Below is my column in the New York Post on the indictment of Alexander Smirnov and the use of the charges by Hunter Biden to seek to dismiss his own charges. That dog won’t hunt.
Here is the column:
The Russian comedian Yakov Smirnoff once joked that “in America, you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia, the Party can always find you.”
Alexander Smirnov is no comedian, but he is about to discover the truth of that statement.
Alexander Smirnov is now a defendant in federal court after being charged by special counsel David Weiss for spreading a false story about Hunter Biden receiving $5 million from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company.
The allegation has produced a stampede of Democrats who view his indictment as a much-needed talking point as the House continues to build the case of influence-peddling by the Biden family.
Some are using the charges to revive a previously debunked story that Hunter Biden’s laptop could be Russian disinformation. But a closer reading of the filing dispels those claims and contradicts a new effort by Hunter Biden to dismiss charges against himself.
The filing itself is actually an argument to keep Smirnov in federal detention.
The government points out Smirnov’s admitted contacts with Russian intelligence officials and previously scheduled meetings with such figures to argue he is a flight risk.
However, there are a couple of aspects to the filing that undermine the claims of a “bombshell” revelation of a Russian disinformation campaign. First, these disclosures were not the result of surveillance or interceptions by American intelligence. Smirnov appears to have been cooperating with the United States and told his US “handler” about all of these contacts.
Second, Smirnov’s contacts were described as “recent” and did not apparently precede 2020. They have nothing to do with the laptop or the evidence of influence-peddling found in emails on that computer. This is solely a claim of a large payment to the Bidens from Burisma.
Third, the Justice Department states that Smirnov had expressed “bias” against Joe Biden and used “his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma” to make the bribery allegations.
So Smirnov operated off a bias against Biden, made an allegation separate from the laptop, and ultimately disclosed his communications to his U.S. handler. He detailed conversations with the “son of a former high-ranking government official” and “someone with ties to a particular Russian intelligence service.” Reports indicate that Smirnov was not only an asset of American intelligence but on the payroll for roughly a decade as a trusted informant.
That does not mean that the Russians were not eager to spread false claims, though it shows again how low-grade such efforts could be. It does not address hundreds of confirmed emails of Hunter Biden cashing in on an array of foreign contacts.
Hunter Biden’s legal team is citing the filing in seeking to cast doubt on all of the allegations and even the pending charges: “It now seems clear that the Smirnov allegations infected this case.”
They insist that the bribe allegation was key to the loss of the plea agreement that they struck with the president’s son. They argued that “having taken Mr. Smirnov’s bait of grand, sensational charges, the Diversion Agreement that had just been entered into and Plea Agreement that was on the verge of being finalized suddenly became inconvenient for the prosecution, and it reversed course and repudiated those Agreements.”
That is not how it happened.
Hunter Biden had received a sweetheart deal so rich as to put most defendants into hyperglycemic shock. Hunter would have avoided any jail time and been given sweeping immunity from future charges.
The reason that the deal fell apart was not any particular allegation of bribes. The alleged bribe was not part of the case. It fell apart because the judge asked a simple question on the meaning of the immunity. The deal immediately imploded as the prosecutor was forced to admit that he had never seen a deal like this for anyone other than Hunter Biden.
In relation to the influence-peddling investigation, this filing does not change the evidence that the Biden family made millions in shaking down foreign companies and business figures.
On Wednesday, Capitol Hill will witness something that many thought would never come. The House is calling a Biden to actually answer questions under oath about influence-peddling. James Biden, brother of the president, will testify on his long history of leveraging the name and influence of his brother. That includes $200,000 given to him by a collapsing hospital chain company, Americore.
Biden reportedly pitched a percentage deal with his brother and immediately turned over the money to Joe Biden to pay off a prior “loan.”
That was not the creation of a “biased” Russian but the Biden family itself. Smirnov was not at the dinners and meetings where Joe Biden called in to chat. He was not the recipient of messages from Hunter threatening that his father was “sitting next to” him and waiting for transfers of money. He was not the source of gifts and expense accounts to cover Hunter’s lavish lifestyle. .
Most importantly, Smirnov was not the reason that Hunter was indicted by the same prosecutor, David Weiss, who just indicted him.
It’s being reported that at a CA fundraiser the other day Biden said that he was in the Senate with segregationists like Strom Thurmond and they weren’t as bad and as anti-democratic as today’s Republicans. So the guy that supported Thurmond, gave the eulogy for KKK guy Robert Byrd and hung around with other southern segregationists is now claiming that Republicans are racist.
Thurmond wanted to deny blacks the right to vote, Byrd was a leader in the KKK and Biden is saying today’s Repubs are worse…as he also says we need to be united as a country and that he is a unity president.
This is the guy that Dennis and Anonymous defend, a vicious, lying, opportunistic, corrupt, senile moron. Imagine dying on a hill for Joe Biden, a man that even these same lying fools disliked from 1973 until 2019. They knew he was dumb, they knew he was a liar, they were pretty sure he was corrupt and they knew he was a plagiarizing nut job. But now they want to make believe that he is a great man. HE IS NOT A GREAT MAN, HE IS A VERY SMALL MAN.
Amen. So Mr. Unity is not going to Heal the Soul of the Nation?
LOL but it’s scary as hell the tension in the country right now…
the media is fake news, everything is corruption, lies, lawlessness….
Biden is vicious and nasty…and paid off by CCP…
Who is in charge and pulling all the levers of power?
HullBobby,
He is a very small and feeble man.
In a recent 2 minute pre-recorded video of Biden giving a speech, was cut and edited 30 times.
30 times in a 2 minute pre-recorded video!
What are the debates between Biden and Trump going to look like?
