For the last week and a half, the biggest news in the US presidential election has been Hunter Biden’s laptop.

This is the October Surprise, the bombshell that breaks during a general election year in the United States.

Around April 12, 2019, Joe Biden’s son Hunter dropped off a laptop at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware. The owner sent him an invoice after repairing the device.

Hunter Biden never picked up the laptop. Nor did he pay the bill.

As is usual with most things dropped off for repair, the law stipulates that the shop owner can take possession of them. Delaware law says this happens after 90 days. Sometime afterwards, the owner began looking at the contents.

Larry C Johnson, who knows the owner’s father, has an excellent story on Gateway Pundit about what happened next. A summary follows.

As news emerged about Ukraine later that year, the owner was alarmed by the contents on the laptop. He contacted his father, a decorated Vietnam veteran, for advice. His father said that the FBI needed to know about the laptop.

In September, the owner travelled to New Mexico with the evidence. There, he went to the FBI. The FBI were not interested.

The owner returned home. Nothing happened for two months, then he received a visit from the FBI office in Wilmington, Delaware. The owner offered to give them the hard drive, but they did not take it. Two weeks later, they returned to serve him with a subpoena, with which he complied. He also gave them the hard drive and the laptop.

However, he had previously made a copy of the hard drive. After not having heard anything more from the FBI, he contacted the office of former New York City mayor, Rudy Giuliani, to offer a copy of the hard drive to him. Giuliani accepted the offer and shared the contents with the New York Post.

It turns out that not only is there information on Biden’s business dealings, including mentions of his father, but also some horrific videos that few people have seen because they are that shocking.

Rudy Giuliani has been giving interviews about the laptop. He and a small group of people have seen the contents.

This is from last Thursday, October 15:

He gave an interview to Steve Crowder the next day:

At the weekend, the New York Post (NYP) came out with a number of exposés about the contents of the laptop.

President Trump approved:

On Friday, October 17, the NYP reported Joe Biden’s reaction to those exposés (more here):

It wasn’t ’til 7:45 p.m. Friday at the Detroit airport that the former vice president briefly stopped for questions and CBS reporter Bo Erickson asked about the damning emails found on Hunter’s laptop, which was abandoned last April at a Mac repair shop.

“I have no response,” snapped Joe. “Another smear campaign. Right up your alley.”

A video of Joe’s remarks on Erickson’s Twitter account has been viewed 6 million times.

The left-leaning media outlets claim the story is ‘Russian disinformation’:

Russian disinformation? This is how the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, etc., run protection for the Biden campaign. They have ignored or maligned our stories, and claimed the emails were “hacked.”

Another NYP report said that Facebook and Twitter censored the paper’s article on the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine. True, they did:

The Post obtained a 2015 email indicating that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, thanked Hunter Biden for “giving an opportunity” to meet his father, who was then serving as vice president under Barack Obama.

The elder Biden has previously said he has “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”

The controversy further escalated after Facebook and Twitter began cracking down on the spreading of the article on social media.

“While I will intentionally not link to the New York Post, I want be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone tweeted Wednesday. “In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform.”

Twitter claimed in a statement that it had taken action against the article in keeping with the company’s “Hacked Materials Policy” and prevented users from sharing the report. The company rolled back its overzealous crackdown amid backlash, which included a mea culpa from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

The Gateway Pundit reminded readers of their 2019 report about a press conference that a Ukranian parliamentarian held regarding a second laptop with information connected to the Bidens (emphasis in the original):

Ukrainian Pariamentarian Andriy Derkach (pictured) held a much publicized press conference last October in Ukraine.

In his press conference Derkach revealed that Joe Biden was paid $900,000 for lobbying efforts from Burisma Holdings in Ukraine.

Derkach even brought charts and images as proof during his presentation.

This is the same organization that paid Hunter Biden over $50,000 a month to sit on their board in an obvious pay-for-play maneuver.

Cristina Laila reported on this development back in October last year…

Fox News came out with news about Biden’s ties to China, also censored on social media:

Then there was the Daily Mail story on Hunter Biden’s alleged connections with Kazakhstan. Their reporter, Guy Adams, wrote (emphases mine):

… in 2014, when Joe, as Vice President, was helping to implement U.S. policy in Ukraine, Hunter took a highly-paid job with a Ukranian energy company called Burisma (of which more later).

Around the same time, he built murky and contentious connections with Russia, helping his investment advisory firm Rosemont Seneca receive some $3.5m from the billionaire widow of former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhov (best known on these shores for once donating £138,000 to Sadiq Khan’s Mayor’s Fund for London).

Then there was a somewhat dubious episode in China, where Hunter arranged for an entrepreneur called Jonathan Li, with whom he was setting up an investment fund, to hold a meeting (and enjoy a very public handshake) with Joe in a Beijing hotel lobby during an official visit.

