EXCLUSIVE: Now Washington Post reverses course! Paper joins NYT in finally admitting Hunter Biden's laptop IS REAL - nine months after it first received - and dismissed - a copy of the hard drive and ONE YEAR after DailyMail.com authenticated it
- The Washington Post finally admitted Hunter Biden's laptop is real, nine months after first receiving a copy of the hard drive
- The newspaper made a u-turn in an piece published Wednesday, after months of publishing articles suggesting the laptop could be Russian disinformation
- The Post said it had cyber forensics experts validate its material, using similar methods experts hired by DailyMail.com used back in March 2021
- Hunter's Macbook Pro was recovered in October 2020 after he left it at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware in April 2019 and never returned for it
- Earlier this month, DailyMail.com revealed that the Post received a copy of the laptop from political activist Jack Maxey last June and again in October but ignored it
- 'They haven't done anything. They're not just late to the party, they didn't even show up,' said Maxey, who gave DailyMail.com the laptop last spring
- The Post's admission also follows the New York Times, which quietly noted 1,200 words into a long story this month that it had also validated the device's material
The Washington Post has finally admitted Hunter Biden's laptop is real, nine months after first receiving a copy and a full year after DailyMail.com authenticated it.
The Post had cyber forensics experts validate material on the abandoned laptop hard drive, using similar methods that experts hired by DailyMail.com used back in March 2021.
After months of publishing articles suggesting the laptop could be Russian disinformation, the analysis published by the newspaper on Wednesday marks a startling u-turn.
Its admission also follows the New York Times, which quietly noted 1,200 words into a long story published earlier this month that it had also validated material from the laptop.
The Washington Post is the latest news publication to admit the contents of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop are indeed genuine, a year after DailyMail.com authenticated its contents, which included more than 2,000 photos (pictured)
DailyMail.com published dozens of a stories based on the scandalous contents of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop - including a cache of 103,000 text messages, 154,000 emails, more than 2,000 photos (pictured) - that were verified by top forensics experts. Pictured above: A selfie of Joe and Hunter
The Macbook Pro fell into the hands of news organizations in October 2020 after the president's son left the device at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware in April 2019 and never returned for it
Neither newspaper acknowledged that DailyMail.com had authenticated its contents with a forensic analysis by top cyber experts a year earlier, and has been regularly publishing revelations based on that material ever since.
In its Wednesday piece, the Post claimed it tried to get hold of a copy in October 2020 but failed, and didn't get its hands on the laptop drive until June 2021, when Jack Maxey gave them a copy.
Maxey, a former co-host of ex-Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon's podcast the War Room, also gave DailyMail.com a copy in February last year – and has been doggedly trying to get the US's two most prestigious papers to investigate its contents ever since.
The Post accidentally deleted their first copy and had to get Maxey to fly out to their Washington DC office with a new one in October last year, he said.
'I'm not going to disclose the details of our conversations, but I gave them a copy of it in June. I personally delivered it to their offices and met with senior editors,' Maxey told DailyMail.com.
'I had to go a second time in October because they broke the first copy.
'They haven't done anything [until now]. They're not just late to the party, they didn't even show up.'
Photos provided by Maxey show him at the newspaper's offices, and a copy of the laptop hard drive lying on the Post's boardroom table.
The Post spent months ignoring stories arising from the laptop and prominently reporting claims that it was 'Russian disinformation'.
Photos provided by Maxey show him at the newspaper's offices last October, and a copy of the laptop hard drive lying on the Post's boardroom table
Jack Maxey, a political activist and former Steve Bannon podcast co-host, who gave DailyMail.com the laptop, said he also provided the Washington Post with a copy last summer
An 'explainer' piece published in October 2020 played down major revelations including that Joe Biden met with Hunter's business partners, but has since been updated to reflect the paper's new position – admitting that at least some of the material on the laptop is real.
A story based on the laptop's contents published by the newspaper on Wednesday focuses on the millions of dollars Hunter and his uncle, Joe Biden's brother Jim, received from their partnership with a Chinese government-linked oil behemoth CEFC.
The story, which has been previously reported by DailyMail.com and others, includes documents showing Hunter was paid a $1million retainer in 2017 to represent his business partner Patrick Ho, who was being prosecuted by the US government.
Other documents show CEFC wired the Biden family a total $5million.
One startling email among those now validated by the Post indicates the president could have been involved in Hunter's business dealings with the Chinese.
