Hunter Biden calls laptop ‘red herring’ during ‘Jimmy Kimmel’ appearance
Hunter Biden reiterated on Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday night that he could not recall what happened to the MacBook Pro at the center of The Post series revealing his father’s alleged involvement in his son’s sketchy overseas business — quipping that just remembering to put his pants on at the time was a “problem.”
Reporting on the laptop, and its authenticity, have been verified by multiple parties since publication, despite Hunter Biden’s tepid dismissals.
Kimmel introduced President Biden’s son on his show as “probably the most famous board member of a Ukrainian energy company of all time.”
Biden appeared on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to promote his memoir, “Beautiful Things,” but also answered questions about controversies that became the center of a Post exposé about his dealings with the company and his father’s alleged involvement.
Kimmel needled the 51-year-old about his claims of not remembering leaving the laptop at a Delaware repair shop, saying, “It is hard to believe unless you read the book. And then it’s like, I’m surprised you have shoes on.”
“The pants were the problem,” Biden quipped, mocking his severe drug addiction that derailed his life and the lives of his family members. “Now look, I really don’t know and the fact of the matter is, it’s a red herring. It is absolutely a red herring. But I am absolutely, I think, within my rights to question anything that comes from the desk of Rudy Giuliani. And so, ‘I don’t know’ is the answer.”
Kimmel then took another jab at the embattled Biden scion, saying, “Did you wish you ever had AppleCare?”
The Post last October revealed that Hunter introduced his father to a top executive at Burisma, which had been investigated for corruption.
The revelations were contained in a series of emails found on a laptop dropped off at a Wilmington, Delaware, computer repair shop in April 2019 but never picked up.
Hunter has admitted that there “certainly” could be a laptop out there — but he couldn’t recall if he dropped off the one at the shop.
“Not that I remember at all,” he has said. “Certainly, there could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me, that could be that I was hacked, it could be that it was Russian intelligence, it could be that it was stolen from me.”
Hunter’s work at Burisma has come under intense scrutiny by Congress and by federal prosecutors, who are investigating his “tax affairs” while sitting on the board.
He has acknowledged the probe into his finances but predicted he would be cleared in the long run.
In his book, Hunter wrote: “Did I make a mistake by taking a seat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company? No. Did I display a lack of judgment? No. Would I do it again? No.”
But Hunter on Thursday listed his bona fides in earning a spot with the firm.
“I went to Yale Law School. I served on at least a dozen boards before Burisma,” he said. “I was vice chairman of the board of Amtrak. I was chairman of the board at World Food Program U.S., supporting the largest humanitarian organization in the world. I had an expertise in corporate governance. I was asked to serve on the board for corporate governance.”
He said he was approached because of his position as an attorney at Boise, Schiller and Flexner.
“However, what I didn’t take into account was the way in which they would use the perception against my dad. And for that, I wouldn’t do it again, for that reason,” he said.
Kimmel also joked that the book may have inadvertently taught him how to find and smoke crack.
“I hope that wasn’t the message that you took from the book. It’s not a how-to, it’s a please-don’t manual,” Hunter said.
He explained that he wanted to write his memoir to “humanize people suffering from addiction.”
Kimmel also asked Hunter about one of his detractors, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), noting that the lawmaker was close with his dad when they were serving in the Senate together.
“When you talk about Lindsey Graham being on television attacking you, he was considered a family friend, he was a friend of your father’s, and how strange it is to see that happen, to see a person do that,” Kimmel said.
“More than anything, it’s sad. Politics has become so toxic,” Hunter said. “And I think that the thing that I hope my dad is able to bring back is his genuine desire to take some of that toxicity out again. So I had a deep respect for Senator Graham. And it’s just sad to see the way in which he has decided to, not just attack me, but to approach politics.”
Both Twitter and Facebook took extraordinary censorship measures against The Post in October, 2020, over its exposés about Hunter Biden’s emails — with Twitter baselessly charging that “hacked materials” were used.
Twitter kept The Post’s primary account locked for two weeks leading up to the election, after The Post refused Twitter’s demand that it delete six tweets that linked to stories that the company claimed — without any evidence — were based on hacked information.
The Post never budged, and kept the tweets on the account during the standoff — even as Twitter obscured them from view.
In a series of tweets, the social-media giant said it was revising its “Hacked Materials Policy” and “updating our practice of not retroactively overturning prior enforcement.”
“Our policies are living documents,” said one of the tweets from @TwitterSafety.
“We’re willing to update and adjust them when we encounter new scenarios or receive important feedback from the public.”
