thebigp

by Daniel Chaitin,-- Breaking News Editor |--wash examiner
| October 18, 2020 12:50 PM
| Updated Oct 18, 2020, 06:38 PM
A top Republican senator acknowledged the possibility that the FBI investigated whether there was child pornography on a laptop and hard drive that allegedly belonged to H****r B***n.
Journalist Maria Bartiromo asked Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, about a Business Insider report that described faint handwriting on a subpoena served last year to a Delaware business that was given a water-damaged MacBook Pro to repair but was never retrieved and a hard drive with its contents. The hardware purportedly contained data about foreign business dealings and other matters related to the son of former Vice President Joe Biden.
The subpoena appeared to show the FBI agent who served it was someone named "Joshua Wilson." There was a Joshua Wilson, according to a Star-Ledger report published last year, who was an FBI agent based in New Jersey who spent nearly five years investigating child pornography, but it remains unclear if this is the same Wilson and what exactly the bureau was investigating.
Bartiromo twice asked Johnson, a lead congressional investigator, if he knows of any connection on her Fox News program, Sunday Morning Futures.
"I think you just made the connection. Again, this is what the FBI, I think, has to come clean about," the Wisconsin Republican said in his first reply. Johnson was alluding to his letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray about the laptop sent last week.
Pressed a second time after his initial response, the senator said he could not comment any further.
"I don't want to speculate, other than to say that — what I said publicly before. Our report uncovered so many troubling connections, so many things that need to be investigated, that I really think we're just scratching the surface," Johnson said. "And, yes, I have heard all kinds of things that I think will probably be revealed over the next few days."
Republicans, including President Trump, have repeatedly raised the younger Biden's foreign business ventures as being ripe for corruption that could stem all the way to his father, who is now running for president. Joe Biden called the reporting on the emails and photos that purportedly come from his son's laptop, a story that was broken by the New York Post last week, a "smear campaign." Still, neither H****r B***n nor the Biden campaign have disputed the validity of the data that has generated a wave of headlines in recent days.
John Paul Mac Isaac, the computer store owner in Delaware who claims he copied the hard drive of the laptop that he later gave to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello, told reporters last week he "did not see" child pornography on the hardware.
Asked about the burgeoning controversy, an FBI spokesperson told the Washington Examiner last week that the bureau declines to comment "keeping with our standard practice of not confirming or denying the existence of an investigation." The Associated Press reported the FBI is now investigating whether Russia was involved in the release of emails tied to H****r B***n.
Editor's note: This story has been updated to note the subpoena targeted a hard drive as well as a laptop that allegedly belonged to H****r B***n. Source: Chaitin, daniel-- Breaking News Editor |--wash examiner