Or what will the excuse the Biden campaign use to get out of so much as even one debate?
I know, it’s much better to have quotes like this attributed to you.
“I will be phenomenal to the women. I mean, I want to help women.”
“Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything”
“Because you talk about a certain power of the telephone and the calls where they would call and say, no, we don’t want to do that.”
“They worked hard to buy a house and now they’re going to watch the housing values drop like a rock.”
“Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me old, when I would never call him short and fat? Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend and maybe someday that will happen.”
“I tested positively toward negative, right? So no. I tested perfectly this morning, meaning I tested negative. But that’s a way of saying it. Positively toward the negative.”
“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine.”
“Is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? It sounds interesting to me, so we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful.”
“I have never seen a thin person drinking diet coke.”
“Why can’t we use nuclear weapons?”
“He’s now president for life. President for life. No, he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot some day.”
DJT
Bob’s preferred President.
Lousy economy
a criminal in the White House
A crackhead son
War in the mideast
War in Ukraine
100,000 Americans dying from drugs
millions of people illegally crossing the border
Prostitution and disease
Terrorists setting up cells.
If one wants to agree with the crazy, Bob, go ahead.
UpstateFarmer asked a question: “Or what will the excuse the Biden campaign use to get out of so much as even one debate?”
Probably the same excuse Trump used to avoid debates during the Republican Primary? Or maybe it’s a Democrat thing – one rule for them, a different rule for me, works for Trump as well as Biden?
Republicans are racists. Period.
Democrats were the party of the KKK, Jim Crow laws, segregation.
And they are making segregation a come back and the party of antisemitism.
Yes! I can not believe the anti-Semitism part. I look for this to get far worse, pretty quickly. If your local synagogue has a Gefilte Fish Festival, I would stay away, or go with concealed carry. Whatever, don’t take the kids.
Floyd,
I have good friends and family by marriage that are Jewish.
More than a few have sought me out for advice on firearms.
I stand with them.
Floyd and Upstate, anti-Semitism hits home for me and it is truly scary how far it has gone in the last three months.
As for Perry Mason, he doesn’t have a CLUE. What party has Tlaib? Omar? Bowman? What party is supported by Antifa? What party is the party of Harvard and the pro-Palestine movement? What party has many members that think Israel has no right to exist? What party’s Secretary of State, Blinken, just went to Brazil to shake hands with a president that just said Israel is like the Nazis and apartheid? Imagine if Trump’s Sec State went to shake hands with someone who just said that Palestinians need to be eliminated. I know Blinken is Jewish, but so is Bernie and many other self-haters that support the end of Israel.
Hullbobby, anti-Semitism has been with us. Oct7 merely uncovered what already existed, even among some existing on this blog. The left has shown itself to be very anti-Semitic, so I expect the continuous migration of Jewish people to the right to continue. In fact, the left has been so atrocious to minorities we are seeing all minorities gradually migrating to the right.
I am not sure that “anti-semitic” is the right term to use, although it is the best I can come up with. Because the root cause isn’t being against Jews, as much as it is “for” the alleged victims. Except for the Muslims, which that is pure anti-Semitism.
The old anti-Semites had a host of excuses to hate Jews. Jews killed Jesus, or Jews ate Christian babies. Today, among the Left, those canards would be a plus for Jews! What, the Jews kill those intolerant Christians? Way to go, Jews! Let’s see, Jew were Shylocks, and they ruined people financially for interest. This passage is from Mein Kampf, and IIRC, I originally read this in a college textbook, Writings of the Western Civilization, or something like that. The book also had MLKs speech from Montgomery (?) jail. I had to find an English translation online at Gutenberg.
Anyway,
“And with that I came up against the Jewish problem. I will not say that the manner in which I first became acquainted with it was particularly unpleasant for me. In the Jew I still saw only a man who was of a different religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I was against the idea that he should be attacked because he had a different faith. And so I considered that the tone adopted by the anti-Semitic Press in Vienna was unworthy of the cultural traditions of a great people. The memory of certain events which happened in the middle ages came into my mind, and I felt that I should not like to see them repeated. .
He then went on how as he lived in Vienna, he began to see Jews behind every major vice in the city – prostitution, white slavery, control of the press, and anti-Germanness in general, etc. Even the appearance of the side locks on a Jew disturbed him. Not to mention, the politics of the Jewish population. And, Jews were just plain evil.
Hitler wrote – “Then something happened which helped me to come to an early decision. I began to see through the meaning of a whole series of events that were taking place in other branches of Viennese life. All these were inspired by a general concept of manners and morals which was openly put into practice by a large section of the Jews and could be established as attributable to them. Here, again, the life which I observed on the streets taught me what evil really is.”
So, by Hitler’s time, you had a pretty broad-based series of excuses, including later, stabbing Germany in the back during WWI.
Today, however, the “anti-Semitism” seems to be based pretty much on “They are oppressing the Gazans, and the Palestinians, and they are committing genocide against them. That sort of tripe. Once the anti-Semitism wall has been broken, I do suspect it will grow, and will soon encompass all the other crazy tropes of those Nazi years.
I do not know if any scholar has done a deep dive on the current mess, and I hope someone does before the boundaries blur out, and all we are left with is Critical Nazi Theory 2.0 or something.
Floyd, you are a latecomer, so I will provide a bit of personal history. My wife is an immigrant. Her mother was in Auschwitz, and her father was comatose when the Allies arrived. Anti-Semitism was high where she was brought up, so the three of them tried to escape from the country. They were caught and sentenced to jail, including my wife, who was an infant at the time. She was arrested multiple times afterward. The last arrest occurred when she was carrying top-secret microfilm in her hair traveling to the West. She accompanied an MI6 agent who needed a cover story. The Russians interrogated my wife, and since the jails were full and they didn’t find the microfilm, she continued on her journey meeting up with her parents before crossing the minefield into the West. There she lived in a tent through a horrible winter and more until she could find a country to enter which was the US that had closed their doors just shortly before she was free.
