President Biden‘s team is concerned that special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents will hurt his re-election campaign.
Why it matters: Biden aides don’t expect criminal charges in the case, but they believe Hur’s report will include embarrassing details — possibly with photos — on how Biden stored documents.
In late 2022, Obama-era classified documents were discovered in Biden’s garage at his home in Delaware and in a private office he used.
Zoom in: Hur, a former U.S. attorney nominated by Trump in 2017 and a former clerk for conservative Chief Justice William Rehnquist, is required to write a report about the investigation.
Even if there are no criminal charges, Biden aides expect the report’s details to be politically damaging.
Biden has defended storing documents from his vice presidency in his garage, saying: “By the way, my Corvette is in a locked garage, so it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street.”
Some in Biden’s orbit have unflatteringly compared Garland to former FBI Director James Comey. Referring to his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server.
Comey ultimately cleared Clinton of criminal wrongdoing. But damaged her election campaign against Trump in July 2016 by making a public statement that she had been “extremely careless” in her security protocols.
What they’re saying: The White House and a spokesperson for Biden attorney Bob Bauer declined to comment.
WASHINGTON — Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) issued the following statement after day one of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s two-day, 14-hour transcribed interview:
“Dr. Fauci’s testimony today uncovered drastic and systemic failures in America’s public health systems. While leading the nation’s COVID-19 response and influencing public narratives, he simultaneously had no idea what was happening under his own jurisdiction at NIAID. Dr. Fauci signed off on all domestic and foreign research grants without reviewing the proposals and admitted that he was unaware if NIAID conducted oversight of the laboratories they fund. Clearly, the American people and the United States government are operating with completely different expectations about the responsibilities of our public health leaders and the accountability of our public health agencies.
It is also concerning that the face of our nation’s response to the world’s worst public health crisis ‘does not recall’ key details about COVID-19 origins and pandemic-era policies. Nearly 1.2 million Americans lost their lives to a potentially preventable pandemic. I look forward to asking Dr. Fauci further questions about mandates, his role in prompting the ‘Proximal Origin’ publication, and his policy positions related to masks and lockdowns. Tomorrow’s testimony will continue the Select Subcommittee’s effort to deliver the answers Americans demand and deserve.”
DR. FAUCI DAY 1 TAKEAWAYS
The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic questioned Dr. Anthony Fauci for seven hours yesterday (Jan 8, 2024) about his role during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Fauci’s testimony uncovered drastic and systemic failures in America’s public health systems.
Dr. Fauci claimed he “did not recall” pertinent COVID-19 information or conversations more than 100 times.
Dr. Fauci profusely defended his previous testimony where he statedthat NIH does not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan.
He repeatedly played semantics with the definition of gain-of-function in an attempt to avoid conceding that NIH funded this dangerous research.
Dr. Fauci testified that he signed off on every foreign and domestic NIAID grant without reviewing the proposals.
A 2020 email, previously released by the Select Subcommittee, proved Dr. Fauci was aware of dangerous gain-of-function research occurring in Wuhan, China. Today, he backtracked by arguing he should not have stated that as “fact.”
Dr. Fauci was unable to confirm if NIAID has ANY mechanisms to conduct oversight of the foreign laboratories they fund.
Clearly, the American people and the United States government are operating with completely different expectations about the responsibilities of our public health leaders and the accountability of our public health agencies. More accountability coming soon!
The Biden-Harris reelection campaign shared a “handy guide for responding to crazy MAGA nonsense” for supporters heading into the holidays with Trump supporting family members.
The guide shared talking points to respond to conservative rhetoric about subjects from immigration to the economy. One slide included responses to when someone claims “Trump secured our border!” to reply with a “No he didn’t,” followed by claims that “All he did was separate families, put children in cages, and leave behind a broken immigration system for Joe Biden to clean up.”
Critics across social media shredded the list of talking points, arguing it takes an especially insufferable kind of person to approach the Thanksgiving table looking forward to an argument rather than eating with family.
