The story of Hunter Biden’s laptop is like a Russian doll: Just when you think you’ve come to the end of it, you peel off another layer, and it gets crazier, journalist Miranda Devine said in an Oct. 26 speech.

Devine is this semester’s Eugene C. Pulliam Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Journalism. While on campus, she taught a one-credit investigative journalism class and delivered her speech, “Hunter Biden’s Laptop from Hell,” in Plaster Auditorium.

“This was the story that the American voters deserved to know before the 2020 election and it was kept from them,” Devine said. “The American people deserve to know that despite all his professions of ignorance during the 2020 election campaign, Joe Biden was intimately involved in his family’s influence-peddling scheme around the world that garnered them millions of dollars from America’s adversaries.”

Devine said she received a text from Rudy Giuliani that said he had approximately 40,000 emails, at least 1,000 texts, and hundreds of photographs and videos involving Hunter Biden.

Devine went through all the files in Biden’s laptop that was abandoned in Delaware. She broke the Hunter Biden story in the New York Post on Oct. 14, 2020. In the article, she explained how a corrupt Ukrainian energy company had been paying Hunter Biden $1 million per year to sit on their board when Joe Biden was vice president. After Joe Biden ceased to be vice president, Hunter Biden’s salary was cut in half.

“I only talk to people who tell the truth because they’re the only people worth talking to,” Devine said.

Devine said government agencies pressured social media outlets to censor her article before the 2020 presidential election.

“When the social media companies censored the New York Post, they were not doing that alone. They were doing it at the behest of the FBI,” Devine said. “The FBI had basically shaped them before the election, warning them about Russian disinformation, so the minute they saw our story, they were suspicious. They were primed to be suspicious.”

Freshman Megan Li took Devine’s one-credit class and said she enjoyed learning from Devine.

“Every time I hear the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop, I am continually surprised by how many people are involved and how large the scale of the operation is in our own government,” Li said.

Devine credited Americans for standing firm in their founding ideals.

America is alone in the world, Devine said. America’s DNA from the founding and the Constitution push back against tyranny when the rest of the world pushes toward it by encouraging free speech and education.

Freshman Alessia Sandala said her biggest takeaway from the speech is the amount of corruption in the government.

“A lot of the corruption happens behind closed doors,” Sandala said. “You don’t see any of it and you don’t hear of it. A lot of times, it seems kind of hopeless that nobody’s really trying to fix it, but just seeing Miranda trying to go after it is an inspiration.”

Devine said America is the seed of pushback against tyranny. 

“At Hillsdale you’re creating or forming the young people that are going to have to rescue these institutions,” Devine said. “You’re equipping them with the tools they need to do that, to replenish the moral capital that’s been squandered by their forebears.”