There is more to the story and the stories of the rest of the family. We love this country that permitted us to live. We even love those who discriminated against Jews but didn’t kill us or stop us from working elsewhere. I am sick of the anti-Semites on this list and the stupid people who wish to destroy the finest power ever existing. All we ask is that we can live and work in peace to provide for our families and others in need.
Floyd, thank you for your kind words.
You are so welcome! I appreciate learning your story. I do not know if my family would have survived. My great-grandfather was Jewish, and my grandfather was literally a dough boy, and fought in WWI. For the Americans. They were of the age, where if they lived in Germany, they would have been rounded up. Even though my grandfather somehow ended up being a Protestant. I think the Nuremberg laws went down three generations, IIRC.
I thought I would not live to see anti-Semitism ever rear its head again, outside the Muslim world. I really fear the pro-Palestinian stuff is going to grow, and morph. If I were Jewish, and lived in some of the gun-grabbing areas, like NYC, I would pack up and move down south. And buy lots of guns, and learn how to use them. The Bible Belt is very pro-Israel.
The pro-Palestinian people, outside of the Muslims, are just bat-sh!t insane, and full of rage. The Muslims are just full of hate and rage, on the whole. A mechanic, who used to work on my car, was Muslim, and retired Air Force, and he hated Jews, With a passion. And this man was educated, But, I would bet that a lot of these recent imports, legal and illegal, are not much above the level of the average Jihadist.
I see bad things on the horizon, and just Jewish lawyers refusing to hire some elite grads, is not enough to stop it. It would help if liberal Jews left the Democrat party, but even then, is that enough? With the Internet, and social media, there are places for these lunatics to socialize, and mutually reinforce their delusions.
“WHERE THERE IS A WILL, THERE IS A WAY”
Wait! Did you say, “…southern segregationists…?”
_______________________________________________________
“If all earthly power were given me,” said Lincoln in a speech delivered in Peoria, Illinois, on October 16, 1854, “I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery]. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.” After acknowledging that this plan’s “sudden execution is impossible,” he asked whether freed blacks should be made “politically and socially our equals?” “My own feelings will not admit of this,” he said, “and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals.”5
One of Lincoln’s most representative public statements on the question of racial relations was given in a speech at Springfield, Illinois, on June 26, 1857.6 In this address, he explained why he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would have admitted Kansas into the Union as a slave state:
There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races … A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas …
Racial separation, Lincoln went on to say, “must be effected by colonization” of the country’s blacks to a foreign land. “The enterprise is a difficult one,” he acknowledged,
but “where there is a will there is a way,” and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.
– Robert Morgan, Institute for Historical Review
OT,
Great news everyone, especially those pro-war, pro-WWIII, pro-nuclear annihilation, Ukrainian president Zelensky has signed a decree allowing foreigners and stateless persons enlist in the National Guard.
Women too!
So you now have a legal means to enlist for an initial three year term of service, where your life span on the front lines measures in days!
@Upstate
And I’ll bet not a single privileged whiner stateside will sign up. What a joke. We are probably doomed. 10-15 years to the absolute collapse of what we used to call the West. Unreal. When i first found this site, due to my lawyer wife, I could not have conceived any of this. The globalists have wrecked us in such a short order as to almost be incomprehensible – we are stupid, stupid people. Sigh.
James,
Of course they will not! They just like to come to the good professor’s blog, whine about giving the Ukraine nukes, or other means of starting a nuclear war but will not step up themselves.
They always want someone else to do the fighting and dying.
Just not them!
I knew at some point in time America’s place as the super power would come to an end. All empires do.
Never thought I would see it in my lifetime or witness it happening.
I think it started with Obama and then the SJW movement.
It got stalled during Trump.
Restarted with the mass hysteria of COVID.
Then kicked in high gear with the Biden admin. Just look at all the fires going on through out America and the world.
S. Meyer pointed out, al-Qaeda opened 8 training camps in Taliban controlled Afghanistan.
I knew we were losing it but at my age I thought I was safe. Sadly, due to Biden and the left, it is going way faster than I ever thought possible.
@Upstate & James, you couldn’t get any of these Jody’s to fight for the USA never mind overseas.
These are the guys who make the snowballs and want you to throw them.
Forget Bidens Criminality and lies. He needs to go because he is incompetent. How much money did the US send to Iran that made its way to Afghanistan and Hamas?
OT: Resurgent al-Qaida training camps latest black eye from Biden Afghanistan withdrawal
UN report claims al-Qaida now has eight training camps in Taliban-controlled country.
I wonder how many training camps the SOBs have here in the United States? They would be easy to disguise.
https://clarionproject.org/2018/01/31/exclusive-fbi-confirms-jihadi-training-camps-america/
Read, The Attack, by Kurt Schlicter. Currently, it is still fiction. That may change.
Thanks, Floyd. You know Clarion is doing good work when it upsets the SPLC while trying to keep Americans safe. For some reason the left hates a safe America.
You know we’re getting close to election time because the Russians are coming back, ask any democrat.
Ask any republican if the Russians are going to help……again,
Fishstick, still believe in the Russia Hoax I see.
None of our enemies have to do anything. Just let Biden be Biden and he will lose the election.
And dont forget, Putin has endorsed Biden. Who benefits the most from another Biden admin?
Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, the drug cartels along our unsecured Southern border.
