If this is all completely ludicrous and made up it would hardly kill the Biden campaign to just issue a statement saying that. I was quite skeptical when the article was first published (especially about the origin of the leaked materials) but have become less so as I've observed no one with any skin in the game actually stepping forward to say the leaks are forged.

Until they appear to be doing political damage then there's little point in engaging the claims.

The GRU likes to mix genuine documents with fake documents[1]. The e-mails that the NY Post initially released are probably real. If the Bidens confirm they are real, then the NY Post starts dumping everything else that they have, real or not, and points back to his initial confirmation. If Biden denies, then they get someone on record confirming they are real (Tucker sort of did this on his show already) and claim he is lying. It is pretty telling that the NY Post refuses to give the raw material to anyone credible to try and independently authenticate the documents. They are just trying to trap him into making a false denial.

And from Bidens' perspective, the e-mails are mostly a "nothing burger" even if real. At worst, some influence peddling by people close to the VP. So what is the point in giving this any more attention? It looks like the mid-west is going to swing this election, and right now they are getting slammed with COVID. The only folks who remotely care about the NY Post story are already solidly in Trumps camp. The voters that he is trying to reach have no idea what the "laptop from hell" is. So from the Biden perspective, ignoring the story is probably the best move. A confirmation/denial would likely get picked up by mainstream press, who so far have been staying away from it because of the issues with sourcing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Macron_e-mail_leaks

I definitely think the most likely case is that the documents are genuine, but the Biden campaign is ignoring them for tactical reasons.

A separate question then becomes "are they a big enough deal for it to be a legitimate news story?" and your answer to that will depend on whether you are naive enough to believe Hunter and James Biden were able to peddle influence without Joe Biden's (perhaps entirely off-the-record) involvement.

Yet another separate question is, "should this sway anyone's vote from Biden to Trump?" and that will depend on how you weigh this instance of corruption against Trump's many ethical violations, and how important considerations of corruption are in picking your candidate.

The question is "will this story make some people stay home?"

Because when you go out to vote, you don't vote against a candidate. You vote for one. And with two obviously unfit candidates, people may prefer to not legitimize either through voting.

> Because when you go out to vote, you don't vote against a candidate.

I think this is clearly not true for this election year in particular.

Yes, for the people that do go. But there will be people who will not vote. Out of distaste. This story does not make either of the two main candidates any more deserving of a vote.

The problem is people see anything against democrats as 'Trump propaganda.' It may be hard to believe but everyone on either side isn't all gumdrops and kisses. There is so much evidence that the laptop is real, nude photos, nude videos, no assertion that it is fake, apparently even Hunter's lawyer requested the laptop back. Metadata is spoofable anyways and hardly prooves it is real, what proves it is real is the FBI, who can and will request text records from cell phone companies/tech giants, or corroborating e-mails from the recipient, or say someone who worked with Biden also testifying to it's authenticity (this which happened.) Something with so much overwhelming evidence at least the majority of information is true is crazy it still doesn't get any play on so many news stations and websites. Apparently they even know the source of the laptop and have a receipt. That's just what's off the top of my head, go read his e-mails and article for more reasons. Even presented with these reasons they only stop responding and say HE is the one unwilling to cooperate, I mean the audacity.