What about the story should I not be taking at face value? I just read the email, seems pretty clearcut that the Burisma bigshot asked Hunter to "use your influence" to fight off the "general prosecutor". Ultimately Biden did get the prosecutor general fired by withholding foreign aid, and bragged about it on camera.

IIRC Trump was impeached for supposedly threatening to withhold foreign aid from Ukraine unless they investigated this incident.

Well first off, is the email real? Even if it is real, do we know if Hunter Biden actually used "his influence"? What indications are there that Hunter Biden's supposed actions were critical to Shokin's firing anyway?

Several governments and other organizations were concerned because Shokin wasn't investigating Burisma properly, having laid the investigation he inherited from his predecessor dormant. The demand to fire him wasn't something that Joe Biden came up with himself out of the blue, and at the end of the day it was most likely to Burisma's detriment.

It's not an impeachable offense to threaten to withhold foreign aid for valid reasons that further the interests of the United States. It was (and should be) an impeachable offense to illegally withhold aid that was already meant to have been delivered, and to do so for personal gain.

Not even the Biden campaign disputes the emails being real.

They just said they checked his calendar and could find no such meeting, then later backpedaled and said they couldn't discount the possibly that it happened and just wasn't on the official schedule.

Well let’s keep in mind Biden has denied any such interaction with Burisma, has denied any wrongdoing in his son’s appointment, has denied any implication of graft. Despite information that at least warrants some hard questioning. Now this comes out and Biden’s team has not denied its legitimacy. And this from a candidate who’s last bid for President tanked because of his own admitted lying and plagiarizing. Judge it how you like but I don’t think you can extend Biden a benefit of the doubt — quite the opposite should be the default position, probably for any politician.

So is this where he steps down and Harris steps up? Let’s be honest, upcoming elections are going to be 100% about Trump. It doesn’t matter who his opponent is. Attacking Biden is pointless, and Twitters reaction was self destructive blunder that will cost them no matter who wins in November

The part where a sloppily fabricated email was put onto a bogus laptop (probably by foreign intelligence agents), and then “coincidentally” made its way right back to Rudy Giuliani (who was at the time neck deep in the effort to extort a foreign leader into announcing a fake investigation into the same non-scandal, for which the President has already been impeached). Giuliani passed the emails via Steve Bannon (Trump’s former campaign manager and “Chief Strategist”, since indicted for mail fraud and money laundering) to a hack “journalist” (former Hannity producer) at the NY Post who did zero fact checking, because no credible journalist or news organization would ever touch such a flimsy story. Someone in the chain made a PDF of these fake emails a year ago but then sat on it, before releasing it in the last 3 weeks before an election, without releasing enough forensic evidence for any third party to do even the most basic check.

The computer repair guy’s story is just comically implausible. https://www.thedailybeast.com/man-who-reportedly-gave-hunter...

You want a real corruption scandal? How about the $10 million bribe paid to the Trump campaign by a state-owned Egyptian bank right before the 2016 election (and immediately after candidate Trump met privately with President Sisi). Which the DOJ never finished investigating because Trump-appointed officials instructed them not to. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/14/politics/trump-campaign-donat...

None of the things you're describing have any effect on the plausibility of the story because they're all exactly what you would expect to happen either way. If a Trump supporter became aware of this sort of thing, he would bring it to someone like Giuliani, who would bring it to someone like Bannon and so on. Then they would sit on it until now because that's standard procedure in politics, because damaging information has more impact when released just before the election.

It tells you that the story is being maneuvered for political advantage, because obviously. It tells you nothing at all about whether or not it's true.

To anyone credulous enough to believe any part of this story, I have a bridge to sell you. You should probably stop watching Fox or reading Facebook and the NY Post for your “news”. These same characters have been selling various similar stories for the last 4+ years, and every one has turned out to be complete bullshit when given the tiniest bit of scrutiny.

What this story demonstrates more than anything is that Giuliani and Trump are getting pathetically desperate, because it is looking likely they will lose and both are facing significant criminal liability once they aren’t shielded by the Barr DOJ’s position that a GOP president enjoys absolute impunity and by the pardon power (which has already been corruptly used to let other Trump henchmen off the hook for crimes committed in his name).

You do realise the Biden campaign has made a statement not denying the legitimacy of the email?

He also hasn't denied hunting deer out of season at Bear's Bend State Park, Coyote Corners, Maine. Your point?

To make a statement, and not deny it, is different not making statements about random facts.