We thought Joe Biden was the grandfather. It turns out he’s more like the godfather.

It’s the big reveal in the Hunter Biden story.

Until now, we thought Hunter, the “f—ked up addict that can’t be trusted” (in his own words) who sent not one but three laptops full of incriminating material in for repairs – an act so stupid that even crack can’t be blamed – was the one taking advantage of his father’s position to enrich himself. 

(Compounding the idiocy, despite repeated notifications, he failed to pay the $85 bill to reclaim the one salvageable laptop, so that after 90 days it became the legal property of the repair shop.)

What we learn from the laptop is that Joe (referred to as “the big guy”) was to get a 10% cut of the loot from a deal with a now defunct Chinese energy company with strong ties to the Chinese government (the email outlines an equity split including “20 for H” and “10 held by H for the big guy.” That makes “10% Joe” analogous to the Godfather, the capo dei capi, the boss due his share of the family’s enterprises.

So Biden is  getting “his beak wet,” as former NYC Mayor and current Trump advisor Rudy Giuliani points out in a damning video describing the “Biden crime family’s payoff scheme.”

There’s more.  Hunter tells his daughter Naomi in a 2018 text-message exchange: “I hope you all can do what I did, and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years and it has been tough. It’s really hard but don’t worry, unlike Pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary.”

It would take some real mental gymnastics to convince any normal person – that is, anyone not marinating in Democratic talking points - that “Pop” wasn’t referring to Joe Biden.

Did Biden really get half? It sounds more like Hunter is complaining that he had to give his dad anything.

The amount really doesn’t matter. It puts paid to Joe’s claims that “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” It should lead to a federal investigation, starting with subpoenas to Hunter’s banks.

Other emails are equally damning when it comes to Joe’s claims to know nothing of his son’s business affairs. There’s the email from Burisma board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi thanking Hunter for setting up a meeting with then Vice President Biden.

“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads.

Up to now the worst that was usually said of Biden is that he wasn’t up to the job. He was a kindly grandfather who was cognitively slipping. To Trump opponents, it didn’t matter. What was important was that Biden would return the country to “normalcy.” Peggy Noonan wrote in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal (Oct. 8):

“If Joe Biden wins big, part of the reason, maybe a big part, will be simply that he is normal. Not ‘he’s such an accomplished legislator,’ not ‘he’s the man of the future’ or ‘charismatic’ or ‘warm’ or ‘has such a moving back story.’ No. He is normal. And people miss normal so much.”

A family business raking in millions for access to U.S. policy makers is “normal”? 

Still less excusable than Noonan’s silly remarks are those of U.S. Adm. (ret.) William McRaven, who extols Biden in the Wall Street Journal (Oct. 20), well after the scandal broke: “We need a leader of integrity whose decency and sense of respect reflects the values we expect from our president.”

We hope McRaven was a better admiral than he is a judge of character.

And the response of mainstream media to the Post’s revelations?

In what may be the most blatant example of media censorship in U.S. history, the story has been buried by Big Tech and blackballed/denied by the media giants.

Facebook and Twitter, in the tank for Biden, both blocked the link to the Post story. Twitter blocked the Trump campaign’s official account and also that of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. The major news outlets have rushed in unison to label the Post scoop “Russian disinformation.” Their response was so monolithic that John Ratcliffe, the Director of National Intelligence felt impelled to intervene, assuring there was “no intelligence that supports that.”

The hard drive is full of pictures of the Biden family, Hunter (sometimes in compromising positions) and over 11,000 emails, most of them harmless. And why, as Giuliani points out, did Hunter Biden’s lawyers repeatedly demand his computer be returned (once they realized the disaster that was brewing)? Seems like a strange approach if you think it’s all Russian disinformation, and not Hunter’s computer at all.

David Isaac is managing editor of World Israel News.

Image credit: Screen shot from a camera aimed at at a television set, processed with FotoSketcher.