Patrick Lawrence on the indictment of key witness Alexander Smirnov; the under-reported testimony of Jason Galanis from a federal prison; and Hunter Biden’s testimony under oath.
Hunter Biden, Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden during the 2009 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama. (acaben, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)
By Patrick Lawrence
Special to Consortium News
This is the fourth in Consortium News’ series on the congressional investigation into President Biden’s allegedly corrupt involvement in the business affairs of his son Hunter. Earlier reports can be read here, here and here.
It has been an eventful few weeks as the House Oversight Committee proceeds with its hearings on the case for impeaching President Joe Biden for his alleged participation in the influence-mongering schemes of his 54–year-old son, Hunter.
At issue is whether Joseph R. Biden, Jr., during his years as vice president and in the interim before he assumed the presidency in January 2021, was corruptly involved in Hunter’s various ventures and misadventures to his own benefit and/or the benefit of various family members.
The first of a rapid succession of events came Feb. 15, when David Weiss, the special counsel in charge of the Justice Department’s probe into Hunter Biden’s business affairs, announced a grand jury indictment of Alexander Smirnov, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s long-serving informant, who, in 2020, told two F.B.I. agents that Biden père et fils had effectively extorted $5 million each from Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder and chief executive of Burisma Holdings, a once-prominent Ukrainian gas company under investigation for corruption.
David Weiss. (Delaware U.S. Attorneys Office, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)
Hunter Biden served on the Burisma board from April 2014 to April 2019, taking in, if not earning, roughly $1 million yearly for most of this time.
Weiss’ indictment charges Smirnov with fabricating his reports of the Burisma bribery scheme and lying to the F.B.I.
Smirnov was arrested in Las Vegas when Weiss announced the indictment. On Feb. 20, a federal magistrate released him on bond with a tracking device clamped to his ankle.
Two days later a federal judge in California, contending Smirnov was a flight risk, ordered him rearrested. Smirnov is now in “protective custody” indefinitely at a federal prison in Los Angeles.
Several questions are raised by the indictment and arrest of Smirnov, who has pleaded not guilty.
One concerns Weiss, who has covertly and for years protected Hunter Biden, and by extension the president, from various DoJ and Internal Revenue Service investigations. Among much else, Weiss appears to have worked with other DoJ officials to cover up the F.B.I.’s finding — this via Smirnov’s research — that Zlochevsky allegedly paid the Bidens for protection against the anti-corruption authorities in Kiev.
In addition to the suspicions attaching to Weiss’ past conduct and motivations, there is the question of Smirnov’s identity and his relations with the F.B.I. The bureau had used Smirnov as an informant for roughly a decade and, having concluded several investigations successfully, found him highly reliable.
Why would the F.B.I., a part of the DoJ, suddenly conclude he was unreliable — “a fabulist,” as The New York Times describes him — who, it is now said, got his false stories from Russian intelligence?
Why, in this same line, would the field agents working with Smirnov send his findings on the Bidens and Burisma to Washington, where the bureau entered them into what is called a 1023, a document wherein the F.B.I. formally records the results of its investigations? Does it make sense that it would issue a 1023 to record the reports of an informant they had concluded — suddenly — was a liar?
Russian Intelligence
There is one other feature of Weiss’ indictment that is at this point typical of DoJ documents relating to the Biden case. Indictments typically contain information indicating the propriety of the charges and little else. Weiss’ indictment is freighted with assertions related to Smirnov’s alleged relations with Russian intelligence and his alleged assertions — while in federal custody — that the Russians had informed him in detail of Hunter Biden’s movements in Kiev during his years on Burisma’s board.
Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevskiy in 2010. (Svetlana Pashko, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)
This has a recognizable reek to it. Jack Smith, the prosecutor overseeing two of the four legal cases against former President Donald Trump, has similarly decorated his indictments with entirely inappropriate assertions that turn indictments into documents self-evidently motivated by Democratic Party politics.
