Four Years Ago, NeverTrump Killed What Was Left Of Its Credibility

The NeverTrump movement lost whatever credibility it had left four years ago when the campaign’s chief crusaders peddled a far-left hoax that dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as a vehicle of foreign interference.

Thursday marks the four-year anniversary of Jonah Goldberg (the founder of a commentary outlet that is home to many NeverTrumpists) writing off the first Hunter Biden laptop stories in the New York Post as election-year conspiracies. On X, then known as Twitter, Goldberg was incredulous that anyone could believe President Joe Biden’s crack-addicted son would forget a laptop at a Delaware repair shop and allow it to fall into the public domain.

“Wait you believe the computer repair shop story? Like at face value?” Goldberg wrote.

The hard drive was picked up by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who shared a copy with the New York Post. On Oct. 14, 2020, the Post published the first exposé from the laptop, which showed that former Vice President Joe Biden had met with Hunter’s corporate partners, despite the Democrat nominee’s repeated denials of ever speaking about business with his son, “or with anyone else.” Joe Biden had even fat-shamed an Iowa voter during the presidential primary that previous winter when the voter pressed the issue at a town hall.

The New York Post published the second bombshell from the laptop on Oct. 15, 2020. Emails showed Joe Biden stood to personally rake in millions from Chinese business leaders with Hunter serving as a conduit.

The laptop would ultimately trigger a series of congressional inquiries throughout the Biden administration, launched by lawmakers who found the First Family raked in $27 million from foreign individuals and entities since 2014 through shell corporations designed to “conceal these payments from scrutiny.” Lawmakers on the Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means Committees reported in August that the president committed “impeachable offenses” but filed no articles to impeach the president three months from Election Day.

As the laptop’s first stories began to break in 2020, however, no credible evidence had surfaced to indicate that the computer was an instrument of Russian disinformation — despite the narrative 51 former intelligence officials peddled in a letter to Politico. In fact, within days of the Post’s publication of the first emails, rare on-the-record statements from the FBI, the Department of Justice, the Director of National Intelligence, and the State Department debunked the charges of a Kremlin misinformation campaign. The NeverTrump sycophants desperate to oust the incumbent president, however, joined with the deep state campaign to dismiss the criticism of the Biden family as a hysterical election-year hoax.

Atlantic writer David Frum called anyone who shared the New York Post’s stories “accomplices” and complained the stories were “obviously bogus.”

“The story could not have been more obviously fake if it had been wearing dollar-store spectacles and attached plastic mustache,” Frum wrote on X.

The Washington Post’s Max Boot wrote, “We don’t know if the Hunter Biden emails are genuine.”

“But even if they are,” he added, “they aren’t a scandal.”

With less than three weeks to go in this election, another presidential bombshell could drop any day, only to be met by a response from the same people that’s nothing short of predictable.

[RELATED: 4 Years After The Biden Laptop Coverup, Media Election Interference Is Worse Than Ever]

In 2021, Goldberg also mocked then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson as a liar for claiming his television show was the subject of federal surveillance. Carlson had accused the National Security Agency (NSA) of reviewing private emails, and Axios corroborated the charges a week later.

“Fake news ‘conservatives’ were some of the first people to have full-blown meltdowns over Carlson’s claims just minutes after they aired,” reported The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd, who highlighted several posts from Goldberg in particular.

Boyd’s story provoked a response from Goldberg, who wrote off the criticism “by some kid.”

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at [email protected]. Sign up for Tristan’s email newsletter here.