Such ventures, in regions of the world hardly known for their probity, have always smelled distinctly whiffy. So what, then, ought we to make of the revelation that, when his father was Vice President, Biden Jr was doing business in a fourth cash-soaked but highly corrupt country?

Namely: Kazakhstan.

The Mail can reveal that between 2012 and 2014, Hunter worked as a sort of go-between for Kenes Rakishev, a self-styled ‘international businessman, investor and entrepreneur’ with close family connections to the kleptocratic regime of his homeland’s despotic former president Nursultan Nazarbayev.

(Nazarbayev is a name readers may be familiar with: he’s the dictator famed for taking Prince Andrew on occasional goose hunts.)

Emails passed to this newspaper via anti-corruption campaigners from the Central Asian country reveal that Biden Jr held extensive meetings with Rakishev, who was looking to invest a portion of his personal fortune in New York and Washington DC. He also travelled to the Kazakh capital of Astana to hold business discussions.

Hunter Biden then attempted to persuade Rakishev to buy into a Nevadan mining company, brokering a series of meetings with the firm, before convincing him to invest a cool million dollars with Alexandra Forbes Kerry, the film-maker daughter of Democrat Senator and former Presidential candidate John Kerry.

Rakishev, who wrote messages in broken English, appears to have become intimate with the Vice President’s son, calling Hunter ‘my brother!’ and ‘my brother from another mother!’.

They shared gossip about their family holidays and dined together at luxury restaurants in New York and Washington DC (‘I’m on vacation with family [at] Lake Michigan . . . trying to spend some much needed time with my wife and daughters. It’s my 20th anniversary of marriage tomorrow,’ Hunter told Rakishev in July 2013).

It may even be that Joe Biden himself was dragged into the oligarch’s orbit. An unverified photograph, published on the website of an anti-corruption group called the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery, appears to show Hunter introducing his Dad to both Rakishev and one Karim Massimov, the former Kazakh Prime Minister.

So who exactly is Rakishev? …

Rakishev, for his part, is married to the daughter of a former mayor of the country’s capital city (recently re-named ‘Nursultan,’ after the elderly despot), who later served as its Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister. All in all it was an intriguing nexus.

Fast forward to 2012 and Rakishev had just joined Forbes magazine’s top-15 list of Kazakhstan’s ‘most influential’ tycoons, with estimated assets of some $332 million. Like many an oligarch in possession of a huge fortune, Rakishev was now looking for a safe place to park it, so had come to America in search of new places to invest his hard-earned roubles.

Sadly, things hadn’t gone entirely smoothly. For in the highly-regulated world of Western capitalism, Rakishev discovered that blue-chip investment partners were often reluctant to take his cash.

To blame? The fact that no one was entirely sure where his wealth actually came from …

The United States Department of Justice then took an interest in Rakishev. It soon dragged him into an investigation of potential breaches the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act related to ‘an investment in the oil and gas industry in Kazakhstan’.

Though Rakishev immediately denied all wrongdoing, and no charges were ever filed, in September 2013 he decided to hire a notoriously expensive U.S. law firm called Greenberg Traurig to deal with incoming fire related to the probe …

It was, doubtless, a very annoying (and expensive) business; not to mention highly frustrating for a man who had perhaps grown used to getting his own way. Which is perhaps what persuaded him to take meetings with Hunter Biden, a member of one of America’s most powerful political dynasties.

In May 2012, he was emailed by Hunter’s business partner Devon Archer, a lawyer and former Abercrombie & Fitch model. ‘Can you have dinner with me, Hunter Biden, Alex [Forbes Kerry] and team on Wednesday next week in NYC? I want to let Hunter know when he should come up from DC to see you on Wednesday. Looking forward to seeing you!’

Rakishev replied: ‘Hi Devon! I would be happy to have a dinner with you and all our friends! Thank you very much for invitations! Take care my brother!’

By July, Hunter had travelled to Astana to discuss business opportunities. ‘I wanted to check in with you and see what our next steps are to follow up on our visit to Kazakhstan,’ he wrote in an email to Rakishev sent shortly afterwards. ‘Let me know if you need anything from me.’

Three months later, Biden was helping Rakishev hold discussions about investing in Prospect Global Resources, a potash mining firm based in eastern Arizona.

Although the emails the Mail has seen show that the talks eventually broke down, he remained on friendly terms: ‘I wanted to reach back out to you and continue our conversations,’ Hunter wrote to Kulibayev on November 25, 2012. ‘I understand you and Timur evaluated PGRX but it was not a good fit at this time. Thank you for taking a look at it and for the quick feedback as well. Let me know when you’d like to connect.’

The duo remained in close contact throughout the following year, discussing a range of business ventures.

