Below is my column on Fox.com on the most recent release of Twitter files detailing the FBI’s direct involvement in the targeting and censoring of citizens. The most notable aspect is the effort by the FBI to censor references to the Hunter Biden scandal before the 2020 election. Here is the column:
“They are probing & pushing everywhere.” That line sums up an increasingly alarming element in the seventh installment of the so-called “Twitter files.” “They” were the agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and they were pushing for the censorship of citizens in an array of stories.
Writer Michael Shellenberger added critical details on how the FBI was directly engaged in censorship at the company. However, this batch of documents contains a particularly menacing element to the FBI/Twitter censorship alliance. The documents shows what writer Shellenberger described as a concentrated effort “to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published.”
Twitter has admitted that it made a mistake in blocking the Hunter laptop story. after roughly two years, even media that pushed the false “Russian disinformation” claims have acknowledged that the laptop is authentic.
Yet, those same networks and newspapers are now imposing a new de facto blackout on covering the details of the Twitter files on the systemic blacklisting, shadow banning, and censorship carried out in conjunction with the government.
The references to the new Hunter Biden evidence were also notable in the dates of these backchannel communications. On October 13, weeks before the election, FBI Special Agent Elvis Chan sent 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of “Trust & Safety” Yoel Roth as part of its ongoing efforts. Twitter officials have said the FBI pressure played a role in spiking the laptop story.
It was the next day the New York Post ran its story on the laptop and its incriminating content. The United States government played a key role trying to bury a story damaging to the Democrats before the election.
The Twitter files now substantiate the earlier allegations of “censorship for surrogate” or proxy. While the First Amendment applies to the government, it can also apply to agents of the government. Twitter itself now admits that it acted as an agent in these efforts.
The current media blackout on the Twitter files story only deepens these concerns. For years, media figures have denied Twitter was engaging in censorship, blacklisting, shadow banning and other techniques targeting conservatives. The release of the files has shattered those denials. There is simply no further room for censorship apologists.
In a city that relies on “plausible deniability,” there is no longer a plausible space left in the wake of the releases. All that remains is silence — the simple refusal to acknowledge the government-corporate alliance in this massive censorship system.
To cover the story is to admit that the media also followed the same course as Twitter in hampering any discussion of this influence peddling scandal. Indeed, while the media is now forced to admit that the laptop is authentic, it cannot get itself to address the authentic emails contained in that laptop. Those emails detail millions of dollars in influence peddling by the Biden family. They also detail the knowledge and involvement of Joe Biden despite his repeated denial of any knowledge of the deals.
Those files also raise potential criminal acts that some of us have been writing about for two years. The emails are potentially incriminating on crimes ranging from tax violations to gun violations. In the very least, it is a target rich environment for investigators or prosecutors.
Yet, earlier disclosures showed that key FBI figures tamped down any investigation into the laptop. The latest documents now show the FBI also actively pressured the media to kill the story. That raises deeply troubling questions of the FBI politicalization. After Watergate, the Congress moved aggressively to pursue the use of the bureau by a president for political purposes. There is little call from the media for such an investigation today when the bureau is accused of working for Democratic rather than Republican interests.
The record of such bias extends beyond the Twitter files. In the prior years, FBI agents were found to have shown overt political bias in the handling of FBI investigations. The agency continued to rely on sources like the Steele dossier despite warnings that the Clinton-funded report was likely Russian disinformation. Yet, when it came to Hunter Biden, the FBI reportedly was not interested in aggressively pursuing an investigation while calling on social media companies to censor any discussion of the scandal before the election. It continued to do so despite Twitter executives “repeatedly” indicating there was “very little” Russian activity on the platform.
In January 2020, Twitter’s then director of policy and philanthropy, Carlos Monje Jr., expressed unease on the pressure coming from the FBI and said “They are probing & pushing everywhere they can (including by whispering to congressional staff).”
The question is why the FBI would be “probing & pushing everywhere” despite the fact that the Russian investigation had exposed prior bias related to the 2016 election. That was no deterrent to killing a story viewed as damaging to the Biden campaign.
In the end, the government-corporate alliance failed. Despite the refusal of many in the media to cover the Twitter files, nearly two-thirds of voters believe Twitter shadow-banned users and engaged in political censorship during the 2020 election. Seventy percent of voters want new national laws protecting users from corporate censorship.
It is clear that any such reforms should include a full investigation of the FBI and its involvement in censorship efforts. As many as 80 agents reportedly were committed to this effort. It is clear now that, if we are to end censorship by surrogate, the House will have to “probe and push everywhere” in the FBI for answers.
*The original version of this column linked the ten documents sent by the FBI with the Hunter Biden story. The FBI denies that relationship so that line was altered.
The Twitter Files also highlight how absurd and dishonest is the attempt to criminalize Donald Trump’s possession of “classified” material at Mar-a-Lago. Taibbi writes of the FBI contacts with Twitter: “A chief end result was that thousands of official ‘reports’ flowed to Twitter from all over, through the FITF and the FBI’s San Francisco field office.” Daily Mail online, 12/25/22. It is likely that many, if not most, of these reports were “classified.” In other words, it is “unsafe” for Trump to possess classified material, which he possessed as President, in a secure and guarded location, without access to the public, but it was “safe” for the government itself to send classified government information to hundreds (thousands?) of Twitter employees, who were unvetted and in a position to distribute the material around the world.
Jonathan: According to the NY Post, owned by Rupert Murdock who is also your employer, the FBI, the Biden campaign and Twitter conspired to suppress the Hunter laptop story to ensure Joe Biden would get elected. Like Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to get state election officials to overturn the 2020 election you have a lot of theories but little in the way of actual evidence.
