[woo01]

The emails have already been confirmed to be real, at least some of them. The technician spoke on record about getting the laptop from the owner who abandoned it, and by law became his.

There are gaps in the story that need to be investigated, but who the heck are Facebook and Twitter to make that call minutes/hours after the story broke?? This is not some weird obscure conspiracy story.

The other thing here is the double standard. So many hacked information has been freely circulating, from wikileaks to Trump's tax records. Why now, why so suddenly? Really hard to deny political bias.

I'm pro free speech, I think everyone should err on letting information flow. But whatever you do, if you use a double standard you'll have no reasonable argument to save you.

[iaw]

DKIM?

Link to independent (non-tabloid) confirmation?

[Ancapistani]

It’s been hard to keep up with the (largely crazy, frankly) events and speculation here, but a few things stick out to me that make me lean toward believing the story as told:

* Hunter Biden’s attorney, George Mesires, has allegedly gotten a subpoena issued for the return of Hunter’s laptops. In doing so his ownership is implicitly verified. Caveat: I wasn’t able to find a copy of this subpoena, though I’m fairly sure I read it a day or so ago.

* The Biden campaign has not denied _any_ of this.

* The FBI has not commented. If there were no active investigation they would typically say so. If there were an active investigation, they are bound not to comment on it.

[iaw]

Thank you, this is the most compelling case I've seen here for the emails being real.

I don't know that I reach the same conclusions as you though. The lack of denials is disconcerting and does imply some elements of truth in the story.

For the subpoena for Hunter's laptop I could see a lawyer doing that if there was no laptop to force someone either into contempt of court, perjury, or acknowledging the laptop doesn't exist. It could be a tactic to undermine the story rather than supporting evidence is what I'm saying (but on the surface is looking bad).

As for the FBI [0] I think things are a little more complicated than taking a lack of an answer for confirmation.

[0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/fbi-probing-whether-purpor...

[Ancapistani]

To be clear, I'm not 100% convinced that any of it is true. I think it is likely that the emails are real and very likely that the photos are.

As for the FBI - it's at best circumstantial evidence. If they had stated there was no open case I would have considered it to be strong evidence that it's all disinformation. The two possible outcomes from that facet are "disprove"/"not disprove".

[iaw]

I've begun to wonder if it isn't somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps the emails, texts, and photos are real but from a Russian hack and are being selectively released in an effort to paint Hunter Biden in the worst possible light hoping it reflects poorly on his father.

[Ancapistani]

That seems plausible to me.

At the end of the day I don't think the source matters in terms of how I see the Bidens, only the authenticity of the information itself. If the later comes out that the stated source was a lie, then that will change how I see everyone involved on that side. If both the information and source are false, then I would strongly support severe criminal charges for those involved.

[woo01]

There you go - I hate to quote fox news but NYT and others refuse to investigate this matter: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-biden-china-email-so...

More importantly - the Biden campaign HAS NOT said the emails are fake.

[iaw]

Not sure if you watched the video at the top of that page but the word "allegedly" was emphasized in describing the emails provenance.

Where's the verification?

[Amezarak]

The story the GP linked begins with Fox News confirming another party on the email chain corroborates at least that set of emails.

> One of the people on an explosive email thread allegedly involving Hunter Biden has corroborated the veracity of the messages, which appear to outline a payout for former Vice President Joe Biden as part of a deal with a Chinese energy firm.

[Amezarak]

I am curious about the very high bar for evidence people have for this story. It definitely appears to be higher than the bar set for the other side, which is regularly based on anonymous sources and secondhand hearsay.

There are plenty of photographs of Hunter Biden from the drive, which were obviously not in wide circulation, of him doing drugs and apparently other illegal activity. This would seem to be evidence supporting the idea that the drive did belong to him. So now we have to believe that false information has been mixed with true information.

But on the other hand, we do actually know that Hunter Biden was receiving 50k/month from Burisma, and he had no qualifications and a very questionable past. Nobody disputes this. Nobody needs this harddrive story to know there was corruption going on, based on this information alone. Ukranian energy companies are not searching the streets for random American crackheads to hire for exorbitant sums. He was hired because of his connections. The only question is the exact nature of how it went down, and if it matters to you.

The only information it adds is that Joe Biden allegedly makes Hunter Biden give him half his income and some alleged details of some meeting - not anything particularly salacious. It definitely appears political for Facebook and Twitter to shut down this story - there are a lot of weaker stories that get a pass every day.