Laptop from Hell: Hunter Biden, Big Tech, and the Dirty Secrets the President Tried to Hide by Miranda Devine 224 pp Kindle 14.99 Hardcopy 24.33,  ISBN978-1-63758-105-6 A Liberatio Protocol Book Imprint of Post Hill Press New York 2021

It is hard to find words to describe the debauched and sleazy satyr that is Hunter Biden and how he used his family name and his father’s status as an important American politician to become an extraordinary international grifter involved in multi-million dollar -- sometimes billion dollar -- deals with international entities that included corrupt criminal enterprises such as Burisma Holdings of Ukraine and the government- and military-controlled companies of Russia and China, international enemies of the United States.

His business activities and lifestyle were revealed on the laptop he left in a Wilmington, Delaware Mac computer repair shop owned by a Mr. Isaac, who took possession after Hunter failed to pick it up after 90 days.  Mr. Isaac had already fixed the water damage and looked at the contents, found discussions about Burisma (the Ukrainian oil and gas company) so he arranged through his father, a retired Air Force Colonel, to turn the laptop over to the FBI in Arizona. 

Mr. Isaac kept a hard drive copy to protect himself.  Then he made some inquiries after the FBI failed to do anything.  The inquiry that was most productive was to Rudy Giuliani, who was Trump’s personal attorney and very interested in the Burisma matter.  Mr. G had an old DOJ colleague named Costello from his federal prosecutor days who was an IT expert, and the hard drive was analyzed.  Then, in October, it was presented to the New York Post for the bombshell it was -- proof of Hunter’s grifting and also proof that Joe Biden lied when he claimed he didn’t know anything about Hunter’s international machinations involving corrupt Ukrainians and nefarious Chinese and Russian autocrats/plutocrats.

The plot thickened as the Post did its due diligence.  A full-court press was initiated to suppress and censor the Post's publication of the laptop materials in October of 2020, the run-up to the election and the interval in the debates being held between Trump and Biden. 

Biden denied Trump’s accusations about corruption and influence peddling.  Former CIA director John Brennan organized a letter by deep state intelligence doyens who claimed it was just Russian disinformation and the major social media banned the Post and anyone who quoted Post stories about the laptop. 

The scandal of a lifetime -- son of a president selling his name and living a despoiled life of excess -- sidling up to Russian and Chinese on deals involving millions -- while living the life of a depraved sex fiend and cocaine/alcohol abuser. 

My opinion is that if Hunter’s choice of drugs had leaned more to opiates he would be dead.  But instead, the president’s scion lived the manic life of a cocaine addict bouncing in and out of rehab and even prompting repeat inquiries from his father about his situation, with the implication that Joe Biden was hesitant to run for president if Hunter was on the streets of the world hustling foreign investment deals, whoring, drinking, throwing money around and smoking crack cocaine.

Is that a mouthful -- Joe Biden, head of a corrupt enterprise -- proof of Joe’s sharing of Hunter's ill-gotten gains, trying to keep Hunter from blowing up his presidential ambitions?  Imagine, a presidential candidate involved in an intervention of his addict son who was traveling the world selling the family name with his father’s support and approval.  At one point the Chinese patron Hunter was taking money from and working on investments with even offered Hunter a side/back door deal of 10 million dollars just for “introductions” and “access,’’ certainly nothing more than selling the Biden name as a door opener.

The book revealing the details of the decadent life and dirty deals has been written by the New York Post’s journalist Miranda Devine about one year after Joe Biden was supposedly elected president of the United States.  Here we are, and like the people trying to expose the election fraud, Ms. Devine is working uphill against a media and political army intent on burying the scandal and censoring the journalists who would expose the vile degenerate corrupt wickedness of Hunter and the enabling and complicit behavior of so many in the family’s close political circle of important and not so important players, 

Laptop From Hell covers the life of the Biden family and focuses on the life of Hunter during the period of time exposed in the laptop: 2005 to 2020.  Robert Hunter Biden was the third child of Joe Biden, born in 1970.  In 1972 when Hunter was almost 3 his mother and younger sister were killed in a truck car crash when his mother ran a stop sign -- they were not struck by a drunk driver as Joe Biden has claimed so many times.  Hunter and Beau, his older brother, were injured, Hunter with a head injury, and Joe Biden was sworn in as a newly elected and very young US Senator in the hospital room where the boys were recuperating.