Democrats in Washington, finally, have pounced on the Smirnov indictment to call for the immediate end to the Oversight Committee’s investigation. Mainstream media have, per usual, amplified Democrats’ assertions that the committee had built its case on evidence so flimsy and fanciful it could not be counted as such. This, too, is suspect. Two reasons.
One, an indictment is not a guilty verdict. The case against Smirnov would have to be heard in court for the charges against him to be proven. It is sheer politics to demand the committee shut down its investigation in consequence of Weiss’ indictment.
Two, it is sheer disinformation, in turn, to suggest that the House Committee’s case rests solely on Smirnov’s allegations of bribery in the Burisma matter. The F.B.I.’s findings are one dimension of the much wider investigation into the Bidens, as events since Smirnov’s arrest plainly demonstrate.
Jason Galanis’ Testimony
One day following Smirnov’s rearrest came another significant development in the House investigation. Jason Galanis, who was for a time among Hunter’s business associates, testified that he was present at a dinner with a Russian oligarch and her husband during which Hunter, putting his cellular telephone on speaker, introduced the two to “Pop,” who was then Barack Obama’s vice-president.
The dinner took place in Brooklyn on May 4, 2014, according to Galanis’ testimony. Those present included Yelena Baturina, a prominent Russian investor; her husband, Yuri Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow; and Devon Archer, another of Hunter’s business partners.
Yelena Baturina and Yuri Luzhkov in 2010. (Evgeniy Nachitov, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0)
For reasons that remain unclear — Archer testified last July that he could not recall — Baturina had recently sent $3.5 million to a firm Hunter Biden and Archer controlled; a few days after the dinner, Galanis testified, he was informed that Baturina had committed — a “hard order” — $10 million to $20 million to an investment vehicle Archer and Biden also controlled.
Separately, Baturina invested $120 million in a real-estate investment company, Rosemont Realty, in which Hunter had an interest for a brief interim — this according to Archer’s testimony last summer.
At one point during the May 2014 dinner the younger Biden gathered the guests in a corner of the restaurant and placed a call to his father. With his cellular line on speaker, he then introduced the two Russians, saying, as Galanis recounted the occasion, “I am here with our friends I told you were coming to town, and we wanted to say hello.”
Biden senior greeted the two visitors and briefly exchanged pleasantries before signing off, “O.K., then, you be good to my boy.”
Jason Galanis in 2011. (Jason Galanis, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)
Galanis testified to House investigators from a federal prison in Montgomery, Alabama, where he is serving a 14–year sentence for defrauding a South Dakota Indian tribe of $60 million in a bogus bond deal. Recounting his reactions to the call at the time, he testified to the investigators:
“I recall being stunned by this call — to actually hear the vice-president of the United States speaking on the phone. It was clear to me this was a pre-arranged call with his father meant to impress the Russian investors that Hunter had access to his father and all the power and prestige of his position.”
A couple of observations are due with regard to this remark.
One, reports in The New York Times and other corporate dailies repeatedly stress that V–P Biden’s remarks on these occasions never went further than small talk about the weather and other inconsequential matters — so demonstrating he had no involvement in Hunter’s business dealings.
This is wholly disingenuous, as is much of the media coverage of the allegations against Joe Biden and his family. As Galanis makes plain, small talk was all Hunter needed from his father to signal to clients that he, Hunter, would provide them the access to power they sought.
Two, it is not clear what financial benefit, if any, accrued to Joe Biden from his son’s dealings with the Russians. While evidence that the president received funds from Hunter’s influence-peddling schemes would of course be highly significant, as in the Burisma case, it is not essential to the case for impeachment.
Abuse of office is an impeachable crime if the person under investigation has used the power of his office to the benefit of his family or any other person seeking to leverage his or her influence. This is all the House Oversight Committee must establish to put impeachment to a full House vote.
If we analyze the interpersonal dynamics during the May 2014 dinner, such as we know them by way of Galanis’ account, the occasion suggests itself as a clear case of influence peddling on the part of Biden father and son.
As an aside here, almost no major media have reported Galanis’ testimony from his prison cell. The exception is the New York Post, which obtained a transcript of Galanis’ testimony: this account draws from the New York Post’s report on Galanis’ statements and descriptions.