@Fishwings
Yes, we think you are stupid. Please stop giving us the fodder that proves that assumption. You are free to think and to post, as it should be; we are free to call you a moron, which you are. The pixels you take up with your idiocy are your own heartbeats. I hope you feel good about that. You are not convincing anyone of anything, there is just time ticking in which you could be a more pleasant and productive person on this earth. Yawn. Double yawn. You help no one, and you waste our time. We do not appreciate it.
Fishy – shhh here’s The Plan….being rolled out now in NYC under Mayor Adams…where nice hotels are closed to the public bc they are full up with 30+ floors, all rooms occupied by illegals, being housed, fed 3 meals a day, incidentals taken care of, being given debit cards preloaded with thousand$…..why? —–>>
“It’s not just the financial insanity, it’s far more insidious than that. The fighting-age migrants are being kept mollified with these and many other debit cards from numerous sources. The kettle is being kept from boiling over with the cash payments. On the day that our traitor elites want to activate their criminal alien replacement invasion army, the debit cards will be deactivated. The Rats and the MSM will coordinate the message that white racist conservative Republicans cut off their funding because they hate migrants and want them to starve in the street, etc etc. This is not happenstance, or a mistake, it is a PLAN.”
OPEN YOUR EYES
The Bonfire Of The Sanities
MOTUS MENTIS – FEBRUARY 20, 2024
Malcom Pollack
https://malcolmpollack.com/2024/02/20/the-bonfire-of-the-sanities-3/…
Here’s a news story. I’d say it was “shocking”, or “amazing”, but at this point it really isn’t.
It’s bad, though.
In brief:
New York City has signed a no-bid contract with a “W/MBE” company (i.e., not run by white men) to make debit cards to be issued to “migrants”. The cards will have no names attached, can be loaded with up to $10,000 at a time, and will be given to city officials to hand out at their own discretion. No ID or other credentials will be required of those receiving them. The cards will be loaded with city funds, and the issuing company, MoCaFi (headed by a black man who started the firm back when the violent criminal Michael Brown tried to steal a police officer’s weapon and got ventilated for it), will get a percentage of any funds the city deposits on the cards.
We read:
So, to sum up so far, the Adams administration, with no oversight, no consultation with the city council, and no public discussion, has given itself the flexibility to launch a massive parallel benefits program, alongside — not replacing — traditional welfare cash assistance and (for New Yorkers legally in the country long-term) federal food stamp benefits.
[Please read it all at the link above.]
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
– William Casey, CIA Director
Margot,
LOL!
Right?
Nancy see Russian’s around every corner, even though Putin has endorsed Biden.
Come on! Who benefits the most from another Biden admin?
Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, the drug cartels along our unsecured Southern border.
@Margot
Yup. Just very, very tired. Burn the DNC to the ground.
This has all rapidly become, ‘Oh no, I voted for the wrong person!’, to ‘How do we get rid of the Mafia?’. This is 1930s level criminality, and we didn’t get Al Capone in any meaningful way back then. We did get Charles Manson, and the modern (young, progressive) left resembles Helter Skelter more and more. And they are like a cockroach or termite infestation; I do not know how we get rid of the mendacious (and I say that in relation to law and freedom, not religion) dems without total fumigation.
The difference is that this the public sector, not Chicago, as in the past. We are rotten from top to bottom. This is utter madness, the White House and our deeper government have never, ever seen such corruption in our entire history; the Bidens are in a league all their own, at least in terms of the WH. Obama was an ‘agent of change’, alright. 🙄 Changing things so coked up aristocrats get to call the shots and lord themselves over others. Again: there are millions of Hunter Bidens across the globe that hobnob with Hollywood and foreign royalty.
Again, dizzying. It is time for the aristocracy to die, again, very painfully and absolutely. That starts with the Bidens and ends with the Obamas, the Clintons, the Soroses, and the RINOs in-between. We have had ENOUGH. Do we really need literal guillotines this time? I pray not. The events of the past several months have been nothing short of batsh** insane. I never thought I would live to see this in the West when I learned to duck and cover as a child. I guess greed and malevolence really do know no bounds. We have had ENOUGH. We WILL fight for our freedom. And again, I am NOT a conservative.
You are an American.
This fight is not Left or Right.
It is Freedom vs Tyranny.
An explainer:
“A Republic, Not A Democracy by Dan Smoot April, 1966.
The seemingly new obsession with the use of the words “protect our democracy”, “save our democracy” or claims that Donald Trump is a “threat to democracy” is not by happenstance but by design.
In 1966 Dan Smoot wrote:
“The ideal of a democracy is universal equality.
The ideal of a constitutional republic is individual liberty.
In this century, great strides have been made toward the goal of subverting our republic, and transforming it into a democracy.
The foremost tactic of the subverters is subversion of “language” — by calling America a democracy, until people thoughtlessly accept the term, and use the term. Totalitarians have obscured the real meanings and principles of American government.”
It’s clear to me that we are in the midst of an attempt to destroy the the Constitutional Republic the United States was founded on.” @RebeccaMtn
A democracy is a government where the people hold the ultimate power. The US is both a democracy and a republic. They are not opposed. They intersect. The US is in the intersection.
The democratic/dictatorial duality.
America is a representative republic with a constitution designed to affirm individual liberty and mitigate authoritarian progress.
@Anonymous
That is damn right. Period. The modern left is irredeemable. Also period.
Dear Prof Turley,
Something fishy is going on.
The House should immediately subpoena Smirnov and SC Weiss and get to the bottom of this .. . dont’ think FBI Director Wray will be very forthcoming concerning a trusted FBI CHS spreading Russian disinformation.