For 2 years you have claimed the laptop emails show “millions of dollars in influence peddling by the Biden family”. So far as I can tell there is no federal statue that makes it a crime to use the family name to get overseas contracts. Otherwise a lot of members of Congress would face prosecution. After Musk took over Twitter he has released the “Twitter Files” to try to prove there was a “Deep State” conspiracy to prevent Trump from being reelected. And what did the release show? A lot of dick pics and other pornography but no smoking gun. But you continue to allege Hunter Biden was involved in “incriminating… crimes ranging from tax violations to gun violations”. Not exactly the crimes of the century. But that appears to be all you have.
Now the FBI has had Hunter Biden’s laptop since 2019. And who was in charge of the DOJ/FBI in 2019/2020? Your good friend AG Bill Barr. Over your many lunch dates with Barr why didn’t you urge him to investigate Hunter Biden? At least to appoint a special prosecutor, like John Durham, to look into your charges. Didn’t happen did it? I think you are on a wild goose chase. Of course, you could always ask AG Garland to investigate Hunter. But he is part of the “Deep State” conspiracy to protect Biden, right? You sound more and more like QAnon. Of course, Garland is very busy these days–you know, investigating the actual “crimes” of Donald Trump.
“So far as I can tell there is no federal statue that makes it a crime to use the family name to get overseas contracts. Otherwise a lot of members of Congress would face prosecution”
You are correct, but whether it is President Biden or Members of Congress, Republicans or Democrats, that should be brought to light.
The media failed to do its job in 2020. And social media supressed the story. So Republicans will bring it to light now.
And they will borrow deeply to see if it does reach criminal conduct.
Given that the connections and the money involve Russia, China, and other shady characters accross the world – questions regarding who “owns” Joe Biden will be raised.
You did this to Trump and will the investigation was ludicrous as Trump has almost no connections to Russia or China or shady characters throughout the world you still insisted. Trump did have ties to the mideast and those were explored and the Trump family does do bussiness with those in the Mideast, and it is legitimate to ask who benefited from Trump’s mideast connection.
The Evidence appears to be that the US benefited – as a result of Trump’s connections to Both Israel and Saudi’s The Trump administration was able to broker the first mid east peace deal since carter and the largest ever. Regardless there are allegations regarding Qatari favoritism to Kushner – and those are a legimate subject for inquiry. It is unlikely those are crimes, but that does not mean they can not be looked at.
Further the claim that Kushner benefited from his role as mideast envoy is weak, because it is backwards. Kushner got that role and was successful at it because of his prior bussiness sucesses in the mideast not the other way arround. But go ahead and look.
On the other side of the ledger – the Biden family has never been successful at anything except profiting off of public service.
The Biden name is NOT associated with business success accross the world, it is associated with government influence.
It is quite proper to ask.
You say the biden family profited off the Biden name – that really is a reach. The Biden name is not a name associated with success in business.
People do nto do business with Biden’s because the Biden’s have a long track record of business success. The value of the Biden name is that it opens doors in government and that it gets yes’s from government when otherwise the answer would be no.
Regardless, a deep dive is warranted.
As is a deep dive into What are the Biden’s doing now. Did Biden’s release of the SPR benefit the people he is doing business with ?
If so was it illegal ? Maybe, Maybe not. Was it moral ? No. Should we all know ? Yes.
Did Hunter profit ? Thus far it appears so. We laws broken ? We will see.
What you omit is Biden’s Fiduciary Responsibility.
Breach of that Fiduciary responsibility does not have to be per statute and is an impeachable offense as a high crime or misdemeanor.
A fiduciary duty is the legal responsibility to act solely in the best interest of another party. “Fiduciary” means trust, and a person with a fiduciary duty has a legal obligation to maintain that trust. For example, lawyers have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interest of their clients.
Democrats transformed the standard for impeachment to pretty much anything we do not like.
Republicans should impeach Biden tactically. Primarily to gum things up in the Senate.
It would take an incredible revelation to succeed in getting him removed.
But the goal is to make public Biden’s conduct, and to expose all those engaged in the coverup.
The most important thing that the GOP house must accomplish in 2023 is to push the media towards returning to unbiased objective journalism.
The fact that half the country is sheilded from the truth is the most significant impediment to the repair of government.
I was not trying to present every possible facet of investigating Biden.
I was primarily trying to counter this atleast partly correct notion that Biden has not committed a crime.
If we get to the full truth that may not be true.
But the legitimacy of congressional investigations does not rest on starting them with proof beyond a reasonable doubt of a crime.
The problem with most of the Trump investigations is they did not start with even reasonable suspicion. The standard required for an investigation.
There is more reason to beleive that Biden committed a crime right now, then there was that Trump did at the conclusion of the Mueller investigation.
But beyond crime, we are entitled to know that our president is a decent and honorable person. That he is moral.
Democrats should be very affraid they have built a Jenga tower of lies. There will come a point at which the entire tower comes crashing down.
The “deep dive” John B. Say, suggests is more of a witch-hunt to find something to corroborate the assumptions and conspiracy theories Turley and the right have been fantasizing about.
This is just a other Benghazi series of investigations by reporting. As it did back then it will be a huge waste of time and money.
“ The Biden name is NOT associated with business success accross the world, it is associated with government influence.”
It doesn’t have to be it’s not a requirement for being able to profit off the family name. Nothing the Biden’s have done is any different than what the Trumps have done. We didn’t see you clamoring for deep dive investigations on Trump’s suspicious influence peddling schemes because you didn’t think they were illegal or corrupt. Hypocrisy is common on the right and it shows.
I find your comparison to Benghazi quite interesting.
There was never any doubt from the start that Benghazi was mistakes on the part of the US government that resulted in the murder of a US Ambassador, and his security detail as well as other deaths and injuries at a nearby CIA dark site.
The only questions were who was culpable for what. And to what extent did the Obama administration cover up embarrasing facts regarding Benghazi in order to win an impending election.