There is pertinent background to the May 2014 dinner. Miranda Devine reported last month in the New York Post that Hunter hosted it for the daughter of Alex Kotlarsky, who, Devine reported, is thought to have got Hunter Biden and Devon Archer their board seats at Burisma. In Laptop from Hell (Post Hill Press, 2021), Devine’s book on the Bidens, she described Kotlarsky as “a New York–based Eastern European employed by consulting firm TriGlobal Strategic Ventures.”
On @SundayFutures with @MariaBartiromo, New York Post columnist @mirandadevine spoke about the information the @GOPoversight and @JudiciaryGOP received from former Hunter Biden associate, Jason Galanis, in their Impeachment Inquiry against President Biden.@FoxNews pic.twitter.com/ghBEYL94jW
— SundayMorningFutures (@SundayFutures) February 26, 2024
On Feb. 28, five days after Galanis testified to House investigators, the Oversight Committee questioned Hunter Biden under oath in a closed-door session that lasted more than six hours. This was an occasion the younger Biden obstinately resisted until the House threatened to cite him for contempt of Congress. It is now clear why.
Bravado & Evasion
Hunter Biden’s testimony may stand as one of the most revealing occasions in the committee’s evidence-gathering process. By any disinterested reading of the 229–page transcript the House Committee subsequently released, it is now evident that the Bidens’ various defenses against allegations of corruption and abuse of office — Hunter Biden’s, Joe Biden’s, that of James Biden, the president’s brother — would almost certainly and very swiftly collapse if ever subjected to a formal impeachment trial in the Senate.
On numerous occasions during his interrogation Hunter Biden was aggressively critical of the House investigation to the point of purposeful insult: “This improper process,” he calls it at one point, and on another, “The pattern that I see is that you literally have no evidence whatsoever.”
But as the transcript makes clear, it is difficult to read his performance as other than the bravado of a man who has no case to make on the merits and is left to ineffectual improvisations and posturing.
“I am here today to provide the committee with the one uncontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry,” Biden says early in his testimony. “I did not involve my father in my business, not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions, domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist, never.”
This is typical of the evasive elisions to which Biden resorted on matters of substance. There has been no suggestion that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s investments, transactions and so on.
As Miranda Devine of the New York Post makes clear in Laptop from Hell, the division of labor in the Biden family left Hunter to get his hands dirty running the businesses and generating revenue so Pop was always “clean.”
Joe’s role was to advertise his influence and collect his share of the take.
What a difference an oath makes, we must conclude. Hunter Biden managed not to lie when he asserted his father had nothing to do with his business doings — this while avoiding telling the truth.
‘The Big Guy’
One of the other major topics, bound to come up given its prominence in the evidence the House committee has so far gathered, was the identity of “the Big Guy” as referenced in a key email sent on May 13, 2017. The date is important. Joe Biden had left office the preceding January, and by May, Hunter Biden and his partners were apportioning equity to proceed from CEFC, a large Chinese energy and investment firm.
In the memo, James Gilliar, one of the partners, runs down the equity distribution: Hunter Biden and his three business partners were to get 20 percent shares, making 80 percent. An additional 10 percent was for James Biden. After running down these figures, Gilliar writes, “10 held by H for the big guy.”
Biden again evades when first asked about this. Naming his partners he says, “There’s an executed agreement in which I got 20 percent, Jim got 20 percent, Rob got 20 percent, Tony got 20 percent, and James Gilliar got 20 percent. Nothing [to] do with Joe Biden.”
When a committee member returns to the topic later in the proceeding, Biden claims ignorance:
“I truly don’t know what the hell that James was talking about. All I know is that what actually happened. All I know is that what was executed in the agreement, and the agreement didn’t have anything to do with my father…. I think that it was pie in the sky. Like Joe Biden’s out of the [sic] office. Maybe we’ll be able to get him involved. Remember, again, is that Joe Biden, for first time in 48 years, is not an elected official and is not seeking office. And so James is probably, like, wow, wouldn’t be great if a former vice-president could be in our business together?”
