CLAY: Joined now by Miranda Devine. Her book, Laptop from Hell, laid out what we now know. Even Hunter Biden himself is acknowledging it was, in fact, his actual laptop. You can hear a long-form discussion with her. She was fantastic in the podcast feed. Go subscribe to Clay and Buck. Miranda, appreciate the time. I want to play for you Joe Biden addressing this in the October 2020 presidential debate with Donald Trump. Let’s listen.

BIDEN: There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan. They have said that this is, has all the characteristics of — four for five former heads of the CIA, both parties say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except them, him and his good friend, Rudy Giuliani.

CLAY: Okay. Miranda Devine, all of a sudden, Hunter Biden’s new legal strategy is, “Yeah, the laptop is real. I need to sue everybody who’s been sharing it.” What’s your reaction to this and also to Joe Biden and what he said back in the debates?

DEVINE: Well, look, first to Joe Biden. The fact is that Hunter Biden is really just a sideshow. He is not the important person. He’s just a sort of sorry washed-up former drug addict. And the real object of the Republican investigations and the concern of the American people about whether the national security has been compromised is Joe Biden. And you heard him there lying on stage at the debate just three weeks before the 2020 election. He knew that was his son’s laptop. Hunter dropped that laptop off and left it behind in Delaware in April of 2019, just a couple of weeks before his father announced his candidacy. It was a major problem for the Biden campaign.

Joe Biden knew that and he was lying. And, of course, that later, by the 51 dishonest former intelligence officials, including five former CIA directors or acting directors that was specifically cooked up to get Joe Biden off the hook in that debate that was coming up in the last few days of the election campaign. It was cooked up five days after our story came out on October 14. And it used sort of tricky language, but it said that the laptop had all the earmarks of a Russian information operation.

Hunter Biden admits infamous laptop is his. Not Russian disinformation, not a “plant” as his father and 51 dishonest former intel officials pretended https://t.co/PezVHgUPlW

— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) February 2, 2023

And everybody heard that. They intended everybody to hear that as that the laptop was not to be trusted. It was Russian disinformation or, as Joe Biden said, a Russian plant. Complete garbage. And that’s how the rest of the media treated it. They didn’t do the proper due diligence that was needed on Joe Biden to unravel his family’s corrupt influence peddling scheme with countries overseas like China and Ukraine and Russia that were paying him, his family, millions and millions of dollars.

BUCK: Miranda, you know, this taking the lawyers on board here and the new strategy, it seems, from Hunter Biden of “I want investigations, criminal investigations into Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon and whomever.” What do you think the play is here? I mean, Clay and I started off the show trying to get into what he could possibly think will be achieved by this or what the maneuver is all about. I mean, I don’t know if you have one in mind or several, but we’re just trying to figure out what does he think this would accomplish?

DEVINE: Look, I think it’s two things. One is that it sort of takes the heat off Joe Biden, because if you notice the same…you know, there are dark money donors who have funded these multi-million-dollar groups that have been put in place. David Brock runs one called Facts First that are specifically there to defend the Biden family against congressional investigations and to go after people who Hunter believes have done him wrong. And so, these very expensive lawyers who are writing these letters have been co-opted into this sort of offensive political campaign.

And although, you know, it would be wise, as several lawyers have said, as several ethics experts have said, for the White House to remain aloof from this crazy operation that Hunter and his “sugar brother,” the entertainment lawyer, Kevin Morris, are running out of Malibu because, you know, we don’t know who those donors are. And if Joe Biden is benefiting from that, then that’s a real ethical problem, not that he really cares about that. But it really just causes the White House a lot of headaches. But you’re seeing this concerted briefing to say that reporters at The Washington Post and The New York Times, the usual suspects, they just run the sort of bogus narrative that’s being cooked up in Malibu.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers are seeking a criminal probe into what they claim are attempts to “weaponize” the laptop

pic.twitter.com/eiNc27amWe

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 2, 2023

CLAY: So, we’re seeing now you mentioned the FBI has had this laptop since, I believe, December of 2019. So, 2021, 22, we’re into three years and change that they’ve had this laptop. Now, Hunter’s got brand new lawyers. By the way, have they reached out to you directly? Have you heard anything from any of the new Hunter lawyers about you being in danger or legal peril because of what you’ve done?

