another 3rd grade meme

 

Speaking of spam. What, 4th or 5th posting?

 

New FBI bombshell 'eviscerates' GOP's Joe Biden impeachment effort: legal expert

M.L. Nestel
February 15, 2024 8:17PM ET



House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) (L) and House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) speaks to the media in the Rayburn House Office Building on December 13, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)




The case charging Hunter Biden with engaging in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme suffered a massive blow after the informant central to the case and to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress — was slapped with allegations of lying to the FBI.

"I think it eviscerates the impeachment effort," former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Elliot Williams said during an appearance on CNN. "And any evidence linking current President Biden to wrongdoing was pretty thin to begin with."

Alexander Smirnov stands accused of telling tall tales back in June 2020 involving Ukrainian energy company Burisma executives paying Hunter and Joe Biden $5 million apiece between 2015 or 2016, the federal prosecutors said.

ALSO READ: Prison president: How Donald Trump could serve from behind bars

Smirnov in fact had only routine business dealings with the company and made the bribery allegations after he “expressed bias” against Joe Biden, prosecutors said in court documents.

On Wednesday the 43-year-old was hit with charges of making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record.

Smirnov was arriving from overseas to Las Vegas where he was reportedly arrested and is expected to make his first appearance.

Prosecutors allege in the indictment against Smirnov that one executive claimed to have hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems."

With Smirnov's testimony potentially tainted, Williams submits that it leaves the case against Hunter and company weakened.

"But if people had any evidence they could come forward with and substantiate it, by all means, bring it. That's how law enforcement works."

He added: "The simple fact here is that not only was this the basis for Burisma, but a lot of people relied on it and we're not giving speeches which isn't statements about it and it really all just falls apart."

Also, Williams wonders what will become of the case now that it's lion share of evidence against Hunter Biden and his president father Joe Biden is severely undermined.

As far as the case in court and also in the political arena anyhow it moves forward, Williams said he wants to see "what the folks on the Hill do with it now" because he contends, "literally your star witness, his testimony has been completely discredited by by law enforcement."

Watch below or click the link here.




https://www.rawstory.com/fbi-bombshell-eviscerates-impeachment/

 

Even some Republicans are nervous about how Mayorkas' impeachment could backfire
Brent D. Griffiths
Wed, February 14, 2024 at 9:48 AM MST·4 min read
117



Even some Republicans are nervous about how Mayorkas' impeachment could backfire

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Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican, (center) opposed impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.Kent Nishimura for The Washington Post via Getty Images

• 
  Republicans who opposed DHS Secretary leaving the page." data-wf-tooltip-position="bottom" data-wf-reset-every="90">Alejandro Mayorkas' impeachment have warned about what's to come.
  
  
• They fear that impeachment now will become a completely political tool.
  
  
• Some constitutional scholars share their concerns as well.
  

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is only the second Cabinet secretary to be impeached in American history. Some Republicans are worried that the case against him is so weak that Tuesday night's vote is destined to become a harbinger of what's to come.

"Creating a new, lower standard for impeachment, one without any clear limiting principle, wouldn't secure the border or hold Mr. Biden accountable. It would only pry open the Pandora's box of perpetual impeachment," Rep. Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin, perhaps the most surprising of the three Republicans to vote against the impeached, wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.

The three Republicans who voted to oppose Mayorkas' impeachment have each warned about establishing a new precedent for the action some lawmakers place only below authorizing a war.


"Well, the Constitution hasn't changed since last week, so my vote is not going to change," Republican Rep. Tom McClintock of California, one of the trio, said before the second vote. "These are the same reasons I vigorously opposed the sham impeachments of Donald Trump."

House Speaker Mike Johnson has strongly rejected concerns that the Homeland Security secretary did not commit impeachable offenses.

"For nearly a year, the House Homeland Security Committee has taken a careful and methodical approach to this investigation and the results are clear: from his first day in office, Secretary Mayorkas has willfully and consistently refused to comply with federal immigration laws, fueling the worst border catastrophe in American history," Johnson said in a statement after the vote.

It is worth noting that dissenters are not happy with how House then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi handled President Donald Trump's two impeachments. In the same column that he warned his party, Gallagher referred to Pelosi's actions as "us[ing] impeachment as a weapon" against Trump. Still, the vote to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol riot was the most bipartisan presidential impeachment vote in history.

Presidential impeachments have always been political. As The New York Times pointed out during Trump's first impeachment, one out of every four presidents have had articles of impeachment written up against them. Historically, there's been a key difference. Most of these articles go nowhere. Party leadership can't stop any lawmaker from writing articles of impeachment, but they can make sure that they gather little more than dust. By George W. Bush's final year in office, then-Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, filed 35 different articles against Bush into the record.

