Senate Republicans release report on Hunter Biden and Ukraine
Former VP's son emerges as an issue in the 2020 campaign, Mike Emanuel reports
As bombshell revelations concerning Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, begin to unravel from an abandoned hard drive, red flags are being raised over what – if anything – federal investigators did with the findings.
Robert Costello, a lawyer for President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, told Fox News on Wednesday he has obtained a hard drive containing some 40,000 emails, thousands of text messages, and photographs and videos of the younger Biden in "very compromising positions." But, he also emphasized that a Delaware computer repair shop owner handed over the documents and images to the FBI last December after he learned of the concerning contents on a damaged Apple MacBook Pro – and it remained unclear what further investigation the bureau performed, if any.
"How come [the existence of the laptop] didn't pop up during the impeachment trial? There is material on here that's exculpatory to President Trump. They should have turned that stuff over," Costello told Fox News, referring to the lengthy impeachment trial launched against the U.S. President this year. "Who knows whether they ever even looked at it? I don't know what they did. Why did the FBI sit on this? They have had it for eleven months."
The FBI did not respond to Fox News' request for comment.
Costello, who said he possessed the hard drive around early September and at some point over the last month issued a copy to Giuliani, also insisted he and the former New York City mayor were endeavoring to ensure that the contents of concern would be given due diligence by the mainstream media.
"They'll try to ignore this, which is unbelievable, but they will just like they ignored the written notes from Brennan the director of the CIA, astonishing stuff," Costello claimed. He also said the hard-drive information was not included in the recent conflicts-of-interest Senate report authored by Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, simply because they "didn't have it."
Costello stressed he and Giuliani were in the process of sifting through the hefty load.
"It takes a lot of time to go through this stuff, and my bloodshot eyes can attest to the fact that I've been reading this diligently to the early hours of the morning," Costello continued. "There's a lot of shocking stuff on here. Really shocking stuff, the kind of stuff that would embarrass people at a men's grill at a club. If you were sitting next to me right now, I would show you things on the drive that would make your hair curl."
The New York Post, which first reported on the simmering scandal, noted that the broken laptop was dropped off to be fixed in April 2019, but nobody returned to collect it or pay the bill. It was unclear who dropped off the laptop.
Costello said the laptop was inoperable, but it remained unclear if the FBI retrieved the contents – and if they still existed. However, he underscored that he had in his possession a copy of the hard drive with tens of thousands of potentially damaging correspondence pertaining to Hunter Biden's Ukraine dealings, which also implicated his high-profile father.
Among the deluge of documents allegedly obtained by Giuliani and Costello: sexually explicit photographs and footage of Hunter Biden, as well as alleged emails that call into question previous assertions made by the former Vice President.
However, a spokesperson for Joe Biden's presidential campaign, Andrew Bates, hit back at the allegations on Wednesday afternoon, proclaiming that the Democrat "carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing."
Moreover, the spokesperson highlighted that Giuliani has long perpetuated "discredited conspiracy theories" and that the Biden campaign has "reviewed Joe's official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place."
An email suggested correspondence dating back to May 2014 that apparently demonstrated how the son introduced his father – then the vice president – to a Ukrainian businessman and Burisma adviser despite a cloud of ethical concerns. The email appeared to counter claims by Joe Biden, who has maintained that he has "never spoken to [his] son about [his] overseas business dealings."
TRUMP CAMPAIGN BLASTS BIDEN OVER NEW HUNTER BIDEN-UKRAINE STORY, CLAIMS IT SHOWS HE 'LIED'
Over the past year, Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings have garnered increased questions and concerns, with Trump repeatedly claiming that Joe Biden crossed corruption lines in his handling of Ukraine matters, given his son had a well-compensated position on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings from 2014 to 2019.
The findings from a Senate Intelligence Committee probe, released last month, went so far as to indicate that Hunter Biden engaged in "potential criminal activity" with financial transactions between "Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh, and Chinese nationals."
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George Mesires, a lawyer for Hunter Biden, declined to comment on specifics pertaining to the documents, instead underscoring that the former New York City mayor Giuliani had long pushed and propagated "conspiracy theories" against his client, the Post reported.
Mesires did not immediately respond to an email request for further comment.
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