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Ok Groomers
October 21, 2020 1:45PM ET
Twitter, Facebook Allow Pizzagate-Esque Conspiracy Theories to Spread About Hunter Biden
Abhorrent, baseless conspiracy theories are swirling around the vice-president’s son that have largely gone unchecked
For years, conspiracy theorists have baselessly tried to link Democrats to sex trafficking, a tactic straight out of Russian-style disinformation campaigns, which frequently tar political opponents as sexual deviants. Republicans have also been eager to dig up dirt about the Bidens, specifically Hunter Biden, the 50-year-old chaotic fail-son of former Vice President Joe Biden. Now, these combustible elements have been tossed into the crucible of the 2020 election, and are exploding across social media, thanks to a widely contested New York Post story that was published about Hunter Biden last week — and a far-right internet contingent set on twisting those thin allegations into fully fabricated disinformation.
The Post story contains a screengrab of an email purporting to show evidence of a meeting that Hunter Biden set up between his father and an executive at a Ukrainian energy firm. The email supposedly comes from a MacBook Pro that was dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in 2019. As alleged by the Post, the repair shop owner made a copy of the hard drive and supplied it to an attorney for Trump crony Rudy Giuliani. (It should be noted that Giuliani spearheaded a drive to dig up dirt on the Bidens, part of a campaign so shady that it ultimately got the president impeached.)
The New York Post story is dubious, to say the very least. Many questions have been raised about its sourcing (not to mention the timing of its publication weeks before the election), the emails published in the story are unverified, and more than 50 former intelligence officials have signed a letter stating their belief the story is part of a foreign disinformation campaign.Moreover, the Delaware repair shop owner, a Trump supporter and conspiracy theorist, told reporters that he is “legally blind” and did not even see who dropped off the alleged laptop, only believing it to be Hunter’s because it allegedly had a sticker from the Beau Biden Foundation.
The Biden campaign has also steadfastly refuted the allegations, saying that it reviewed the Vice President’s schedule and no such meeting ever took place. “Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as ‘not legitimate’ and political by a GOP colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing,” said campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates.
Despite the glaring issues with the story, however, those on the right have been salivating over its claims, spinning them off into even more extreme and defamatory conspiracy theories. One of these theories stems from what the New York Post alleges is a photo of a subpoena issued for Biden’s laptop, bearing what appears to be the signature of an FBI agent named Joshua Wilson, the same name as an agent who has in the past investigated child pornography cases. It is not clear whether the Joshua Wilson whose signature appears to be on the subpoena is the same agent, or if there are multiple FBI agents named Joshua Wilson. But that did not stop many on the fringe message board 4chan to speculate, based on zero evidence, that Hunter Biden’s laptop contained child pornography.
On October 18th, the conspiracy theory made its way from the dark corners of the internet to Fox News, where anchor Maria Bartiromo regurgitated it to her guest, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WIS.), urging him to make a connection between Wilson’s signature and Hunter Biden. “Connect the dots,” Bartiromo urged her guest, Johnson, who played along, tantalizing Fox News viewers by sowing the seeds of mistruth: “I don’t want to speculate other than to say… I’ve heard all kinds of things that I think will probably be revealed over the next few days. There’s a treasure trove of emails, and video, and pictures,” Johnson said.