There are three things to consider here. One, in Hunter Biden’s initial response, James Biden’s equity — 10 percent in the Gilliar summary — is now 20 percent, leaving no room for a 10 percent share to Joe Biden. Two, to explain the “10 percent for the Big Guy” as a partner’s trial balloon makes absolutely no sense. If Gilliar wanted to bring the out-of-office Joe Biden into a partnership it stands to reason he simply would have said so.
Three and most important here, there is no documentary evidence that Hunter Biden objected or otherwise questioned the 10 percent allocation Gilliar noted in the May 2017 email. When pressed repeatedly, Biden says, “I’m not even sure whether I ever fully read this,” in reference to the Gilliar note.
And at no point, finally and far from least, did Hunter Biden deny that his father was “the Big Guy.” At the conclusion of Biden’s testimony, the identity of the Big Guy is left as a complete mystery.
Hunter Biden’s testimony is full of such anomalies and hard-to-believe assertions. He relied heavily on his dissolute years of drunkenness and drug use as he failed to recall, roughly two dozen times, key events, letters he wrote, documents he signed, and meetings he attended. There is the much-noted text he sent via WhatsApp to a Chinese investor in 2017 saying, “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to know why the commitment has not been fulfilled.”
Asked about this during his interrogation Biden replied that he did not remember sending the message and if he had he was either drunk or high. “I take full responsibility for being an absolute ass and idiot when I sent this message, if I did send this message,” he told the committee. The Chinese investor wired $5 million to one of Biden’s partnerships a few days later.
It is possible, of course, that Hunter Biden did fake Joe Biden’s presence when he wrote the WhatsApp message to the Chinese executive. Bluffs of this kind are common enough in business. But even if this were so, Hunter Biden invoked precisely the kind of father-son partnership Devine described in Laptop from Hell and that the House Committee alleges was at the heart of their influence-selling schemes.
Asked about funds from business ventures disbursed directly to family members without going through his account, Biden replied, “I sometimes can be, oxymoronically, cheap. It’s to save on two wire transfers.”
As these examples suggest, the impression the transcript leaves is of a man glossing events and business dealings or otherwise papering over them, more than occasionally filibustering the committee’s interrogators, in a fashion unlikely to withstand a formal trial were his father to be impeached and he called as a witness.
The events of the past several weeks suggest some conclusions as to the direction of the House Committee’s case.
First and most significantly, President Biden and his allies in the Democratic Party and the DoJ will continue to instrumentalize the Justice Department for their shared political ends. This amounts to the wanton corruption of the nation’s judicial system — an act of institutional destruction from which America may not recover.
As of Hunter Biden’s deposition in the House late last month, the flimsiness of his case is now perfectly clear. The blanket denials — in policy circles, in the media — of the validity of the House Committee’s investigations allegations are threadbare. As the Times reported in a moment of candor months ago, the White House’s strategy is to fight the investigation in “the court of public opinion,” not in House hearing rooms. It is, in other words, to make a media circus of it.
The House will have enough to bring a vote to impeach to the floor. This is all but certain. Whether it will do so, and the outcome of such a vote if there is one, are among the outstanding questions now.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for The International Herald Tribune, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of Journalists and Their Shadows, available from Clarity Press or via Amazon. Other books include Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been permanently censored.
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The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Can we have Pres. K. Harrison now? Someone not senile, not eager for war, war, war? Let impeachment become our equivalent to a parliamentary vote of no confidence. I have no confidence of anything good out of the Biden administration. :-(
“The events of the past several weeks suggest some conclusions as to the direction of the House Committee’s case.” Patrick Lawrence
W/o a doubt, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree;” AND, the fruit is ROTTEN!!!
1) Like the Hur’d “round the world report,” the inference is, “NO” Virginia Jury and/or DC Jury would convict, a miserably aged, 85, 86, 87, 88 years-old, soulless, heartless, demented, truth challenged, elder, incapable of “standing,” literally & figuratively, for trial.
