House GOP conducts discredited Biden-Burisma probe that Zelenskyy wouldn’t do as ‘favor’ for Trump

Remember that “perfect” phone call in July 2019 that led to President Donald Trump’s first impeachment? That’s the call in which Trump asked Ukraine’s newly elected president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to do “a favor” for him—namely to speak with his lawyer Rudy Giuliani and announce an investigation of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, related to the Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma.

The call came just a week after the White House had ordered the State Department and Pentagon to withhold nearly $400 million in military assistance to Ukraine that had already been authorized. Despite the pressure, Zelenskyy didn’t announce any such investigation, which might have derailed Biden’s presidential campaign.

But now Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, is doing the very favor for Trump that Zelenskyy wouldn’t do. And it couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for the embattled former president, who is facing a federal indictment for mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort. 

RELATED STORY: Trump plays victim and savior

Comer had threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress for failure to turn over an FBI document created in June 2020 that contained unsubstantiated allegations from a confidential source in Ukraine about Joe and Hunter Biden. Comer said a “whistleblower” had informed lawmakers about the FBI document.

The Washington Post wrote: “It is not hard to figure out why this is unfolding the way it is unfolding. There’s an enormous appetite on the right at the moment for evidence that the FBI and Justice Department are deploying a double standard or that Biden deserves to face criminal charges just as much as former president Donald Trump.”

The allegations that Comer wants to investigate relate to the Bidens and Burisma. And this latest political stunt by Comer could backfire like others.

It’s possible that the committee is simply regurgitating Russian disinformation. The U.S. intelligence community, in an unclassified report released in March 2021 said that “Ukraine-linked individuals with ties to Russian intelligence engaged in activities targeting the 2020 U.S. presidential election,” including “alleging corrupt ties between President Biden, his family, and other U.S. officials and Ukraine.”

“a bunch of malarkey”

Wray had cited the need to protect confidential sources in refusing to turn over the document. But the FBI director eventually relented and allowed all the members of the Oversight Committee to view the redacted document, known as an FD-1023 form, usually a report about information relating to alleged crimes provided to the FBI by an informant.   

Wray insisted that the committee members view the document in a secure room known as a SCIF, for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, on Capitol Hill. The viewing occurred on Thursday, just hours before Trump broke the news about his indictment.

It’s unknown why the FBI insisted that committee members view the document in a SCIF. But Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene wasted no time in rushing out of the room to take notes and reveal the contents of the document to reporters.

RELATED STORY: You have to see Marjorie Taylor Greene's plan to 'take down the Deep State'

Greene and fellow Freedom Caucus member Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida both said Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky allegedly told an FBI source that he had paid $5 million apiece to Hunter Biden and then-Vice President Biden in an attempt to avoid a corruption investigation, the New York Post reported.

“It was all a bribe to get (former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor) Shokin fired,” Greene said in a video that she posted on Twitter. She concluded by saying: “We are going to continue following this investigation; we are going to continue to look into every single thing that we can uncover.”

President Biden dismissed the bribery allegations as a “bunch of malarkey.”

The claim that Biden pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin because he was investigating Burisma has been totally debunked. The evidence shows Biden was carrying out U.S. policy when he went to Kyiv and warned then-president Petro Poroshenko that the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees until Shokin was removed as prosecutor general. The International Monetary Fund also threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine because Shokin wasn’t pursuing corruption cases.

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, an independent agency, has said Burisma was not even under investigation when Biden was pushing for Shokin’s removal. But the facts haven’t stopped Republicans from claiming that the FBI form proves that the Bidens took millions in bribes. 

The day after Trump’s indictment, the Murdoch-owned New York Post had a front-page cover with photos of both Biden and Trump with the headline “Hail to the Thiefs” and subheadlines “Trump indicted for taking classified documents” and “Ukraine bizman: ‘I bribed Biden for $10M.”

Trump complained that his federal indictment came on the same day that House Republicans gained access to the FBI document, so the bribery allegations got less attention in the news media.

"It's no coincidence they indicted me the very same day it was revealed that the FBI had explosive evidence that Joe Biden took a $5 billion illegal bribe from Ukraine," Trump said Saturday from the North Carolina Republican Party Convention.

questioning credibility

But as independent journalist Ed Krassenstein pointed out in a tweet, there are many reasons to question the credibility of the information provided to the FBI in the FD-1023 form that has so excited the MAGAverse.