“Democrats literally publishing a script of how to be the worst person at Thanksgiving,” Republican digital strategist Alec Sears wrote.
“Imagine needing political talking points for a holiday encounter with loved ones,” podcast host Siraj Hashmi wrote.
“Reminder to all political persuasions: Preparing political talking points to use against family members on Thanksgiving is a form of mental illness,” author John Durant wrote. “Show some maturity, speak with the right tone, or change the subject.”
Other commentators accused Biden-Harris campaign of pushing “propaganda.”
“Biden-Harris putting out propaganda scripts to defend their campaign is… gross,” conservative radio host Jason Rantz wrote.
“All this gaslighting would make North Korean state media blush,” Twitchy’s Doug Powers wrote.
The House panel’s 103-page staff interim report says never-before-seen emails and internal communications were obtained from the group, known as the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), and show how it worked with DHS’ Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) to flag, suppress and remove online speech in coordination with big tech companies.
One of EIP’s founding partners — the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab — described CISA’s central role in the alleged censorship effort in a July 31, 2020, email.
“I know the Council has a number of efforts on broad policy around the elections, but we just set up an election integrity partnership at the request of DHS/CISA and are in weekly comms to debrief about disinfo,” the lab’s senior director Graham Brookie wrote.
The staff report says, “[T]he federal government and universities pressured social media companies to censor true information, jokes, and political opinions.
A report from the House Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), says new emails show officials at the Department of Homeland Security created a Stanford University “disinformation” group that censored Americans’ speech before the 2020 election.Getty Images
Graham Brookie, director of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, described a federal agency’s central role in the alleged censorship effort in a July 31, 2020, email.Atlantic Council
The online posts labeled “misinformation” were made by public officials such as former President Donald Trump.Getty Images
“This pressure was largely directed in a way that benefitted one side of the political aisle: true information posted by Republicans and conservatives was labeled as ‘misinformation’ while false information posted by Democrats and liberals was largely unreported and untouched by the censors.”
The “misinformation” posts were made by public officials such as former President Donald Trump, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), media outlets such as Newsmax and The Babylon Bee and many conservative commentators.
The Judiciary report also found that while under the purview of CISA’s Countering Foreign Influence Task Force, the central focus of the feds’ effort was to “censor Americans engaged in core political speech in the lead up to the 2020 election.”
DHS acknowledged that it could not “openly endorse” a centralized portal to flag information in a May 2020 email released in the staff report, which cleared the way for Stanford’s EIP to take up the effort in July of that year.
The task force used a tactic known as “switchboarding” to refer to removal requests from state and local officials to Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites, which CISA-CFITF Director Brian Scully confirmed in testimony in the bombshell case Missouri v. Biden.
Emails in the interim staff report show Scully informing members of the Office of the Colorado Secretary of State that he had flagged parody accounts to Twitter.NY Post
Emails in the interim staff report show Scully informing members of the Office of the Colorado Secretary of State that he had flagged parody accounts to Twitter and advised Facebook to take down a post about the election that was deemed misinformation.
The exchanges show that CISA recognized it was on shaky legal grounds by participating in the effort and chose to add a disclaimer beneath many emails that its requests were “voluntary” and the agency “neither has nor seeks the ability to remove what information is made available on social media platforms.”
However, those emails also included a line that the “information may also be shared with law enforcement or intelligence agencies,” implying those agencies could take action if the posts weren’t removed.
Former CISA Director Chris Krebs, who was fired by Trump after the 2020 election, testified to the subcommittee that “switchboarding” was done before his agency was created as well.
Exchanges show that group recognized it was on shaky legal ground by participating in the effort and chose to add a disclaimer beneath many emails that its requests were “voluntary.”NY Post
Former CISA Director Chris Krebs, who was fired by Trump after the 2020 election, testified to the subcommittee.Jim LoScalzo / Greg Nash / Pool via CNP / SplashNews.com
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas testified in a House Judiciary Committee hearing in July that the agency no longer participates in the practice.