But congressional leadership's power is waning. Republicans were able to stall Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, for only so long before they were forced to reconcile their long investigation into Mayorkas' actions with Greene's persistent push to impeach him.

The future of impeachment might be seen in other congressional powers.
In the Senate, judicial confirmations, which less than a generation ago enjoyed largely bipartisan support, would make Machiavelli blush.

A more relevant example would be censure. Censures mean nothing but used to be thought of that summoning a House lawmaker for a public rebuke by the Speaker of the House in front of their colleagues was a punishment only reserved for particularly egregious acts.

There have now been three censures in the last year. As my colleague Bryan Metzger previously wrote, this marked the most censure votes since 1870. Part of this is clearly due to House Republicans making it easier for any member to introduce a censure resolution, but it also comes in an era where this exact type of punishment is perfect fodder to feed to a political base. Even the targets can turn their colleagues' ire into an advantage. Rep. Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, raised millions over the period that included his House Republican-led censure.

The trio of Republicans are joined by constitutional scholars, including some who have been sympathetic to past GOP views, who say Republicans' charges that Mayorkas run counter to how the framers of the constitution conceived of the power.

"eing a bad person is not impeachable—or many cabinets would be largely empty," George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley wrote in The Daily Beast last month. "Moreover, being bad at your job is not an impeachable offense. Even really bad. Even Mayorkas' level of bad."

It may be up to the scholars to wage those arguments going forward. Two of the three Republican no votes, Gallagher and Rep. Ken Buck of Colorado, will retire after this Congress. Gallagher announced his decision just days after bucking his party on the first vote to impeach Mayorkas.

Read the original article on Business Insider

https://www.yahoo.com/news/authoritarianism-expert-exposes-cruel-tactic-103714237.html

 

The despicables lowered the bar and now complain when deplorables step over it.
Classic.

 

Oh yeah good times.

Grassley Obtains & Releases FBI Record Alleging VP Biden Foreign Bribery Scheme
Grassley, Comer to continue joint inquiry into FBI handling of significant, politically charged investigations
WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today released an unclassified FBI-generated record describing an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a Ukrainian business executive. Grassley acquired the record, an FD-1023, via legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers.

“For the better part of a year, I’ve been pushing the Justice Department and FBI to provide details on its handling of very significant allegations from a trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme. While the FBI sought to obfuscate and redact, the American people can now read this document for themselves, without the filter of politicians or bureaucrats, thanks to brave and heroic whistleblowers. What did the Justice Department and FBI do with the detailed information in the document? And why have they tried to conceal it from Congress and the American people for so long? The Justice Department and FBI have failed to come clean, but Chairman Comer and I intend to find out,” Grassley said.

“The FBI’s Biden Bribery Record tracks closely with the evidence uncovered by the Oversight Committee’s Biden family influence peddling investigation. In the FBI’s record, the Burisma executive claims that he didn’t pay the ‘big guy’ directly but that he used several bank accounts to conceal the money. That sounds an awful lot like how the Bidens conduct business: using multiple bank accounts to hide the source and total amount of the money,” House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer said. “At our hearing with IRS whistleblowers, they testified that they had never seen or heard of this record during the Biden criminal investigation, despite having potentially corroborating evidence. Given the misconduct and politicization at the Department of Justice, the American people must be able to read this record for themselves. I thank Senator Grassley for providing much needed transparency to the American people. We must hold the Department of Justice accountable for seeking to bury this record to protect the Bidens.”

Grassley first disclosed the FBI’s possession of significant and voluminous evidence of potential criminality involving the Biden family last year. He has since worked to unearth the FBI record, eventually partnering with Comer on a subpoena to compel its public disclosure. After delays, the FBI provided a highly redacted version of the document to select members of the House of Representatives, but it remained shielded from the public and omitted key details, including references to recordings. Following the FBI’s failure to fully comply with the congressional subpoena, Grassley received the legally protected disclosure with limited redactions to protect a trusted FBI source, handling agents, department whistleblowers and identifiers related to other ongoing investigations.

Read the FD-1023

‘Poluchili’

According to the FBI’s confidential human source, executives for Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company, brought Hunter Biden on the board to “protect us through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” At the time, Burisma was seeking to do business in the United States, but was facing a corruption investigation in Ukraine, led by then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Regarding that investigation’s impact on its ambitions in North America, Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky reportedly said, “Don't worry Hunter will take care of all of those issues through his dad.” Zlochevsky reportedly stated that he had to pay $5 million to Hunter Biden and $5 million to Joe Biden, an arrangement he described as ‘poluchili,’ which is Russian crime slang for being “forced or coerced to pay,” according to the document.

