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My mental model of Hunter Biden is a well-coiffed crack addict, who probably has said and done a thousand things and as likely as not has no clue what scams he

My mental model of Hunter Biden is a well-coiffed crack addict, who probably has said and done a thousand things and as likely as not has no clue what scams he was engaged in in 2015. He could potentially verify the emails; he could hem and haw out of embarrassment; he could lie; he could have himself lost access to the emails, which were, after all, downloaded onto the laptop he ostensibly lost. And suppose you're a campaign operative, and you've been tasked with finding out from Hunter whether the emails are authentic or not. He swears that they're not. Next question: do you bet the campaign on his honesty? > my guess is they probably did verify to some extent Probably verifying to some extent is frustrating when it's trivial to mathematically prove authenticity via DKIM. As far as social media and big tech goes, as soon as they took on this role of moral arbiters of the world, they signed onto an endless stream of these controversies. This is the world we live in now.

whimsicalism 6y ago
> he could have himself lost access to the emails, which were, after all, downloaded onto the laptop he ostensibly lost. And suppose you're a campaign operative, and you've been tasked with finding out from Hunter whether the emails are authentic or not. He swears that they're not. Next question: do you bet the campaign on his honesty? This was in 2019 - I'm assuming that the emails are backed up somewhere. > they took on this role of moral arbiters of the world Who gave them this role? I certainly didn't and I will donate to anyone who supports taking this role from them.
- scarmig 6y ago
  > This was in 2019 - I'm assuming that the emails are backed up somewhere. Where? The laptop was lost in 2019, but the emails are from 2015. At some point they were on his company's mail servers, though whether they're still there would depend on their mail retention policy, which in my experience is often as short as 2 years. Even if they do still have it, going from campaign to Hunter Biden to ??? to IT personnel can take awhile. > Who gave them this role? I certainly didn't and I will donate to anyone who supports taking this role from them. I mean, if you're on Facebook/Twitter/etc, you are giving them this role, it's just a tradeoff you find acceptable for convenience.

whimsicalism 6y ago

> he could have himself lost access to the emails, which were, after all, downloaded onto the laptop he ostensibly lost. And suppose you're a campaign operative, and you've been tasked with finding out from Hunter whether the emails are authentic or not. He swears that they're not. Next question: do you bet the campaign on his honesty? This was in 2019 - I'm assuming that the emails are backed up somewhere. > they took on this role of moral arbiters of the world Who gave them this role? I certainly didn't and I will donate to anyone who supports taking this role from them.

scarmig 6y ago
> This was in 2019 - I'm assuming that the emails are backed up somewhere. Where? The laptop was lost in 2019, but the emails are from 2015. At some point they were on his company's mail servers, though whether they're still there would depend on their mail retention policy, which in my experience is often as short as 2 years. Even if they do still have it, going from campaign to Hunter Biden to ??? to IT personnel can take awhile. > Who gave them this role? I certainly didn't and I will donate to anyone who supports taking this role from them. I mean, if you're on Facebook/Twitter/etc, you are giving them this role, it's just a tradeoff you find acceptable for convenience.