Hunter Biden’s not important. But covering his gun trial and infamous laptop showed the glaring hypocrisy and lies by dad Joe KNEW about his son’s crimes and is suspected of involvement in his shady foreign deals, says JOSH BOSWELL

I was the first journalist to authenticate Hunter Biden’s laptop with the help of top cyber forensics experts in early 2021. I have been following his story ever since.

Now that he’s been convicted of three felonies, the most important thing to know is this: Hunter Biden doesn’t matter.

He is not a civil servant. He is not running for office.

But he and his infamous laptop do offer a glimpse into the inner circle of our country’s president. And that is extremely important.

What did I see when I peered through that window?

Evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s shady foreign dealings and has been lying about them ever since.

Hunter Biden himself is not important and whether he escapes his three-felony conviction is not of great importance to the nation

As the first journalist to authenticate Hunter’s laptop with the help of top cyber forensics experts in early 2021, all I saw was evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s shady foreign dealings and has been lying about them ever since.

An email lists “the Big Guy” as a potential 10% partner in a deal with CEFC, a company that the Justice Department has proven is part of a Chinese government influence operation.

Text messages between partners in that deal caution against mentioning that Joe was indeed involved.

Hunter texted his Chinese business partners that Joe was sitting next to him and wanted to know why they had not yet transferred $10 million – even though geolocation data shows that Hunter was at Joe’s house that day.

A 2018 voicemail from Joe, after the New York Times ran a preliminary story suggesting Hunter may have been involved with CEFC, shows no shock or dismay.

Instead, Joe read the story and told Hunter, “I think you’re clear.”

Joe repeatedly dined with Hunter’s business associates, met them at the White House, and spoke to Hunter over the loudspeaker.

And an anonymous whistleblower told me that he was on a conference call with then-Vice President Joe, Hunter and others, discussing “revenue projections” for a Latin American online gambling company.

That’s why I keep writing about Hunter.

I believe we should seek out evidence of government corruption, even if it leads to someone’s favorite presidential candidate.

Amid all the shocking news about Joe Biden, possibly the most important email of the 154,000 on Hunter’s abandoned laptop is the infamous “big guy” email, written by Hunter’s partner James Gilliar, which suggested the president was secretly was involved in, and intended to benefit from, an alleged Chinese influence operation

Experts concluded that no evidence had been found “to indicate that the data had been fabricated.” Pictured: a selfie of Joe and Hunter (left) and former Biden staffer Tony Bobulinski (right)

Hunter’s gun crimes can be viewed through the same lens: They are important, insofar as they reflect on Joe Biden.

If this wasn’t the First Family, Joe might have been a prosecution witness last week.

He had lunch with Hunter five days before his gun purchase and told him in a voicemail three days later that he “needed help.”

“What, President Biden, did you see at that lunch that made you tell your son to get help?” a prosecutor could have asked.

Joe not only knew Hunter was addicted; there is good evidence that he knew at the time that Hunter had purchased a gun.

According to the gun shop owner, Secret Service agents showed up and demanded Hunter’s purchase form.

Are we to believe they never informed former Vice President Joe? Or that Hunter or Hallie never told him?

And yet the president has previously stated that his son “did nothing wrong.” It now appears that he knew this was not true.

Hunter, who is known to have battled substance abuse, was convicted on October 12, 2018 of lying about his addiction on a federal form he used to purchase a firearm. In the photo he poses naked with a gun.

Text messages between partners in that deal caution against mentioning that Joe was indeed involved

Joe tried to take the moral high ground last week by telling ABC that he won’t pardon Hunter (note, though, that he said nothing about commuting his son’s sentence).

It was a statement intended to provoke comparison with his political opponent Donald Trump, who complained that his own trials had been “rigged,” and who has happily used the power of the presidential pardon for his own purposes.

But Joe’s pious acceptance of Hunter’s conviction also causes him to distance himself from his son’s actions, even as the two are deeply connected on every level.

Even now, Joe says he supports his son and is appealing his conviction under the Second Amendment.

Again, Hunter himself is not important. Whether he shakes his convictions is not of great importance to the nation.

But if Hunter wins on these grounds, it will set a legal precedent that could prevent the prosecution of drug users who buy guns. And that, I would say, is contrary to the security of the Americans.

No one missed Joe’s irony when he learned Hunter was convicted of gun crimes while at a pro-gun control event in Atlanta on Tuesday.

Emails, texts, photos and documents unearthed by DailyMail.com have added to a still-growing body of evidence suggesting Joe had ties to his son Hunter’s shady business dealings.

It made it starkly clear that supporting his son in his appeal to the Second Amendment is nothing short of hypocrisy.

Yet the investigation into the Bidens is portrayed as insignificant, morally reprehensible or slavishly partisan.

This is the message from Democrats and left-wing news media, who portray themselves as morally superior to their rivals on the right.

Venerable newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post have for years turned a blind eye to the wealth of information in Hunter’s laptop that pointed to the possible corruption of our current president.

They dismissed the laptop as “Russian disinformation” — a claim once again proven false by the FBI paper trail laid out in Hunter’s trial last week.

So I admit, it’s a low bar to claim moral superiority over Trump, who lied on his loan applications, falsified payment records to a porn star to keep quiet about his alleged affair, and advanced baseless conspiracy theories about election fraud.

But America’s best and brightest news media have doggedly and skillfully investigated these outrages. They should apply the same treatment to ‘the Big Guy’.