  BY JACK CROWE October 19, 2020
IN A BID TO CONTROL WHATEVER NEWS CYCLE REMAINS before the presidential election, Rudy Giuliani plans to release bits of damaging information obtained from Hunter Biden's laptop each of the next five days, so that all will be revealed with just ten days left before the last remaining hold outs cast their votes.
The New York Post published a pair of as-yet-unconfirmed emails last week which suggest that the younger Biden was selling access to his father on a previously unknown and truly massive scale.
In one email from 2015, a Ukrainian businessman who worked as an advisor to Burisma thanks the younger Biden for the "opportunity" to meet with his father in Washington, D.C. and, in another, Hunter brags about improving the terms of a contract with a Chinese energy company which initially guaranteed him $10 million annually for "introductions alone."
Speaking with the Daily Caller last week, Giuliani explained that there was more where that came from (he claims it came from the hard drive of a computer that Hunter drunkenly dropped off for repair but never retrieved). Asked why he didn't release the entirety of the dirt at once, Giuliani said he wanted to control the narrative and catch the Biden team in lies.
The Biden campaign has said there was no meeting with the Burisma adviser on Biden's official schedule, but has not questioned the authenticity of the emails, probably because they haven't really had to.
Almost immediately after the Post story dropped, members of the elite press corps coalesced around a narrative which holds that the question of the emails' authenticity is secondary to the question of how Giuliani came to possess them. Reporters who shared the story and suggested the Biden campaign should respond were scolded for disseminating "disinformation" — usually the word "Russian" was thrown in for good measure.
The "journalists" doing crisis communications for the Biden camp were helped along by Twitter, which took the unprecedented step of blocking users from sharing the Post's reporting, citing their "hacked materials policy," which apparently bars the dissemination of material that may have been obtained unlawfully, which, if applied evenly, would prohibit the sharing of just about every major political scoop of the last half century.
The emails may very well be the product of some foreign interference but that doesn't mean they're forgeries. Like the Podesta emails in 2016, the emails may be hacked and authentic — a possibility that grows more likely with each passing day that the Biden campaign doesn't deny their authenticity.
Recall that many of the same reporters who are now telling Americans to shield their eyes from the Biden emails insisted that the provenance of the Steele dossier mattered less than the information about a "pee tape" contained therein. Now we know that the primary source for the dossier was believed to be a Russian spy by members of the FBI, but you can still share stories about it on Twitter.  Ron Johnson Asks FBI to Clarify Whether It Possesses 'Material from Hunter Biden's Laptop' Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) has sent a letter to FBI director Christopher Wray asking him to clarify whether the agency possesses documents from the laptop of Hunter Biden, Fox News reported on Sunday.
The request comes after the New York Post revealed various emails written by or sent to Hunter Biden, who from 2014 to 2019 served on the board of Ukrainian natural-gas firm Burisma Holdings. In an email sent in 2015, a senior Burisma adviser thanks the vice president's son for providing the "opportunity" to meet with Joe Biden.
The Post stated that the documents were found on a computer deposited at a Delaware repair shop. The the store owner turned over the computer to the FBI in December 2019, but made a copy of the documents on a separate hard drive.  China Threatens to Detain U.S. Citizens over Prosecutions of Researchers Linked to Chinese Military China is threatening to detain U.S. citizens in response to Justice Department prosecutions of researchers linked to the Chinese military, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
The Justice Department has indicted several Chinese researchers who worked in the U.S., accusing them of attempting to conceal their connections with the People's Liberation Army. U.S. intelligence officials believe that a small number of Chinese researchers have been involved in gathering intelligence for the P.L.A. When the State Department ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston, the department also ordered China to remove all P.L.A.–connected researchers from the U.S., the Journal reported in August.  Senator John Cornyn (R.,Texas) on Friday worked to distance himself from President Trump, saying he had privately disagreed with the president on issues including budget deficits, trade agreements and border security.
The high-ranking Republican senator, facing a tougher-than-expected reelection race against Democrat M.J. Hegar, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that his relationship with Trump was "maybe like a lot of women who get married and think they're going to change their spouse, and that doesn't usually work out very well."
"I think what we found is that we're not going to change President Trump. He is who he is. You either love him or hate him, and there's not much in between," Cornyn said. "What I tried to do is not get into public confrontations and fights with him because, as I've observed, those usually don't end too well."  Chinese Economy Grows at 4.9 Percent amid Pandemic, Driven by Renewed Exports Chinese officials reported on Sunday that the country's GDP grew by 4.9 percent in the third quarter, despite the ongoing toll the coronavirus pandemic is taking on the global economy.
The newly recorded growth is close to projections of 5.5-6 percent growth predicted by economists before the pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. The International Monetary Fund predicted last week that China's economy will grow by 1.9 percent this year, the only major economy to experience growth in 2020. Meanwhile, the American economy will shrink by 4.3 percent while Europe's economy will contract by 8.3 percent, the IMF has said.
The novel coronavirus first appeared in Wuhan, China, leading that nation's government to impose sweeping lockdowns throughout the country beginning in early February. China was able to reopen many of its factories beginning in April, and other nations' demand for medical equipment and various other goods has allowed China to rely on exports to propel its economy forward.  One of the nation's top abortion groups is calling for Senator Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) to be ousted from her position as the Judiciary Committee's ranking member after she praised the confirmation hearings on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, calling them "one of the best set of hearings that I've participated in."
The head of NARAL Pro-Choice America issued a scathing statement on Friday, a day after the last day of hearings on Barrett's nomination concluded.
"Americans — whose lives hang in the balance — deserve leadership that underscores how unprecedented, shameful and wrong this process is," NARAL president Ilyse Hogue said in a statement. "The Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Senator Dianne Feinstein, failed to make this clear and in fact offered an appearance of credibility to the proceedings that is wildly out of step with the American people. As such, we believe the committee needs new leadership."
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