DoJ: Hunter's Laptop Is Real, Spectacular, and So Was the Cocaine on His Holster

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Say, remember when Joe Biden and fifty-one former intelligence officers declared the Hunter Biden laptop “Russian disinformation”? National media outlets and social-media platforms combined to bury the story ahead of the national election, barring the New York Post from Twitter for reporting on it. All the while, the Department of Justice remained silent for nearly two years.

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It turns out that federal investigators knew all along that Biden and Democrats lied through their collective teeth. In new court filings yesterday rebutting Hunter’s attempts to get his federal charges dismissed, the DoJ revealed that the laptop matched the data they had already subpoenaed through Apple:

Pay very close attention to the dates in this excerpt. We have already heard that the FBI had some of the data that emerged in late October 2020 when the NY Post revealed the contents of Hunter’s laptop. They also got the laptop itself later and found it was “largely duplicative” of their own evidence. The “duplicative” material was getting published in real time by the Post. And yet the DoJ remained silent on all of this while Biden and intel officials claimed it was nothing more than a Russian intelligence plant routed through the Donald Trump campaign.

You know what’s not in this court filing? Any mention of Russian intelligence, or intelligence in general. The only reference to Russia comes in a reference to Hunter’s own memoir and his recollection of buying drugs as part of Hunter’s self-incrimination. “Walking into a park in a high-crime neighborhood to buy crack at 4 a.m. was no different than playing Russian roulette with two shells in the chamber. In some places, it was like playing with five shells—and still, I was willing to spin the chamber again and again.” That’s the only appearance Russia makes … and it came from Hunter.

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But that’s not all. Hunter and his attorneys want the federal gun charges thrown out over supposed constitutional issues regarding self-incrimination. Hunter’s statements aren’t the only evidence that he used drugs while possessing firearms, the DoJ revealed in the same court filing:

E. Cocaine Was Found on the Defendant’s Brown Leather Gun Pouch

In 2023, FBI investigators pulled sealed evidence from the state police vault to take photographs of the defendant’s firearm. After opening the evidence, FBI investigators observed a white powdery substance on the defendant’s brown leather pouch that had held the defendant’s firearm in October 2018. Based on their training and experience, investigators believed that this substance was likely cocaine and that this evidence would corroborate the messages that investigators had obtained which showed the defendant buying and using drugs in October 2018. An FBI chemist subsequently analyzed the residue and determined that it was cocaine. To be clear, investigators literally found drugs on the pouch where the defendant had kept his gun.

That passage caught the attention of the Associated Press, too. So did the DoJ’s dismissal of claims that the prosecution of Hunter Biden has anything to do with Donald Trump. The DoJ makes that case emphatically up front:

The defendant must prove by clear evidence both “discriminatory effect” and “discriminatory purpose” to support his selective prosecution claim. United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, 464 (1996). The defendant fails to prove discriminatory effect because he did not identify a similarly situated person who has not been prosecuted for the same crimes with which he is charged in the indictment. See Section II.B. Further, he did not establish discriminatory purpose because none of the politicians he reads on “Truth Social” approved the indictment, and tweets by political opponents of the President did not cause current Executive Branch officials to seek an indictment against the President’s son. See Section II.C. Such claims are implausible. …

The charges in this case are not trumped up or because of former President Trump—they are instead a result of the defendant’s own choices and were brought in spite of, not because of, any outside noise made by politicians. See Section II.C. The defendant cannot prevail on his selective prosecution claim because he does not identify any individual who chose to make similar choices as him who was not prosecuted, and he cannot establish any link between statements of politicians and a discriminatory purpose by current DOJ officials.

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The DoJ scoffs out loud at another claim by Hunter and his legal team that the prosecution is “vindictive.” How exactly would that work in an administration run by Hunter’s dad? The filing heaps scorn on that argument:

Second, the defendant’s vindictive prosecution claim argues that prosecutors acted with actual animus or were “prevailed upon to bring the charges by another with animus.” ECF 63 at 48. This claim borders on the absurd and his argument can be summed up as follows: David C. Weiss, an experienced prosecutor who served as U.S. Attorney during the Obama-Biden Administration,1 was nominated by President Trump to remain U.S. Attorney in 2018 because he was his “stalking horse,” as alleged in the Koh case relied on by the defendant, and could be forced to bring charges at the behest of President Trump. ECF 63 at 47. Even though the defendant had not yet committed his gun crimes, somehow President Trump predicted that the defendant would, believed that Mr. Weiss was the best candidate to be his “stalking horse,” and also foresaw that he would lose the election but could force Mr. Weiss to file unlawful charges later. Ignoring what the defendant refers to as telltale signs of vindictiveness during the investigation, see ECF 63 at 52, President Biden asked Mr. Weiss to stay on as his U.S. Attorney, according to the defendant. Further ignoring the supposedly obvious vindictiveness, the Attorney General then appointed Mr. Weiss to serve as Special Counsel. All the while, according to the defendant, Mr. Weiss, was ready to “capitulat[e]” whenever former President Trump or politicians tweeted or posted on a website called “Truth Social.” ECF 63 at 50. Next, according to the defendant, Mr. Weiss convinced the Executive Branch to authorize him and his rogue prosecutors to vindictively charge the son of the sitting President of the United States.

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That’s some next-level craziness … or more likely, outright desperation.

Most of this has already been hashed out in previous revelations, but the DoJ’s court filings appear to be the first official rebuke of the Biden-apologist narratives. What we still don’t know is why the DoJ chose to remain silent while intelligence officers misled the public, and why it took almost two years before they even hinted that the laptop was both genuine and the key to an actual criminal probe.

This should also lead to a demand for accountability from the media that rushed to suppress a legitimate news story, and to silence anyone who dared to discuss it. Will we see any such accountability? Absolutely not, which is why people consider modern “journalism” as reliable as street-corner used-car sales pitches these days.

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John Stossel 8:30 AM | December 22, 2024
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