It took multiple house and senate investigations to dig out things that the administration new while the attacks were ongoing.
That the Attack was organized, that it was by an Al Queda Cell, that is was a 9/11 tribute, that it had nothing to do with some internet video no one saw.
Further revealed eventually was that the administration had reason to expect this, that it did nothing to prepare, and that security was lax.
There are still debateable issues regarding events during the 13hr duration of the attack. We know that everyone would have been killed at the nearby CIA site but for a Delta team disobeying orders and coming to their rescue.
We know that all classified material at the CIA site was not destroyed and that Al Qeda obtained a treasure trove of classified documents.
The above and several other items are FACTS, many of which took 4 years to pry out of the administration.
There appears to be good evidence that the CIA outpost had laser designators and could have made effective use of Airsupport that never came.
But the big deal regarding Benghazi is that Clinton and Rice and Obama lied claiming that this was not a terrorist attack, when they knew it was a terrorist attack within 2hrs of the start of the attack, and Clinton was telling foreign leaders while the attack was ongoing that it was a terrorist attack, even identifying the cell.
BenGhazi was not a “witch hunt”, It was a tortuous investigation to bring to lite primarily the coverup of the truth.
The Facts of Benghazi were bad – we screwed up. That should be obvious anytime a disaster like that occurs. Reagan took personal responsibility for the marine baracks bombing in Lebanon. There was subsequent investigation, some people were fired, lessons were learned but there was no coverup. Carter took responsibility for the disasterous effort to rescue hostages in Iran. There was an investigation. lessons were learned, some people were fired, there was no coverup.
The big deal about Benghazi was the coverup, the lies.
There was no witch hunt. Just tortuous efforts to find the truth that the Obama administration was hiding.
“It doesn’t have to be it’s not a requirement for being able to profit off the family name.”
Correct.
“Nothing the Biden’s have done is any different than what the Trumps have done.”
Completely incorrect.
The Trump family is literally selling property and private services. Just like McDonald’s is selling hamburgers.
That is defacto always legal. Nearly always moral.
The Biden family is selling Joe Biden – Senator, Vice President, President.
That is always imoral, and often illegal.
I have no problem with investigations into the Trump family deals – investigations that meet the requirements of the law.
We have seen those. They went nowhere because there is nowhere to go.
The best that investigations of the Trump’s have done so far, is to find that a trusted executive employee was ripping them off.
I expect the same regarding the conduct of the Biden’s
If Jared Kushner was laundering money – he would be in jail.
If Ivanka Trump was engaged in Tax Fraud – she would be in jail
If Eric Trump was lying on federal forms to buy a gun – he would be in jail.
If Donald Trump Jr. was engaged in underage sex, soliciting prostitutes accross state lines, and in possession of massive quantities of cocaine he would be in jail right now.
If any of the Trump’s were wondering arround with multimillion dollar diamonds from Putin Surogates – Donald Trump would be in Jail right now.
And on and on and on.
There is far more than enough evidence to Jail Hunter Hiden. Paul Manafort went to jail for far less and was actually good at it – People hired Manafort as a political consulted – not as an oil company board member.
But this is not about Hunter.
The TWO big issues are:
Did Joe Biden benefit personally from selling his office ?
There is evidence that is true, but not proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
Did Joe Biden’s foreign activities risk US National security.
There is lots of evidence that Joe Biden is/was engaged in deals with foreign enemies, as well as non state affiliated bad actors.
These are all worthwhile lines of enquiry.
“We didn’t see you clamoring for deep dive investigations on Trump’s suspicious influence peddling schemes”
Correct, When you sell a condo for fair market value the legal assumption is that it is the condo that is being sold, not influence.
The vast majority of claims regarding the Trump family are about actions that occured before Trump was running for office.
You can not sell public office very easily until you actually hold public office.
Joe Biden’s activities between 2017 and 2021 should be subject to a higher standard of proof as he was not in office.
“because you didn’t think they were illegal or corrupt.”
Because it was obvious to all what was being sold and what was being bought and it was NOT government influence.
“Hypocrisy is common on the right and it shows.”
It is not hypocracy for the right to say
“A turtle is not a bird, an ostrich is a bird”
The Trump family private exchanges of private value for private value are not examples of selling government power or access.
The Biden family is accepting private value, but there is no clear thing of private value being provided in return.
It is reasonable to assume the trade of value for value is private value for public value.
Quite different.
Which Actual crimes of Trump would these be ?
Numerous knowledgeable people have told you the Election related referals are likely to go nowhere, and it they do, likely to provoke a severe backlash.
Historically Democrats object to elections far more often than Republicans. Clinton, Franken, Abrahms, Gore, Even Kerry. And many many more.
Most of the time on far flimsier evidence than Trump had they get to court. Gore got to court without even alleging fraud. Franken got to court without alleging Fraud and ultimately won.
Kari Lake got to court in Arizona and though I do not know if she will win, the evidence presented was pretty damning and the Rebutal by the supposedly invincable Perkins Coi/Marc Alias lawyers actually made their case worse.
Regardless of whether she wins or loses – she has her day on court. Real Hearings on actual evidence. And anyone that wants to can review the testimony and evidence.
Lake established that The toner on the On Demand Ballot printers was messed with as were the enlargement settings on these printers.
This caused the printers to print too light or to print ballots that the scanners could not calibrate too. These happened on large scale, and Maricopa county lied about it both publicly and in state certification, further they lied about both the toner problem the registration problem, and the number of printers with problems.
Lake also established that very large numbers of voters left th polls on election day or were turned away and unable to vote because of the problems in Maricopa county.
She established that Maricopa county used a private contractor to count ballots – this violates AZ law, but has been ongoing since 2020.
That there is no chain of custody for ballots going to and from this private contractor as required by law, and that the private contractor allowed people to drop off the ballots of friends and families of employees at their fascility – again in violation of AZ law and without any chain of custody.