Basically, IMO, the “Only One Home,” in Joey R. Biden’s head is DJTrump. AND, five (5) years from now, 2024, “$mokin’ Uncle, Lunch-Box, Joe,” the political Corpse posing as POTUS masquerading as human, like today, will NOT “say his name.” “Uncle” Joey R. Biden won’t even remember it.
Fast forward, five (5+) years, IMO, Joey Robinette Biden, is destined to cruise into court, riding “shotgun” on the backside of his Doctor’s, Jill Biden’s, EV Hover. Joey R. Biden, w/that blank, dazed, gaze, “a deer in the headlights,” blank staring, holding on for dear life w/one bloody paw; his other bloody, infected claw holding tightly to his defense,”The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 or ADA (42 U.S.C. § 12101); a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability.”
IMO, Five (5) years from now, Joey Robinette Biden will be like those old, horribly aged killers who get nailed for the war crimes & crimes against humanity, that they willfully committed when they were young, ugly, and in power;
IMO, “Like Father, Like Son,” all his truths are one, big f/lie!!!
2) Like the Hur’d “round the world report,” the inference is, “NO” Virginia Jury, Delawhere Jury, DC Jury or Congress would convict, a miserably aged, 55-56 years-old, soulless, heartless, irresponsible father of six, truth challenged, drug/alcohol induced, functioning “Junkie,” Businessman.
A businessman so “high” he’s incapable of recalling, “Who f*$$$d Whom? When?!?” AND, double-dog daring anyone/everyone, including Congress, to prove his “pop” aka “The Big Guy,” was actually sitting next to him while he was emailing/texting while drunk &/or high on “cocaine?” Most Definitely, NOT Cannabis.
Fast forward to today, like “The Big Guy,” the son’s showing signs of dementia. He’s definitely Joey Robinette Biden’s son, extremely truth challenged. That oughta keep a “junkie” businessman outta Court.
Fingers crossed, the Nation realizes Bidenomics, the Democrats’ platform, is not an of, by or for the people platform; but, in fact, a graveyard!!!
TIK TOK. Times Up! Do NOT Hesitate. Take the smart risk, “Cancel the existential threat to the planet, Biden-Harris 2024!!!”
Indeed, Patrick Lawrence, Nails, the Number One (1), take away, “The House will have enough to bring a vote to impeach to the floor. This is all but certain. Whether it will do so, and the outcome of such a vote if there is one, are among the outstanding questions now.”
“Keep It Lit!”
Today, the Democrats attacked the Bill of Rights in their support for Genocide.
In the Democrat controlled city of New York, in the Democratic controlled state of New York, under Democrat President Joe Biden and the associated Democrat Attorney Generals of these Democratic places …. NYPD police today violently attacked a group of anti-Genocide demonstrators.
Free Speech is only allowed for those who say the ‘correct’ things. This of course is only an illusion of Free Speech. Not only do the powerful have a megaphone while you only have your unamplified voice, but the powerful also have police with clubs and pepper spray and other ‘non-lethal’ means of ‘forcing compliance’.
The Democrats have some serious conflicts with the concepts of Democracy and Freedom. Democracy conflicts with their view that they know who the ‘right’ person is to win every election, and Freedom conflicts with their view that nobody gets to say anything, or even think anything, that they don’t approve.
The Orwellian irony to all of this is that the same Democrats say they are fighting a war for Freedom and Democracy. We all have to give our lives and our fortunes to their cause, but the Freedom and Democracy are not for us. The rich keep getting richer, and they get all the Freedom and Democracy as well. We the people get George Carlin’s ‘big club that beats you over the head’.
Sorry to always be skeptical, but the corruption is nearly ubiquitous, both illegal as well as institutionalized. Instead of getting lost in the forest for the trees, we should talk about the corruption with the Bidens, Clintons, Trumps, Bush Jr. regimes, and connect some dots. The crooked, bribed, amoral hypocrites in Congress aint gonna bring us any justice, that’s for damn sure. It’s like the Genovese family criticizing the Gambinos for being crooks.
