Quote (thesnipa @ Jul 26 2023 10:06am)
No doubt in my mind there's meat on the bone to this story, but the devil's in the details. to separate the two we have 1.) Joe's personal involvement in Hunter's dealings and how those may be reflected in actual executive branch action while Joe was VP & 2.) Joe's alleged coverup of Hunter misdeeds
it's convenient to say #2 was a direct result of #1 so Joe could cover himself, possible but not yet clear. Politicians across the nation abuse the justice system with their power to cover up misdeeds of their family, we're just watching it on the grandest of scales. If a mayor greases the palm of the DA to enter a lesser charge for their kid who got caught with a trunk full of weed it goes unnoticed, this is that but with the FBI and a speech to the american public abroad, OR it's an actual large scale cover up to protect Joe personally. i'm not opposed to that, just not entirely convinced. motive, sure. ability, sure. proof? circumstantial.
as to #1 i keep coming back to a basic inconsistency. Hunter is simultaneously a deranged crackhead who leaves his international crime laptop at a random repair shop AND a reliable source for how involved Joe is personally. these don't logically line up. now is it possible Joe/Hunter acted illogically? sure. but does Occam's razor suggest that Hunter likes to wave around his dad's name and that explains why Joe's name is so common in these stories? logically, yes. The chinese deal specifically rings to me of Hunter digging up cash because he blows through it at alarming rates. Hunter makes phony deal "on behalf of joe", that's his ace up his sleeve. so of course anyone involved thinks a % is going to Joe, they're buying access to Joe, whether or not Hunter can actually provide that.
and there's still the issue of plausible deniability AND afaik lack of Joe/Hunter correspondence on the laptop itself. logically Hunter would do all the talking here, Joe can not in any way be seen or heard as involved. maybe some name waving, but not physically there. BUT joe and hunter still need to arrange things, presumably there'd be proof of that on the laptop itself. but maybe it was all 100% in person, that's the smarter way afterall, in which case Joe has even more plausible deniability.
We definitely can't take Hunter at face value, which is why Devon Archer and Bobulinski are so damning, and why the CHS should have been a focal point in any FBI/IRS investigation.
I think it goes down to one of three things. 1) Joe was aware of Hunter's actions and tolerated it, but never intervened directly and we find some hitherto magic missing explanation for money flowing into multiple Biden accounts. 2) Joe was complicit and engaged in small scale influence peddling, consistent with Hunter seemingly finding endless supplies of foreign money abroad. 3) The Shokin story is real and Biden is the most shamelessly corrupt president in a hundred years.
I'm leaning towards #2, but we'll see what comes of this. It's been slow going with every major news source ignoring it religiously, but there's starting to be some slow traction.