President Biden sent his inner circle a devastating analysis of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s looming legal troubles during the 2016 race after he opted against running, according to an email stored on his son Hunter’s infamous laptop.
“Interesting,” Biden wrote in the subject line of the email, which contained a link to a column published by Real Clear Politics.
In it, University of Chicago political science professor Charles Lipson wrote that Clinton, then the presumptive Democratic nominee, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Loretta Lynch faced “a treacherous bridge to cross” due to the FBI investigation of Clinton’s private email server.
Lipson said it was “clear that CIA and FBI investigators already fear an administration whitewash and have leaked damaging information to the press.”
He also predicted that if then-FBI Director James Comey recommended prosecution, “he will put [the Department of Justice] and the White House in a very tight box.”
As a veteran prosecutor, Comey “will only present strong, winnable cases” and “won’t present one or two charges,” Lipson said.
“He will present evidence of dozens and dozens of felonies,” he wrote.
“Indictment on even a few felonies is a torpedo beneath the waterline for Clinton.”
At the time, Biden was Obama’s vice president and had announced four months earlier that he wouldn’t run for president, saying the window for a winning campaign had “closed” while his family “worked through the grieving process” over the May 2015 brain cancer death of his eldest child, Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden.
Biden sent around the link to the report the same day it was written, Feb. 29, 2016, using an email address with the username “67stingray.”
That name is an apparent reference to the president’s prized 1967 Chevrolet Corvette, a 300-horsepower, green convertible with pop-up headlights that he once used to burn rubber on a segment of the CNBC show “Jay Leno’s Garage.”
In addition to son Hunter Biden, the recipients included wife Jill Biden and top aides Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, who now serve the president as a senior adviser and counselor, respectively.
Joe Biden also sent the email to his sister and longtime political strategist, Valerie Biden Owens, and her husband, Jack Owens, his brother Jim Biden, daughter-in-law Hallie Biden, son-in-law Dr. Howard Krein and two of Hunter Biden’s daughters, Naomi and Finnegan Biden.
The Post exclusively revealed the existence of Hunter Biden’s emails in a series of bombshell October 2020 reports based on the contents of a damaged MacBook Pro laptop that was abandoned at a repair shop in the Biden family’s hometown of Wilmington, Del.
Last month, both the New York Times and the Washington Post — which initially downplayed the computer’s email contents as unverified — said they had authenticated many of the emails, including some that are apparently being used in a federal probe of suspected tax fraud, money laundering and foreign lobbying violations by Hunter Biden.
In July 2016, Comey recommended against prosecuting Clinton over her private server, calling her handling of classified materials while US secretary of state “extremely careless” but saying that the FBI “cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts.”
Comey later reopened the case — 11 days before Election Day — following the discovery of Clinton emails on a laptop seized from former US Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY), then married to top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, during an investigation into his sexting with a 15-year-old girl.
After agents worked “around the clock” to review the emails, Comey said there wouldn’t be any charges, two days before the vote that saw Republican Donald Trump defy expectations and beat Clinton.
Days later, Clinton blamed Comey for her stunning defeat.
The White House didn’t respond to an email seeking comment about Biden’s sharing of the column.
