroys-WaPo-Story-on-Hunter-s-presumed-Laptop

[Cartoonist]

3. What about the other allegations?

The GOP smear of the season says there are compromising photos.

[snowybirdie]

4. Thank you so much

for reminding us of the rest of this story. Bless your heart!