“In the world of propaganda, it is very difficult to defeat the United States” ~ Putin, Tucker Carlson interview
Witness SC Weiss’ tireless efforts to root out Russian disinformation among trusted FBI CHSs. If the allegations of Biden bribery at Burisma, or Ukraine in general, come from ‘high level’ Russians’, it must be disinformation.
“So Smirnov operated off a bias against Biden … and ultimately disclosed his communications to his U.S. handler. He detailed conversations with the “son of a former high-ranking government official” and “someone with ties to a particular Russian intelligence service.” Reports indicate that Smirnov was not only an asset of American intelligence but on the payroll for roughly a decade as a trusted informant.”
As a general rule, I vehemently oppose U.S. involvement in Ukraine. All of it. Especially the Bidens long involvement there, including the abrupt firing of Ukraine’s Chief law enforcement official [who was investigating Burisma], and the violent coup in 2014 leading to the largest major-power ground war since WWII. .. with the distinct possibility of escalation into global thermal nuclear war and the end of civilization as we know it.
That said, it would be impossible to ‘impeach’ Biden for any of that because almost no one in the government, or the media, objects to any of it. On the contrary, the U.S. has fully supported, funded, trained and armed the Zelenskiy regime to the tune of over $150 billion .. . with another $60 billion most urgently awaiting approval.
Perhaps SC Weiss’, who has been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018, exposing the ‘Russian disinformation’ provided by a trusted, well-paid FBI CHS will provide the impudence necessary to get the additional funded across the line.
*freedom, democracy .. . and the impeachment of Joe Biden hangs in the balance.
Smirnov working for CIA and our other intel agencies for a decade. The 5 million times two, joe and hunter bribes on the books for years.
The House investigation closes in and SURPRISE SURPRISE! the deep state suddenly charges Smirnov, their intel asset of a decade, with lying about biden and hunter each getting 5 million from the Ukraine Oligarch who is on tape admitting he was pushed to pay it !
Wow, what a cohencidence. YOU’VE GOT TO BE BRAIN DEAD TO BUY IT. THE DEEP STATE LIARS ARE AT IT AGAIN TO COVER UP THEIR MOB MASTERS CRIMES.
If you believe after years, the timing was just a happy chance for the bidens, i’ve got a space force nuke to sell coming out of the Kremlin which will arrive just on time and cost you 65 billion in payment to Ukraine.
HOW BRAIN DEAD ARE THE CRIMINALS IN CHARGE ?
It was all over the news last night and this morning.
I admit I am like a broken record in my disdain for manipulative, agenda-driven, selective-reporting MEDIA that will blame Smirnov, et al, if Biden does not perform as well in 2024 election as Media has been touting he will. Just like the “now-debunked” letter from the “51 former intelligence officials” all over the Media just days before the election….
How much MEDIA coverage did THIS get: (I wanted to go thru the actual lengthy report, but I cheated and used this):
“Durham also wrote that [FBI] had relied significantly on investigative leads provided or funded by Trump’s political opponents — without adequately questioning the motivations of the people providing the information…
“When the FBI’s initial investigation was opened, ‘neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings,’
“Durham wrote that ‘apparent confirmation bias’ and ‘an over-willingness to rely on information from individuals connected to political opponents’ resulted in investigators acting ‘without appropriate objectivity or restraint’ when investigating the Trump-Russia collusion allegations.”
https://www.politifact.com/article/2023/may/17/durham-report-criticized-elements-of-fbis-investig/
“Counter Intelligence” was hard at work on the case. They, “just got duped for years”, sad, bigly. They showed no intelligence and no counter. The big red stamp on the classified top secret paperwork said “GET TRUMP, ORANGE MAN IS BAD” spies only.
They used the lies for nearly a decade now.
All the demoncrats still believe it.
Manchurian candidate confirmed 100%.
In other words, counter intelligence got everything right 100%, it is only now that a Smirnov could dupe them for years, and suddenly, they admit their error, and discover the truth, the bidens are totally innocent, 100%, and Smirnov must go to prison, even though the oligarch who paid the tem million to the bidens admits on tape he was pressured to do so.
Duck and cover, the incoming nuke missile from the kremlin space force is lit, and it will only cost you 65 billion paid yo Zelinsky in Ukraine.
On the contrary, when the investigation was opened, there was clear evidence that Russia was interfering via the hack and release of the DNC data and Australia had contacted the US to let us know that Papadopoulos had told Downer that Russia could release information that was damaging to Hillary Clinton, thereby helping the Trump campaign. See the Durham Report’s discussion of the opening of Crossfire Hurricane: https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf
Except for the fact the DNC emails were never hacked
That is sworn testimony by CEO of Crowd Strike. The only people with access to the DNC email servers. The CEO testified that there was no evidence if the emails being exfiltrated from the server. There was evidence of the emails being organized but never hacked.
Papadopoulos was fed the Email leak, when he was ‘bumped’ by one of the 5 Eyes spies put in place by CIA director John Brennen to keep an eye on 26 Trump campaign workers.
Of course there was NEVER any predicate to start Crossfire Hurricane.
POLITICS
New details emerge in declassified Papadopoulos transcript
By Catherine Herridge
April 25, 2020 / 2:24 PM EDT / CBS News
A newly declassified transcript from the FBI’s 2016 Russia probe reviewed by CBS News shows a recorded conversation between former Trump advisor George Papadopoulos and the bureau’s confidential human source turned up no evidence of coordination between the campaign and Russia.
