WH Dodges Question on POTUS' Son as NYT 'Authenticates' Hunter Biden's Emails From Delaware Laptop

In 2020, the New York Post published a story alleging that Joe Biden was engaged in his son's business dealings overseas during his tenure as US vice president. The newspaper cited information it obtained from a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden that he ostensibly left at a repair shop in Delaware in 2019.

Almost a year and a half after the original article in the New York Post (NYP), The New York Times (NYT) has "authenticated" the existence of Hunter Biden's laptop, which was earlier described by the newspaper as "Russian disinformation".

In 2020, the NYP alleged that the laptop contained several emails, which questioned claims by Joe Biden that he never used his former position as vice president to help his son in the latter's foreign business dealings. Then-US President Donald Trump was quick to dub the device "the laptop from hell".

In Wednesday's report about the ongoing federal probe into Hunter Biden's unpaid tax bills, the NYT said that when looking into the younger Biden's business dealings certain emails were examined by prosecutors.

The New York Times then noted that those emails were obtained by them from "a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr Biden in a Delaware repair shop". The newspaper underscored that "the email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation". The admission comes in stark contrast to what the NYT had earlier said, claiming the New York Post story on the laptop was unsubstantiated.

Psaki Evades Questions About NYT Report

While Hunter Biden has not commented on the matter yet, White House press secretary Jen Psaki dodged questions about the new developments in the "laptop from hell" saga.

When asked at a White House press briefing about the NYT's authentication of the information a year and half after the original report by the NYP, Psaki said: "I would point you to the Department of Justice and also to Hunter Biden's representatives – he doesn't work in the government".

In 2020, she referred to the story as "Russian disinformation", with Hunter Biden blasting the report on the laptop at the time as a "bunch of garbage" and "a Russian plant".

The New York Post, for its part, has since taken a swipe at The New York Times, noting that the newspaper "finally admits Hunter's laptop is real". The NYP claimed that "unlike the Times, the Post didn't rely on anonymous sources, saying openly that [former Trump lawyer] Rudy Giuliani gave the paper a copy of the laptop's hard drive".

The NYT had repeatedly cast doubt on the laptop report, claiming that the information was "purported" and quoting former Democratic officials as arguing that it was "Russian disinformation". In September 2021, the newspaper described the laptop story as "unsubstantiated".

Hunter Biden Laptop Scandal

In October 2020, the New York Post published an article about two alleged emails that Hunter Biden purportedly received from a top official at the Ukrainian company Burisma while he was on the board of the firm.

In a May 2014 email, Burisma board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi purportedly asked Joe Biden's son to "use [his] influence" to politically support the Ukrainian company, while in another email, dated April 2015, Pozharskyi thanked the younger Biden for arranging a meeting with his father, then-US Vice President Joe Biden.

The alleged emails were reportedly sourced from the hard drive of a damaged laptop, said to belong to Hunter Biden that was dropped off for repairs at a shop in his home state of Delaware.

POTUS, for his part, has repeatedly insisted that he never had anything to do with his son's business dealings, slamming the allegations against Hunter Biden as "smears from [former US President] Donald Trump's henchmen".

The first son recently said that the laptop could have "absolutely" belonged to him, but added that he had never taken it to an IT store and claimed the device was perhaps stolen or hacked by Russian intelligence.

Twitter's 'Total Mistake' on Banning NYP's Biden Laptop Report-R elated Posts

Last year, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that the platform made a "total mistake" by prohibiting users from posting the NYP report about Hunter Biden's laptop.

At the time, Twitter, also suspended the newspaper's account for two weeks, citing allegations that the information was obtained by "hacking" the laptop. The platform also demanded the NYP delete a number of posts with related stories, something that was described by Dorsey as a "process error".

"This was not against them in any particular way. If we remove a violation we require people to correct it. We changed that based on their to wanting to delete that tweet, which I completely agree with. I see it. But it is something we learn", he said.

The Twitter CEO added that the social network does not have a "censoring department" to restrict certain contain, but declined to elaborate on how the "mistake" pertaining to the New York Post happened.

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