The Biden Inc. Investigation Timeline
Nope, I'm not gonna provide a timeline. Jen Dyer has already done that, and commenter devilman drew Dyer's timeline to our attention:
The laptop and the FBI investigation: The most interesting timeline you will see in 2020
There are a few details that can be added to flesh the timeline out just a bit, which I'll try to do. Dyer's basic narrative is that everything that we're now learning has to be viewed as part of a larger political struggle--but with the critical involvement of AG Bill Barr.
The context in which to view the Biden Inc. investigation has to begin with the runup to the fake impeachment. We know that Trump had long wanted to replace Jeff Sessions as AG, but had been blocked by Chuck Grassley, who was still in charge of the Senate Judiciary Committee and could refuse to proceed with the hearings for a new AG. What it was that convinced Grassley that a new AG was necessary isn't certain, but it seems highly likely that already by summer of 2018 Barr had been selected to replace Sessions. The Kavanaugh hearings took precedence in the early fall of 2018, but immediately after Paul Ryan's sabotage of the GOP House in the 2018 Midterm elections Barr was nominated.
Two possibilities for Grassley's change of heart are possible and, in the long view, may be related. The first is that he realized that if the Dems took control of the House (as they did) they would be moving toward impeachment. This was the inevitable logic of the Mueller Witchhunt. The other possibility is that by 2018 Senate investigations had already identified the motive behind the move to remove Trump: rampant Obama Administration corruption, with VP Biden's dealings in Ukraine as a focal point. Whatever the facts, by late 2018 aggressive action by the GOP was imperative. They needed a fighter at the AG post to head off what they could see coming.
On February 14, 2019, Bill Barr took office as Attorney General. That disturbing--for Dems--event was quickly followed by Barr shutting down the Mueller Witchhunt and facing down the resulting phony outrage from the usual suspects--Dems, Deep State, and their media surrogates. Even worse, Barr quickly stood up the Durham investigation. Durham, necessarily, had to focus on Russia Hoax matters that had--except for IG Horowitz's limited investigation--been covered up by DAG Rosenstein.
Fast forward a few months to July of 2019. It was on July 25, 2019, that Trump made his now famous call to Ukraine's new president, Zelensky. From the fact that Trump asked for Ukrainian cooperation regarding Biden Inc.'s dealings with Burisma, we can assume that investigation into Biden's corrupt activities in Ukraine (and, more broadly, those of Congressional Dems during the Obama Administration) were fairly advanced.
We can safely assume that the White House itself had been involved in these investigations. In addition, I would suggest, as above, that the Senate had also been involved. Based on a pointer from commenter Anonymous last night I took a look at a report by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs: Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Corruption . A search of HSGAC documents turned up related documents, which point to a well developed investigative effort by the beginning of November, 2019. However, the results that we see in November from those efforts must have been the result of months of investigative activity. Finally, we also know that the FBI and DoJ (in the SDNY US Attorney's office) were actively prosecuting a fraud committed against the Oglala Indian Tribe by Biden Inc. associates. Was there cross fertilization among these inquiries? Was an FBI investigation of Hunter Biden proceeding separately from the prosecution of his associates? Those are interesting questions.
Trump's phone call to Zelensky was a triggering event for the House Dems. Their moles in teh White House quickly alerted them to this development. Pelosi had been opposing impeachment, which she regarded as likely to backfire politically. With the realization that Trump--and likely the Senate and DoJ--were breathing down Biden's neck she agreed that drastic action had to be taken:
The president’s phone call with President Zelensky of Ukraine took place on 25 July 2019. The intelligence community leaker (referred to incorrectly by the mainstream media as a “whistleblower”) submitted his account of the phone call to the Intelligence Community Inspector General on 12 August 2019. It later emerged that Adam Schiff had known about the document forwarded to the ICIG from the beginning, and that staffers working for Schiff’s Intelligence Committee were close associates of the leaker (who, during his stint at the NSC staff, had also worked for then-Vice President Biden).
It's at this point that the Hunter Biden laptop enters the picture. Dyer demonstrates that the repairman who had custody of the laptop, Isaac, would have accepted the laptop from Hunter Biden in April, 2019, and thus would have had constructive ownership of the laptop by sometime in late July, 2019. Allowing for time to examine the contents of the laptop--after which he concluded that he needed to show the computer to the FBI--we know that Isaac, in consultation with a relative, contacted the FBI in Albuquerque (AQ) sometime in September, 2019.
According to Isaac, FBI AQ showed no interest in what he had to tell them. However, that can't be true--whatever Isaac's impression may have been. There was a delay of perhaps a month and a half--during which time the House Dems were beavering away on the fake impeachment preparations. And Grassley's Senate committee was working just as hard on their Biden inquiries. The FBI, no doubt, was also pursuing its own inquiries. But by early November, somehow--how this worked between FBI AQ and the rest of the Bureau we can only guess at--the FBI in the Baltimore office had been directed to get in touch with Isaac. When they did they quickly made a forensic copy. After examining that copy, they obtained a grand jury subpoena and took possession of the laptop itself--that would have been in early December, 2019, with impeachment expected shortly.
Now, clearly, the laptop came to the FBI as manna from heaven. Instead of painstakingly reconstructing Biden Inc.'s activities via subpoenas of financial and communication records, they now had whatever else was on the laptop, to go with their already existing money laundering investigation. Or, perhaps as a supplement.
Dyer suggests a thought experiment: Imagine that others outside the FBI were aware of the laptop in the fall of 2019. I'm not sure about that. However, Dyer's broader point, I think, holds:
Just about everything we see coming from the Left is a preemptive strike, based on anticipations we out here don’t know enough to have or foresee. But the Democratic officials, political operatives, and media figures of the Deep State have known all along who the Bidens are. They do know what to anticipate. They’re picking targets to try to get “functional kills” on in advance, so that fresh revelations from law enforcement and quality journalism will be, if not interdicted, at least pre-impugned and neutralized.
It appears conclusive, now, that these defensive or preemptive efforts have failed. The Covid scare and the astroturfed urban violence have also come up short. Trump is surging.
What point have we reached? Dyer believes an end game of sorts is in sight, and to that effect quotes Brian Cates (who, admittedly, has been prone to questionable speculation):
I hope all the proper loins are properly girded.
They didn't leak this to Rosen, they **handed** it to him because they are getting ready for the DOJ rollout of the case.
— Who's Gonna Be Lucky Indicted #2? – Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) October 29, 2020
In her conclusion, Dyer tries to place all this in perspective--a broad perspective, with a warning at the end:
Since William Barr became Attorney General, the Trump administration has slowly been gaining on the Deep State’s knowledge advantage. Ponder the point that the Bidens aren’t the only game in town – Clintons, Russiagate, Spygate; the Bidens are just one of many interlinked tragedies – and you begin to realize how very big and pervasive this thing is. It’s a war nobody knew in advance how to fight, but that’s what it is: a war.
In a war, you pick your battles, you pick your terrain, and you shape the battlespace to drive toward your end-state.
Indictments and convictions will be a useful tool for some aspects of taking down the Deep State, as the ultimate and necessary goal. But indictments and convictions affect individuals, not the Deep State infrastructure or its corporate will. Breaking the Deep State’s will is what will be necessary to win the Republic back for the people.
Get ready. The post election battlefield is being prepared as we speak.