The 90-page, lightly redacted transcript between Papadopoulos — who is identified by the code name “Crossfire Typhoon,” or CT — and the bureau’s confidential human source, or CHS, captures the October 23, 2016 conversation.
https://nypost.com/2024/02/13/news/cia-and-foreign-intelligence-agencies-illegally-targeted-26-trump-associates-before-2016-russia-collusion-claims-report/
Not a wholly ineffective strategy; plant a fake whistleblower to distract attention away from the true crime. It worked for awhile with Russiagate. It worked on Trump’s first impeachment. But it won’t work on this investigation, because like JT’s other post about Commander, there’s just too much physical evidence that proves the allegations. Still, the American justice system won’t touch the Biden’s. Even if Hunter or James are convicted of anything, they’ll be pardoned when Joe Biden is removed from the ticket by the Regime’s Political justice system.
It’s not American, it’s the Soros “justice system”…
As I said days ago, just because Smirnov says that somebody else told him that either they, or someone else, had given $5 million to Joe Biden, is of little use WITHOUT some supporting evidence. So what if the people telling Smirnov were Russian Intelligence? What if had been Deputy Barney Fife of the Mayberry Sheriff’s Office? Hearsay is hearsay. What you need, is the actual supporting evidence. The claim was on a Form FD-1023. From a link below:
“But Smirnov was not a key witness in the GOP impeachment inquiry. In fact, he was never scheduled to be a witness at all.
Republican lawmakers did not know the identity of the confidential human source behind the FD-1023 form, and a source familiar with the impeachment inquiry said they did not have plans to interview him.
While GOP lawmakers did ask the Justice Department what investigators had done to look into the bribery claim, accusing the DOJ of covering up the allegation with inaction, they did not ask to speak with Smirnov himself.”
Further
“Former U.S. Attorney Scott Brady oversaw an effort in 2020 to vet information from a variety of sources related to the Biden family and Ukraine and to brief investigators conducting a criminal investigation of Hunter Biden on any Ukraine-related tips deemed credible.”
and
“Brady testified that during an October 2020 briefing he gave to Weiss’s prosecutors in the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office, Brady’s team and FBI agents told Weiss that “we felt that the 1023 had indicia of credibility sufficient to merit further investigation.” The FBI interviewed Smirnov again in late June 2020 after Brady’s requests.”
———–
So see, it wasn’t just Barney Fife who gave the tip. There were indicia of credibility. BUT STILL, WHOEVER – Smirnov, Barney Fife, Pope Francis, Dylan Mulvaney – WHOEVER – it would be the underlying evidence which was essential. And, since the committee never had that evidence, the whole Smirnov thing was never the basis for the inquiry. It was just a hoped-for super-smoking gun, to add to the other evidence already collected.
So Schiff is lying. Raskin is lying. The DNC Shills here are lying. The whole “The Investigation Just Went Down the Toilet” stuff is just lying spin, and only a moron would fall for it.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2867706/fact-check-spin-ex-fbi-informant-biden-bribery-claims/
They are doing it again for ’24….laying the predicate….running Russia Russia Russia playbook 2.0 —->
“RUSSIA HOAX: Obama knew. Clinton knew. Biden knew. Comey knew. Brennan knew. McCabe knew. Strzok knew. Clapper knew. Schiff knew. FBI knew. DOJ knew. Mueller knew. They all knew Trump was innocent but they smeared and spied on him. Worse than Watergate. Trump is a crime victim!” @TomFitton
True, and what I think is important to stress, is that the upper Democrats themselves do not believe it. Schiff and Raskin are not stupid. They are evil, mendacious, lying scum, but they are not stupid. They know the Russia stuff is, and was, crap. So why are they saying it? So, when some reporter is interviewing Trump, or another Republican, they can slip the “But wasn’t Russian Intelligence involved? into the conversation. No, the Russians were not involved, and the Reporter probably knows it, but it is something to say to derail the conversation. It is a technique to keep your opponent from providing their side of the story.
51 former intelligence said blah blah blah. They knew the laptop was real, and they were lying. Because Democrats and the Left, to a far greater degree than Republicans at this particular time in history, are very comfortable lying. You know the old saying “No honor among thieves.” Well that’s true. Know what else is true? “There is no honor among people trying to grab power and money?
Also, “There is no honor among people trying to curry favor with and support people who have power and money.” That is the Legacy Media, and that is why they are slowly going out of business. Their stock in trade should be ruthless honesty, and instead, it has become “How might I best serve you, Master?”
A Jim Acosta type, or even a Leslie Stahl type, does not speak truth to power. True, they are using their mouths, but they are on their knees at the time, if you get my drift. Same with the shills here. Shameful.
Absolutely right.
Great reference to Barney Fife, Floyd the barber!
Lol! I hope I gave them a good cut!
All of this mishegoss is like an alter-ego confession made by the upper Democrats.
OT: Regarding the question of whether Deutsch Bank lost interest because it would have demanded a higher rate if they had had more accurate information from Trump, an op ed in today’s WSJ says the DB bankers “testified that they were uncertain whether the alleged exaggerations would have affected the terms of the loans to Mr Trump — a key part of Ms James’s case.”
If they loaned too much it was a predatory loan and they owe Trump the excessive interest for the too many hundreds of millions loaned, just like the predatory banks in the 2008 mortgage loan crisis collapse.
And in a disgorgement, the issue is whether Trump broke the law, not whether DB was harmed.
You make no sense. For there to be disgorgement there must be unjust enrichment. Otherwise there is nothing to disgorge. And Deutsche Bank bankers testified that they could not say that better information would have changed the terms of the loans. So where is the unjust enrichment?
Question, how many times does FOXNEWS and Turley sell the Trump Cult the Brooklyn Bridge, turns out, they do it every day.
Turley lays down the rakes all over, and the Trump cult still walks into everyone of them…..Priceless
Fishstick, the good professor is not laying down any rakes.
Just facts.
We all read them, conduct our own independent thinking and draw our own conclusions.