Then, in late October 2013, Biden’s partner Archer arranged a conference call between Rakishev and the aforementioned Alex Forbes Kerry, who was by then attempting to raise cash to launch a film production firm.

Immediately after the call that December, Rakishev emailed with happy news: ‘Thank you my brother from another mother! Thanks you very much my brother! We decided to invest 1 mln [million]! Give them my email!’

Ms Forbes Kerry, who has never publicly acknowledged her debt to Rakishev, finalised the deal in January 2014. The following month, she and Biden met Rakishev for dinner in Washington DC.

‘It was a pleasure to meet you with Devon and Hunter the other day,’ she told him by email afterwards. ‘I want to thank you for the beautiful watch! I am sorry I didn’t open it at the table. I misunderstood and thought it was a baby present so I only opened it when I was at home. It is absolutely beautiful and you are so generous . . . Please come to New York soon and bring your family. We will host you and your team.’

Rakishev responded that he intended to take up that offer in September. ‘Let’s be in touch!’ he wrote.

Sadly, at the time of this happy exchange, Biden’s marriage was in the process of breaking down …

After that, Ukraine seemed to be Biden’s main focus.

SkyNews Australia has taken a deep dive into the Biden laptop story.

RealClearPolitics has looked into Hunter’s career path and Joe Biden’s influence in his getting jobs.

Now people are going back into newspaper archives to see what has been written about the two. Joe was a US Senator for Delaware for many years before he became Obama’s vice president. MBNA is located in Delaware. Joe helped Hunter get his first job out of university in the late 1990s at MBNA. It paid a six-figure salary. This is what happened a few years later:

Americans have been wondering why the FBI did not act sooner over Joe Biden’s dealings when he was vice president and now, during his candidacy for the White House.

As the Bidens are Catholics, it is not surprising that Church Militant is writing about this story:

Christine Miles published the article in Church Militant on October 20. Excerpts follow, emphases mine.

A Chinese whistleblower is working with Rudy Giuliani’s group on this:

DingGang Wang, a member of Miles Guo’s team, which has worked with Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani for many months, said in a Sept. 24 broadcast for Lude Media — two weeks before the New York Post bombshell — that he has reviewed the contents of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden.

This is what he said in September:

He explained:

“Who filmed these?” he asked. “The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did it!”

Wang indicates there is much more compromising material on the laptop, and that the CCP is using the child porn videos as blackmail against Joe Biden, whom they hope is elected president.

“The message of the CCP is: Don’t ever think I don’t have your secrets in possession,” Wang explained. “To give you this hard drive is to let you know that, don’t forget, we have evidence of your crimes. You have to win this election.”

Sexual blackmail is a classic tactic of the communists, and was routinely used by the KGB. In addition to the famed “honeytrap,” wherein female KGB agents seduced American men and caught their misdeeds on tape, there is evidence General Secretary Yuri Andropov created pedophile rings in order to blackmail businessmen and political leaders.

The tactic is also used in communist China.

The article goes on to say:

The New York Post confirmed porn was found on Hunter’s laptop: “A computer camera roll of nearly 25,000 images is loaded with sexually explicit selfies and porn (which The Post is not publishing) … .”

Hunter Biden’s attorney has acknowledged the laptop belongs to his client in an email requesting that it be returned to his client.

One of Hunter’s former business partners, Bevan Cooney, independently verified the authenticity of the emails, a number of which included him.

The New York Post spent a week independently verifying and authenticating the laptop’s ownership.

Tucker Carlson of Fox News also confirmed that his own team independently authenticated the contents of the laptop.

“This afternoon we received nonpublic information that proves, conclusively, this was indeed Hunter Biden’s laptop, period,” Carlson said during a broadcast last week. “The materials on the hard drive of that computer that no one but Hunter Biden could’ve known about or have replicated. This is not a Russian hoax.”

“We are saying this definitively. We are not speculating,” he added. “The laptop in question is real. It belonged to Hunter Biden.”

The Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe, has confirmed that this is not a Russian hoax:

The Secret Service have been involved in matching dates and locations to their own logs:

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) says his staff have independently authenticated the emails.

Rudy Giuliani has turned over evidence to the Delaware State Police:

Giuliani also discusses the Bidens’ shady dealings in the second half of the following video:

Revolver has a summary of the interview, with information about the photos and a bit about what Giuliani told NewsMax:

… there is no indication that Joe reported Hunter to the police. Delaware state law requires all persons with knowledge of child abuse to report it to the police, although the state Supreme Court has suggested that mandatory reporting only applies to teachers, doctors, and similar professionals.

Joe Biden’s inaction after such a horrifying admission from his own son would be appalling, but not surprising. Joe Biden has been an enabler for his entire 47 years in politics. Joe Biden enabled Hunter’s drug use and inappropriate behavior — just like he enabled NAFTA, just like he enabled the rise of China, and just like he enabled the credit-card association MBNA in his home state of Delaware. Biden has been an indulgent father toward his son, not only with respect to his drug use, but more importantly with his corrupt arrangements with foreign oligarchs.

