We now have more corroboration of the New York Post’s Hunter Biden reporting than we do for any of the Russiagate pieces that dominated our news coverage for four straight years.

Michael Goodwin reports in the New York Post today that Tony Bobulinski, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, has given a statement not only confirming the authenticity of emails regarding Hunter’s schemes, but explaining that Joe Biden is, in fact, “the big guy” referred to in that correspondence. Bobulinski claims Hunter told him that his father signed off on deals with Chinese Communist firms there were struck while Hunter was leveraging his dad’s position in the Obama administration.

Now, perhaps the Navy veteran, one-time chief technology officer at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command, and largely apolitical Bobulinksi — who has only made campaign contributions to Democrats, and not to any Democrat, but to one of the most progressive members of Congress, Ro Khanna — is also part of an elaborate Russian cabal spreading “disinformation.” But it seems highly unlikely.

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Bobulinski says that Hunter Biden referred to his father as “my chairman and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing.” Maybe Bobulinski’s contentions are true, and maybe not. He offers no hard evidence that Hunter’s deals enriched Joe. This is why we used to have an institution in United States that was tasked with verifying these sorts of claims.

All of this could be cleared up with some basic reporting, beginning with a few basic questions for Joe: namely, “Did you ever financially benefit from Hunter’s relationships in China or Ukraine — or any other company he dealt with?” Because no matter what Donald Trump is saying or doing, no matter how close we are to an election, this is a legitimately newsworthy story. Only a complete abdication of journalistic professionalism will stop it from being covered.