hunter biden laptop BS 2

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SEE HUNTER LAPTOP 3 12 23

primary 6 22 on longevity deny deflect ctr attack rubber glue inverse?

bit belated? 1019

see russia-gate

but the emails --> laptop

see benghzi BS WEAPONIZATION

see burisma, Derkach -->Rudy

aha inverse mirror whataboutism ontrump nepotism/corruption, they all do it (or just kremlin muddy water, nothing can be believed)

Plus attempt to neutralize russian collusion (putin bounty on us soldiers?!)

shokin reboot 8 23

bak 6 22 html endit

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Hunter Biden laptop controversy - Wikipedia

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hypoc

an 12 23 no lnx

Busted: Jim Jordan and James Comer have a new judicial plan

Matt Laslo

andRaw Story

December 25, 2023

WASHINGTON – Republicans in Congress aren’t just doing all they can to impeach the Biden name – and possibly President Joe Biden himself – they’re also going to extraordinary lengths to protect two billionaire GOP megadonors who helped the party remake the Supreme Court in recent years.

For one, House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) are trying to stymie Washington, D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb’s investigation into Federalist Society co-chairman Leonard Leo.

Schwalb is looking into allegations that Leo is illegally profiting off non-profits. Jordan and Comer have responded by threatening to subpoena Schwalb.

ALSO READ: A neuroscientist’s guide to surviving Christmas with Trump-loving relatives

Meanwhile on the other side of the U.S. Capitol, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee walked out en masse, boycotting Democrats’ effort to subpoena Leo and Republican jurisprudence sugar daddy Harlan Crow over the hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts he’s given to Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni over the decades, according to a ProPublica investigation.

The GOP offensive to protect two billionaire donors is blatant hypocrisy, according to ethics watchdogs.

“There are many senators who will say anything. I mean, as long as it's their guy, they'll defend anything, and they have no consistency whatsoever and they're completely hypocritical,” Melanie Sloan, a senior adviser for nonpartisan watchdog American Oversight, told Raw Story.

ALSO READ: Florida judge’s son is a neo-Nazi patron: data leak

In today’s tribal and perpetually warring Congress, it seems even pay-to-play politics are now partisan. While Senate Republicans are vowing to use all procedural tools at their disposal to block Leo and Crow from being subpoenaed, most in the party are also backing the Biden impeachment inquiry because they say Hunter Biden was selling access to his father — an accusation for which they’ve provided no evidence to date.

On paper – paper stamped with GOP letterhead, mind you – the impeachment inquiry is focused on buying access.

“It better be, because, quite honestly, Hunter Biden's personal problems aren't the issue. The issue is whether he was selling access to a vice president willing to provide that access, and whether the vice president at the time – the current president – was enriched by it,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told Raw Story.

As for the hundreds of thousands of dollars in private jet travel, stays at his private retreat and luxurious free vacations aboard his 162-foot yacht that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni admitted to receiving from Harlan Crow?

“That's not enriching yourself, because you went on a boat ride for God's sake. That's not the same as cash in your checking account,” Cramer said of ProPublica’s revelations.

Cramer argues, if the trips weren’t free “maybe he wouldn't have gone on it.”

“The difference is … he’s a friend. Friends are allowed to provide hospitality for you in their home or on their boat. That's very different than a foreign adversary providing cash to a sitting vice president of the United States through his son. That's barely, barely even in the same ballpark, if at all,” Cramer said. “It’s a stretch, to say the least. It's just, it's not the same thing.”

That’s not even mentioning the free private school tuition Thomas’ nephew – who he raised like a son – received from Crow, which ProPublica estimates could have totaled upward of $150,000.

ALSO READ: Busted: These healthcare nonprofits are accepting millions from Big Tobacco

Senate Democrats, some of whom argue Thomas was in a prime position to rule on cases that effect Crow’s fortune, are particularly interested in whether Crow declared the lavish free vacations and travel as business expenses on his federal taxes.

For Leo – co-chairman of the Federalist Society, including the $1.6 billion fortune it now controls – Campaign for Accountability filed an IRS complaint alleging he’s funneling money from seven nonprofit entities he controls to his for-profit businesses, thus illegally profiting off campaign donations. The apparent interference from Jordan and Comer is appalling to watchdogs.

“Then, at the same time, they're screaming about the politicization of justice when they talk about Donald Trump, but they want to tell a sitting U.S. attorney – you know, the state's attorney for D.C. – who he can and can't look at because they don't want him looking at Leonard Leo,” Sloan said. “They just are bowing down at the altar of Leonard Leo and his $1.6 billion.”

House Republicans deny they’re interfering with an ongoing investigation.

“I’m confused. So it’s OK for Democrats to subpoena Leonard Leo and Harlan Crow, but not OK for us to look into AG Schwalb? Isn’t that literally the definition of a double standard — a.k.a Democrats can do something, but we can’t?” Russell M. Dye, communications director and counsel for the House Judiciary Committee, emailed Raw Story.

ALSO READ: ‘Too preposterous to be real’: College hires ‘pink slime’ publisher as journalism prof

Republicans say there’s no reason for an investigation, because the megadonors aren’t accused of trying to change the outcomes of specific cases before the Supreme Court.

“I really think there's like a fundamental difference here between trading favors and not, right? The difference here is the consideration. I've seen no evidence that any of the Supreme Court justices, least of all Clarence Thomas, offered to give anything back. To me, that’s the big difference,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) told Raw Story.

“Now look, if Harlan Crow or anybody else wrote $100 million to a Supreme Court Justice, and say, ‘Hey, please do this thing in my benefit’ — well, that raises some serious problems. But is it the standard that a Supreme Court justice can't have a rich friend?” Vance continued. “If they want to set that standard, it’s up to them, but I don't think that that raises nearly the same pay-to-play concerns as Joe Biden’s situation.”

Gifts are different than business appears to be the current GOP ethical standard for such matters.

“We're not talking about gifts. This is business. So with Hunter [Biden], this is, you know, he's on the Burisma board. He's doing these foreign business deals in Ukraine and China and lots of offices, and he is openly out there selling his dad,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told Raw Story. “At the very least, he's clearly making money off his father. The question is, did the president benefit from that? That's what they need to answer. So that's why we have the inquiry.”

When pressed on the impeachment inquiry into Biden, former Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) wasn’t up to date on the specifics, even as he proudly remembers getting the investigative ball rolling for House Republicans.

“You’re talking about the substance of it. I’m not sure I can talk about the substance of it,” Grassley told Raw Story. “Except, the process is necessary to complete what [Sen. Ron] Johnson (R-WI) and I started four years ago, and that is to get all the information that Congress is entitled to in our oversight capacity and that's what it's all about, as far as I know.”

The Supreme Court adopted a new code of ethics since the lavish gifts were first reported, so Democrats’ complaints are outdated, Grassley argues.

ALSO READ: You blew it in New Hampshire, Joe Biden. Pray it doesn’t hurt you — and then some

“Because the judicial branch put out their … new regulation, and if that doesn’t take care of it – and we won't know that for a little while, maybe a year or two – then maybe that'd be a legitimate question,” Grassley said. “But right now it’s not a legitimate question considering the initiative of the Supreme Court.”

After all, 10 Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee walked out of the vote to subpoena Leo and Crow on November 30 – allowing Democrats to pass the measure 11-0 – Senate Republicans argue the vote broke committee rules.

“They’re not legal,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told Raw Story. “Anybody who knows a lawbook from a J. Crew catalog knows they can get those subpoenas quashed in one hearing.”

Because of wholesale GOP opposition, there doesn’t seem to be the votes to formalize the subpoenas on the Senate floor where Republicans are threatening to require a 60-vote threshold.

“You’ll never see this come to the floor,” Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Politico. “We’ll attack it legally, we’ll vote against it. It’d be a s—show.”

Even as the party hasn’t decided how it will proceed in the Senate, many Democrats expected this.

“We're going after the icons of the Republican Party, Leonard Leo, of course, and, to some, Justice Thomas. They’re very sensitive to that,” Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told Raw Story. “Public sentiment is overwhelmingly in our favor, so they have got to be strident in opposition.”

The two different standards for Biden and GOP donors is remarkable to Democrats.

“Republicans want to protect the court that they have packed, and they protect the court by maintaining its status as an unaccountable highest court of the land,” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) told Raw Story. “It looks like they're doing everything they can to keep hidden the secret relationships that are going on at the court with powerful interests that bring cases before the court.”

To the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), this made-for-Fox-and-Newsmax drama shows how completely former President Donald Trump has remade the GOP in his own image.

“It is just sad the way that Donald Trump has completed his stranglehold over the Republican Party,” Raskin told Raw Story. “Donald Trump has taught them – from the Charlottesville riot forward – that there should be no enemies on the right. And they have no enemies on the right, and they will take no principled stance against anybody on the right, no matter how fascistic they are.”

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Newsmax host says federal charges against Hunter Biden are "the best thing the Bidens could have asked for" | Media Matters for America

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hunter makes presser across st from assclowns

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Comer threatens 'contempt' despite Hunter Biden’s lawyer quoting chairman’s media appearances - Alternet.org

an ah 11 23

with 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner facing four criminal indictments and a variety of civil lawsuits, right-wing media outlets and MAGA conspiracy theorists have been claiming that President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden is the real legal story. But legal experts have responded that there is no evidence showing the type of criminal conspiracy within the Biden family that Trump's supporters are alleging.

House Republicans have subpoenaed Hunter Biden to testify during a closed-door deposition on December 13 — and he was quick to respond that yes, he'll be there.

In an op-ed published on November 29, MSNBC's Hayes Brown argues that if Biden's testimony makes anyone look bad, it will most likely be House Republicans.

"Rather than fight the subpoena," Brown observes, "Hunter Biden appears eager, maybe too eager, to appear before the GOP-led panel. In a letter from his lawyer on Tuesday, Biden not only agreed to testify, but to do so in an open committee session. And in his response, Oversight Committee Chair Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., made clear how caught off guard he was — and how unprepared he is to back up his tough talk in public."

Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden's lawyer, told Comer, "Your fishing expedition has become Captain Ahab chasing the great white whale."

"Demanding a public hearing is a dramatic and potential fraught play from Lowell, who has been spearheading an aggressive counteroffensive strategy for his client," Brown notes. "Could such a hearing be embarrassing for Hunter Biden? Yes, definitely. It's a chance for Republicans to bring up the very public scandals he's been linked to and the personal demons that have haunted (him)…. And yet, despite those risks, Lowell in his letter is clearly ready to call Comer's bluff."

Brown continues, "And as he noted, history is on his side in this case. The scramble for Republicans to find something impeachment-worthy to use against Biden has been an absolute circus…. But based on what we've seen so far, it seems more likely that any trap that gets sprung would be ACME-branded and backfire completely on the hapless coyote — er, I mean Comer — who set it."

*Read Hayes Brown's full MSNBC column at this link.

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an 1123

on Tuesday, lawyers representing Hunter Biden said their client was willing to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability to answer lawmakers' questions in response to their subpoena — but only if his testimony was conducted in full view of the public.

Defense attorney Abbe Lowell said committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) had previously used closed-door committee meetings "to manipulate, even distort the facts and misinform the public" and instead proposed "opening the door." Comer rejected the offer and said President Joe Biden's son must first appear before the committee in a closed-door session, but proposed a public hearing at an undetermined later date.

In a public statement, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), who is the ranking member of the oversight committee, said that Comer's "wailing and moaning" about a "vast unproven family conspiracy" proved that the chairman's inquiry was little more than partisan bluster.

"What an epic humiliation for our colleagues and what a frank confession that they are simply not interested in the facts and have no confidence in their own case or the ability of their own Members to pursue it," Raskin stated. "After the miserable failure of their impeachment hearing in September, Chairman Comer has now apparently decided to avoid all Committee hearings where the public can actually see for itself the logical, rhetorical and factual contortions they have tied themselves up in. The evidence has shown time and again President Biden has committed no wrongdoing, much less an impeachable offense."

"Chairman Comer’s insistence that Hunter Biden’s interview should happen behind closed doors proves it once again. What the Republicans fear most is sunlight and the truth," he added.

While Comer has repeatedly assailed Biden over alleged corrupt behavior, he has bristled at accusations of impropriety within his own family. Earlier this month, Comer erupted at Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Florida) when the Democrat brought up unanswered questions regarding a $200,000 loan the Kentucky Republican made to his brother involving a land transaction made with an LLC.

"Why should they believe you? There’s there’s a different rule for the president and there’s a different rule for you? Why should they believe what you’re saying? Mr. Chairman, why?" Moskowitz said. "You go on Fox News and say, ‘loans and deals are a way to evade taxes,' we don’t know that’s what you’re doing or not? We don’t know. We have no idea."

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'Pressure campaign': Hunter Biden wants to subpoena T

rump and Barr in criminal trial - Alternet.org

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AN 1123

David Weiss, who was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland as special counsel to oversee the Department of Justice's investigation into Hunter Biden, recently testified under oath that his investigation has not been obstructed in any way by the Biden administration.

The House Judiciary Committee — chaired by Trump acolyte Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — recently brought in Weiss for questioning in relation to the ongoing Hunter Biden investigation, which Republicans argue is being hamstrung by the White House. But the Washington Post reported Wednesday that Weiss' testimony silenced those rumors.

"I am, and have been, the decision-maker on this case," Weiss said. "At no time was I blocked, or otherwise prevented from pursuing charges or taking the steps necessary in the investigation by other United States Attorneys, the Tax Division or anyone else at the Department of Justice."

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-New York), the ranking member on the committee, called Weiss' testimony a "waste of time."

"[Weiss] was very clear that no one told him what to prosecute and what not to prosecute. He made all those decisions himself, and he said that before," Nadler said. "And I mean, [Republicans] tried to get him to say anything, but they just go over and over and over again the same thing."

House Republicans disagreed with that sentiment, insisting that Weiss' testimony wasn't credible and that questions still lingered about political pressure from the White House on the DOJ's investigation into the president's son.

"The important thing is that he has no answers for why he would offer a misdemeanor plea bargain with no jail time to someone who committed felonies and exclude all unknown or yet-to-be-investigated crimes," Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California) said. "It’s that lack of explanation that leads us to all the other questions of whether he was influenced by others or in consultation with others."

Hunter Biden is set to go to trial in 2024 on charges relating to gun possession and filing false statements after a plea agreement fell apart earlier this year. Weiss was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2018 to be US Attorney for the US District Court in the District of Delaware. President Biden has kept him in that position.

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rww 823

far-right activist and legal gadfly Larry Klayman announced this month that a “citizen grand jury” had indicted President Joe Biden and members of his family, and that a “citizens’ judge” has handed down felony convictions after a “trial” in Boise, Idaho.}:

“BREAKING: The Bidens Convicted!” was the subject line of an August 24 email sent by Klayman’s group Freedom Watch to readers of the right-wing publication Human Events. Klayman has also talked about the Biden “conviction” in online videos, where he has also posted clips of “evidence” being presented to the fake judge in the fake trial.

Klayman said that “sentencing of the corrupt Biden plan” will be held August 29:{. “We will then commission established law enforcement and the military to take Biden and his son and his brother into custody if they don’t turn themselves in, and frankly, put them in the slammer,” he said in a }:{ posted on YouTube. He has promised future trials of public health official Anthony Fauci and other perceived enemies of the MAGA movement.}:

Klayman’s cosplay has no legal standing, but could inspire violent behavior from one of former President Donald Trump’s passionate supporters. Klayman denounced the “Marxian Jewish left”he said was persecuting Trump, calling for a “counterrevolution.” He called the judge in the Georgia indictment an “anti-white racist.”He said he believes that someone in Trump’s orbit will be harmed, which would set off Trump’s supporters.

Klayman’s escapades in the past have included a citizen grand jury that “convicted” then-President Barack Obama of fraud, and a failed rally at the White House that was meant to force Obama out of the White House.

Klayman is using his new version to raise money forFreedom Watch, a group he founded after falling out with the leaders of Judicial Watch, which he also founded.

Tags: Larry Klayman Civil War MAGA Freedom Watch

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an 8 23 no lnx

Republicans’ 'untethered' Hunter Biden claims demolished by WaPo fact-checker

Alex HendersonAugust 17, 2023

A Washington Post fact check on Thursday took House Republicans to task as right-wing lawmakers "over hype" the House Oversight Committee's investigation into President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Kentucky) has been leading the Hunter Biden probe in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Post's Glenn Kessler gives Comer and his GOP colleagues an aggressive fact-check in his August 17 column.

"The House Oversight Committee, led by Comer, has been investigating business dealings of President Biden's son, Hunter, and other family members — and by extension, unverified allegations that the president was involved in his son's business as well," Comer explains. "The Committee has obtained thousands of bank records, and the Republican staff has issued three memorandums summarizing some of the findings. The memos are written in a partisan manner — ignoring or playing down contrary information — but an interesting pattern has emerged."

Kessler continues, "The memos themselves have careful language that is often hedged. Then, Comer and other GOP lawmakers, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), go on Twitter or speak to conservative media using hyperbolic language that goes well beyond what the memos say. Over time, the reporting on the memos in conservative media becomes untethered from the documentation in the reports."

House Republicans, Kessler emphasizes, typically exaggerate the amount of $20 million in payments that went to the Biden family because of Hunter Biden's business activities.

"As for the $20 million in payments," Kessler explains, "Comer and other Republicans invoke this figure often. A close reading of the memos, however, finds that only about $7 million can be directly attributed to Biden family members, mostly Hunter, while the rest went to 'associates,' according to the memos. Yet Comer and other lawmakers misleadingly suggest all of the money went to the Biden family or, as some label it, 'the Biden crime family.' No evidence has emerged that any of these funds can be traced to Joe Biden himself."

Kessler points out that Comer "often suggests that the Biden family used…. so-called shell companies to launder money." But that claim, according to Kessler, is "undercut by the list of 21 companies that appear in" a staff memo.

READ MORE: 'It's like a soap opera': These Republicans are weary of their colleagues' Hunter Biden obsession

The term "shell company," Kessler points out, has a dark connotation. But the companies Hunter Biden headed, he adds, "had legitimate business interests."

"Others had clearly identified business investments," according to Kessler. "Digging through the records, we find only three whose business purpose remains vague. One, Rosemont Seneca Global Risk Services, LLC, may not even be related to Hunter Biden, according to an e-mail found in Hunter Biden's laptop. The memos do not list any payments that flowed through these three companies."

READ MORE: Vivek Ramaswamy implies Hunter Biden is reason behind US aid to Ukraine: report

Glenn Kessler's full column is available at this link (subscription required).

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MMA 8 23

After Hunter Biden charges, right-wing media immediately move the goalposts

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/hunter-biden-david-weiss-and-rights-perpetual-bad-faith-scandal-machine

There’s simply no reason for reporters to give credence to the Republicans and right-wing media figures currently rending their garments over Attorney General Merrick Garland’s grant of special counsel powers to David Weiss, the prosecutor investigating President Joe Biden’s son.

The right’s interest in Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes begins and ends with whether they can use him to harm his father’s reelection campaign. They are willing to pretend to be mad that Weiss wasn’t appointed special counsel — and then get mad that he was; for political gain, they’re even willing to pretend to care about tax crimes after years of trying to defang the Internal Revenue Service’s ability to target tax cheats. But reporters covering their responses don’t have to play along with this charade.

Weiss, a U.S. attorney first appointed by former President Donald Trump and retained by President Biden, has been investigating Hunter Biden for five years. The probe has overlapped with a storm of spurious right-wing claims that foreign actors had used Hunter Biden’s business interests to bribe his father. In June, Weiss charged Hunter Biden with two misdemeanor counts of failure to pay taxes and one count of felony gun possession as part of a plea agreement; the agreement fell apart during a court hearing and Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty. On Friday, Garland announced that Weiss had requested special counsel status and he had granted it after talks to revive the plea deal failed.

Republican politicians and the party’s media propagandists reacted to Weiss’ appointment with feigned fury. Just weeks ago, right-wingers were denouncing Garland’s supposed refusal to grant Weiss special counsel status as evidence of the Biden administration’s corruption. But now that Garland has actually done it, that too is a signal of the Biden administration’s corruption — with some on the right even claiming Weiss is ineligible for the position.

Sean Hannity, the Trump adviser and GOP mouthpiece who also has a prime-time Fox News show, and Gregg Jarrett, the Fox contributor Hannity brings on to explain that Democrats are criminals and Republicans are not, showed how this game is played on Friday night.

Hannity opened his show by describing Garland’s appointment of Weiss as “a pathetic new sleight of hand from Biden’s clearly weaponized and politicized DOJ” and “a new strategy — yup — to help shield the big guy and the entire Biden family operation, but especially President Joe Biden.” He added that Weiss’ appointment may not be legal because special counsels are supposed to be appointed from outside government, citing Jarrett. After railing against the newly minted special counsel, Hannity concluded, “So let me be very clear: David Weiss is not to be trusted. This is a sham from the get-go.”

“I think this is a farce, more cover-up and corruption by Merrick Garland,” Jarrett added when Hannity brought him on later in the program. “The attorney general is not allowed to appoint David Weiss as special counsel. Under federal regulations, you can only appoint somebody outside the government because Weiss is conflicted.” Jarrett went on to call Weiss “the absolute last person on Earth who should be special counsel. This is the guy who effectively stopped the case. So, Sean, you know, the fix is in. It’s a sham.”

That’s not what Jarrett was telling Hannity back in April. Then, the story was that “the fix is in” because Garland had supposedly refused to grant Weiss special counsel status (Weiss denied this happened).

“You know, David Weiss, who wanted to file the charges against Hunter Biden, went to Merrick Garland and asked to have him elevated to special counsel status, to give him independence and autonomy which Garland promised in his testimony,” Jarrett said on the April 21 edition of Hannity. “What did Garland do? He said absolutely no. That tells you everything you need to know about this.”

As for Weiss’ eligibility to be named special counsel, the situation is nearly identical to Trump attorney general William Barr’s 2020 grant of that status to John Durham, the U.S. attorney whose investigation of the origins of the Russia probe the right trumpeted.

When that news was announced, Jarrett reacted by telling Hannity viewers, “This was a shrewd and smart move by Bill Barr. He’s essentially made John Durham Eliot Ness. He’s untouchable, giving him elevated status as special counsel. Remember, the A.G. is gone when a new administration comes in and so are the 93 U.S. attorneys, and Durham is one of those.”

That’s a revealing statement. Contrary to Jarrett, President Biden did not fire every U.S. attorney — he left Weiss in place to complete the investigation of his son. The move was one of several Joe Biden took in order to maintain the credibility of the justice system after his election. For that, he gets no credit from the likes of Hannity and Jarrett, as their interests are purely partisan and results-oriented. The integrity of the process doesn’t really matter — if it finds Republicans guilty or Democrats not guilty, it must be flawed.

For decades, Fox talking heads like Hannity and the rest of the right’s scandal machine have relied not just on keeping their audience perpetually angry — but on a pliant mainstream press willing to**parrottheir preposterous arguments as if they were offered in good faith.

They do not actually care about tax crimes. The GOP’s top policy priority is repealing funding for the IRS to target wealthy tax evaders, and right-wing personalities denounced potential new hires for that agency as President Biden’s “army,” “Gestapo,” and “Praetorian Guard.”

They do not actually care about politicized justice. Trump regularly used the justice system to target his political opponents, he and his presidential primary foes are openly running on ending the independence of the Justice Department from the White House, and his media allies regularly call for politically motivated prosecutions.

And they do not actually care about the purported corrupt dealings of members of a president’s family. The allegations regarding Hunter Biden pale in comparison to reporting about Trump, his sons Eric and Don Jr., and his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, who worked in his White House.

They are pretending to care, and reporters should not pretend to believe them.

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comer said prez took 20M$ then said family

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2x? an

united States Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) on Wednesday ridiculed the House Oversight Committee's crusade against President Joe Biden's son Hunter following the Justice Department's multi-count indictment against Chairman James Comer's (R-Kentucky) supposed key informant.

Israeli-American think tank director Gal Luft was charged with eight felonies last Monday and faces a maximum sentence of one hundred years in prison for the combined offenses.

This development has damaged the credibility of the GOP's probe of alleged Biden family corruption, for which they have provided no evidence.

Raskin, the ranking Democratic member on Oversight, noted as much during Wednesday's hearing.

"The majority's long-promised star witness turns out to be a fugitive from American justice; an arms trafficker indicted on eight federal criminal felony counts, and an unregistered foreign agent for China who tried to trade Chinese arms for Iranian oil. So I guess he's not gonna be a witness for the majority anytime soon," Raskin said.

"Well after the failed SARS reports, bank records, form 10-23," Raskin quipped, "we can conclude that this Inspector Clouseau-style quest for something that doesn't exist has turned our Committee into a theater of the absurd; an exercise in futility and embarrassment."

Watch the clip below via The Recount or at this link.

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apr 7 2x?

rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) shared an internal memo with Democrats revealing that House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) has issued subpoenas for documents and bank records related to the Biden family and business deals allegedly conducted by Hunter Biden, Politico reported.

The memo showed that Bank of America, Cathay Bank, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC USA N.A., and Mervyn Yan, a former business associate of Hunter Biden’s, were all targeted in the subpoena.

"To date, Chairman Comer has issued six subpoenas and sent 39 letters in the Biden family investigation alone. Notably, Mr. Comer has failed to issue a single document subpoena in any other Committee investigation this Congress," Raskin said. "This significant use of resources duplicates efforts by Senate Republicans in the 116th Congress, which, after three years, have failed to reveal any wrongdoing by President Biden."

Comer fired back at Raskin's statement, saying his disclosing of the subpoenas showed a "cheap attempt to thwart cooperation from other witnesses."

"Given his antics with the first bank subpoena, the American people and media should be asking what information Ranking Member Raskin is trying to hide this time," he added.

am 7 23 vid

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) warned Republicans that former President Donald Trump's culpability for Covid-19 deaths "would only deepen" if their theory about a lab leak in China was true.

Raskin made the remarks during a Tuesday House Oversight hearing into the origins of Covid-19.

"We are all interested in finding out the origins of the Covid-19 epidemic to make sure that such a nightmare never happens again to us," Raskin began. "Some people think that the finding that it all started with a lab leak would somehow absolve Donald Trump of his lethally reckless response to the pandemic. Of course, his response was dangerously dysfunctional regardless of how it got started."

The Maryland Democrat pointed out that Trump's former adviser, Dr. Deborah Birx, "said that we lost hundreds of thousands of American lives because of the flaws in the response."

IN OTHER NEWS: Trump has set up an 'embarrassing' trap for his own lawyers: national security attorney

"But even if the virus came from a lab, as indeed it could have, we don't know that yet, that would only deepen Donald Trump's culpability because he was the one who repeatedly and enthusiastically praised China's early handling of the pandemic and assured us that he was working closely with President Xi on the response to it," Raskin added. "So let's just get the facts straight and leave all the political myth-making aside."

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trump inves now special cnsl so trial inevitable

plea deal chucked (by judge?) b/c no guar not go after him in future

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https://www.alternet.org/republicans-coverup-garland-hunter-biden/

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mma 8 23

WATTERS (HOST): Joe Biden visited the Grand Canyon today to designate it a national monument. This would be the 130th national monument, but as always is the case with Joe Biden, you have to follow the money. When you designate something as a national monument, you automatically stop all industrial and commercial activity in the area, meaning what Joe Biden's really doing is blocking mining activity on a million acres bordering the Grand Canyon. What kind of mining? Uranium mining. Now, why would Joe Biden block uranium mining?

...

So you have to ask, why Joe Biden, who says he's anti-Russia, is funding Russia's dangerous uranium monopoly that puts America's national security and energy independence at risk? Why is our Secretary of State Antony Blinken giving Rosatom execs visas to come speak in DC? Why is the only major Russian company that Biden left off the sanctions list Rosatom? Russia is not only using the billion dollars to fund the Ukraine war, they're modernizing their own nuke arsenal and pointing more lethal weapons at us.Russia's Rosatom's building nuclear reactors in Iran and helping China ramp up its nuke program.

So, instead of mining uranium here at home -- remember made in America Joe, union jobs Joe, no emissions Joe -- why wouldn't he starve this dirty Russian company of cash?It's like Keystone all over again. His entire energy policy favors Russia and China, why is that?

Well, does it have anything to do with the three and a half million dollars the Russians paid the Biden's? Or the Porsche Panamera that the Kazakhstanis gifted Hunter? Does it have anything to do with the three and half carat diamond that the Chinese slipped the first son? There's something very mysterious going on in the international uranium market that involves the Biden's and the Russians.

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laptop i assume watters?

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-claims-house-gops-star-witness-said-exact-opposite-everything-he-said-0

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-host-links-joe-bidens-interview-weather-channel-hunter-biden

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https://www.alternet.org/vivek-ramalwamy-hunter-biden-ukraine

during a Saturday Iowa appearance, 2024 Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy alleged that President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden is the reason for the United States' aid to Ukraine, NBC reports.

The GOP hopeful made his remarks as "Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) and his colleagues have been alleging that President Joe Biden took a bribe from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, which Hunter Biden represented as a lobbyist."

NBC notes:

Russia invaded Ukraine in the winter of 2022, years after Biden left Burisma’s board. Since the invasion, the Biden administration and Congress have given billions of dollars of aid to Ukraine despite polls that show the American people are split on sending more funding.

"The purpose of the U.S. military [is] to advance American interests, to protect the homeland. Not to aimlessly fight some random war that's arguably a repayment for a private bribe that a family member of the United States received, $5 million from Burisma," Ramaswamy said. "Was the payment to Hunter Biden corrupt? Absolutely it was. Do I think that it has some relationship towards our posture toward Ukraine? I think it's likely that it does."

Washington Postcolumnist Phillip Bump wrote in a recent column "despite Comer's claim," his allegation against the Biden family "is not becoming more credible every day," noting, "there has been no evidence tying Joe Biden to Hunter Biden's work" for Burisma "in any concrete way."

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https://www.mediamatters.org/daily-caller/testimony-hunter-biden-associate-devon-archer-directly-contradicts-right-wing-hype

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McCarthy tells Hannity Biden family’s business is 'rising to the level of impeachment inquiry'

https://www.alternet.org/Bank/hunter-biden-2662361445/

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an 7 23

Representative Robert Garcia (D-California) tore into Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) at a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday after Greene displayed explicit images of President Joe Biden's son Hunter engaged in sexual acts.

Although Biden was indicted federal tax evasion, the stunt was the GOP's latest gambit in their as-yet evidenceless pursuit of the First Family, all of whom they have accused of corruption.

"'Before we begin, I would like to let the Committee and everyone watching at home [know] that parental discretion is advised,' Greene said before attempting to smear Biden as a sex trafficker," noted Raw Story.

While questioning Internal Revenue Service whistelblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, Garcia recalled that Republicans have failed to pony up the dough on the Bidens, into whom probes commenced under the admininstration of former President Donald Trump.

"So let's first zero in on the bottom line. What we have is two IRS investigators who clearly worked very hard on the Hunter Biden investigation. And thank you both for being here today," Garcia began.

"You both gave recommendations to prosecutors based on your work, which you've described today," Garcia continued. "And then Donald Trump's handpicked prosecutor then made recommendations to charge Hunter. He acted independently and he himself has confirmed this. You did your job making recommendations, and then the prosecutor did his job. You don't have to agree with his conclusions, but that's the bottom line of what we have today at this hearing. But today's hearing is like most of the majorities investigations and hearings — a lot of allegations, zero proof, no receipts, but apparently some d*ck pics."

Watch the clip below via Media Matters for America Director of Media Intelligence Lisa Powers or at this link

---

old

Republicans order 11 witnesses involved in Hunter Biden probe to testify before House

Sarah K. Burris

and Raw Story

June 29, 2023

An IRS agent has been doing the rounds on various media outlets claiming, to be a whistleblower revealing that Hunter Biden was given preferential treatment during a five-year investigation into his son's tax evasion.

As a result, Republican House members have called in key investigators to answer questions.

After Joe Biden's administration took over, the Justice Department handed the probe into Hunter Biden to one of Trump's appointees to investigate to avoid the implication of impropriety. Still, Republicans allege impropriety.

Speaking to MSNBC on Wednesday, whistleblower lawyer Harry Litman explained why he didn't believe the IRS agent Gary Shapley, a supervisory agent who helped oversee the Hunter Biden investigation, didn't qualify for that status. And he implied that Shapley has a political axe to grind.

Hunter Biden had two years of unpaid taxes, which he ultimately paid along with additional fees. For others, including former Trump adviser Roger Stone, that's generally the end of the case. In the case of Hunter Biden, however, misdemeanor charges were issued. He made a plea deal regarding them earlier this month, outraging Republicans.