“Back-up”

Zlochevsky claimed to have many text messages and recordings that show that he was coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure Shokin was fired. Specifically, he claimed to have two recordings with Joe Biden and 15 recordings with Hunter Biden. Zlochevsky also retained two documents, presumably financial records, as evidence of the arrangement, but said he didn’t send any funds directly to the “Big Guy,” a term understood to be a reference to Joe Biden. References to the “Big Guy” surfaced in communications involving other Biden family business arrangements independent of the Burisma arrangement. Zlochevsky claimed it would take investigators 10 years to uncover the illicit payments to the Bidens, according to the document.

Related:
10.17.2022 | FBI Possesses Significant, Impactful, Voluminous Evidence of Potential Criminality in Biden Family Business Arrangements
05.03.2023 | Grassley, Comer Demand FBI Record Alleging Criminal Scheme Involving Then-VP Biden
05.10.2023 | Comer and Grassley on FBI Failing to Comply with Subpoena Deadline
05.24.2023 | Comer & Grassley Blast FBI for Refusing to Provide Subpoenaed Record Alleging Then-VP Biden Engaged in a Bribery Scheme
05.31.2023 | Grassley & Comer to Wray: Provide the Unclassified Documents or Face Contempt
06.06.2023 | Grassley's Message to the Biden DOJ and FBI: Quit Playing Games with the American People
06.12.2023 | Grassley: FBI Redacted References to Recordings in Biden Allegation Shared with Congress
06.21.2023 | Grassley, Graham Lead Senate Judiciary Committee GOP in Seeking Unredacted FBI Record at Center of Biden Allegations
07.18.2023 | Grassley, Johnson, Senate Republicans Demand DOJ and FBI Protect Whistleblowers Alleging Biden Bribery Scheme


https://www.grassley.senate.gov/new...cord-alleging-vp-biden-foreign-bribery-scheme




And this one was especi8ally fun.


05.31.2023
Grassley & Comer to Wray: Provide the Unclassified Documents or Face Contempt
WASHINGTON – House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today issued the following statements after their discussion with FBI Director Christopher Wray about producing to Congress the unclassified, FBI-generated record alleging a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.

“While the FBI has apparently leaked classified information to the news media in recent weeks, jeopardizing its own human sources, it continues to treat Congress like second class citizens by refusing to provide a specific unclassified record. Director Wray confirmed what my whistleblowers have told me pursuant to legally protected disclosures: the FBI-generated document is real, but the bureau has yet to provide it to Congress in defiance of a legitimate congressional subpoena. This failure comes with consequences,” Grassley said.

“Today, FBI Director Wray confirmed the existence of the FD-1023 form alleging then-Vice President Biden engaged in a criminal bribery scheme with a foreign national. However, Director Wray did not commit to producing the documents subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee. While Director Wray – after a month of refusing to even acknowledge that the form existed – has offered to allow us to see the documents in person at FBI headquarters, we have been clear that anything short of producing these documents to the House Oversight Committee is not in compliance with the subpoena. If the FBI fails to hand over the FD-1023 form as required by the subpoena, the House Oversight Committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings,” said Chairman Comer.

Read More:

• 
  
  
  • Grassley, Comer Demand FBI Record Alleging Criminal Scheme Involving Then-VP Biden
  • Comer and Grassley on FBI Failing to Comply with Subpoena Deadline
  • Comer: FBI’s Delay in Producing Unclassified Record is Unacceptable
  • Comer & Grassley Blast FBI for Refusing to Provide Subpoenaed Record Alleging Then-VP Biden Engaged in a Bribery Scheme
  • Comer Statement on FBI’s Refusal to Comply with Congressional Subpoena

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/new...e-the-unclassified-documents-or-face-contempt



And what makes that so funny if Wray kept telling them he could not hand over everything they were demanding because it was part of an ongoing investigation.


And he was telling the truth. Their informant was under investigation for lying to them.




A now-indicted FBI informant was at the 'heart' of the GOP's case against Joe Biden
After the indictment of the source of false allegations against the president and Hunter Biden, Republicans are downplaying the extent to which they relied upon the claims.