The Judiciary staff report also discloses that Stanford students were working at both CISA and EIP simultaneously.
“Not only were there a number of university students involved with the EIP, at least four of the students were employed by CISA during the operation of EIP, using their government email accounts to communicate with CISA officials and other ‘external stakeholders’ involved with the EIP,” it states.
In a statement given to The Post on Monday, CISA Executive Director Brandon Wales said the agency “does not and has never censored speech or facilitated censorship.
“Every day, the men and women of CISA execute the agency’s mission of reducing risk to U.S. critical infrastructure in a way that protects Americans’ freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy,” Wales said.
“In response to concerns from election officials of all parties regarding foreign influence operations and disinformation that may impact the security of election infrastructure, CISA mitigates the risk of disinformation by sharing information on election literacy and election security with the public and by amplifying the trusted voices of election officials across the nation.”
Alex Stamos, who previously served as chief security officer at Facebook, said the idea was to create a “one-stop shop for local election officials, DHS, and voter protection organizations” to coordinate with social media platforms in the censorship effort.REUTERS
The “disinfo” organization was led by Stanford University’s Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO) and founded with the help of other academics who communicated directly with Homeland Security officials and members of the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), the report said.
SIO was conceived as a “one-stop shop for local election officials, DHS, and voter protection organizations” to coordinate with social media platforms in the censorship effort, according to its director Alex Stamos, who previously served as chief security officer at Facebook.
In June, Stamos testified to the House subcommittee that CISA’s coordination with the FBI came across as a threat.
“[D]ealing with a law enforcement agency that has coercive powers is just a risky thing to do if you’re part of some big organization and some other — there might be some investigation involving the organization that you don’t even know about,” he said.
“I think all executives of all public companies understand that there’s lots of parts of the government that can punish you for activity that you thought was appropriate.”
Stamos did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump established CISA in 2018 to improve federal cybersecurity programs and protect government software from hackers.
Well we’ve had numerous cases of voter fraud with the Democrats. Here’s the latest. It happened of all places a Blue State.
Voters in one Connecticut community are scheduled to go to the polls next week in a mayoral election for which the results of the Democratic primary were thrown out Wednesday.
Superior Court Judge William Clark tossed out the results of a Sept. 12 primary in Bridgeport after video emerged showing an individual who was alleged to have been a supporter of Democratic Mayor Joe Ganim stuffing multiple ballots in an absentee ballot drop box.
Voter fraud?
Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer
Visits: 14
Poor baby. Maricopa County Recorder Complains That Following Signature Verification Law Will Require More Work.
The county recorder ( a never Trumper ) is crying because he got caught taking the easy way out when he, Hobbs, and the Arizona AG took the easy way out on signature verification.
It looked as if they skirted Arizona law and decided to use any form for verification. I guess you could even use a note from your teacher and that would count ( I think you get my point. ). We have this from The Arizona Independent.
The additional responsibility for county recorders became clear after Yavapai County Superior Court Judge John Napper declared in ruling last week that the 2019 Election Procedures Manual (EPM) by Hobbs “create[d] a process that contradicts” the law. That ruling rejected Secretary of State Adrian Fontes’ motion to dismiss an Arizona Free Enterprise Club lawsuit alleging that Fontes’ interpretation and enforcement of signature verification law, which aligned with that of Hobbs, did not match the actual statute’s language.
In response to Napper’s ruling, the press raised alarm among voters in its coverage featuring Richer. Arizonans were warned their early vote may not count because election officials would be required to verify signatures using registration records only, versus signatures from other documents or past ballots. Echoing Richer, their reporting speculated signatures could be rejected en masse due to the signature on file being an older variation, or warped by MVD digitization.
That means for two major elections, an unlawful signature verification process was enforced. Napper reminded Secretary of State Adrian Fontes that he has a “non-discretionary duty” to properly instruct county recorders on lawful vote tabulation.
