I don't normally bother with this kind of thing, but this Hunter Biden thing is just too funny.

SO. This clown drops three computers off for 'data recovery' at a local computer store. April 2019.

The guy who runs the store *never sees him* because of a 'medical condition'.

(That's at least possible. Maybe he's got eye trouble.)

So, these laptops, containing the smokingiest gunniest information ever, are dropped off at some stripmall laptop shop counter and left there. Perpetually.

Now, HB never comes back for them, because he's rich.

If he didn't want them, why take them for recovery/repair??

"I don't need these computers full of holiday snaps of me smoking crack, doing the nasty, and implicating my old man in treasonous whatsisname, so what I'll do is LEAVE THEM IN A SITUATION WHERE THEY BECOME SOMEONE ELSE'S LEGAL PROPERTY AND NEVER PICK THEM UP EVER"

So then, Computer Malone realises who they belong to - NOT because he keeps, uh, records on who owns hardware he repairs - but because there was a laptop sticker.

At which point, he magically bypasses any possible piece of encryption - and it is the shittest op sec ...

... in human history to just give someone free reign to your entire HDD.

And then he presumably took images of the drives, but somehow also had the ability/foresight to both access them AND start searching them for emails that happened four years ago.

Not opening the first email to discover who owns the box, and then emailing them from their own account ('hey, moron! i'm logged into your email from Joe's Mac Emporium! come pick up your crap!') but scouring the computer.

As you do if you're just trying to return it.

And, of course, like most computer technicians in Delaware, your man immediately recognises the name on a four year old email of Vadym Pozharskyi.

Just like any Geek Squad member would.

Oh, and the passwords were current of course.

And immediately realising the geopolitical significance, either he contacted the FBI, or they stumbled onto the secret of clairvoyance and they contacted him.

Was there a subpoena? Would there have to be if he volunteered access? Surely he said 'take this stuff'.

Because at that point... it's HIS property. If you don't pick your stuff up from a computer store, you forfeit it. They're not a warehouse.

It's like a dry cleaner's. Leave your coat for six months, and it's theirs. Why subpoena?

Either way the Feds come, take the drive, but your man keeps an insurance copy. He fears for his safety because he knows the Biden's know he has their hardware.

Except they don't care enough to come get it and he could never contact them. But they figured it out in the meantime.

Having not remembered the computers themselves, they suddenly realised what was on them from four years ago.

Memory is odd, isn't it.

So, knowing a thing or two about computers, he of course *doesn't* copy the email metadata. He takes what amounts to screenshots. And photos of the subpoena.

And sends them to Rudy G for safekeeping, who OF COURSE could be trusted never to reveal his identity.

Except HE LEFT THE METADATA IN THE PHOTOS. Which he didn't notice, and neither did Rudy G, and neither did the newspaper.

Even though he's tech savvy enough to install a flight simulator.

This is the most shambolic, bumbling, feeble, Nancy-Drew-with-a-gutful-of-acid silliness I've ever heard. It seems more like a plot to make local computer repair look bad than anything else. It's inexplicable in about eight simultaneous different ways.

Addendum: I can't vote, I'm indelibly apolitical - especially here - and I'm not arguing the toss with anonymous wankers. I don't care about your forensic examination of some sub-point.