Feb. 16, 2024, 2:22 PM MST
By Ryan J. Reilly and Rebecca Kaplan
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans put a defiant face on Friday after the revelation that an FBI informant — the man whose allegations were at the "heart" of their case against President Joe Biden, as one leading House Republican recently said — had been indicted for lying to the bureau about the president and his son Hunter Biden for political purposes.

Alexander Smirnov, a 43-year-old FBI informant who began working with the bureau in 2010, faces two felony counts: one for making a false statement to a government agent and another for falsification of records in a federal investigation. Republicans in Congress had repeatedly touted those same false statements as a key piece of their impeachment inquiry into the president.


Smirnov, who has no lawyer listed on his court dockets, was arrested Thursday at the Las Vegas airport after disembarking from an international flight. The case against him will eventually proceed in a federal courthouse in California, but the initial proceedings will take place before federal Magistrate Judge Daniel J. Albregts in Nevada.

Congressional Republicans were quick to downplay the impact that the indictment would have on their ongoing impeachment inquiry, even though numerous leading Republicans had repeatedly pointed to bribery allegations against the Bidens that originated from Smirnov as a major linchpin of their investigation.

House Republicans even threatened to hold the director of the FBI in contempt last year to force the bureau to show them the underlying documents, which were eventually released, sparking breathless headlines in conservative media outlets about the false allegations that Biden and his son Hunter were paid $5 million in bribes.

Just weeks ago, one of the leaders of the impeachment inquiry even pointed to Smirnov's alleged lies to the FBI as their strongest evidence.

“That to me is really the heart of this matter,” Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio — a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump and one of the architects of the impeachment push — said in a Jan. 11 appearance on Fox News, referring to the FBI FD-1023 confidential human source form containing false allegations from the now-indicted former FBI informant. "The most corroborating evidence we have is the 1023 form from this highly credible confidential human source."

Now, after the source of those allegations has been federally charged, House Republicans say that it wasn't the "heart" of their inquiry after all.

In a statement, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., claimed that the impeachment case "is not reliant on the FBI’s FD-1023," which a federal prosecutor appointed by Trump, David Weiss, now says was filled with lies.

The impeachment case “is based on a large record of evidence, including bank records and witness testimony, revealing that Joe Biden knew of and participated in his family’s business dealings,” Comer claimed, though the committee has yet to show firm evidence that the president was involved in his son’s business dealings.

The saga all began last May, when Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, publicly declared that a "whistleblower" had come forward to allege that the FBI possessed an FD-1023 form documenting "an alleged criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions.”


Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.Tom Williams / CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
In May, the FBI rejected Comer's requests to see the document, saying that policy "strictly limits when and how confidential human source information can be provided outside of the FBI."

The FBI cautioned at the time that reports like the one at issue simply document information given to the bureau and did "not validate it, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information verified by the FBI,” warning that such unsubstantiated information could "unfairly violate privacy or reputations."


Then, in early June, the FBI said it would allow Comer and the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, to review a redacted version of the FBI form and briefed them on it. After that briefing, Comer threatened to start contempt proceedings against FBI Director Chris Wray because he hadn't turned the form over to the whole committee. The bureau caved and allowed all members of the Oversight Committee to view the document, and Republicans dropped the contempt proceedings. GOP members of the committee made unsubstantiated claims about the form, saying it proved that Biden had committed a crime. Grassley ended up releasing the document itself.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., said after viewing the FBI document that Biden was “100% guilty” of bribery.

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a member of House GOP leadership, in a "Fox & Friends" segment in June that centered on a clip of Biden calling a question about the FBI file “dumb," spoke in sweeping terms about the allegations.

“This is the biggest political corruption scandal, not only in my lifetime, but I would say the past 100 years,” she said, adding she would make sure House Republicans followed “the facts.”

In September, Stefanik also pointed directly to the false allegations from a "highly credible FBI source" as a reason to open an inquiry into Biden.

On Fox News, Sean Hannity dedicated at least 85 segments to the claim, according to research from Media Matters. But as the media reporter Brian Stelter noted, the indictment of the informant wasn’t mentioned at all during Fox’s prime-time shows Thursday after the case against Smirnov was unsealed, though the network posted a story online.

While Republicans hailed the bribery allegations contained in the FBI form as a key piece of evidence in their inquiry, their investigation into Hunter Biden and the president has sprawled into several different areas: Hunter Biden’s business dealings with foreign governments and whether his father was involved, allegations by two IRS whistleblowers that there was interference into their investigation of Hunter Biden’s taxes, and a widely debunked theory that then-Vice President Biden had called for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor to end his investigation into Burisma, a company that Hunter Biden worked for.

