Feds investigating whether questionable Hunter Biden story was planted by foreign intelligence

On Thursday, NBC News reported that federal officials have opened an investigation into the origin of the New York Post report from earlier in the week making allegations about Joe Biden's son and Ukraine.

"Federal investigators are examining whether the emails allegedly describing activities by Joe Biden and his son Hunter and found on a laptop at a Delaware repair shop are linked to a foreign intelligence operation, two people familiar with the matter told NBC News," reported Ken Dilanian.  "The Post, a conservative tabloid, has published a series of stories based on emails the newspaper said it obtained from President Donald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani. The first story highlighted what it called a 'smoking gun email' that suggested a meeting between Vice President Biden and a representative of a Ukrainian company that once paid Hunter Biden. The Biden campaign says there is no evidence the meeting happened, and the story was greeted with widespread skepticism."

The Post story has been criticized for several red flags, including the lack of verification the emails are authentic, questions about how the Post obtained them, and why the repair shop owner transferred the information to Giuliani. Facebook and Twitter have both restricted the article from being shared in order to limit the spread of potential fake news.

The Biden campaign has vehemently denied any such meeting between Biden and Ukrainian executives ever took place, and campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said, "The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of this story. They certainly never raised that Rudy Giuliani — whose discredited conspiracy theories and alliance with figures connected to Russian intelligence have been widely reported — claimed to have such materials."

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