Unlike you and all the anonymorons who swallow all the DNC and MSM talking points without question.
Truly cult like thinking.
Your projection is really showing.
Projection of what?
We all know and are reading the facts as spelled out by the good professor and other credible sources.
Not MSM.
Turley works and gets paid by FOXNEWS that has to pay out almost a billion dollars for lying about the election, name me another MSM that lost such a case.
I do not understand the claim that Smirnov is a flight risk.
At this time he is a burned CHS, he is no longer of use to the FBI AND he is likely risking retribution from those he was spying on by the FBI.
He is not likely safe outside the US.
Nor do I understand Why the FBI/DOJ chose to burn Smirnov.
All this case does is expose the stupidity of 18 US 1001.
If the FBI is going to arrest and prosecute every CHS that gives them information they do not like, or that is biased, or that actually lies to them,
there will be no FBI CHS’s left. Spying is lying. CHS’s are not nuns. They are nearly always people who are engaged in illicit activities, and are betraying those they are spying on.
While Intelligence, and law enforcement depend on CHS’s the information they provide must always be questioned.
An expectation that CHS’s will never lie is naive and stupid.
Just as NY is likely paying a steep price for fitting Trump up for the faux crime of practicing real estate investment
the FBI will pay a price for indicting a CHS. Both in the loss of that specific CHS and they loss of current and future CHS’s who do not wish to take the risk of being prosecuted by the FBI when that is politically convenient.
Finally while the contents of the Smirnov charges provide a basis for questioning Smirnov’s veracity – he is a CHS that should ALWAYS be the case,
They do not provide any extra-ordinary reason for disbeleiving him.
Given the FBI’s own – both recent and historical track record, there is as much reason to suspect this is a DOJ/FBI coverup
rather than a legitimate law enforcement excercise.
Smirnov has now been identified. The house should subpeona him. They should provide him with immunity in return for truthful testimony.
He should be examined privately – lest he reveal information independent of the Biden case that might interfere with the FBI law enforcement efforts. And his testimoney regarding the Biden’s and Burisma and his involvement with Russian intelligence specific to Burisma and the Bidens should be made public. If he lies after an immunity deal – he should be vigorously prosecuted for doing so. If he tells the truth the public should know where those chips fall regardless of whose oxe is gored.
Further those involved in handling and prosecuting Smirnov should also be compelled to testify.
Burning Smirnov is a big deal and we have a right to know whether the FBI did so to protect Biden or not.
Conversely a CHS lying to the FBI is not a big deal – but knowing how the FBI deals with that IS a significant matter for congressional oversite.
John Say,
Well said and great analysis.
I would say the FBI is willing to turn on their own CHS to protect the BCF.
John Say, I agree. Very well said. And good proposals.
“Nor do I understand Why the FBI/DOJ chose to burn Smirnov.”
Burning Smirnov means the FBI, or those whom they report to, is willing to trade the security of our nation for the sole purpose of releasing pressure on the President and those involved in subverting the law. This is dangerous. Who wants to be a CHS if those in charge are willing to burn you and get you killed?
Floyd, this is an example of one of the dolts who gets erased. The Bug, who has too many empty bottles at his feet, wrote, “Smirnov burned himself when he got caught lying to the FBI.” That comment was already erased with other comments that might have been there.
Take note that Bug is not very sharp, ranking on the wrong side of the IQ curve quite a bit below the apex.. Bug concluded that Smirnov was lying to the FBI without knowing what was said or why it was called a lie. More likely, the left used Smirnov as a deflection from the lousy press Biden is getting. Bug isn’t intelligent enough to think past his nose and more than likely wrote what he did before tossing another bottle and passing out.
As bad and worse than all that is where is the proof the CHS lied ? Are they claiming they proved a negative, that the bidens were not paid 5 million eahc or that they didn’t try to extort it ? The oligarch from Ukraine is on tape claiming the bidens wanted 5 million each in payment.
How was it determined that never happened ? Even if they can’t find or trace the money, which it appears is a constant ongoing worldwide phenomenon in all of banking, how can they declare it never happened ? Like the demoncrats told us after the Mueller Report, no evidence of Trump collusion is not exoneration.
To pretend this well timed pile of crap from the doj and fbi isn’t a lie is to be a stooge, an idiot, and a traitor.
Navalny was also a cia and mi5 asset for DECADES and was part of the attempt to overthrow Putin and the 20 billion spent in Moscow by 2014 to do so according to Victoria Nuland in congressional testimony.
So while the demoncrats lie and whine Putin got Trump elected, they had been spending billions to voerthrow Putin and line up the war in Ukraine and it going so the bidens and hundreds of other demoncrats could skim endless millions from their crimes against Ukraine INCLUDING FTX SAM BANKMAN FRIED in case the memory needs jogging.
You people are so weak in giving EVERY chance whatsoever EVERY SINGLE TIME. They could roll over you with an Abrams tank and you’d go to a NASA space port and speculate on when gravity is not in effect and thus they might just not have meant it.
It appears Sleepy Joe is going to try to campaign from the basement again.
He has done 86 interviews with the media, softball with pre-vetted MSM friendly reporters, since his inauguration.
By this point, Trump did 300 and Obama did 422.
Both Trump and Obama did not require cards with pictures of the reporter he was told to call on.
REPORTER: Why isn’t Biden doing more press conferences, especially compared to his predecessors?
KJP: The president is communicating with Americans in “non-traditional” ways. pic.twitter.com/EeZGf1nCLH
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 12, 2024
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” President Biden wished me when I asked about reports that Russia is considering launching nuclear weapons into space pic.twitter.com/IZ3HWcgFeW
— Steven Nelson (@stevennelson10) February 14, 2024
Seems to me the good professor is spot on with his column.