The death of his mother and elective office of his father aside, Hunter had an unremarkable childhood, graduated from Georgetown with a history degree, and did religious volunteer work for a year before entering Georgetown Law after failing to get admission to Yale.   He was advised a transfer would be available after Georgetown and was accepted and graduated Yale Law in 1996, becoming an attorney for a bank and credit card company in Delaware, MBNA.  Delaware is and was the most corporate and bank/credit card company-friendly state in the nation.  MBNA has been a major contributor to the Joe Biden campaigns.  In two years, he was executive vice president then he went to the Clinton administration Dept. of Commerce until Bush became president and then he became a lobbyist but quit lobbying when his father was elected Vice President.

From 2006 forward, Hunter was active in investment banking with a focus on natural resource extraction and technology.  A sequence of investment entities was formed, first with Uncle James, then with Devon Archer (now in prison for fraud) and Chris Heinz (yes, Ketchup heir Chris, who dropped out because of concern about the appearance of influence peddling). 

Hunter’s China connections started with a discounted stake in a China investment company, and that was followed with multiple Chinese generated arrangements built on his father’s status as Vice President, Air Force Two and other visits with Chinese asset managers that were always connected to the Bank of China and Chicom political and military leaders/autocrats.  The lifestyle depicted from the laptop shows that a lot of big money flowed to Hunter during those years, from China and other sources, like Burisma, that paid him $83 K a month to be on the board until Joe Biden stepped down after the 2016 election and then Burisma reduced the monthly to $40 K plus.

Laptop from Hell puts on display the personal life of a sociopath -- whoring, partying, blowing gigantic amounts of money on expensive hotels, toys, clothes, cars, homes -- excesses that can only be marveled at along with mistreatment of friends, associates, family, involvement in criminal and immoral nihilistic behavior.  Hunter is a monument to bad parenting -- so he is Exhibit One for the case that Joe and Jill Biden are their own form of sociopath -- sociopathic behavior runs in families for a reason.

When you read the book, a very good story of vile and vicious degeneracy and decadence for sure, consider this description from Psychology Today:

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) describes an ingrained pattern of behavior in which individuals consistently disregard and violate the rights of others around them. Individuals with antisocial personality disorder may behave violently, recklessly, or impulsively, often with little regard for the wants and needs of others.  The disorder is best understood within the context of the broader category of personality disorders. A personality disorder is an enduring pattern of personal experience and behavior that deviates noticeably from the expectations of the individual's culture, is pervasive and inflexible, has an onset in adolescence or early adulthood, is stable over time, and leads to personal distress or impairment.

The symptoms of antisocial personality disorder can vary in severity, and consequences can include imprisonment, drug abuse, and alcoholism. The more egregious, harmful, or dangerous behavior patterns are often colloquially referred to as “sociopathic” or “psychopathic.” Although neither sociopathy nor psychopathy are official diagnostic terms in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), . . . the constructs are thought to be closely related.

People with antisocial personality disorder may seem charming on the surface, but they are likely to be irritable and aggressive as well as irresponsible. Due to their manipulative tendencies, it may be difficult to tell whether they are lying or telling the truth.

The diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder is not given to individuals under the age of 18. However, ASPD symptoms will first appear in childhood or adolescence and may garner a diagnosis of conduct disorder during that time. Antisocial personality disorder is much more common in males than in females. The highest prevalence of antisocial personality disorder is found among males who abuse alcohol or drugs or who are in prisons or other forensic settings

In history, sociopaths have played important destructive roles because they have no moral compass and no commitment to virtuous conduct.   A republic cannot stand without a virtuous people.

"[V]irtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government."

George Washington

"Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics."

John Adams

John Dale Dunn MD JD is a retired emergency physician, inactive attorney and consultant