With the allegations coming from the self-described whistleblower, Rep. James Comer (R-KY), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) have called in 11 witnesses related to the investigation.

The witnesses they want are: Lesley Wolf, Jack Morgan, Mark Daly, Matthew Graves, E. Martin Estrada, David Weiss, Stuart Goldberg, Shawn Weede, Shannon Hanson, Tom Sobocinski (FBI), Ryeshia Holley (FBI).

:{:{}:

Wolf was the U.S. Attorney in Delaware that Attorney General Bill Barr handed the investigation over. Jack Morgan and Mark Daly are the DOJ's tax lawyers. Stuart Goldberg is another. One of the self-proclaimed whistleblowers claimed Morgan "said that doing it without Hunter Biden's name would essentially get us most of what we were seeking."

:{:{}:

Matthew Graves and E. Martin Estrada are the US Attorneys the self-described whistleblower claimed were the ones truly behind the Hunter Biden case, not David Weiss who was the assigned the case from the DOJ.

:{:{}:

Shawn Weede and Shannon Hanson worked in Weiss' office.

:{:{}:

From Your Site Articles

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an 6 23

house Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) suggested on Monday that the House of Representatives might consider impeachment proceedings against Attorney General Merrick Garland over unsubstantiated allegations from a whistleblower at the Internal Revenue Service regarding Hunter Biden.

“If it comes true what the IRS whistleblower is saying, we’re going to start impeachment inquiries on the Attorney General," McCarthy told the hosts of "Fox & Friends."

This comes after McCarthy made a similar impeachment threat on Sunday ifDavid Weiss, the Trump-appointed prosecutor who brokered a plea agreement with Hunter Biden over late taxes and improperly obtaining a firearm, is not allowed to testify to Congress.

The agreement, which could subject the president's son to probation, was the culmination of years of investigation, and is unusual in that most people accused of similar offenses are rarely prosecuted as standalone crimes; tax charges in particular are highly unusual if the unpaid taxes were already paid back.

FROM EARLIER:'You throw crap against the wall': Former RNC head slaps down Kevin McCarthy for trying to rewrite history

However, Republicans have complained the charges don't go far enough. House investigators have for years pushed an unfounded claim that Hunter Biden accepted bribes from foreign governments, and that President Joe Biden, then the vice president, was in on the scheme.

The House Ways and Means Committee further alleged last week that a whistleblower at the IRS has alleged the Justice Department under Garland interfered with Weiss' investigation; however, House investigators havenot put forward any evidence supporting this claim, and Weiss himself has not made any such allegation against Garland.

Watch the video

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https://www.alternet.org/hunter-biden-is-toast/ [odd title?]

an 6 23

no lnx

Hunter Biden is toast

John Byrne June 20, 2023

Hunter Biden Has Pled Guilty

Hunter Biden's lawyers request meeting with attorney after whistleblower alleges mishandling of his case

Today, Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to three federal charges, after a long investigation 5 YRS TRUMP GUY DOJ and legal battle. The Justice Department announced the pleading Tuesday in a court filing that President Joe Biden's son would plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of tax evasion and enter a diversion agreement on one felony count of being a drug user in possession of a firearm, according to multiple sources. The Department of Justice has been investigating the younger Biden on possible firearms and tax evasion charges, and House Republicans have been probing his overseas business dealings.

Hunter has also fought invasions into his privacy

The 52-year-old attorney, investor, father of five, and Navy veteran who happens to be the son of the President of the United States, recently called for state and federal investigations into how his personal, private information from his now-infamous laptop was disseminated, according to CBS News.Biden also threatened a defamation lawsuit against former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

The “flurry of letters to the Delaware attorney general, the Department of Justice, the I.R.S. and attorneys for Fox News and Carlson,” CBS reports, “represent an aggressive new strategy for the president’s son, who is facing long-running federal criminal investigations, as well as new probes promised by congressional Republicans, according to a source familiar with Biden’s approach.” “This marks a new approach by Hunter Biden and his team,” the source told CBS News. “He is not going to sit quietly by as questionable characters continue to violate his rights and media organizations peddling in lies try to defame him.”

Trump Calls Charges a 'Traffic Ticket'

These headlines epitomize Trump's presidency in free fall President Donald J. Trump joined by senior White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway, Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar attends a White House Listening Session on Youth Vaping and Electronic Cigarette Epidemic Friday, Nov. 22, 2019, in the Cabinet Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

Former President Donald Trump complained the Hunter Biden plea deal was but a "mere 'traffic ticket'" on Tuesday. Hunter Biden, the youngest son of President Joe Biden, was charged Tuesday for not paying income tax and for illegal possession of a firearm, The Washington Post reported. Biden reportedly made a plea deal with the feds, and though the deal needs to go before a federal judge, it's expected that he'll avoid prison. The Hunter Biden plea deal would instead see a sentence of probation for the misdemeanor tax charges, and a diversion program, anonymous sources told the Post. Assuming Biden completes the diversion program, the gun charge—a felony—would be taken off his record, the sources told the paper.

Trump responded to the report on his social media platform Truth Social, alleging corruption in the Joe Biden administration. "Wow! The corrupt Biden DOJ just cleared up hundreds of years of criminal liability by giving Hunter Biden a mere 'traffic ticket.' Our system is BROKEN!" Trump wrote.

Trump called for a new election because of Hunter

Hunter Biden reveals that Trump's DOJ is investigating him — just as the president wanted Hunter Biden

:{:{}:

Last August, President Donald Trump on Monday called for a redo of the 2020 election in an angry rant on his app Truth Social. Trump stated that he should be declared the winner of the contest that he lost in a landslide to President Joe Biden, saying, "So now it comes out, conclusively, that the FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION knowing that, if they didn’t, 'Trump would have easily won the 2020 Presidential Election.' This is massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country. REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!"

Trump's outrage stemmed from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's revelation to podcaster Joe Rogan that month that the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned Zuckerberg that articles relating to Hunter Biden's laptop were pieces of Russian propaganda. Facebook then suppressed posts about the president's son and his computer.

Hunter threatened Marjorie Taylor Greene

These legal experts allege that Marjorie Taylor Greene may have admitted to violating federal law Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia in Tampa, Florida in July 2022 (Gage Skidmore)

In April, Hunter Biden's legal team fired shots Monday at two of his chief Republican antagonists. Biden attorney Abbe Lowell sent letters asking the Treasury Department's inspector general to investigate how former Donald Trump loyalists obtained reports of Biden's alleged "suspicious activity" and seeking a congressional ethics review of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's public attacks against President Joe Biden's family, reported Politico's Playbook.

"We write to request the Office of Congressional Ethics initiate a review of and take appropriate action as a result of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA 14th C.D.) suspected violations of House Ethics rules and standards of official conduct," Lowell wrote. "Representative Greene’s unethical conduct arises from her continuous verbal attacks, defamatory statements, publication of personal photos and data, and promotion of conspiracy theories about and against Robert Hunter Biden. None of these could possibly be deemed to be part of any legitimate legislative activity, as is clear from both the content of her statements and actions, and the forums she uses to spew her often unhinged rhetoric."

an 6 23

U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has been conducting an in-depth investigation of Hunter Biden's taxes and business activities, and the fact that he is the president's son hasn't stopped U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland from pursuing the matter.

On Tuesday morning, June 20, a court filing — according to the New York Times — showed that Hunter Biden has reached a plea deal with DOJ. The president's son, under the agreement, will plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and avoid prosecution on a gun-related charge.

Biden, the Times reports, will agree to probation for failing to pay his 2017 and 2018 taxes on time.

Times reporters Michael S. Schmidt and Adam Entous explain, "The Justice Department would charge Mr. Biden but agree not to prosecute him in connection with his purchase of a handgun in 2018 during a period when he was using drugs. The deal would be contingent on Mr. Biden remaining drug-free for 24 months and agreeing never to own a firearm again. The agreement must still be approved by a federal judge."

In an official statement, Hunter Biden's attorney Christopher Clark said, "With the announcement of two agreements between my client, Hunter Biden, and the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Delaware, it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved."

---

predictably

https://www.mediamatters.org/ben-shapiro/after-hunter-biden-charges-right-wing-media-immediately-move-goalposts

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an 5 23

no lnx

Oversight chair appears to admit his Hunter Biden probe is designed to help Trump win the White House

David Badash andThe New Civil Rights Movement May 22, 2023

Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer in a 4 AM interview Monday morning appears to have admitted to actually weaponizing the federal government for political gain.

Chairman Comer, Republican of Kentucky, appeared to tell Fox News early Monday morning that his investigations into Hunter Biden are actually designed to help Donald Trump win the 2024 presidential election.

“We have talked to you about this on the show, about how the media can just not ignore this any longer.In an op-ed in The Washington Post, it says, ‘Millions Flowed to Biden Family Members. Don’t Pretend It Doesn’t Matter,’” said Fox News host Ashley Strohmier, as HuffPost reported Monday. “So do you think that because of your investigation, that is what’s moved this needle with the media?”

READ MORE: Moms for Liberty Leader Says Biden Behind High-Level, Coordinated Effort to Make Kids LGBTQ (Video)

“Absolutely. There’s no question,” Comer replied, sounding very similar to Kevin McCarthy in 2015 (below) when he admitted the Benghazi investigations were designed to hurt Hillary Clinton in the polls. “You look at the polling, and right now Donald Trump is 7 points ahead of Joe Biden and trending upward, Joe Biden’s trending downward. And I believe that the media is looking around, scratching their head, and they’re realizing that the American people are keeping up with our investigation.”

Comer citied one recent poll, but may polls show President Joe Biden beating Donald Trump, and overall, while it is still very early, the polls are very close.

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right?” McCarthy had said. “But we put together a Benghazi Special Committee, a Select Committee ― what are her numbers today?” McCarthy had told Fox News at the time. “Her numbers are dropping, why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened.”

HuffPost notes that “in reality, despite House Republicans’ efforts to portray Biden as hopelessly corrupt, the committee didn’t present any evidence in its hearings that directly implicated Biden.”

Watch Comer below or at this link.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

'Somebody send out an Amber Alert': House Republican mocked over 'missing' Hunter Biden 'whistleblower' ›

ABC host grills GOP House Oversight chair: Will you be investigating Jared Kushner too? ›

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mma 5 18 show

GLENN BECK (HOST): We're going to show you tonight 170 -- I asked my researchers, show me just the violations, the criminal violations that we have absolute proof of, that Hunter Biden -- and I thought how, you know, many crimes do you think we have proof of? How many crimes?...170. 170, and none of them, no one has taken action....

You'll be happy to know that finally, finally the Vermont guy that everybody's been talking about, that had a torch at the Charlottesville rally -- go back in your memory. I mean, I know it just happened and it's still on everybody's mind. It was the second worst thing that's ever happened to America since the Civil War. But the Charlottesville -- this guy wasn't charged with beating anybody or anything, he just had a torch. And apparently --

STEVE BURGUIERE (CO-HOST): Open flame.

BECK: An open flame. Well, apparently in Virginia it --

BURGUIERE: I hope that's part of the crime --

BECK: It is a crime because, you know, Klan. They kinda like, hey, nobody carrying around anything on fire.

BURGUIERE: Okay. I mean, it's a good safety tip --

BECK: It's a good safety tip, but it's also with the Klan, you can kind of understand.

BURGUIERE: Sure.

BECK: Anyway, this happened in 2017, and he's just been charged with a felony for marching in a demonstration with a torch. He's just been charged with a felony, just now.

BURGUIERE: What -- what year? Is this a recorded show?

BECK: No.

BURGUIERE: Okay.

BECK: No. It's currently 2023.

BURGUIERE: Okay.

BECK: It happened in 2017, they just busted him and charged him with a felony. By the way, 170 crimes? No, nothing. But that damn torch?

---

mma 5 23

HANNITY (HOST): We get to the 2020 election and what happened? They had Hunter Biden's laptop since December of 2019. They verified it according to John Solomon [NOTE NO ID AFFILIATION] in the spring of 2020.

But yet, we had FBI agents that were meeting weekly in the months leading up to the 2020 election pre-bunking the Hunter Biden laptop story by telling them directly, "You're likely going to be the victim of a misinformation campaign. It may be about Hunter. It may be about Joe Biden. You better be ready." But they knew the laptop story was coming and they knew Rudy Giuliani had a copy of it.

JEANINE PIRRO (GUEST): Well, you know what the problem is with that? The problem is that is election interference. That is a crime. It's not only a constitutional violation of the First Amendment and the right of the press to be able to discuss things that are in the news. But they literally interfered with an election. We know that by the polls that came out afterwards that indicated that people would have changed their votes.

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https://www.alternet.org/jim-jordan-mike-turner-biden/

an raw 5 23 no lnx

no lnx

two House Republican leaders on Wednesday in a letter to CIA Director William J. Burns threatened to subpoena the agency over documents that they say show a coordinated effort to falsely discredit an ongoing Hunter Biden investigation.

Reps. Jim Jordan and Mike Turner, both Ohio Republicans, said in a news release that they have “renewed their requests for documents related to the investigation and warned that compulsory process may be necessary if the agency does not comply.”

Jordan, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, and Turner, who chairs the Intelligence Committee, in the letter said their committees are investigating an Oct. 10, 2020 “Public Statement” signed by 51 former intelligence community officials on the president’s son’s emails.

:{:{}:

“This statement, signed by former intelligence community officials using their official titles and emphasizing their national security credentials, suggested that public reporting about Hunter Biden’s business dealings and Biden family influence-peddling ‘ha[d] all the hallmarks of a Russian information operation,’” the letter said.

“We have since learned that the statement was drafted and disseminated following communications between former Acting CIA Director Michael Morell and Biden campaign advisor—now Secretary of State—Antony Blinken.”

Jordan and Turner in the letter said the CIA is in possession of documents that are “responsive to our requests and necessary to our oversight.”

“The Committees have received evidence that the CIA, or at least an employee of the CIA, may have helped to solicit signatories for the statement about Hunter Biden,” the letter said.

“If accurate, this information raises fundamental concerns about the role of the CIA in helping to falsely discredit allegations about the Biden family in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election.”

The letter said that the CIA provided a “minimal production of documents” on May 9 but said the CIA admitted it hadn’t performed a comprehensive records search, noting that a CIA staffer in a May 12 phone conversation, committed to cooperating in full with the Committees’ oversight.

“We fully expect the CIA to produce all responsive documents to the Committees’ March 21, 2023, request in unredacted form no later than May 30, 2023. If the CIA does not produce all responsive documents, the Committees may resort to compulsory process.”

Read the full letter here.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Jim Jordan's 'weaponization' committee 'contradicts sworn testimony' and 'ignores key events': analysis ›

'Hunter derangement syndrome': Twitter mocks Jim Jordan for his deep concern over Hunter Biden art sales ›

Jim Jordan freaks out over Hunter Biden shaking hands ›

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House GOP's latest Hunter Biden laptop theory is less than meets ... ›

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White House accuses Jim Jordan of 'highly misleading' leak on ... ›

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an 5 23

no lnx vid

'This is real': House Republican suggests sprawling 'Biden family tree' conspiracy with no evidence

Brandon GageMay 16, 2023

United States Representative Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) on Tuesday suggested that virtually any person whose last name is Biden committed some kind of corrupt criminal act amid growing skepticism of the validity of House Republican investigations into President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

"So it's just important that, that we look at it from every angle and we show the American people what's truthful and what's not," Mace, who sits on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, said of the probes.

"But we haven't seen any direct connection from the Committee so far," CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins rebutted. "We didn't see it last week in that press conference. I know you were there speaking as well directly to President Biden so it doesn't clear, appear clear that you're anywhere near referring charges to the Justice Department. I just wanna make sure that's clear. Is that right?"

READ MORE: 'Somebody send out an Amber Alert': House Republican mocked over 'missing' Hunter Biden 'whistleblower'

Mace conceded nothing, opting instead to double down on as-yet unsubstantiated accusations.

"Well, we're, yeah, we're within a hundred days of having subpoena power. This is just the tip of the iceberg, and I will tell you, none of this happens without Joe Biden. I mean, we're talking about tens of millions of dollars, up to nine Biden family members now, including one grandchild, nieces, and nephews. None of these people are foreign agents, Current wives, ex-wives, a brother, a son —and it, you know, it just, when you look at it from the outset, if it's not illegal, it should be — enriching themselves," Mace alleged.

"Looking at the revolving door in the White House, with meetings with Hunter Biden's business associates and colleagues and those sorts of things. Even The Daily Beast came out a couple of days ago saying this should be investigated and follow the facts wherever they lead us, which is what we need to do with an unbiased hand. And I call the balls and strikes Kaitlan, as you know, on both sides of the aisle. And this is real," Mace insisted.

"But is there any evidence that President Biden had any knowledge of this that your Committee has so far?" Collins pressed again.

READ MORE: Fox News host reminds House Republican how Ivanka and Jared made $640 million in office

Mace declined to respond directly.

"Well, he, he's, he denied that there was any communist China money coming into these shell companies. And that was, that was untruthful. That was a lie. He said that during the 2020 election. But again, the, the, this is his family tree, They were enriching themselves off of him. Some of his family members appeared to possibly be paying, uh, Joe Biden's bills in the past," Mace asserted. "But it doesn't happen without Joe Biden."

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fail

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/foxs-breathless-promotion-biden-corruption-allegations-was-total-flop

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-figures-are-claiming-rep-george-santos-arrest-distraction-investigation

---

https://www.alternet.org/just-believe-our-lies/

no lnx twit

Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) declared to Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on Wednesday that all of the purported evidence against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter that Republicans have supposedly amassed over the last three years is something to "infer" and that "you're not necessarily going to get hard proof" of criminal activity.

"So [House of Representatives Oversight Committee Chairman] James Comer [R-Kentucky] walked us through this web of LLCs that the Biden family created and money came from China and other adversarial countries, by the way, not just China. But going into these LLCs and then from there the money went from the LLCs to, to various Biden family members. What can you tell us about that? What were they getting paid for?" Bartiromo asked Johnson.

:{:{}:

"Well, again, on, on the bank records, you're not gonna see bribe to change this policy. You have, you have to infer what's happening here. You, you have to take a look at the, the bulk of the evidence. You have to file the money and realize what, so what did this Biden family member do to earn that amount of money? I mean, that's what we did with, with Hunter Biden in Ukraine," Johnson said.

READ MORE: 'Show the goods': Fox News host calls out House Republican over lack of Hunter Biden evidence

"I mean, what did he know about oil and gas to be on the board of Burisma and knocked down about $4 million over the course of a number of years when his father was the point person in Ukraine, that, that corrupt system," Johnson continued. "So again, you, you have to infer these things. You're not going to get necessarily hard proof, but there's such a huge body of evidence. We had it in September 2020. It was all ignored. It was all denigrated. It was all called Russian disinformation. It's the same playbook of the Democrats, the same playbook of the media that wants to prop up and cover up for the Bidens."

Johnson's remarks did not play well on social media.

MeidasTouch: "I'm going to 'infer' that Ron Johnson and his corrupt Republican friends are liars engaging in defamation the day after their dear leader was held liable for defamation in court."

Ford News: "Senator Ron Johnson on Fox News just admitted we will never get hard proof regarding the GOP probe into bank transfers from a foreign country to Hunter Biden's LLC."

READ MORE: House GOP Oversight warns DOJ: 'Do not indict Hunter Biden before Wednesday'

Kelly D: "Ron Johnson said live on Fox there is no evidence and we just need to infer that the entire Biden family is guilty. Of what, I’m not sure. But also, we don't infer sh*t in this country. Bring the evidence to the DOJ or S T F U."

Jamison Foser: "I mean I can pretty easily infer all kinds of crimes Ron Johnson has committed if this is how we're going to do things."

Art Martin: "Judge Ron Johnson: I find Joe Biden guilty beyond an unreasonable inference!"

Devin Duke: "When Trump refuses to criticize Putin on any topic ever, should we infer what's happening there?"

McSpocky™: Of course there isn't going to be 'hard proof.' Biden did nothing wrong!

Kaloyan: "Infer? You mean insinuate, right, right?"

Jo: "So, these clowns are gonna impeach President Biden because they've 'inferred' crimes? Based on something other than… EVIDENCE?!? F*cking clown show."

Outspoken: "'Just believe our lies.'"

Watch Johnson below or at this link.

READ MORE: Federal prosecutor close to a decision in Hunter Biden probe: report

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an 5 23

Representative James Comer (R-Kentucky, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, once again fell flat during an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo over supposed evidence of criminal activities that the GOP claims to have accumulated against President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

Following a series of unendearing interviews this week, Comer on Thursday insisted that the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice are stymieing their probe into the clandestine connections that Republicans believe the Bidens have with international interests.

Politico noted on May 3rd that while Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) "asserted that the FBI has material outlining 'an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions,'" Comer and Grassley have "provided no further detail on the nature of those allegations."

Politico also explained that although "Comer and Grassley say they became aware of the potential existence of material underpinning the anti-Biden allegations from a'highly credible whistleblower' who contacted lawmakers to assert knowledge of a conversation the FBI had with a confidential source... the two Republicans provided no information on the purported whistleblower’s background, or how that person would have knowledge of an alleged conversation with an FBI source."

Over the past week, Comer and his confederates have stumbled when questioned about what proof they have against the Bidens, prompting skepticism among normally friendly conservative media anchors.

Such was the case on Thursday when Comer spoke with Bartiromo.

"And we're going to move forward with Plan B and I, and it's unfortunate that we have to do this. It's unfortunate that, uh, neither Senator Grassley nor I have one ounce of confidence in the leadership of the FBI right now, or the DOJ. Uh, but we're gonna move forward. They're not going to obstruct our investigation or corruption in this White House. And we're gonna continue to, to press and, and get answers and provide the American people with the facts," Comer said.

no lnx

Congressman, what's Plan B?" Bartiromo asked.

Comer had no substantive response.

"Well, stay tuned. Maria. You'll be the first person that'll know. I, I can assure you," he replied. "But it's, uh, you know, we assumed the FBI would continue this pattern of behavior of, uh, you know, acting independently. I mean, this is an example of thedeep state, uh, and the fourth branch of government."

Watch below or at this link.

READ MORE: 'Show the goods': Fox News host calls out House Republican over lack of Hunter Biden evidence

Politico's report continues here.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

'Hunter derangement syndrome': Twitter mocks Jim Jordan for his deep concern over Hunter Biden art sales ›

Trump attorney rambles incoherently about Hunter Biden when asked why her client predicted a Tuesday arrest ›

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https://www.alternet.org/do-not-indict-hunter-biden/

an 5 23 bing bypass opinion$ no lnx

House GOP Oversight warns DOJ: 'Do not indict Hunter Biden before Wednesday'

David Edwards and Raw StoryMay 07, 2023

Rep. James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, worried on Sunday that the Department of Justice might indict Hunter Biden on gun charges before a press conference could expose his alleged corruption.

During an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Comer said he gave the FBI until Wednesday to release documents about Biden.

"What if they decide to indict Hunter Biden for having a gun illegally before your press conference?" Bartiromo wondered.

"My message to the Department of Justice is very loud and clear," Comer replied. "Do not indict Hunter Biden before Wednesday when you have the opportunity to see the evidence that the House Oversight Committee will produce with respect to the web of LLCs, with respect to the number of adversarial countries that this family influence peddled in."

"This is not just about the president's son," he added. "This is about the entire Biden family, including the president of the United States."

Comer claimed to know "exactly what this family was doing."

"And by all accounts from the media reports that we're getting, what they're looking at charging Hunter Biden on is a slap on the wrist," the lawmaker complained. "It's a drop in the bucket. So Wednesday will be a very big day for the American people in getting the facts presented to them so that they can know the truth."

Watch the video below from Fox News or at this link.

James Comer fears DOJ will ruin his press conference on Hunter Biden

youtu.be

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Hunter Biden: What was he doing in China and Ukraine? - BBC News ›

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definitely no projection

an 5 23

Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) on Saturday blamed "mental illness, drugs, and evil forces" for a mall shooting in Allen, Texas, where [8?] deaths are confirmed.

Multiple people were shot and some were killed at a mall in Allen, Texas, CNN reported. The network also reported that the gunman was believed to be acting alone, and that he was killed on the scene.

Brian Glenn, director of programming at the right-wing Right Side Broadcasting Network, tweeted a graphic video purporting to show the body of the deceased shooter.

"This is the piece of shit that took innocent lives today," he wrote. "Thank GOD that a brave police officer ran into the line of fire to kill this demon."

Greene, who recently said that Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, is "the biggest piece of white trash in America," retweeted the video and wrote, "This is exactly what this monster deserves."

She added, "Thank God for the brave officer that courageously ran into the line of fire to save others."

Greene's tweet didn't address the existing gun laws in Texas, nor did it talk about the possibility of firearm reform in the U.S., butit did lay the blame at the feet of unidentified "forces." She also offered the victims prayers.

"We pray [vs funding?] for the victims and their families and an end to the mental illness, drugs, and evil forces that cause people to commit such horrors," according to the congresswoman from Georgia.

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an 4 23

no lnx

'Show the goods': Fox News host calls out House Republican over lack of Hunter Biden evidence

Brandon Gage May 01, 2023

United States Representative James Comer (R-Kentucky), who chairs the House Oversight Committee, got tripped up by Fox News anchor Sandra Smith on Monday over purported proof that Republicans have amassed of Hunter Biden's attorneys "intimidating" witnesses.

:{:{}:

"Witness intimidation? The witnesses and the whistleblowers are being intimidated by the president's son's lawyers? You stand by that and you say you have evidence of that?" a skeptical Smith wondered.

:{:{}:

"It depends on your definition of intimidation. If you get a call from the lawyers and they remind you of your potential liability and some of these business games, then uh, yes, I would consider that witness intimidation," Comer replied.

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

Republican Inquiry Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Biden ... ›

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an 4 23

raw

federal judge ruled on Monday that President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, must disclose more information about his finances as part of an ongoing paternity case.

And he largely has himself to blame for the current legal situation, argued former federal prosecutor Elie Honig on CNN's "The Lead."

"The judge ruled that Hunter will have to answer more questions under oath about his finances and chided him in hiding information that should be public," said anchor Jake Tapper. "What did you make of that as significant?"

"Well, Jake, the single most valuable asset that any party has, in any case, is credibility. And here it now seems that Hunter Biden and his lawyers have lost credibility with the judge who said on the record they have had played games with some of the evidentiary obligations," said Honig.

"Hunter Biden went back to court and said, I want to pay less in [child support], and now he's going have sit for an under-oath deposition and turn over more documents about his dealings, including his sale of so-called artwork and any income from any foreign sources," Honig continued. "That — some of that information will be available to the other side, and also publicly."

All of this comes as a criminal investigation of Hunter Biden also advances, involving tax irregularities and his alleged improper purchase of a firearm.

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an 4 23

Jordan (R-Ohio) melted down during a Fox News appearance on Wednesday afternoon because President Joe Biden's son Hunter accompanied him to Ireland and mingled with the crowd.

Host Martha MacCallum led with a question:

Curious. You know, what, what goes through your mind when you see Hunter traveling with the president and you know, doing the rope line, shaking hands with everybody?

In response, Jordan – the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee – fell into a tangent about how unfair it is that former President Donald Trump is being pursued by the law:

I, I think it's just how brazen the left has become. I mean, I mean, go back to what I said earlier, the fact that the IRS knocked on a journalist's door [taibbi] while he is testifying in front of Congress after that same journalist had learned, the FTC mentioned him in a letter to a private company. I, I just think there, there's no bounds now, and this is the scary part. The, the Biden, uh, Hunter Biden behaves this way. You, I think you're gonna see, I think you're gonna see the state of Georgia go after President Trump. I hope it doesn't happen. I think you may see the special counsel go after President Trump. I hope it doesn't happen. But that's just how, how ridiculous the left has become. And it's not good. Not good at all for our great country.

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an 4 23

Jamie Raskin (D-MD) shared an internal memo with Democrats revealing that House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) has issued subpoenas for documents and bank records related to the Biden family and business deals allegedly conducted by Hunter Biden, Politico reported.

The memo showed that Bank of America, Cathay Bank, JPMorgan Chase, HSBC USA N.A., and Mervyn Yan, a former business associate of Hunter Biden’s, were all targeted in the subpoena.

Comer fired back at Raskin's statement, saying his disclosing of the subpoenas showed a "cheap attempt to thwart cooperation from other witnesses."

"Given his antics with the first bank subpoena, the American people and media should be asking what information Ranking Member Raskin is trying to hide this time," he added.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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https://www.alternet.org/you-should-sit-this-one-out-george-santos-flamed-for-demanding-the-doj-investigate-hunter-biden/

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an 3 23

Jim Jordan (R-OH) is questioning whether Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has taken time away from probing former President Donald Trump to investigate Hunter Biden's art sales.

Jordan tweeted Friday, "Is Alvin Bragg looking into Hunter Biden's art sales and business records in New York City?"

USA Today reports:

Republicans are investigating Hunter Biden's art sales as part of wide-ranging inquiries into his business dealings and bank records. Rep. James Comer, the Oversight chairman, questioned whether Hunter Biden was peddling influence to foreign adversaries by using high-value art to evade U.S. sanctions, with prices on his work initially listed at up to $500,000 and now ranging from $55,000 to $225,000 apiece.

New York gallery owner, Georges Berges, according to USA Today has "defended Hunter Biden and predicted he would be 'one of the most consequential artists in this century.'"

Regarding the congressman's spearheading of the Biden probe, Slate reports:

Jordan and other Republicans are not obsessed with Hunter Biden because they believe humbly in the ideals of ethical government. Instead, they are taking cues from Donald Trump, who for several years has fixated on a number of fantastical and never-proven accusations that Hunter and Joe Biden are engaged in 'deep state' corruption together....

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maga world can never admit collusion?

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/sean-hannity-claims-fbi-put-their-thumb-scale-joe-biden-2020-presidential-election

mma 3 23 see bengh y roth did not say feds? another co?

HANNITY (HOST): Now, that is sadly the FBI putting their thumb on the scale of a presidential election. They were indoctrinating and basically training people in Big Tech, they had weekly meetings with them -- oh, that they're going to be victims of a disinformation campaign that never happened.

And by the way, they did something else in 2016, it was called the Russia hoax.And they did it again in the fall of 2020, with the censorship, disinformation campaign against what was the very real reports about Hunter Biden and his laptop from hell. A laptop, by the way, that your FBI had since December of 2019 and they easily could've verified probably in 48 hours.

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raw tom b an 2 23

On the heels of a Republican-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee grilling of Twitter executives over perceived bias against conservatives, the editorial board of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch offered up a post-mortem that summarized the proceedings as not only a waste of time but also detrimental to the Republican Party.

Last Wednesday, the committee, headed by Rep. James Comer (R-KY), attempted to make a major case out of a decision by Twitter executives to tamp down a New York Post story on the laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.

In the words of Comer, "Twitter aggressively suppressed conservative elected officials, journalists and activists,” with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) later chiming in, "I think you guys got played. I think you guys wanted to take it down. I think you guys got played by the F.B.I.”

With the Post-Dispatch editors pointing out that Twitter execs now believe it was a mistake to suppress the tweets, they added that the entire hearing hinged on the flimsiest of conspiracy theories and, "To say it blew up in their faces like a gag cigar is putting it mildly."

"The Republican obsession with proving Twitter conspired with Democrats and the FBI against conservatives boomeranged during a House hearing last week, exposing the wispiness of one of the new majority’s favorite made-up scandals," they wrote. "Republicans have asserted, based on nothing, that the platform was pressured by the FBI to tamp down the story for Joe Biden’s sake. It’s part of a broader narrative on the right that says, again with scant evidence, that mainstream social-media sites are in cahoots with liberals and against conservatives."

According to the editors, what transpired was "oafish" and nothing less than "disappointing" when all was said and done.

They wrote, "How they [Republicans] must have wished they hadn’t even uncorked this bottle when a witness further testified that, in fact,the company scuttled its standing prohibition on abusive language toward immigrants so it wouldn’t have to ban then-President Trumpfor his infamous, racist tweet in 2019 saying several American-born congresswomen of color should 'go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.'"

They added that the GOP is headed down the road to doing more damage to itself which might root out the extremists in the party more interested in revenge than public policy.

"Maybe the GOP’s plan to spend the next two years in retaliatory investigations against Biden isn’t such a bad thing after all. Not if they all go like this," they concluded.

You can read the whole editorial here.

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ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked Republican House Oversight Chair James Comer (KY) if he would investigate Saudi funds provided to former President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The New York Times and The Washington Postreported that Kushner secured over $2 billion, mainly from Sauri Arabia, after Trump left office.

Stephanopoulos wondered if Comer would take time out of his investigation of President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, to probe Kushner's foreign business dealings.

"It's clear that you're going to be looking at Hunter Biden," the host said. "I want to put up a front-page story from the Washington Post detailing Jared Kushner's ties to the Saudis."

"We know that former President Trump has also received funds related to the Saudis' golf tour," he added. "Will you be investigating that as well?"

"I think everything is on the table," Comer replied. "Look, we're investigating Joe Biden. We know that Joe Biden said during the presidential campaign that he had no knowledge of his son's business interests."

Comer argued that the Republican legislative solution would apply to the Trump family if they returned to the White House. He also suggested that Democrats had already investigated Kushner's business dealings as part of the Jan. 6 investigation.

"The difference between Jared Kushner and Hunter Biden is that Jared Kushner actually sat down and was interviewed," Comer said. "So, he's already been investigated."

"Hopefully, the Biden family will be as cooperative as Jared Kushner — with our investigation — as they were with the Jan. 6 investigation and all the other investigations of the Trump administration," he opined.

Stephanopoulos pointed out that Kushner's latest Saudi investments were reported in recent days and had not been investigated.

Watch the video below from ABC or at this link.

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an 2 23 badash

After years of being the right wing’s punching bag, Hunter Biden is fighting back.

The 52-year-old attorney, investor, lobbyist, father of five, and Navy veteran who just happens to be the son of the President of the United States, is calling for state and federal investigations into how his personal, private information from his now-infamous laptop was disseminated, according to CBS News.

Biden is also threatening a defamation lawsuit against Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

“This marks a new approach by Hunter Biden and his team,” the source told CBS News. “He is not going to sit quietly by as questionable characters continue to violate his rights and media organizations peddling in lies try to defame him.”

Biden lost his mother and sister in a car crash injuring him and his brother when he was just two years old, and later, that same brother, Beau Biden, the longtime Delaware Attorney General, died from an aggressive cancer of the brain.

CBS reports Biden’s “computer data that was turned over to the FBI showed no evidence of tampering or fabrication, according to an independent review commissioned by CBS News.”

But The Washington Post last year hired two forensic investigators, and they reached different conclusions.

“From a forensics standpoint, it’s a disaster,” said Jake Williams, who the Post describes as “a forensics expert and former National Security Agency operative who once hacked the computers of foreign adversaries.” The other investigator, Matt Green, the Post says is “a Johns Hopkins University security researcher who specializes in cryptography.”

“The drive is a mess,” Green told The Post.

The Post found that “the lack of what experts call a ‘clean chain of custody’ undermined Green’s and Williams’s ability to determine the authenticity of most of the drive’s contents.” The “clean chain of custody” refers to the fact that countless individuals have had access to the hard drive.

“The vast majority of the data — and most of the nearly 129,000 emails it contained — could not be verified by either of the two security experts who reviewed the data for The Post,” the newspaper reported. “Neither found clear evidence of tampering in their examinations, but some of the records that might have helped verify contents were not available for analysis, they said. The Post was able in some instances to find documents from other sources that matched content on the laptop that the experts were not able to assess.”

Meanwhile, CBS News also reports that in a ” letter sent Wednesday, Biden attorney Bryan Sullivan demanded that Fox News and Tucker Carlson devote airtime to retracting statements made about Biden paying ‘rent’ to his father, ‘in what Mr. Carlson implied was essentially a money laundering scheme to finance President Biden’s lifestyle prior to his election … and alluding to Mr. Biden having unauthorized access to classified documents because of his presence at President Biden’s house.’ Sullivan writes that the claims were false, and even after others acknowledged as much, Carlson continued to make them.”

“The letter, which cites California’s defamation statute, notes that the Daily Caller website retracted an article that made similar claims.

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Conservative pundit Sean Hannity claimed without evidence on Thursday that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter have "hired" Special Weapons and Tactics units to hunt down and destroy their political detractors.

:{:{First, Hannity and his guest alleged that the Bidens conducted nefarious business with China. They agreed that there were secret recordings of the two men kanoodling with foreign nationals, and determined that the Bidens acted illegally based on what was left "unsaid" in the supposed clandestine phone calls. LACK OF EVIDENCE IS EVIDENCE}:

Next, Hannity stated in a fake Russian accent that Libya may have "real compromising materials" about Hunter.He then transitioned into the Biden-SWAT conspiracy theory.

"The amount of money, the sheer amount of money, and a number of countries, andJoe's outright lie about never having discussed this with Hunterare now coming to light. Now there's going to be pushback because they have nowhired, you know, SWAT teams and are creating a war room to slander and smear and attack every single solitary person that either reports it or is investigating it," Hannity said.

He also accused Biden and Democrats ofweaponizing investigations, which is what House Republicans are doing through their congressional committees.

"That's, you know, that's Democratic politics 101. That's who they are. That's what they do. So we have to know this, understand this fully," Hannity continued. "And, you know, I think it's pretty obvious what's going on."

Listen below viaMedia Matters for America or at this link.

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no lnx vids see comer anno

https://www.alternet.org/james-comer/

U.S. Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chair of the powerful House Oversight Committee is repeatedly pushing a baseless narrative that President Joe Biden, who has served his nation for 50 years, is “compromised.”

Chairman Comer, who has promoted the false theory of fraud in the 2020 election, blaming alleged “troubling reports of irregularities and improprieties” on Democrats, has been regularly criticized. He was deemed “a fundamentally unserious, dishonest, laughable caricature,” by Democratic strategist Sam Cornale on Wednesday, andmocked by The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank last year.

“In interviews with Fox News and other public pronouncements, Comer has alleged that the president’s son is responsible for just about everything,” Milbank wrote last year. “Why is fentanyl flowing into the United States? Hunter Biden. Why is President Biden pushing electric vehicles? Hunter Biden. Why isn’t the president tougher on Russian oligarchs? Hunter Biden. Why isn’t the administration pinning the pandemic on a Wuhan lab leak and battling China over currency manipulation? Hunter Biden and Hunter Biden. Why did the United States rejoin the Paris climate accord? Hunter Biden.”

On Tuesday, Fox News’ Sean Hannity led a highly-criticized interview with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, and Oversight Chair James Comer that was shockingly filmed inside the U.S. House of Representatives.

READ MORE: ‘The Deep State’ Wants to ‘Wipe Out the American Cowboy’ Warns GOP Congressman in Conspiracy-Laden Rant (Video)

New York University Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on fascism and authoritarian leaders, responded by declaring, “Americans, I give you…President Murdoch and the coronation of Fox News as state media.”

Hannity and the top Republicans were surrounded by dozens of House Republicans, sitting quietly, as the Fox News personality promoted their talking points.

In addition to posting video, journalist Matt Laslo tweeted, “Hannity noted *to the lawmakers* (who are obediently sitting and saying nothing which is WILD) that many of the lawmakers in attendance might not make it on TV tonight but they gave up an hour to support the Speaker.”

But Chairman Comer made news for two remarks (both seen in the clip below): calling Ukraine – which is fighting to protect democracy in Europe and thus around the globe – an “adversary” of the United States, and strongly suggesting President Joe Biden is “compromised.”

READ MORE: Watch: Democrats File Ethics Complaint Against George Santos After GOP Leadership Calls It an ‘Internal’ Matter

“You know there’s a pattern here with Communist China, with Ukraine, with Russia, with our adversaries across the world,” he told Hannity. “And you look at the bad decisions that Joe Biden makes and this White House makes every day that has a detrimental effect on every American – you wonder, is this President compromised?”

Hannity himself has promoted the baseless claim that President Biden may be “compromised.”

In a December interview with Comer, Hannity, known to have had nightly conversations advising Donald Trump when he was president, concluded with this question: “Do you believe it’s possible Joe Biden is compromised by Russia and China?” Comer dutifully replied, “I fear that he is.”

That word, “compromised,” is now being used by Comer and his fellow House Republicans repeatedly against President Biden – and his family.

On Monday, U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), the former chair of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, a former policy advisor to an anti-LGBTQ hate group, and an alleged co-founder of the Stop the Steal movement, called President Biden, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, and Hunter Biden, “compromised” – while making false claims about classified documents (and the Biden think tank) that were immediately handed over to the National Archives.

On Wednesday, Chairman Comer again baselessly used the word “compromised” against President Biden.

“The Committee on Oversight and Accountability is investigating President Biden’s involvement in his family’s foreign business practices and international influence peddling schemes,” Chairman Comer wrote in an official letter published by ABC News, to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, making an unsubstantiated clam as if it were fact.

“The Committee is investigating President Biden’s knowledge of and role in these schemes to assess whether he has compromised our national security at the expense of the American people,” Comer wrote.

ABC News adds that Comer “called the Biden probe a ‘top priority for House Republicans during the 118th Congress.'”

READ MORE: GOP Congressman From Texas Calls for Defunding Homeland Security

“The American people must know the extent of Joe Biden’s involvement in his family’s shady business deals and if these deals threaten national security and his decision-making as president,” Comer told ABC.

Comer wasn’t done using the “compromised” word against President Biden.

“In a letter to the White House counsel today,” Politico on Wednesday reported, “new Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said the committee ‘is concerned that President Biden has compromised (intelligence) sources and methods with his own mishandling of classified documents.'”

Chairman Comer has even set up a microsite on the House Oversight Committee’s website, titled, “Biden Family Investigation.”

On it, he alleges, “If President Biden is compromised by deals with foreign adversaries and they are impacting his decision making, this is a threat to national security.”

Donald Trump’s tax returns show numerous foreign bank accounts, including in China, and there were reports of real estate deals in foreign countries while he was president, but Republicans ignored that.

“Two years into his presidency,” OpenSecrets reported in 2019, “Donald Trump continues to make money from properties and licensing deals in nearly two dozen countries around the world, fanning the flames of concerns that the Trump administration is subject to unprecedented levels of foreign influence.”

“Trump continued to hold more than $130 million in foreign assets in a revocable trust as his second year in office came to a close, according to OpenSecrets’ analysis of the president’s most recent annual personal financial disclosure released by the Office of Government Ethics last month,” the website, which tracks money in politics, noted. “Trump’s business entanglements continue to leave him with positions, assets, trademarks and other business interests in more than 30 countries.”

In November of last year, CNN reported, “The governments of six foreign countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, spent more than $700,000 at then-President Donald Trump’s Washington, DC, hotel over the first two years of his presidency, according to newly released accounting documents.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

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an raw 12 22

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday said that former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani was wrong to accuse him of covering up data from Hunter Biden's laptop.

In a with Newsmax, Giuliani claimed that Pompeo had "buried" the laptop's hard drive.

“I gave it to Hannity in early 2019, then to John Solomon, then to Mike Pompeo, who also buried it," Giuliani said. "And you should know that now that he’s running for president — and I will tell you the whole story about that at some point. I’ll write it out."

On Tuesday, Pompeo told Real America's Voice host David Brody that he could not "make sense" out of Giuliani's claims.

"Not much to say," Pompeo told Brody. "I feel bad for Rudy. You know, Sean Hannity, John Solomon, Mike Pompeo: noted leftists. Right? I feel bad. I'll leave it there."

The former secretary of state encouraged Giuliani to write out his grievances.

"I can't — I don't know," Pompeo said. "I have no idea. First, he said I gave them everything and then he kind of said, well, I gave them half. I don't know how to respond other than to say that we never covered up anything that was important to American national security."

"I was the secretary of state," he pointed out. "I'm not sure why Hunter Biden's laptop would have been particularly relevant to my particular role at that time. But if he wants to write it out, I'm happy to respond to something once I can make sense of it."

Watch the video below from Real America's Voice.

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an 12 22

Last week, Chief Twit Elon Musk enlisted Substacker Matt Taibbi to recap Twitter’s handling of the “Hunter Biden laptop” story based on archived corporate emails that Musk now owns.

It already seems like a lifetime ago, but in October 2020, weeks before the presidential election, the New York Post published a story about a disk image allegedly taken from a laptop that Hunter Biden had abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware.

Twitter temporarily blocked the story because it included personally identifiable information that they suspected had been hacked. Republicans said it was horribly partisan to the Donald Trump campaign of colluding with the Russians, even though the disk image came from Rudy Giuliani who had been very publicly pumping Russian agents for dirt on Hunter Biden for months.

READ MORE: Is Twitter a lost cause?

Musk played the hype man and teased Taibbi’s tweetstorm as the scandal of the century. This was to be the second – hell, the third – coming of Watergate, Iran Contra, and Deflategate all rolled into one. Musk claimed these emails showed that Twitter had colluded with the government to help Joe Biden.

As usual, Musk’s pitch was crowd-pleasing vaporware. Taibbi actually described how Twitter executives blocked the New York Post story all by themselves, adding that he’d seen “no evidence of any government involvement.”

Taibbi shared emails that confirmed what we already knew: Twitter execs froze access to the story because they were worried it was part of a Russian attack on the election. Twitter had been repeatedly warned by Trump’s FBI to be on the alert for hack and leak operations associated with a political campaign and possibly starring Hunter Biden. The New York Poststory checked all those boxes.

In 2016, Russian state hackers leaked emails they’d stolen from the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign. The attack weakened Clinton and may even have cost her the election. In early 2020, Donald Trump was impeached for trying to force Ukraine to announce a fake investigation into none other than Hunter Biden. To make matters worse, the New York Post story was based on a disk image supplied by Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s main point of contact with Russian agents in Ukraine.

Far from showing a Borg determined to help Joe Biden at all costs, Taibbi’s cache of emails shows a lively debate in the Twitter C-suite as execs tried to balance freedom of the press against election integrity and national security. They blocked the story for violating Twitter’s ban on “hacked materials” bearing personally identifying information because the New York Post story included images with unredacted emails and phone numbers. The trouble was, there was no proof the data was hacked. There still isn’t. But the whole thing stank worse than an illegal Twitter flophouse.

Twitter was in a tough spot because Giuliani claimed that Hunter’s data was abandoned, not hacked. Then again, no reasonable person would take Giuliani’s word for that. If Hunter’s data had been hacked, Giuliani had a vested interest in concealing that fact. The emails show that Twitter execs used the ban to buy time while they conducted their own investigation.

History has vindicated Twitter’s caution. In 2021, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence confirmed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally authorized a major interference campaign for the 2020 election based on conspiracy theories about the Biden family and Ukraine.The FBI investigated Giuliani for his role in Ukraine, but ultimately wasn’t charged, primarily because although his efforts helped both Russia and Trump, he got paid only by Trump.

This saga would prompt any reasonable person to think how Twitter’s rules could be crafted to better address the next foreign attack on our elections. Unfortunately, Elon Musk is not a reasonable person.

He’s a raging egomaniac who seized upon his former employees’ good-faith efforts to handle an unprecedented threat as a pretext to make twitter ground zero for foreign intelligence agencies to attack American democracy.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/right-wing-media-use-musk-and-taibbis-twitter-files-baselessly-allege-election-interference

many lnx twt

Right-wing media use Musk and Taibbi’s “Twitter Files” to baselessly allege election interference and call for Twitter employees to be jailed

Even conservative radio host Sebastian Gorka was “underwhelmed,” saying that there “wasn’t government suppression”

WRITTEN BY NATALIE MATHES, RUBY SEAVEY & JACK WINSTANLEY

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM PAYTON ARMSTRONG & ZACHARY PLEAT

PUBLISHED 12/06/22

right-wing media are using Twitter CEO Elon Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi’s release of “The Twitter Files” to baselessly portray the company’s decision to suppress a story about Hunter Biden as having influenced the results of the 2020 presidential election. Going further, some right-wing pundits have even called for those Twitter employees responsible for the decision to be prosecuted and imprisoned.

On December 2, Taibbi posted a supposed first installment of “The Twitter Files” in a lengthy tweet thread. Musk claimed that the report would document “free speech suppression” regarding Twitter’s decision to block links to an October 2020 New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. However, the files revealed very little information that was not already public and largely showed what many analysts noted as healthy internal debate rather than sinister collusion to suppress free speech.

Taibbi pointed to several discussions within the files as evidence of collusion between Democrat officials and Twitter employees to suppress potentially damaging information about the Biden family in the weeks before the 2020 presidential election. One of these exchanges included an email from Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) questioning the logic behind Twitter's actions. Another thread showed that Twitter executives, at the supposed request of a Democratic official, “handled” a number of tweets containing stolen pictures of Hunter Biden’s genitals. (Twitter removed those tweets under its non-consensual nudity policy.)

“The Twitter Files” failed to reveal meaningful evidence of collusion and represent another stumble in Musk's Twitter takeover

Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey had previously acknowledged that Twitter made mistakes in its decision to suppress the story, a sentiment which other now-former executives have echoed. Dorsey had even testified before Congress to explain the same claims that Musk, Taibbi, and right-wing media have incorrectly framed as being hidden from the public,” and an analysis by Washington Post columnist Philip Bump determined that Twitter’s actions around the Hunter Biden story did not cost Donald Trump the 2020 election. As Bump explained, “there’s no evidence that the restriction imposed by Twitter (or Facebook) actually kept interested people from learning about the story.”

Continuing their insatiable appetite for the Hunter Biden laptop story, however, right-wing media figures cited Taibbi’s reporting as clear evidence that Big Tech meddled in the 2020 election, while others claimed Joe Biden was involved in blocking the unconfirmed New York Post story, baselessly asserting that the White House colluded with Twitter on this decision. (Biden had yet to be elected in October 2020 and was still on the campaign trail when Twitter decided to suppress the story.) Additionally, some right-wing media figures conceded that the Twitter Files were “not the smoking gun we’d hoped for,” yet still insisted that Taibbi’s report showed a clear “violation of the First Amendment.”

Right-wing figures used Taibbi’s report to baselessly claim that Twitter “colluded” in the 2020 election by suppressing the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop

On Twitter, Fox host Laura Ingraham called for Big Tech to be reined in, comparing Twitter blocking the unconfirmed story about Hunter Biden to Russian interference in U.S. elections. In a December 2 tweet, Ingraham said, “Russian interference & meddling? Tonight we expose Twitter interference & meddling in the 2020 campaign. Sleazier than we thought—it’s time to rein in Big Tech. GOP better do it.” Twitter, [12/2/22]
Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier claimed that Joe Biden won the 2020 election because Twitter helped him, calling the report “damning.”Fournier tweeted on December 2, “The Twitter Files release is damning. Everything we believed is being confirmed true. Twitter colluded in the 2020 election and helped Biden win.” Twitter, [12/2/22]
Far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec asserted that Twitter’s decision to suppress the New York Post story amounted to a “digital insurrection.” Twitter, [12/2/22]
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judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who helped Trump devise a strategy to claim that the 2020 election was stolen, claimed the Twitter Files proved that Democrats and Big Tech worked together to get Biden elected. In a series of tweets, Fitton said that the “Democratic Party (DNC) colluded with @Twitter to censor opponents just before 2020 election. #ElectionInterference,” and claimed, “Assault on democratic gov't and more election interference CONFIRMED in @ElonMusk's @Twitter files.” Twitter, [12/2/22; 12/2/22]
Conservative comedian Terrence K. Williams insinuated that the suppression of the Hunter Biden story was the reason Trump lost the 2020 election. On December 2, Williams tweeted, “Twitter interfered with the 2020 Election and those involved should be held accountable. President Trump should be in the White House right now.” Twitter, [12/2/22]
On Fox & Friends, co-host Pete Hegseth chalked up Twitter’s actions to election interference while acting as “an arm of the Democratic National Committee.” Co-host Steve Doocy admitted that “there is no smoking gun per se,” but Hegseth erroneously claimed that voters didn’t “get to read about” the heavily covered Hunter Biden story, “which means they're not factored in when they vote, which is the definition of election interference.” Fox News, Fox & Friends, [12/5/22]

Right-wing figures attacked Biden for Twitter’s actions, with some alleging collusion between the White House and Twitter even though Biden wasn’t president yet

- Jack Posobiec attempted to paint Taibbi’s report as evidence to impeach Biden. On Twitter, Posobiec called for an impeachment inquiry into Biden because “the Twitter Files show Twitter was Censoring [users based] on Direct Requests from the Biden Team in October 2020.” Twitter, [12/2/22]
- Conservative commentator Buck Sexton claimed that the story constituted a “massive scandal, and Biden should rightly be IMPEACHED for it.” Twitter, [12/2/22]
- ---
  - fox News host Jesse Watters wrongly characterized Biden as the sitting president in 2020 to assert collusion between Twitter and the White House. He incorrectly asserted, “The Biden White House had a direct line to challenge and take down content they didn't like.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [12/2/22]
  - On Fox’s Hannity, guest Tammy Bruce claimed that Twitter and Facebook were acting as “agents of the state” in suppressing the story.Bruce ended her appearance by bizarrely asserting that Twitter had single handedly “abolished” the First Amendment. Fox News,*Hannity*, [12/2/22]

Right-wing figures demanded that Twitter employees involved in blocking the New York Post story face prosecution or jail time

- - Terrence K. Williams called for “every Twitter employee who interfered in the 2020 Election” to be arrested. Twitter, [12/2/22]

[twt]

Fox host Jeanine Pirro said on Fox & Friends Weekend that the Twitter Files story “amounts to election interference, and when have you the suppression of the First Amendment – free speech – that results in election interference [but not hush money to hookers], there’s got to be a prosecution.”She also insisted that “we already know” Trump would have won the election if Twitter did not suppress the Hunter Biden story. Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [12/4/22]

Right-wing pundits expressed disappointment that Musk and Taibbi didn’t reveal a “smoking gun” but insisted that Twitter violated the First Amendment

- - Conservative radio host Sebastian Gorka admitted to being “deeply underwhelmed” by Taibbi’s thread, saying: “We know the Dems in DC collude with the Dems in Palo Alto. Big Whop. Need a paper trail of felonies. Elon better have that.”Gorka went on to explain during a Twitter Spaces Q&A with Musk on December 3 that what Taibbi cites in his thread doesn’t show government suppression, isn’t a First Amendment violation, and therefore isn’t “a smoking gun.” Twitter, [12/2/22; 12/5/22]
  - Washington Free Beacon reporter Andrew Kerr tweeted that none of the photos referenced by Taibbi “appear to show Hunter engaged in illegal activities.” He went on to call it “newsworthy that team Biden was asking Twitter to remove any tweets period.” Twitter, [12/2/22]
  - Washington Free Beacon reporter Chuck Ross tweeted that “there has to be an interesting story on how Twitter decided to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, but we didn’t see it tonight.” He added, “FBI was meeting with Twitter on a weekly basis in 2020. Let’s see the docs about that.” Twitter, [12/2/22]
  - Right-wing personalities the Hodgetwins tweeted, “It % is, collusion between govt. and big tech to violate the First Amendment.” The tweet was in reply to one from Musk saying, “If this isn’t a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment, what is?” Twitter, [12/2/22]
  - Tom Fitton said that the Twitter files “further confirm” the Democratic Party’s “opposition to the First Amendment.” Twitter, [12/2/22]

[twt]
- - miranda Devine, a New York Post columnist who writes frequently about Hunter Biden and Big Tech, confessed on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight that the Twitter Files were “not really the smoking gun we'd hoped for.” She went on to accuse Musk of withholding documents that “law enforcement specifically warned off Twitter from our story.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [12/2/22]
  - Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett claimed that “Musk deserves a medal for revealing how the Biden campaign, FBI and media censored the Hunter Biden scandal.” In an opinion piece published at FoxNews.com, Jarrett alleged that “the Biden campaign team and Democratic operatives —with a key assist from partisans at the FBI— applied pressure on the social media giant Twitter to block the story.” He later wrote that “it is a violation of the First Amendment for the government to engage in censorship either overtly or covertly,” which “includes the FBI manipulating or coercing companies to behave as proxies to accomplish otherwise prohibited censorship.” Fox News, [12/6/22]

The hollow revelations of the Twitter Files come amid Musk’s supposed free speech crusade since taking control of the social media platform, marked by the CEO giving special attention to extremists, conspiracy theories, and misinformation. Twitter’s internal algorithms have already demonstrated a bias in favor of right-leaning accounts, and Musk’s high-profile actions have only further mainstreamed fringe narratives on the platform.

no lnx

Right-wing media are using Twitter CEO Elon Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi’s release of “The Twitter Files” to baselessly portray the company’s decision to suppress a story about Hunter Biden as having influenced the results of the 2020 presidential election. Going further, some right-wing pundits have even called for those Twitter employees responsible for the decision to be prosecuted and imprisoned.

“The Twitter Files” failed to reveal meaningful evidence of collusion and represent another stumble in Musk's Twitter takeover

Right-wing figures used Taibbi’s report to baselessly claim that Twitter “colluded” in the 2020 election by suppressing the New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop

On Twitter, Fox host Laura Ingraham called for Big Tech to be reined in, comparing Twitter blocking the unconfirmed story about Hunter Biden to Russian interference in U.S. elections. In a December 2 tweet, Ingraham said, “Russian interference & meddling? Tonight we expose Twitter interference & meddling in the 2020 campaign. Sleazier than we thought—it’s time to rein in Big Tech. GOP better do it.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

Students for Trump founder Ryan Fournier claimed that Joe Biden won the 2020 election because Twitter helped him, calling the report “damning.” Fournier tweeted on December 2, “The Twitter Files release is damning. Everything we believed is being confirmed true. Twitter colluded in the 2020 election and helped Biden win.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

Far-right conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec asserted that Twitter’s decision to suppress the New York Post story amounted to a “digital insurrection.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

Jack Posobiec Tweet: “The entire press framed the Hunter Biden story around Twitter’s draconian attack[.] The American people were denied a fair election[.] It was a digital insurrection.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, who helped Trump devise a strategy to claim that the 2020 election was stolen, claimed the Twitter Files proved that Democrats and Big Tech worked together to get Biden elected. In a series of tweets, Fitton said that the “Democratic Party (DNC) colluded with @Twitter to censor opponents just before 2020 election. #ElectionInterference,” and claimed, “Assault on democratic gov't and more election interference CONFIRMED in @ElonMusk's @Twitter files.” [Twitter, 12/2/22; 12/2/22]

Conservative comedian Terrence K. Williams insinuated that the suppression of the Hunter Biden story was the reason Trump lost the 2020 election. On December 2, Williams tweeted, “Twitter interfered with the 2020 Election and those involved should be held accountable. President Trump should be in the White House right now.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

On Fox & Friends, co-host Pete Hegseth chalked up Twitter’s actions to election interference while acting as “an arm of the Democratic National Committee.” Co-host Steve Doocy admitted that “there is no smoking gun per se,” but Hegseth erroneously claimed that voters didn’t “get to read about” the heavily covered Hunter Biden story, “which means they're not factored in when they vote, which is the definition of election interference.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 12/5/22]

Right-wing figures attacked Biden for Twitter’s actions, with some alleging collusion between the White House and Twitter even though Biden wasn’t president yet

Jack Posobiec attempted to paint Taibbi’s report as evidence to impeach Biden. On Twitter, Posobiec called for an impeachment inquiry into Biden because “the Twitter Files show Twitter was Censoring [users based] on Direct Requests from the Biden Team in October 2020.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

Conservative commentator Buck Sexton claimed that the story constituted a “massive scandal, and Biden should rightly be IMPEACHED for it.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

Buck Sextion twitter thread where he said, "“Biden’s team continued -when they were in the White House- to push twitter to shadow ban, cancel etc WHILE IN OFFICE” and that “the libs are cheats and frauds.”

Fox News host Jesse Watters wrongly characterized Biden as the sitting president in 2020 to assert collusion between Twitter and the White House. He incorrectly asserted, “The Biden White House had a direct line to challenge and take down content they didn't like.” [Fox News, Jesse Watters Primetime, 12/2/22]

On Fox’s Hannity, guest Tammy Bruce claimed that Twitter and Facebook were acting as “agents of the state” in suppressing the story. Bruce ended her appearance by bizarrely asserting that Twitter had single handedly “abolished” the First Amendment. [Fox News, Hannity, 12/2/22]

Right-wing figures demanded that Twitter employees involved in blocking the New York Post story face prosecution or jail time

Terrence K. Williams called for “every Twitter employee who interfered in the 2020 Election” to be arrested. [Twitter, 12/2/22]

Terrence Williams tweet, Twitter interfered with the 2020 Election and those involved should be held accountable. President Trump should be in the White House right now

Fox host Jeanine Pirro said on Fox & Friends Weekend that the Twitter Files story “amounts to election interference, and when have you the suppression of the First Amendment – free speech – that results in election interference, there’s got to be a prosecution.” She also insisted that “we already know” Trump would have won the election if Twitter did not suppress the Hunter Biden story. [Fox News, Fox & Friends Weekend, 12/4/22]

Right-wing pundits expressed disappointment that Musk and Taibbi didn’t reveal a “smoking gun” but insisted that Twitter violated the First Amendment

Conservative radio host Sebastian Gorka admitted to being “deeply underwhelmed” by Taibbi’s thread, saying: “We know the Dems in DC collude with the Dems in Palo Alto. Big Whop. Need a paper trail of felonies. Elon better have that.” Gorka went on to explain during a Twitter Spaces Q&A with Musk on December 3 that what Taibbi cites in his thread doesn’t show government suppression, isn’t a First Amendment violation, and therefore isn’t “a smoking gun.” [Twitter, 12/2/22; 12/5/22]

Washington Free Beacon reporter Andrew Kerr tweeted that none of the photos referenced by Taibbi “appear to show Hunter engaged in illegal activities.” He went on to call it “newsworthy that team Biden was asking Twitter to remove any tweets period.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

Washington Free Beacon reporter Chuck Ross tweeted that “there has to be an interesting story on how Twitter decided to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story, but we didn’t see it tonight.” He added, “FBI was meeting with Twitter on a weekly basis in 2020. Let’s see the docs about that.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

Right-wing personalities the Hodgetwins tweeted, “It % is, collusion between govt. and big tech to violate the First Amendment.” The tweet was in reply to one from Musk saying, “If this isn’t a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment, what is?” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

Tom Fitton said that the Twitter files “further confirm” the Democratic Party’s “opposition to the First Amendment.” [Twitter, 12/2/22]

Tom Fitton Twitter Files First Amendment

Miranda Devine, a New York Post columnist who writes frequently about Hunter Biden and Big Tech, confessed on Fox’s Tucker Carlson Tonight that the Twitter Files were “not really the smoking gun we'd hoped for.” She went on to accuse Musk of withholding documents that “law enforcement specifically warned off Twitter from our story.” [Fox News, Tucker Carlson Tonight, 12/2/22]

Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett claimed that “Musk deserves a medal for revealing how the Biden campaign, FBI and media censored the Hunter Biden scandal.” In an opinion piece published at FoxNews.com, Jarrett alleged that “the Biden campaign team and Democratic operatives —with a key assist from partisans at the FBI— applied pressure on the social media giant Twitter to block the story.” He later wrote that “it is a violation of the First Amendment for the government to engage in censorship either overtly or covertly,” which “includes the FBI manipulating or coercing companies to behave as proxies to accomplish otherwise prohibited censorship.” [Fox News, 12/6/22]

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kari ref elon daily mail

daily mail uk no lnx twt etc

elon Musk says Twitter's censorship of Hunter Biden laptop story was the 'definition of election interference' and that firm 'was acting as an arm of the DNC'

Musk spoke for nearly two hours in a 'Twitter Spaces' audio chat on Saturday

He addressed files illuminating Twitter's censorship ahead of 2020 election

Claimed Twitter acted as an 'arm of the Democratic National Committee'

Files released Friday showed Twitter staff discussing ban on Hunter laptop story

They also show requests from 'Biden team' to remove nude images of Hunter

By KEITH GRIFFITH FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

PUBLISHED: 21:45 EST, 3 December 2022 | UPDATED: 22:29 EST, 3 December 2022

Elon Musk has claimed that Twitter's censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal was tantamount to interference in the 2020 election.

Musk made the claim in a wide-ranging two-hour audio chat on Twitter Spaces on Saturday night, one day after the publication of internal files relating to Twitter's October 2020 ban on initial reporting of the laptop contents.

'If Twitter is doing one team's bidding before an election shutting down dissenting voices on a pivotal election that is the definition of election interference,' said Musk.

'Frankly Twitter was acting like an arm of the Democratic National Committee, it was absurd,' added the billionaire, who has been highly critical of prior management at the company he purchased five weeks ago.

:{:{}:

In the audio chat, Musk also claimed Apple had 'fully resumed' advertising on Twitter following a pullback, and said that he banned Kanye West for 'incitement to violence' for a tweet displaying a Nazi swastika.

View gallery

Elon Musk has claimed that Twitter's censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal was tantamount to interference in the 2020 election

Musk made the claim in a wide-ranging two-hour audio chat on Twitter Spaces on Saturday night, one day after the publication of internal files from October 2020

View gallery

Much of the conversation was devoted to the so-called 'Twitter Files,' a selection of internal documents released by journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday night.

