Hunter Biden's laptop: What's the truth behind the 'hard drive door'?

 Three weeks before the 2020 US presidential election, a newspaper published the contents of a laptop. The computer allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden, the son of current US President Joe Biden, who was running against Donald Trump at the time.

The famous American tabloid The New York Post published an exclusive report on a large Ukrainian energy company called Burisma and one of their former directors, Hunter Biden. The report focused on what it called "heavy correspondence" emails, which were found on a laptop that was dumped in a repair shop.

  Hunter Biden used his family connections to introduce the then-Vice President's father to a senior adviser at the company, the report said. The report also said that Joe Biden had pushed to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating the business dealings of the founder of Burisma. The contents of the laptop allegedly revealed not only suspicious business dealings involving Joe Biden, but also shocking details of Hunter Biden's personal life.

Trump and his allies: say the leaked material proves that Joe Biden and his son's work are more closely linked than he himself admits. More content and personal photos from the laptop were subsequently revealed, but other media outlets were not keen to report on the incident. The social media platform also subsequently blocked the sharing of the New York Post article, citing concerns it was foreign disinformation.

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 It has been two years since the Hunter Biden computer incident, which some media called "hard drive door", came to light. Since then, several other outlets have tried to confirm the authenticity of the laptop data, which remains controversial to this day, and there are signs that more revelations may be coming in the future. So what is the truth about Hunter Biden's laptop? Four commentators were invited to BBC World's Investigative programme.

Ben Schreckinger is a political reporter for Politico and the author of "The Bidens: Inside the First Family's Fifty Years in Power." "Hunter Biden has been haunted by demons throughout his life," he said. In 1972, Joe Biden unexpectedly defeated his Republican opponent to become the U.S. Senator from Delaware. About a month later there was a car accident tragedy. Joe Biden's wife and three children were on their way to buy a Christmas tree. In the crash, Hunter, his brother Beau, little sister Amy and mother Nelia's car were hit by a truck, killing their mother and sister and sending Hunter and Beau to the hospital. "At just two years old, Hunter is already in the public eye,"

 Skresinger said. Joe Biden's first swearing-in ceremony as a U.S. senator took place outside the hospital where Beau and Hunter were being treated. , while Hunter's initial memory came from the aftermath of that accident.

The Biden brothers have grown up. Hunter did well academically, but his personal life was haunted by the trauma of his mother's death. Hunter started drinking in early adulthood and eventually developed a serious addiction to drugs, especially crack cocaine, Skresinger said. His older brother Beau was popular and served in the military before following his father into politics as Delaware attorney general. Tragedy struck the Biden family again in 2015,

 when Joe Biden was vice president of the United States. Bo died of brain cancer at the age of 46. Sigresinger said it hit Hunter hard. His marriage to his first wife fell apart over the death of his older brother Beau, and he had an affair with Beau's widow, Hallie Biden, that was in the newspapers when his father published a News, congratulations on the relationship. During his father's most recent presidential campaign, Hunter also faced a paternity lawsuit from an Arkansas woman who said the two had a son, Skresinger said. He later married his second wife, Melissa Cohen. The two met in Los Angeles while Hunter was going through crack coca-cola detox. He credits Cohen for helping him get out of drugs, and the two now have a child together.

Hunter Biden's dramatic personal life has attracted a lot of attention, as have his business dealings. After graduating from Yale, America's top law school, he worked at MBNA, the largest bank in Delaware at the time. "It was also at that time, in the Senate, that Joe Biden was the leading advocate of a controversial bankruptcy reform bill that was being sought by MBNA," said Skresinger. "Delaware newspapers or national newspapers are very It was quick to notice that Joe Biden did a lot of work to advance the legislative agenda of this bank, which was paying Hunter Biden first as an employee and later as an advisor.” He also pointed out that "both Hunter and the Bidens have said that Hunter never lobbied directly. However, the senator's son as a lobbyist always makes many people question the level of intimacy."

Hunter also worked at the U.S. Department of Commerce during the Bill Clinton administration. President George W. Bush nominated him to the board of Amtrak, the government's railroad operator. He also co-founded a lobbying firm with operations in Ukraine and China. This leads to the source of this New York Post report. So what was Hunter doing when that laptop was taken to a repair shop in Delaware? Scarsinger said Hunter said he didn't remember, "it's consistent with what happened in his life, where he was in contact with people who provided the drugs from time to time. It was also around this time that he was in Massachusetts. There was also a laptop left in an office that was briefly confiscated by the government in a completely unrelated matter. So if he did leave that laptop, it probably wasn't him The only laptop I've lost during this time and I don't seem to remember."