Although emotionally and psychologically disturbing, we have to admit that all three branches of govt. are institutionally corrupt and that our problems are much more extensive than a few bad apples.
Agreed. Much, much deeper and more extensive. Presidents, for example, come and go, but the military industrial complex remains, as does a great lust for power and wealth.
My test for how ‘corrupt’ a society is …. Ask the question, can money buy you anything? The score of 100 represents a fully corrupt society. In a fully corrupt society, money can buy you absolutely anything.
I put America in the high 90’s. There may be a few things in America that having money (and I mean ‘real’ money) won’t buy you in America, but I’m having a hard time making a list.
Turns out that this was something else that Ben Franklin was wise about.
“In these Sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administred; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other.” –Ben Franklin, speech to Constitutional Convention, 1787, hxxps://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/historic-document-library/detail/benjamin-franklin-closing-speech-at-the-constitutional-convention
Agreeing with John’s reply to you and want to add in that presidents may come and go, but organized crime just keeps chugging along. Once you understand how they totally permeate American institutions and have done so since Prohibition, the corruption of our officials makes total sense.
An all too obvious effort to silence not only this particular informant, but anyone who dares to share negative information concerning Deep State darlings, like Biden, Obama, Clinton, the Bush family, etc. We have become the Stalinists we criticized in the 1950s.
Thank you Patrick Lawrence for your outstanding work. Amazing really and rarely seen anywhere else in print. Biden’s State of the Union address began with belligerent rank about continuing to fund Ukraine . And the boldness of introducing new member Sweden to NATO, lots of clapping in the audience. Democrats are into “endless wars abroad” as have been Republicans. I think Trump as a business guy wanted to make deals with so-called enemies. That is the way in NYC , but he was against the Military Industrial Complex…and “they” joined ranks with Dems to oppose him! In main stream media, no mention of bold in your face Biden announcing Sweden in NATO…..Enough. I will read your article in detail. Please go on YouTube with your message.
The bits I have seen of the SotU address remind me of nothing so much as Hitler speaking at the Reichstag. Biden’s shrieking and the obedient applause of the stooges is sickening.
Reading The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson. If we have any Republic left, this definitely needs to go to an impeachment trial before the American people to wake them up to the corruption, and as a beginning of reestablishing what we have mostly lost already. With Biden out of the picture, maybe a better candidate than Trump could have a possibility of winning the election in November, although I suppose trials don’t move that fast. Justice; does it even exist in the USA?
If we were really following the Rules, the following Presidents all deserved to be impeached.
Ronald Reagan, George H.W Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barrack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden.
And I started with Reagan only because there was a gap with Jimmy Carter, who mostly followed the Rules. Ford wasn’t there long enough to do much besides set the old record for tripping and falling in public, but Richard Nixon fled impeachment with a quick resignation letter and a flight on the people’s Marine helicopter, and Lyndon Johnson should have been as well. Everyone of them should have been convicted by the Senate, for flagrant violations of the Rules.
For example, check out the section of the Constitution that lists what the Rules say about what has to happen for America to go to War. The last time that Rule was followed was on December 8th, 1941. America hasn’t fought a ‘legal’ war since, at least not according to the Rules, and the Democrats keep telling me that we live in a Rules Based Order.
Oh, Tommy Payne, leaving Jimmy Carter outta that pack of wolves, is, imo, a spot flippin’ on, right move!!! TY!
I don’t know a lot about Jimmy Carter; BUT, I do know, Jimmy Carter was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, a nuclear physicist, a Commander-in-Chief in the Navy before being “elected” Commander-In-Chief of our Nation, the “U.S.A.” A governor. A humanitarian. A farmer, who, literally, sowed peace. A conscientious consumer, tuned into alternative energy before it was “cool.” A U.S. President who NEVER took “our” Nation to War. IF, any U.S. President knew what a Nuclear Bomb will do, President Jimmy Carter, was the brains, braun, brilliance in keeping his U.S.’s “Rules Based Order,” NO Nukes!!! NO Mo’ f/foreign wars,” in effect.
