Excitement about Joe and Hunter Biden: Real scandal or a lot of hot air?

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Joe Biden (r.) And his son Hunter (archive from 2016)

Photo: Teresa Kroeger

"Devastating revelations", "a bad case of corruption", "the real scandal" - US President Donald Trump and his most loyal supporters like Fox News presenter Lou Dobbs or commentator Dan Bongino have been in a state of excitement for days.

The occasion includes reports from the newspaper "New York Post" about confidential e-mails that allegedly came from a laptop owned by Joe Biden's son Hunter.

According to the reading, they should show that not only Biden's son, but the presidential candidate himself should be involved in cases of corruption.

The alleged revelations are naturally causing political explosions shortly before the election.

The Democrats speak of a typical "smear campaign" of the Trump camp.

Trump supporters, on the other hand, complain that a lot of the more liberal media would not report on the matter at all or not in enough detail because they wanted to protect Biden, in other words, were biased.

At the same time, there are suspicions that the alleged scandal is a Russian disinformation campaign to harm Joe Biden and secure the re-election of Donald Trump.

Joe Biden himself has sharply denied all allegations.

And to make the mess perfect, the FBI and Trump's confidante Rudolph "Rudy" Giuliani also play a role in the matter.

What is it actually about?

To understand the complicated story, one has to go to its starting point.

For almost two years, Donald Trump and his confidante Giuliani have been trying to prove corruption in connection with the Ukrainian company Burisma among the Bidens.

It is clear that Trump and Giuliani's goal is to eliminate their political rival in order to increase Trump's election chances.

Biden's son Hunter was a temporary advisor to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma when Joe Biden was Vice President of the US government's Ukraine policy.

Joe Biden has always stated that he never spoke to his son about his business.

So far, all investigations in the USA and Ukraine have also found no misconduct by the Bidens.

A few days ago, e-mails appeared that allegedly came from a laptop owned by Biden's son Hunter.

The New York Post, a paper in the possession of Trump supporter Rupert Murdoch, suggests that father Joe Biden is said to have met with a Burisma advisor.

The paper quotes from an email that the consultant named Vadym Pozharskyi is said to have sent to Hunter Biden.

In it, he thanks Hunter for the opportunity to meet his father and spend some time together.

Both Joe Biden and his son Hunter have denied that such a meeting ever took place.

According to the New York Times, there were doubts about the story even within the editorial staff of the New York Post.

Bruce Golding, author of the story of the "New York Post", was not ready to publish his name under the article.

In addition to him, numerous other members of the workforce had complained about the failure to verify the facts of the story, the newspaper said, citing two sources.

What's up with the laptop?

Where did the alleged email come from and what kind of thing is it with Hunter Biden's laptop?

Is it real and / or has the content been manipulated to harm the Bidens?

At the Biden family home in Wilmington, Delaware, there is a computer store whose owner John Paul Mac Isaac stated that Hunter Biden had given him a laptop and an external hard drive for repair in the spring of 2019.

Isaac told US media that he was blind.

He could therefore not say with one hundred percent certainty whether the man who delivered the material was Hunter Biden.

There are also no video recordings of the camera system in its shop from the moment of handover.

For this, Isaac presented an order form, which is said to have been signed by Hunter Biden.

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The Wilmington computer store where Hunter Biden's alleged laptop was dropped off.

Photo: ANGELA WEISS / AFP

Isaac went on to explain that the man never picked up the laptop and hard drive.

He then examined the material himself.

Isaac told the New York Times that it was "alarming" and "embarrassing".

He then contacted the FBI and made a copy of the material.

The FBI confiscated the hardware a short time later.

This has since been confirmed by the FBI.

However, the agency did not provide any information about why they collected the material.

It is also unclear what investigations the investigators made afterwards.

The computer shop owner, who says of himself that he voted for Donald Trump in 2016, soon wondered what would become of the laptop and its contents in the care of the FBI.

Isaac told the Times that he was concerned that the matter might be covered up by the authorities.

From then on, Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post apparently came into play.

In September, Isaac reportedly passed copies of the data to a Giuliani lawyer.

From there it went to the New York Post, although another Trump supporter, Steve Bannon, is said to have played a role in this transaction.

The New York Post has since published not only e-mails and chat messages that allegedly came from the laptop, but also private pictures of Hunter Biden.

