Foreign Operatives and Rudy Try to Bail out Trump Again

Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

Right on time we seem to have our first Giuliani-linked foreign intelligence drops into the 2020 campaign. The New York Post ran a story today purporting to suggest Hunter Biden had introduced a Burisma colleague to his father in 2015. They appear to all be from the Ukrainian colleague thanking Biden for purportedly making the introduction.

I should note that the purported blockbuster only really amounts to anything of consequence inside the maze of Ukraine conspiracy theories but I want to focus on the alleged chain of custody. We’re told that an unidentified computer story owner had someone bring in three computers for data recovery. He/she thinks but can’t confirm that that person was Hunter Biden. They seem to base this on a Beau Biden Foundation sticker on one of the laptops. The unidentified computer store owner says the hard drives were subpoenaed by the FBI. But before turning over the drives he made his own copies of their contents and then gave a copy to Rudy Giuliani.

According to the Post, Giuliani gave the Post a copy after being alerted to their existence by Steve Bannon.

As I noted above this is obviously yet another foreign intelligence operation in which Giuliani has involved himself. The only question is whether it is of the 2016 variety – a caper originated by a foreign state like Russia or whether it’s someone from one of the Gulf Emirates doing the work at Trump and Giuliani’s bidding. Note here disinformation researcher Thomas Rid lists out the numerous red flags about the story, how it surfaced and how the purported emails appear cleansed of any of the technical data that would make it possible to confirm their authenticity. Either way, another riddle to unravel after there’s again a functioning Department of Justice.

Latest Editors' Blog
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Associate Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: