Recently, we discussed how House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff stated publicly that the recently disclosed laptop information from Hunter Biden was clearly part of a Russian intelligence operation. Schiff said that “we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin.” This morning, John Ratcliffe, Director of National Intelligence, stated categorically that Hunter Biden’s laptop was not part of a Russian disinformation campaign. What is most notable is that Ratcliffe has stated that Schiff and his Committee have not been given any intelligence to support Schiff’s conclusion. The incident has raised lingering criticism of Schiff who previously told the public that he had clear evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia after that allegation was rejected in repeated investigations, including Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Schiff never produced the incriminating evidence and later it was shown that the widely cited Steele dossier was based on a source who was considered to be a Russian agent.
There is ample reason to suspicious about the timing of this disclosure. However, I have written that this serious concern is separate from the question of whether the emails are fabricated. The Biden campaign has not given the most obvious responses to such a scandal. It is important to keep in mind that Hillary Clinton and the DNC were actually hacked by Russian intelligence but the underlying emails were true.
Schiff now finds himself, again, in the position of supporting a claim of evidence of Russian collusion. He will have to show that this laptop discovery was engineered by Russian intelligence. If the owner is speaking the truth, the computer was dropped off in April 2019 with the intent to be used in the 2020 campaign.
Ratcliffe stated in an interview that
“it’s funny that some of the people that complained the most about intelligence being politicized are the ones politicizing intelligence and unfortunately in this case, it is Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who as you pointed out on Friday said that the intelligence community believes that Hunter Biden’s laptop and e-mails on it are part of some Russian disinformation campaign. Let me be clear, the intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports and we shared no intelligence with chairman Schiff or any other member of Congress that Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign. It’s simply not true.”
Ratcliffe accused Schiff of politicizing intelligence and stated “Don’t drag the intelligence community into this. Hunter Biden’s laptop is not part of some Russian disinformation campaign and I think it’s clear the American people know that.”
Schiff should explain the basis for his conclusion that this is part of a Russian disinformation campaign. Someone is clearly misrepresenting the intelligence and the public should know the basis for these irreconcilable statements.
https://www.justsecurity.org/69094/timeline-on-jared-kushner-qatar-666-fifth-avenue-and-white-house-policy/
“January 2007: Kushner Companies purchases 666 Fifth Avenue for record price on eve of financial crisis
The Kushner Companies purchases, at Jared Kushner’s urging, 666 Fifth Avenue, an office tower in Midtown Manhattan, for $1.8 billion at the height of the real estate market. They invest $500 million, and cover the remaining amount with debt. Even before the financial crisis hits, there are signs that they paid too high a price and took on too much debt for the purchase. It was, at the time, the highest purchase price ever paid for a New York office tower.
2007 – 2008: Global financial crisis and early troubles for 666 Fifth Avenue
As the global financial crisis unfolds, Citigroup announces in December 2007 that it will not renew its lease on about 75,000 square feet of space in 666 Fifth Avenue. In 2008, the Kushners sell a 49 percent stake in the building’s retail space to the Carlyle Group and Crown Acquisitions for $525 million, using part of the proceeds to cover debt on the building.
2010: Kushners’ financial troubles with 666 Fifth Avenue
Kushner Companies’ $1.2 billion loan on 666 Fifth Avenue is transferred to a special servicer to try to restructure the debt after the Kushners reported difficulties in paying the loan. The building is appraised at $820 million, less than half of what the Kushners paid for it in 2007 and less than the debt they owe to banks……..
…….From early 2017 onward: Kushner-MBS private communications
Since the early months of the administration, senior officials were worried about Jared Kushner’s having private, informal conversations with Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a practice he continued even after Chief of Staff John Kelly imposed new protocols, according to the New York Times (December 2018 report). “The private exchanges could make him susceptible to Saudi manipulation, said three former senior American officials,” according to the Times. “There was a risk the Saudis were playing him,” one former White House official said. Intelligence briefers told Kelly that virtually all of the conversations that U.S. officials had with the Saudis on sensitive policy matter had been between Kushner and MBS, according to the Washington Post. “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser H.R. McMaster expressed early concern that Kushner was freelancing U.S. foreign policy. … McMaster was concerned there were no official records kept of what was said on the calls,” the Post reported. McMaster also “learned that Kushner had contacts with foreign officials that he did not coordinate through the National Security Council or officially report,” according to another Post report.
[Note: See entries on December 2017, February 2018, and May 2018 concerning Kushner’s security clearances.]
March 2017: The Kushners negotiate with Chinese financers
After financial talks between the Kushners and the Chinese conglomerate Anbang Insurance Group, which has close ties to the Chinese government, become public, Democratic lawmakers raise concerns to the White House Counsel and Treasury Secretary that a deal could violate federal ethics regulations. Several days later, negotiations end without a deal to finance the building.
April 2017: The Kushners directly approach Qatari government for financing
Charles Kushner and associates meet with Qatari Finance Minister Sharif Al Emadi and aides in New York to seek investment in 666 Fifth Avenue from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. No deal is reached.
Following a report by The Intercept on March 2, 2018 on the meeting, a spokeswoman for Kushner Companies, Chris Taylor, denied that such negotiations occured, stating: “To be clear, we did not meet with anyone from the Qatari government to solicit sovereign funds for any of our projects […] To suggest otherwise is inaccurate and false” (Newsweek, March 2, 2018)
Two weeks later, Kushner Companies acknowledged the meeting. Charles Kushner told the Washington Post that he refused the proposal to avoid a conflict of interest for his son.
Note: In his interview with the Washington Post, Charles Kushner also referred to not taking funds directly from Qatar specifically through a sovereign wealth fund. He told the Post: “Before the meeting, Kushner Companies had decided that it was not going to accept sovereign wealth fund investments. We informed the Qatar representatives of our decision and they agreed. Even if they were there ready to wire the money, we would not have taken it.” The Post reports that, on the contrary, according to Tom Barrack, Charles Kushner was “crushed” when the earlier deal with Qatar on 666 Fifth Avenue fell through during the presidential transition.
Charles Kushner later told CNN that he accepted the invitation to the meeting only “out of respect” for the Qataris and to tell them there was no way “we could do business.” He also said taking the meeting was “stupid,” given how it might be perceived publicly. (CNN, April 25, 2018).
Dexter Filkins reported that Charles Kushner’s explanation was false, according to a financial analyst with knowledge of the meeting:
Kushner pitched a huge renovation of the property, which included bringing in retail stores and converting offices to residences, and hosted a follow-up meeting the next day at 666 Fifth Avenue. “He asked for just under a billion dollars,” [the financial analyst] told me. The Qataris declined, citing dubious business logic. “They could have bought the building—believe me, they have the money,” the analyst said. “They just didn’t think it would ever pay off.” The analyst worried that refusing the deal had a political cost. “Here’s a question for you: If they had given Kushner the money, would there have been a blockade? I don’t think so.”
CNN’s Vicky Ward corroborated Filkins’ account citing a person who was in the meeting.
May 20, 2017: Kushner’s “Shadow” Meeting Prior to Blockade of Qatar
President Trump makes his first foreign trip to Saudi Arabia, including in the delegation Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Jared Kushner, and Steve Bannon. During the trip, Kushner and Bannon meet for a private dinner with top leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who lay out their plan to impose a blockade on Qatar. Secretary Rex Tillerson is neither present for the meeting, nor informed of the meeting. He never learns of the meeting during his time in office (he departed in March 2018). After leaving office, Tillerson testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee and says it makes him “angry” to learn of Kushner’s meeting:
Q: A couple of weeks later on May 20th, 2017, you were in Riyadh with the President in advance of the Middle East summit. And you again gave public remarks with the Saudi Foreign Minister. […]
So that same night as we understand it, so on or about May 20th, 2017, there was apparently a private dinner that was hosted between Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, and the rulers of Saudi Arabia and UAE, respectively. Were you aware of that dinner?
A: No.
[…]
Q: Okay. What’s your reaction to a meeting of that sort having taken place without your knowledge?
A: It makes me angry.
Q: Why is that?
A: Because I didn’t have a say. The State Department’s views were never expressed.
– Tillerson Interview Transcript (May 21, 2019), p. 84-85.
A White House spokesperson, Hogan Gidley issues a denial saying, “Jared consistently follows proper protocols” with the National Security Council and State Department, the “alleged ‘dinner’ to supposedly discuss the blockade never happened,” and no one in the White House was “involved in the blockade.”
June 1, 2017: Congressional concerns raised about Kushner’s links to EB-5 visas for Kushner Companies including for 666 Fifth Avenue
On June 1, 2017, Democratic members of the House and Senate Judiciary Committees write to the Kushner Companies, seeking answers on their use of EB-5 foreign investor visas “especially in light of Jared Kushner’s role in the Trump administration and the potential for conflicts of interest” and that the Kushner Companies “may be seeking to benefit from the Kushner family’s connections to the White House.”
June 5, 2017: Blockade of Qatar begins
Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt and Bahrain sever diplomatic and economic relations with Qatar. They accuse Qatar of financing terrorism, supporting Islamist groups, and undermining efforts to isolate Iran. They impose a land, sea, and air blockade on Qatar.
Secretary of State Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis are both caught by surprise by the blockade, according to Tillerson’s testimony before Congress (p. 92). Tillerson and Mattis both publicly call for calm to deescalate the situation. (See also Dexter Filkins’ reporting.)
In a shock to Qatar, Trump initially expresses support for the blockade, in contradiction to the official U.S. government position of neutrality.
Kushner supported the blockade, according to Tillerson’s testimony. “He was more of a view that he thought the blockading countries had, you know, had good reason to do what they were doing,” Tillerson says. Similarly, CNN’s Vicky Ward reports in her book Kushner, Inc.:
Another Tillerson aide told me, “The Saudis would not have risked moving forward without permission from somebody. Now, if you … get a phone call that says, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about doing this,’ you might not have the experience and the capability and the maturity to know how hard to push back. Part of the issue is if you put yourself in as the point of contact and you’re not actually capable of being the point of contact.” This person concluded, “That person must have been Jared.” Until now, Kushner’s dalliances in world affairs had been ethically questionable. With Qatar, Tillerson believed they had become alarming. Threatening Qatar, with the U.S. presence at its air base, was tantamount to threatening the U.S. “Qatar was when [Kushner’s interference] became dangerous for the United States,” said a Tillerson confidant.
Ward also refers to Kushner having “greenlit” the blockade of Qatar, in a piece for The Guardian.
Important note: The Qataris reportedly believe the blockade may be linked to their rejection of funding for 666 Fifth Avenue. “Some top Qatari government officials believe the White House’s position on the blockade may have been a form of retaliation driven by Kushner who was sour about the failed deal, according to multiple people familiar with the matter,” NBC News reported.
See also CNN’s Vicky Ward and author of Kushner, Inc.:
Jun 9, 2017: Tillerson calls for immediate ease on blockade, Trump undercuts him
In a brief, formal statement at the Department of State, Sec. Tillerson calls on the Saudi-led bloc to immediately ease their blockade of Qatar, and less than an hour later Trump undercuts him.
A US official tells the New York Times “that two had spoken immediately before Tillerson’s State Department remarks, which the secretary read over the telephone to the president.”
Sec. Tillerson states:
We call on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt to ease the blockade against Qatar. There are humanitarian consequences to this blockade. We’re seeing shortages of food. Families are being forcibly separated, and children pulled out of school. We believe these are unintended consequences, especially during this holy month of Ramadan, but they can be addressed immediately. The blockade is also impairing U.S. and other international business activities in the region. … The blockade is hindering U.S. military actions in the region and the campaign against ISIS.
Within an hour, the president says that the Saudi-led action against is “hard but necessary” and claims that Tillerson supports this stance. President Trump states:
The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level, and in the wake of that conference, nations came together and spoke to me about confronting Qatar over its behavior. So we had a decision to make: Do we take the easy road, or do we finally take a hard but necessary action? We have to stop the funding of terrorism. I decided, along with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, our great generals and military people, the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding — they have to end that funding — and its extremist ideology in terms of funding.
Tillerson reportedly later came to believe concluded that Trump’s White House remarks were written by Yousef al-Otaiba, UAE ambassador to the U.S., and passed to the President by Jared Kushner. “Rex put two-and-two together,” a close associate of Tillerson told the American Conservative, “and concluded that this absolutely vacuous kid was running a second foreign policy out of the White House family quarters. Otaiba weighed in with Jared and Jared weighed in with Trump. What a mess.”
Al-Otaiba and Kushner are known to be friends, having been introduced to each other by Tom Barrack in May 2016. “You will love him and he agrees with our agenda!” Barrack wrote in a May 2016 email to Otaiba. Politico reported in February 2017 that Kushner was “in almost constant phone and email contact with Otaiba.” Otaiba wrote to Barrack in the first months of Trump’s presidency. “I am in constant contact with Jared and that has been extremely helpful.”
August 18, 2017
On Aug. 18, 2017, Steve Bannon leaves the Trump administration.
August 24, 2017
On Aug. 24, 2017, Qatar announces that it is restoring full diplomatic relations with Iran.
October 2017
Bloomberg News reports, “The [666 Fifth Ave.] tower’s cash flow is enough to cover only about half of the debt payments on the building, down from 66 percent last year.”
October 2017: Kushner surprise trip to Saudi Arabia
Kushner and a senior aide travel to Saudi Arabia to meet Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Kushner “flew commercial, and the White House only announced the visit once he was already on the ground,” the Washington Post reports. Some intelligence officials were caught off guard by Kushner’s trip, and “most people in the White House were kept out of the loop about the trip and its purpose … Intelligence officials were troubled by a lack of information about the topics discussed,” according to a later Post report.
November 2017: Kushner Companies receive loan from Qatar-supported company for Chicago property
The Kushners receive a $184 million loan from Apollo Global Management to refinance a building in Chicago. The Qatar Investment Authority is one of Apollo’s largest investors. The loan is triple the average property loan made by Apollo.
The deal with Apollo, along with an additional $325 million loan to the Kushners from Citibank in Spring 2017, concluded after a White House meeting between Kushner and chief executive, Michael L. Corbat, later spark an investigation by the Office of Government Ethics and a review by the White House Counsel.
Peter Mirijanian, a spokesperson for Kushner’s attorney Abbe Lowell, said in a statement that Kushner “has had no role in the Kushner Companies since joining the government and has taken no part of any business, loans, or projects with or for the Companies after that.”
December 2017: Congress raises questions on foreign financing of 666 Fifth Ave.
Several Democratic lawmakers send a letter to Jared Kushner, asking if he has discussed financing for 666 Fifth Avenue with foreign nationals or entities while serving in the administration. The letter states, “We are concerned that you may be leveraging your White House position to seek financial assistance for 666 Fifth Avenue.” They also raise questions about Jared Kushner’s surprise trip to Saudi Arabia in October 2017, when he met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The letter also quotes a Newsweek report connecting the 666 Fifth Avenue situation to Kushner’s security clearance: “Very recently, Newsweek reported: ‘Experts say his stake in the Fifth Avenue building alone is more than enough to cause a suspension of an interim security clearance, as some believe he could use his position in the White House to bail out his family’s investment.’”
January-February 2018: Qatar’s reported intel on Kushner coordination with Saudi bloc
“Qatari government officials visiting the U.S. in late January and early February considered turning over to Mueller what they believe is evidence of efforts by their country’s Persian Gulf neighbors in coordination with Kushner to hurt their country,” NBC reports relying on four sources. Qatar decided not to pursue it out of concern it would undercut their relations with the White House.
February 2018: Kushner loses top security clearance
In mid-February, Kushner’s interim security clearance is reportedly reduced from top secret to secret.
On Feb. 27, 2018, the Washington Post reports that officials in at least four countries – including the UAE and China – have discussed ways to manipulate Jared Kushner, including through his business arrangements, financial difficulties, and inexperience in foreign policy. The Post also reports that in the view of White House officials, “Kushner’s lack of government experience and his business debt were seen from the beginning of his tenure as potential points of leverage that foreign governments could use to influence him.”
March 2018: Tillerson is out; Saudi Crown Prince tours U.S.
Senator Richard Blumenthal calls for an investigation by the Office of Government Ethics into Kushner’s conduct related to the Apollo and Citibank loans.
Rex Tillerson is ousted as Secretary of State. Trump names Mike Pompeo as replacement.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman conducts a multi-city visit to the United States. On March 20, he meets with President Trump in the Oval Office.
April 2018: Pompeo calls for end of blockade
After President Trump had initially expressed support for the blockade of Qatar, Secretary of State Pompeo tells the Saudis that it is time to end the blockade, almost a year after it began.
May 2018: The Kushners negotiate Qatari financing
Kushner Companies negotiate a bailout deal for 666 Fifth Avenue with Brookfield Asset Management and the Qatari sovereign wealth fund.
May 2018: Trump restores Kushner’s top-secret clearance
President Trump orders his chief of staff, John Kelly, to restore Kushner’s top-secret security clearance, which had been stripped in February. The president’s order is over the objections of U.S. intelligence and White House officials. Both Chief of Staff Kelly and White House Counsel McGahn write contemporaneous notes memorializing their concerns. Trump’s involvement in the process contradicts the president’s denial of any such role to the New York Times as well as public denials by Ivanka Trump and Kushner’s lawyer, Abbe D. Lowell. Commentators observe subtle changes in Lowell’s denial of the allegations over time (here and here).
June 21, 2018: Kushner flies to Qatar to hold intergovernmental meetings
An official U.S. readout of the trip is here.
August 1-3, 2018: The Kushners receive bailout on 666 Fifth Avenue from Qatar-supported company (plus Westinghouse deal)
On Aug. 3, the Kushners reach a deal to bailout 666 Fifth Avenue through a 99-year lease to Brookfield Asset Management for about $1.1 billion in rent for the entire 99-year term paid upfront, easing their financial troubles by allowing them to pay off most of what they owe lenders on the building. The Qatar Investment Authority is the second-largest investor in Brookfield.
Qatar Investment Authority later insists that it had “absolutely no involvement in the 666 Fifth Avenue development.”
“Both Brookfield and the Qatar Investment Authority, the sovereign fund of the oil-rich Middle Eastern emirate, said the Investment Authority had no knowledge of the deal. A spokesman for the Investment Authority said the fund ‘has no involvement whatsoever in this deal.’” (NYTimes, May 17, 2018)
“Brookfield has said that the Qataris had no knowledge of the deal before its public announcement.” (NYTimes, Aug 3, 2018)
Two days earlier, on Aug. 1, Brookfield closed a deal to acquire 100% of Westinghouse Electric Company. In Feb. 2019, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform releases an interim staff report, based on whistleblower revelations, raising grave concerns over the Trump Administration’s efforts to transfer sensitive nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia without congressional review. The report notes that Westinghouse, which builds nuclear reactors, stands to benefit greatly from such a deal, and that Jared Kushner has been centrally involved. A July 2019, second interim staff report states that:
“[W]ith regard to Saudi Arabia, the Trump Administration has virtually obliterated the lines normally separating government policymaking from corporate and foreign interests. The documents show the Administration’s willingness to let private parties with close ties to the President wield outsized influence over U.S. policy towards Saudi Arabia. These new documents raise serious questions about whether the White House is willing to place the potential profits of the President’s friends above the national security of the American people and the universal objective of preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.”
November 2018
In order to finance its over $1 billion deal on 666 Fifth Avenue, Brookfield receives a $300 million-plus mezzanine loan from Apollo Global Management, a private equity company with ties to Qatar that had previously loaned $184 million to the Kushners in November 2017.
January 2019
Sparked by reports that the White House overruled career officials in order to restore Jared Kushner’s security clearance, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform launches an investigation into the White House security clearance process. In an interview with Committee staff in March, 2019, White House employee Tricia Newbold, who came forward as a whistleblower, described a “Senior White House Official 1” – reportedly Jared Kushner – as having “significant disqualifying factors,” for a security clearance, “including foreign influence, outside activities (‘employment outside or businesses external to what your position at the EOP entails’), and personal conduct.” She testified that this determination by her and the first-line was overruled by Carl Kline, Director of the Personnel Division, without Kline addressing all the disqualifying concerns or recording his reasons in the file. In testimony to the Committee in May, 2019, Kline denied being pressured to grant Kushner’s clearance. White House officials Crede Bailey and Cory Louie also later testified that they did not feel pressured to grant the clearances. Newbold also reported that another agency later had “serious concerns” after Kushner applied for a higher level of clearance.
February 2019
The Kushner Companies’ original $1.4 billion in loan payments for 666 Fifth Avenue is due.
Reuters reports that the 666 Fifth Avenue deal in August 2018, in which Qatar “unwittingly” played a role as an investor in Brookfield, has prompted Qatar to rethink its investment strategy.
March 2019
Axios reports that House Democrats are considering an investigation into the Kushner’s August 2018 deal with Brookfield that bailed out 666 Fifth Avenue.
Gee that was a nice long boring distraction
HUNTER’S LAWYERS WANT THE LAPTOP BACK
EMAILS ARE AUTHENTIC
HUNTER’S CORRUPT SCHEME IMPLICATE JOE BIDEN PERSONALLY IN GRAFT
There is no proof that Joe knew anything about the supposed Chinese deal and he was also then a private citizen. The supposed meeting may or may not have happened and if the latter, there is no evidence Joe knew anything about it.
Both Ivanka and Jared worked in the WH with full time access to the president while engaged in foreign negotiations and foreign business deals. Jared was in serious debt, like the President and therefore subject to leverage.
so do you call that a “pivot” where you go from denying the laptop was hunter’s, denying the emails are authentic, to denying they matter? denying joe knew
i wonder why hunter was complaining to people that he had to kick money up to joe if he didn’t. was it false slander, or true incrimination?
If you’re talking to me Kurtz I haven’t said the laptop was or wasn’t Hunter’s. Just like you, I don’t know.
Joe, this hustle by Kushner makes Hunter Biden look like a petty grifter by comparison.
actually no. there have been positive diplomatic and geopolitical results produced by the Trump adminstration that help make the Middle East a safer place. Specifically the deals from the past month or so between Israel and Arab regional neighbors. So Kushner’s proximity to some Arab powers has actually benefitted America.
Whereas the Obama-Biden-McCain Ukraine policy was to support a regime change that greatly destabilized the world and inched us closer to nuclear war.
And Joe Biden apparently dipped his beak in the ill gotten Hunter gains.
But America has suffered greatly from the destabilization and the failed state in west Ukraine.
Now I know the war pigs out there like it because they want a war with Russia, which is insanity, and yet we hear the war pigs rooting in new hopeful filth every day
Kurtz, nice distraction, but irrelevant to evidence of Trump corruption involving at least the President, Jared,and Ivanka. Don’t forget Don jr and Eric.
they’ve been scrutinized and they’re not in the dock. this is your attempt to evade the relevant issue at hand. hunter biden’s corrupt activities which also implicate joe biden
Please point to where they’ve been scrutinized.
Ivanka and Jared work in Trump’s WH, He hides his tax returns and anything else he can.
You answered your own question. they have clearances. big scrutiny
they also repeat them periodically
Kurtz, Jared was denied clearance and Trump overruled it. Of course a complete financial investigation for criminal activities is not part of that clearance.
“WASHINGTON — President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns flagged by intelligence officials and the White House’s top lawyer, four people briefed on the matter said.
Mr. Trump’s decision in May so troubled senior administration officials that at least one, the White House chief of staff at the time, John F. Kelly, wrote a contemporaneous internal memo about how he had been “ordered” to give Mr. Kushner the top-secret clearance….”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/politics/jared-kushner-security-clearance.html
they have also faced the indefatigable scrutiny of the press.
which has only come up with the hill of beans you been talking about here the past week since the embarrassing laptop surface
Kurtz, these issues have been raised going back a couple of years and the papers don;t have subpoena power. Neither does Congress anymore (Thanks Trump voters!)
Indeed anonymous, and both Jared and the President are hundreds of millions of dollars in debt, maybe to foreigners.
in itself the fact that Jared and whomever or Donald is in debt or in debt to foreigners is meaningless.
here with the Hunter Biden emails we have something you do not. evidence of a corrupt scheme to manipulate foreign policy in Ukraine and China with the collusion of Joe biden for the Biden family’s personal pecuniary gain
its really amazing that after 4 years of laying these false claims on orange man that you can’t understand how this applies to Bidens. wow.
but of course you do understand fully well Im sure
moreover I do not know if such a fact is true, just saying that assuming for argument’s sake that it is, in itself it is meaningless
Joe book seems to miss the context. well truly he does not miss it, he wants the readers to miss it
we now have stinking hot dungheap of evidence of hunter biden’s corrupt foreign practices
I think most likely joe at least will be an unindicted co conspirator
or, if he wins, he will abuse political power to instruct DOJ to bury it
and the same false charges that have been laid on trump will again be put into action by joe
amazing how competent the Democrats are at getting away with the very thing they accuse of others, isnt it?
“we now have stinking hot dungheap of evidence of hunter biden’s corrupt foreign practices I think most likely joe at least will be an unindicted co conspirator”
I wonder, if Joe Biden was indicted would they plead that he was too far mentally gone to be tried?
Joe Biden was not in office when the “emails” about China were written.
The Ukraine “evidence” is of a meeting – proposed or in the past we don’t know. If the former, we don’t know from the “evidence” if Joe knew about it.
Jared was dealing with a debt in the hundreds of millions. Hunter was getting $50k a month. Joe gets up to $235k for speaking fees. Do the math.
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/09/bidens-earned-15-million-after-obama-administration-1404153
Ukraine stuff is from Burisma. goes back to Hunter’s appointment on the board when joe was VP and Ukraine in his portfolio
dates of subsequent meetings may not matter for purposes of charging under the FOREIGN CORRUPT PRACTICING ACT
if it’s outside the VP time frame it may just make the charging that much easier
the China stuff may be a wider moat to cross, im not fully up to speed on it all, partly i am asking questions here too
as to your second remark:
i understand the math of corrupt enterprises quite well, from my extensive study of organized crime history
it is par for the course that a corrupt enterprise always sends a cut up to the top
the boss is always the biggest target so the subordinates have to pay him for the risks they take with their graft
think of it like a law firm. the associates are there working for the boss to make money too, not just themselves
hence it is characteristic even for associations that are perfectly legal that a cut or a name licensing fee or call it what you will, is paid to the top
Kurtz, if you understand the math of corrupt enterprises, I would think you’d get that a guy who is in debt for several hundred million dollars and who works in the most powerful house in the world where he can influence policy is a more likely mark for leverage than a guy you pay $50k a month who’s only power is with another guy who knows he will soon be making over $200k for a days work. with no shortage of those opportunuties.
Like I said, do the math.
I gather your handlers at Correct-the-Record told you to try innuendo and diversion as tactics.
Kamala Harris is going to win.
Troy Aikman and Joe Buck told us so.
Why are these communist (liberal, progressive, socialist, democrat, RINO), dirty-trick trolls so ubiquitous and manic?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/09/22/ivankas-trademark-requests-were-fast-tracked-in-china-after-trump-was-elected/#7d9e5a91d60f
“On March 29, 2017, Ivanka Trump, the eldest daughter of President Trump, became an official government employee, joining her husband, Jared Kushner, as an adviser to her father.
The day before that appointment, Ivanka applied for 17 new trademarks with the Chinese government.
In early May of 2018, ZTE, a Chinese electronics maker, said that it had halted “major operating activities” after being penalized by the United States Department of Commerce for breaking sanctions and selling electronics to Iran and North Korea.
Yet, in mid-May, President Trump surprisingly reversed course when he indicated a willingness to rethink the punishment and vowed to work with Chinese President Xi Jinping to prevent the collapse of the ZTE, which employs 75,000 people, with Trump tweeting, “Too many jobs in China lost. Commerce Department has been instructed to get it done!”
That same month, May of 2018, amid tense trade negotiations between China and the United States, China approved seven Ivanka trademarks, according to Alexander’s book, White House, Inc.