The thing with China

A second strand of the story, which has grown in importance in the past few days, revolves around alleged business contacts between the Bidens and China.

Shortly before the last TV debate between Trump and Joe Biden last Thursday, the Trump team presented a former business partner of Hunter Biden named Anthony Bobulinski.

He claimed that in 2017, after his time as Vice President, father Joe Biden was involved by his son Hunter in an attempt to do business with a Chinese energy company together with several partners.

It is said to have been about investments by the company CEFC China Energy Co. in the USA and elsewhere.

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Anthony Bobulinski was Hunter Biden's business partner.

Photo: TOM BRENNER / REUTERS

Bobulinski says he attended a meeting with Joe, Hunter Biden, and Joe Biden's brother James Biden in Los Angeles to discuss the Biden's family business with the Chinese.

Other business partners should also participate in the planned company.

Bobulinski presented an email allegedly listing how the shares in the new company should be split between the partners.

"10 is H held to be the great man?"

is one formulation.

That should mean that Hunter Biden would take over ten percent of the shares on behalf of his father Joe, so Bobulinski.

Bobulinski claims to have received the email from another partner, James Gilliar.

Gilliar, however, kept his distance from Bobulinski: He told the "Wall Street Journal" that Joe Biden was never involved in the discussion about the planned structure of the business.

Overall, he knows nothing about Joe Biden being involved in the business at any point.

Joe Biden's campaign team made a similar statement.

The democratic candidate has no relationship whatsoever with the planned company and it was never planned that he would benefit from it.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the proposed company has never received any funds from China and no business deals have been made.

In addition, there is no evidence in the business documents of Biden's participation in the company.

Meanwhile, Bobulinski sticks to his portrayal.

By the end of the week, he wanted to forward all documents and emails to the Senate Republicans who are currently investigating Hunter Biden's business.

The thing with Russia

Ever since the first allegations against the Bidens were made in the New York Post, the question has been whether there might be a foreign power behind the whole thing.

Russia, for example.

Did Russian agents get the whole story rolling with tricks to harm Joe Biden just before the election?

Is that how you want to help Donald Trump win?

Leading US media have been reporting for a while on warnings from the US secret services that Russia would try to influence the election, for example by spreading falsified information about the Biden family.

The Russians could also use the Trump confidante Rudolph Giuliani for this, according to the secret services.

There are also said to have been hacker attacks by the Russian side in order to find incriminating material, the notorious "Kompromat", against the Bidens.

Both the FBI and Trump's secret service director, John Ratcliffe, have since made it clear that so far there has been no evidence that the laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

No Russian disinformation was found on the laptop either.

Otherwise they did not want to make further details public about the events.

What follows from all of this?

US President Donald Trump and his supporters are running out of time.

Trump is behind in the polls, the fuss over the alleged Hunter Biden laptop and the China Mail are politically a welcome opportunity for them to attack Joe Biden.

The hope is that they will convince quite a few voters not to give their vote to the vice-president.

It is ultimately the repeat of the script from 2016. At that time, Trump and his followers painted Hillary Clinton as a corrupt politician, Trump should appear as a courageous clean man who drains "the swamp in Washington".

As then, for Trump and Co., the actual truthfulness of the allegations is of secondary importance.

For her, it's all about throwing enough dirt on Biden in the last few meters so that as much of it as possible sticks.

They know only too well: Until the election, all the details of the matter cannot be finally clarified anyway, so they can confidently handle suspicions in all directions.

In the end, nothing remained of the alleged Hillary Clinton email affair, which Trump and his followers declared a state affair in 2016.

Nonetheless, the fuss about it probably cost Clinton the presumed election victory.

That can work again.

But there are some indications that this time around, things might not be that easy for Trump and his strategists.

Trump's attempts to persuade the FBI or his own Attorney General William Barr to announce the initiation of an investigation against the Bidens with great pomp have so far been unsuccessful.

So far, it has also been relatively easy for the Democrats to counter the matter politically.

You just keep referring to the various inscrutable businesses of the Trump clan.

At the beginning of the week, the New York Times reported on a previously unknown business account for the Trumps in China.

Either way, the most important issues that concern most Americans are Trump's corona policy and his overall administration over the past four years.

Above all else, you will determine the choice.

Icon: The mirror