The documents included internal Twitter emails appearing to show staffers removing tweets showing a nude Hunter Biden at the behest of Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign and the DNC.

However, Taibbi himself said that the files contained 'no evidence - that I've seen' that the Biden campaign had a role in suppressing the New York Post's story on Hunter's business dealings, which was controversially banned from Twitter.

Musk said in the chat on Saturday that in addition to Taibbi, he had given the files to Bari Weiss.

Musk said he had given the journalists 'unfettered access' to old internal documents, and did not guide or control how they were revealed or reported.

'This is not a North Korea tour guide situation, you get to go anywhere you want, whenever you want, however you want,' he said. 'I'm not controlling the narrative.'

'It's just obvious there's been a lot of control of information, supression of information, including things that affected elections, and that just all need to be...you just want to have the stuff out there,' he said.

Musk said in the chat on Saturday that in addition to Matt Taibbi (left), he had given the files to journalist Bari Weiss (right)

Participating in the chat, former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka asked whether there was any evidence of actual government interference in Twitter's moderation, since the documents released only showed requests from the Biden campaign.

:{:{}:

Musk did not directly answer the question, and admitted 'I have not read the Twitter Files so that's why my understanding is limited.'

Musk also said he thought it was 'possible' that personnel at the social media firm gave preference to left-wing candidates during Brazil's election this year, without providing evidence.

Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter on Oct. 27, just days before Brazil's presidential second round runoff vote, when far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro was defeated by leftist Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

'I've seen a lot of concerning tweets about the recent Brazil election,' Musk wrote on Twitter when asked by a user about elections possibly 'handled' by the company's previous management.

Weeks ahead of the election in October 2020, Twitter prevented sharing of a story about Hunter Biden's international business dealings, based on emails from his laptop

View gallery

'If those tweets are accurate, it's possible that Twitter personnel gave preference to left wing candidates,' added the billionaire.

Separately, Musk also addressed his move to ban Kanye West from Twitter once again this week, following the rapper's latest anti-Semitic meltdown.

'With Kanye it's obviously a difficult subject, but that was a case where, that was my decision. I think it's important people know that was my decision,' he said.

West was banned for posting an image of a swastika within a Star of David, a Jewish religious symbol, something Musk explained he viewed as an 'incitement to violence.'

'I personally wanted to punch Kanye, so it's definitely inciting me to violence, so that's not cool,' he said.

Musk said that context was important, and that a swastika in a historical context, such as a history of World War II, would not necessarily be offensive in the same way.

Meanwhile, in emerged on Saturday that the tweets that were removed at the request of the DNC and Biden campaign appeared to center of pornographic images of Hunter Biden.

In one of these emails, sent ten days after The New York Post first broke the laptop story on October 14 of that year, Twitter staffers were asked to 'review' five tweets deemed problematic by 'the Biden team.'

One of the tweets removed at the request of the Biden campaign is seen above. The original image, which showed Hunter Biden nude from the waist down, has been cropped above

View gallery

'More to review from the Biden team,' that staffer's redacted correspondence read - garnering a reply hours later from another Twitter employee - one that assured the worker the task had been 'handled.'

That same day, another email reveals that there was an additional complaint from the DNC and two more tweets were deleted.

It is not clear from the leaked emails what the deleted tweets were about, however Washington Free Beacon investigative reporter Andrew Kerr said he had discovered the contents of several of the tweets.

He said three of the tweets the Biden camp demanded be deleted contained 'Hunter Biden porn' and photos of Biden's genitalia, from the laptop.

He claims one of the tweets requested to be deleted by the DNC was from actor James Woods and depicted Hunter smoking crack and a committing a sex act.

And he says the second tweet was a link to Hunter Biden weighing and using drugs, and another link to a Hunter Biden sex tape.

Share or comment on this article: Elon Musk says Twitter's actions were the 'definition of election interference'

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an 12 22

We’ve been warned. When the Republicans take control of the House, it’s going to be all Hunter’s laptop, all the time.

Despite haughty GOP denials, the laptop story is probably a cover for another Russian hack and leak operation, and the Republicans are gleefully laundering it.

Republicans have browbeaten various social media execs – who are surely nervous about being called before GOP committees – into saying they were wrong to throttle access to what everyone correctly assumed was foreign election interference laundered through Donald Trump’s personal lawyer and election interference go-to-guy Rudy Giuliani.

Various major media outlets have authenticated a small percentage of the data dump as having belonged to Hunter Biden. But that’s exactly what you’d expect in a hack and leak operation. The question is whether the data were really abandoned by Hunter Biden or whether they were uploaded to that laptop as a pretext for trafficking in stolen secrets.

“That’s Rudy”

In October 2020, weeks before the general election,the New York Postran a story about what Rudy Giuliani claimed was a hard drive abandoned by Hunter Biden at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware.

Over 50 retired intelligence pros signed an open letter arguing that L’Affaire MacBook bore all the hallmarks of Russian disinfo. Twitter’s former head of safety said this week that the story set off “every single one of my finely tuned [Russian intelligence] hack and leak campaign alarm bells."

Conveniently, the former shop owner who gave the data to Giuliani is legally blind, so he can’t say whether the man who dropped off the machines was Hunter Biden. He’s also a frothing conspiracy theorist who was unable to tell a straight story about the provenance of the laptop.

We know Vladimir Putin personally directed a campaign of interference in the 2020 elections that focused on feeding anti-Biden propaganda to influential Americans, including members of Trump’s inner circle, according to a 2021 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The report doesn’t name names, but contains enough clues to identify Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, as the useful idiot in chief.

This time, the collusion between Trump and the Russians was right out in the open. With Trump’s support, Giuliani spent much of 2019 ostentatiously shuttling to Ukraine and huddling with Kremlin-linked oligarchs, including an active Russian agent who was later sanctioned by Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s Treasury Department for interference in the 2020 election.

Data from Hunter Biden’s computer were on the market in Kyiv around the time Giuliani went disinfo-shopping. As you recall, Giuliani was searching for dirt in Ukraine because Hunter Biden sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings, which, according to that ODNI report, was hacked by the Russian spy service known as the GRU in late 2019.

Multiple US intelligence agencies repeatedly and explicitly warned Donald Trump in 2019 that Giuliani’s bottomless thirst for dirt on the Bidens made him the target of a Russian intelligence operation. National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien warned Trump that any information Giuliani brought back from his Ukraine junket should be considered “contaminated” by the Russians. Trump reportedly shrugged and said, “That’s Rudy.”

Stolen and dumped

Let’s not forget Trump’s first impeachment was the result of a desperate bid to wring dirt out of the Ukrainians. Trump froze congressionally authorized defense aid to Ukraine in order to strong-arm the country’s new president into announcing a bogus investigation into Hunter Biden.

Republicans have falsely claimed that forensic analyses have proven that the data was found on a laptop that Hunter Biden abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware. These analyses have shown that some of the materials were produced by Hunter Biden. But that’s how hack and leak attacks work.

In a hack and leak, data is stolen and dumped.

A largely genuine trove of stolen data is also the perfect place to hide forged or stolen elements, which enjoy unearned credibility because they’re packaged with real stuff. That’s why the victims of hack and leaks are advised never to confirm the authenticity of anything.

The attackers are counting on the public to draw the erroneous conclusion that, because some things are genuine, the whole package is real, and – most importantly – that it came from where the cover story says it came from, be that an imaginary collective of good-hearted “hacktivists” or a computer repair shop in Delaware. Anywhere but the GRU.

The GRU is notorious for hacking and leaking.

A GRU unit known as FancyBear or APT128 famously deployed this tactic against the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016. They also targeted George Soros, the World Anti-Doping Agency, scientists investigating the poisoning of a former Russian agent, and countless others. For particularly high-value targets, GRU combines hacking with good-old-fashioned stalking, following their targets around, hoping to catch them using insecure hotel wifi.

Isn’t it a crazy coincidence that a disk image of “Hunter Biden’s laptop” was revealed to the world by the same guy who we know was the main conduit for Russian disinformation about the Bidens? A guy who has also been investigated for other kinds of election interference on behalf of Trump.

If you believe that, I’ve got an extended warranty to sell you.

---

https://time.com/5902557/hunter-biden-rudy-giuliani-ukraine/

ref

no lnx many

POLITICS 2020 ELECTION

EXCLUSIVE: ALLEGED HUNTER BIDEN EMAILS CIRCULATED IN UKRAINE AS RUDY GIULIANI DUG FOR DIRT THERE LAST YEAR

Hunter Biden, son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden; Personal attorney to President Donald Trump and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani Photo-Illustration by TIME; DNCC/Getty Images; Committee on Arrangements for the 2020 RNC/Getty Images

BY SIMON SHUSTER

OCTOBER 21, 2020

Explicit photos and emails purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden were circulating in Ukraine last year at the same time that Rudy Giuliani was searching for dirt there on former Vice President Joe Biden, two people approached about the material during that period tell TIME.

The emails’ alleged availability, which has not been previously reported, comes to light in the wake of Giuliani’s recent claims that he obtained private photos and emails of Hunter Biden from a broken laptop abandoned in Delaware. Giuliani, who is President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, has passed this material to right-wing news outlets, which began publishing it last week. Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment on the origins of the material he obtained.

Over the past year, the practice of selling or leaking private communications has become so common in Ukraine that the government has announced plans to pass a law against it. Igor Novikov, a former adviser to Ukraine’s President who now researches disinformation, referred to the practice as Ukraine’s “national sport” in a recent interview with the Washington Post.

The two people who said they were approached with Hunter Biden’s alleged emails last year did not know whether any of them were real and they declined to identify who was behind the offers, the first of which came in late May 2019 and the second in mid-September 2019. The two people said they could not confirm whether any of the material presented to them was the same as that which has been recently published in the U.S.

Last week the New York Post began publishing the material they obtained from Giuliani, and the sources and authenticity of the published emails has been hotly debated ever since. Hunter Biden and his father’s presidential campaign have declined to comment on the leaks in detail or to address whether any of the published emails are genuine. Hunter Biden has been unable to figure out where the material could have originated, says a person familiar with the situation.

Over the past week, Trump has used the leaks from Giuliani to fuel his claims of corruption against the Biden family.The President called on Attorney General William Barr to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the material in the recent reports. “We’ve got to get the attorney general to act,” Trump said in an interview with Fox on Tuesday, two days before he faces Biden in the final debate of the presidential race. “He’s got to appoint somebody. This is major corruption, and this has to be known about before the election.”

One mystery that has surrounded Giuliani’s effort to aid Trump’s re-election bid is the original source of the photos and emails he has leaked to the New York Post. No other news organization has been able to verify the contents of the leak. The Biden campaign, along with U.S. national security officials and social media platforms, have warned that the leaked files could include forgeries meant to confuse or mislead voters in the final weeks of the campaign. Experts on disinformation have also raised serious concerns about the leaks.

The two people who said they were approached about Hunter Biden’s photos and emails last year did not know whether they originated from the same source as those that Giuliani has since leaked to the media. When the New York Post first published photos of Hunter Biden last week, “It brought back memories of the same information that was being introduced to us a year ago,” says the first person informed about the existence of this material.

Rudy Giuliani listens as President Trump speaks during a news briefing at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 27, 2020. (Salwan Georges—The Washington Post/Getty Images)

In an interview with TIME, a second person described an offer that was made to him in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, in mid-September 2019. This person declined the offer, he says, and only recalled it in detail when familiar-looking material was published in the New York Post last week. This person alleges that the people offering this material had a buyer in mind for it: they said they wanted to sell it to Republican allies of President Trump. Their asking price was $5 million, he says, adding: “I walked away from it, because it smelled awful.”

In its first report about Hunter Biden on Oct. 14, the New York Post published what it described in a headline as a “smoking gun email” dated April 2015 between Hunter Biden and an adviser to Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas company where Hunter Biden held a lucrative board seat while his father was Vice President. The email, whose authenticity could not be independently confirmed, appeared to suggest that the adviser, Vadym Pozharskyi, had met and “spent some time” with Joe Biden, thanks to an introduction from Hunter Biden. If the alleged meeting took place, it would seem to undercut the repeated claims from Biden and his son that they never discussed Burisma.

The Biden campaign has denied that any such meeting happened. Amos Hochstein, who served as an adviser to Joe Biden on Ukrainian affairs in 2015, said the then-Vice President did not attend a meeting with Pozharskyi. “He never met with Biden. Never,” Hochstein tells TIME.

During his travels in Europe last year, Giuliani met with a variety of Ukrainian politicians, businessmen and former law enforcement officers whom he has since described as “whistleblowers” and witnesses to the Biden family’s alleged corruption in Ukraine. None of the accusations these sources made via Giuliani has stood up to public scrutiny, and no evidence has emerged of wrongdoing by Joe Biden in Ukraine.

When TIME asked Novikov, the former adviser to Ukraine’s President, about the alleged offers of access to Hunter Biden’s emails, Novikov said it would be “nothing new” for someone in Ukraine to market such material. The trade in kompromat—a Russian word for “compromising material”—has gone into overdrive in Ukraine since last year,when the country became entangled in internal U.S. politics, especially during the impeachment inquiry against President Trump, Novikov says. Various political operatives have rushed to answer Giuliani’s call for dirt on the Bidens, creating what Novikov called a “catalyst for disinformation.” Any documents emerging from this trade should be treated with caution, he adds, because they are “extremely hard to verify, yet very easy to fake.”

Since the New York Post began publishing the purported emails and photos of Hunter Biden, federal investigators have tried to determine where the emails came from and whether they are linked to a foreign effort to influence the U.S. elections, according to an NBC News report published Oct. 15.

:{:{}:

At the end of last year, Russia’s military intelligence service, known as the GRU, hacked into the computer systems of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company, apparently aiming to steal its internal documents and communications, according to a report released by cyber security experts in January. “It is significant because Burisma Holdings is publicly entangled in U.S. foreign and domestic politics,” wrote the experts from Area 1, a cyber security firm that was co-founded by a former hacker for the U.S. National Security Agency. The January report warned that the hack of Burisma could be an “early warning” of Russia’s plans to interfere in the 2020 elections using the same techniques it used in 2016.

During a trip to Ukraine in December, Giuliani met with a Ukrainian lawmaker who has since been identified by the U.S. Treasury Department as an “active Russian agent” with longstanding ties to Russian intelligence services. The lawmaker, Andrii Derkach, did not respond to messages seeking comment.

In a social media post on Monday, Derkach claimed that the “scandalous investigation” published in the New York Post would soon have a sequel based on a “second laptop” purportedly containing the private emails and photos of Hunter Biden. “The facts confirming international corruption are stored on a second laptop,” Derkach wrote. “These are not the last witnesses or the last laptop.”

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yahoo

former Twitter executive conceded Tuesday that the social media company made the wrong call when it censored stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop in the lead up to the 2020 presidential election.

Yoel Roth, the former head of Twitter’s Trust & Safety department, opened up about the decision in a discussion with tech journalist Kara Swisher, claiming the Oct. 2020 front page story by The New York Post was difficult for Twitter to initially verify, so the company chose to shut it down, suspending the news outlet and preventing users from sharing links to the article. (Those who obtained and disseminated the laptop initially refused to provide it to other outlets, making verification difficult.)

“We didn’t know what to believe, we didn’t know what was true, there was smoke,” said Roth, who quit earlier this month amid mass layoffs following Elon Musk’s takeover.

Federal authorities had warned social media execs to be on high alert in the lead up to the election for hacks and disinformation campaigns similar to those weaponized by Russia in 2016. The laptop story “set off every single one of my finely tuned APT28 hack and leak campaign alarm bells. Everything about it looked like a hack and leak,” Roth said.

However, he said that, “ultimately for me, it didn’t reach a place where I was comfortable removing this content from Twitter.”

When asked by Swisher if it was a mistake to censor the story, Roth replied, “In my opinion, yes.” (He did, however, say he thought it was the right decision to ban Donald Trump.)

hunter Biden and President Joe Biden.

Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA]

The admission comes as the company prepares to release files related to the decision, according to a series of tweets from Musk.

“The Twitter Files on free speech suppression soon to be published on Twitter itself. The public deserves to know what really happened,” he tweeted on Monday. “This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.”

Musk has been critical of the company’s decision to censor the story tying the president’s son to controversial business connections in Ukraine and China, parts of which were later confirmed by various major news organizations, even calling out Twitter just days after proposing a $44 billion buyout of the site.

“Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” Musk tweeted in April.

But Roth, whose decision to quit was based partly on the calamitous Twitter Blue scheme as well as Musk’s “dictatorial edict,” said that the new CEO’s laissez-faire content moderation strategies were dooming the site and making it less safe.

Elon Musk’s Twitter Fiasco Is the Twilight of the Tech Bro

“There is no set it and forget it when it comes to trust and safety,” he said, questioning Twitter’s ability to now preempt malicious trolls and bad actors. “I don’t think there are enough people left at the company who can do that work.”

“You can certainly streamline things, but that doesn’t mean that malicious activity is going to get less complicated, it doesn’t mean trolls are going to stop. You can’t bury your head in the sand,” Roth added.

In the hour-long interview, Roth urged users to stay attuned to any shifting functionality of key features like muting, blocking and protected tweets.

“If protected tweets stop working, run,” Roth said.

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an 12 22

During the 2022 midterms, countless pundits predicted that if Republicans flipped the U.S. House of Representatives, investigating President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, would be high on their list of priorities. Republicans did flip the House, where they will have a small majority of around six seats in 2023. And sure enough, Rep. James Comer of Kentucky (the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee) is promising in-depth investigations of the president’s son.

Veteran columnist/author and Never Trump conservative Mona Charen examines MAGA Republicans’ obsession with Hunter Biden in an article published by The Bulwark on December 6. The 65-year-old Charen, who worked in the Reagan White House during the 1980s and was a speechwriter for First Lady Nancy Reagan, is not a Hunter Biden fan. But she is much more critical of former President Donald Trump and his many allies in the GOP, and she finds MAGA Republicans’ obsession with Hunter Biden laughable in light of the many lines the former president has crossed.

“Hunter Biden seems to be corrupt,” Charen writes. “He traded on his father’s name. He has abused drugs and engaged in other unsavory practices. He’s a mess. But there is nothing relevant to public policy or civic virtue here. President Biden is hardly the first president to have troubled family members. But Joe Biden didn’t hire Hunter at the White House, and if there is any evidence of the president using official influence on Hunter’s behalf, we haven’t seen it. The Department of Justice under President Trump opened an investigation into Hunter Biden. President Biden has left it alone. It’s ongoing.”

Trump’s Republican supporters, Charen argues, have “a deep psychological need for the Hunter Biden story,” which is a distraction from the many lines the former president has crossed.

“For seven years, the right has been explaining, excusing, avoiding, and eventually cheering the most morally depraved figure in American politics,” Charen emphasizes. “That takes a toll on the psyche. You can tell yourself that the other side is worse. Or you can tell yourself that thecritics are unhinged, suffering from ‘Trump derangement syndrome,’ whereas you are a man of the world who knows nobody’s perfect. But then Trump will do what he always does —he’ll make a fool of you.”

Charen continues, “You denied that Trump purposely broke the law when he took highly classified documents to Mar-a-Lago and obstructed every effort to retrieve them. And then, what does Trump do? He admits taking them! You scoff at the critics who’ve compared Trump with Nazis. And then, what does he do? He has dinner with Nazis! And fails to condemn them even after the fact. You despised people who claimed Trump was a threat to the Constitution, and then, Trump explicitly calls for ‘terminating’ the Constitution in order to put himself back in the Oval Office.”

Republicans who are obsessed with Hunter Biden, Charen writes, have “provided succor and support” to a former president “who has encouraged political violence since his early rallies in 2015, has stoked hatred of minorities through lies, has used his office for personal gain in the most flagrant fashion, has surrounded himself with criminals and con men, has committed human rights violations against would-be immigrants by separating children from their parents, has pardoned war criminals, has cost the lives of tens of thousands of COVID patients by discounting the virus and peddling quack cures, has revived racism in public discourse, and attempted a violent coup d’état.”

“They know it,” Charen writes. “It gnaws at them. That’s why the Hunter Biden story is their heart’s desire. But here’s something else they need to meditate on: Even if everything they’re alleging about Joe Biden were true — even if he did pull strings to help his son and even profited unjustly thereby — it still wouldn’t amount to a fraction of what Trump did.”

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an 12 22

A Republican congressional candidate in Minnesota recently called for an armed violent revolution in response to the highly publicized information drop about the handling of Hunter Biden's laptop.

According to Mediaite, Shukri Abdirahman —the Republican candidate challenging Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) who currently represents Minnesota’s 5th District, took to Twitter with her reaction to the reports.

On Friday, December 3, Substack journalist Matt Taibbi released a thread of tweets with details that suggested Twitter employees intentionally worked to censor reports about Biden's laptops during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

While some Republicans felt the highly anticipated release was relatively underwhelming, others like Abdirahman were fueled by it.

Responding to Taibbi's string of tweets, she tweeted, “We can no longer get rid of tyranny by the ballots. It’s only by bullets now.”

The Republican candidate also shared a number of other reactions. Per the news outlet, she also said:

“I’m done. I regret that I put my life on the line to defend these Nazis, and that so many of my brothers and sisters in arms died for.”
“Two pillars of a successful Republic are election integrity and confidence in our democratic processes. We have neither.”
“This is treason and the real insurrection.”
“This wasn’t by Russia. It’s done by our own f--king government.”
“Just so you know @HillaryClinton, Elon Musk is not suicidal.”

But despite Adbirahman's reaction, Miranda Devine appeared on Fox News Friday night and admitted that the latest developments are not what she would consider bombshells or a "smoking gun."

“Look, I think we’ve seen quite a bit that’s useful. It’s not really the smoking gun we’d hoped for,” Devine told Fox News host Tucker Carlson. She added, “I feel that Elon Musk has held back some material.”

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an 12 22

Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) is vowing to bring Twitter employees before Congress as part of an investigative effort to determine how they may have censored reports on Hunter Biden's laptop during the 2020 election cycle.

On Friday, December 3, the Kentucky lawmaker appeared on Fox News where he spoke with guest host Jason Chaffetz who asked him about the report written by Substack journalist Matt Taibbi. According to Taibbi's report, there was an "organized effort at Twitter" to suppress the circulation of the story.

Mediaite reports that "Taibbi, whose source was Elon Musk, reported Democrats and Republicans both had back channels that killed unfavorable tweets."

According to the news outlet, the journalist also claimed "internal Twitter files showed Democrats had more channels that were used to suppress unfavorable tweets and initial reports on Hunter Biden’s laptop."

Chaffetz, also a former chairman of the House Oversight Committee said, “They can’t figure out how to justify this type of suppression. What can Congress, what can the Oversight Committee do, and where are they going to go next with this?”

The Republican lawmaker responded by sharing his intent as chairman of the committee. "When I take your old position as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, I can promise you this: every employee at Twitter who was involved in suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story will have an opportunity to come before Congress and explain their actions to the American people," Comer said. "This was a huge story."

He added, "When we announced the investigation of the Biden family and referenced material from the laptop, many in the mainstream media said this is just a conspiracy theory. The mainstream media is still trying to use the old talking points the laptop is somehow Russian disinformation."

According to Comer, Musk's decision to share Twitter's files with Taibbi suggests there was some form of collusive effort to diminish the circulation of reports on the social platform. The Republican lawmaker also commended theNew York Post for its original report which was published in October 2020.

He concluded by saying, “We are going to have every person at Twitter in front of the House Oversight Committee."

Watch the video below or at this link.

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mma 11 22

jrnl fail

Last week, members of Republican House leadership announced plans for bogus show-trial investigations targeting President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, focusing on private business deals that have already been exhaustively covered and where a previous GOP-led investigation found no wrongdoing by Joe Biden. Several major news organizations took the bait and published mostly credulous stories about the upcoming GOP witch hunt, while failing to mention the obvious parallels between the Republican accusations targeting the Biden family and the plethora of shady international business deals by former President Donald Trump and his family.

During Trump’s first run for president in the 2016 election, news organizations reported on Trump’s various Middle Eastern business deals while he questioned Middle Eastern state donations to the Clinton Foundation; Trump had sought investment partnerships with former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s government, and he reportedly had a business relationship with an apparent money-laundering operation associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the Trump administration would later designate as a foreign terrorist organization. Trump had even sought a deal during his presidential run with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin to build a Trump Tower in Moscow. During Trump’s presidency, hisdaughter Ivanka — who worked as a senior adviser in the Trump White House at the time — received multiple new trademarks in China worth millions of dollars days before her father “vowed to find a way” to save a Chinese telecommunications company from bankruptcy.

This pattern of suspicious business entanglements with hostile and corrupt foreign governments continued after the Trump administration.

In mid-2021, the Saudi Arabian government invested $2 billion into Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s new private equity firm. Kushner had also previously worked as a senior adviser in Trump’s White House and used his government position to build a relationship with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Reporting on the deal revealed that politics played a major role in the investment, with the crown prince overriding Saudi analysts who opposed the investment in Kushner’s unproven business. In what’s not likely to be a coincidence, Trump had earlier bragged that he had “saved his [Crown Prince Mohammed’s] ass” and made Congress “leave him alone” after the Saudi government’s gruesome 2018 assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. (This past June, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform announced an investigation into whether Kushner used his government position to secure the investment.) In 2022, Trump made a deal with the Saudi-funded LIV Golf tour to host several events at his golf courses. Most recently, as Trump was launching his 2024 presidential campaign, he signed a real estate deal to build Trump-branded buildings in partnership with the government of Oman.

Incredibly, none of these actual Trump family business scandals were mentioned in multiple articles from major news organizations covering the GOP’s planned investigation of Hunter Biden, even though the parallel is obvious. Instead, these outlets ran mostly credulous stories centering the Republicans’ specious narratives that Hunter Biden’s business deals are worthy of yet more congressional investigation:

NBC News highlighted House Republicans’ laughable plans to “try to determine whether the family’s business activities ‘compromise U.S. national security and President Biden’s ability to lead with impartiality.’” There was no mention of whether the Trump family’s business activities compromised his impartiality.
ABC News noted that the GOP claims are nothing new and that the Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) highlighted during the House Republicans' press conference “do not amount to crimes,” yet failed to mention any Trump family business deals, even the Kushner firm’s $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia that is currently under congressional investigation.
CNN likewise threw cold water on Republican allegations highlighting the SARs but also failed to mention the Trump family’s international business entanglements.
Politico noted that the GOP’s efforts are “a probe in search of a problem” but didn’t mention the actual problems created by Trump and his family making deals with foreign governments during his previous campaigns and administration, as well as while he is running for president again.
The New York Times highlighted plans by Democratic-aligned groups to counter House Republicans’ investigation yet also didn’t mention the various international business deals engaged in by Trump and his family.
NPR promoted GOP claims about Hunter Biden’s business dealings and one Republican’s comparison of them “to those of Michael Flynn” who “lobbied for the Turkish government while advising the Trump campaign,” yetsomehow failed to mention foreign business dealings by Trump and his family.

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https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/16/democratic-strategists-launch-war-room-00065498

group of top Democratic strategists are launching a multi-million-dollar hub to counter an expected investigative onslaught by the likely incoming House GOP majority — digging into President Joe Biden, his administration and his son, on top of potential Cabinet impeachments.

The newly relaunchedCongressional Integrity Project initiative, details of which were shared first with POLITICO, will include rapid response teams, investigative researchers, pollsters and eventually a paid media campaign to put congressional Republicans “squarely on the defense,” founder Kyle Herrig said in an interview.

It’s designed to serve as the party’s “leading war room” to push back on House Republican investigations, Herrig said in an interview. He added that the project would “investigate the investigators, expose their political motivations and the monied special interests supporting their work, and hold them accountable for ignoring the urgent priorities of all Americans in order to smear Joe Biden and do the political bidding of Trump and MAGA Republicans." [vid]

a team of researchers has already begun scouring public records, press clippings and other documents in a bid to immediately undercut House GOP leaders, from Minority Leader — now speakership hopeful — Kevin McCarthy to the likely committee chairs expected to manage probes of Biden and his network.

The House GOP views investigations as a key piece of its agenda for the next Congress once it takes the narrow majority that’s now expected, particularly as much of its legislative wish list is on track to stall thanks to the Senate filibuster and Democratic president. McCarthy has privately talked with committee chairs-in-waiting to coordinate plans, making the swift launch of the outside-group pushback plan a potential godsend to Democrats.

Democratic leadership on the Hill has been briefed about the project’s relaunch, according to a person familiar with its plans.

Brad Woodhouse, a longtime Democratic strategist who is part of the project’s new leadership team, called the House GOP’s looming investigations a “vendetta” after two impeachments of and investigations into former President Donald Trump while Democrats controlled Congress, including the bipartisan select committee probing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

The project “will exploit every tactic available,” Woodhouse said, adding: “It’s not enough to wait and see what they’re going to do and how far they’re going to go.”

Republicans wouldn’t formally take the House until January, but its leaders are already vowing to cut a broad investigative swath. As McCarthy put it during his conference’s recent agenda rollout: “Every committee has responsibilities for oversight.”

“They’ve virtually outlined no substantive agenda for governing,” Herrig said of House Republicans. “This is what they’re going to do ... so you really need a concentrated effort that’s doing this every day.”

In addition to Herrig and Woodhouse, the project’s leadership team will include Leslie Dach, a well-known Democratic communications specialist who has led progressive organizations for decades, served in the Obama administration and advised the Biden administration’s pandemic response.

In a sign of the important role the initiative will play over the next two years — and its proximity to the White House — other senior advisers include Jeff Peck, a former Biden aide during the president’s time in the Senate who served as treasurer and vice chair of the Biden Foundation as well as a senior adviser to the Biden-Harris transition.

The Congressional Integrity Project leadership team will include Leslie Dach, a well-known Democratic communications specialist who has led progressive organizations for decades. | Brian Stukes/Getty Images for Protect Our Care

For the final two years of Biden’s term, Republicans will be aided in their oversight push by a coalition of outside conservative research groups that have already mapped out potential targets and started digging into issues ranging from Hunter Biden’s business dealings to immigration policy.

And GOP lawmakers have left their own investigative breadcrumbs that make it clear where they intend to go. Likely Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) will lead the Hunter Biden investigation, with Republicans already preparing to elevate the probe to Joe Biden although no evidence has publicly emerged that his decisions were affected by his son’s business dealings. Comer recently told POLITICO that he and likely Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) would provide a public update this week.

Jordan, meanwhile, is preparing to use the gavel he’s poised to take for conduct a sweeping investigation into the Justice Department and FBI, two frequent targets of Trump’s ire. That probe is likely to touch on everything from the search at Mar-a-Lago for classified documents to tracking threats against local school officials, which the GOP slams as an effort to target parents despite denials from the bureau. [vid]

other GOP areas of interest include the withdrawal from Afghanistan, Ukraine aid and a coronavirus probe that is likely to sweep up longtime public health adviser Anthony Fauci.

McCarthy and his allies are under pressure from their base and some members of their own conference to pair their investigations with impeachment articles; some in the party are clearly itching for payback after then-President Trump was impeached twice. Though impeaching Biden is likely a heavy lift — and a step that McCarthy isn’t endorsing for now — Republicans see Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as a more likely target for attempted removal from office.

:{:{}:

congressional Democrats and others close to the administration view Republicans’ vows to investigate Mayorkas’ department and the border as the latest sign that they aren’t serious about trying to pass immigration legislation. And they slam Republican investigative plans writ large as thinly veiled attempts to help Trump, pointing to Jordan’s public remarks earlier this year that characterized GOP probes as helping “frame up the 2024 race.”

The Congressional Integrity Project is also aiming to raise funds for a paid media campaign, including dedicated websites, digital ads, mobile billboards, newspaper ads and, occasionally, TV ad buys. Its public opinion research will be shared with like-minded organizations and congressional allies to contrast GOP investigations with issues the American public cares most about, project leaders said.

Their goal is to prevent a repeat of the 2016 presidential campaign when Republicans also controlled the House and created a select committee to investigate the 2012 attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans. That GOP select panel ended up zeroing in on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she prepared to ascend to the Democratic nomination, culminating in an 11-hour grilling of Clinton.

Republicans’ two-year Benghazi investigation spent $7 million in taxpayer money and dogged Clinton on the campaign trail before finally producing an 800-page report that didn’t focus on the former secretary of state.

Then-Majority Leader McCarthy quipped in 2015 to Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the Benghazi committee had successfully driven down Clinton’s poll numbers. “He took a lot of crap for it, but in the end, it was true” that the investigation hurt Clinton politically, recalled Woodhouse.

