Joe Biden’s presidential campaign is preemptively dismissing any debate attacks from President Trump relating to reports of the contents of a laptop purportedly belonging to the former vice president’s son as “Russian misinformation” — despite top intelligence officials’ insistence that there is no evidence of Russian interference.
“If we see tonight from Donald Trump these attacks on Vice President Biden’s family, I think we need to be very, very clear that what he’s doing here is amplifying Russian misinformation,” said deputy Biden campaign manager Kate Bedingfield, according to Wall Street Journal reporter Ken Thomas.
Last week, the New York Post reported on a trove of emails that it said came from a hard drive from a laptop that allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden, was left at a computer repair shop, and then was eventually given to the FBI and Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
Joe Biden, his campaign, and his son Hunter have not denied the authenticity of the emails.
One email included in the trove, sent to the younger Biden on May 13, 2017, after his father had left office, contained details of “remuneration packages” for a deal with a Chinese energy company, including “10 held by H for the big guy” — which many interpreted as referring to shares held by Hunter Biden for his father, Joe.
Fox News reported that one of the people copied in the email, Tony Bobulinski, said that the email is genuine.
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said earlier this week that there is “no intelligence to support” the claim that the emails are part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
A senior intelligence official who spoke with the Washington Examiner earlier this week agreed, citing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat. “The IC and DOJ are in lock-step on this: there is absolutely zero evidence or intel that the laptop or the information contained therein is a Russian op. Schiff and the former officials making unfounded statements or signing their names to open letters are proving themselves to be the gang who couldn’t shoot straight.”
Giuliani also claimed that the laptop contained child pornography, and the Washington Examiner reported that his allegation had been forwarded to the FBI.
In the first presidential debate, before the revelation of the laptop, Trump attacked the Democratic presidential nominee’s son.
“I know Hunter. Hunter got thrown out of the military. He was thrown out, dishonorably discharged for cocaine use,” Trump said. “He didn’t have a job until you became vice president. Once you became vice president, he made a fortune in Ukraine, in China, in Moscow, and various other places.”
Joe Biden responded by defending his son: “My son, like a lot of people, like a lot of people you know, I had a drug problem. He’s overtaken it. He’s fixed it. He’s worked on it. And I’m proud of him.” He denied that the younger Biden was “given tens of millions of dollars.”
Earlier this week, Joe Biden refuted allegations that his family had profited off his last name.
“This is the same garbage — Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s henchmen,” Biden said. “It’s a last-ditch effort in this desperate campaign to smear me and my family.”
Hunter Biden, though, said in an ABC interview last year that he probably would not have gotten many of his board positions without his last name.
“I don’t think that there’s a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn’t Biden,” he said.