Alexander’s book also details how “after Ivanka met with the prime minister of Japan, his country approved three trademarks for her business, in less than one third of the time it had previously taken, according to an analysis of data from the World Intellectual Property Organization,” and that Canada registered three trademarks following Ivanka’s sit-down with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
KEY BACKGROUND:
Over a span of two months in late 2018, the Chinese government granted 18 trademarks to companies linked to President Trump and his daughter. In October alone, according to the Associated Press, China’s Trademark Office granted provisional approval for 16 trademarks to Ivanka Trump Marks LLC. The new approvals covered Ivanka-branded fashion gear, including sunglasses, handbags, shoes and jewelry, as well as beauty services and voting machines. In January of 2019, China granted Ivanka’s company preliminary approval for another five trademarks covering child care centers, wedding dresses, and art valuation services. The applications were filed in 2016 and 2017.
TANGENT:
In her first memoir, The Trump Card, Ivanka stated she paid full price for an expensive two-room apartment inside a Trump-owned building in New York City, but financial documents cited in Alexander’s book reveal Trump paid just $1.5 million, or $968 per square foot, for the apartment, while other tenants in the building paid on average $1,667 square foot.
CRITICAL QUOTE:
“Ivanka receives preliminary approval for these new Chinese trademarks while her father continues to wage a trade war with China. Since she has retained her foreign trademarks, the public will continue to have to ask whether President Trump has made foreign policy decisions in the interest of his and his family’s businesses,” wrote government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.”
Most Americans don’t trust any executive branch agency. Americans have more trust in the Judicial Branch judges. In the American system the Judicial Branch is a co-equal branch of government and should be involved in every secret program the United States is involved in. If the headline had stated “judge” instead of “DNI” most Americans would have believed it. We can thank the Gulf of Tonkin fabrication during the Vietnam War, Cointelpro, Watergate and faux aluminum tubes for this loss of trust in the political branches.
For Turley and posters here who are concerned with possible family corruption within the families of presidential candidates:
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/a-long-list-of-shady-financial-mysteries-trump-still-refuses-to-explain/
Keep in mind that if the worst is true and the Hunter Biden emails are authentic, we have have a Burisma exec thanking Hunter for a meeting that either has happened or may be promised (by Hunter?) in the future and we have a deal without Joe’s name attached that never happened and occurred when Joe was a private citizen. There is no proof that Joe was part of any of it and we also know that his actions in the Ukraine as VP were in public, were US, EU, and IMF policy and that the Ukrainian parliament fired the prosecutor by vote for not prosecuting anyone. In depth reporting from the WSJ, Bloomberg, USA Today, the WaPo, and NYTs all confirmed this. None of these news sources or governments GAFF about Hunter’s $50k a month gig as window dressing.
It appears that Commit has found a new forum:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1317831758851735555
It appears that Rhodes continues to troll.
🙂
SAYS IT ALL>>> https://twitter.com/i/status/1317831758851735555
NOW YOU KNOW WHY:
The general vote criteria of the American Founders in 1789 were: Male, European, 21, 50 lbs. Sterling/50 acres.
Turnout for the 1788 election of George Washington was 11.6%, by design.
The American fertility rate is in a “death spiral” and the U.S. population is imported – more Americans die than are born.
The American Founders did not establish or ever intend a one man, one vote democrazy.
______________________________________________________________________
“[We gave you] a [restricted-vote] republic, if you can keep it.”
– Ben Franklin
___________
“the people are nothing but a great beast…
I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.”
– Alexander Hamilton
_________________
“The true reason (says Blackstone) of requiring any qualification, with regard to property in voters, is to exclude such persons, as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own.”
“If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote… But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”
– Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
_______________________________________
The Constitution of 1789 was meant to stand in perpetuity.
“…will not injure the constitution,…”
” And if there are amendments desired, of such a nature as will not injure the constitution, and they can be ingrafted so as to give satisfaction to the doubting part of our fellow citizens; the friends of the federal government will evince that spirit of deference and concession for which they have hitherto been distinguished.”
– James Madison, Proposed Amendments to the Constitution, June 8, 1789
___________________________________________________________
Amendments subsequent to the Bill of Rights not only “…injure[d]…” the Constitution, they killed it.
Remembering Jeffrey Toobin:
Young…….that’s a scream!
Completely off-topic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_broker
Just testing…
It was posted earlier by anonymous that Biden’ home was purchased in 1975 for only $185,000. No referance to the value of $185,00 in 1975 was made. To provide a point of reference, in 1976 top of the line Cadilac Eldorado sold for $10,586. A $185,000 home was very far out of the reach of most Americans at the time. A little perspective would be appreciated.
Is there some reason not to post this in context?
Thinkthrough is our usual troll with a sour apple reply.
Troll, it sounds like Biden bought that house as a fixer upper for investment reasons. Some guys are handy with home improvement projects and make a good return on them. So ‘what’?? On the Eastern seaboard, in 1975, larger homes could cost 6 figures. Delaware occupies Atlantic Coastline. That’s mainly what Delaware is: a ‘small strip of coastline’.
“our usual troll” is a perfect new username for you, Anon.
Or maybe, “Russia Bad-China Good” would suit you better, and make your paymasters really happy.
Regarding New York Post Story:
Senate Republicans Not Sure They Want To Subpoena Tech Giants
The Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday postponed plans to vote on subpoenas to compel the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook to testify on allegations of anti-conservative bias after some panel Republicans expressed reservation about the maneuver.
President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have scorched the two social media companies in recent days over their handling of disputed New York Post reports alleging ties between Joe Biden and his son’s business interests.
Gameplan in flux: GOP Judiciary leaders had announced plans to hold a markup Tuesday on whether to subpoena Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to testify on allegations the company’s decisions on user posts stifle conservative viewpoints, which Twitter denies. Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) later said the planned vote would also target Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The panel announced Monday it will now consider whether to authorize the subpoenas at a high-profile executive session Thursday where it is separately expected to approve Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. The committee said in a statement it will continue to negotiate with the companies “to allow for voluntary testimony” by the CEOs, but that if an agreement is not reached the panel will move ahead with a vote on the subpoenas “at a date to be determined.”
The ask: The subpoenas would require the tech moguls to testify on the alleged “suppression and/or censorship” of the New York Post reporting and on “any other content moderation policies, practices, or actions that may interfere with or influence elections for federal office,” according to a document released by the committee Monday.
Not everyone sold: Judiciary staff has indicated internally that plans for the vote were delayed in part due to some GOP panel members wavering on whether to support the action, according to one Senate GOP aide, who spoke anonymously to discuss private negotiations. Republican officials have also expressed trepidation about how quickly the committee has moved to vote on the subpoenas, the aide said. A committee spokesperson did not immediately offer comment on the matter.
Zuckerberg and Dorsey are separately slated to testify alongside Google CEO Sundar Pichai next Wednesday for a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on the internet industry’s prized liability protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Edited From: “Senate Panel Delays Vote To Subpoena Twitter, Facebook CEO’s As Some Republicans Waver”
Today’s Poltico
What could their holdup possibly be?
The current situation President Trump finds the nation in is not dissimilar to that which Abraham Lincoln experienced. America is in a war with The China Flu and a warming cold war with China itself. The press, mainstream media, social media platforms, Adam Schiff, Joe Biden and the democrats are “…levying [cold] War against [America],…adhering to [its] Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort…,” defrauding and sewing chaos to tear down this republic.