In a December briefing for reporters about the scope of the impeachment inquiry, Jordan specifically discussed the FD-1023 form as evidence that the Bidens may have been bribed and said it might be one example of a high crime or misdemeanor if Republicans were to bring articles of impeachment.

“Was it obstruction when Joe Biden said all the things he has said that turned out not to be accurate when we got the facts about him not knowing anything about his family’s business deals, his son’s business deals — was that obstruction?” Jordan said.

A spokesman for Grassley, who released the FBI document containing what are now charged to be false allegations, said Friday that the indictment against Smirnov “isn’t enough” and that “the public has a right to see all the underlying evidence supporting the Biden Justice Department’s case. The Biden administration must show its work.”

Jordan's House Judiciary Committee responded to the news of the indictment by posting a transcript of former U.S. Attorney Scott Brady's interview with the committee.

Brady, who was found by a Justice Department watchdog to have displayed “unbecoming” behavior during a disagreement over the Justice Department’s approach to election cases, refused to say during his interview whether he believed the Joe Biden was the legitimate president of the United States.


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/jo...mant-was-heart-gops-case-joe-biden-rcna139200

 

Ah. It now becomes clear.
The FBI fed an informant to a senate committee investigating their man and then destroyed his credibility, giving their man crowing rights.

Two things
1) still doesn't explain the many bank accounts and shell companies.
The sketchy foriegn payments ( called car payments) and payments to grand children.

No matter.
Biden will not be standing trial. As it turns out incompetence as president bars prosecution for crimes.
If you're a despicable

 

The method of ope3ration of trying to bully reality by telling the same lies over and over and over again is just so clear here. Treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans in Congress screamed for months that they had the smoking gun of a "trusted" FBI informant that was going to testify President and Hunter Biden accepted bribes. They screamed the FBI was hiding something. And all those same lies were plastered all over this forum. Even though all those lies were exposed during Trump's first impeachment.

And all the while the "trusted" informant was under investigation for lying to the FBI and submitting fake documents. But now that the trustees informant has been indicted for lying about the Bidens the treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans pretend they didn't base their "impeachment" on him and just move the goal posts and come up with other phony already exposed lies.

 

Speaking of repeating the same lie over and over .......
That?
Thats what "bullying reality" must mean.
TWAT

 

Hmm sound like Trump after Nov 3, 2020. Don't it, eh

 

Dismissed

 

Attaboy

 

'Oh boy, GOP means business now': Jim Jordan sends angry letter to Treasury Secretary

Kathleen Culliton
February 16, 2024 5:42PM ET



Congressman Jim Jordan speaking with attendees at the 2021 AmericaFest. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)




Now Rep. Jim Jordan is yelling at poor Janet Yellen.

The Ohio Republican Friday posted to X a letter demanding the Treasury Secretary hand over Bank Secrecy Act suspicious activity reports as part of his probe into Jan. 6 Capitol attack investigations he argues may have violated Americans' civil rights.

"The Committee is authorized to conduct oversight of matters involving civil liberties and criminal law to inform potential legislative reforms," Jordan informs Yellen.

ALSO READ: How Speaker Mike Johnson’s dream of bipartisan decency died in his hands

He then explains the Judiciary's "Weaponization of the Federal Government" subcommittee is authorized to investigate "issues related to the violation of the civil liberties of the United States."

Jordan focuses in Bank of America filings made between Jan. 15 and Jan. 18, about a week after angry supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

FBI investigator Steven Jensen would later tell House investigators Bank of America provided them with names of clients who used their credit and debit cards in D.C. on Jan. 6, and these names were cross-checked against people who had bought firearms.

Jordan last year subpoenaed Bank of America and noted in yet another demanding letter that the bank "has refused to provide the Committee and Select Subcommittee with the filing it turned over to the FBI."

In November, Bank of America told Politico it had "followed all applicable laws in our interactions with the Trump Administration’s Treasury Department and law enforcement."

Jordan's letter was met with mixed reviews on X. While some expressed interest in Jordan's investigation, others had doubts.

"So now stop talking and take action," replied @Heiner190 Friday. "Still no impeachment of Biden, the border is still not secured, the traitor is still in the white house and you are sending letters to Yellen?"

"NOOOO! Not a letter!" added Ted O'Connor. "Oh boy, GOP means business now."



https://www.rawstory.com/ji-2667302288/

 

Raskin blasts GOP's top Biden impeachment witness Tony Bobulinski over interview with Oversight panel
WILL STEAKIN
Tue, February 20, 2024 at 8:00 AM MST·6 min read
433

• 
  

The top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin, slammed Tony Bobulinski, one of House Republicans' top witnesses in their impeachment inquiry into President leaving the page." data-wf-tooltip-position="bottom" data-wf-reset-every="90">Joe Biden, in a letter first obtained by ABC News.

