Hunter Biden admitted, in a roundabout way through his lawyers, that the infamous laptop featuring a trove of explicit content that surfaced in 2020 was his. On Wednesday, his attorneys demanded that Biden allies in the Justice Department launch investigations of the people who found the computer.
Biden’s lawyers sent two 14-page letters to the Delaware attorney general and the Department of Justice this week calling on officials to probe whether the people who gave the laptop — which was abandoned property at a Delaware computer repair shop owned and operated by John Paul Mac Isaac — to the New York Post violated state or federal laws.
“There is considerable reason to believe” that the individuals involved “in accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr. Biden’s personal computer data” may have committed crimes, the attorneys wrote. “Mr. Mac Isaac has admitted to copying that data without Mr. Biden’s consent, and Mr. Mac Isaac has admitted to distributing copies of that data from his place in Delaware.”
In other words, the laptop is undoubtedly Hunter Biden’s despite the remarkable spin from Democrats, the president, and the media who were desperate to dismiss the computer as Russian disinformation. Below are some of the statements that aged the worst.
Lesley Stahl: CBS ‘Can’t Verify’ the Laptop
A CBS “60 Minutes” interview with President Donald Trump stands out in the hall of fame of media malpractice.
During the interview — which aired on Oct. 25, the week before the 2020 election, and garnered nearly 17 million views — the longtime anchor flat-out denied that the Biden family was under any sort of scandal at all. The interview was so combative that the Trump campaign released the full raw footage before network publication.
“He’s in the midst of a scandal,” Trump said in reference to emails from the laptop revealing Joe Biden was lying about involvement with Hunter’s overseas business ventures.
“He’s not,” Stahl said, interrupting the president to outright dismiss the criticism. “He’s not, no.”
Stahl went on to deny that then-Vice President Joe Biden spied on the Trump campaign in 2016, and claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop couldn’t be verified.
In November, Stahl’s own network verified the laptop.
[READ: Here’s All The Evidence Lesley Stahl Falsely Claimed Doesn’t Exist]
CNN’s Christiane Amanpour: Laptop Is Russian Disinformation
CNN’s Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour self-righteously declared herself a “journalist” who “follows the facts” by claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was an operation of Russian interference. Never mind the rare, on-the-record statements from the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Department of National Intelligence, and the Department of State as evidence that it wasn’t.
“I’m a journalist and a reporter, and I follow the facts. And there has never been any issues in terms of corruption,” Amanpour said of the Bidens.
“How do you know that?” RNC spokeswoman Liz Harrington said after citing the FBI investigation into the laptop.
“I’m talking about reporting, and any evidence,” Amanpour said.
When Harrington called on Amanpour and the rest of the media to start doing journalism and begin investigating, Amanpour scoffed.
“No! We’re not going to do your work for you,” Amanpour said.
Jonah Goldberg: You Believe That Story?
Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief at The Dispatch, was shocked in the fall of 2020 that anyone would believe Joe Biden’s crack-addicted son would irresponsibly forget about a laptop brought in for repairs at a Delaware shop.
“Wait you believe the computer repair shop story? Like at face value?” Goldberg wrote in a tweet.
Mac Isaac, the repair shop owner, is now suing networks and Democratic politicians who smeared him as a Russian agent.
Ben Rhodes: Big Tech Needs to Censor GOP
Ben Rhodes, MSNBC contributor and former deputy national security advisor in the Obama White House, wrote on Twitter in 2020 that the conservative reaction to the Hunter Biden laptop story illustrated why censorship was an important weapon for corporate tech giants to wield against Republicans.
“The Republican freak out over not being able to spread disinformation unchecked demonstrates why you should not be able to spread disinformation unchecked,” Rhodes wrote. “They know they have no political viability without the capacity to spread lies.”
In another post, Rhodes admonished a journalist who asked Joe Biden about the laptop’s incriminating emails as “acting as the far end of a Russian disinformation operation.”
David Frum: Laptop Is ‘Obviously Bogus’
The Atlantic’s David Frum wrote off the story as “obviously fake” and “bogus” in an October 2020 tweet.
“The people on far right and far left who publicized the obviously bogus [New York Post] story were not dupes,” Frum wrote. “They were accomplices. The story could not have been more obviously fake if it had been wearing dollar-store spectacles and attached plastic mustache.”
Adam Schiff: Laptop Originated from the Kremlin
As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff claimed the laptop came from Russia.
“Well, we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin,” Schiff said on CNN. “Clearly, the origins of this whole smear are from the Kremlin, and the president is only happy to have Kremlin help in trying to amplify it.”
In January, new House Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy removed Schiff from the House Intelligence Committee altogether.
Rachel Maddow: Laptop Will Lead to Trump Impeachment
MSNBC prime-time anchor Rachel Maddow went on an unhinged rant in October 2020 claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop will lead to Trump’s impeachment in a second term.
“If the president gets through all this and gets himself re-elected to a second term, we do today have a pretty good beat on what he’ll be impeached for in his second term,” Maddow said. Despite apparent warnings that Rudy Giuliani, the conduit for the laptop hard drive from the Delaware repair shop to the New York Post, was a Russian asset, Trump amplified the story, proving collusion with the Kremlin, according to Maddow. “The president, regardless, is promoting it.”
Video journalists put together a compilation of other Democrats and media personalities who got the story wrong here.