Breaking: The Bribery allegations that Comer, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Republicans have been touting are concerning Burisma. While Republicans are making the claim that the allegations “100%” prove that Biden committed bribery, let’s take a step back and evaluate where the… pic.twitter.com/pLuWAj5vSq

— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) June 8, 2023

Moreover, The Washington Post reported that the FBI and Justice Department under then-Attorney General William Barr had reviewed the allegations from the confidential informant and “determined there were no grounds for further investigative steps.”

The Post wrote:

The allegation contained in the document was reviewed by the FBI at the time and was found to not be supported by facts, and the investigation was subsequently dropped with the Trump Justice Department’s sign-off, according to the people familiar with the investigation.

Barr said the information in the June 2020 FBI form was passed along to U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, who began an investigation into Hunter Biden’s overseas business ties and consulting work in 2018. That would mean Weiss, a holdover from the Trump administration, has been in possession of the information for three years, but has not acted on it.

The Washington Post reported that Weiss is nearing a decision on whether to charge Hunter Biden for relatively minor tax- and gun-related violations. The newspaper reported last year that federal agents had concluded that they had enough evidence to charge Biden with failing to report all of his income on tax filings and lying on a form for a gun purchase by denying that he had substance abuse problems.

Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, wrote in a statement that “much of the information provided by the source (in the June 2020 form) was information Mr. Giuliani had already provided the FBI.” Raskin added:

“We now know what I had long suspected: that Chairman Comer’s subpoena is about recycling stale and debunked Burisma conspiracy theories long peddled by Rudy Giuliani and a Russian agent, sanctioned by former President Trump’s own Treasury Department, as part of the effort to smear President Biden and help Mr. Trump’s reelection campaign.”

That Russian agent Raskin is apparently referring to is Andriy Derkach, a former member of Ukraine’s parliament who represented various pro-Russian parties. Among them was the Party of Regions headed by ousted pro-Russian Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, which paid millions of dollars to former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort to work as a consultant.

Here’s how The Washington Post described Derkach’s background:

Derkach, a former member of Ukraine’s Russia-leaning Party of Regions, was educated at the Higher School of the KGB in Moscow before entering business and politics in independent Ukraine after the Soviet Union’s collapse. His father was a longtime KGB officer who later ran independent Ukraine’s intelligence service in the late 1990s and early 2000s before losing his position amid a scandal over Ukrainian authorities’ involvement in the kidnapping and murder of a prominent journalist.

Derkach was mentioned by name by the National Intelligence Council, consisting of the CIA, NSA, and five other U.S. intelligence agencies, in its March 2021 assessment of “Foreign Threats to the 2020 US Federal Elections.” The report read:

“We assess that President Putin and other senior Russian officials were aware of and probably directed Russia’s influence operations against the 2020 US Presidential election. For example, we assess that Putin had purview over the activities of Andriy Derkach, a Ukrainian legislator who played a prominent role in Russia’s election influence activities. Derkach has ties to Russian officials as well as Russia’s intelligence services.”

It added:

A network of Ukraine-linked individuals—including Russian influence agent Konstantin Kilimnik—who were also connected to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) took steps throughout the election cycle to damage US ties to Ukraine, denigrate President Biden and his candidacy, and benefit former President Trump’s prospects for reelection.  

[…]

Derkach, Kilimnik, and their associates sought to use prominent US persons and media conduits to launder their narratives to US officials and audiences. These Russian proxies met with and provided materials to Trump administration-linked US persons to advocate for formal investigations; hired a US firm to petition US officials; and attempted to make contact with several senior US officials. They also made contact with established US media figures and helped produce a documentary that aired on a US television network in late January 2020.  

That U.S. television network was One America News Network. Media Matters for America said the right-wing cable station has a “notable history of acting as a mouthpiece for Russian propaganda,” including spoon-feeding its viewers Kremlin-backed propaganda about the war in Ukraine.

giuliani and derkach

In early December 2019, as the House was moving to impeach Trump, Giuliani traveled to Kyiv with an OAN crew to work on the documentary aired in January 2020. That’s when he met Derkach for the first time, TIME magazine reported. Derkach’s press office released this photo of his meeting with Giuliani, which was posted on his Facebook page that was later banned.

"In this handout photo provided by Adriii Derkach's press office, Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for U.S President Donald Trump, left, meets in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Dec. 5, 2019 with Derkach, who was later named an "active Russian agent" by the U.S. government." https://t.co/4nQpDNkbsR

— Markus T (@dforthandbview) October 16, 2020

Derkach had caught Giuliani’s attention when he held a November 2019 press conference in Kyiv to push his conspiracy theory of “DemoCorruption,” which holds “that Biden sits atop a vast system of graft that permeates the Democratic Party and colludes with George Soros and other Western billionaires,” TIME said.