In September 2017 Hunter was planning to open a new office for his multi-million-dollar joint venture with CEFC at the House of Sweden, a Georgetown building home to the Swedish embassy.
He wrote to a building manager: 'please have keys made available for new office mates: Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Jim Biden, Gongwen Dong (Chairman Ye CEFC emissary).
DailyMail.com previously reported Hunter's was paid a $1million retainer in 2017 to represent his business partner Patrick Ho, who was being prosecuted by the US government
A $100,000 wire transfer from Chinese company CEFC to Hunter's firm Hudson West in 2017
In September 2017 Hunter was planning to open a new office for his multi-million-dollar joint venture with CEFC at the House of Sweden, a Georgetown building home to the Swedish embassy and wrote to building manager requesting keys for 'new office mates'
'I would like the office sign ton [sic] reflect the following: The Biden Foundation, Hudson West (CEFC US).'
'We are very excited and honored to welcome your new colleagues!' the manager replied.
Biden Foundation board member Jeffrey Peck told the Post: 'There was never any thought — like zero thought or consideration — given to that building.'
The House of Sweden said they made the keys but Hunter never picked them up.
The Post's admission, hot on the heels of that of the New York Times, coincides with an apparent growing momentum in Hunter's federal prosecution over reported tax fraud, money laundering and illegal foreign lobbying allegations.
The New York Times reported that material from the laptop is part of the FBI's evidence in the case.
Prosecutors have subpoenaed several of Hunter's associates, including a former employee Lunden Roberts, with whom he fathered a baby.
Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz grilled the assistant director of the FBI's Cyber Division over the whereabouts of the laptop in a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday.
After a battle with Democrats on the committee, Gaetz then entered a copy of the laptop drive as evidence, and tweeted calling for the president's son to be subpoenaed.
This week, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley (pictured) and Ron Johnson revealed they have the receipts that they claim connect Hunter Biden with a firm tied to the Chinese government.
Sen. Chuck Grassley tweeted out financial documents Monday that showed an August 2017 $100,000 wire transfer from the state-controlled Chinese energy company CEFC through Wells Fargo Clearing Services that stated 'further credit to Owasco,' a Hunter Biden firm
Hunter abandoned his laptop at a Delaware computer store in 2019. John Paul Mac Isaac, the store owner, gave a copy of its hard drive to Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani in September 2020, after handing over the original to the FBI the previous year.
Giuliani reportedly leaked documents and photos from the drive to the New York Post, and also gave a whole copy of the drive to Bannon and his podcast co-host Maxey.
The New York Post published excerpts of emails and photos from the laptop ahead of the 2020 election, but without authentication they were widely dismissed as fake or 'Russian disinformation'.
In spring last year DailyMail.com hired Brad Maryman, an expert who founded the FBI's cyber forensics unit, and his firm Maryman & Associates to analyze the laptop.
Their report showed the laptop was real. From then on, DailyMail.com began to reveal its sordid and potentially incriminating contents over the following year.
Using the same forensic tools as federal and state law enforcement in criminal investigations, Maryman & Associates found a total of 103,000 text messages, 154,000 emails and more than 2,000 photos on the hard drive.
Hunter Biden fathered a child with former employee Lunden Roberts who is pictured leaving a courthouse in Wilmington, Delaware, after testifying before a federal grand jury about Biden's financial affairs
The now-infamous photo of Hunter lying in bed with a crackpipe in his mouth was among the files found on his device
The New York Post had published excerpts of emails and photos from the laptop ahead of the 2020 election, but without authentication they were widely dismissed as fake or 'Russian disinformation'. Pictured: Photos recovered from the computer
The Washington Post hired Matt Green, a Johns Hopkins University security researcher who specializes in cryptography, and Jake Williams, a forensics expert and former National Security Agency operative who once hacked the computers of foreign adversaries, to conduct two separate analyses.
According to the Post, they found 286,000 'individual user files', but were only able to verify 22,000 of the emails on the drive using cryptographic signatures in the headings of the messages.
Williams found '36,000 images, more than 36,000 iMessage chat entries, more than 5,000 text files and more than 1,300 videos.'
The Post did not mention that other devices including Biden family members' iPhones and iPads had been backed up to Hunter's laptop, creating other points of validation for its contents.
The sheer volume, interconnectedness and consistency of the data was a major factor in Maryman & Associates coming to their conclusion over its authenticity.
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