Yesterday a flash drive containing documents related to Hunter Biden, documents which had been shipped to Tucker Carlson, were found by UPS after being missing for about 24 hours. When the documents first disappeared, Carlson talked about it on his show and said it was very strange that his package had been found empty and UPS seemed unable to say why. But as I wrote yesterday, the reappearance of the documents didn’t answer all of the questions about what happened:

UPS didn’t explain how or where the contents were found or give any hint about what happened in the first place. Was the package accidentally ripped open by a machine? By a person? Where did they turn up? Maybe we’ll get more detail on Carlson’s show tonight.

It turns out Carlson did talk about the re-discovery of the documents last night, though UPS never gave a clear explanation of what happened. They wouldn’t let Carlson look at the empty package, saying it had been thrown away. They apparently wouldn’t say whether the problem in this case was a machine error or something done by a worker at the facility. In fact, UPS sent a statement to Carlson’s show stating, “There are no more details. Security is returning it. Apologies that we were unable to deliver it next day…”

All UPS would say is that the missing flash drive was picked up by a worker, possibly off the floor, and placed on a supervisor’s desk where it sat until someone noticed it yesterday. There are no cameras in the warehouse so there’s no way to verify any part of that story. It doesn’t seem to jibe well with the story they apparently told Carlson when the drive disappeared, i.e. that they had scoured the facility for any sign of it. Did no one bother to look on the supervisor’s desk?

As for the documents themselves, Carlson said they were real but that his staff was still assessing them. But what he said next was interesting. Carlson said his show has received a lot of documents about Hunter Biden recently, but that he won’t be sharing anything which doesn’t seem relevant to Joe Biden’s campaign.

“There are a lot of documents about Hunter Biden’s personal life that we haven’t brought to you and we’re not going to and we should tell you why,” Carlson said. He continued, “One is the obvious answer. He’s not running for president. And so, to the extent those documents pertain to his dad, of course.

“But Hunter Biden is a fallen man at this point. And I should also say that I knew Hunter Biden fairly well. We lived near each other in Washington for quite some time. I knew his wife, who was an absolutely outstanding person, a good person. I never thought Hunter Biden was a bad person. I thought he had demons but in the time I knew him he kept them mostly under control. At some point he lost control of those demons and the world knows that now. He’s now humiliated and alone.

“It’s probably too strong to say we feel sorry for Hunter Biden but the point is pounding on a man, jumping on, piling on when he’s already down is something that we don’t want to be involved in.”

I found that interesting for a number of reasons all of which intersect and are a bit hard to untangle. First, drawing a line between information which involves Joe Biden and that which merely further humiliates Hunter Biden is not a line that everyone is willing to draw. I’ve seen plenty of people sharing the photo of Hunter with drug paraphernalia on Twitter somewhat gleefully. And I’ve seen a lot of people on the left react to it with disgust.

Yes, I absolutely know many on the left would do the same if a photo of one of Trump’s children existed. And I don’t know if Carlson has shown that photo on his show but in principle I think it’s a good idea to try to separate the purely personal failings of Hunter Biden from stuff that might be relevant to Joe Biden.

At the same time, Carlson is a smart guy and has done this kind of thing before where he maybe goes a little too far with something and then backs away in a way that doesn’t seem completely honest. So I think different people will look at this and assume different motivations for it.

It’s hard to imagine the amount of pressure someone in his position is under at this moment, i.e. they guy with the biggest right-leaning political talk show in the country who decides what will go on the air this close to an election. I’m sure it’s intense and I’m sure there are people pushing a take-no-prisoners approach. That’s why his willingness to draw a line on this seems significant. It’s the right thing to say and he deserves credit for saying it.