It is past time for President Trump to follow in the footsteps of Lincoln, suspend Habeas Corpus, suppress the insurrection in the media, implement constitutional law and order, “stabilize” 2020 as Lincoln “fixed” 1864 through the liberal application of brute military force, win the war against The China Flu, contain China itself and save the republic for the benefit of the republic.
Joe Biden’s last press conference was on September 30.
He took 6 questions.
Joe Biden has answered fewer questions than any other candidate for president in modern U.S. history.
Every question was a beach ball. Not even a soft ball.
Biden has not earned a single vote. Sitting in his basement hiding out from the press and voter scrutiny is no way to run a presidential campaign. It is unacceptable.
It is disqualifying.
Good:
Ghislaine Maxwell lost her fight to keep her Jeffrey Epstein testimony sealed.
Here’s a photo of Trump partying alongside Jeffrey Epstein with 12yo Ivanka and 9yo Eric, from the 1993 opening of the Harley-Davidson Cafe in Manhattan. (Yuck!)
It’s in Barry Levine‘s new book The Spider: Inside the Criminal Web of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, set to release tomorrow
https://i0.heartyhosting.com/okmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/donald-trump-introduces-kids-ivanka-eric-pedophile-jeffrey-epstein-photo-em-01.jpg
Oh, my!!!
You communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) are in full panic mode, aren’t you!
Everyone in Manhattan knew Jeffrey Epstein. That was the way he lured girls in. Come hang out with me! Let’s party! I know all the cool famous people. You’ll meet billionaires and princes!
There are lots of groupies for rich men. They’re all over the place in LA. If you have a yacht, there will be girls in bikinis just dying to hang out on it. Saudi Princes are rather infamous for throwing boatloads of money around to get easy girls to hang out with them. They think they’re Pretty Woman but those men aren’t Richard Gere. They’re not going to get a marriage proposal. They’ll be forgotten. Most of the girls are just convinced to go along with it, or they think they’re actually becoming friends with these rich people. Where it crosses the line is if any girl is forced or under age. Otherwise, people are free to associate with whomever they want, including men who want to sleep around.
What’s relevant is if anyone raped any girls or had sex with underage girls, through Jeffrey Epstein. Well, via anyone, really.
Bill Clinton would be doomed if he were anyone else.
It’s hard to imagine how any legal blog would exist in this country if the media, the Democrats, the IC/FBI/DOJ successfully bury this story. And if Biden wins the election and Democrats also take control of Senate, they will then have succeeded in making the rule of law a relic of the past. Be prepared for the Truth & Reconciliation Committee. It’s already being discussed. Damn!
At home we did not vote for Trump and we were registered Democrats until last December. However, Trump will win again for the reasons articulated in the WSJ article I posted earlier today.
It has been a while since I have posted the following but I see the blog is being jammed once again by the left wing paid trolls.
You can spot the George Soros / Act Blue trolls by their methods. They follow the Marxist strategy written by Saul Alinksy in his celebrated work “Rule for Radicals” that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama praised. David Brock uses these methods in his troll farm that populated many internet forums. Their verbiage is straight out of Alinsky.
Pax et bonum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_for_Radicals
Saul Alinksy Rules for Radicals
“Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”
“Never go outside the expertise of your people.”
“Whenever possible go outside the expertise of the enemy.”
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. There is no defense. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.”
“A good tactic is one your people enjoy.”
“A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.”
“Keep the pressure on.”
“The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. ”
“The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.”
“If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside; this is based on the principle that every positive has its negative.”
“The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.”
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. “
The million dollar question is, are the forgotten men and women a greater force than the election fraud they will be up against?
It will likely start in Richmond in 7-10 days. The timing…impeccable.
Richmond judge in Lee statue case says ruling expected in 7 to 10 days
https://richmond.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/richmond-judge-in-lee-statue-case-says-ruling-expected-in-7-to-10-days/article_2d58b5fb-2dd8-5df3-8fac-a14baa295c54.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/have-the-bidens-denied-the-story-yet-11603139963
Have the Bidens Denied the Story Yet? Media outlets still taking aim at the messenger.
After celebrated New York Times and Washington Post articles about Donald Trump and Russia turned out to be wrong, will maligned New York Post articles aboutJoe Biden and Ukraine turn out to be right? This fascinating media era could force a redefinition of terms like “mainstream” and “tabloid.” Five days after the New York Post started publishing alleged emails detailing Biden family corruption, the Bidens still haven’t claimed they’re counterfeit.
Don’t expect a magnanimous response from the Post’s competitors. Rather than investigating the level of involvement the leading candidate for president had in his family’s influence-peddling business, some media outlets have chosen instead to focus their reporting on whether some journalists were afraid to touch the Biden email story before the Post published it.
But so far the stories by the Post’s Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge are still standing. Unless and until former Vice President Joe Biden or a member of his family wants to argue that the emails are fakes, isn’t there a responsibility for all journalists covering the campaign to acknowledge the Post reporting and demand answers about the lucrative foreign sales of the Biden name?
The stages of establishment media grief also include efforts to pretend that the story is not really about Joe Biden or corruption and that the Bidens were not really selling what they appeared to be selling.
“The story of Hunter Biden’s involvement with the Ukrainian gas company Burisma isn’t a scandal about his father, as the Trump campaign claims, but part of a personal tragedy for the vice president’s son,” says David Ignatius of the Washington Post. Actually, it’s a tragedy for America and the world when the model of lawful, constitutional governance is represented overseas by a vice president who is trailed by relatives with their hands out.
Mr. Ignatius cites the expertise of an anonymous “Eastern European expert in digital forensics” to suggest the emails might be fakes. Apparently
Mr. Ignatius doesn’t find it significant that the Bidens haven’t made this argument. Mr. Ignatius also cites an anonymous “business consultant” and writes:
Burisma was pursuing new gas leases in Ukraine that it claimed might attract international investment, the consultant remembers, and wanted prominent people on its board. The consultant made some inquiries about several senior Burisma executives and then met with [Hunter] Biden a week later. The consultant told Biden the planned Burisma gas licenses involved small assets that weren’t likely to attract foreign investors, and cautioned the vice president’s son against working for the company. “They’re using you for your name. They will exploit your name to your detriment and your father’s,” the consultant remembers warning Biden.
As if Joe Biden and his adult son would have no idea why a foreign tycoon would want to do business with Hunter Biden. It’s possible that Burisma needed some political juice to secure gas leases, in addition to the benefits the Biden name might carry in warding off unwanted investigations.
But if Mr. Ignatius is suggesting that Hunter Biden’s name served the business purpose of attracting investment, he’s asking readers to believe that energy investors are scouring the globe—not for reserves of natural gas that can be extracted at low cost—but for a partnership with the troubled son of a prominent politician who knows almost nothing about the energy business. Does even Mr. Ignatius believe this?
At least Mr. Ignatius is trying to wrestle with the issue of the Biden family business. Many media outlets prefer to ignore it. And suppressing unwelcome comments from Joe Biden’s opponent is also becoming a media habit. Corinne Weaver and Alec Schemmel at NewsBusters report:
“Twitter and Facebook have censored the president’s social media accounts and the accounts belonging to his re-election campaign at least 65 times. In contrast, the companies have not censored former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his campaign accounts. At all.