Rather, Democrats hope the flood of investigations will lead to a repeat of the 1998 midterm elections, held amid the GOP push to impeach then-President Bill Clinton. Voter backlash against that move helped Democrats defy historical trends in House races that favor the party that doesn’t occupy the White House gaining seats.

POLITICO

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mma 11 22

House Republicans appear set on spending the next two years firmly ensconced within the right-wing media bubble, focusing on creating content for its Fox News stars after garnering a slim majority in the midterm elections.

On Thursday morning, just hours after news outlets had projected that Republicans would take control of the lower chamber, Reps. James Comer (R-KY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) held a news conference detailing what will apparently be the party’s top priority. Their announcement had nothing to do with the issues voters said they cared the most about when they went to the polls, like inflation or abortion rights. Instead, the incoming chairs of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, with the apparent approval of likely Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), promised to be laser-focused on business deals President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was involved in years ago.

As they spoke, the caucus’ official Twitter account was tweeting catchphrases that are incomprehensible to anyone who doesn’t spend a significant amount of time in the right-wing information ecosystem[twt]

fox News hosts and their fellow travelers have been trying to use Hunter Biden’s business dealings as a cudgel against his father since before he launched his run for president. That fixation ultimately triggered Fox’s obsession and then-President Donald Trump’s first impeachment for corruptly using his power to try to force Ukraine to launch a spurious investigation into the Bidens. The story returned to the fore in the closing weeks of the 2020 presidential election as part of a last-ditch effort by Rupert Murdoch’s outlets to use revelations from the alleged “Hunter Biden laptop” to keep Trump in office. And as Election Day 2022 approached, right-wing outlets were rife with demands for Republicans to use the power they might gain to scrutinize what they term the “Biden Crime Family.”

Indeed, Thursday’s event seemed made-to-order for the right-wing press, which rewarded the House Republican leaders with fawning coverage and airtime.

Fox prime time host Sean Hannity opened his program that night by crowing that “Republicans now have control of the House and soon, for the first time in two years, this administration will finally get their feet held to the fire” before spending several segments purporting to explain how “the big guy himself, Joe Biden” had “ended up using his crack-addicted son as a bag man.” He aired clips from Comer and Jordan speaking at the news conference, then rewarded Comer with an interview, which he concluded by thanking the congressman “for your hard work and your willingness to take on a hard topic.” During the next hour, hostLaura Ingraham also touted the event and aired clips before bringing on Jordan.

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sadly narrowly re-elected

https://www.alternet.org/2022/11/ron-johnson-has-a-feeling/ biden compro by china bartir

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2x? sep 22

...So now it comes out, conclusively, that the FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION knowing that, if they didn’t, 'Trump would have easily won the 2020 Presidential Election.' This is massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country. REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!

Trump's outrage stemmed from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's revelation to podcaster Joe Rogan last Thursday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation warned Zuckerberg that articles relating to Hunter Biden's laptop were pieces of Russian propaganda. Facebook then suppressed posts about the president's son and his computer.

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an 10 22

If Republicans retake the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms, it’s a safe bet that the January 6 select committee will cease to exist — while House Republicans launch new investigations of the president’s son Hunter Biden. It won’t take a major red wave like the ones of 1994 and 2010 in order for Republicans to recapture the House; all they will need to do is flip five or more Democrat-held seats.

Journalist Eric Cortellessa examines House Republicans’ plans for Hunter Biden-related investigations in an article published by Time on October 3.

“If Republicans win control of the House,” Cortellessa explains, “they intend to ramp up efforts to paint Hunter Biden as a national security threat who has corrupted his father, using official committee investigations to present a degree of seriousness to what has often been an unserious endeavor.”

Rep. James Comer of Kentucky is likely to become chairman of the House Oversight Committee if Republicans have a majority in 2023, and Comer would probably lead Hunter Biden-related investigations. Comer is claiming that such investigations won’t be political in nature — a claim that House Democrats will find hard to believe.

Comer told Time, “We’re not investigating Hunter Biden for political reasons. We’re investigating Hunter Biden because we believe he’s a national security threat, who we fear has compromised Joe Biden…. The Hunter Biden investigation is slowly becoming the Joe Biden investigation.”

Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, who currently chairs the Oversight Committee, believes that any Hunter Biden-related probes launched by House Republicans in 2023 will be totally partisan in nature.

Maloney told Time, “Rather than join Democrats in making progress for the American people, Republicans are promoting a so-called investigative agenda that appears to be aimed at riling up their base and rehashing tired talking points from Donald Trump’s failed 2020 campaign.”

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but the emails --> laptop

8 22 rww

STELLA ESCOBEDO (HOST): The pre-dawn guns-drawn raid on President Donald Trump's house is a wake up call for America that the Department of Justice has weaponized the FBI and is now actively targeting its political enemies.One America's Pearson Sharp has more.

PEARSON SHARP (CORRESPONDENT): If you haven't gotten the picture yet, let me make it clear for you: Conservatives are under a full scale attack in America. Our government has gone rogue, and the fascists in Washington are hunting down anyone and everyone who stands in their way. And number one on their list, the most hated, persecuted, attacked, harassed and targeted, and reviled person that the Communist Democrats must eliminate is President Donald Trump. Trump has to go. He is the biggest enemy of the radical left's agenda. They've already tried to take him out five times now with phony accusations of Russian collusion, illegal surveillance and manufactured evidence. What else can they do?

Well, they can raid the house of a former president. For those of you who don't get it, this is a colossal step. Something they can never come back from. Like Caesar crossing the Rubicon. It's not an exaggeration to say this could be the week that the American republic died. This is Trump derangement syndrome gone wild with Stalin-esque tactics being used by our own government. We don't have an FBI anymore. We have the KGB. We have secret police doing the bidding of their evil masters in Washington.

At this point, I'm not even sure why they're bothering with a raid. They could just make up whatever dirt they wanted on Trump and the mainstream media would back them up.I mean, that's what they did before,five times, and they got away with it every single time. And all of this for an alleged minor mishandling of documents which could have and should have been handled by Trump's legal team. But that misses the point entirely, Christopher Wray's Gestapo agents specifically targeted Trump over classified documents because under US Code Title 18, Section 2071, Trump would then be barred from ever holding office again. There is absolutely no way Biden wasn't aware of this.

Oh, and by the way, after this raid,Biden's disgraced son was seen boarding a plane with him Wednesday for a week long beach vacation in South Carolina. On top of all of this, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled the IRS must turn over President Trump's tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee, giving them another angle to try and finish him off.

This is flat-out war. If they're this terrified of Trump, then that should probably be a pretty clear sign that President Trump is exactly the man we want to have in office. And of course, part of keeping Trump out of office is censoring anyone and everyone who supports the president or even just accurately reports on his accomplishments. Naturally, that includes us here at One America News. They can't have people reporting the truth, but we aren't alone. Anyone who fights for free speech is under fire. Fox News, Elon Musk, even Clarence Thomas. Only the second Black man on the Supreme Court has been hit with death threats from the radical left simply for standing up for our freedoms.

Clearly, the Injustice Department has been weaponized against Trump. They never raided Obama or Bill Clinton, despite their numerous scandals. Certainly not Hunter Biden, whose laptop is a treasure trove of illegal business deals his father knowingly covered up. In fact, we now know the FBI was actually told to downplay and even undermine any investigation into Hunter actively covering up any damaging information about the commander and thief's son. And the FBI definitely wouldn't raid Joe Biden, even though he admitted on camera to illegally bribing a foreign government official to stop investigating his son's criminal activities in Ukraine.

[...]

As you can see, the Department of Injustice and the FBI only wield their power against their own political enemies. They don't protect the American people from corruption, they create corruption.Be sure they won't stop with Trump either. After raiding Mar-a-Lago, they stole the cell phone of a sitting member of Congress, Republican Representative Scott Perry. Now, there are reports that federal investigators are delivering subpoenas to House and Senate Republicans.

This is how republics are destroyed, and what follows republics are brutal dictatorships. But rather than take down Trump for good, this is going to rally and inspire his supporters and will enable President Trump to sweep through the next election with a victory like nothing we've ever seen before.The Democrats think they've won, but they've just started the fire and they'll find out too late that you should never underestimate the determination and resilience of America's patriots. For One America News and the still free press, I'm Pearson Sharp.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/joe-rogan-experience/right-wing-media-falsely-claim-mark-zuckerberg-admitted-conspiring-against-1

right-wing media are using clips from Joe Rogan’s recent interview with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to revive the Hunter Biden laptop conspiracy theory and to falsely claim that the FBI is conspiring against conservatives.

During an August 25 for Spotify’sThe Joe Rogan Experiencepodcast, Zuckerberg stated that outside fact-checkers were used to validate the efficacy of the Hunter Biden laptop story in its early days, and allowed information relating to Hunter Biden, the laptop, and related content to be shared while that determination was being made. However, he said that Meta did move the laptop story further down its internal news feed to minimize interactions in the meantime:[pix/vid]

zuckerberg acknowledged during the interview that this tactic ran the risk of suppressing potentially factual information. That said, the story of Hunter Biden’s laptop is still full of holes two years later.

When the laptop story first leaked just before the 2020 election, information on it was largely suppressed on Twitter due to suspicion surrounding the source of the information less than three weeks out from a presidential election. While some of the data on the laptop is considered legitimate two years later, much of it is still difficult to authenticate to this day due to it changing hands so many times, leaving room for outside interference and misinformation.

However, those facts have not stopped right-wing media from accusing Facebook of directly colluding with the FBI to suppress the story, even though that is not remotely close to Zuckerberg’s admission that Meta somewhat based its guidance on an FBI warning about potential election misinformation.

Accusations have gotten so bad that both Meta and the FBI released statements.Meta clarified that “nothing about the Hunter Biden laptop story is new. … The FBI shared general warnings about foreign interference - nothing specific about Hunter Biden.” The FBI’s statement read similarly, stating that the bureau only shared general threat indicators with Meta.

Neither those statements, nor the actual holes in the laptop story, have stopped right-wing media outlets from continuing to baselessly accuse the FBI of coordinating with Facebook to suppress information on Hunter Biden’s laptop, thereby winning the 2020 election for Joe Biden.

On Fox & Friends Weekend, co-host Rachel Campos-Duffy falsely stated that Zuckerburg admitted that he had taken orders from the FBI to suppress information about Hunter Biden’s laptop. According to Campos-Duffy, “If you look at what happened with the Mark Zuckerberg interview recently on Joe Rogan and the admission that he actually had taken orders from the FBI and suppressed information about Hunter Biden's laptop, Donald Trump would have been the president right now.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends Weekend*, [8/28/22]
Fox News contributor and former GOP congressman Jason Chaffetz falsely claims that the FBI singled out the Hunter Biden laptop story for censorship by claiming it was Russian disinformation while filling in for prime-time host Sean Hannity. Chaffetz specifically claimed that the FBI “strongly suggested” that the laptop was Russian disinformation and that Zuckerburg was “compliant, and he took measures to suppress the story on his platform.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [8/26/22]
Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson went a step further and claimed that the FBI was deliberately lying to Facebook about the potential for Russian disinformation in order to justify censoring reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop. According to Carlson, “Zuckerberg confirmed the FBI didn’t put any of these warnings about Russian disinformation or propaganda in writing. Of course they didn't. Nothing in writing. That makes sense. If you are the FBI, you wouldn't want to put that in writing because you were, of course, lying.” Carlson then went on to claim that the bureau had suppressed information about the laptop “because it might hurt Joe Biden, and the FBI is the government agency that pushed for it to be censored.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [8/26/22]
On Newsmax’s Wake Up America, host Rob Finnerty baselessly claimed that Facebook cost Republicans 40,000 votes because it suppressed the story, thereby throwing the 2020 election in favor of Joe Biden. According to Finnerty, “You think about those three states that are really in question, we're talking about fewer than 40,000 votes here, and Facebook says that because the FBI tipped them off, they push those stories way down on news feeds.” (Biden won the 2020 election by nearly 7 million votesalthough he did win Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Wisconsin, by less than 40,000 votes each.) Newsmax, *Wake Up America*, [8/26/22]
In the same segment, former Trump campaign aide Rick Gates pushed the narrative that the FBI made a dedicated effort to influence the 2020 election, and that Zuckerberg’s statements on Rogan’s show were an admission of guilt. According to Gates, “Zuckerberg comes out and makes his claim, well that’s great, it’s kind of what we knew. But what the problem is is it’s already impacted the election - we can’t go back in time and put this information out. So were there elements within the FBI , other government agencies, media organizations that impacted the election? Absolutely! Now we're getting the truth, but unfortunately we are stuck with this debacle.” Newsmax, *Wake Up America*, [8/26/22]
On Outnumbered, Fox News contributor Janette Nesheiwat claimed that the FBI conducted “domestic interference” and censored the laptop story to deliberately sway the election. Nesheiwat claimed that the FBI “blocked a major story, which tilted the national scales toward the Democrats, that could have definitely influence the election. ” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [8/26/22]
Speaking on his weekday radio program, Fox host Mark Levin said Zuckerberg confirmed a conspiracy between Facebook and the bureau, declaring, “This is why you’ve come to despise the FBI.”. “He got the message, so they censored the story for a week,” Levin stated. “The FBI came to them and told them. You see, you're not conspiracy nuts. You're not wrong to be skeptical and worse. These things are happening.” Westwood One, *The Mark Levin Show*, [8/25/22 ]
Taking to Twitter, far-right troll Jack Posobiec claimed that “Zuckerberg admitted that the FBI told Facebook they needed to censor posts during the election,” later tweeting that “Zuckerberg didn't just say the FBI made a request. He said the FBI came to Facebook to tell them what to censor.” Twitter, [8/25/22, 8/25/22]
Nick Adams, a conservative author and ambassador for the America First Policy Institute, tweeted that Zuckerberg's comments were hypocritical given how 2020 election interference was covered. Adams tweeted, “The FBI told Facebook that Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation. Three weeks before the election. That's according to Mark Zuckerberg. And yet it's a 'crime' to say that the 2020 election was rigged. What a joke.” Twitter, [8/25/22]
:{Far-right provocateur :{Andy Ngo}: claimed, “Mark Zuckerberg tells Joe Rogan Facebook suppressed the NY Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop (which contained information damaging to then-candidate Joe Biden) due to a warning from the FBI.” :{Twitter:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:, [8/25/22]}:

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bunch of deflective desperate twtstorms?

Former President Donald Trump on Monday called for a redo of the 2020 election in an angry rant on his financially imperiled Twitter knockoff app Truth Social.

:{:{At 11:39 a.m., Trump stated that he should be declared the winner of the contest that he lost in a landslide to President Joe Biden:}:

So now it comes out, conclusively, that the FBI BURIED THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY BEFORE THE ELECTION knowing that, if they didn’t, 'Trump would have easily won the 2020 Presidential Election.' This is massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country. REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!

The FBI said in a statement after Zuckerberg's interview with Rogan that it "routinely notifies U.S. private sector entities, including social media providers, of potential threat information, so that they can decide how to better defend against threats."

The FBI also told Fox Business that "foreign threat indicators to help them protect their platforms and customers from abuse by foreign malign influence actors."

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town hall

8 22 bs

fBI Responds to Zuckerberg's Claims About Hunter Biden's Laptop

Sarah ArnoldSarah Arnold|Posted: Aug 28, 2022

FBI Responds to Zuckerberg's Claims About Hunter Biden's Laptop

The FBI responded to claims made by Meta CEO and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, saying that it “routinely notifies” social media companies of potential threats.

During a podcast interview with Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg told the host that Facebook’s restrictions surrounding the New York Post’s 2020 article on Hunter Biden were based on FBI misinformation warnings.

The Post’s article reported that data recovered from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden included emails which indicated that President Joe Biden used his position and power as then- vice president to help his son, Hunter, in business dealings with Ukraine.

Zuckerberg claimed that Facebook suppressed stories on the platform related to the article on Hunter Biden and his laptop after the FBI warned the social media company to be aware of potentially polarizing content.

:{:{}:

“The FBI has provided companies with foreign threat indicators to help them protect their platforms and customers from abuse by foreign malign influence actors,” the agency said in a statement.

In response to Zuckerberg’s comments, many speculate that Facebook censored information that may make Biden look bad ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

“[The FBI] routinely notifies U.S. private sector entities, including social media providers, of potential threat information, so that they can decide how to better defend against threats,” according to the agency.

twt

chuck g

We now know Facebook censored spread of Hunter Biden laptop story after FBI approached them. FBI & Facebook/Big Tech interfered in 2020 election Facebook acted as an arm of govt Both Facebook & FBI should b ashamed of interfering in our electoral process

Recommended

Judge Might Grant Something ‘Special’ for Trump Following FBI Raid

Matt Vespa

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that big tech interfered with the election so that results came out favorable for Democrats.

“FBI & Facebook/Big Tech interfered in 2020 election Facebook acted as an arm of govt.,” Grassley said in a tweet.

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labelled news

FBI Can't 'Be Trusted' to Investigate Hunter Biden's Laptop: Ron Johnson

BY NICK MORDOWANEC ON8/25/22

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Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said new whistleblower claims surrounding Hunter Biden's laptop showcase a previous lack of proper government oversight and that "the American people deserve transparency and expect allegations of government corruption to be fully and immediately investigated," according to a new letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

"It is clear to me based on numerous credible whistleblower disclosures that the FBI cannot be trusted with the handling of Hunter Biden's laptop," Johnson wrote to Horowitz in the letter dated August 24. "I hope you understand that the longer your office stands on the sidelines and delays investigating the FBI's actions, the harder it will be for you to uncover the truth and hold individuals accountable for wrongdoing."

The FBI has been in conservatives' crosshairs in recent weeks, as they toughened their rhetoric against the agency following the execution of a search warrant on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.

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FBI can't "be trusted" to investigate Hunter Biden's laptop: Ron Johnson

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'You Will Not Look At That Hunter Biden Laptop': Johnson Whistleblowers ...

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Sen. Ron Johnson: FBI's "Politicization, Partisanship" On Hunter Biden ...

TodayOn Date August 28, 2022 Sen. Ron Johnson told FNC's "Sunday Morning Futures" the FBI asking social media companies to censor the Hunter Biden laptop scandal could have flipped the results of the...

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Hunter Biden Laptop: Whistleblowers Tell Sen. Ron Johnson That FBI ...

3 days agoAccording to recent whistleblowers who met with Sen. Ron Johnson, the FBI purposefully delayed the Hunter Biden probe and instructed agents not to investigate the Hunter Biden laptop. Wednesday, August 24, 2022. ... it is evident to me that the FBI cannot be trusted with the custody of Hunter Biden's laptop," Johnson stated.

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Sen. Johnson: Media coverup of Hunter's laptop 'biggest political dirty ...

Mar 28, 2022UPDATED 7:30 AM PT - Monday, March 28, 2022 Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asserts the mainstream media covering up the truth behind the existence of Hunter Biden's laptop is "the biggest political...

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Ron Johnson on Hunter Biden Laptop: 'Media's Being Caught ... - Breitbart

Apr 3, 202213,727 Trent Baker 3 Apr 2022 0 1:47 Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) on Sunday weighed in on major media outlets confirming the authenticity of Hunter Biden's recovered laptop and emails revealing his business dealings.

https://www.ntd.com › sen-ron-johnson-shares-fbi-whistleblower-claims-about-hunter-biden-laptop_830728.html

Sen. Ron Johnson Shares FBI Whistleblower Claims About Hunter Biden Laptop

2 days agoNTD Evening News NTD Newsroom Aug 26, 2022. Sen. Ron Johnson on Aug. 23 made public FBI whistleblower claims that allege the FBI intentionally undermined efforts to investigate the Hunter Biden laptop. Johnson is asking the Justice Department inspector general to investigate the FBI's handling of the laptop.

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Senator Ron Johnson demands accountability over Hunter Biden laptop ...

Mar 18, 2022Republican Senator Ron Johnson said Friday it is 'jaw-dropping' the media has 'finally acknowledged' that Hunter Biden 's laptop and its content are legitimate - even though it was verified a year ...

https://www.newsmax.com › newsfront › ronjohnson-biden-hunterbiden › 2022 › 08 › 28 › id › 1084961

Sen. Ron Johnson: Biden Wouldn't Be President Had Son's Laptop Been ...

TodayA A President Joe Biden would not be president now if the American people had been made aware of the scandal and alleged censorship behind his son Hunter's laptop, Sen. Ron Johnson said Sunday. "The Hunter Biden laptop was censored by Twitter, Facebook.

https://ussanews.com › 2022 › 08 › 28 › ron-johnsons-campaign-being-interfered-with-says-he-was-set-up-by-fbi

Ron Johnson's Campaign Being Interfered With, Says He Was Set Up By FBI ...

TodayUS Senator Ron Johnson appeared on Maria Bartiromo's show to discuss details of his allegations that the FBI targeted him and set him up for a media smear campaign over Johnson's investigation into the laptop of Crackhead Hunter Biden.

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New FBI whistleblower claims bureau leadership slow-walked Hunter Biden ...

4 days agoJohnson said the new whistleblower claims "allege that the FBI did not begin to examine the contents of Hunter Biden's laptop until after the 2020 presidential election — potentially a year after...

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Ron Johnson On Media's Hunter Biden Laptop Story Cover Up: 'We Were ...

Mar 30, 2022On Tuesday, Sen. Ron Johnson slammed the "complicit media" for failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 presidential election, or the revelations since then. The media either ignored the laptop before the election, or went even further, insinuating it was "Russian disinformation" and therefore false.

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Ron Johnson: 'Way Past Time' to Investigate FBI -- They've Been 'Hiding ...

2 days ago26 Aug 2022 1. Thursday on Fox Business Network's "The Evening Edit," Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) reacted to FBI whistleblowers claiming top officials at the agency were telling agents to delay investigating Hunter Biden's laptop until after the election involving now-President Joe Biden. Johnson said it was "way past time" to ...

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Sen. Ron Johnson doesn't trust FBI's Hunter Biden probe - New York Post

Jul 31, 2022 Sen. Ron Johnson said the FBI can't be trusted to "get to the bottom" of the allegations involving Hunter Biden's overseas business dealings following a whistleblower report that claimed

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mma 8 22

no lnx audiopolitico puff piece on GOP congressman poised to head House investigations leaves out key factsRep. James Comer is expected to chair the powerful House Oversight Committee if Republicans take the House in the midterm electionsWRITTEN BY JOHN KNEFEL PUBLISHED 08/12/22 There’s a concept in journalism of a “beat sweetener,” a puff piece about a powerful person or organization that is usually designed to ensure that a reporter or outlet gets exclusive scoops in the future because the subject is about to become very influential and therefore newsworthy. Outlets publish these types of stories all the time, often reading like a press release aiming to smooth over any prior negative coverage. Politico published a textbook example of the genre on August 11, profiling Rep. James Comer (R-KY), who is expected to chair the powerful House Oversight Committee if Republicans win back the majority in the November midterm elections. Before laying out who Comer is, what he believes, and recent comments of his, it’s worth examining how embarrassingly flattering and uncritical this profile is in describing “the GOP's future king of Biden investigations.” “It’s easy to see why” Comer has “charmed many on the Hill,” Politico writes. Comer is “a sharp and affable colleague” with “personal appeal” and quick “to crack a well-timed joke that’s often at his own expense.” He’s not just a nice guy, though – “it’s his priority to ensure the oversight panel’s work remains ‘credible.’” Politico tells us Comer is “particularly well-suited to the task according to more than two dozen” of his Republican colleagues, in fact. Politico then gave Comer a chance to tell readers just how serious and professional he is. “I’m not going to be chasing some of these right-wing blogs and some of their conspiracy theories,” he told Politico. He added that he wouldn’t pursue any investigations “unless we have proof."The rest of the piece goes on like that until the 18th paragraph, with only a single, mild, passing criticism offered as balance, namely that he “lean[s] into partisan talking points, like describing the intelligence community as a ‘deep state’ on Newsmax after the FBI’s search of Trump’s home on Monday.”But alas, there is a lot about Comer that Politico left out. Although he may claim that he’s not chasing far-right conspiracy theories, his record shows otherwise. Particularly of note is that last month Comer appeared on Sean Hannity’s radio show and appeared to endorse the racist, antisemitic “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.“We believe there are a lot of nongovernment organizations who are working with this administration to transport these illegals all over the United States,” Comer said. “And I believe that this is part of their political business model to try to repopulate many of these states to be able to regain control or pad their margins.” Rep. James Comer on Hannity's radio show: NGOs are trying to "repopulate" states with "illegals" JULY 20, 2022 CitationFrom the July 20, 2022, edition of Premiere Radio Network's The Sean Hannity ShowAfter a break, Hannity and Comer returned to the topic, at which point Hannity was even more explicit in his belief in the racist theory. “Is this that the Democrats want to offer something of great value to people that don't respect our laws, our borders, our sovereignty – and that being citizenship?” Hannity asked. “Because it sounds like it, and it sounds like they are doing: ‘So hey, we'll give you citizenship. We hope you vote for us.’ That's what it sounds like to me.” Comer agreed with the host. “That's what it sounds like to me, and I think most Americans are seeing that,” Comer said. “If 3 million illegals have crossed over to the United States, just since Joe Biden's become president – Sean, that's four new congressional districts. Four new congressional districts. So this is political. This is a political plan for the Democrats.” Comer then argued that undocumented people, including children, are a drain on scarce resources, before underlining the conspiratorial nature of what he believes is happening. “They've got some kind of handshake agreement behind closed doors in a smoke-filled room that, you know, this is gonna be good for the Democrat Party long-term,” he concluded.Rep. James Comer: NGOs and Democrats are bringing immigrants to the US because it's "good for the Democrat Party long term" JULY 20, 2022 Audio file CitationFrom the July 20, 2022, edition of Premiere Radio Network's The Sean Hannity ShowAlthough the Politico profile also touches on possible future investigations of President Joe Biden’s son, the piece completely misleads its readers about Comer’s deep obsession with him. And though Comer has saidHunter Bidenwould likely get subpoenaed in the event of a declined invitation to the committee next year, he doesn’t want to appear trigger-happy with issuing subpoenas, either. “This isn’t a dog-and-pony show. This isn’t a committee where everybody’s gonna scream and be outraged and try to make the witnesses look like fools,” he said, before nodding at House Democrats’ past probes of the Trump campaign and Russian election interference. “Unlike Adam Schiff, we’re gonna have something concrete, substantive on Hunter Biden or I’m not going to talk about Hunter Biden.”The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank covered that topic in May, finding that Comer has claimed Hunter Biden is tied to nearly every single domestic or international news story in some way or another.Specifically, Comer has accused Hunter Biden of being responsible for supposed increased levels of fentanyl smuggling at the U.S. southern border, helping China’s battery market, protecting Russian oligarchs from sanctions, and impeding an investigation into the origins of the COVID-19 virus. As Milbank lays out, each of these claims lies somewhere between gross exaggeration and pure fabrication, yet Comer has vowed to be “all over Hunter Biden” when he becomes chair of the House Oversight Committee.Comer’s far-right conspiracy theories don’t stop with Hunter Biden, however. He has also suggested that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) may have been partially responsible for the January 6 fascist riot by not requesting sufficient security. “I want to find out what did Nancy Pelosi know, and when did she know it?” Comer said on fringe cable outlet OAN about a month after the riot. Comer also supports run-of-the-mill conservative cruelty. Last June, for example, he claimed that the child tax credit was “really doing more harm than good.” In fact, the policy lifted more than 3 million children out of poverty before it expired at the end of 2021. He also supports the casual, anti-LGBTQ bigotry that’s ubiquitous in the Republican Party. According to two reporters present at the event that Politico attended, Comer used anti-trans rhetoric about “men” being able to give birth as a laugh line. That line didn’t make it into the Politico piece. Comer’s bigotry extends beyond the LGBTQ community. In July 2019, Donald Trump made racist comments about The Squad – four women of color in the House of Representatives – singling out Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a Black woman born in Somalia, saying she should “go back.” When asked about Trump’s tweet, Comer justified it and embellished Trump's racist argument. Somehow, that didn’t make it into the Politico piece either.Comer is poised to become incredibly powerful if the Republicans win back the majority in November. Stories like this one serve to rehabilitate his image and whitewash his history of far-right extremism.

===

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WASHINGTON TIMES: DAVID BOSSIE:THE OPTICS OF THE STALE JAN. 6 HEARINGSAND PRO-ABORTION PROTESTS

by David Bossie | May 18, 2022

What a bizarre spectacle it’s going to be the week of June 9 when the illegitimate Jan. 6 select committeefinally kicks off its ultra-partisan public hearings at the U.S. Capitol as left-wing civic unrest is occurring simultaneously across the street at the...

FOX NEWS: DAVID BOSSIE: Elections in Georgia, elsewhere show Republican voters love ‘America First’ candidates

FOX NEWS: DAVID BOSSIE: ON HUNTER BIDEN, WHITE HOUSE CAN RUN BUT IT CANNOT HIDE MUCH LONGER

by David Bossie | Apr 27, 2022

As the old saying goes, the chickens are finally coming home to roost. The revelation that a close business associate of Hunter Biden’s was granted access to the Obama-Biden White House on nearly 20 occasions is the just latest shoe to drop in a Pulitzer...

As the old saying goes, the chickens are finally coming home to roost. The revelation that a close business associate of Hunter Biden’s was granted access to the Obama-Biden White House on nearly 20 occasions is the just latest shoe to drop in a Pulitzer Prize-worthy story of power and corruption that’s becoming known simply as “Biden, Inc.”

This new disclosure is part of the shady operation that the mainstream media ignored for years to cover for Joe Biden — is now picking up steam at the worst possible time for the president.

It’s a textbook case of the Washington swamp at its worst and how the politically connected cash in on family members who are elected to high office year after year. And it’s high time for the Biden White House to finally start answering questions.

Richard Nixon answered questions about Watergate. Ronald Reagan answered questions about Iran-Contra. Bill and Hillary Clinton answered questions about Whitewater. Donald Trump answered more questions than any president ever about every topic imaginable. So, why does Joe Biden continue to get the kid gloves treatment?

The White House press corps must make life difficult for this White House on the issue of alleged Biden family corruption because it’s their job to do so, period.

The days ofarrogant Press Secretary Jen Psakibeing let off the hook by her pals in the liberal mediamust come to an end. This is a serious matter that must be dealt with in an up front and transparent manner.

Attorney General Merrick Garland should start by getting his department’s investigation of Hunter Biden out of the hands of President Biden and his political cronies in the West Wing.

It’s a nice talking point, but it doesn’t matter that the U.S. attorney in Delaware who’s conducting the investigation is a Trump appointee; what matters is that the Biden Justice Department cannot be trusted to oversee an investigation into a member of the president’s family — or potentially the president himself. It’s a crystal clear conflict of interest and is the very reason that the special counsel statute exists in the first place.

Appointing an independent special counsel in this case is simply the right thing to do. Refusing to do so is part of the reason why a whopping 56 percent of the American people “don’t trust the government much or at all” to do what is right according to recent survey data.

Furthermore, House Republicans should be putting pressure on the Democrat-controlled Congress to start asking questions about Hunter Biden now — or it’s going to make the tsunami that’s coming their way in November that much worse.

Never before has a party in control of Congress been allowed to ignore a story of this magnitude. Hunter’s international business ties to China, Russia and Ukraine alone are enough for even a casual observer to wonder if President Biden is compromised.

Many believe that the Biden family’s financial connections to our adversaries are a threat to U.S. national securityand that it’s long past time for Congress to fulfil its constitutional oversight duty — regardless of who’s in the majority.

Surely the Pelosi-controlled House of Representatives can handle more than just the January 6 Committee’s nonstop harassment of former President Trump.

If only thebiased media had done its job on the Biden family corruption story from the get-go.

If only Big Tech hadn’t censored the story about Hunter’s laptop for so long. If only the Trump-hating Washington establishment hadn’t falsely labeled it Russia disinformation.

If this story had been investigated then, what’s been revealed this week and what’s in store in the weeks to come would have come out a long time ago; and it wouldn’t be putting Biden’s presidency in jeopardy. The cover-up is almost always worse than the crime — and much more politically costly.

In August 1974, President Richard Nixon resigned the presidency because [GOLDWATER AN OTHER GOP STOOD UP FOR RULE OF LAW AND TOLD HIM THEY WD VOTE FOR.] he realized he was going to be impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate.

Now fast-forward to 2022. Biden family corruption makes Watergate look like a parking citation. And let’s face reality; it’s only going to get worse when Republicans take back the majority in Congress and start exercising their subpoena and deposition authority.

Joe Biden should consider following in the footsteps of Tricky Dick — it might also save the Democratic Party in the process.

