Consider the Source
The New York Post is a venerable old newspaper. The paper was founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton. It lays claim to the title of, “the oldest continually published daily paper in the United States”. It started as Hamilton’s personal vehicle for furthering his political ideology. After Hamilton’s untimely death, the paper continued to have strong political overtones, including the support of abolitionism, opposition to central banking (despite it’s Founder) and strong support of labor unions.
Through the mid-twentieth century the New York Post was dedicated to liberal causes. But in the 1970’s the NYP ran into hard financial times, like most afternoon papers in the United States. Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch of Fox News fame took over the paper. Murdoch sensationalized it, increasing the circulation but definitely damaging it’s credibility. It was in this era that the NYP led with the famous headline:
“HEADLESS BODY FOUND IN TOPLESS BAR”.
More Headlines
But perhaps the NYP’s best covers were reserved to “sexting” addicted Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner. As Weiner continued to fall to the lure of young women and his cell phone camera, the New York Post headline writers went to work. “WEINER EXPOSED”, “POP GOES THE WEASEL” and “NAKED TRUTH” were some of the best. And when Weiner was running for Mayor of New York and caught once again, this time resulting in jail time: “WEINER’S SECOND COMING” and “WEINER ROAST” (NYP).
Today the New York Post is still owned by News Corps, a Rupert Murdoch company, and has a strong conservative “bent”. It has been the vehicle to attack Democratic/Liberal ideas and candidates. Hillary Clinton still is a particularly important target for the NYP, even now four years after her Presidential run.
So it should be no surprise that the NYP is the only “mainstream” news outlet carrying stories about Joe Biden, his son Hunter.
Hunter
The NYP has “discovered” a “whistleblower,” that found hidden Hunter Biden emails. If that doesn’t harken back to Clinton, nothing else will. The “whistleblower” is a blind computer repairman in Wilmington, Delaware. He is 99% sure that Hunter Biden dropped off a Macbook Pro computer for repair, and never returned for it. (The definition of a “whistleblower” is someone inside an organization who speaks out about something that organization is doing wrong. Since the repairman is not in any “organization” involving Hunter or Joe Biden, he doesn’t qualify as a “whistleblower”. But the “whistleblower” title has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?)
Those emails include ones that “show” that Hunter Biden arranged for his father, then the Vice President, to meet with Ukrainians on the Board of the company, Burisma. If the emails were true, then this is the “smoking gun” of the Vice President using his office to further the career of his wayward son.
Further emails show Hunter Biden’s involvement in lucrative purchases of Chinese energy companies.
According to the computer repairman, the emails are already in the possession of the FBI. Since he heard nothing about an investigation, he grew frustrated. So he gave them to the Johnson Senate Committee and Trump’s private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who then gave the emails to the New York Post.
Provenance
Trump supporters are outraged that other mainstream media outlets refused to “cover” these discoveries. In fact, social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook have “taken down” stories relating to the New York Post’s articles, creating a whole new round of stories. So what’s the problem?
First: the computer repairman refuses to grant access to the hard drive, or even originals of the emails including the “meta-data” showing details of their transmission. There is no way to verify any of the so-called emails really existed, or belonged to Hunter Biden.
Second: one of the driving forces behind the publication of these emails, Rudy Giuliani, has been discredited. Giuliani was a major player in the causes of Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. US Intelligence has identified Giuliani’s main information source, Ukrainian Andrii Derkach, as an asset of Russian Intelligence. Derkach is under sanction by President Trump’s own Treasury Department. And the “discovered” emails align perfectly with the Russian disinformation campaign to disrupt the 2020 US elections.
Third: the other person who brought the emails to the NYP is former White House advisor and Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon. Bannon was the first to alert the newspaper to the emails “existence”, and then Giuliani provided the emails without confirming documentation.
October Surprise
The Trump campaign is desperate for an “October Surprise”. In 2016, the course of the election was turned “on its head” by FBI Director James Comey. He first announced that he was re-opening the Hillary Clinton email investigation, and then, at the last moment, announced that nothing new was found. These actions stopped Clinton momentum in the polls. Prior to the FBI announcement Clinton had a huge lead in the polls, much like Biden over Trump today. After the FBI actions, Trump rapidly closed the polling gap to within the margin of error.
There’s no “surprise” in 2020 yet, but it’s not for want of trying. Attorney General Bill Barr has failed to deliver on two different attacks on the Democrats. First was the analysis of the original Russian election interference investigation, “Crossfire Hurricane”. Led by Connecticut US Attorney John Dunham, Trump hoped the Dunham could reveal illegalities that would show FBI bias against Trump in time for the 2020 vote. But Dunham has made it clear that there will be nothing coming from his work before November.
And Barr ordered another investigation, this time by Texas US Attorney John Bash. This was to determine whether the “unmasking” of US citizens in Obama Administration intelligence reports was legal. Trump hoped it would show an Obama “plot” against his campaign. But Bash returned his conclusions, finding that there was no “irregularities” in the actions by Obama Administration officials (NYT).
Not Surprising
So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that after Barr’s failures, Giuliani and Bannon would step in with a “Hail Mary” play against Hunter Biden. Trump is currently running more than twelve percent down in national polls, and behind in almost every critical electoral state. He’s got to change the momentum, and if his minions have to use Russian dis-information to do it – so be it.