By AZ law any one of this issues is sufficient to invalidate the election, or even award victory to Lake. All together should be more than enough.
That said. Though the actual standard of proof under the law is low – we require elections to be trustworthy, therefore even pervasive error sufficient to leave the results in doubt are legally sufficient to toss the election. In the real world it is very hard to get a judge to void an election – regardless of the evidence.
Regardless of what the Judge decides, what is clear is that Lake was absolutely entitled to her day in court. She was entitled to challenge the results of the election, that Arizona, and particularly Maricopa County is not following AZ law and Must clean up its act.
That those running the election in Maricopa country have lied repeatedly and should be removed from office, and permanently barred from administering elections.
What is also clear is that when 60+ courts refused to hear Trump’s election challenges – they ERRED.
That Trump was entitled to the same day in court that Lake got. That he was entitled to present witnesses, to present evidence and to have his claims decided on the merits, not by judges using every legal trick in the book to avoid having to hear evidence and arguments and actual rule on the facts.
The legal standard for overturning an election is not that high – people need to be able to trust elections. But the standard necescary to overcome the fear of judges is very high. It is not likely Trump would have prevailed in court had the evidence been allowed to be presented.
But most of us would have heard the truth about 2020. And we would no longer have people making stupid claims that 2020 was perfect, there were no problems, and that we do not have very serious problems that must be fixed.
That is more important than “who won”.
John Say: Yes, Democrats have gone to court to contest various election results. But no Democrat, like Donald Trump, resorted to an insurrection to overturn an election, That’s the difference you overlook. As to Kari Lake, she went to court in Maricopa County to contest her election loss. She claimed someone intentionally caused the county’s ballot-on-demand printers to malfunction and, as a result, enough “identifiable” votes were lost to change the outcome of the election. But in court Lake’s attorney could offer no proof of their claims. That’s why Judge Peter Thompson just ruled against Lake. Read Judge Thompson’s full decision and tell me he erred.
It’s really bizarre you would actually believe the 60+ courts that heard Trump’s election challenges also “erred”. In every one of those cases Trump’s attorneys had an opportunity to presence evidence of election “fraud”. In every case Trump could offer no credible evidence. That’s why Trump lost all his legal challenges. If you believe otherwise, that 60+ judges in 60 different jurisdictions used “every legal trick in the book to avoid having to hear evidence and arguments” you have definitely overdosed on the Trump cool-aid!
Not true. There was no discovery and no trial in any of those 60 cases.
People really should review the video’s of the Lake Hearing. While the ODBP issue was unique to the AZ 2022 Election,
Many of the other issues addressed are true of 2020, not just in AZ, but accross the country.
Maricopa county contracted out to a private company to count mailin ballots. AZ law requires the counting to be done by election workers, and supervised by election officials. That was not done in either 2022 or 2020.
Election law in every state requires chain of custody of ballots from end to end. The ballots sent to the private contractor have no chain of custody. Further there was evidence introduced that ballots of employees of the private contractor, and friends and family were dropped off at the private contractors offices.
Maricopa County EB board member Richter testified that he provided totals for ballots recieved that were 25,000 ballots apart and he has no idea what the difference is or why they differ.
I would not assume that Lake is going to win at this point – if this were a local election, this is a slam dunk, and Thompson would likely just rule that Lake won the election. But it is much harder to get a judge to overturn a statewide election.
This hearing does an excellent job of explaining why the courts did not hear Trump challenges.
There are many ways that Thompson can rule against Lake, But the evidence – atleast some of it, is out there.
This also can impact the AZ AG race challenge which I do not beleive has been heard yet.
The AZ AG races is within 500 votes, and it would be much easier for the court to find for the Republican in that case.
Winning the AZ AG contest means the AG investigation into Election Fraud in 2022 will continue.
“It’s really bizarre you would actually believe the 60+ courts that heard Trump’s election challenges also “erred”.
Dennis though that number has been corrected many times on the blog, you are still using it. Thank you for showing the world that you repeat nonsense.
18 out of 25 of the cases decided on merit went to Trump and/or the GOP
I have repeated this to a number of people on the blog including Svelaz and Anonymous the Stupid. ATS asked me for proof and I provided him a few cases. His mouth has been closed since. Do you wish to be sent some cases found in favor of Trump? The number may have exceeded 90 cases but I can send your choice.
Thanks. The numbers are not all that important.
What is self evident from the Lake hearings are the damage done to the nonsense about election integrity by actual hearings.
By rights lake should win her election challenge.
But I do not know if that will happen.
But everyone should watch the hearings, or if you do not have 12hrs, there are highlights videos.
What has been established as FACT is damning. And By Fact I means what both sides have agreed to.
Frankly based on the facts that both sides have agreed to if the law is followed – Hobbs has both lost the challenge and the election.
What should be clear to everyone is that in Marciopa county and frankly every large election fascility – the rules were not followed, the law was not followed.
The right can attribute that to malice and the case is strong, but left must atleast admit error and incompetence.
And that must be fixed.
There was no insurrection – if there had been 10000 trump supporters would have been at the capitol with AR-15’s. There was no on in the Captol with a firearm that was not FBI or Capitol police.
This claim has been complete idiocy from the start.
Like ALL Left Wing conspiracy theories.
There is a reason no one paid any attention to the J6 committee – because people are not blind – or atleast half the country is not blind.
They do not buy the complete idiocy that those on the left keep selling
Clinton was colluding with Russia – not Trump. That was obvious before the 2015 Election.
J6 was a legitimate protest that got out of hand.
In Jan 2017 Clinton supporters engaged in violence throughout the capital. Arson, looting, throwing bricks through windows.
That was much worse than J6 and it was not an insurrection.
