The extraordinary alleged efforts of a former FBI agent to shut down a probe into Hunter Biden’s laptop were detailed Monday in a new report from the author of a best-selling book about the affair.
Timothy Thibault, who left the bureau last month under mysterious circumstances, spiked further questioning of former Biden pal-turned-whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, who had offered damning evidence about alleged Biden family corruption, just two weeks before the 2020 presidential election, according to New York Post columnist Miranda Devine, author of “Laptop From Hell.”
Bobulinski’s “evidence appears to have fallen into the same black hole at the FBI as Hunter’s laptop, never to be seen again,” Devine wrote in a column Monday.
The computer, which Hunter Biden abandoned at a Wilmington, Delaware, computer repair shop, is believed to have been in the possession of the FBI since late 2019, more than a year before the election. Photos, videos, emails, and text messages on the device, which were also ignored by legacy news outlets, paint the president’s son as a drug-addled, venal degenerate and raise troubling questions about President Joe Biden’s own role in his son’s corrupt dealings.
Column’s up: FBI agent Timothy Thibault hid intel from whistleblower Tony Bobulinksi on Hunter and Joe Biden https://t.co/2p4scCV9GS
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) September 5, 2022
Thibault was the Washington Field Office’s point man to manage Bobulinski, according to Devine. Bobulinski was interviewed by the FBI for more than five hours on October 23, 2020, and told agents what he knew about then-presidential candidate Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s shady international business deals. The interview came a day after Bobulinski named Joe Biden as “the Big Guy” Hunter Biden referenced in an email as being due 10% of the proceeds of a payout from Chinese energy firm CEFC.
Bobulinski turned over to the FBI the contents of three cellphones containing encrypted messages between Hunter and his business partners, along with emails and financial documents detailing alleged Biden family corruption during Joe Biden’s two terms as vice president, according to Devine.
Bobulinski told FBI agents all about the deal with CEFC, the Beijing-controlled company charged with expanding China’s energy influence into Russia, Oman, Romania, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and beyond, Devine reported. CEFC chairman Ye Jianming was arrested by Chinese authorities in 2018 after his $9 billion acquisition of Russian oil giant Rosneft fell through.
Bobulinski, a decorated former Naval officer with top secret security clearances from the National Security Agency and the Department of Energy, also reportedly detailed Hunter Biden’s dealings with Mykola Zlochevsky, owner of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and with retired FBI director Louis Freeh.
After the interview, Bobulinski and his lawyer were given Thibault’s cellphone number and told he would advise them on the next steps. But neither Bobulinski nor his lawyer was ever contacted by Thibault, and Bobulinski was never brought in to testify before a Delaware grand jury investigating Hunter Biden.
Thibault retired two weeks ago amid an investigation by Special Counsel John Durham into his anti-Trump activities. Republican senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson have publicly accused Thibault of interfering in the Hunter Biden probe, and say they have more than a dozen whistleblowers who have told them FBI officials barred them from investigating damning evidence on the laptop.
“In October 2020, an avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting was ordered closed at the direction of ASAC Thibault,” Grassley wrote six weeks ago in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland.
A recent poll by Technometrica Institute of Policy and Politics suggested that 79% of Americans believe President Trump likely would have won re-election if voters had known about the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and that it was authentic.
A lawyer for Thibault denied Grassley’s allegations last week, saying the former agent “did not supervise the investigation of Hunter Biden.”
“In particular, Mr. Thibault was not involved in any decisions related to any laptop that may be at issue in that investigation and he did not seek to close the investigation.”