Trump right about Hunter's 'laptop from hell,' though Biden claimed Russian disinformation

Let me take you back nearly four years ? to late October 2020. Then-President Donald Trump and candidate Joe Biden duked it out in their second and final presidential debate before the election.

Trump made references to the recently published New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s now-infamous laptop.

“They’re calling it the laptop from hell,” Trump said.

How right he was. The laptop just made an official appearance in federal court this week. More on that shortly.

During the 2020 debate, Biden angrily defended his son (and himself), conveniently reciting a letter by so-called former intelligence officials penned just days before the debate: "We do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not."

“There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant,” Biden said. “They have said that this has all the … five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage.”

CNN's response? It "fact-checked" whether Trump “spread Russian disinformation during the debate.”

It turns out the ones who were spreading garbage were Biden and these disinformation “experts,” who along with a complicit mainstream news media, quashed and discounted an important story just weeks before the presidential election.

Hunter's laptop comes back to haunt him

Why am I bringing this up now?

Because the laptop showed up again this week in a federal court in Wilmington, Delaware, where Hunter Biden is being tried on three felony gun charges.

It turns out that the laptop that was once widely denounced is now being used as evidence by federal prosecutors to prove the president’s son lied about his drug use on a gun form.

It’s very real.

And testimony from an FBI special agent reiterated that the FBI had the laptop in its possession in 2019 after Hunter Biden had deserted it at a repair shop.

It is the same laptop that House Republicans have used in their investigations into the Biden family’s shady foreign business dealings – and whether Joe Biden himself benefited from influence peddling while he was vice president.

Special counsel David Weiss has brought the gun charges as well as tax offense charges against Hunter Biden. The Justice Department has been investigating the younger Biden for more than five years.

Trump convicted: Trump is guilty. It won't matter at all this election.

Don’t give Joe Biden any special favors

The laptop story is important because the way it was handled is far from an isolated incident.

Whether it’s Russian collusion in the 2016 election or the COVID-19 lab leak theory, Democrats and the legacy media often team together to form a narrative.

And anyone who questions this determined narrative is considered fringe or even dangerous.

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Take for instance the claims of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign ahead of his 2016 victory. Democrats wouldn’t let the accusation go and sought to taint Trump’s entire presidency with allegations of wrongdoing.

The news media happily followed along.

Bias at NPR: NPR editor quit after telling the truth about liberal bias in media. It's time to defund them.

Then last year, special counsel John Durham’s damning report found that the FBI never had enough evidence to launch its investigation into the Trump campaign.

That gave credence to Trump’s claims of the whole thing being a “hoax,” much like his take about Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell.”

We face another rematch between Trump and Biden in this election, and it will be even more contentious than before. Trump’s recent conviction (a first for a former president) in his hush money trial and Hunter Biden’s charges are adding to the drama. If convicted, Hunter would be the first child of a sitting president found guilty of a felony.

The American people need the truth more than ever – not the left’s preferred narrative.

Will they get it?

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Hunter Biden trial shows media pushed false narrative to help the left