David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United,a Fox News contributor,the 2016 deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump for President, and the former chief investigator [WAS HE? FIRED?] for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform and Oversight during the Clinton administration. He is the co-author with Corey Lewandowski of “Trump: America First: The President Succeeds Against All Odds,” along with “Let Trump Be Trump” and “Trump’s Enemies.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/ron-johnson-obsessing-hunter-biden/

an 6 22

Ron Johnson (R-WI) made it clear why it's so difficult to get Republicans and Democrats to come together around gun safety solutions that are overwhelmingly supported by American voters.

On Tuesday, Johnson was asked about increasing the age to buy a gun to 21 and expanding background checks. Instead of talking about bipartisan efforts or indicating what he would support, he turned to attack Hunter Biden.

The right has used President Joe Biden's son in the same way they used Hillary Clinton's emails. The last surviving Biden son is the source of several conspiracy theories involving Ukraine and China. Former President Donald Trump even went so far as to claim that Hunter Biden got $1.5 billion from China and used the government plane to do it. There's never been any proof to confirm it. At the same time, Hunter Biden isn't listed on the Forbes list of American billionaires. FactCheck.org ruled the claim unsubstantiated and Trump hasn't been able to provide the world with proof for his claims.

Still, Republicans have decided that if they take back the House and Senate, their main goal will be bringing down President Joe Biden by destroying his children, who haven't served in the White House as a senior advisers. Republicans have indicated that they intend to spend the two years leading into the 2024 election investigating Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in an attempt to get Donald Trump reelected.

It prompted those online to question why Ron Johnson cares more about the president's son over the safety of children, churches, movie theaters and other mass shooting sites.

Others couldn't help but joke that Hunter Biden's laptop never killed anyone.

See the comments below:

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https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/dan-ball-leads-oans-unhinged-coverage-russian-invasion-ukraine

no lnx many vids

Dan Ball leads OAN’s unhinged coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

The OAN host pushes a Russian government conspiracy theory about “biolabs” and believes that Hunter Biden has something to do with the invasion

WRITTEN BY BOBBY LEWIS

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM BEATRICE MOUNT & EMMA MAE WEBER

PUBLISHED03/31/22

One America News Network’s Dan Ball is covering the Russian invasion of Ukraine with a scattershot of conspiracy theories, both dredging up old claims and repeating new ones from the Russian government.

In early February, Ball told OAN viewers that President Joe Biden might encourage the crisis in Ukraine to benefit himself. Once Russia invaded, Ball began claiming that Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian gas company Burisma may have something to do with the war, that the Russian military is targeting U.S.-European Union bioweapons plants in Ukraine, and even that theRussian attack on Mariupol hospital may have been a false flag by Ukraine.

There is no evidence that any of this is true, but Ball stands behind the absurd propaganda on his show, assuring his viewers on March 9: “What we are reporting is correct. This was not a conspiracy theory. We are not pro-Russia, so don’t go there.”

This commentary is a sad reflection of Ball and OAN’s obsession with what the host regularly calls the “Biden crime family.” The false allegations against Hunter Biden date back years and were the inspiration for former President Donald Trump’s extortion scheme against Ukraine, resulting in his first impeachment. Ball is undeterred by these basic facts, however, and now going to any length to falsely implicate Biden -- and by extension, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky -- in provoking the horrors of Vladimir Putin’s war.

Ball says that “something does not pass the smell test” in the official story of Russia’s invasion

Five days into the Russian invasion, Ball told his audience, “We really need to ask ourselves, are we getting the whole story,” because several heroic stories of Ukrainian resistance had turned out to be false. Asserting that “the Biden regime” wanted to “wag the dog,”Ball suggested “positive war propaganda” was being used to divert American attention from “the invasion on our southern border” and “the COVID scam,” telling his audience it could even have something to do with “the whole Hunter and Joe Biden connection with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and of course the Russia collusion hoax.”

Video From the February 28, 2022, edition of OAN's Real America with Dan Ball

Days later, Ball insisted on March 3 that “something does not pass the smell test” because Biden “immediately” paused new oil and gas leases in the U.S. as the Russian invasion began. In reality, the timing is coincidence; as CNBC reports, “the Biden administration is delaying decisions on new oil and gas leases and permits after a Louisiana federal judge blocked officials from using higher cost estimates of climate change.”

“Something stinks here,” Ball asserted, because “this can’t just be Putin and Russia going, ‘I want a land grab,’” since “we know Ukraine’s been corrupt for a long time,” and pointed again to “the Hunter Biden connection with Burisma.”

Weeks into the war, Ball continued to suspect that something was amiss about the official story, questioning if President Biden is “the one actually calling the shots” and “how much of this is acting” from Zelensky, a former actor whom Ball said was “install[ed]” by the U.S., “trying to push us to get us into this war.” “Obviously, Biden is compromised. We’re in the middle of a war that we might get into with our troops, and so shouldn’t all Americans be concerned that the guy making and calling the shots is compromised?”

Eventually, with America “on the brink of getting involved in a war with Russia,” Ball warned that Biden is too mentally unreliable and called on Democrats and Republicans to use the 25th Amendment to “remove [Biden], remove Harris, remove the entire administration before it’s too late.”

Ball suggests Hunter Biden and American bioweapons have something to do with the invasion

By February 28, Ball became focused on the idea that because “we know there’s so much involvement [in Ukraine] with this president, his son, Burisma, this oil and gas in Ukraine, plus Russia, the pipeline,” and “billions if not trillions of dollars involved,” that it all must have something to do with the war.

The Biden family was “in bed with Ukraine” and “now we have a war right in front of us,” Ball told a concurring guest, retired Army officer Darin Gaub, who called Ukraine “the bank” of the Clinton Foundation and other Democrats during his March 3 show.

Ball eventually began asking members of Congress what President Biden’s son has to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In a March 2 interview with Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ), Ball said that “the Hunter laptop” and “the tie to Burisma” suggested that “there’s more to play than just the gas and oil here. I want to know what the hell is really going on.”

“I mean, all the connections that came out tying the Biden family to Ukraine before he took office, now all of a sudden Russia attacks Ukraine, even though they didn’t while Trump was in office,” Ball said. “What’s at play here? It’s deeper – There’s deeper state stuff here, Debbie, don’t you think?”

Video From the March 2, 2022, edition of OAN's Real America with Dan Ball

After Lesko mostly evaded Ball’s question to instead complain about the Trump impeachments, Ball mentioned “rumors that America’s had biolaboratories set up in Ukraine since ‘14, when we installed the last clown in there,” a topic which became a focal point for Ball’s conspiracy theorizing.

That same day, Ball claimed that in addition to “Hunter’s laptop tying Mr. Biden to Burisma,” there are “questions about Zelensky’s leadership and how he came to power,” as well as “questions about biolabs being set up in that country by America and other corporation, we’re talking biotech-type weaponry.”

Days later, on March 7, Ball asked Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) about “three or four possible biochemical weapons plants” in Ukraine built by the U.S. and EU.Ball told Biggs, who also evaded the question, that “Putin would have an actual gripe” to justify targeting these weapons.

Ball even took an unearned victory lap on March 9, claiming his biolabs conspiracy theory had been “proven correct” by a “smoking gun” from the Russian foreign affairs ministry, which claimed to have found U.S. “biological weapons plants” in Ukraine. Not only that, Ball preened, but “a Biden regime minion” -- Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland -- had openly discussed the labs in the Senate during a recent hearing.

“The headline once again proves that things that we report here on OAN and on this program, Real America, are not conspiracy theories like the left claims,” Ball complained. He later added, “What we are reporting is correct. This was not a conspiracy theory. We are not pro-Russia, so don’t go there.”

Video From the March 9, 2022, edition of OAN's Real America with Dan Ball

:{:{}:

NBC News would later report that these “biolabs” claims are essentially Russian government propaganda filtered through American right-wing media outlets like OAN. The only American-supported “biolabs” in Ukraine, including the ones Nuland discussed before the Senate, are research facilities -- that do not produce weapons -- which are part of a public 2005 deal between the two countries.

Nonetheless, Ball has concluded that “obviously, Biden is compromised” by his son, and Ball continued to tout “biolabs” as a potential cause for Russia’s invasion.

Ball suggests that horrific Russian attacks on Mariupol may have been false flags

Part of Ball’s narrative of the Russian war is that the Ukrainian government led by President Zelensky is deeply corrupt. And when the Russian military bombed a maternity hospital during its siege of Mariupol, Ball professed that he’s “not saying somebody staged this to make things look worse,” but he also implied that “special operatives” and “undercover forces” who “do Zelensky’s bidding” may have been involved in the bombing, saying that Russia’s denials were credible since “they haven’t denied … hitting other stuff,” which is not true.

Video From the March 9, 2022, edition of OAN's Real America with Dan Ball

A week later, Ukrainian officials reported that a Russian airstrike destroyed a theater in Mariupol, with hundreds of civilians hiding inside and the word “children” written on the ground outside. On his March 17 show, Ball delivered a winding rant against the American, Ukrainian, and Russian governments, as well as the media trying to “push us into this war and accuse networks like OAN of pushing pro-Putin and pro-Russian propaganda.” Ball then briefly reported on the theater airstrike, and stressed that the story is just “what we’re told.Not saying it’s not true. Just asking the question.”

Ball discovers some consequences of Ukraine conspiracy theories

Despite calling the pre-invasion warnings “a pageant,” suggesting the Mariupol hospital attack was a false flag, and sharing Russian “biolabs” propaganda, Ball has grown tired of conspiracy theories that call the entire war fake.

Above a chyron that questioned whether we are “getting the entire story about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Ball again stressed “the Biden crime family and its connections to Ukraine and Russia” -- but told viewers, with a hint of frustration, that the war is “undeniable … and I say this because I see so many online stories of people saying this is all false, it’s all made up.”

“Make no mistake: There is a war going on, folks, and innocent civilians are being harmed and killed,” the OAN host said. “That is a fact, and that’s a tragedy. But while all that is going on,what else is going on? Not just with this conflict, but what aren’t we paying attention to globally – and more importantly, here at home. That’s what we as patriots need to stay focused on.”

Video From the March 15, 2022, edition of OAN's Real America with Dan Ball

Even while denouncing actual lies about the Russian invasion, Ball could not resist the urge to indulge in deranged falsehoods.

“Most times, there’s nothing as such called a conspiracy theory,” Ball said. “They’re just coverups waiting for the truth to come out.” But the conspiracy theories he presents to OAN viewers are just as false as the conspiracy theories he denies.

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https://www.mediamatters.org/russias-invasion-ukraine/conspiracy-theory-about-hunter-biden-and-ukrainian-biolabs-went-qanon

no lnx twt pix vid

a conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden and Ukrainian biolabs went from QAnon supporters and far-right message boards to the Kremlin and Tucker Carlson

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN

PUBLISHED 03/28/22

A version of a false conspiracy theory about Ukrainian biolabs that holds that Hunter Biden is connected to those labs was spread by the Russian government, Chinese state media, and Fox News host Tucker Carlson, after supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory and users on far-right message boards pushed the claim.

In late February, a false conspiracy theory spread online -- spurred on by a QAnon-supporting Twitter account known as “Clandestine” -- that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was targeting U.S.-linked labs working to create bioweapons. In reality, the labs are focused on detecting diseases, the U.S. program aims to prevent the development or spread of biological weapons, and the conspiracy theory has its roots in a longstanding Russian disinformation effort. The false claim has spread online among far-right figures and QAnon supporters, and the Russian government has invoked the conspiracy theory to justify the invasion following its spread in parts of the American right.

In the months before the invasion, a separate conspiracy theory circulated online suggesting that Biden was tied to labs involved in potentially nefarious activity around the world, including possibly causing the coronavirus pandemic.Although Ukraine was not the only focus of the conspiracy theory, it was mentioned as one of the countries supposedly involved in these efforts; this claim also followed previous allegations from right-wing media about wrongdoing by Biden in that country.

In particular, a thread from a QAnon-supporting Twitter account called “Blue Canaries” claimed in October that Biden was connected to an effort to manufacture “bio agents under diplomatic cover at ‘secret’ labs” and sell “pandemic insurance and trackers to help countries get ahead of what they are putting out.”

Blue Canaries Twitter

Blue Canaries’ Twitter thread quickly spread among some online conspiracy theorists, including on 8kun’s “/qresearch/” message board, the forum dedicated to “Q,” QAnon’s central figure. It was shared on-air by Infowars host Owen Shroyer, who hyped the thread as “unbelievable,” as well as by Jeffrey Pedersen, a QAnon influencer and show co-host known online as “intheMatrixxx,” who called it “a very interesting thread/dig.”

8kun Hunter biolabs1

CitationFrom 8kun's “/qresearch/” message board

Soon after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in late February, and as Clandestine’s biolabs conspiracy theory Twitter thread took off online, the Blue Canaries Twitter thread mentioning Biden was invoked again and began to spread among users on far-right message boards.

QAnon forum Hunter biolabs

It was also featured onPedersen’s MatrixxxGrooove Show(also known as MG Show) just one day after Russia’s invasion began. Pedersen -- who had by that point shared Clandestine’s claim about biolabs as a reason for the invasion -- extensively discussed Blue Canaries’ Twitter thread, linked it to Biden, and suggested “President [Vladimir] Putin and Russia have been worried about this.” Co-host Shannon Townsend added, “This looks like the biggest thing that they would be worried about considering what we’ve experienced in the world for the last two-plus years. Why would he not be afraid that this was going on? And what if we could prove that it was going on all over the country of Ukraine, right next door to him?”

Video CitationFrom the February 25, 2022, edition of the MatrixxxGrooove Show

Following that MatrixxxGrooove Show episode on February 25, both Blue Canaries’ Twitter thread and the claim that Biden was tied to Ukrainian biolabs continued to spread via some social media accounts and on far-right message board site 4chan. On February 28, RedPill78’s Zak Paine, a QAnon show host who participated in the Capitol insurrection, discussed Biden “in regards to those biolabs in the Ukraine” and the “ongoing conversation about biological weapons facilities in the country of Ukraine that were set up by the United States government.”

On March 8, Infowars published an article claiming Biden was “connected to US biolabs in Ukraine,” mentioning some of the same organizations cited by the Blue Canaries thread -- repeating claims that the outlet had pushed on-air months earlier. Two days later, far-right blog The Gateway Pundit came out with its own piece claiming Biden’s investment fund had “provided capital for the firms behind the creation of Biolabs in Ukraine,” citing Infowars’ “excellent article with connections between Hunter Biden” and the supposed biolabs. Pedersen shared both articles and wrote, “You heard it on the MG Show first,” adding that “we also beat infowars” on pushing the conspiracy theory.

Gateway Pundit Hunter biolabs

CitationFrom The Gateway Pundit

Following The Gateway Pundit’s article, the conspiracy theory gained more exposure on some mainstream social media platforms, getting thousands of total engagements on those platforms.

The Russian government invoked this particular version of the conspiracy theory on March 24, with the Ministry of Defense accusing Biden’s investment firm of having a “close connection” to military contractors responsible for “Pentagon biolaboratories around the world” -- similar to what Blue Canaries had suggested those months prior. Russia’s Defense Ministry also released a diagram of supposed connections between Biden, the Democratic Party, George Soros, various U.S. companies and federal agencies, and foreign governments as evidence for the conspiracy theory,and the claim was subsequently pushed by Russian state media. Chinese state media also pushed the claim, citing the Russian government.

Russian and Chinese state media Hunter biolabs

On the evening of March 24, Fox News host Tucker Carlson -- who had previously pushed the broader biolabs conspiracy theory to justify Russia’s invasion -- pointed to a National Pulse article from earlier that day to say that “a private equity firm run by Hunter Biden funded some of the research into pathogens in these biolabs.” The on-screen chyron said, “Report: Hunter Linked To Ukrainian Biolab.” (The MatrixxxGrooove Show’s Townsend had also shared the National Pulse article and claimed that his show found what the article claimed “over a month ago.”)

Video fileCitationFrom the March 24, 2022, edition of Fox News' Tucker Carlson Tonight

For his part, Clandestine -- the QAnon supporter who caused the initial biolabs conspiracy theory to spread widely online following the invasion -- joined in hyping the Biden angle and cheered Carlson’s points, calling them “digestible doses for the normies” that are “culminating into a mass realization the likes of which the world has never seen.”

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04/01/22 1:52 PM EDT

Pagination

Current page1

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IN THIS ARTICLE

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Tucker Carlson

QAnon Conspiracy Theory

Facebook and Instagram have allowed and profited from advertising pushing the false Ukraine-US biolabs conspiracy theory

03/16/22 11:59 AM EDT

YouTube is making money off a false Ukraine-biolabs conspiracy theory that is tied to Russian disinformation and QAnon

03/08/22 3:27 PM EST

QAnon supporters and far-right figures hail Russian invasion of Ukraine as Putin taking down the “cabal”

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nY post owned by Murdoch

pro disinfo

https://nypost.com/2021/12/14/hypocrisy-of-media-censors-claim-to-be-against-misinformation/

labelled opinion

no lnx many

inside the hypocrisy of media manipulators, censors who claim to fight misinformation

By Christine Rosen

December 14, 2021 Updated

George Soros, billionaire and founder of Soros Fund Management LLC,

Billionaire George Soros will play a critical role in funneling millions into the Aspen Institute's information suppression project.

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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721

The whole thing is a really bad idea," ethics expert Richard Painter told the Post. Painter was talking about Hunter Biden's upcoming art show. It could apply to most of Hunter's business ventures and life choices, though. The younger Biden is continuing his longstanding pattern of trying to cash in on his father's name and office, and the elder Biden's administration is doing its best to distance itself from the spectacle.

Hunter Biden has the right to make art. The issue arises because he plans to offer his paintings for sale at high prices ($75,000-$500,000) at a New York gallery. Art experts agree that these are eye-popping prices for an artist with Hunter Biden's meager CV. Of course, these are askingprices. There's no guarantee anyone will actually pay that much for what art critic and author Jerry Saltz calls "generic post-zombie formalism illustration." So, bravo to the gallery owner for getting all of us speculating about whether it would be a problem if anyone did. Hype is truly its own art form.

Ethics experts like Richard Painter worry that Biden is profiting from his father's famous name and public service. Though in Hunter's case, it's hard to know where the cachet of his father's name ends and his own hard-won notoriety begins. A GOP dirty tricks campaign in the 2020 election didn't hurt Joe Biden. But it succeeded in making his ne'er-do-well son one of the most recognizable people in the United States.

To its credit, the gallery's website doesn't identify Hunter as the son of the sitting president. Unlike his predecessor, Joe Biden isn't using his office to promote his offspring's latest vanity project. But nobody is pretending that Hunter Biden's art work would be getting this much attention from the news media if he were Hunter Smith.

Donald Trump and the Republicans tried to seize on Hunter's activities in Ukraine as political fodder in the 2020 election. There's plenty of evidence that Hunter Biden exploited his father's famous name and his former office in order to get a spot on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm called Burisma, and that he tried to cajole his father into doing special favors. But there was never any evidence that Joe Biden gave his son any special consideration. The pattern seems to be reasserting itself with Hunter Biden's art career. His quest for celebrity is a thorn in the side of the administration.

In a bid to insulate themselves from any appearance of impropriety, the White House came up with a plan that seems slightly sketchier than doing nothing. Under the system, neither Hunter Biden nor the White House will know who bought a painting. The goal is preventing anyone attempting to curry favor by overpaying for one of Hunter Biden's pieces. Of course, anyone who bought one of these paintings could declare, publicly or privately, "It was me!" And, let's be real, that's exactly the kind of person who would pay half a million dollars for one of Hunter Biden's zombie florals.

Otherwise, there's no point. It would have been better if the agreement had established transparency rather than pseudo-secrecy. If the names of the buyers had been made public, it would be easier to figure out if the buyers got any special favors. That option was reportedly considered but rejected because the gallery, rightly or wrongly, thought it would decrease interest in the sale. Without the cooperation of the gallery, there's nothing the White House can do about this. They can't stop Hunter Biden and a private venue from selling paintings. They can't push buyers' names into the public. If the White House were to threaten or promise anything to motivate the gallery to see things its way, it might commit the conflict of interest it's ostensibly trying to avoid.

There are no great solutions. The adult children of presidents have to make a living in our celebrity-besotted culture, where any tenuous connection to a famous person is a marketable asset. However, it seems unlikely that Hunter Biden's art will be a vehicle for currying favor with the Biden administration. At this point, anyone who buys a painting from Hunter Biden and brags about it to the White House would be doing more to hurt their dreams of influence than help them. Surely, Biden wishes his son would retreat to private life and stop selling the equivalent of Billy Beer on canvas.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/rudy-giuliani-2649955361

salon

On Monday, the U.S. Treasury Department placed sanctions on seven foreign members of Rudy Giuliani's inner circle who sought to interfere in the U.S. election and sway the results in Trump's favor.

The president has also reportedly dropped his reliance on Giuliani for his second impeachment trial, refusing to pay Giuliani for his unsuccessful post-election campaign to overturn November's results. Meanwhile, the New York State Bar Association has moved to disbar Giuliani this week. Needless to say, the week after he told thousands of Trump supporters to hold "trial by combat" before many of them violently stormed the U.S. Capitol with aims to halt the Constitutionally mandated certification of Joe Biden's Electoral College victory was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week for Rudy Giuliani. [twt doc]

the Treasury's targets include Russian-linked Ukrainians Konstantin Kulyk, Oleksandr Onyshchenko, Andriy Telizhenko, Oleksandr Dubinsky, and –– most principally –– Andrii Derkach, a Ukrainian lawmaker sanctioned just last year, who played a key role in orchestrating the Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory. It was with the help of these actors that Giuliani spearheaded a failed campaign to smear President-elect Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, with false claims of past corruption. Trump's call to Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky –– in which the President pressured Zelensky to investigate Hunter Biden on his behalf –– would become the impetus for the President's own impeachment.

"Since at least 2019," said the Treasury in a statement on Wednesday, "Derkach and his associates have leveraged U.S. media, U.S.-based social media platforms, and influential U.S. persons to spread misleading and unsubstantiated allegations that current and former U.S. officials engaged in corruption, money laundering, and unlawful political influence in Ukraine."

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a steadfast Trump loyalist, also attempted to add distance between his agency and Giuliani and his goons. "Russian disinformation campaigns targeting American citizens are a threat to our democracy [...] The United States will continue to aggressively defend the integrity of our election systems and processes."

"Trump has been blaming his longtime personal attorney and many others for the predicament he now finds himself in, though he has not accepted any responsibility in public or in private," CNN reported this week. "Giuliani is still expected to play a role in Trump's impeachment defense but has been left out of most conversations thus far."

The New York State Bar Association has also made moves to disavow Giuliani in light of last Wednesday's chaos. The Bar announced on Monday that it has launched an inquiry into Giuliani's role in Trump's months-long crusade to undermine the election. The group's bylaws make explicit reference to anyone "who advocates the overthrow of the government of the United States, or of any state, territory or possession thereof, or of any political subdivision therein, by force or other illegal means" and disowns anyone who has engaged in such activity.

The Association stated, "Mr. Giuliani's words quite clearly were intended to encourage Trump supporters unhappy with the election's outcome to take matters into their own hands," adding, "Their subsequent attack on the Capitol was nothing short of an attempted coup, intended to prevent the peaceful transition of power."

Giuliani, who called for "a trial by combat" in the rally leading up the riot on Capitol Hill, now faces the threat of permanent expulsion from the Bar, which would render him unlicensed to practice law in the state of New York. "We cannot stand idly by," said the Association, "and allow those intent on rending the fabric of our democracy to go unchecked."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/12/hunter-biden-2649459491/

irs bs on hold before election protocol, rudy bogus?

Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani reportedly met with the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents in Delaware who were investigating Hunter Biden's finances while President-elect Joe Biden was on the campaign trail.

Now, more questions are looming about the FBI. An editorial published by The New York Times lays out how the latest Pittsburgh inquiry raises questions about politicization among FBI agents.

While Hunter Biden did admit that there is a current tax investigation underway, there is speculation that the entire basis of the latest investigation stems from Giuliani's farfetched attempts to throw a curveball at the Democratic presidential candidate prior to Election Day.

It has been reported that U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr personally requested for top Pittsburgh federal prosecutor Scott Brady to review the investigative material Giuliani had gathered on the Biden family. Back in January, Brady met with Giuliani for nearly four hours to discuss the findings.

Due to the election and Giuliani's affiliation with Trump, the meeting is said to have "raised alarms within the F.B.I. and the Justice Department." There were also concerns about the politicization of the bureau in the middle of an election year.

Mr. Giuliani had served as Mr. Trump's attack dog during the Russia investigation before becoming the face of an effort to tarnish Hunter Biden during President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s campaign. If Mr. Brady's investigation became public, the agents feared that the F.B.I. could be drawn into a politically toxic battle in the midst of the presidential election, just as it was in 2016.

Giuliani's track record before and after the election has also been a factor taken into consideration which raises questions about the credibility of the latest investigation.

Mr. Giuliani had tried to promote scrutiny of Hunter Biden's work for Burisma, which had been mired in a corruption scandal. He accused Joseph R. Biden Jr. of corruptly pushing for the ouster of Ukraine's top prosecutor, who had been investigating Burisma, as a favor to his son while he was vice president. No evidence of wrongdoing by the president-elect has emerged.

As of Saturday, Dec. 12, Hunter Biden has not been charged with any financial crimes.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

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is he ideol entre, pol op? grifter? all? everyone just freelances in their niche and when they score/do some damage to someone's rep, they get paid?! rewarded by clicks? ctt gig? book deal, fox appearance?

is Christie a weak squish target b/c he did not bounce back from covid and told ppl to wear masks?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/steve-bannons-darkest-plot-yet-is-starting-to-implode

alexh

During the final days of President Donald Trump's reelection campaign, former White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon has been desperately fighting to remain relevant in Trumpworld. Bannon's ideas for getting Trump reelected range from firing FBI Director Christopher Wray to smearing former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden. And in his desperation, Bannon has even been attacking major Trump allies like former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Attorney General William Barr and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

Vice's Emanuel Maiberg is reporting that "a series of videos and photos which appear to show Hunter Biden having sex are going viral on a Chinese-language news and video sharing website" co-founded by Bannon. Maiberg notes that "the videos are often narrated by users in English with a Chinese accent, and claim that the explicit photos and videos of Hunter Biden are proof that he's compromised by the Chinese government."

So far, however, efforts by Bannon and Giuliani to smear Hunter Biden haven't made a difference in the presidential election. And even the far-right Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told Axios' Jonathan Swan that the e-mails and videos on a hard drive allegedly belonging to the former vice president's son aren't having an impact. Cruz told Swan, "I don't think it moves a single voter."

Reporter Madeline Peltz describes Bannon's recent attacks on fellow Trump supporters in an article published by Media Matters this week.

"Poor Steve Bannon," Peltz writes. "As the Hunter Biden hard drive story is lowered into the grave of failed October surprises, he's run out of options to insert his 'influence' into the election media cycle. Having failed to recreate his media manipulation successes of 2016, the former White House chief strategist is melting down and attacking his would-be allies."

Peltz notes how obsessed Bannon has been with getting Wray fired as FBI director.On October 25 in Axios, Swan and his colleague Alayna Treene reported that Trump, according to sources, plans to fire Wray as well as CIA Director Gina Haspel and Defense Secretary Mark Esper if he is reelected. But as Bannon sees it, Trumpworld isn't going after Wray aggressively enough — and he wants to see Wray fired right away, not after the election.

"In the past few days," according to Pentz, Bannon has "lambasted Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Attorney General William Barr and even Donald Trump himself — calling them 'weak' for not pushing for, or bringing about, the immediate firing of FBI Director Christopher Wray."

Trump has clearly been increasing angry with Wray in recent months, stemming from disagreements over multiple issues. Most notably, Trump is outraged that Wray hasn't gone after the president's political enemies, has emphasized the serious threats of right-wing violence and white supremacy, diminished the significance of antifa and left-wing violence, and failed to provide support for Republicans' attacks on the integrity of mail-in voting.

The contents of a hard drive that supposedly belonged to Hunter Biden were first reported by the New York Post, and Bannon and Giuliani collaborated on that story. But Bannon, according to Peltz, has lashed out at Giuliani for not being hard enough on Wray.

"On October 29," Peltz reports, "Bannon attacked Giuliani even though they've been working together to launder the bogus story that first appeared in the New York Post, calling him 'one of the weak guys around' Trump."

In a transcript of that October 29 conversation, according to Peltz, Bannon declared, "Wray must be fired this morning" — and Giuliani agreed with firing Wray, but not until after the election. Bannon, in response, told Giuliani, "You're one of the weak guys around him. You're getting weak on me, Rudy. No, you're weak. You sort of sound like Chris; you spent too much time with Chris Christie. You're getting weak."

Bannon also slammed Barr as "another weak link in this chain."

In an October 29 broadcast of "War Room," Bannon ranted against Wray as well as Trump allies who he believes haven't done enough to get him fired.

"Fire him today," Bannon declared. "Do not wait. You show weakness — the president is showing weakness by waiting. There's not one person in this country, not one voter that will not vote for you by firing Wray. And don't let theweakpeople around you convince you of that.Be strong, be who you are, be what your presidency is about."

---

an 1020

...[reporter] jenkins explained that the news organization had been provided documents by Tony Bobulinski, Hunter Biden's former business partner.

"You're talking about a business venture with the Chinese energy company in 2017 at a time when Joe Biden was not vice president," Jenkins explained. "But Fox's review of Bobulinski's documents, which were given to us, found no role for Joe Biden in that business venture."

"There's another former business partner who says he knows of no involvement by Joe Biden," Fox News host Howard Kurtz added. "The Wall Street Journal says it also reviewed the text messages and emails, saying, they don't show either Hunter Biden or James Biden — the brother — discussing a role for Joe Biden."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/youre-not-supposed-to-understand-the-hunter-biden-smear-chaos-is-the-point

kos

Acclaimed journalist and historianAnne Applebaumunderstands the universe of propaganda as well as anyone alive today. Winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, she has devoted the past three decades to studying Russia and Eastern and Central Europe, with an emphasis on disinformation and propaganda so acute that she washerself targeted—by a Russian-originated smear campaign in retaliation for her writings about Vladimir Putin's annexation of Crimea. She now contributes her cache of knowledge toThe Atlantic, among other publications.

For someone so well-versed, analyzing the blatant behavior of propagandist right-wing media outlets such as Fox News is something akin to a chess master analyzing the strategy of Tic-Tac-Toe—simple, and even relaxing. So after watching the antics of Donald Trump during his final debate with Joe Biden, she wrote a piece for The Atlanticon Friday that explains what millions of Americans are still shaking their heads in bewilderment about today: the source—and more importantly, the purpose—of Trump's bizarre accusations about Hunter Biden and his allegedly nefarious dealings with certain obscure individuals.

Of course the direct conduits of this nonsense are what we in the sane world regard as the fever swamps of paranoiac right-wing conspiracy thinking, most visibly manifested on the Fox News channel. As Applebaum notes, the actual storyline, spun out of whole cloth, is purposefully designed to be opaque, leading someone trying to divine the actual facts to become frustrated and give up trying to make sense of them. In fact, as her article's title suggests, "You're not supposed to understand the rumors about Biden."

Because the story is not intended to make sense, but to create a fog of doubt.

Just like the fictional legend these same people wove around "Hillary's emails," the Hunter Biden fiction also concerns emails—these ones allegedly kept by a former business partner of Hunter Biden, and miraculously disclosed to a peripheral former and supposed "investigative journalist" named Matthew Tyrmand. Tyrmand, notably, was formerly (and peripherally) associated with the right-wing fraudster and provocateur James O'Keefe.

That piece of critical information would lead most knowledgeable people to immediately shelve the unfounded Hunter Biden scheme in that mental compartment where bad ideas go to eventually die. But the Fox News audience is by definition anything but "knowledgeable people." On that network, the Hunter Biden nonsense is not something analogous to the disappointingly empty caverns of "Al Capone's vault," but rather an ever-opening flower, chock full of conspiracy-thinking goodness.

In releasing the 26,000 emails, Tyrmand and his collaborator, the Breitbart News contributor Peter Schweizer, are not bringing forth any evidence of actual lawbreaking, or an actual security threat, by either Hunter or Joe Biden. They are instead creating a miasma, an atmosphere, a foggy world in which misdeeds might have taken place, and in which corruption might have happened. They are alsoproviding the raw material from which more elaborate stories can be constructed. The otherwise incomprehensible reference in last night's debate to "the mayor of Moscow's wife," from whom Joe Biden somehow got rich, was an excellent example of how this works.A name surfaces in a large collection of data; it is detached from its context; it is then used to make an insinuation or accusation that cannot be proved; it is then forgotten, unless it gains some traction, in which case it is repeated again.

