Hunter Biden Scandalized
This is the biggest issue that has been on my mind for the past, well, three years I guess. It is so important to me that you know how I feel about it. It’s been on House Republicans’ minds as well, and so we have this week’s impeachment inquiry.
When the news broke on October 14, 2020, it seemed too good to be true as a Republican — damning details against Joe Biden just weeks ahead of the election? Reading in, it seemed to be very real — explicit text of emails, videos.
Man, Blues are going to hate this. They are going to be so suspicious that this is happening just close enough to the election that nobody will be able to fact-check it before it’s over.
This is dangerous.
When Facebook and other social media companies started suppressing the story, the “too good to be true” became true. Adam Schiff was on CNN denying the allegations; A couple days later they came out with a statement from “more than 50 senior intelligence officials” that the case had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
But what if it was true? If it was true and these statements had the effect of nullifying it, then we just let Joe Biden get away with corruption. Was it true?
Here is what I saw. Trump’s Director of National Security John Ratcliffe expressly denied the claim of likely Russian disinformation here, saying that there is just no evidence. He even called out Adam Schiff, saying plainly that he used his platform to lie and mislead the American people.¹ When I checked, I found out that it that Hunter had indeed been on the board of Burisma from 2014 until 2019. Fox News always brought up the same point: Hunter had no experience in the oil and gas industry, knows little about Ukraine, and his father was the Vice President of the United States at the time.² Biden’s claim that he never talked to his family about business seemed implausible. And anchor Maria Bartiromo in her interview with John Ratcliffe brought up the similarity to the Trump-Russia collusion scandal — that cooperation with Russia was used effectively to discredit the president was alleged but ultimately was found baseless, as righties roundly believe — and this rang true. There were old wounds.
What was the truth? The truth was that it was a tough situation.
It’s truly a terrible cocktail. Shiff was going on the possibility that it could be Russian misinformation, even though there was no evidence — perhaps it was the kind of thing Russia would do. Ratcliffe was saying there was no evidence of this, which was also true. Do you vote against Biden because he “might” have been involved in corruption? Or do you assume he’s innocent … even though there was no evidence against the allegations? Ideally you should know whether he was innocent or guilty, or at least know substantially more about the case. We voters didn’t know.
Regardless, here is where this issue has hurt so much. Biden in the presidential debate quickly whisked away the issue by citing the statement from the 50 officials. He went on to win. The officials are now doing fine because they were careful — they said it smelled like Russian involvement but also said, “We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails … are genuine or not and that we do not have any evidence of Russian involvement.” Biden, in his statement in the debate, far overstepped this, saying that the officials said that the allegations were definitively false.³
All politicians do that. In fact, Trump had just done so a moment before, overstating the case against Biden.
This time the election was on the line. And respect. Biden called it “garbage” and said, “nobody believed it except …”.
As time went on, there was a lot more. The belief grew that the story was authentic and that there were further, substantiated dealings in China, a wire of money to a shell company of Hunter’s from a Russian billionaire, and reports that Joe Biden met with Hunter’s business associates.
Finally, after two years, there is a story by CBS that the laptop was independently analyzed and believed to be authentic. Six months ago, we find out that the famous statement by 50 senior intelligence officials was initiated by the Biden campaign, was written expressly in order to help Biden win the election, and that the Biden campaign strategized over its release.
In my mind, on stage defending himself against the allegations not only did Biden twist the logic of it, his campaign had actually set it in motion and directed its press release? The letter writers knew a purpose of this was to help Biden win? The spirit of the statement seemed pretty clear that they were claiming to be concerned citizens helping with the objective welfare of the country, for everyone.
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Further, we know that Chinese nationals wired money to Hunter Biden, listing Joe Biden’s address as the beneficiary address. We know that Joe Biden’s claim to have never discussed business dealings with his son are false, at least according to testimony.
Guys, this is a punch in the gut. Going back to just before the election, it is one thing to say, “let’s wait and see” and another thing to say, “this is so utterly wrong and you guys are being duped by the Russians again.” We need you on this.
Now, in the Democratic heart of hearts, I know you know what I know. Most Democrats would not have changed their votes no matter what. Trump was too bad and, honestly, Biden would have to do a lot worse to catch up, and so unless there was incontrovertible proof of him slaughtering babies, Biden was getting the vote.
We don’t fault you for that. We know why Trump was unpopular and deeply alienated so many Democratic voters.
Still. For any depolarizers, it may be hard to stand up for Trump but we have to come together around the truth.
How does the truth look to us? I have to tell you. To us, it looks like we were simply right every step of the way. It looks like everything was so suspicious but people just let Biden off the hook. It looks like we were lied to. A poll conducted from the Right found that voters would have switched their votes with correct information, enough to sway the election; this poll is certainly brought into question by other media outlets. However, with an extremely tight election with razor-thin margins in four states on which things would have turned, we can wonder whether this was in fact a decisive one.
Here is depolarization again. From the perspective of many Democratic voters, we may be maddeningly unconcerned with many things and don’t take them seriously. That should not be. If something matters to you, you should know that even if I don’t agree, it matters to me that it matters to you. So here is the feeling. This thing was crucial for fairness to be handled correctly. It felt like people at the time didn’t care about doing justice to the suspicious elements against Biden — certainly media, but also Left-leaning people I know. That’s a rift. So I have to tell you how I — and many Right-leaning folks — feel.
Let’s see one another’s concerns as this impeachment proceeding begins. For Biden to have the election stolen from him due to too much credence being given to it would have been an awful injustice as well. To assume he is guilty or have the proceedings put a pallor over his presidency would not be right. On the Right, if these suspicions were uninvestigated, to potentially let Biden simply get away with corrupt dealings while the vice president would itself be horribly immoral.
Here are the way things look for depolarization. Blues, know that for many Red voters, these allegations are sincere. The $15 Million that was brought in, in total in these operations, went into various companies; many on our side find it most plausible that these companies were set up exactly to make it difficult to trace the money. This is why Republican voters largely support this. Our question is: where exactly could the money have gone if not to the Biden family?
As these impeachment inquiries proceed, we need to know that you care. Give us something! For the millions brought in, is there doubt that they existed? If it is agreed they existed, is it that they do not seem suspicious? All of this adds up to an inquiry being appropriate, in our eyes. Let’s communicate. If it does not seem that way to you, why not? Please, please, give us something here.
In depolarization, the emotions are critical. If I know that you disagree but you disagree in good faith, that makes all the difference.
Let’s communicate, in that faith.
…
¹ John Ratcliffe said “this is exactly what I said I would stop when I became the director of National Intelligence, and that’s people using the intelligence community to leverage some political narrative and in this case apparently chairman Shiff wants anything against his preferred political candidate to be deemed as not real and is using the intelligence community […] to say there is nothing to see here.”
² For Hunter Biden’s comments on what to make of these facts, see this interview.
³ Biden said, “there are 50 former intelligence folks who said that this, what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant … 4, 5 former heads of the CIA, both parties, are saying what [Trump] is saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except the, him and his good friend Rudy Guiliani”
⁴ It is important to note that my own stance would go much further than this in protecting free speech; however, this evidence standard could be a viable compromise