The most embarrassing revelation of the “Facebook Files” released by House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan yesterday (described in more detail here) involves the news media:
In one damning email, an unnamed Facebook executive wrote to Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg:
We are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the White House and the press, to remove more Covid-19 vaccine discouraging content.
We see repeatedly in internal communications not only in the email above, but in the Twitter Files, in the exhibits of the Missouri v Biden lawsuit, and even in the Freedom of Information request results beginning to trickle in here at Racket, that the news media has for some time been working in concert with civil society organizations, government, and tech platforms, as part of the censorship apparatus.
In the summer of 2021, the White House and Joe Biden were in the middle of a major factual faceplant. They were not only telling people the Covid-19 vaccine was a sure bet — “You’re not going to get Covid if you have these vaccinations” is how Biden put it — but that those who questioned its efficacy were “killing people.” But the shot didn’t work as advertised. It didn’t prevent contraction or transmission, something Biden himself continued to be wrong about as late as December of that year.
If you go back and give a careful read to corporate media content from that time describing the administration’s war against “disinformation,” you’ll see outlets were themselves not confident the vaccine worked. Take the New York Times effort from July 16th, 2021, “They’re Killing People: Biden Denounces Social Media for Virus Disinformation.” You can see the Times tiptoeing around what they meant, when they used the word “disinformation.” In this and other pieces they used phrases like, “the spread of anti-vaccine misinformation,” “how to track misinformation,” “the prevalence of misinformation,” even “Biden’s forceful statement capped weeks of anger in the White House over the dissemination of vaccine disinformation,” but they repeatedly hesitated to say what the misinformation was.
Any editor will tell you this language is a giveaway. Journalists wrote expansively about “disinformation,” but rarely got into specifics. They knew that they couldn’t state with certainty that the vaccine worked, that there weren’t side effects, etc., yet still denounced people who asked those questions. This is because they agreed with the concept of “malinformation,” i.e. there are things that may be true factually, but which may produce political results considered adverse. “Hestiancy” was one such bugbear. Note the language from the unnamed Facebook executive above, which describes the press lashing out “Covid-19 vaccine discouraging content,” not “disinformation.”
This is total corruption of the news. We’re supposed to be in the business of questioning officials, even if the questions are unpopular. That’s our entire role! If we don’t do that, we serve no purpose, maybe even a negative purpose. Moreover, think of the implications. News outlets wail about “disinformation” when they’re aware the public has tuned them out. When people don’t listen to reporters, it’s usually because they suck. You can do the math, as to why the current crop embraces censorship. A more embarrassing outcome for our business would be hard to imagine.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Chris Clark, admitted in court Wednesday the president’s son received $664,000 from CEFC China Energy Co. in 2017, contradicting President Joe Biden’s claim Hunter Biden never received money from a Chinese entity.
During a hearing before U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, Clark revealed Hunter made over one million dollars in foreign business transactions, including $664,000 from CEFC, a company linked to the CCP and Chinese intelligence. Also got money from Romania and Ukraine.
President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
Visits: 14
Putting the cart before the horse? The FBI is furious Chuck Grassley released an internal document that makes unverified claims about Hunter and Joe Biden accepting bribes. Just putting this out there. Republicans may have jumped the gun, but if not, this is very damaging to Joe.
The FBI on Thursday blasted two top Republican lawmakers for supporting the release of an internal investigative document that contains unverified allegations that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter accepted bribes from a Ukrainian gas company — claims the White House called “dishonest” and which even some Republicans have cast doubts on.
“The safeguards the FBI placed on the production of this information are necessary to protect the safety of confidential sources and the integrity of sensitive investigations,” the bureau said in a statement to Insider. “Today’s release of the 1023 [form] – at a minimum – unnecessarily risks the safety of a confidential source.”
Earlier Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, who has helped lead the Senate’s probes of Hunter Biden, decided to publish a sparingly redacted copy of the FBI document, which details claims made by a confidential informant who said a Burisma executive boasted about how he used Hunter Biden to protect the company.