Bobulinski, a onetime business associate of Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden who has since become a critic of the Biden family, appeared last week before the Oversight Committee, where he reiterated claims he made during the 2020 election that Joe Biden was "an enabler" of several of his family's overseas business schemes that "sold out to foreign actors who were seeking to gain influence and access to Joe Biden and the United States government."

"Your client's interview was chaotic to the point of burlesque as he repeatedly yelled, shouted, filibustered, and hurled outlandish and baseless accusations and insults against Democratic Members and staff," Raskin wrote in the letter sent on Tuesday to Bobulinski's attorney as well as Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer.


"Mr. Bobulinski did not offer any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden," Raskin said in his letter. "He also did not provide any evidence that President Biden was involved in his family's business dealings."

The transcript of Bobulinski's appearance appears to show that when pressed, Bobulinski -- who Comer has described as "the one honest, credible guy that was involved with the Bidens" -- could not point to direct evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his family's business dealings.

At one point in the interview, New York Rep. Dan Goldman questioned Bobulinski about a report by The Wall Street Journal that found that text messages and emails that Bobulinski handed over "didn't show either Hunter Biden or [President Biden's brother] James Biden discussing a role for Joe Biden in the venture" that was being discussed.

"Can you point to anything in this text message where Jim Biden discusses Joe Biden at all?" Goldman asked.


PHOTO: Tony Bobulinski, who claims to have been an associate of Hunter Biden, speaks to reporters at a hotel in Nashville, Tenn., Oct. 22, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
Bobulinski responded, "Well, Jim Biden doesn't actually respond to me in this text message. This is a text message on May 2nd at 11:40 p.m. from myself to Jim Biden that he doesn't respond to."

The transcript of the interview also shows that when Republican investigators asked Bobulinski to describe his two interactions with Joe Biden, who was a private citizen at the time, Bobulinski said the meetings did not include any direct discussion of any involvement in the business venture by Hunter Biden, James Biden, or two other partners, James Gilliar and Rob Walker.

In Bobulinski's retelling, one encounter with Joe Biden focused on Bobulinski's "background in detail," the Biden "family's background," as well as President Biden's "appreciation for the military" -- but not any specifics regarding any business.

"I shook his hands, and we sat down. And I think the meeting was, you know, 45 minutes to an hour," Bobulinski said regarding a meeting with Joe Biden in May 2017. "I remember going through my background in detail. I was very proud of it. I think he actually went first out of, you know, obviously, general respect at the time, and, you know, talked about some of the things they had dealt with as a family, their appreciation for the military, and stuff like that."

Raskin, in his letter, also blasted Bobulinski for accusing "a broad group of individuals and organizations of lying," including the multiple agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Wall Street Journal, and former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.

In Hutchinson's book, "Enough," she wrote that she recalled that Bobulinski chose to wear a "ski mask" to conceal his identity during a secretive encounter with Trump's then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows, at a campaign rally in Rome, Georgia, at which Meadows handed him a "folded sheet of paper or small envelope."

MORE: Hunter Biden business associate tells Oversight Committee President Biden was 'never involved' in Hunter's business dealings

"Cassidy Hutchinson is an absolute liar and a fraud," Bobulinski told the panel. "[Meadows] didn't hand me a single thing."

Comer, speaking to reporters following Bobulinski's appearance last week, said that Bobulinski had "articulated under oath that Joe Biden was 'the brand' the Bidens sold to enrich the family."

"Tony Bobulinski testified he believes Joe Biden committed wrongdoing and continues to lie to the American people about his participation in his family's influence peddling schemes," Comer said.

In a subsequent statement to ABC News, a House Oversight spokesperson said, "Joe Biden not only knew about his family's dealings with a Chinese Communist Party-linked energy company, but he also enabled them and participated in them. ... We now have evidence revealing Joe Biden met with nearly all of his son's foreign associates who funneled him millions of dollars, and evidence revealing he benefited from his son's influence-peddling schemes. Democrats continue to ignore this corruption and smear Tony Bobulinski as they play defense attorney for the Bidens."

Responding to Raskin's letter, Bobulinski's attorney, Stefan Passantino, said, "These dishonest criticisms entirely ignore the facts and substance of Mr. Bobulinski's actual testimony, delivered under oath before Congress last week. The Democrats are deliberately misleading the American public and obfuscating the facts. Mr. Bobulinski has laid out the facts under oath and remains willing to appear before Congress live, under oath, and next to his former business associates to lay out the facts and the importance of his testimony."