It is a given – and the left attempts to do so all the time, that the losers in an election may do anything inside the law to “overturn” the outcome of the election.
The Actual crime of 2020 is the efforts to Rig the election and thwart protests.
We Know that Democrats bought control of election fascilities through Zuckerbucks.
We know they used Covid to justify conducting the election lawlessly.
We know that elected democrats, the DNC, and the Biden campaign conspired with Social Media to supress the truth and to supress the voices of their political opponents.
We know that the FBI and CIA participated in that conspiracy to supress the truth and to supress the speech of one party.
We Know there was widespread illegal ballot harvesting.
I would also suggest that you go to Youtube and watch Kari Lakes Arizona Election contest hearings. While I do not know what the Outcome will be – Lake has easily met her legal burden, but it is incredibly hard to persuade a judge to reject the outcome of an election.
The more important point is that Lake got the day in court that Trump was denied.
As a result the light was shown on the absolute total mess that was the Maricopa County Election.
Lake established that hundreds of thousands of ballots have no chain of custody – something true in every contested state in 2020 (and 2022), and by law ballots without chain of custody can not be counted.
Lake established that the problems with On Demand Ballot Printers in Maricopa country were at nearly 50% of precincts.
She further established that those problems were intentional – they could not have occured absent a deliberate human action.
The primary problem was that about 1/2 the on demand ballot printers were configured to print a 19″ ballot image onto a 20″ peice of paper.
Nowhere in Maricopa county in 2022 was there a 19″ ballot. This was a broad change that had to have been made deliberately and had to have been made by script after the Ballot Printers were tested.
Lake also established that large numbers of voters were turned away or left on their own without voting as a result of the problems.
Some of the most damaging information came as the Marc Elias/Perkins Coi lawyers dug themselves into a deep hole on cross.
Separately the Maricopa County election officials did not take the hearing seriously. Richter Testified from the Bahama’s in a tshirt and shorts, via Zoom, and was not able to answer basic questions.
Lake further established that Maricopa County’s representations in certifying the election were fraudulent. Many statement on the certification were False.
The Lake Hearing is why every effort was made to ensure that Trump never got an actual evidentiary hearing.
It would have gone very similarly. It is more difficult for the left and media and social media to supress what comes out in court.
While J6 was NOT an insurection – the ends justifies the means misconduct in 2020 very nearly justifies an actual insurection,
The only Ruling from Thompson I am aware of is in dismissing 8 of the 10 Counts she raised.
The Hearing on the remaining counts only Concluded Friday.
Judge Thompson has not indicated When he would rule.
A google search finds no evidence he has done so.
And I would be very surprised if he had.
I can only think you are refering to other AZ lawsuits, that Like Trump’s did not get their day in court.
I would strongly suggest before talking out your ass that you actually go and listen to the testimony, it is available on YouTube
and Rumble.
I do not know if Lake will win. The evidence presented was Damning. The actual standard of the law is quite low, Judge Thompson improperly imposed a higher standard than the law required. Regardless Lake actually met that standard.
But it is really really really hard to get a judge to overturn a statewide election.
The Ballots without chain of custody can not be counted as a matter of Arizona law. That is hundreds of thousands of mailin ballots, and the Maricopa County EB witness admitted that they had no chain of custody.
There is no intentionality required for chain of custody.
Thompson requited proof of intersectionality regarding the Ballot printer problem. Lakes lawyers and witnesses established that:
A 19″ Ballot image was being printed onto a 20″ ballot in just under 50% of Maricopa County Ballot printers.
That this change occured AFTER the Ballot printers had been tested, that the change could not occur accidentally. That the effected ballot printers were all updated by a script.
I would further note that while each side was given a limited amount of time to make their case. Lake’s lawyers as an example were not permitted to call every witness/observer at the polls, the witnesses and their testimony was supplemented by over 1000 affidavits that are also entered into evidence.
Regardless, I would suggest actually watching the testimony.
That will give you an excellent idea why 60+ courts used every means possible to avoid holding an evidentiary hearing.
You seem to know something no one else knows.
The last day of the hearing was Friday.
Transcripts are not even available.
Thompson has over 1000 affidavits that have been entered into evidence that he has not read that support the testimony.
I believe even the Maricopa County EB has conceded in court that just under 50% of the ODBP’s were misconfigured to print a 19″ ballot image onto a 20″ ballot and that there is no way this will be correctly scanned by the tabulator.
Marricopa county has also conceded that well over 100,000 mailin ballots have no chain of custody.
And that they were tabulated by a private contractor, on the Maricopa County Election official as required by Law.
There do not even appear to have been election officials at the private contractors facility supervising.
“You seem to know something no one else knows.”
Dennis knows a lot that others don’t. Why? Because almost none of the significant things he says is true.
I have seen two separate reports that Lake lost, but absolutely no confirmation from anywhere reliable.
I would be shocked if the Judge takes less than a week to decide this, there are over a thousand afadavits to read that were all entered into evidence.
I think Lakes team did amazingly well.
I think the Perkins Coi/Marc Elias team was so bad they might has well have been Lake’s lawyers.
Their cross exposed more bad facts than the direct testimony.
I think the facts and the law REQUIRE a ruling in Lakes favor.
That is the good news.
Getting any judge to reverse a statewide election is very hard.
Every instance I can think of that occuring was a democrat challenger, with democrats judges, and even then it was accomplished in tiny bits over months – such as the Franken/Colman challenge.
My personal prediction is that Thompson rules against Lake but writes an oppinion that excoriates Maricopa county for running a disasterous election. However if Thompson finds enough facts in Lake’s favor even if he rules against her, she can and likely will win on appeal.
As an example – there are almost 300K ballots with no chain of custody. Both sides actually agree on that. The AZ (and most states) law is clear, a ballot must have a full chain of custody to count. You need not prove fraud. You need not prove anything except absence of chain of custody. Lake proved that and Maricopa County was unable to provide chain of custody.
