How does the FBI 'lose' a laptop like Hunter Biden's?
Some things don't make sense.
That brings us to some testimony from the FBI's assistant director for cyber-security, who told Congress's Rep. Matt Gaetz that he had no idea where Hunter Biden's laptop, entrusted to FBI custody, actually is.
According to the Post Millennial:
"Who has it?" Gaetz asked.
"I don't know who has it," said [FBI Assistant Director for the Cyber Division Bryan] Vorndran.
"What now you're telling me right here is that as the Assistant Director of FBI Cyber, you don't know where this is, after it was turned over to you three years ago?" Gaetz said.
"Yes, sir. That's an accurate statement," Vorndran responded.
"How are Americans supposed to trust that you can protect us from the next Colonial pipeline if it seems you can't locate a laptop that was given to you three years ago from the First Family, potentially creating vulnerabilities for our country?" Gaetz asked.
"Sir, it's not in the purview of my investigative responsibilities," Vorndran said.
"But that is shocking that you wouldn't, as the Assistant Director of Cyber, know whether or not there are international business deals, kickbacks, shakedowns, that are on this laptop that would make the First Family suspect to some sort of compromise," said Gaetz.
Vorndran should be embarrassed.
The whereabouts of this laptop are something he should know. Even if he doesn't have it, he should know who does have it because it's a computer matter that likely affects his job of protecting the country from cyber-attacks.
The exchange continues:
VORNDRAN: "Sir, as a representative of the FBI cyber program, it is not in the realm of my responsibilities to deal with the questions that you're asking me."
GAETZ: "Has anyone at FBI cyber been asked to make assessments whether or not the laptop creates a point of vulnerability?"
VORNDRAN: "Sir, we have multiple lines of investigative responsibility in the FBI. They're all available on public source."
GAETZ: "I would think you'd know this one. I mean, I would think that if the President's son, who does international business deals, referencing the now-president with the Chinese, with Ukrainians, I mean, have you assessed whether or not the Hunter Biden laptop gives Russia the ability to harm our country?"
Now, to try to understand how the Bureau man is arguing it, the guy seemed to be saying he is focused on cyber-attack activity from foreign countries, and the laptop is a domestic political matter.
There is plenty going on on the foreign attacks front, and I hope he answered some important questions about Microsoft's charge that China did a major cyber-attack on its servers a year ago, as well as reports that Russia is suspected of cyber-attacks on the Colonial pipeline and America's meat industry. Russia got sanctioned big on the muddy information in that incident, which requires clarity about what the U.S. knows at this point, while China, which clearly was culpable, got no sanctions whatsoever. Does that sound funny? I wrote about that here.
There's also the issue of Joe Biden buying China's spyware drones for U.S. national security purposes — which again raises more red flags. It would be nice to know what Assistant Director Vorndran has to say about that.
All of these anomalies point to why the Hunter Biden laptop actually is important to U.S. cyber-security and does affect the job of protecting the U.S. from foreign cyber-attacks.
Yet Vorndran is amazingly incurious.
The Hunter Biden computer clearly shows the Biden family in sexually, legally, druggishly, and financially compromising positions, with significant potential for foreign blackmail. Given that Joe is prominently featured in that laptop as using his political influence as currency for the exchange of cash and political favors, it may well be that China evaded sanctions because of various financial matters cited in the contents of that computer. The same goes for which Russian oligarchs got sanctioned over Ukraine and which ones didn't.
On the public credibility front, Vorndran does no better. He told Gaetz that the laptop was not in his investigative bailiwick, but a credible question could be raised as to why not. The influence-peddling cited in the laptop clearly affects his job, making it a lot harder to protect the country from cyber-attacks as certain cyber-attackers evade sanctions and others don't, certain drones get bought from China's spyware outfits and others don't.
The fact that the computer, or enough of it, is out there in public and apparently not classified at all might be a factor for the apparent FBI indifference as to its contents — Intelligence Community characters like their information to be entirely secret, and this stuff isn't secret.
But it doesn't explain Vorndran's ignorance of the computer's whereabouts. The FBI was entrusted to protect this device as part of its duty to protect evidence, and as evidence goes, this is a whopper. Where the Hunter Biden laptop is is something he should know. His claims that he doesn't know suggest sloppy stewardship or ignorance of Bureau procedures, if not outright lying, which is a distinct possibility, too.
The fact that he doesn't "know" ultimately suggests that the Bureau remains a politicized agency, still at the exclusive beck and call of the Democrat party, as a sort of KGB for Democrats — and may well be why the U.S. is so ineffective at countering cyber-attacks, which at last reports are getting bigger and more dangerous than the Colonial pipeline attack, as AT contributor Julio Rivera wrote here. Was he singing for his supper to Joe Biden with this kind of remark? If so, that doesn't make the Bureau look good.
Some twitterers have made important observations about this obvious appearance of politicization:
Two years later and they don't know where the virus came from, or where Hunter's laptop is, or where all the billions in COVID stimulus went, or how many criminal illegal aliens have crossed into the country, but have no fear, they're going to get to the bottom of Trump's phone.
— Rising serpent рџ‡єрџ‡ё (@rising_serpent) March 29, 2022
Why does the FBI always “lose”, delete or ignore evidence of criminal activity committed by the Democrats [or UniParty], and then make up crimes when none exist to frame their enemies [ie. Russian Collusion Hoax, Gen Flynn, Kavanaugh, etc.].
— Murray рџ‡єрџ‡ё (@Rothbard1776) March 30, 2022
Is that their true purpose?
Hunter Biden’s laptop was probably PG compared to whatever was on Anthony Weiner’s hard drive. Let’s track that one down next. https://t.co/CJDFVwSLgS
— Murray рџ‡єрџ‡ё (@Rothbard1776) March 29, 2022
How anyone could argue with these observations is amazing. How indeed does the FBI lose track of something as pivotal as the Hunter Biden laptop? And why does it not seem to care? To Democrats, the press, and the politicized government agencies, it's all about ignoring the issue, and keeping corrupt old Joe Biden and his political influence-peddling machine happy. Why are they doing that?