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Comment by throwaways885 | Hacker News Reader

There's certainly a ton of circumstantial evidence like Biden's lawyer asking for the hard drive back and nobody denying it's real.

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I did one Google search to see if this is true, and found a Politico story that says Biden staffers, after reviewing schedules, denied that the events described in the emails took place. So "no one is denying it" seems false. (Feel free to do the search yourself, it's easy.)

I imagine the candidate himself is not denying it, because even addressing it to defend himself from a totally false accusation turns it into a headline. Which, given the content of these leaks, is obviously the entire point of them.

This illustrates the manipulatory power of doing one Google search. Their later statement said they "wouldn't rule out the possibility of an informal meeting" but it's buried. [0]

[0] https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/14/biden-campaign-lash...

It says that after reviewing his "official schedule" they concluded no meeting happened. I seriously doubt that an illicit meeting would be included on his "official schedule".

If you follow this kind of logic, you can believe anything about anything that isn't explicitly denied or proved. Which is a daft state of affairs to be in, no? Surely it's a one-way trip down the Conspiracy Cave once you start thinking like this?

> Biden staffers, after reviewing schedules, denied that the events described in the emails took place.

This seems to dodge the actual matter at hand. The question is whether the email conversation was fabricated or actually happened, not whether everything the participants said in the conversation was true.

The sources I saw said they denied the meetings were on his "official schedule." Which is a weaselly. Biden himself hasn't denied they occurred. That might be because they don't want to give the story any credence by denying it. But he hasn't.

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