Did The Hunter Biden Laptop Come From China?

 The election season is nearly over, thank heavens, but I guess I shall throw one more story for it out there, one I really did not expect and find plenty weird, but with two different sources pushing it, well.  As it is, I must say that given how totally lacking in any credible support this whole Hunter Biden story was from the get go, I found it hard to believe that the Russian GRU was behind it. I think they are more competent that that. The Chinese I think are maybe less practiced at this sort of thing, although the versions of this going around are plenty weird.

So one version I saw this morning in in the editorial page section in the Washington Post by Josh Rogin, who, it must be noted, seems to have somewhat of an anti-China bias, so I note that and would not have posted this if that were the only source.  According to him the story was promulgated by a supposedly dissident Chinese figure who many now think has switched and is now working for the CCP, attacking various dissidents abroad.  This story is a serious mess, frankly, and Rogin at the end of it admits that he really cannot figure it out and is not sure what is going on.

I saw the second one on daily kos in a post by Mark Sumner.  In that one he reports that various right wing social media sites have been claiming that the laptop and its emails are for real based on an analysis by a "Marten Aspen," supposedly a cybersecurity expert in Switzerland.  But, according to Sumner (he does not report his sources), there is no such person, certainly not one in Switzerland, and that the photo supposedly of him seems to have been artificially created.  

According to Sumner, the story was initially reported by Christopher Balding, an economist and blogger based in Beijing, although with him not reporting the ultimate source.  Also supposedly there were three laptops taken from California to the blind, pro-Trump, repairman in Delaware, who not only sat on in for several months but then broke the law by recording what was on it.  Where all these laptops are is unclear, although supposedly the FBI has one, with them saying zero about it, and maybe Rudy Giuliani has one?  Where is the other?

I note that these two accounts do not seem to agree with each other, so I really do not know what to make of this.  I am also not going to comment on the resignation of Glenn Greenwald, who apparently has been taking the story seriously, but I have not seen his piece the Intercept reportedly would  not publish as is. 

Again, bottom line: I do not know where this wild laptop story originated, but it looks pretty phoney, with the proof on that pudding being in the New York Post story that initially reported on it, which repeated the repeatedly discredited claim that Ukrainian prosecutor Shokin was fired at Joe Biden's request because Shokin was investigating Burisma.  This is simply a lie, but I have no doubt that if Biden wins, Fox News will continue to spout this lie as they have been doing for a long time now, with it being the leading candidate to become the first Fox Benghazi story of the Biden administration they can keep their faithful hooked on watching them to see repeated over and over yet again.

Barkley Rosser