Due no doubt to a remarkable financial acumen that allowed him to stretch a career government official’s salary to astounding lengths, a luxurious retirement on the Delaware shore worthy of any top-tier Goldman Sachs executive beckoned to former vice-president Joe Biden in 2019. But, attractive as it must have seemed, he declined to heed the call. As he saw it, an appointment with destiny awaited him, and it needed to be kept. Polls showed Biden as the only Democrat with a realistic chance of beating Donald Trump, so despite having lost two prior attempts at the nomination, and cognitive decline so apparent his deficiencies were painfully on display even during the most closely controlled of public appearances, he and those advising him viewed 2020 as his moment.

But there was a time-bomb quietly ticking away in Biden’s GHQ, and how much damage it would do upon detonation largely depended upon the success of this third presidential quest. His media sycophants employed their best suppressive talents to delay the explosion until after his election, but now that Joe has reached the pinnacle of his political career, it appears they can no longer prevent it from finally blowing.

Had Biden stayed safely tucked away in Delaware, at worst this scandal would have made for a fairly interesting article in Vanity Fair. But now it’s a problem that threatens the highest reaches of the U.S. government.

As the murky depths of Hunter Biden’s bizarrely “discarded” laptop are finally plumbed and his father’s clear complicity in corrupt dealings becomes more apparent, it will finally dawn on most halfway intelligent people just how badly they were misled and how a little bit of truth parceled out at a few key moments could easily have spared us the unpleasantness that awaits.

In the closing weeks of 2019, when the Communist Chinese were still assessing the most expedient means of generously sharing their deadly viral outbreak with the rest of an unsuspecting world, the Democrats were fully immersed in their efforts to plot a coup of similar, if not so lethal, brazenness: impeaching Donald Trump for the very same Ukraine-related offences of which Joe Biden openly and proudly bragged.

Even back then, before the existence of Hunter’s laptop was public knowledge, it was strongly suspected that the Democrats were engaging in one of their familiar pastimes: projecting onto Republicans the wrongdoing they themselves routinely commit. One would almost be tempted to admire them for the unblinking nerve with which they undertake these outrageous gambits, until reminded of the invaluable assistance they receive from the news and social media outlets; aid that minimizes any risk of the political humiliation such shameless mendacity should  justly reap.

It seems, just when we’re finally ready to discard those hated masks, they may be necessary once again to help tolerate the stench that will surely emanate from Washington, D.C., as the information on Hunter’s computer slowly but conclusively reveals that it was his father as vice-president, and not President Donald Trump, who was the fitting subject of an abuse of power inquiry.

So how might 2020 have unfolded differently? How might the American people have gone to the November polls armed with the full picture of the man who was supposed to restore honor, calm, and normalcy to the Oval Office? The January Senate impeachment trial of Trump proceeded to its foregone conclusion without a hint of the information contained on that true confession in hard-drive form.

I suppose the first mistakes -- if you could accurately call them that -- were made by John Paul Mac Isaac, the nearly blind owner of the Delaware computer repair shop where Hunter reportedly dropped off the water-soaked machine. After viewing the contents, which contained what even to a layman such as he was evidence of criminal behavior, Mr. Mac Isaac naively trusted the FBI and DoJ to handle in a timely fashion the political hand grenade placed in their possession. A fateful mistake. Imagine if Mac Isaac, outraged at what he realized were baseless accusations against President Trump and knowing full well the exculpatory nature of the information in his possession, hadn't waited so long and instead promptly forwarded a copy to Trump’s defense team? 

It is difficult to understand how Attorney General William Barr could sit and watch the Schiff/Nadler clown show play out in the Senate, knowing that his DoJ was in possession of material that proved what an utter sham the whole business was. Despite the criticism levelled at Barr -- some of it deserved -- I don’t see him as a Deep State plant intent only on thwarting Trump. Rather, I tend to agree with the view of Andrew McCarthy, who explained many of Barr’s difficulties in serving as Trump’s AG due to the president’s incendiary language. Without disparaging Barr’s integrity or good faith, I do believe that in his intense and justifiable desire to purge the political bias infecting the DoJ since the Obama years, he bent way too far backwards to keep the department sealed off from the 2020 impeachment, and the subsequent election fraud controversy resulting from Democrat rule-changing skullduggery. Another huge mistake, duplicated by the courts.

Residing on that hard drive were things the public had a right to know -- and know quickly!

To illustrate the point, it’s necessary to posit the counterfactual: Suppose the laptop that made its way into FBI hands had belonged to one of President Trump’s sons and proved that the infamous phone conversation with President Zelensky forming the basis of Trump’s impeachment was somehow a corrupt attempt to protect the no-show job and salary of that hypothetical son.

 In that case, Barr’s refusal to hand over to House impeachment managers clearly incriminating evidence against the president would have placed him squarely in John Mitchell territory -- as an obstructer of justice, political hack, and possibly even an eventual target for his own prosecution.

So why is withholding exculpatory evidence not judged by the same harsh standard? I’m certain Barr and his subordinates were armed with a multitude of DoJ rules, guidelines, and procedures governing the discreet handling of sensitive evidence in an “ongoing” investigation (if indeed there is one) they could readily cite.  But when the chief executive of the land is charged with seriously abusing his powers, is it really more in the interest of justice to keep the information secret merely in pursuit of the dubious goal of obtaining some tax evasion charges against a drug-addled Navy boot-out, who’ll probably use his longtime addiction as the key to his defense?

Unless the DoJ is developing a serious case of corruption against Joe Biden, and not just his pathetic son -- something I rather doubt under the stewardship of the reliably obedient Merrick Garland -- the American people were ill-served by Barr’s reluctance to release the information he held. The country had a right to have confidence in its president fully restored, even if Trump’s Senate acquittal was mathematically inevitable.

Political damage, not conviction and removal, was the goal of the impeachers;  and that was precisely what they achieved by dishonest means, helped along by William Barr’s reticence.

By keeping the laptop under wraps until the New York Post revealed the contents months later (and much closer to the election) Barr inadvertently condemned the electorate to making its vital choice largely ignorant of the nature of the man ultimately elevated to the presidency and laid the groundwork for a much more earthshaking scandal to come -- one the seemingly all-powerful liberal media, or even the FBI, won’t be able to suppress or bury.

And it all didn’t have to be.

Image: Shane McCoy

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