Imo, Jimmy Carter defines “public service,” i.e., “With yourself, use your head; w/others, use your heart.” Jimmy Carter’s legacy as a President, public servant, a peacemaker, a humanitarian has been disparaged, diminished, devalued, pissed on, big f/time, by the “powers that be.” Imo, “fugg ‘em.”
…. “And as funny as it may seem, that’s life. That’s what people say. Some people get their kicks outta stomping on a dream. But I don’t let it, let it get me down. Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinnin’ around.” “That’s Life,” Van Morrison’s “cover” of Frank Sinatra’s “That’s Life,” is the Best!
Onward & Upwards! Ciao.
Would you care to comment on
1. Does the White House firing of the “Cookie Monster” Nulander
of the US Ukrainian coup in 2014, and that dinner date
of the same year have any connection? And 2. If the
Department of Justice is trashed in any impeachment process
is such an event favorable to Julian Assange?
As Joe Biden and the Democrats move well to the right of the old PNAC/Robert Kagan/Dick Cheney crowd, they no longer have room or tolerance for liberals like ‘Nuland’ in their midst.
The Democrats have now fully adopted the insane strategy of PNAC, the one that says America must fight a war against any nation that tries to get off their knees. In fact, they appear to be moving beyond that. Certainly beyond the list of weak nations that wimps and snowflakes like Dick and Vicky used to pick on, Iraq, Syria, Libya. Nope, Joe Biden has firmly declared that “Real Men Go To Moscow”. And then “On to Beijing!”
Hope you are keeping up with us here, because the Democrat drive to the right keeps on accelerating. As the Democrats move to the right of the former VP, the toadies who made the mistake of attaching themselves to his career have to pay the predictable price for their views that are now quite liberal compared to these Democrats.
Excellent piece, only one point I think is weak. I would think the FBI’s use of the 1023 to record testimony from Smirnov would just be standing operating procedure of collecting any evidence or statement, fabulous or not.
Watching the Biden Crime family, a family of career con-men, trying to con their way out of their crimes is hard to endure. Trump is savaged by a phalanx of lawfare operatives on the flimsiest of charges. While the Biden con-men rely on the FBI and DOJ to run cover for them. Too many courts are likewise in on these schemes. Railroading Trump while Joe, Hunter and James Biden manage to skate by every time. So far. Thus, a mockery is made of criminal justice in the U.S at the very top. It may all fail spectacularly before November. On top of the failed war in Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza and the open border, the road to victory will be a muddy one. Even for perpetual liar that is Joe Biden.
Consider what it takes to become a ‘judge’.
You have to be politically connected. Almost always it begins with getting an appointment into a District Attorney’s office. Don’t find many Defense attorneys on the bench. The head DA itself is often an elected position, and certainly the path to a judgeship involves a lot of politics. All positions require the endorsements or nominations by career politicians. There is of course a competition for those positions. The career path to a judge’s robe involves a lot of political work with the local party. That’s the way you get on a Governor’s or President’s list of potential nominees. You kiss babies, and rear-ends. You do lots of favors. One might even reasonably assume that getting a reputation as someone who will do favors is a big part of getting that appointment or nomination.
Then, they have to be approved. For a Federal judge, this is a vote of the US Senate, with all that entails. A highly political process.
And you somehow expect that ‘the courts’ may not be in on these schemes?
We may very well have an election where neither candidate was picked by the voters in any sort of democratic process.
The Democrats are clearly moving towards a rigged convention that will then inform the party of who will be the nominee. That this is deliberate is quite obvious. They are piling up party hacks as delegates, both as Biden delegates and as ‘uncommitted’ delegates. No progressives in the fight, thus few progressive delegates, and those will also be party hacks who happen to fake to the left. This combined with the super-delegates will tell the Democrats who their nominee is, in the name of Democracy. They’ve been wanting those pesky voters out of the process for several cycles now.
The Republicans might end up with the same, but with them it does not appear the deliberate, anti-democracy, fraud of the Democratic Party. They could be forced into picking their nominee at the convention by Lawfare, but they don’t look like they’ve been planning it for months and keeping an old guy propped up as the way to get there.
