The Plebe War Is Not Going To Plan

Something's up.

A comprehensive report about the ongoing federal probe into Hunter Biden’s tax filings published by the New York Times on Wednesday night confirmed the existence of the first son’s infamous laptop.

The puzzling thing is although the New York Post broke the story in October 2020, and other outlets have since acknowledged the laptop is authentic, that the New York Times would belatedly report it is clearly big news. But nothing has changed about the story at all, except that the Times now says it's a story. Trump's reaction is understandable:

Former President Trump said the New York Times has admitted being a part of an effort to 'rig' the election for Joe Biden with their report confirming the authenticity of Hunter Biden's laptop and its contents.

Trump said in a statement on Friday, 500 days after the November 2, 2020, general election: 'The New York Times just admitted that it participated in an effort to rig the election for Joe Biden.'

When files from the laptop were published before the 2020 presidential election, the newspaper cast doubt on its provenance, linked it to Russian disinformation, and made no public attempt to obtain and verify it.

I've been mildly interested in Trump's more recent statements about the 2020 election, as well as the evolution of January 6 coverage. The bottom line is that you don't necessarily need to believe there was specific election fraud, or at least election fraud sufficient to change the outcome, to think something was hinky about it, not least that it put quite possibly the worst president in US history into office. If you take the meaning of "rig" to imply a general effort to deceive the public on key issues, rather than a simple exercise in stuffing ballot boxes, I don't think you can claim Trump is delusional.

But why the Times's about-face? After all, it's never disavowed the Pulitzer it received for its reporting on the Ukraine famine of the 1930s. Why not just let it lie? Maybe it's this:

The attorney for Lunden Alexis Roberts - the mother of one of Hunter Biden's five children - revealed he turned over to federal investigators a 'significant amount' of Hunter's financial records and said he would be 'surprised' if he was not indicted.

Clint Lancaster, who represents Roberts, said that he was complying with a subpoena in turning over 'a significant amount of Hunter's financial records,' and that both he and Roberts were interviewed by investigators.

The pretext for the Times story was reporting that Hunter had paid a million dollars in back taxes (wait a moment - isn't Hunter broke?), but it sounds like that alone won't make his problems go away. There's an investigation involving his "financial records". That can't help but involve the Big Guy.

I think someone, maybe not even at the Times itself, but someone who tells the Times what to print, decided it was time to get ahead of the story, which sounds like it might be big, and it would only be big if the Big Guy were involved. This story raises a related question about yesterday's Psaki press conference and questions from New York Post reporter Steve Nelson

Nelson asked three questions. First, if Biden was staying out of the DOJ investigation of his son. Psaki claimed he was. Then Nelson raised the Senate report about Hunter Biden’s company, Rosemont Seneca Thornton, allegedly receiving $3.5 million from Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, one of the richest women in Russia whose late husband used to be the mayor of Moscow. Nelson also raised a point that is not as well known — the report that Joe Biden himself had a subsequent meeting with the same woman for dinner in 2015 in Georgetown.

“This Yelena Baturina, she has not been sanctioned yet by the U.S. government. How is President Biden navigating conflicts of interest when it comes to sanctioning people who have done business with this family and can you explain to us what this $3.5 million was for?” Nelson asked.

“I don’t have any confirmation of the accuracy of that report, so I have no more further details,” Psaki declared.

How could you not know about the accuracy of the report? Either Joe Biden met with her or he did not. What did he meet with her for? That’s not a Hunter question; that’s a Joe Biden question. But Psaki refused to answer and be transparent.

The 2020 election was an opening campaign in the Plebe War, and other developments, like Putin's invasion of Ukraine, have resulted from it. Keep in mind that treason and bribery are among the high crimes and misdemeanors that can lead to impeachment. I think Ukraine news is going to fade pretty quickly, not leat because that's also not going to plan.