… The Media Research Center’s Techwatch department analyzed two years of social media posts from Trump, Biden, and their respective campaigns. The analysis did not include any ads from PACs or super PACs that had made ads in favor of either candidate. It also focused on social media posts, not paid advertisements, from the campaigns. These numbers were collected from between May 2018 to October 16, 2020.”
***
More Biden Family Business
The overseas influence business should be a great concern to all Americans. Of much less importance but perhaps a concern to parents paying tuition at a certain Ivy League institution was Joe Biden’s answer to the question of what he will do if he loses the presidential election next month.
Responding to an audience member at an ABC News “town hall” event last week, the former vice president expressed the hope that he will “go back to being a professor at the University of Pennsylvania.”
That’s one way to describe his experience. The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jonathan Tamari reported last year:
“What did the University of Pennsylvania get for the more than $900,000 it has paid Joe Biden?
The former vice president collected $371,159 in 2017 plus $540,484 in 2018 and early 2019 for a vaguely defined role that involved no regular classes and around a dozen public appearances on campus, mostly in big, ticketed events.”
Good:
Debate commission adopts new rules to mute microphones to allow Trump, Biden 2 minutes of uninterrupted time per segment.
Eric Trump Tweets False Claim That Biden Owns Huge Mansion
Trump the Younger tweeted an aerial photo on Saturday of a sprawling luxury estate, writing: “The salary of a U.S. senator is $174,000 per year. This is Joe Biden’s house.” He added, with an eye-roll emoji, “Seems legit.”
It would have been a tough hit on the Democratic presidential nominee — except the property in the photograph is not Biden’s. It hasn’t been for 24 years. He had bought it, dilapidated, in the mid-1970s for $185,000, then, after rehabilitating it over two decades, sold it for $1.2 million.
The only scandal the episode revealed was how desperate President Trump and his allies are to find something — anything — that might change the trajectory of the race at this late stage. After 2016, only a fool would confidently predict the election outcome. But judging from the actions of Trump’s team and Republican lawmakers and candidates, it’s clear they think they’re losing.
Edited From: “The Real October Surprise Is That Republicans Don’t Have One”
Today’s Washington Post
The Gray Anonymous here is also Personagrata and Estovir, the two commenters directly below. This is our usual troll as active today as usual.
Justice John Roberts proved himself to be a political player yet again delivering a win for Democrats and the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
What a douche bag Roberts has shown himself to be, yet again.
Hyperpartisans have the burden of seeing a large portion of the world as douche bags, simply for disagreeing with them. What a life.
Sanpete:
You will notice ‘2’ Gray Anonymous’. One is our usual troll who is also Estovir and Peronagrata (plus Thinkthrough, Rhodes, James, Em, Princess Trohar, Calvin & Hobbs, MoFo and many others).
But there is another Gray Anonymous who is liberal. She should change colors so we can distinguish her at a glance.
There are multiple people who post anonymously, some liberal and some conservative. Not sure how anyone knows which are male versus female.
Looks like everyone that doesn’t agree with anonymous is a troll. The game for everyday is, if you can’t successfully argue then the only tactic remaining is to defame. Watch for it. You would think that Anonymous would began to see that her approach is getting very stale. All of us would really appreciate a fact based argument. When I first started posting here she was not providing any source material. A respectable argument consists of point and counterpoint. The slur is the weakest and most disrespectful form of argument and it’s use destroys ones power to persuade. She is not interested in trying to bring others to her point of view. The childish game is the only thing that maters.
Thinkthrough, if you want a real debate, stick to ONE NAME.
Said by the one with the most names ever on this blog.
“You would think that Anonymous would began to see that her approach is getting very stale.
TiT, the anonymous you are talking about is a he. Earliest name I know of was Peter Hill later appropriately changed by the blog to Peter Shill. I believe he has had the most identities of any poster and is not reputable. I will provide a few examples of his names used over a period of time though it is far from complete.
Seth Warner
Will Kane
Roy Coffee
Pike Bishop
Philip Skene
Patriot
Nick Barkley
July Johnson
John Russel
John Elder
Joe Starrett
Ethan Edwards
Deke Thornton
Captain Lockhart
Anonymous
…and many more
When he talks about other people having other identities one knows he has problems.
Imagine that: ruling in favor of voters.
Chief Justice Roberts took the side of states’ rights — the PA Supreme Court ruling on the basis of PA law about PA elections.
Used to be that Republicans lauded states’ rights.
Aninny:
There is no “states’ right” to steal a federal election.
Marky Mark, it wasn’t a case about “stealing” an election.
It is important to keep in mind that Hillary Clinton and the DNC were actually hacked by Russian intelligence but the underlying emails were true.
It is important to keep in mind that you keep repeating unsubstantiated allegations as fact.
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from thegrayzone.com a report titled:
Bombshell: Crowdstrike admits ‘no evidence’ Russia stole emails from DNC server
In newly released Congressional testimony, Crowdstrike president Shawn Henry said that “we did not have concrete evidence” that alleged Russian hackers actually took the emails from DNC servers. “There’s circumstantial evidence, but no evidence that they were actually exfiltrated,” Henry said.
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/05/11/bombshell-crowdstrike-admits-no-evidence-russia-stole-emails-from-dnc-server/
Italicized/bold text was excerpted from consortiumnews.com a report titled:
VIPS: Mueller’s Forensics-Free Findings
We have examined 500 DNC email files stored on the Wikileaks site. All 500 files end in an even number—2, 4, 6, 8 or 0. If those files had been hacked over the Internet, there would be an equal probability of the time stamp ending in an odd number. The random probability that FAT was not used is 1 chance in 2 to the 500th power. Thus, these data show that the DNC emails posted by WikiLeaks went through a storage device, like a thumb drive, and were physically moved before Wikileaks posted the emails on the World Wide Web.
This finding alone is enough to raise reasonable doubts, for example, about Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian intelligence officers for hacking the DNC emails given to WikiLeaks. A defense attorney could easily use the forensics to argue that someone copied the DNC files to a storage device like a USB thumb drive and got them physically to WikiLeaks — not electronically via a hack.
For more than two years, we strongly suspected that the DNC emails were copied/leaked in that way, not hacked. And we said so. We remain intrigued by the apparent failure of NSA’s dragnet, collect-it-all approach — including “cast-iron” coverage of WikiLeaks — to provide forensic evidence (as opposed to “assessments”) as to how the DNC emails got to WikiLeaks and who sent them. Well before the telling evidence drawn from the use of FAT, other technical evidence led us to conclude that the DNC emails were not hacked over the network, but rather physically moved over, say, the Atlantic Ocean.
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/03/13/vips-muellers-forensics-free-findings/
The DNC server Clinton email affair has been a concentrated disinformation campaign from it’s inception.
There is zero evidence in the public record supporting the Russian hacking narrative. There are however innumerable bottomless Russia hacked DNC rabbit holes that a great many people have ventured down into only to never be seen again.
Personagrata is our usual troll with yet another name. Estovir, below, is that same troll.
If I recall correctly, the DNC refused to hand over its servers for forensic examination.
We are to take their word for it that they were hacked rather than an inside job.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/18/mueller-clinton-arizona-hack/
The Mueller report contains new information about how the Russian government hacked documents and emails from Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee .
At one point, the Russians used servers located in the U.S. to carry out the massive data exfiltration effort, the report confirms.