The informant also claimed that Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky claimed that he was “coerced” into discussing $10 million bribes to the Bidens, though the informant was unclear if the money was ever paid or how; Joe Biden was the US vice president at the time.
The informant also claimed, without evidence, that Zlochevsky made 17 recordings and kept documents that would substantiate the bribery allegations. Last month, Sen. Ron Johnson, who has teamed up with Grassley on the Biden probes, cautioned that such recordings may not exist.
“This could be coming from a very corrupt oligarch who could be making this stuff up,” Johnson said on the Vicki McKenna Show, per PunchBowl News. “You have to suspend your judgment until you know more.”
Grassley’s office disputed the bureau’s claim that the release could endanger the confidential informant.
” Democrats and the media sought to link the FD-1023 to the Bidens’ activity in Ukraine long before this document became public, citing information that only the FBI and DOJ could have known,” Grassley spokesperson Taylor Foy said in a statement to Insider. “The FBI can’t cite risks to sources while thwarting congressional oversight in one breath and leak selective information to the news media in another.”
The release of the FBI document come days after former President Donald Trump, the 2024 GOP frontrunner, got a letter informing him that he’s a target in the DOJ’s investigation into the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.
The FBI initially turned over the document to Republicans in June in response to a subpoena. At the time, House Oversight Chairman James Comer had pressured the bureau to turn over information even though it involved a confidential source.
The FBI allowed only a few lawmakers and their aides access to the document. It is unclear how Grassley obtained the copy. In a statement, the Iowa Republican said it came to him “via legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers.” Both Grassley and Comer argued Thursday that publicly releasing the document was a necessary step.
“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,” Grassley said in a statement.
Republicans have long alleged that when he was vice president, Joe Biden inappropriately meddled in a criminal investigation into Burisma Holdings — whose board Hunter Biden served on from 2014 to early 2019 — led by Viktor Shokin, who was then Ukraine’s prosecutor general.
When he visited the country in March 2016, Joe Biden pressed hard for Shokin to be fired for corruption.
Biden represented the US’s official position on the matter, one that was shared by many other Western governments and anticorruption activists in Ukraine. But Republicans have alleged, without evidence, that Biden pushed for Shokin’s ouster because he wanted to stymie the investigation into Burisma.
However, government officials and Ukrainian anticorruption advocates point out that Shokin had hampered the investigation into Burisma long before Biden even stepped into the picture, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In other words, Biden was doing the opposite of what Republicans have implied: he was trying to oust a prosecutor who was slow-walking the investigation into Burisma, rather than actively targeting the company.
Bloomberg also reported that the Burisma investigation was largely dormant when Biden called for Shokin to be fired.
The White House put out a statement after Republicans released the document, saying that the claims in it “have reportedly been scrutinized by the Trump Justice Department, a Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney, and a full impeachment trial of the former President that centered on these very issues, and over and over again, they have been found to lack credibility.”
“It’s clear that congressional Republicans are dead-set on playing shameless, dishonest politics and refuse to let truth get in the way,” the statement added.
News. DOJ Tipped Off Hunter Biden Before a Search of His Storage Unit, IRS Whistleblowers Say. In a article printed the other day, we touched on this. Here’s Gateway Pundit’s article.
A recent executive meeting of the Ways and Means Committee resulted in a decision to release to the public testimony from two whistleblowers. The whistleblowers, both IRS employees, made shocking revelations about misconduct and abuse of power by Biden’s Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) during the investigation of Hunter Biden’s tax evasion case.
The whistleblowers claim that the Department of Justice (DOJ) tipped off Hunter Biden prior to a federal search of his storage unit.
The information revealed during the Ways and Means Committee’s executive meeting shows that Hunter Biden appears to have received preferential treatment in the investigation of his tax crimes.
Despite IRS officials recommending that Hunter Biden be charged with criminal activity for attempts to evade or defeat taxes, fraud and false statements, and willful failures to file returns, supply information, or pay taxes for over $8.3 million in income, the testimony alleges that Hunter Biden received preferential treatment during the investigation.