In his appearance before the panel, Bobulinski repeated previous claims that, while working on the prospective Chinese joint venture, Bobulinski penned an email proposing a 10% cut for the "the big guy," a reference he said referred to Joe Biden, which Republicans have cited as evidence of the president's involvement in his son's overseas work. Others involved in the proposed venture have derided Bobulinski's proposition as "not serious," and Walker has testified that nobody responded to Bobulinski's email after he sent it.

Gilliar, who was also on the email, told the Wall Street Journal in 2020 that he was not aware of "any involvement at anytime of the former vice president" and that "the activity in question never delivered any project revenue."

Bobulinski told the committee last week that none of his disclosures to JPMorgan Chase had described President Biden -- or the "the big guy" -- as having any share or role in the venture.

"No 'big guy' secretly being involved in the company in your disclosure to JP Morgan?" Republican investigators asked Bobulinski, who replied, "I did not."

Notably, three days after Bobulinski's email was sent, a draft agreement setting up the prospective venture showed that each partner would receive 20% -- but there is no mention of Joe Biden.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/raskin-blasts-gops-top-biden-150000960.html

 

So now the question becomes how does someone with ties to Russian Intelligence become "trusted" by the Chairmen of the House Oversight and House Judiciary committees?


House GOP impeachment witness got dirt from Russian intelligence: DOJ

David Edwards
February 20, 2024 5:17PM ET



Rep. James Comer, R-Ky (Mandel Ngan / AFP )




Special counsel David Weiss said former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov should not be released before his trial because he could flee the country at any time and has had contacts with Russian intelligence agents.

Smirnov, 43, is facing charges of making false statements that were reportedly about President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The longtime informant was a crucial witness in House Republicans' march to impeach the president.

In a 28-page memorandum filed Tuesday, Weiss argued Smirnov had the means to obtain a new passport because of his dual Israeli-American citizenship.

"While Smirnov has no ties to the community in Las Vegas, what he does have is extensive foreign ties, including, most troublingly and by his own account, contact with foreign intelligence services, including Russian intelligence agencies, and has had such contacts recently. Smirnov could use these contacts to resettle outside the United States," Weiss warned.


The document said Smirnov admitted links to "someone with ties to a particular Russian intelligence service."

"Smirnov's contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services are not benign," the court was advised. "During his custodial interview on February 14, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1."

"Businessperson 1" lines up with Hunter Biden's description, according to reports.



https://www.rawstory.com/house-gop-impeachment-witness-got-dirt-from-russian-intelligence-doj/

 

It's not complicated. Kevin McCarthy had to make concessions to the Freedom Caucus. One of their primary goals was to take heat off the Trump family. This put Hunter in the crosshairs. McCarthy knew it was a waste of time and effort, so he made Comer committee chairman, knowing full well Comer couldn't handle the job.

McCarthy hoped that Comer's public display of incompetence would weaken or at least fracture the Freedom Caucus. He didn't think Gaetz would really pull the trigger, a grave mistake on his part.

 

Jim Jordan slammed for 'stonewalling' narrative after demanding data he already had

M.L. Nestel
February 20, 2024 8:56PM ET



Jim Jordan (R-OH) . Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images




Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) was slammed Tuesday for publicly demanding information his political opponents say he'd received weeks before, according to a new report.

Jordan Tuesday subpoenaed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and demanded case files for a number of illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S.

"Since June 2023, the Committee has requested several HHS case files for criminal aliens charged with serious and violent crimes, including theft, brutal assault, and murder," the letter reads.

"Following months of non-responsiveness... HHS finally provided a response that included a variety of baseless excuses to justify withholding the requested criminal alien case files."

The letter further accused HHS of committing "mismanagement of the placement of unaccompanied alien children," which Jordan argued likely resulted in these undocumented youths "committing heinous criminal acts against Americans."

But in a statement to NBC News, an HHS spokesperson accused House Republicans of "offering a false pretense for a subpoena while still refusing to take action on immigration reform and border security."

And, they said, Jordan received the documents he demanded weeks ago.

"As much as we realize that House Judiciary Republicans would like to build a narrative of stonewalling, the facts remain clear: HHS already voluntarily shared the documents in question to the Committee weeks ago," the spokesperson statement reads.

"The sole information sought by the Committee is the personally identifiable information, medical records, and protected health information of children."