In the interview, Giuliani suggested that Joe’s behavior towards his son might go beyond enabling to abuse. “Joe Biden used his son for twenty years as a Bag Man and he knew he was a drug addict,” Rudy told NewsMax host Greg Kelly. He continued, “This kid has a crack problem because his father put him in situations he shouldn’t be in.”

Giuliani tweeted:

Meanwhile, the aforementioned former business associate of Hunter Biden’s, Bevan Cooney, has been in an Oregon federal prison for over a year. Recently, Cooney provided two Breitbart journalists with access to his personal emails, a number of which concern his business dealings. On Tuesday, October 20, Cooney was moved to another detention facility:

On Tuesday, several days after emails Cooney provided to Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer and journalist Matthew Tyrmand became public, federal agents moved him from his cell to protect him. Tyrmand, who is in contact with members of Cooney’s family, told Breitbart News that Cooney was moved from his cell in a federal prison in Oregon around 11:00 a.m. local time on Tuesday. Tyrmand said that Cooney spoke with family members multiple times on Tuesday, which he said is “much more than usual” …

Cooney provided Schweizer and Tyrmand with written authorization to access his Gmail account, and to publish all newsworthy information from his trove of 26,000 emails. Some of them are personal and unrelated to the Biden corruption, but many of them—including ones already published last week and this week on Breitbart News and elsewhere—demonstrate a culture of corruption surrounding the Biden family.

The first story published on Breitbart News last week, by Schweizer and author Seamus Bruner, detailed how Hunter Biden and his associates secured high-level White House meetings for Chinese Communist Party-connected elites visiting Washington from China. That included, per those Chinese elites, a secret unreported meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden himself. Other emails that surfaced on One News Network showed a deeper relationship between the Bidens and the ex-wife of the former Moscow mayor Elena Baturina. More emails surfaced Monday in another Breitbart News report showing how Hunter Biden’s business associate viewed his relationship with his father, Joe Biden—a “direct administration pipeline”—as a form of “currency” to trade on and make more money. More stories are in the works.

Vice President Mike Pence says that now is the time for Joe Biden to start answering questions about the emails, although the candidate did not make any public appearances until Thursday in the second and final presidential debate:

While Americans would like to get answers — before the election — President Trump is putting the heat on Attorney General William Barr to investigate this matter:

I have not watched this video, but Rudy Giuliani explains what the Bidens have been doing for the past 30 years.

While many Americans have been taking advantage of early voting, many others have not yet voted.

It would be nice if the media could do a decent job, but they do not. Therefore, information is hard to come by.

The media prefer emotional appeals, rather than facts, when discussing presidential candidates.

Maria Shriver is the niece of the late John F and Bobby Kennedy as well as the former Mrs Arnold Schwarzenegger. This is what she has to say on Joe Biden:

Another soft touch came from Gamespot, describing the virtual Biden campaign in a video game called Animal Crossing: New Horizons:

The Joe Biden campaign put some serious work into its island in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The Democratic presidential nominee can be seen walking around his field office, a polling place, and much more in the meticulously designed ‘Biden HQ.’ He’ll shout one of his campaign slogans, “no malarkey” if you speak to his character. And that’s a fact, Jack …

The island has Joe Biden yard signs, a field office with a basement full of trains (one of Joe Biden’s nicknames is ‘Amtrak Joe’ since he often commuted by train), a polling place with voter information, and an ice cream stand in front of Nook’s Cranny. There are a lot of fun spaces on the island, including Joe Biden fliers (made with custom designs) on the ground in places.

The lack of left-leaning media coverage has had the desired effect: a minor dip of two percentage points in Biden’s popularity.

The reality about Joe Biden is much different.

Tony Bobulinski, a US Navy veteran and former business associate of Hunter Biden’s, gave a press conference before the US presidential debate on Thursday, October 22. He was a special guest of President Trump and spent his own money to get to the debate, held in Nashville:

Bobulinski did not take questions from the press, as he said that he would be meeting separately with members of the US Senate and the FBI today (Friday).

As evidence, he showed reporters three mobile phones which only he has handled. He read out a statement with dates and events of his involvement with Hunter. The Epoch Times (paywall) has a short summary:

… two hours before the debate, Mr. Bobulinski himself, a Navy veteran and a Democrat, gave a surprise press conference and made a statement that was like rolling a hand grenade into the debate. He made it clear—specifying date and location—that he personally had been in a meeting with Joe and Hunter Biden to discuss their business dealings with the Chinese—in effect that Joe Biden had lied to America.

He had more, implying the Biden were indeed a crime family with international connections that could endanger our national security.

More on the Bidens next week.