Much of the information was previously learned from the indictment of Viktor Borisovich Netyksho, the Russian officer in charge of Unit 26165. Netyksho is believed to be still at large in Russia.
But new details in the 488-page redacted report released by the Justice Department on Thursday offered new insight into how the GRU operatives hacked.
The operatives working for the Russian intelligence directorate, the GRU, sent dozens of targeted spearphishing emails in just five days to the work and personal accounts of Clinton Campaign employees and volunteers, as a way to break into the campaign’s computer systems.
The GRU hackers also gained access to the email account of John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, of which its contents were later published.
Using credentials they stole along the way, the hackers broke into the networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee days later. By stealing the login details of a system administrator who had “unrestricted access” to the network, the hackers broke into 29 computers in the ensuing weeks, and more than 30 computers on the DNC.
The operatives, known collectively as “Fancy Bear,” comprised several units tasked with specific operations. Mueller formally blamed Unit 26165, a division of the GRU specializing in targeting government and political organizations, for taking on the “primary responsibility for hacking the DCCC and DNC, as well as email accounts of individuals affiliated with the Clinton Campaign,” said the Mueller report.
The hackers used Mimikatz, a hacking tool used once an intruder is already in a target network, to collect credentials, and two other kinds of malware: X-Agent for taking screenshots and logging keystrokes, and X-Tunnel used to exfiltrate massive amounts of data from the network to servers controlled by the GRU. Mueller’s report found that Unit 26165 used several “middle servers” to act as a buffer between the hacked networks and the GRU’s main operations. Those servers, Mueller said, were hosted in Arizona — likely as a way to obfuscate where the attackers were located but also to avoid suspicion or detection.
In all, some 70 gigabytes of data were exfiltrated from Clinton’s campaign servers and some 300 gigabytes of data were obtained from the DNC’s network.
Meanwhile, another GRU hacking unit, Unit 74455, which helped disseminate and publish hacked and stolen documents, pushed the stolen data out through two fictitious personas. DCLeaks was a website that hosted the hacked material, while Guccifer 2.0 was a hacker-like figure who had a social presence and would engage with reporters.
Under pressure from the U.S. government, the two GRU-backed personas were shut down by the social media companies. Later, tens of thousands of hacked files were funneled to and distributed by WikiLeaks .
Mueller’s report also found a cause-and-effect between Trump’s remarks in July 2016 and subsequent cyberattacks.
“I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” said then-candidate Trump at a press conference, referring to emails Clinton stored on a personal email server while she headed the State Department. Mueller’s report said “within approximately five hours” of those remarks, GRU officers began targeting for the first time Clinton’s personal office.
More than a dozen staffers were targeted by Unit 26165, including a senior aide. “It is unclear how the GRU was able to identify these email accounts, which were not public,” said Mueller.
Mueller said the Trump campaign made efforts to “find the deleted Clinton emails.” Trump is said to have privately asked would-be national security advisor Michael Flynn, since convicted following inquiries by the Special Counsel’s office, to reach out to associates to obtain the emails. One of those associates was Peter Smith, who died by suicide in May 2017, who claimed to be in contact with Russian hackers — claims which Mueller said were not true.
Does that implicate the Trump campaign in an illegal act? Likely not.
“Under applicable law, publication of these types of materials would not be criminal unless the publisher also participated in the underlying hacking conspiracy,” according to Elie Honig, a CNN legal analyst. “The special counsel’s report did not find that any person associated with the Trump campaign illegally participated in the dissemination of the materials.”
Ratcliffe or Schiff, one of them is lying. Gosh, I wonder which one?
Sounds like a legal case for Jeffrey Tobin! but can he keep his peepee in his drawers? Maybe Tobin was tokin’ Hunter Biden’s crack pipe! It runs in the DNC family so there is that to consider
Maybe Peter Shill, Sanpete, or one of the regular Left Wing Bubble truth-seekers can verify since that appears to be their talking point, um, shtick this week.
https://nypost.com/2020/10/19/jeffrey-toobin-was-masturbating-in-front-of-new-yorker-bigs-report/
Jeffrey Toobin was mast*rbating in front of New Yorker bigs, report says
Now he is the talk of the town.
The New Yorker writer and CNN analyst Jeffrey Toobin didn’t just expose himself during a Zoom work meeting — he was allegedly caught masturbating in the call with some of magazine’s biggest names and has now been suspended from the publication.
At one point, there was a break for those playing Democrats and Republicans to strategize together, and that’s when sources told Vice they saw Toobin pleasuring himself.
He then left the Zoom chat for a few moments and called back in — apparently unaware that his camera had been kept on for at least part of his sex act, the sources said.
A spokeswoman for the New Yorker said, “Jeffrey Toobin has been suspended while we investigate the matter.”
The magazine’s editor, David Remnick, added in an e-mail to staffers, “Dear All, As you may have read in various news reports today, one of our writers, Jeff Toobin, was suspended after an incident on a Zoom call last week,’’ according to Vice.
“Please be assured that we take such matters seriously and that we are looking into it. Best, David,’’ Remnick said.
CNN added that Toobin would be taking time off from the cable network where he is a senior legal analyst.
https://twitter.com/rysimmons/status/1318266346610765829
the new game is to replace every new yorker cartoon caption with “Jeffrey Toobin took his dick out on a Zoom call.”
Trump (and Turley) Stuck In Rightwing Bubble
Incapable Of Seeing Hunter Biden Story Flopped In Mainstream Media
Trump’s last-ditch hope is to cast a vague pall of corruption over Biden. Lots of mainstream press stories about newly discovered laptops and secret emails and meetings between Biden family members and mysterious foreign influence peddlers might help spread that miasma — no matter how absurd or unsubstantiated the details, which few pay attention to.
To be clear, coverage of this story has been sharply skeptical and lacerating. And it probably should be covered, since it does have some news value. But plainly, the mere fact of covering smears and disinformation, even negatively, itself rewards their purveyors.
This is a difficult pitfall without an obvious answer, one that Brian Beutler memorably dubbed the “conservative sh-tstorm” problem. But it’s obvious that in some general sense the media often does get gamed by it (see, But her emails!), and that many media figures to this day refuse to reckon seriously with it.
That said, this latest effort could further backfire on Trump. Precisely because Trump is so addicted to right-wing media, and so unable to grasp that audiences outside that bubble have seen endless such smears of Joe Biden but have only grown to like him more, Trump will see the story widely pushed there and assume it must be effective.
Which will only mean Trump wastes more time talking about Hunter Biden when he really needs to be giving millions of voters a real reason to get over their deep alienation from him. And time is running out.
Edited From: “Trump’s Fake New Biden Scandal Has A Deeper Purpose. Bannon Revealed It”
The Washington Post, 10/15/20
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Mainstream America wants to know Trump’s agenda for the next 4 years. But Trump himself has no clue. Trump’s agenda is whatever grievance he has at the moment. Today Trump referred to Dr Fauci as a ‘disaster’ in a call to donors. Trump’s handling of the pandemic has been a disaster indeed. Therefore the so-called Hunter Biden ‘scandal’ is quite unlikely to change any votes. But those stuck in the rightwing bubble foolishly expect this development to be a ‘game-changer’.