So lets say Thompsom Finds as he must, because there is no evidence to the contrary, that there are massive numbers of ballots without chain of custody but he makes up law and claims he can nto toss them – and Appeals court or the AZ supreme court can reverse, it is just a question of law. But if Thompson finds that Lake did not prove their was no chain of custody. You have to get an appeals court to find that A Judge erred on a finding of fact, and that is far harder no matter how absurd a finding that is.
We have the same on the ODBP issue. Lake has provided evidence that there were massive problems in almost half of Maricopa county.
The Judge ordered a Random sample of ballots and 48 of 112 ballots in the sample were misprinted.
Maricopa county is trying to claim that there were only 39 sites out of 200+ with problems and only 1200 ballots effected.
They admit the problem but are trying to make it small.
Thompson has multiple choices here:
State there was a problem, but accept that it only effected 1200 ballots and that very few people left the polls without voting as a result.
So the problem did not effect the outcome. That is a ludicrously stupid decision, but again it is hard to get appeals courts to overturn findings of fact.
Stat that there was a problem and it was large, and that it was the result of an intentional act by Maricopa county.
Intentional does NOT mean fraudulent. In this case creating an update script for ODBP’s that used a 19″ image for 20″ paper and then running that script on about 1/2 of ODBP’s is intentional.
But that counting ballots by hand resolved the issue and the problem with ballots not getting counted by hand or getting mixed was not large enough to flip the election. And that either enough people to flip the election did not get frustrated and leave or buy the Hobbs team argument that Voters had 24days to vote. The fact that they waited until election day to vote the way people have for 200 years and got screwed is their fault.
There are many ways Thompson can find against lake. They are all bad and wrong, but they are available to him.
Among those SOME ways set Lake up for a strong appeal.
Do not rule out the possibility that Thompson will Rule against Lake but in a way that he will likely lose on apeal.
That makes the appellate judge responsible for reversing the election.
It is possible that Thompson rules in lakes favor. I think the odds on that are 50:50.
If Thompson rules against her, I think the odds of reversal at each appeal level are about 30:70
That actually gives Lake fairly good chances to win this.
But if the Judge followed the law and the facts he could have given Lake a directed verdict Friday.
“ Kari Lake got to court in Arizona and though I do not know if she will win, the evidence presented was pretty damning and the Rebutal by the supposedly invincable Perkins Coi/Marc Alias lawyers actually made their case worse.”
Kari lake lost in court. She could not provide any evidence to prove her claims despite claiming she did. She did not have evidence just like Trump’s lawyers did not have evidence in those 60 cases.
The defendants showed they did everything by the book. No Republican voters were disenfranchised either. She was relying on speculation, hearsay, and open ended conspiracy theories to support her claims except what she needed the most, real evidence.
You must be talking about a different Case.
The lake hearing ended Friday. Transcripts are not available. Judge Thompson has not read the thousands of affidavits.
I would also suggest that you watch the hearing
This is day 1
https://youtu.be/vx3NxaVvP1s
https://youtu.be/CPHEgAqowcU
Sorry mislabeled video’s.
The first set was Day 2, not day 1.
Here is Day 1.
https://youtu.be/6z3LDcHIIjU
https://youtu.be/CPHEgAqowcU
The defenses actual arguments are:
We lost or never kept records, therefore you can not prove anything.
Even though there were ballot printer problems at between 39 and 62% of Maricopa polls – depending on whose data you rely on,
and that 48 of 113 randomly selected ballots as ordered by the court were 19″ ballots printed on 20″ paper, that there were really only 1300 total ballots misprinted.
And finally it is the fault of voters if they choose to vote in person on election day.
I would note that some on the web are claiming that one Maricopa official perjured himself because he changed his testimony on Day 2.
That is not perjury. If a witness makes an incorrect statement under oath and subsequently corrects it, they can not be charged with perjury.
This includes testifying, later reading the transcript and notifying the court that on review of the transcript the testimony was in error.
This is also why witnesses at congressional hearings – or their lawyers always ask to revise and extend their testimony in writing.
This was an issue the courts got wrong in the Roger Stone Trial.
Democrats refused to provide Stone with transcripts of his congressional testimony therefore he had no opportunity to correct.
There is the separate issue in stones case that you can not commit perjury by failing to provide exculpatory evidence.
Dennis,
I am going to ignore Hunter Biden – as there is more than enough evidence to convict Hunter of multiple crimes.
But Hunter is complex. He would not be targeted but for the fact that his father. He also would not have had the opportunity to commit many of his crimes but for his father.
Regardless, Hunter is not the issue, Nor is the BIG issue whether Joe Biden committed Crimes – though that deserves investigation and there is far more than enough for a Special Counsel specifically looking into the influence pedaling of the president.
The Big Deal is President Biden, and though Republicans will be looking for evidence of crimes. That is NOT the standard.
Democrats twice impeached Trump for actions that are not crimes, and then tried to manufacture non-existant crimes regarding J6.
While I hope that Republicans do NOT try to claim things are crimes that are not. There is plenty of evidence that President Biden is not moral and is corrupt, and that should all be brought out into the sunlight. It is certain that is going to happen.
I fully expect a year or so of you ranting “This is not a crime” – and you may be correct.
But it is already obvious his conduct was immoral and corrupt. That requires digging deaper.
“ While I hope that Republicans do NOT try to claim things are crimes that are not. There is plenty of evidence that President Biden is not moral and is corrupt, and that should all be brought out into the sunlight.”
Too late. They are already doing that. They are implying influence peddling are crimes. Even you are implying it.
Trump was of moral and he was corrupt. And not a single peep from you. Your standards are only applied to the left and democrats. Your animosity towards them is what allows you to ignore the fact trunp is just as corrupt and immoral.
