A video is said to show how Hunter Biden - the son of the incumbent president - slides down a water slide naked. In another video, he allegedly brags about the amount of crack he's consumed while talking to a prostitute. In a third video, he is said to say that Joe Biden owns five guns, despite publicly advocating stricter gun laws.
These documents were published on the Internet channel 4chan, a favorite haunt of English-speaking right-wing extremists. 4chan users say they hacked Hunter Biden's iPhone and downloaded the videos from his cloud.
They are said to be identical to documents found months ago on a laptop found in a computer store in the state of Delaware. Why is all of this important? Does it even matter?
A brief historical review helps here: Hunter Biden, the younger son of the American President, has been a central obsession of the American right for years. Hunter Biden played at least a supporting role in the first impeachment trial against Donald Trump in the winter of 2019.
It was known that Trump wanted to blackmail the Ukrainian president into investigating Hunter Biden's role; at the very least, Volodymyr Zelensky should pretend to have launched an investigation into Hunter Biden. Only after that should Selensky be supplied with more American weapons (which Ukraine urgently needed).
In 2020, the “Hunter Biden” theme was present until the last moment of the election campaign: As late as October, Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief ideologue, claimed they had earth-shaking new insights into Hunter Biden in their hands. Findings that should make it clear how corrupt Joe Biden and his son are.
You have to know: Rudy Giuliani is Trump's former lawyer, who has now lost his license due to continued lies; Steve Bannon is Trump's chief ideologue, who has been convicted of fraud and is now facing another jail term for refusing to testify before the congressional investigative committee.
At the core of these “findings” were two allegations: First, from 2013 to 2020, Hunter Biden sat on the board of a Chinese equity fund called “BHR Partners”, which, like probably every equity fund in mainland China, has good to excellent relations with the Chinese Communist Party.
Second, from 2014 to 2019, Hunter Biden worked as a consultant for the Burisma company in Kyiv, which produces natural gas and is owned by a Ukrainian oligarch. At times, he earned $50,000 a month for this job.
As for China, Donald Trump spread the rumor that Hunter Biden raked in “$1.5 billion” in stocks and then several millions more in cash from his deals there—a blatant lie. There are no other allegations against Hunter Biden in this case.
It is not illegal to have sat on the board of a Chinese equity fund. With regard to Ukraine, the right-wing conspiracy tale whispers that Joe Biden, as Vice President under Obama, ensured that Viktor Shokin, who as Ukraine’s Attorney General was responsible for investigating the natural gas company Burisma, was dismissed from his post.
This is true. However, Joe Biden wanted Viktor Shokin fired because he was not aggressive enough against Burisma: In agreement with all NATO partners and the European Union. Shokin's dismissal is widely seen as a victory for Ukrainian democracy against corruption.
So what's left at the end of the day? As he himself has admitted, an investigation into tax evasion is underway against Hunter Biden, the outcome of which remains to be seen. Hunter Biden also has a problem with alcohol and drugs, as anyone who has ever dealt with him knows.
The videos that have now come to light, if their authenticity could be proven, would be a possible clue that the US president's son may have broken the narcotics law again.
He may have been involved with prostitutes, which is not a legal form of leisure in the United States. However, it would first have to be checked whether sliding naked in an open-air pool violates the relevant laws.
American right-wing radicals are indignantly asking why the mainstream media, meaning the New York Times and CNN in particular, are not reporting on the Hunter Biden story. If it were about Donald Trump's son, it is said, the journalists would not be able to get enough of the story.
However, there is a subtle and crucial difference: Hunter Biden is a private American citizen. He plays no role in political events - unlike Donald Trump junior, who appeared as a speaker at political events and called for the storming of the Capitol with his father.
Unlike Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, who was the unofficial Secretary of State of the United States for four years and quickly collected two billion from the Saudis when he left.
One can speak of a Hunter Biden case when an American public prosecutor opens criminal proceedings against him. A scandal could arise as soon as Joe Biden abuses his office to protect his son from the consequences of his actions.
As long as there is nothing more than videos on 4chan, there is a strong suspicion that this campaign could be related to the fact that the Congressional Committee of Inquiry is continuing to unearth harrowing new findings about the January 6, 2021 coup attempt.