Thanks for the update, Patrick. My question, without having read the 229 page deposition transcript, is what about the money? What were all these payments for? What product, what service, was being offered or delivered? Influence, access, of course, but to what end? That would be my first second and third questions. Millions changing hands for what, a phone call?
The corruption appears obvious, as does the attempted coverup by the DOJ. But as we’ve come to expect in these types of corruption investigations it always comes down to the money. Who paid it, and why, what promises were made, and what did they receive in return?
Seems to me the Republicans need to dig deeper, if they haven’t yet, and spell all this out. Smirnov looks to have been a key witness in this regard, so no wonder Weiss made his desperate attempt to silence and discredit him. Which leads me to consider that Trump certainly had the right idea when he put the squeeze on with his Ukraine phone call to Zelensky demanding he investigate the Biden’s. Obviously this touched a real nerve with the Democrats who were then forced to orchestrate the most ludicrous impeachment one can imagine. Even Stalin would have been embarrassed by that show trial.
Here is a site previously featured in CN which goes into details about Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine: ukrainegate.info. The details are ignored by State Media of course, and the Ukrainians were in awe of the obvious Biden corruption, joking that while Genocide Joe says “Corruption is a Cancer”, he is the Biggest Tumor.
The fake Black Ledger ties into the political corruption of Ukraine; slimy Paul Manafort was an American handler of Bad Puppet Viktor Yanukovych, along with the slimy Podesta Group and Greg Craig (Obama’s consul). When Manafort became Trump’s Campaign Manager, he was instantly targeted and the Democrat handlers cut loose. (None were registered as agents of foreign governments, a requirement that is selectively enforced). Ukrainians (and Israelis) can interfere at will in US elections, but of course we get the continuing fake Russiagate to cover the Illegal Resistance of US Government Authorities to outsider Trump. The Steele Dossier and Black Ledger, both obviously fake, were accepted as real by the FBI for political reasons only. The hearsay report from Alexander Smirnov may well be grounded in fact (Mykola Zlochevsky if he has any brain in his head at all will deny, deny, deny– just getting his Biden bribes story out affords him some little protection). If Smirnov felt he was lying, he would not have allowed himself to be arrested. Much smarter to follow whistleblowers Tara Reade and Gal Luft running for their lives from Biden and his DOJ/ FBI.
What impressed me most about the Impeachment was the domestic involvement of the CIA and Alexander Vindman’s claim that the President was interfering with “consensus policies” in Ukraine. Evidently Nuland and all the other neocon State Department officials whose families hailed from the Ukraine region, and “Ambassador” John Bolton, outranked President Trump on US Foreign policy.
This is where the corrupt hide behind a cloud of smoke. Where they use plausible deniability. For instance, the way it worked between Hunter as the front man, and The Big Guy calling into the meetings. Its Hunter who is selling the access to the Big Guy. The Big Guy calls into the meeting at the right time to say the right things to let everyone know that The Big Guy is on board, but is careful not to say any details out loud. The real details of the deal are discussed by the front man in a separate conversation. The call is just to let everyone know that the Front Man is for real, and that the Big Guy is in on the deal. If Hunter is even halfway smart or sober, not even his business partners are in the room for the important conversations. That’s a two person talk, with Hunter as the go-between to the Big Guy making a deal with no witnesses, in a room swept for listening devices.
Then, they sit and scream behind their lawyers about how ‘you can’t prove anything.’ When their entire scheme was designed not only by a lawyer, but the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee who probably wrote these laws somewhere along the way, so Hunter knows what to say when and under what conditions, and the Big Guy definitely knows what not to say, but how to wink, wink, nudge, nudge to let everyone know that there is a deal in place and money to be made.
The good news is that the NSA probably knows. Remember their motto …. Collect Everything. And you got to bet that leverage on the politicians that determine their budget is always high on the list of ‘everything’. When there is a revolution, please do not destroy that data repository. It might be tempting to cry ‘Liberty’ and burn all the files, but there is a lot of data in there about what the corrupt have been doing.