Logic is not your Forte.
Influence peddling is immoral. It is often a crime.
That is why we must investigate, to determine whether Biden has actually managed to stay within the lines, or has colored outside the lines and how far.
Right now we do not know. It is self evident that Hunter Biden has gone far outside the lines. Hunter is not Joe, but it is still important.
It is extemely rare for one party in a scheme to be criminal without the other not getting caught up in the criminality.
Regardless, influence pedaling is immoral, and there is plenty of that for republicans to investigate.
As to whether I or others have claimed what they saw was a crime – so what ?
I would be very surprised given what we know that a crime involving Joe is not exposed – or even that one has but we have not seen enough details.
My advice not to jump the gun is strategic and tactical, not moral or legal.
The danger in jumping to claiming a crime too fast is that when you do expose clear criminality people are no longer listening.
Trump was self serving. Many of us, the left in particular view that as inherent evidence of immorality ever crime.
It is always true that criminals are self serving.
it is always true that the immoral are self serving.
It is actually rarely true that the self serving are immoral or criminal.
Self interest is the engine of the world. It is always present everywhere.
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food. The old cloaths which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other old cloaths which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food, cloaths, or lodging, as he has occasion.”
Adam Smith
My animosity toward the left is because they use force to abridge individual liberty, That they do so pervasively, and without justification.
The right does so occasionally. The left does so as a matter of ideology core values.
It is inevitable that the left will always be more corrupt that the right, it is inherent in their values.
“They are probing & pushing everywhere.”
A secret police censoring citizens and rigging an election — in the United States!
One problem with Americans is that they are overly benevolent and overly trusting. They do no take evil seriously. If they do not take this evil seriously, then America is doomed.
The FBI & Friends did it twice: in 2016 and 2020, and were part of a coup beginning in 2015 and ending with the defeat of Trump in 2020 due the suppressing Hunter’s laptop, and using their influence to censor negative news about Biden, Sr. in the public space. We should be building gallows on the South Lawn in January 2023.
In the end nothing legally will happen to Trump. The dims just keep dragging him through the mud. To kill his chances in a re election bid. Nothing will happen to the dims in an investigation. The ruling class will just keep going on.
Biden lied about the employment numbers just before the mid terms.
I know, lying about the economy is just Democrats being Democrats… and the deep state (that doesn’t exist) carrying the phony narrative.
<In the aggregate, 10,500 net new jobs were added during the period rather than the 1,121,500 jobs estimated by the sum of the states; the U.S. CES estimated net growth of 1,047,000 jobs for the period.
Biden lied. That is all you need to post, because it is natural for him.
How does Joe launder money on his tax return? I’d love to tell you, but it’s an ancient Chinese secret.
Trumps tax returns were released, how about the Biden clan.
Biden’s have been public for a long time, and many more years than Trump’s:
https://www.taxnotes.com/presidential-tax-returns
Why don’t you know that all candidates and sitting presidents — except Trump — have released theirs for decades?
How about Pelosi? How about her tax returns?
American democracy is dead. The deep state calls the shots. They tell the media what to report and big tech what to censor. Courts turn a blind eye to voter fraud are thrown in prison for years. Some people will try to take up arms to restore democracy and fail. Then a totalitarian regime will be put in place. It is probably too late to fix. Elon Musk might try to make a difference if he gets anywhere he will be put in prison on trumped up charges. The 2020 election was the point of no return.
“History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”
– George Orwell, 1984
The singular American failure has been and remains the Supreme Court, the Justices of which have sworn an oath to impartially support the “manifest tenor,” the clear meaning and intent, of the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and to not modify or amend those documents in their decisions, or otherwise usurp the power of the legislative branch.
Well, withTrump out of the race republicans will return to the country club atmosphere of riding it out to retirement. DeSantis still cares about hurting feelings. The only one who identified problems AND said what he planned to do about it them, and fight until he got his way was Trump.
We are on a fast train to socialism. Democrats have fire in the belly, Republican? Not so much.
If Democrats had fire in the belly they would go to their own political rallies. The are the party of the oligarchs and have oligarch money, media and big tech. They have oligarchs donating hundreds of millions of dollars to stuff ballot boxes.
241 comments, that didn’t take long. Interesting topic.
“Seventy percent of voters want new national laws protecting users from corporate censorship.”
A national law to that effect won’t happen until the GOP controls both houses of Congress and the White House. The Democrats who previously were famous for opposing corporate power are now the new lovers of ever-expanding corporate censorship power. They only hammer away at corporations that are doing useful things like developing domestic fossil-fuel energy which is the lifeblood of the American economy and power.
Republicans have gathered a trove of text and email messages revealing that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was directly involved in the creation and editing of the Capitol security plan that failed during the Jan. 6, 2021
https://nypost.com/?&utm_campaign=news_alert&utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20221221&lctg=62680bbe38a279b1870b18c5&utm_term=NYP%20-%20News%20Alerts
https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2022-12/FINAL%20Report%20of%20Investigation.pdf
Oldmanfromkansas, 70 percent of Americans are idiots. Corporations have 1st amendment rights too. Making laws forcing them to carry someone else’s speech is unconstitutional. Government cannot create laws forcing private entities to carry speech for someone else. Texas and Florida already passed laws doing that. Florida’s law was struck down as unconstitutional. Texas was retained by a trump judge. The case may by headed to the Supreme Court.
Pay attention now, I’m only going to say this once, well, maybe one million times, K?
Private property is NOT public property; only the owner may “claim and exercise” dominion, understanding the exceptions of property damage and bodily injury law.
Any and all usurpation and confiscation of private property for any purpose must be struck down by the Supreme Court with extreme prejudice.
The right to private property is absolute or the right to private property does not exist.