Further allegations point to the DOJ interfering in the investigation, deploying a strategy of “Delay, Divulge, and Deny” to shield Hunter Biden, according to the news committee’s press release.
Delays in the investigation were allegedly unjustified and pervasive, the DOJ was accused of divulging information about the investigation to Hunter Biden’s lawyers in advance, and there were several denials of attempts to bring charges or achieve special counsel status from the DOJ.
The Department of Justice interfered in the investigation into Hunter Biden’s clear tax issues with a “Delay, Divulge, and Deny” campaign – that ultimately shielded him by allowing the statute of limitations to pass on his tax crimes.
DELAY: Recurring unjustified delays pervaded the investigation, including in authenticating the message between Hunter Biden and Chinese officials. Investigators were told by U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf that “there is no way” a search warrant for evidence would get approved because the evidence of interest would be found in the guest house of former Vice President Biden.
DIVULGE: Investigators found out that attorneys for Hunter Biden were tipped off about actions relating to the investigation in advance. For example, even as investigators had probable cause to search a Northern Virginia storage unit in which Hunter Biden had stored files, attorneys for Biden were tipped off.
DENY: U.S. Attorney of Delaware David Weiss tried to bring charges in District of Columbia around March 2022 and was denied. Weiss sought special counsel status from DOJ in the Spring of 2022 and was denied. Weiss sought to bring charges in the Central District of California in the Fall of 2022 and had that request denied in January 2023.
The testimony also details the retaliation against IRS employees who blew the whistle on this misconduct. These employees reportedly faced hostility after raising concerns up their chain of command. Actions were taken to cut the IRS investigative team out of the process, and in some cases, unrelated investigations were hampered with limits and pauses. The whistleblowers and their entire team were eventually removed from the investigation on May 15, 2023, after blowing the whistle to Congress.
The testimony of two whistleblowers puts the DOJ and IRS under intense scrutiny and highlights the urgent need for investigation and accountability within these agencies.
BREAKING: The DOJ allegedly tipped off Hunter Biden before a search was conducted on his storage unit & stopped an investigation into "a WhatsApp message in which Hunter Biden demands payment from Chinese officials, noting that his father is in the room."
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) released the following statement:
“Today, the Ways and Means Committee voted to make public the testimony of IRS employees blowing the whistle on misconduct at the IRS and the Biden Department of Justice regarding unequal enforcement of tax law, interference and government abuse in the handling of investigations into criminal activity by President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and retaliation against IRS employees blowing the whistle on this abuse.
“The American people deserve to know that when it comes to criminal enforcement, they are not on the same playing field as thewealthy and politically connected class. The preferential treatment Hunter Biden received would never have been granted to ordinary Americans.
“Whistleblowers describe how the Biden Justice Department intervened and overstepped in a campaign to protect the son of Joe Biden by delaying, divulging, and denying an ongoing investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes. The testimony shows tactics used by the Justice Department to delay the investigation long enough to reach the statute of limitations, evidence they divulged sensitive actions by the investigative team to Biden’s attorneys, and denied requests by the U.S. Attorney to bring charges against Biden.
“IRS employees who blew the whistle on this abuse were retaliated against, despite a commitment IRS Commissioner Werfel made before the Ways and Means Committee to uphold their legal protections. They were removed from this investigation after they responsibly worked through the chain of command to raise these concerns.
“The Committee has acted in good faith with participation from both Democrats and Republicans, as the issues raised today ought to be a bipartisan concern. Hopefully we can find a path forward to continue to go where the facts lead us. If the federal government is not treating all taxpayers equally, or if it is changing the rules to engineer a preferred outcome, Congress has a duty to ask why and to hold agencies accountable and consider appropriate legislative action. The scales of justice must not be skewed in favor of the wealthy and the politically connected.”
The transcripts for the whistleblower testimony are posted below via Ways and Means Committee:
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