Applebaum provides some basic background for the uninformed and uninitiated (i.e., normal Americans).

Those who live outside the Fox News bubble and intend to remain there do not, of course, need to learn any of this stuff. Judging by what has been published, the very worst thing that Tyrmand's email cache could reveal (if it is authentic) is that some unattractive people sought to use Hunter Biden's surname and connections to get business deals or score a visit to the White House for their clients. But we already know about Hunter Biden's involvement with unattractive people, and his struggles with addiction; we also know that, under normal circumstances, dozens of people visit the White House every day. On the grand scale of misdeeds committed by politicians and their relatives, this kind of thing barely registers.

Applebaum then helpfully includes a laundry list of Trump's corruption that puts to shame whatever the right hopes to spin out of this email concoction. As readers of Daily Kos, you're more than familiar with these.

But there is a purpose lurking here in the mind of Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch. The first and most obvious? To assist Trump in deflecting attention—for these final 10 days—from his horrific malfeasance in the face of a pandemic whose vicious resurgence is soon likely to be the sole focus of the nightly newscasts. The second reason is to provide a ready well of sludge to draw upon in the seemingly likely event (as Murdoch himself has acknowledged) that the polls turn out to be correct, and Trump loses the election.

They will continue to serve a function after the election as well. If Biden wins, Foxworld will need some way to keep its audience focused on something other than the Cabinet he appoints, the new legislation he passes, and all the other events, decisions, and changes that used to constitute "news." Instead of all that real-life stuff—laws and regulations, statistics and investigations, debates about the economy and health care—the leading figures of the right-wing conspiracy bubble will,over the next months and years, dip into the email caches to keep their followers focused on an alternate reality in which Joe Biden is a secret oligarch, his son is an important figure in the Chinese mafia, and LOL nothing matters. Just as you need to know the backstories of the stars in the DC Comics universe in order to understand the nuances of a Batman movie, six months from now you might also need to know all about Cooney and Archer and the wife of the mayor of Moscow if you want to understand Ingraham's monologues.

Applebaum, a rapt student of propaganda, knows that outside of hosting the inevitable guest appearances (between court dates) that Donald Trump will insist on during the next four years—assuming he loses—the Fox News yappers need something to talk and talk about, and it certainly isn't going to be Republican policies. So this fictional narrative serves the interests both of Fox News—whose main concern is keeping its soon-to-be demoralized audience content and soporific—and also helps to deflect the inevitable horror stories that will be uncovered by a Democratic-controlled Congress investigating the Trump crime family's vast trail of detritus throughout our government.

By talking about Hunter Biden, the Trump family, especially the Trump children, also hopes to deflect attention from their own greatest weakness, namely the amoral, kleptocratic nepotism that they embody like no family ever before in American history...

[...]

None of them can win using ideas anymore, because they don't have any. All they can do is seek attention: gesticulate, wave their arms in the air, shout at the crowd, invent things, and try to attract the fame and attention they feel they deserve, even though they can no longer explain why they deserve it.

Put simply, assuming Joe Biden wins this election, we should all gear up for four long years of Fox News-inspired fantasy programming.

Of course, there's always the mute button.

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/trumpworld-is-going-full-qanon-with-the-election-less-than-2-weeks-away-report/

Whenever President Donald Trump is asked about QAnon extremists, he will say a few nice things about them while insisting that he knows very little about the movement. But journalist Will Sommer, in an article published by the Daily Beast on October 22, reports that Trump's allies are trying to use the QAnon conspiracy theory to get him reelected.

To say that QAnon's beliefs are absurd would be an understatement. According to the QAnon conspiracy theory, the U.S. government has been infiltrated by an international cabal of child sex traffickers, pedophiles, Satanists and cannibals — and Trump was put in the White House to combat them. An anonymous figure named Q, according to the theory, is giving them updates on Trump's battle. QAnon also believe that R&B superstar Beyoncé is really an Italian woman named Ann Marie Lastrassi and is working with billionaire George Soros as part of the conspiracy.

But as ridiculous as QAnon's beliefs are, Trump's allies are willing to promote the cult if it will help his reelection campaign. One of those allies, Sommer notes, is former Breitbart News Chairman Steve Bannon, who has been using QAnon-like rhetoric and claiming that at least some of their beliefs are true. Bannon said of QAnon, "How are they not at least — at least an aspect of their argument — at least appears, directionally to be correct?"

Sommer explains, "With less than two weeks before Election Day and Trump lagging in the polls, some of the president's most prominent allies are going all in on QAnon, while Trump and other top supporters refuse to denounce the conspiracy theory. It is, at its most innocent, a crass political calculation designed to keep a relatively modest, though loud and influential, chunk of the party's base engaged. At its worst, critics warn, it's a green light of acceptance to dangerous conspiracy theorists and a normalization of their beliefs."

The Beast reporter goes on to say that Trump has "refused to disavow QAnon, which the FBI considers a potential source of domestic terrorism." And in Georgia, Sommer notes, "Two Republican candidates are competing for their own QAnon endorsements. Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) touted the backing of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican and outspoken QAnon supporter who's set to win a House seat in Congress in November. Loeffler's challenger, Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), meanwhile, rushed out his endorsement from former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, a hero to QAnon believers who recently took the QAnon oath with members of his family."

Flynn, CNN's Marshall Cohen reported on July 7, posted a video using QAnon rhetoric. In the video, Flynn declared, "Where we go one, we go all" — which is a QAnon slogan. [also lemmings]

Another QAnon slogan is, "The storm is here." And Sommer notes that Bannon has been using "storm" references when promoting conspiracy theories involving former Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden.

Bannon recently declared, "It's gonna be a storm. The storm clouds are around the Biden camp. The storm clouds are around the Biden camp — a gathering storm."

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https://www.salon.com/2020/10/19/fox-news-rejected-hunter-biden-expos-new-york-post-writer-refused-to-put-his-name-on-it-reports/

oct 20?

when former LifeLock spokesperson Rudy Giuliani approached Fox News with the trove of emails he alleged had been retrieved from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, the network declined to run the story over concerns about its credibility, according to a new report.

Sources told Mediaite that "the lack of authentication of Hunter Biden's alleged laptop, combined with established concerns about Giuliani as a reliable source and his desire for unvetted publication, led the network's news division to pass."

Giuliani previously told The New York Times that he had chosen to place the material with The New York Post because "either nobody else would take it, or if they took it, they would spend all the time they could to try to contradict it before they put it out."

The Post, a sister company of Fox News, published the unverified emails in a Wednesday exposé, which drew widespread blowback for its dubious sourcing. The Times earlier reported that most of The Post article had been written by a staff reporter who refused to allow the tabloid to attach his name to the byline over doubts about the article's credibility.

The alleged emails informing the article were obtained in a circuitous route by two Trump allies: Giuliani and former White House strategist Steve Bannon,** who currently faces wire fraud and money laundering charges in a federal court. The pair gave the outlet a copy of what they claimed was content copied from a hard drive belonging to Hunter Biden, the youngest son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, which they said had been obtained from a computer repairman who wished to remain anonymous.

The repairman told a group of reporters last week that a man named Hunter Biden had dropped the laptop off at his store, but medical issues with his vision prevented him from making an identification.

A number of Post staffers questioned the vetting process for the article and expressed concerns about the sources and the timing as the election nears, The Times reported. Upon publication, other journalists pointed out major errors and holes in article, and the FBI has since opened an investigation into the story as part of a possible Russian disinformation operation, according to multiple reports.

The Times also reported that one of the article's two bylined authors had first learned that her name was on the report after publication; the other writer never previously had a byline at the paper. Both writers formerly worked at Fox News.

The Trump-friendly cable network's so-called "Brain Room" had previously warned hosts about Giuliani's reputation for "amplifying disinformation,"according to The Daily Beast.

One day after The Post published its story, The Washington Post reported that U.S. officials had repeatedly warned the White House in 2019 that Giuliani was a target of Russian intelligence, and information he passed along might be tainted by his interactions with pro-Putin officials in Ukraine.

In the days leading up to publication, a team of The New York Post's top editors met to determine a course of action, including the editor-in-chief and the digital editor-in-chief, a person with knowledge of the meeting told The Times. At least two writers refused to put their names on the report, according to The Times.

The bylines eventually went to Emma-Jo Morris — a deputy politics editor who joined the Murdoch-owned tabloid this spring after four years at Fox News — and Gabrielle Fonrouge, a reporter at The Post since 2014.

At Fox, Morris worked as an associate producer for Trump "pillow-talk" confidante Sean Hannity,according to her LinkedIn profile.Morris' Instagram, which has sent been set to private, included photos of her posing with Bannon and Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally and Republican operative. In July, President Donald Trump commuted Stone's sentence on seven felony counts.

Fonrouge, the article's other acknowledged writer, "had little to do with the reporting or writing of the article," according to The Times.

"The senior editors at The Post made the decision to publish the Biden files after several days' hard work established its merit," a senior Post official told The Times in an email.

The Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have all reported that they were not able to independently verify The New York Post's reporting or the contents of the hard drive.

News outlets have repeatedly debunked allegations of corruption against the Bidens, and a roundly discredited investigation by Senate Republicans — predicated in part on information Giuliani acquired from a Russian agent sanctioned by the Trump administration — found no evidence that the former vice president had engaged in wrongdoing related to his son's business dealings.

Reports of the FBI investigation echoed headlines from the final weeks of the 2016 election cycle, when U.S. intelligence agencies began probing whether individuals connected to the Trump campaign were involved in Russian government efforts to harm Hillary Clinton via dumps of emails stolen from Democratic officials.

"At least in 2016, Trump's allies pushed powerful disinformation," national security attorney Bradley Moss told Salon last week. "These last-ditch efforts barely qualify as trying anymore."

"It's a garbage fire story with obscene numbers of legal holes and flaws," he added.

A Post spokeswoman told The Times in a statement that the story had been "vetted," and it "stands by its reporting."

Roger Sollenberger is a staff writer at Salon.

---

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/how-to-not-be-a-useful-idiot-for-the-rights-smear-machine/

Trump is trying hard to recreate the perfect storm that landed him in the White House in 2016 despite being the most unpopular candidate in the modern polling era. That year, the Clinton campaign's hacked emails were dribbled out over the final six weeks of the race. There wasn't much to them, but internal campaign communications tend to be frank and are easily mined for scandalettes. Having established the storyline that Clinton was as corrupt as Trump, they provided a steady stream of stories with "emails reveal" in the headlines which served to reinforce the right's narrative.

We can expect a similar stream of stories of ostensible "smoking guns" stemming from Hunter Biden's emails (whether hacked or fabricated) to come our way in the final weeks of this race.And some people who want to see themselves as fair will inadvertently amplify the right's preferred narratives by assuming that there must be something there.

So it's very important to keep in mind that the "scandal" is supposed to be that then-Vice President Joe Biden pushed for the removal of Ukraine's top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to stave off an investigation into Burisma Holdings--the Ukrainian gas company whose Board Hunter sat on--in order to protect his son. It is supposed to be a story about conflict of interest--of the elder Biden using the office of the Vice Presidency to help his son.

There is not a shred of truth to those claims. The effort to get Shokin fired "was prompted by a push for anti-corruption reforms developed at the State Department and coordinated with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund," *The Washington Post*reported. And according to CNN, a bipartisan "letter from 2016 shows that Republican senators pushed for reforms to Ukraine's prosecutor general's office and judiciary, echoing calls then-Vice President Joe Biden made at the time."

Shokin was corrupt, and that was a problem. Vitaliy Kasko, a former deputy of Shokin's who resigned over his boss's habit of stymieing corruption probes, told*Bloombergthat Shokin was not investigating Burisma during the period in question. "There was no pressure from anyone from the U.S. to close cases against" the firm or its owner. "It was shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015," Kasko said. And Daria Kaleniuk, a prominent Ukrainian anti-corruption crusader, told The Washington Post that*"Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation, but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation."

Without some impropriety on Joe Biden's part, Hunter Biden's business ventures aren't a story. He isn't running for office. Like many, if not most children of the powerful, the younger Biden leveraged both his family name and the connections he'd made at Yale to land various business deal and secure a cushy, high-paying position on a corporate board. Both Hunter and Joe Biden have acknowledged that associating himself with a shady Ukrainian gas company--as opposed to, say, a reputable American or Western European firm--was an error of judgment, but it was neither illegal nor unethical. This isn't a meritocracy, and this is one way that wealth and power are reproduced from one generation to the next. It's distasteful and unfair, but that's a class issue, not a scandal. Hunter isn't running for office and his judgment, or lack thereof, isn't a matter of public concern.

Joe Biden spent years in the Senate, and year after year he ranked among the least wealthy members of that body. We know how he came into his wealth--mostly through a multi-million dollar book advance and speaking gigs after leaving office. Biden may not be everyone's cup of tea, but there's no evidence that he's corrupt.

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twt facebook took down ny post on info from stolen laptop?

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https://www.mediamatters.org/donald-trump/user-far-right-message-board-was-promoting-ny-post-hunter-biden-articles-days-advance

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// russ hack burisma server?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/conservative-argues-the-on-hunter-biden-are-going-too-far/

With President Donald Trump trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in countless polls and the election less than three weeks away, Republicans are hoping for some type of "October surprise" that will derail Biden's campaign. To fulfill this wish, some right-wing media outlets have been obsessing over the contents of a laptop hard drivethat, according to the New York Post, allegedly belonged to his son, Hunter Biden. Conservative Ed Morrissey discusses the laptop in an op-ed for Hot Air, arguing that the attacks on Hunter Biden are crossing the line.

"Rather than delve into business or political revelations," Morrissey explains, "the NY Post chooses today to report on personal e-mails, photos and the pain and partying they reveal. In a way, it's a more human side of Hunter than we've so far seen."

In the New York Post article, reporters Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge write, "Hunter Biden's e-mails and texts show not just a politician's troubled son angling for lucrative overseas business deals — they also reveal a concerned father, a fun-loving friend and a man tortured by the deaths that have devastated his family."

But Morrissey is critical of the Post's reporting, saying, "I suppose the Post can argue that they are trying to paint a more balanced portrait of Hunter, but I somehow doubt that he or his family will appreciate that nuance. There is something very creepy about publishing the personal e-mails of a public-figure-once-removed like Hunter, and especially those of his daughter in a time of financial crisis."

Morrissey adds, "On top of that, none of what's revealed in this report has anything to do with public policy. It's private conversations and private behavior with no connection to anything to voters' lives or choices. It's an unwarranted intrusion of privacy with no real purpose other than to offer a prurient look into Hunter's 'wild life (and) pained soul' when Hunter's not running for anything. Imagine the outcry that would arise if NBC did this to Tiffany Trump."

The conservative writes although the Post is claiming that the material on the hard drive is entirely Hunter Biden's, he has his doubts.

"It's possible that it's all Hunter's," Morrissey writes, "but it's also very possible that some of it isn't."

Morrissey stresses that the material on the laptop still needs to be "authenticated."

"The potential for dirty tricks looks rather large," Morrissey warns. "Until this data gets fully authenticated by an outside agency — hopefully the FBI, which reportedly has the laptop — the earlier reporting isn't reliable, and this manipulative story doesn't do much to boost the Post's credibility either. The best we can assume is that this story signals that the Post doesn't have much more to wring out of this October surprise."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/john-bolton-rudy-giuliani/

When Former National Security Adviser John Bolton received a warning about President Donald Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani due to his suspected ties to Russian operatives, he wasted no time heeding the warning and urged his staff to steer clear of having any involvement or interactions with

The Daily Beast compiled a report based on what the publication described as "interviews with 11 knowledgeable sources" detailing Bolton's repeated attempts to maintain distance between his department and Giuliani.

It has been reported that in January of 2019, the intelligence committee warned Capitol Hill and the White House that Giuliani was "a target of Russian intelligence operation to feed disinformation to Trump." As months passed, the warnings about Giuliani are said to have "intensified."

"Officials said the warnings about Giuliani intensified in the spring and summer of 2019 as the president's personal attorney appeared on television propagating disinformation about the Bidens and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Masha Yovanovitch. One ex-NSC official said that Giuliani, as a U.S. citizen, was neither named nor referenced in contemporaneous intelligence reports about Russian disinformation efforts. But Giuliani's alarming role was the subject of informal discussions between White House and intelligence officials." - The Daily Beast

A former official also raised concerns about Russia's server hack of the Ukranian energy company Burisma—where Hunter Biden once served on the executive board. It reportedly led to "informed speculation among professionals that this would be the entrée to fabricate material connecting Hunter Biden to corruption inside Burisma, and it wouldn't take more than 10 percent truth."

Bolton even warned his subordinates to refrain from being in meetings with Giuliani present. In fact, Bolton's directives were so specific he even advised against his staff attending Trump's Oval Office meeting May 23, 2019 following the Ukrainian inauguration of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

An unnamed Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee also weighed in as he admitted that Giuliani had been a big topic of discussion.

"Rudy's been the topic of conversation a lot," said the other source, a Democratic member of the House intelligence committee. "Wittingly or unwittingly, Rudy seems to care more about what he can gain politically from his relationship and discussions with Russian assets than he does about how he might be being used."

When contacted about the latest debacle, Giuliani claimed he was unaware of Bolton's opposition toward him.

"I didn't find out that John was unhappy with me or opposed to me until he left [the administration]…I've known him for ten years," and claimed that "when I was being considered for Secretary of State, I told him I'd consider him for deputy."

===

--> IMPEACH

https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/democrats-say-the-gops-attempt-to-smear-biden-accidentally-exposed-a-trump-officials-corrupt-scheme/

igor salon

the Republican report aimed at raising questions about the dealings of Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden in Ukraine appears to have accidentally implicated former Energy Secretary Rick Perry in an energy scheme in the foreign nation, according to the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.

Republicans led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., released their much-hyped report on Hunter Biden’s role at the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma on Wednesday. However, it found no evidence of actual wrongdoing and relied largely on debunked claims, old statements and narratives pushed as part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

But the report did find new evidence related to Perry’s actions in Ukraine while he served in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

Amos Hochstein, a member of the supervisory board at the state-owned Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz, told lawmakers that Perry “inappropriately pressured the Ukrainian government” to place Texas oil executive Robert Bensh on the board of the company while officials at the Department of Energy pressured the government to sign a deal with a “private business entity connected to Mr. Bensh,” according to a letter Wyden sent to Department of Energy Inspector General Teri Donaldson.

perry also pressured the Ukrainian government to place one of his longtime campaign supporters, Michael Bleyzer, on the board during a trip to Ukraine for President Volodymyr Zelensky’s inauguration in 2019, Wyden wrote. Bleyzer and his partner were later awarded a drilling contract in the country.

“Mr. Bleyzer’s contract that he was awarded was despite the fact that he was not the highest bidder in the process,” Hochstein told lawmakers. “Other . . . bids were higher, and therefore, Ukraine chose a bid that paid itself less.”

The heads of the state-owned Naftogaz conglomerate have since filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the contract, arguing that the Ukrainian government acted “illegally and with bias” in agreeing to the deal, Wyden noted.

“Witness testimony in this investigation has directly implicated former Secretary Rick Perry in alleged wrongdoing, and the department more broadly, in a scheme to undermine anti-corruption efforts that were implemented by Ukraine in partnership with the international community,” Wyden wrote.

Politico reported last year that Perry — who along with then-Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland and Ukraine envoy Kurt Volker were the “three amigos” who pushed a shadow foreign policy in Ukraine — played an active role in the Trump administration’s pressure on Zelensky, which ultimately led to thepresident’s impeachment.

ProPublica reported earlier this month that Perry repeatedly pushed deals that “were potentially worth billions of dollars to Perry’s friends and political donors” and could “stand to benefit” the secretary himself. Two of the deals, including one worth $20 billion, went to the Texas firm Energy Transfer. Perry served on the company’s board before and after his stint at the Energy Department and bought shares now worth about $800,000 three months after leaving his post, according to the report.

Ethics experts told the outlet that Perry’s efforts were violations of federal regulations. His actions also caught the attention of federal prosecutors, though he is reportedly not the target of any investigations.

The interview with Hochstein was part of the Senate Republicans’ investigation into whether Hunter Biden’s position at Burisma affected U.S. foreign policy. The report asserted that his position was “problematic and did interfere in the efficient execution of policy with respect to Ukraine.” However, it did not include any new evidence suggesting his role affected the Obama administration’s policy. It also acknowledged that “the extent to which Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board affected U.S. policy toward Ukraine is not clear.”

Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the probe pushed “Russian disinformation.” He further described it as “an attempted political hit job facilitated by the State Department.”

A Finance Committee aide told Talking Points Memo that finding new evidence against the Trump administration “was certainly not Republicans’ goal.”

“While Republicans’ Ukraine investigation showed Vice President Biden did nothing wrong,” the aide said, “it succeeded in implicating former Secretary Perry in a corrupt scheme to pressure the Ukrainian government to change the board of Naftogaz.”

---

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/06/biden-ukraine-recordings-oan/612454/

many lnx

Is OAN the Leading Edge of Russian Misinformation?

The Biden campaign says Trump’s favorite TV network is peddling the Kremlin’s lies.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE

JUNE 11, 2020

In what appears to be a signal of intensifying political warfare ahead of the November election, One America News Network, the Trump-supporting cable channel that has been promoting anti-Biden conspiracies for several months, says it has obtained several hours of secret recordings of then–Vice President Biden’s conversations with Ukrainian officials. If such recordings exist, they’re likely linked to pro-Russian interests in Ukraine and a Russian intelligence operation, two former U.S. ambassadors to Ukraine and a former ambassador to Russia told me. The OAN employee who claims to have the tapes would not say what was on them, other than suggesting that they will be revelatory.

In the audio that has been released elsewhere so far, Biden is heard dangling the promise of financial aid to Ukraine if its government ousted a prosecutor who was seen as corrupt—which Biden has previously said publicly was his goal, as part of a push for widespread reforms. Conspiracists have alleged that this was intended to help his son Hunter escape charges of corruption, but an audit by Ukraine’s former top prosecutor released last week found no evidence of illegal activity by Hunter in his capacity as an energy-company board member.

[MORE STORIES

Donald Trump

Democracy Versus Kleptocracy

FRANKLIN FOER

The Press Is Embracing False Equivalence—Again

JAMES FALLOWS

Rudy Giuliani: ‘You Should Be Happy for Your Country That I Uncovered This’

ELAINA PLOTT]

What is most remarkable here is that none of this is particularly surprising. Russian interference in the 2016 election has been closely studied over the past four years, and America’s vulnerabilities have only worsened in that time. As my colleague Franklin Foer wrote recently, “Russia’s interference in 2016 might be remembered as the experimental prelude that foreshadowed the attack of 2020.” That OAN is now a player in such interference suggests an escalation that the Biden campaign has been bracing for.

Indeed, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul—who has recalled being secretly recorded himself, among other forms of harassment, when he was posted in Moscow—told me, "There’s never been a moment like this in American history.”

[Read Putin is well on his way to stealing the next election

That includes 2016. McFaul said what he’s seeing now reminds him of tactics the Kremlin has used against its domestic political opponents. “It’s not to convince you of a different point of view. It’s to convince you that there is no truth,” he said. “When it feels like nobody’s telling the truth and there is no truth, the reaction to that is despondency and demobilization.”

It’s hard not to feel some déjà vu here. In 2016, Russian intelligence agents hacked the emails of Democratic National Committee staffers and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, John Podesta, and delivered them to WikiLeaks, as a way to get them into the American media. Some outlets learned a lesson from that episode, and have treated new Biden recordings out of Ukraine with care. Others have not. Andriy Derkach, who released the Biden tapes that have already come out, is a former member of a pro-Russian political party who graduated from a KGB-run academy in Moscow. OAN lends his efforts a veneer, however thin, of journalistic legitimacy.

The person now claiming to have more tapes is OAN’s Chanel Rion, the on-air personality who went with Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, on his December trip to Ukraine in part to find information on Biden to help Trump. Rion, who has become famous for her conspiracy-inflected questions at White House briefings, emailed the Biden campaign May 29 claiming that she was working on an “in-depth report” aboutrecordings that appear to be of Biden speaking with Petro Poroshenko, then the president of Ukraine. “We have over five hours of these recordings (beyond what has been posted online by Nabu Leaks),” she wrote, referencing a Ukrainian website suspected of Russian links.

Derkach, a politician known as the “Ukrainian Putin,” has been a proponent of the conspiracy theory that Ukraine was really behind the interference in the 2016 election instead of Russia. And he has previously been eager to provide damaging material about Biden for Trump’s sake. Derkach released a batch of recordings three weeks ago, claiming that they had been made by Poroshenko and given to him by “investigative journalists.” (Poroshenko has said the audio is “fabricated.”) Most mainstream-media outlets have decided that the recordings that have emerged so far offer “little new insight into Biden’s actions in Ukraine,” as The Washington Post’s Carol Morello wrote after the recordings were first released.

Giuliani, reached by text, did not comment on suspicions that the recordings have ties to Russian interests or intelligence, or on whether he was involved in getting any of them to OAN.

Rion was until recently an illustrator. She has said she joined members of the Trump family in 2016 for the New Hampshire primary’s victory party; she has also tweeted a drawing of Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein with the hashtag #spiritcooking, which is often associated with the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. On her website, she describes herself as “a fierce foe of anything Clinton, of everything Obama, and as a total and unrelenting enemy of academic left-liberalism and political correctness anywhere.”

In March, she cited a “monitored source” on air who’d said that the coronavirus had been linked to a lab in North Carolina; that source turned out to be a person who’d tweeted at her. She has asked wild questions at White House briefings, including one about whether Trump would pardon Barack Obama for unspecified crimes, and another about whether Trump’s lawyers would like to depose Joe Scarborough, after Trump floated a baseless accusation that he’d murdered an aide.

Rion’s email, which the Biden campaign forwarded to me, suggests that OAN is “producing an in-depth report on these recordings for OAN's Special Investigates series.” In a phone call on Sunday, she told me that she now expects to acquire much more than the five hours of recordings she mentioned in her email. Rion said that Derkach was just one of the people who have been giving her material. She said she has verified, with the help of “a couple of sources on the ground,” and with sources in the U.S. as well, that the recordings have no ties to Russian intelligence or interests. She would not explain her verification process, saying, “I don't want to tip off anybody.”

It was once unusual for the public to gain access to top-secret government documents, let alone private conversations between the American vice president and a foreign leader. But as countries around the world increase their cyberwar capabilities and their willingness to interfere in one another’s domestic politics, and as the democratization of publishing allows for the rapid spread of misinformation, media leaks of hard-to-verify and potentially doctored documents and recordings of government officials are becoming commonplace.

“It is common practice for Russian intelligence to help put out information in skewed forms in Ukraine, and forensic experts have seen that this information is doctored,” said John Herbst, a former career Foreign Service officer who served as the American ambassador to Ukraine from 2003 to 2006.“The Kremlin is a master at this sort of practice, and the sources in Ukraine providing this sort of information are known to be well connected in Moscow.”

Herbst was one of seven former ambassadors to Ukraine who wrote an open letter to Ukrainians two weeks ago, prompted by the already-public recordings. They said they are “disheartened by efforts to involve Ukraine in America’s domestic politics as the 2020 US presidential election approaches.”

“This all just confirms what we knew,” said Steven Pifer, another former ambassador to Ukraine, who signed the letter.

David A. Graham: What happened in Ukraine?

Russia would love to “somehow inject Ukraine back into American politics,” Pifer said. “There will be people on the American side who play into it—OAN is one.”

The Biden campaign says OAN’s willingness to play along is exactly why the network received the recordings. “In 2016 and ever since, hostile foreign actors have perpetrated insidious efforts to disfigure and poison American democracy. Yesterday’s hacked emails are today’s bugged phones and deepfakes,” Andrew Bates, a campaign spokesperson, told me.

An OAN spokesperson, Krista McClelland, did not respond to a request for comment about the suggestion that the recordings have links to Russian intelligence. Nor did she respond to the Biden campaign’s charges.

Other countries are stepping up their own efforts to get involved in this year’s elections; Iran and China, for example, have been linked to attempts to hack Biden and Trump campaign computers. But Russia continues to lead the misinformation game. The day after Rion reached out to Biden’s team, Sputnik—the Kremlin-owned propaganda service, which American intelligence has accused of being involved in the 2016 misinformation efforts—ran an interview with a former Poroshenko aide who claimed that he was the one who’d made the recordings, and that he’d given them to his lawyers to give the Trump administration. “Because of the coronavirus,” he said,” they are waiting. But in September, closer to elections, they will begin to use them more.”

There’s no evidence to support this. But the Trump campaign doesn’t seem to have much interest in dampening ideas like it: The communications director, Tim Murtaugh, didn’t respond to multiple emailsI sent about whether the campaign has more materials from Ukraine featuring Biden, and neither did White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley.

Election Day is in five months. And the people best positioned to knock down the Russian misinformation apparatus seem most interested instead in propping it up

:{:{}:

===

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/russia-is-still-listening-democrats-take-aim-at-trump-after-report-uncovers-potential-new-election-help-from-the-kremlin/

no lnx

‘Russia is still listening’: Democrats take aim at Trump after report uncovers potential new election help from the Kremlin

Written by Cody Fenwick January 14, 2020

A new report for the New York Times about a Russian hack of the Ukrainian oil company Burisma is giving many a disturbing sense of history repeating itself.

The company, which is at the center of the impeachment of President Donald Trump, was reportedly targeted by Russian military hackers. The Times explained:

…experts say the timing and scale of the attacks suggest that the Russians could be searching for potentially embarrassing material on the Bidens — the same kind of information that Mr. Trump wanted from Ukraine when he pressed for an investigation of the Bidens and Burisma, setting off a chain of events that led to his impeachment.

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter worked on the board of Burisma while his father was in office and conducting diplomacy with Ukraine, which raised concerns about conflicts of interest and influence peddling. However, there’s been no credible allegations or evidence put forward to indicate that the Bidens were engaged in wrongdoing, and the vice president’s efforts to root our corruption in Ukraine may have even cut against the interests of his son’s company. Nevertheless, Trump and other Republicans have tried to turn the matter — which was entirely overlooked until Biden became a formidable 2020 contender — into a massive scandal for the Democratic frontrunner.

Now, it looks like Russia is helping in the effort. This is hardly a wild accusation, given the extensive evidence that Russia intervened in 2016 to get opposition research on Trump’s opponent and to otherwise manipulate the election.

Democrats are casting a critical eye at the Trump administration following the publication of the report, noting that Trump has done far too little to curb Russian election interference and has, in fact, encouraged it.

“We only learned of this hacking through the press,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who is one member of the Gang of Eight that is traditionally kept in the loop on significant intelligence matters. “Congress must be briefed on what the administration knows about this attack and why the president doesn’t have a plan to protect our elections.”

It’s not clear how much the administration knows about the cyberattack, though the Times’ report does indicate that one “American security official” was a source for information about the operation.

“Russia is still listening, Russia is still attacking,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.

He was referencing Trump’s infamous proclamation during the 2016 campaign: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find [Hillary Clinton’s] 30,000 emails that are missing.” According to former Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Russian hackers made their first attempts that same day as Trump’s request to obtain Clinton’s personal emails.

So it seemed that Russia was listening then, and it seems like Russia is following Trump’s lead now by targeting Burisma, the company he is so personally interested in. And he’s made it clear that, if Russia or anyone else wanted to offer him dirt on an election opponent, he would welcome it.

“I think I’d take it,” he told ABC News in June when asked about whether he’d accept opposition research from foreign governments. “I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening.” Though he equivocated, he suggested he might not inform the FBI if presented with such an offer, despite the obvious counterintelligence risks and potential for criminal activity.

“As far as I see it now, knowing that this president in the past, as Special Counsel Mueller said, invited, welcomed, and planned to benefit as a candidate from Russia’s help, if he does not condemn this, I and many other Americans will hold him as complicit in any attack on any candidate that seeks to benefit Donald Trump,” Swalwell told MSNBC.

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/russia-is-still-listening-democrats-take-aim-at-trump-after-report-uncovers-potential-new-election-help-from-the-kremlin/

no lnx

‘Russia is still listening’: Democrats take aim at Trump after report uncovers potential new election help from the Kremlin

Written by Cody Fenwick January 14, 2020

A new report for the New York Times about a Russian hack of the Ukrainian oil company Burisma is giving many a disturbing sense of history repeating itself.