DEVINE: Look, I’m in touch with Kevin Morris fairly openly, fairly frequently, but I’m off the record, so, I’m not sure that he would give me a heads up. So, I have no idea. You know, I don’t think the illegal strategy is particularly well thought out. It seems to me what they were doing yesterday was really just crafting a narrative for the Washington Post, New York Times, etc., their allies in the media and sort of muddy the waters. And you know, specifically, I think the classified documents overlap between Joe Biden’s scandal and what’s going on with the U.S. attorney in Delaware investigating Hunter Biden. I think that really frightens a lot of people because it gets very close to the guts of what the laptop reveals. And so I think that’s why they’re sort of, I don’t know, muddying the waters, trying to get their story out and cemented in the public mind. And also, their main, I think, aim is to try and cloud the chain of custody of the laptop and pour scorn on John Paul Mac Isaac, and try and pretend that he’s, you know, some sort of shadowy political figure.

CLAY: Yeah, we talked about this to start the show, Miranda. And that’s what I wanted to ask you about here. For a long time, Hunter tried to kind of hide in the shadows and claim that he didn’t know whether this laptop was real or not. And, certainly, you heard Joe Biden in the debate say that as well, based on the 51 security officials and everything else, who said all that in their letter. Now, it seems to me that they’re shifting from, “Oh, the laptop isn’t real” to essentially acknowledging the laptop is real and saying that it shouldn’t have been shared because that violated the law. That feels, I think you’re right, somewhat muddying the waters, but also, it’s a weaker defense. So, do you think that Hunter is feeling more in peril? Is the heat getting increased there? What in the world is going on?

DEVINE: Well, they just have got a very muddled timeline, a very muddled narrative. You know, I’ve talked to Kevin Morris about this. I wrote a story about it last year. He has this sort of mind map that’s just enormous and full of really squiggly lines and makes absolutely no sense. It’s a vast conspiracy theory concocted to try and, you know, say that the laptop wasn’t Hunter’s or John Paul Mac Isaac didn’t really have it, and it wasn’t Hunter who dropped it off. It wasn’t Hunter who signed his signature or gave his phone number, etc.

REVEALED: President Biden’s Son Used Chinese Windfall to Force Cash-Strapped Female Employees to FaceTime Him Nakedhttps://t.co/fXyEVFCfoQ

— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) February 2, 2023

So, it doesn’t stand up to reality. But I think they figure no matter how complicated it is, people who are on their side and are, you know, not have been propagandized by their favored media organs and don’t really understand the full extent of this influence peddling operation and how it’s not about Hunter Biden. It’s about his father, Joe Biden, the president, and whether he’s compromised because of the millions of dollars his family raked in from America’s adversaries. And they also don’t understand at all the FBI cover up.

So, I think that’s all it is. I mean, it doesn’t make sense. Today, his lawyers apparently issued a clarifying letter saying that “Oh no, what we wrote yesterday doesn’t mean that Hunter’s admitted it is his laptop.” But it does. If you read the original letter, yes, it does. So, you know, it’s like Hunter Biden when he goes on these interviews and he says, “Oh, it could be my laptop. Might be. Is, isn’t. It could have been stolen.” He’s all over the place. And like his father, he says one thing one minute and says the opposite thing the next minute. And people are just supposed to accept that he tells the truth.

BUCK: You know, Miranda, can I ask you at this point, is it your sense that the Democrat machine, so, everybody in power around Joe Biden, do they view Hunter as a significant liability that could bring down Joe? Or do you think they believe it’s basically handled and now baked-in?

DEVINE: No. I think that they’re concerned that he’s a loose cannon. And because he’s now got all this money behind him and he has Kevin Morris, who’s a pretty savvy guy. He made a lot of money out of the South Park guys. And while he himself is kind of all over the place, chaotic individual in his personal demeanor, I think he’s pretty sharp. And so, he’s determined that Hunter Biden is going to go on the front foot. And I think he has Hunter’s best wishes in mind, not Joe Biden’s or the White House. And, you know, Hunter Biden’s always been ambivalent about his father. He adores him, hero worships him in one sense, but on the other sense feels deep anger and resentment towards him. I mean, you saw that from the laptop when he complained bitterly about having given half his salary to his father and basically supported the rest of the extended family and having received absolutely no credit or no respect for it. They just treat him like some, you know, dissolute drug addict. I wonder why they would do that.

CLAY: No doubt. Miranda, fantastic stuff, as always. We appreciate the time. Encourage people to check out long-form with Miranda as well. Go follow her on Twitter and we’ll talk to you again soon.

DEVINE: Thanks very much, Clay and Buck.

CLAY: That is Miranda Devine.