You who disagree with the American thesis, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights will have to adapt and/or find a “workaround.”
You free America “haters” and “deniers” are free to compete with or simply purchase corporations.
You could also “get up on Olde Paint and get the —— where you ain’t,” as the venerable adage goes.
_________________________________________________________________________________
5th Amendment
No person shall be…deprived of…property,…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
________________________________________________________________________________________________
“[Private property is] that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
OT: Nancy Pelosi found to be the perpetrator of Jan6
—
House Republicans have gathered a trove of text and email messages revealing that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was directly involved in the creation and editing of the Capitol security plan that failed during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot and that security officials later declared they had been “denied again and again” the resources needed to protect one of the nation’s most important homes of democracy.
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/house-gop-locates-emails-texts-showing-pelosi-office-directly-involved-failed?utm_source=breaking&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter
https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2022-12/FINAL%20Report%20of%20Investigation.pdf
Dis she instruct the police to wave protestors past the barriers and let them in the door and then suddenly turn on them and attack the once they were in the trap? That looks like the plan that was followed. Normal crowd control would have dealt with the small number of rowdies at the barriers.
LOCK HER UP!!!
S. Meyer,
SO, you think we will see another Jan6th committee? Should the Republicans rig it like the Dems rigged theirs to prove a point? Hire a producer. Have it all scripted out, read off teleprompters.
Wouldn’t that be fun in a poetic justice way?
Upstate, in the 1930’s we became overly concerned with the optics and many communists controlled what would be read. Whittaker Chambers was a senior editor at Time Magazine. Need I say more? Names might change but the dynamics remain the same.
In my discussion with John Say starting around:
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/12/20/a-case-of-hope-over-experience-the-j6-criminal-referral-falls-short-of-a-credible-criminal-case-against-trump/comment-page-3/#comment-2248105
John was arguing optics though he will more likely call it ‘individual liberty’. I agree with John wholeheartedly about individual liberty, but as I said to him, differently, in an imperfect world one cannot expect perfect individual liberty.
Did we win or lose the cold war? The leftists are in control of two branches of our government, and we have a slim margin of safety in the judiciary. That could change with just one bullet shot by the bolsheviks.
Pelosi lied.
Pelosi lied, proven by multiple sources, including messages. She was in charge of security and miserably failed.
Some points. Don’t forget the last one.
1)She refused the NG
2)She permitted politics to get in the way of her job. She worried more about the optics because she was critical of the NG previously called into DC to quell ANTIFA rioting.
3)She didn’t make sure the Capitol Police were adequately trained or equipped.
4)She blamed others for what happened even though those others suggested different ways of handling the problems.
5)She pressured people into covering her mistakes.
6)”What is novel, however, is a Speaker who denies the relationship and ignores her office’s obligation to secure the Capitol, perhaps in an effort to shift blame.” _A quote regarding optics
7)She was in control, proven by her actions regarding masks and other things, while she neglected those police under her ultimate command.
8)”Consult Appendix A for a timeline that illustrates how Irving acted in deference to the Speaker and her staff, which was compiled from documents provided by current House Sergeant at Arms William J. Walker.”
9)”The Speaker’s office was heavily involved in planning and decision-making before and during the events of January 6, 2021,”
10)There is much more, but the obvious is that the Jan 6 hearings were a farce. What was needed was an investigation of Nancy Pelosi’s actions forcing her to reveal her true intentions.
Take note, the time between breaking the first Capitol window and Trump Tweeting to supporters, “PLEASE SUPPORT OUR CAPITOL POLICE AND LAW ENFORCEMENT. THEY ARE TRULY ON THE SIDE OF OUR COUNTRY. STAY PEACEFUL!” was only 30 minutes despite what we are reading and hearing from the left.
Emails and texts between the CP and pelosi were aparently released recently.
Making it clear Pelosi is the one that block the NG and other efforts to secure the capital.
And then fired the sargent of arms for her failure.
Many in the CP were livid about this.
““It’s taken place and grown under both Republican and Democratic administrations. This concerns everyone.” — Matt T.”
That is true, but if you are going to highlight it as if it is meaningful, then you should recognize that today it is growing at a tremendous rate and the Democrats are causing the government to become autocratic. The worst we have seen of this has been under Democrat administrations. In the past it wasn’t as dangerous but presently the left has taken over the Democrat Party and are acting more like the CCP than the government of JFK.
It’s taken place and grown under both Republican and Democratic administrations — on behalf of the Democrats. This sinister activity goes back at least 15 years. During the Bush administration the FBI brought down Ted Stevens (which provided the Democrats with the 60th vote for Obamacare). The agent who did it was not even fired.
“This sinister activity goes back at least 15 years.”
It goes back much further. I took it back to the 1930s, McCarthyism. He wasn’t a nice guy but he was right. We had communists in government. In the second post I brought it to the present trying to demonstrate what happened in committees had many disturbing similarities to the Jan 6 hearings. I only provided a tiny bit. The same things are happening over and over again. We are losing our country.
If you are interested the two posts are at:
https://jonathanturley.org/2022/12/20/a-case-of-hope-over-experience-the-j6-criminal-referral-falls-short-of-a-credible-criminal-case-against-trump/comment-page-3/#comment-2248105
If it doesn’t come up search for the words I suspect that placing the blame on
hello
Hello also
Anonymous the Stupid, why did you insult N Eason using an email address that disappears?
“The release of the files have shattered those denials. There is simply no further room for censorship apologists.”
Is Turley going to throw Svelaz off the list? Will ATS follow?
LOL! Nope, Turley’s claims are a bit off the trail. The twitter files did not “shatter denials”. Turely still has that big problem called the law. Perhaps he’s heard of it.
Oops
Not only were retired FBI guys working for Twitter. The US Transportation hired a guy from Twitter..
https://www.transportation.gov/mission/carlos-monje