The company, which is at the center of the impeachment of President Donald Trump, was reportedly targeted by Russian military hackers. The Times explained:

“Russia is still listening, Russia is still attacking,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/how-a-right-wing-disinformation-network-keeps-republicans-steeped-in-lies/

no lnx

How a right-wing disinformation network keeps Republicans steeped in lies

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly December 30, 2019

While Democrats continue to wring their hands over the 2020 presidential primary, Donald Trump and his enablers decided a long time ago that the eventual nominee would be Joe Biden. That explains the pressure the president put on Ukraine to announce an investigation into the Bidens, a move that led to his impeachment.

But just as we saw with the attempts to smear Hillary Clinton in 2016, the disinformation campaign about the Bidens will continue unabated in an effort to drive up negative impressions of the former vice president. Nicholas Grosman has documented the origins of one of those campaigns that is underway.

Hunter Biden is currently involved in a paternity suit in Arkansas. The New York Post recently ran an article titled, “Private-eye firm claims Hunter Biden is linked to multiple criminal probes.” Here’s the lead paragraph.

Hunter Biden is the subject of multiple criminal investigations related to “fraud, money laundering and a counterfeiting scheme,” it’s claimed in court documents filed Monday in his Arkansas paternity case.

The documents they are referring to were filed by a Florida-based private-eye firm, D&A Investigations, and were almost immediately dismissed by the judge because they had nothing to do with the paternity case. Nowhere in the documents did D&A name the agencies behind the purported criminal probes of Biden.

Grossman did what the reporters at the New York Post apparently couldn’t be bothered to do: he googled D&A Investigations and found their web site. The home page lists “active investigations.”

D&A opened an independent investigation (Transparency) in August 2016 into Hillary R. Clinton (HRC), Jeffrey Epstein & the Democrat National Committee (DNC) claims of: Russia broke into the DNC.

At the time, William J. Clinton (WJC), HRC, John Podesta, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and John Kerry were in collusion with Rogue Officials in the British Isles, Hong Kong, Iran, Russia, the Ukraine, United States, et al, to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election.

In other words, the firm is dedicated to spreading conspiracy theories—particularly those that originate as Russian propaganda.

Hunter Biden’s attorney, Brent Langdon, responded to the filings by saying that D&A was engaged in “a scheme by a non-party simply to make scandalous allegations in the pending suit to gain some quick media attention.” As confirmation, the charges were never substantiated and were almost immediately dismissed, and yet they’ve caught fire on right wing media.

Two days after the article in the Post, the story showed up on Fox News under the title, “Hunter Biden is subject of criminal probes, says PI firm hinting at more incriminating details.” Other than repeating what had already been reported and using the opportunity to rehash the claims about Burisma, they added that D&A told them “to expect an additional filing soon, and hinted that more incriminating details concerning Hunter Biden’s business dealings would soon come to light.”

The story was then picked up by OAN and made its way to RealClearPolitics. At this point, the title simply reads: “Court Filing Shows Hunter Biden Earned $156 Million From Ukraine Corruption.” We can assume that social media feeds are now inundated with these false claims.

It is worth noting that this attempt to spread disinformation is so blatant that reputable news organizations are simply ignoring it. But as Grossman writes, “to figure out what to do about disinformation, first we need understand how it works.” This case gives us an example of how that happens. Either news organizations like the New York Post, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics are complicit with a firm like D&A Investigations or they aren’t interested in verifying information when it reinforces their biases. As a result, they spread disinformation and lies.

That is how Trump is able to maintain his 40+ percent support in the polls. Republicans have a propaganda network that keeps them steeped in lies. Back in 2016, mainstream media gave credence to those lies about Hillary Clinton in the name of balance.Beyond offering a mea culpa for their complicity, reporters should do their part to expose the propaganda network for what it is. This story would be a good place to start.

---

https://www.mediamatters.org/trump-impeachment-inquiry/far-right-trump-defenders-blast-russia-aligned-ukrainian-lawmakers

as testimony was underway during the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, far-right defenders of the president rapidly spread false and unsubstantiated information in an attempt to bolster a Republican-backed conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden and Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that previously had Biden on its board of directors.

On November 20, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified before the House Intelligence Committee and provided further support for the central premise of the impeachment inquiry. Sondland confirmed that he believed Trump directed an effort to hold up security assistance to Ukraine unless the country announced an investigation into his political adversaries. Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and others close to the president have repeatedly pushed the evidence-free claim that, as vice president, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to fire a prosecutor because that prosecutor was investigating Burisma, where his son worked at the time. (In fact, the prosecutor in question was corrupt, and no Burisma investigation was being carried out at the time when Biden was tasked with advancing the broadly held Western foreign policy goal of pressuring Ukraine to fire the prosecutor.)

While the hearing was underway, conspiracy theory website ZeroHedge published an article claiming that Burisma founder Nikolai Zlochevsky had been indicted by Ukraine’s prosecutor general, and that evidence indicated that Hunter Biden and other Burisma board members had received money embezzled by Burisma from Ukrainian citizens.NBC News reported that the claims in the ZeroHedge article were “incorrect,” as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky has not been indicted, but that “didn’t stop allies of President Donald Trump from widely disseminating the false account of an indictment, seizing on some truthful elements while wildly extrapolating others.” According to a report from Reuters, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Ruslan Ryaboshapka, did announce on November 20 an escalation into his investigation of Zlochevsky to include suspicion of embezzlement, but he “did not provide evidence or details” or mention Biden. Reuters added that the investigation is “is effectively on hold” because “the Ukrainian authorities cannot determine Zlochevsky’s whereabouts.”

According to NBC News, the claim that Burisma’s founder had been indicted was shared by tens of thousands of users on Twitter during the first hour after it was published. Social media analysis tool CrowdTangle showed that by the morning of November 21, the ZeroHedge story had been shared on Facebook pages with a total of nearly 5.5 million followers. The story also began to trend on Reddit’s toxic “r/The_Donald” subreddit. In particular, the story was initially popularized on Twitter by an account purporting to be a news organization, @BreakingNLive, that was suspended from the platform later in the day.

The false story reached Trump’s inner circle on Twitter, with Donald Trump Jr. liking a tweet promoting the ZeroHedge article sent by Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec. (Posobiec appears to have subsequently deleted the tweet.) On YouTube, the indictment claim is being promoted by Red Pill News, a channel verified by YouTube that has 176,000 subscribers, and a channel belonging to far-right congressional candidate Joey Saladino, which has 252,000 subscribers.

Beyond Posobiec, the ZeroHedge claims were pushed on social media by other prominent far-right conspiracy theorists including Jerome Corsi, Bill Mitchell, and cartoonist Ben Garrison. Proponents of the far-right pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory were also behind the social media push. As NBC News reported, “One minute before the ZeroHedge article was published, the anonymous account that inspired the QAnon conspiracy theory — generally known as 'Q' — linked to the same” article that formed the basis of the claims promoted at ZeroHedge. Major QAnon accounts, including @Jordan_Sather_ and @EyesOnQ subsequently promoted the ZeroHedge article. NBC’s Ben Collins reported that “Q” later made a post complaining about the suspension of @BreakingNLive.

Beyond social media, the claims first popularized by ZeroHedge were also featured on disreputable right-wing conspiracy theory websites Infowars and The Gateway Pundit as well as smaller such platforms including The Federalist Papers, WayneDupree.com, [your]News, The Daily Coin, and MAGA Daily Report. (Hannity and Fox “straight news” program Fox News @ Night later covered the Reuters report as well, while featuring pictures and a discussion of Hunter Biden.)

The source of ZeroHedge’s story appears to be an article from Interfax-Ukraine that repeated unsubstantiated claims about illegal payments from Burisma to Biden made by Ukrainian Members of ParliamentAndriy Derkach and Oleksandr Dubinsky at a press conference they held at the news agency, where they did not offer evidence to back their claims. Interfax-Ukraine’s parent company is a Russian business, Interfax, that was recently praised by Vladmir Putin as making “a major contribution to strengthening the authority and prestige of journalism.” Derkach’s claim about the payments isn’t new. As Time reported, in recent months Derkach has repeatedly made public statements alleging improper payments from Burisma to Biden. Those statements failed to catch on in the way the statements made at the press conference on Wednesday did. Other Ukrainian lawmakers have accused Derkach -- who does not belong to a political party and, according to Time, “studied in the early 1990s at Russia’s top intelligence academy” -- of advancing the interests of Russia, which is currently waging a war against Ukraine. According to Kyiv Post, Derkach has made separate accusations about Biden receiving improper payments in an offshore account while providing “no evidence to support these accusations.” According to Ukraine experts interviewed by NBC News, Derkach and Dubinsky are “not credible” and likely held the press conference to boost Trump.

---

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/new-trove-of-ukraine-docs-exposes-clear-paper-trail-from-rudy-giuliani-to-the-oval-office-to-secretary-pompeo

no lnx

New trove of Ukraine docs exposes ‘clear paper trail from Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office to Secretary Pompeo’

Written by Jake Johnson / Common Dreams November 24, 2019

A trove of State Department documents obtained late Friday by watchdog group American Oversight provided new details on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s involvement in the White House effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate President Donald Trump’s political rivals.

The documents, which the State Department turned over in compliance with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, showed that Pompeo spoke to Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani by phone at least twice earlier this year as Giuliani was pressing Ukraine to probe former Vice President Joe Biden. At least one of the calls was arranged by Trump assistant Madeleine Westerhout, the documents showed.

Giuliani in March was also orchestrating a smear campaign against former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who Trump removed from her post in May.

In April, following his calls with Giuliani, Pompeo also called Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who has been implicated in the effort to dig up dirt on Biden.

American Oversight

@weareoversight

Nov 23, 2019

Replying to @weareoversight

This was just the first production of documents from our first lawsuit seeking the public release of Trump administration Ukraine records. There will be more.

We also have active lawsuits for records from Perry, Mulvaney, Sondland, DOD, and more. https://www.americanoversight.org/investigation/the-trump-administrations-contacts-with-ukraine …

The Trump Administration’s Contacts with Ukraine - American Oversight

American Oversight is investigating the extent of the administration’s troubling efforts to coerce a foreign government into helping to attack the president’s perceived political enemies.

americanoversight.org

American Oversight

@weareoversight

We can see why Secretary Pompeo refused to release these documents to Congress: the paper trail connects him to Giuliani, showing a March 2019 call right before a call to Rep. Nunes. https://www.americanoversight.org/state-department-releases-ukraine-documents-to-american-oversight …

View image on Twitter

Pompeo, who admitted last month that he was on the July 25 call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, has refused to cooperate with the House impeachment inquiry into Trump.

Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, said the newly released documents shed light on the reasons behind Pompeo’s reluctance to testify or hand over information requested by impeachment investigators.

“We can see why Mike Pompeo has refused to release this information to Congress,” Evers said in a statement. “It reveals a clear paper trail from Rudy Giuliani to the Oval Office to Secretary Pompeo to facilitate Giuliani’s smear campaign against a U.S. ambassador.”

“The evidence is only going to get worse for the administration as its stonewall strategy collapses in the face of court orders,” added Evers. “That American Oversight could obtain these documents establishes that there is no legal basis for the administration to withhold them from Congress. That conclusively shows that the administration is engaged in obstruction of justice.”

In an interview with the New York Times last month, Giuliani acknowledged that he spoke with Pompeo about Ukraine in late March.

As the Times reported late Saturday:

In connection with one such conversation, Mr. Giuliani said he provided Mr. Pompeo a timeline listing what he considered to be key events implicating targets of Mr. Trump, including theBidens, Ms. Yovanovitch and Ukrainians whom Mr. Giuliani said had disseminated damaging information about Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

Shortly after, Mr. Pompeo “called and said, ‘Do you have any backup?'” Mr. Giuliani said in the interview.

In response, Mr. Giuliani said, he had someone hand-deliver to Mr. Pompeo’s office an envelope containing a series of memos detailing claims made by a pair of Ukrainian prosecutors in interviews conducted by Mr. Giuliani and his associates in January.

The State Department documents come just days after U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland testified before the House Intelligence Committee that “everyone was in the loop” on Trump’s effort to press Ukraine for an investigation into Biden.

In an interview on MSNBC Saturday, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, said the American Oversight documents confirm Sondland’s testimony.

“These documents show that Giuliani was not freelancing, that he was essentially talking to Secretary Pompeo,” said Lieu. “Everybody was on the same page.”

PoliticusUSA

@politicususa

Rep. @tedlieu says newly released State Department documents show that "everybody was on the same page" regarding Trump's extortion scheme. #ctl #p2

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/a-gop-picked-witness-just-buried-republicans-bogus-conspiracy-theories-about-joe-biden

no lnx

A GOP-picked witness just buried Republicans’ bogus conspiracy theories about Joe Biden

Written by Cody Fenwick November 19, 2019

Throughout the impeachment proceedings into President Donald Trump, Republicans have tried to distract from the central allegations by casting aspersions and floating conspiracy theories about Vice President Joe Biden.

But on Tuesday, one of the key witnesses that the Republicans themselves requested to appear in the public hearings dramatically undercut their efforts to smear Biden.

Former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, one of the key people in the Trump administration’s efforts to induce the country to announced investigations into the president’s political rivals, dismissed the allegations against Biden. He said that, while he was involved in the push to get Ukraine to announce in the investigation into Burisma — the oil company where Biden’s son Hunter served on the board — he did not at the time link the company to the former vice president. He said that, in retrospect, he should have realized that there was a connection. Had he realized the connection, he said, “I would have raised my own objections.”

He also emphasized that the investigation of the Bidens would have been “unacceptable” and baseless.

“I have known Vice President Biden for 24 years,” Volker said. “He is an honorable man and I hold him in the highest regard.”

“The allegations against Joe Biden are self-serving and not credible,” he added.

He said the concerns Republicans — and particularly Rudy Giuliani — have raised about the former vice president and his son Hunter Biden, that the father somehow used his office to protect his son, were “conspiracy theories, circulated by the Ukrainians.”

Watch the clip below:

Aaron Rupar

@atrupar

Replying to @atrupar

Volker portrays Sondland and Giuliani -- but not himself -- as the ones who were interested in leveraging Ukraine to investigate the Bidens

"I have known Vice President Biden for 24 years. He is an honorable man and I hold him in the highest regard."

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no lnx

How the firing of Marie Yovanovitch exposed a second layer to Trump’s Ukraine racket

PBS NewsHour

Written by Nancy LeTourneau / Washington Monthly November 15, 2019

Republicans have made a big deal out of the fact that a president has the right to fire an ambassador. During her testimony on Friday, Marie Yovanovitch agreed. She said,”I have always understood that I served at the pleasure of the President.” The issue under review is not the fact that Trump fired Yovanovitch. Rather, it is the reason he did so. As Yovanovitch’s testimony made clear, she became an obstacle to the president’s attempt to exploit corruption in Ukraine.

Here is how Yovanovitch described the situation in Ukraine.

It was— and remains—a top U.S. priority to help Ukraine fight corruption. Significant progress has been made since the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. Unfortunately, as the past couple of months have underlined, not all Ukrainians embraced our anti-corruption work. Thus, perhaps, it was not surprising, that when our anti-corruption efforts got in the way of a desire for profit or power, Ukrainians who preferred to play by the old, corrupt rules sought to remove me. What continues to amaze me is that they found Americans willing to partner with them and, working together, they apparently succeeded in orchestrating the removal of a U.S. Ambassador.

As George Kent said during Wednesday’s hearing, “You can’t promote principled anti-corruption action without pissing off corrupt people.” It’s clear that Ambassador Yovanovitch pissed off some corrupt people and they launched a smear campaign in order to get her fired.

We know that on the Ukrainian end, those people included two corrupt former prosecutors Viktor Shokin and Yuriy Lutsenko. It appears that the role of Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman was to connect people like that to Rudy Giuliani, as well as reporters like John Solomon. That’s the nexus between Yovanovitch and Trump’s attempt to bribe the Ukrainian government in order to get dirt on his political opponent. There were actually three groups of actors in this drama.

Trump wanted dirt on Joe Biden, as well as affirmation of his conspiracy theory about Ukraine interfering in the 2016 election to help Clinton.

Zelensky wanted U.S. support, both in the form of a White House meeting and military aid.

Corrupt Ukranians wanted to upend the anti-corruption efforts of career professionals like Yovanovitch.

The Ukrainians fed dirt on Yovanovitch to both Giuliani and Solomon, which eventually got her fired. At the same time, they dished out lies about the Bidens and the 2016 election, which Giuliani took back to Trump and Solomon published in his articles. Trump used those lies to pressure Zelensky into making a public statement about opening investigations into the Bidens and the 2016 election—holding out a White House meeting and military aid as the payoff. Everyone was going to get what they wanted, until the whistleblower exposed the whole racket.

That is why I nearly jumped out of my seat on Wednesday when Representative Jim Himes said that “President Trump wasn’t trying to end corruption in Ukraine, I think he was trying to aim corruption in Ukraine at Vice-President Biden and at the 2020 election.” There were actually two quid pro quos that were part of this whole deal. In addition to the one Trump was using against Zelensky, the corrupt prosecutors were willing to dish up dirt on the president’s political opponents in exchange for an end to U.S. anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.

This is where Bill Taylor’s testimony about the two diplomatic channels that were at work in Ukraine—the regular and the irregular—comes into play. Amidst their efforts to get dirt on Trump’s political opponents, the irregular channel, led by Rudy Giuliani, was working to undermine the anti-corruption efforts of the regular channel. The smears against Yovanovich and her eventual firing were part of that effort.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/why-is-the-media-cheering-trump-for-his-campaign-of-lies/

no lnx

Why is the media cheering Trump for his campaign of lies?

Written by Eric Boehlert / Daily Kos November 4, 2019

It’s gone from bad to worse: After spending years refusing to call Donald Trump a liar, the press is now toasting his reelection campaign, which is built on lies.

“That campaigns are now being fought largely online is hardly a revelation, yet only one political party seems to have gotten the message,” The New York Times recently reported in a major story on Trump’s reelection run. “While the Trump campaign has put its digital operation firmly at the center of the president’s re-election effort, Democrats are struggling to internalize the lessons of the 2016 race and adapt to a political landscape shaped by social media.” The message the Times presented was unmistakable: Trump’s reelection campaign is trouncing Democrats online. (Trump had gotten “the message.”) Separately, the Times in another piece announced, “The technical superiority and sophistication of the president’s digital campaign is a hidden advantage of incumbency.”

What did the Times almost completely ignore in its flattering reports about Trump’s “web operation”? His reelection campaign is built around spreading lies online. Somehow, that unprecedented presidential campaign strategy wasn’t considered to be the newsworthy one.

“His 2020 campaign, flush with cash, is poised to dominate online again, according to experts on both ends of the political spectrum, independent researchers and tech executives,” the newspaper reported. That was the key angle. Also, Trump isn’t necessarily pushing lies online. Instead, he’s creating “emotionally charged content” and “provocative ads” featuring “divisive themes” and touting an “angry partisan approach,” the paper reported.

If a Democratic candidate such as Joe Biden unleashed a torrent of fabricated and outlandish claims via Facebook campaign ads, it’s highly doubtful that the Times would marvel at how savvy Biden was being and how he was outsmarting Republicans with a digital strategy that relied on constant bouts of purposeful misinformation. Instead, Biden’s constant lies would be the Times’ obvious area of focus. And the brazen untruths wouldn’t be gently referred to as “provocative content.”

Yet with the Trump coverage, the fact that his campaign is wallowing in aggressive misinformation isn’t presented as the most newsworthy element. Instead, Trump’s lies are depicted as being part of a formidable, winning online formula that has desperate, overwhelmed Democrats trying to catch up.

“The campaign under Mr. [Brad] Parscale is focused on pushing its product—Mr. Trump—by churning out targeted ads, aggressively testing the content and collecting data to further refine its messages,” the Times marveled.

At least a recent Washington Post report gently noted so many of Trump’s online ads aren’t true:“Some of the ads accused the freshman [Democratic] lawmakers of making “pro-terrorist remarks,” which they have not done.” But that salient fact garnered just a passing mention.

When the press touts his online reelection campaign as a masterful stroke of marketing and largely ignores the fact that it’s built on a mountain of falsehoods, this all amounts to another way that Trump’s signature lies get normalized. Has the press become so numb to Trump’s torrent of untruths that news outlets are prepared to shrug their collective shoulders when blatant lies emerge as the driving force of a U.S. presidential campaign? That’s stunning, considering that just a few years ago the same news outlets manned fact-checking teams to put campaign ads under a microscope in search of misleading information.

It’s the same type of normalizing Facebook now does when it throws up its hands and says politicians in the Trump era are allowed to lie in their ads, knowing full well there’s only one party that traffics in lies incessantly: the Republican Party.

One Trump ad clearly has been labeled false by the press, in part because it became the centerpiece of a campaign battle over Facebook’s porous policy retarding the truth. The clip from the Trump campaign erroneously claimed that Joe Biden offered the Ukraine government $1 billion in U.S. aid if it stopped an investigation into a company tied to his son.The preposterous claims had already been debunked, and CNN refused to play the ad. But Facebook rejected the Biden campaign’s demand the ad be taken down. The lie-riddled Trump video has been viewed well over 5 million times.

Meanwhile, also being quietly set aside by the press in its mostly positive reporting on Trump’s online reelection machinery is the fact there’s no proof yet that any of it is working. For instance, the Times noted that in an attempt to change the narrative, the GOP campaign quickly spent more than $10 million in the wake of Democrats launching the impeachment inquiry one month ago. “The biggest political crisis of Trump’s presidency is translated into an “impeachment defense task force” to fire up supporters and tap their wallets,” the paper reported, clearly impressed. (Trump’s impeachment-related ads have been viewed tens of millions of times on Facebook.) Because spending more money automatically means success, apparently.

Yet since that time, the percentage of Americans in favor of impeachment and of removing Trump from office has only increased. Overall, there’s been no improvement in Trump’s reelection chances since his campaign started spending tens of millions of dollars on Facebook ads. Doesn’t that suggest Trump’s team is flushing away a lot of money online? Doesn’t that suggest the Trump campaign might not be so savvy and that Democrats might not actually be in disarray?

Recently, Axios touted the fact that online, “Trump attracted three times the attention of all the Democratic candidates combined, underscoring how he consumes the social media conversation.” But again, there’s no evidence that people talking online about Trump more often than they’re talking about Democratic candidates means good news for him, since it’s obvious that lots of people online hate Trump and that’s why they talk about him.

Trump’s online reelection campaign is unlike any in American history, simply because it’s willfully detached from facts and the truth. It’s stunning that the Beltway press looks at something that reckless and labels it super savvy.

Eric Boehlert is a veteran progressive writer and media analyst, formerly with Media Matters and Salon. He is the author of Lapdogs: How the Press Rolled Over for Bush and Bloggers on the Bus. You can follow him on Twitter @EricBoehlert.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/sean-hannity-denies-discussing-ambassador-with-pompeo-after-testimony-release/

no lnx

Sean Hannity denies discussing ambassador with Pompeo after testimony release

Written by Matthew Rozsa / Salon November 6, 2019

Fox News host Sean Hannity denied ever speaking with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about alleged efforts by conservative news outlets to smear a former American ambassador to Ukraine perceived as unsympathetic to the goal of soliciting dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden.

Claiming that he had been in contact with Pompeo, Hannity decried the diplomat’s testimony as “fake news,” which had been “obsessively, compulsively reported on fake news CNN and other outlets.”

“The ambassador was barely ever mentioned on our show,” Hannity said Monday evening on his primetime program. “We went back and looked. I don’t know anything about this woman, to be honest. Her name came up a few times on the show. She was an Obama holdover. I did ask one question about a news report — if she was involved in something. It was a question. We do news here.”

He repeated, “I never talked to Secretary Pompeo about Ukraine. I never talked to anyone at the State Department about this ambassador. Sorry to burst your fake news bubble.”

Hannity then insisted that the real story was the “obvious Biden family corruption” in Ukraine.

The Fox News host expressed similar thoughts on Twitter on Monday, writing: “Breaking fake news! Never ever talked to Secy Pompeo about Ukraine PERIOD! Fake News CNN trying to boost their ratings by showing me. Biased Zucker needs to start paying me.”

In the transcript of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch’s testimony before Congress last month, the former State Department official was asked whether Pompeo had made any attempts to defend her as she was being attacked by the president’s layer, Rudy Giuliani, and his son, Don Jr.

“What I was told by Phil Reeker was that the secretary or perhaps somebody around him was going to place a call to Mr. Hannity on Fox News to say, ‘You know, what is going on? I mean, do you have proof of these kinds of allegations or not? And if you have proof, you know, telI me, and if not, stop,’” Yovanovitch told Congress.

She added, “And I understand that that call was made. I don’t know whether it was the secretary or somebody else in his inner circle. And for a time, you know, things kind of simmered down.”

Despite Hannity insisting otherwise, there is no evidence that Biden committed any wrongdoing in his dealings with Ukraine. Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was removed from power because groups such as the European Union, the International Monetary Fund and the Obama administration government felt he was not doing enough to root out corruption in the country.

A whistleblower complaint alleging that Trump had attempted to solicit Ukraine to provide him with dirt on Biden in exchange for military aid triggered an impeachment inquiry.

Matthew Rozsa is a breaking news writer for Salon. He holds an MA in History from Rutgers University-Newark and is ABD in his PhD program in History at Lehigh University. His work has appeared in Mic, Quartz and MSNBC.

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fox bs

bossie has no lnx to back up any of this (link to solomon artl]

no lnx

Bossie: The media need to investigate Joe Biden and his Ukraine dealings

David N. Bossie By David N. Bossie | Fox News

Are media going easy on Biden?

For the past 12 days, the political media has been focused on “handsy” and “creepy” former Vice President Joe Biden and his penchant for making unwanted contact with women seemingly wherever he is. While these allegations deserve their fair share of attention, the mainstream media may be missing -- or more likely ignoring -- the real Biden story that’s staring them in the face.

When I served as the chief investigator for the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight during the Clinton Administration, I regularly worked with journalists on investigations they were covering for weeks and even months. But 20 years later, those types of stories are few and far between.

BIDEN FACES SCRUTINY FOR DEMANDING OUTSTER OF UKRAINE OFFICIAL PROBING FIRM THAT EMPLOYED HIS SON

That being said, the media must do a deep-dive into Joe Biden and his family’s relationship with Ukraine, like the recent reports byaward-winning journalist John Solomon in his column at The Hill.

The biased media’s refusal to cover the Biden-Ukraine story to date is shameful. President Trump never receives such favorable treatment. In fact, the vast majority of liberal journalists out there today hate President Trump and cover him and his administration with a presumption of guilt.

When it comes to the Biden’s and Ukraine, there’s an awful lot of smoke. Among other things, Solomon is reporting that in 2016 during his tenure as Barack Obama’s Vice President, Biden threatened to pull $1 billion dollars in loans to Ukraine if its President Petro Poroshenko didn’t fire the country’s prosecutor general.

The catch? The prosecutor was allegedly knee-deep in a corruption probe of Burisma Holdings, a firm that featured Biden’s son Hunter as a board member.

Biden got his way and the blowhard former vice president even publicly bragged about the firing.A top official from the Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office confirmed to Solomon that they are currently investigating these troubling allegations.

As it turns out, Hunter Biden’s firm in America (Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC) was allegedly receiving six figures a month from Burisma and according to Solomon, the fired prosecutor told him that he was planning to question Hunter Biden and other Burisma board members before he was relieved of duty.

[pix]

Solomon links to court records indicating that over an 18-month period in 2014- 2015 “more than $3 million was paid out of Burisma accounts to an account linked to Biden’s … Rosemont Seneca firm.” This was happening at the same time that Joe Biden was running point for the Obama Administration on matters involving Ukraine.

Using high office to enrich oneself or family members is textbook corruption. It’s an example of crony capitalism at its worst; and it appears Joe Biden was alledgedlyinvolved in a big dose of it in Ukraine.

Citizens United has been working to uncover corruption in our government using Freedom of Information Act litigation against the State Department for years.Last month we filed suit in federal court to try and shed light on the overseas business activities of Hunter Biden and some of his associates after one year of State Department recalcitrance.

Some of the serious allegations involving the Biden’s and Ukraine were first uncovered by Peter Schweizer in his book “Secret Empires.” Once you learn about Hunter Biden’s business associations in Ukraine, it’s quite fitting that Joe Biden made his last foreign trip as Vice President there in January 2017.

According to Schweizer, “Four days before Biden arrived, Burisma made a dramatic announcement: the Ukrainian criminal investigations into the company and its founder had been ended by Ukrainian government prosecutors.”

If Biden were a Republican like President Trump, the mainstream mediawould be digging into these allegations in hopes of destroying him politically. But Biden is a Democratic ally and presidential frontrunner, so the liberal media has taken a pass on Ol’ Joe’s alleged Ukrainian mess so far.

During his visit to Ukraine in January of 2017, Biden made remarks about corruption in Ukraine that haven’t aged very well, knowing what we now know. Biden told Ukrainians to " ... keep demonstrating your commitment to the rule of law; keep fighting corruption; insist on transparency; investigate and prosecute government officials who siphon off public funds for their own enrichment.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

It’s time for former Vice President Biden to answer questions about the real story. There’s a lot we still don’t know about what happened in Ukraine.

David N. Bossie is president of Citizens United, a Fox News contributor, the 2016 deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump for President, and the former chief investigator for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform and Oversight during the Clinton administration. He is the co-author of "Let Trump Be Trump" and “Trump’s Enemies.”

https://www.axios.com/david-bossie-presidential-coalition-ceases-fundraising-721dde4b-42da-4cba-bbe9-2d917b367039.html

[graf]

former Trump campaign deputy manager David Bossie, who Axios recently exposed as milking donors by flaunting President Trump’s name, is trying to repair and revive his controversial fundraising operation.

The bottom line: Bossie suspended fundraising after Axios revealed that very little of the money he was raising was going to political campaigns. Trump was livid, forcing the Bossie retreat. Now, Bossie tells us he is making several changes — presumably to get back into Trump’s good graces and back into the fundraising business.

The impact: Bossie directed his political group, the Presidential Coalition, to cease all fundraising on May 7, 2 days after Axios published the findings of its investigation, done in collaboration with the Campaign Legal Center (CLC).

That's in part thanks to the president, who personally authorized the Trump campaign to issue a blistering statement, without naming Bossie, condemning "any organization that deceptively uses the president's name, likeness, trademarks, or branding and confuses voters," in the wake of our story.
"The president was pissed," a Trump campaign official told Axios. "He doesn’t like the idea that his supporters would be tricked into donating to things they thought were the campaign ... and he doesn’t like it when people benefit from using his name, especially financially."

The fallout: Bossie told Axios that the group is "currently redesigning our fundraising programs, because of my longstanding relationship with the president and because of my desire to only help the president and the administration."

The Presidential Coalition will no longer reference "The Trump Coalition" in its mailers and fundraising materials, Bossie said. He claims they were going to stop using that language after 2019 anyway, "due to the regulatory regime."
The group will also be far more clear that the Presidential Coalition is an affiliate of Citizens United: "We will print it in our mailers and on the envelopes to be even more transparent," Bossie said.
Despite these changes, Bossie still claims that he doesn't think "there was anything whatsoever that was done outside of the appropriate fundraising avenues."
Read Bossie's full response.

By the numbers: The Presidential Coalition's average daily contributions plunged from over $20,000 per day in early May to under $2,000 per day by the end of June, according to a new Axios/CLC analysis of the organization's latest IRS filing from the first half of 2019.

Worth noting: The majority of donations made to the Presidential Coalition (62%) in the first half of 2019 came from unitemized, small donors who gave less than $200 in a year — similar to the contributions from previous years. The dates of those small-donor contributions are not known, given IRS regulations.

The state of play: Despite the backlash it faced, the Presidential Coalition is still spending just a small percentage of its money on direct political activity, though the percentage is higher than that of 2017 and 2018:

The group spent $5.9 million in the first half of 2019, but devoted just $148,100 (or 2.5%) of its overall spending on political contributions. Another $325,000 was spent on "digital ad buys" that correspond to a July pro-Trump digital ad campaign, according to CLC's analysis.
Taken together, the Presidential Coalition dedicated nearly 8% of overall spending to direct political activity, up from 3% in 2017 and 2018.
As before, most of the Presidential Coalition's spending went toward more fundraising, as well as rent and payroll.
What to watch: Bossie said his group has also been building up a $4.3 million war chest, and that starting after Labor Day, the Presidential Coalition will spend $3 million — or $1 million per month — over September, October and November on ads supporting the president and state and local candidates.

Worth noting: Bossie, a Fox News contributor, was totally absent on the network for nearly 3 months after our story ran. However, he did appear on the network again on July 31 to defend Trump after his tweets attacking Baltimore Rep. Elijah Cummings. A Fox News spokesperson told Axios that Bossie is still a contributor.

The Trump campaign told Axios that it stands by its May statement.

Go deeper:

DAVID BOSSIE

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