Keep up the good work professor Turley!
Why not, thats what he gets paid for.
We will pass the plate to help you pay for a trip to the Gaza Egypt border to assist
HamasGazan residents migrate to Egypt. Seems Egyptians dont want them in their countryPeople tend to get paid for doing a good job.
Turley provides constitutional and legal analysis to the media. He did so for all media – prior to those in the MSM deciding they did not like his analysis.
The problem today is not that Turley is getting paid. it is that the media has lost our Trust.
Fox never had your trust, Fox has the trust of millions of americans – even in its post Tucker decline that Trust is more than double the rest of the MSM. Regardless, increasingly people’s trust oru our institutions is declining. Our trust of media, or government.
Particularly with respect to government that is a good thing – we should not have high levels of trust in govenrment. Trusting government is dangerous.
Conversely we need reporting we can trust. The MSM is in decline – because it has lost our trust.
At the same time independent journalism is on the rise – because people like Greenwald, Taibbi, Schellenberger, Weis, and many many others have earned our trust.
Turley has not at this time attemted to monetize his blog, but that is the way of the future.
Derschowitz has figured out how to monetize his independent legal analysis.
John Say,
Well said and spot on.
Though I dont think the good professor needs the revenue and would monetize his blog.
He and his legal analysis is in demand.
Mostly.
He did not explain why Smirnov is a flight risk.
He did not address why the FBI would burn its own CHS.
He did not address the timeline errors in the indictment
He did not address the fact that the indictment spends far too many words trying unsuccessfully to proven Biden’s innocence – which is NOT the role of an indictment.
“Below is my column in the New York Post on the indictment of Alexander Smirnov and the use of the charges by Hunter Biden to seek to dismiss his own charges. That dog won’t hunt.” If it’s Commander, it will bite.
Smirnov only surfaced outside the FBI within the past month or so. Hunter’s plea deal collapsed long before that.
The house impeachment inquiry started long before that.
Much of the Smirnov indictment has little to do with Smirnov and more to do with claiming that Joe Biden could not have engaged in public corruption at the time of Smirnov’s meeting with Burisma – because Joe Biden was a private citizen at the time.
That is liley true, but irrelevant as Sminov’s claim is that he was told by Burisma execs about the bribery AFTER THE FACT.
Which means that the timing which is critical to the charges against Smirnov is immaterial.
Smirnov’s contact with Russians is meaningless in the context of the Biden’s. Smirnov is a Confidential human source.
Of course he met with Russian intelligence. The FBI is not interested int he conduct of nuns.
Smirnov’s alleged biases against the Biden’s are reasons to question his reporting. Frankly any CHS that is getting paid in some way – either in money or in favorable treatment regarding criminal activity should be viewed with suspicion – which means pretty much ALL CHS’s.
Again nothing new. CHS’s are not engaged to spy on nuns, and nuns are not engaged as CHS’s.
The indictments evidence that Smirnov was authorized by FBI to committ crimes bolsters Trump’s immunity claim.
All executive powers are presidential powers.There is no question that there is constitutional authority to commit or authorize others to commit crimes as president.
The legal issue is under what circumstances can such excercise of executive power be prosecuted ?
When is it that the delegated executive power of the FBI to authorize the commission of crimes be indicted and prosecuted ?
When can the president be indicted and prosecuted for committing or authorizing the commission of crimes.
That is the question that the Supreme court is being asked. The DC Appelate court did not provide a clear answer to that question.
SCOTUS should NOT take up the Trump immunity case, it should remand the case to the DC courts for more serious consideration.
SCOTUS should not do the job of the lower courts for them.
“SCOTUS should not do the job of the lower courts for them.” In theory, you’re correct John. In practice though, SC is reversing lower courts rulings in roughly half (sometimes a lot more often) of the cases they hear. This easily leads the general public to believe the lower courts are simply getting the Law itself. Enough so that SCOTUS IS doing the lower courts jobs for them. If the lower courts can’t get it right the first time, so frequently, then perhaps on the biggie cases, like voicing an option on presidential immunity or whether a state civil court can blatantely ignore Amendment 8 restrictions and fine any monetary amount against anyone it wishes even for not causing harm to anyone, maybe it’s past time to save some of the taxpayers time and money on cases that are clearly and obviously, politically motivated. The general reactionary process of giving “government” the benefit of the doubt at every step in the process has rarely been in the best interest of the people or The Law.
https://ballotpedia.org/SCOTUS_case_reversal_rates_(2007_-_Present)
Lower courts are getting the law, itself, wrong. Apologies for not proof-reading better.
You have the equation wrong.
SCOTUS does not overturn half of the lower courts rulings. They overturn half of the the cases they agree among themselves to review.
SCOTUS agrees to decide about 80 cases per session. Of somewhere around 7,000 cases submitted every year. 7000 is not the total number of cases the lower courts hear. Just the cases submitted for appeal.
So SCOTUS is not doing must of the work for the lower courts
Wait just a minute. The math just doesn’t add up. There’s now proof that “The Big Guy” did not receive ten percent. Ten percent of $200,000 is only $20,000 but Joe received $40,000 which is twenty percent. This proves that Joe did not receive ten percent so the entire story is all just a lie. Shouldn’t Joe receive a huge fine for underestimating the value of his influence to the Chinese? Loans without documentary evidence in the Whitehouse and loans paid back in cash without documentation in Georgia to a lover boy? It seems that a pattern by Democrats has developed.
TiT,
Exactly.
If anyone else were to do it, without a D after their name, they would of been charged, convicted and serving time.
Our two tiered justice system and banana republic on full display for all to see.