The other business arrangement related to Chinese energy firm CEFC,which,over the course of 14 months paid $US4.8 million to entities controlled by Biden Hunter and his uncle,James,who is the President’s older brother.

For Trump loyalists and conservatives more broadly,the laptop was manna from heaven:an apparent smoking gun in a tight election race on which to push claims of influence peddling,shonky deals,and conflicts-of-interest.

On the day of the final presidential debate,Trump even invited a former Hunter Biden associate,Tony Bobulinski,to conduct a press conference as his special guest,hoping it would give weight to claims that Joe Biden was somehow corruptly tied to the affairs of his son.

The problem? Except for Trump-friendly media outlets,much of the mainstream press ignored the issue.

What’s more,Twitter briefly blocked links to the story amid concerns that it contained hacked material,while Facebook temporarily restricted it as possible “misinformation” – an argument that the Democrats had also made.

As the November 4,2020 election drew closer,“Hunter Biden’s Laptop” became a Republican catch cry but not much more. Think “Hillary Clinton’s emails” – minus the lasting political damage.

Seventeen months later,new reporting fromThe New York Times andThe Washington Post has resurrected the scandal.

Both publications have now verified key elements of the initial story and exposed fresh revelations about Hunter Biden. This,in turn,has raised valid questions about why most of the mainstream press didn’t elevate the story in the first place.

Was it,as some claim,deliberate censorship or a cover-up designed to benefit Biden’s campaign? Or was it simply a case of treating the story with necessary caution,given the way in which it emerged?

On the one hand,Trump,his supporters,andThe Post have a right to feel aggrieved. After all,the latest developments are a major reversal in the tone of the reporting by many news outlets in the lead up to the 2020 election.

At the time,CNN described it as “dubious”.Washington Post columnist David Ignatius called it a “non-scandal”.The New York Times carried a deep-dive by media writer Ben Smith with the headline “Trump Had One Last Story To Sell. The Wall Street Journal wouldn’t buy it”.

And in a heated60 Minutes interview with Trump,CBS journalist Leslie Stahl asked the then president:“This is the most important issue in the country right now?”

On the other hand,there were plenty of reasons to exercise caution. For one thing,Guiliani – who gave the material to theNew York Post – is hardly known for credibility.

The former mayor of New York City had been waging a campaign against the Bidens for years,and had travelled to Ukraine searching for dirt on the Democrats as they drafted articles of impeachment against Trump.

US intelligence agencies had warned the White House that Giuliani,in his drive for information about the Bidens,was communicating with Russian assets,making him a potential conduit for disinformation.

Later,he was part of the legal team fuelling Trump’s lies of a “stolen” election,and he’s now under scrutiny for his role in the January 6 Capitol attack.

Secondly,the way in which Hunter Biden’s laptop found its way into the Delaware repair shop before getting into Guiliani’s hands was bizarre. As the story goes,someone dropped off three damaged laptops for the shop owner,John Paul Mac Isaac,to repair. However,Isaac,who also happens to be a Trump supporter,couldn’t be certain who dropped them off because he is legally blind. Nonetheless,he insisted the person was Hunter,and said he had signed a receipt with what appeared to be Hunter’s name.

Thirdly,not actually having the laptop made it harder for the media to test its veracity,and the fact that somePost reporters had raised concerns about having their bylines on the story wasn’t much of a vote of confidence.

It’s also worth remembering what happened in 2016,when WikiLeaks published a series of documents stolen by Russian hackers from one of Clinton’s top aides,John Podesta,and from the Democratic National Committee’s network.

The material was used to undermine Clinton’s campaign but it wasn’t until after the election that Russia’s involvement in influencing the political landscape became much clearer. Come the 2020 presidential campaign,the fear of foreign interference was ever-present.

Nonetheless,the resurrection of the laptop scandal is an unwanted headache for the White House,which already has its hands full with the war in Ukraine,soaring inflation and cost of living pressures,and a stalled legislative agenda in Congress.

Hunter has not been charged with any crimes and has denied any wrongdoing,and the President is not being investigated as part of the probe of his son’s business activities.

But as the Justice Department’s investigation gathers pace in coming weeks,this will be a political powder keg that the Biden administration,the media and the public should no longer ignore.

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