Two weeks ago, the New York Post revealed emails that implicated Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President and current presidential candidate Joe Biden, in a scandal that has shook the nation to its core, and has lasted much longer than the emails’ publication.

The scandal initially broke out in September last year after a whistleblower alleged that President Trump had pressured the Ukrainian President over the phone to reopen a case involving Hunter Biden. This prompted outcry across the nation as many accused Trump of abusing his power as President, and eventually that phone call led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives months later. The Senate immediately acquitted him, and thus Trump remains in office with full presidential authority; however, the scandal that prompted his impeachment involves more than just a phone call from one President to another.

After the whistle was blown over the phone call, Trump accused Joe Biden of having used his former position as Vice President to profit from Ukrainian energy. After all, that was at least part of why Trump called President Volodymyr Zelensky in the first place. However, since there was little to no evidence at the time supporting Trump’s claims that the Biden family profited from Ukrainian energy thanks to Joe’s position, his side of the story was pushed aside and he was eventually impeached. Joe Biden has repeatedly stated that he never talked with his son about his business in Ukraine.

The lack of evidence against Biden changed when a man dropped off a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden at a repair shop in Delaware and neglected to pick it up. The laptop contained seriously incriminating material, and the repair shop owner made several copies of the hard drive in order to turn into law enforcement and to friends in case he was killed. Trump’s attorney, former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, gave one of the drives containing the data to the New York Post, and this is where the scandal becomes even more interesting.

Hunter was on the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma Holdings, which was under investigation by a top Ukrainian prosecutor up until he was fired due to pressure from Joe Biden. The emails published by the NY Post contain proof that Joe Biden did indeed know about Hunter’s business affairs in Ukraine. Because this contrasted with Joe’s previous statements about Hunter’s business, Twitter and Facebook immediately censored the article containing the emails, claiming it was “fake news” and “misleading information.” In response, the Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, over Twitter’s censorship of the New York Post. In addition to the Senate’s response, the Federal Communications Commission’s Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the FCC would be moving forward to interpret Section 230 in order to address concerns regarding Big Tech’s legal immunity under it. 

But Joe and Hunter’s foreign business does not end in Ukraine. Even more recently, a man named Tony Bobulinski gave a press conference and did an interview with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson about his business relationship with Hunter Biden and what all he was involved in. He stated in the press conference that he is the CEO of Sinohawk Holdings, a firm with ties to China which Hunter Biden was a member of. Not only did the Biden family benefit significantly from Ukraine, but communist China as well? Bobulinski goes on to say that he is not political, but was rather concerned about the Biden’s dealings with a now-bankrupt Chinese company called CEFC China Energy Co. It was clear to him that Hunter was using that company as, “a personal piggy bank,” and that he took action to try and stop him. 

So Joe Biden not only knew about his son’s lucrative business dealings with foreign countries and lied about it, but also used his power as Vice President of the United States to get a foreign prosecutor investigating his son fired by withholding a billion dollars from one of those countries? That sounds like abuse of power to me. Of course, he is not VP anymore so he cannot be impeached for that, but it is still pretty damning to know that Joe is guilty of the exact same thing that got Trump impeached. Even worse is that Big Tech social media companies censored the New York Post for exposing this kind of corruption, less than a month before the presidential election. 

The implications of this scandal will last long after the smoke clears on election day, regardless of whoever wins the presidency. But whoever wins will get to determine whether or not Big Tech will continue to be allowed to censor political enemies, and possibly whether or not the Biden family is brought to justice for its corruption. If Joe wins, of course everything will proceed as if none of this ever happened, and he will get to remove Ajit Pai from the FCC thus blocking its attempt to curb Big Tech’s censorship. But if Trump wins, the possibility of bringing the Biden family to justice, while almost as far-fetched as bringing Hillary Clinton to justice for her handling of classified information, is at least real, and more importantly, there will be an actual chance to stop Big Tech from censoring media that they disagree with. If Big Tech is allowed to continue to censor anything that goes against their views, this country is headed towards a very dark time. If one is not allowed to speak what is on his mind, or to publish the truth online, do we truly have free speech? The media’s censorship has got to end, otherwise the downfall of free speech in the United States is certain, and the destruction of other civil liberties will be sure to follow.

Jacob Meyer is a Political Science student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. Hailing from Amarillo, Texas, he is currently involved in local politics in Lubbock, primarily with the Young Conservatives of Texas at Texas Tech.