The spokesperson added that it remained "unclear" the ultimate purpose of "such personalized information" would serve.



https://www.rawstory.com/jim-jordan-2667327052/

 

Ex-prosecutor calls for James Comer and Jim Jordan to be investigated criminally

M.L. Nestel
February 22, 2024 6:35AM ET



House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), joined by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)




With the star witness in the GOP-led impeachment inquiry wearing a GPS ankle bracelet and facing charges for lying to the FBI about a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme implicating President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, at least one legal expert thinks there should be severe ramifications for GOP lawmakers who pushed his story.

Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner, while appearing on MSNBC's "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell, stated that any of the lawmakers who knowingly perpetuate the lies told by the ex informant Alexander Smirnov that are purported to be Russian disinformation should be investigated criminally.

"The big question now is what will the Republican members of Congress do now they know that these are lies that they have been peddling as ably assisted by Fox News," he asked. "Will they continue to peddle those lies?"

He then expressed agreement with Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-NY) who earlier called out his Republican colleagues for being played by the Russians as we near another critical election.

READ MORE: Parents of ‘2119’ Nazi teens haunted by fear and regret

"It is now coming out in 2024 and Republican members of Congress are once again witting or unwitting agents of Russian intelligence, peddling a false narrative that is Russian disinformation in an effort to interfere in the election and boost Donald Trump," Goldman told Alex Wagner. "It is shocking that 8 years later we are still dealing with Russian interference and the party is still welcoming it and facilitating it."

Echoing Goldman, Kirschner said that any member of Congress who pushes essentially a Russian propaganda relying on Smirnov "should be investigated for being part and parcel of a conspiracy to defraud the United States and to interfere in our elections."

Any such prosecution would be very likely to run into First Amendment problems, as simply making false statements or even parroting false claims from a foreign power is not in any way a crime.

Prosecutors in Las Vegas accused Smirnov of lying to his FBI intermediary about having direct proof that Biden received multimillion-dollar bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

Both House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) and House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-KY) have backtracked on their reliance on the 43-year-old Smirnov to serve as the crux of their case.

Comer claimed the impeachment inquiry "is not reliant" on the documentation the FBI provided and then turned around to claim was false.

And Jordan said that it "doesn't change the facts."

Watch the video below or at this link.






https://www.rawstory.com/house-gop-impeachment-probe/

 

"But it's not true!": CNN reporter confronts Jim Jordan over indicted informant's debunked claims
Gabriella Ferrigine
Wed, February 21, 2024 at 10:45 AM MST·2 min read
5.9k



Jim Jordan Drew Angerer/Getty Images

• 
  

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, denied the questionable nature of a key piece of evidence in his investigation of President Joe Biden when confronted by CNN reporter leaving the page." data-wf-tooltip-position="bottom" data-wf-reset-every="90">Manu Raju on Wednesday.

Ex-FBI informant Alexander Smirnov was indicted last week for allegedly falsifying bribery claims against the Biden family, after sharing intel with agents years ago that President Biden and his son Hunter sought multi-million dollar bribes from a Ukrainian energy company, according to The New York Times. Smirnov claimed that funds were in exchange for protection against a probe into the company by the country’s prosecutor general at the time. He also admitted that "officials associated with Russian intelligence" were involved in advancing the phony allegations against Hunter Biden, per The Washington Post.

Jordan during the exchange with Raju claimed that Smirnov being charged "doesn’t change the four fundamental facts."


"Hunter Biden was put on the board of Burisma and gets paid a million dollars a year. Fact number two, he’s not qualified to be on the board. He said so himself in an interview with, I don’t know, you or some network,” Jordan said, referring to a 2019 ABC interview in which Hunter Biden conceded that nepotism had a hand in his being on the Burisma board. He also noted, however, that he was “completely qualified to be on the board.”

“Burisma specifically asked Hunter Biden, 'Can you weigh in with D.C. and help us deal with the pressure we are facing from the prosecutor?' Fact number four, Joe Biden, then he gets called — Hunter Biden calls his dad, according to Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s business partner. Fact number four, Joe Biden goes to Ukraine three days later and conditions the release of the money, American tax money, on the firing of the prosecutor who was applying the pressure to the company that Hunter Biden sat on the board of," Jordan said.

“You said the 1023 is the most corroborating piece of information you have,” Raju retorted, in reference to Smirnov’s initial assertions. Jordan claimed that the “fundamental facts” have not changed, in response, to which an incredulous Raju replied, “But it’s not true!”


https://www.yahoo.com/news/not-true-cnn-reporter-confronts-174521441.html

 

Bank accounts
Shell companies
Sketchy payments