Jonathan Turley: The Biden Dog That Didn't Bark
Jonathan Turley, professor of law at George Washington University, has moved on from the Judge Amy confirmation hearings and is now addressing the Biden Crime Family story. He has a nice article at Fox today, in which he likens the Biden campaign non-responses to the dog that didn't bark in the famous Sherlock Holmes case, The Adventure of Silver Blaze . In The Adventure of Silver Blaze , a favored race horse disappears shortly before a big race. Holmes notes that the dog on guard failed to bark--a very curious fact, which Holmes recommends to the attention of the local police inspector
“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.
The metaphor works like this: If the Biden campaign is the dog, then it failed to bark at least three times, and each failure to bark corresponds to what should have been a predictable response to the Rudy Giuliani revelations stemming from Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop. Each non-bark corresponds to an expected register of bark that we would have expected to hear:
Bark 1: This was not Hunter Biden’s computer
...
Someone in the campaign must have called Hunter Biden and he had to have told them whether or not it was his laptop.
...
Bark 2: These were not Hunter Biden’s photos or emails
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Note that if these are fabricated emails or pictures, this would be a serious federal crime and the basis for legal action.
Bark 3: This is defamation
... If these emails or pictures are fabricated, it is a clear case of defamation and other tort actions.
It would seem that one of the hundreds of lawyers currently lined up by the Biden campaign would fire off an "intent to sue" letter.
Truth is a defense to defamation, so the letter might start with the earlier bark and deny that this was Hunter Biden’s computer and these were Hunter Biden’s file.
...
Instead of these obvious barks, the public heard something closer to a whimper: that the campaign could not find any notation on Vice President Biden's official schedule that he met with a Ukrainian figure connected to the payments to his son Hunter Biden.
It's a very cogent article, as usual with Turley, and I urge you to read all of it:
Here's why the latest Hunter Biden scandal is so curious
Turley also does an interview that appears on the same page. In the interview he covers a number of topics, including the shambles the Dems made of their attempts at questioning Judge Amy. However, having observed what's pretty obvious--Twitter has been making a strong case against itself with regard to section 230 exemptions--he condenses his bark metaphor to this:
In terms of wiggle room, I was very surprised that the Biden campaign did not categorically deny every aspect of the story. Saying that 'this is not on an official schedule' really smacked many of us as a rather curious response. It doesn't really answer the underlying allegations.
This is the type of specific story that should be easy to refute--right? It should be easy to refute that this wasn't Hunter Biden's computer, he didn't turn it over, it has no connection to Hunter Biden, these emails were never received by Hunter Biden.
All of those are options, and instead we got this rather indirect, semi-denial. That's fueling the story.
Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani is promising a steady, day by day, stream of revelations from the laptop--culminating in a major information dump ten days before the election. Rudy is obviously trying to goad the Bidens into making statements--he openly said so to The Daily Caller: He controls the pace of the revelations and he wants to see how the Bidens respond to each revelation. And so far the best the Biden camp has been able to come up with--without actually denying anything--is to suggest that maybe this is somehow Russian disinformation. As Turley says, this non-denial response is merely "fueling the story," which happens to be exactly what Rudy wants. Which shows that Rudy--and Trump--is in the driver's seat.