Derkach had also been pushing the Kremlin-backed theory that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that had interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign on behalf of Clinton. When Time reporter Simon Shuster visited Derkach in his Kyiv office in 2021, he said Derkach handed him a folder labeled “Reports About Record-Setting Bribe,” which included press clippings, printouts from Twitter, and a letter that Derkach sent to U.S. Senate members accusing Biden and his family of corruption.

“Giuliani is a very capable lawyer. I appreciated his meticulousness,” Derkach told Shuster. “When we spoke, it was very useful for me. He records everything. He writes everything down in his notebook. He never relaxes.”

(That’s the same capable, meticulous lawyer who, in July 2020, was duped by Borat—a character played by actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen—in a compromising scene filmed in a New York hotel room.)

After the OAN documentary aired, Giuliani invited Derkach to New York for further talks in February 2020. Derkach appeared on Giuliani’s podcast.

In the months leading up to the November presidential election, Derkach continued his efforts to spread disinformation about Biden to Giuliani as well as Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Chuck Grassley of Iowa

the search for something incriminating

Derkach also released a series of audio tapes of 2016 conversations between Biden and then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in which the U.S. vice president linked financial assistance to firing prosecutor Shokin. Derkach claimed he got the tapes from “investigative journalists.” 

There was nothing really incriminating or embarrassing in the heavily edited tapes, TIME reported. But during the first presidential debate in September 2020, Trump repeatedly brought up the tapes, accusing Biden of threatening Ukraine with withholding a billion dollars if Shokin wasn’t removed.

In September 2020, Derkach held a news conference in Kyiv in which he claimed that Burisma’s owner Zlochevsky had laundered money through off-shore banks to pay millions of dollars to a company co-owned by Hunter Biden, Ukraine’s Unian news agency reported.

Hunter Biden did serve on Burisma’s board of directors from 2014 to 2019, and was paid about $600,000 a year, according to the New York Times. His business partner Devon Archer also served on Burisma’s board. Burisma paid them several million dollars for consulting services through their investment firm Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC, Reuters reported. 

In September 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Derkach “for his efforts to influence the 2020 U.S. presidential election.”

Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a press release: ”Andrii Derkach and other Russian agents employ manipulation and deceit to attempt to influence elections in the United States and elsewhere around the world.”

Last December, the Department of Justice indicted Derkach for a scheme to violate the sanctions by allegedly engaging in bank fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and money laundering. Prosecutors said Derkach allegedly concealed his involvement in the purchase and maintenance of two condominiums in Beverly Hills, California. “While participating in a scripted Russian disinformation campaign seeking to undermine U.S. institutions, Derkach simultaneously conspired to fraudulently benefit from a Western lifestyle for himself and his family in the United States,” said Michael J. Driscoll, head of the FBI’s New York office.

But Derkach stands accused of even worse offenses in Ukraine amounting to treason. In January, Zelenskyy announced that Derkach and three other pro-Russian lawmakers had been stripped of their Ukrainian citizenship for choosing “to serve not the people of Ukraine, but the murderers who came to Ukraine.”

In March, the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, a British think tank, issued a detailed report on Russia’s “unconventional operations” during the war in Ukraine in which Derkach figured prominently.

Ukraine’s State Security Service (SBU) made public information in June 2022 that Derkach had been under the control of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, since 2016, and had been receiving installments of U.S. $3 million to $4 million a month, according to the RUSI report.

“Derkach is alleged to have been tasked with establishing a network of private security firms which would assist in maintaining control in a number of towns by pathfinding and assisting Russian forces upon their arrival,” the report said.

More ominously, the report said Ukraine's intelligence agencies believe that "the main direction of Derkach's pro-Russian activities" in the years before 2022 was to influence Ukraine's nuclear energy industry "in the interests of Russia." Russia had plans to seize Ukraine’s nuclear power plants as part of the invasion, and to that end, “the Russian special services recruited employees of nuclear facilities, including from units responsible for the physical security of the facilities." 

Ukraine has issued a warrant for the arrest of Rudy’s one-time pal. 

Maybe Republicans on the House Oversight Committee should think twice before doing Trump a favor by accepting at face value unsubstantiated bribery allegations regarding Joe Biden and his family, especially if they might be recycling and spreading Russian disinformation. But they won’t.

RELATED STORY: How did Fox News cover Trump's indictment?

Not shocking: The Republicans’ star witness at Trump’s first impeachment was lying

When former special ambassador to Ukraine Kurt Volker appeared to testify before the House in hearings connected to Donald Trump’s first impeachment, Republicans were thrilled. Volker was part of the “three amigos,” who Trump had sent to Ukraine to force out experienced diplomats and see that Rudy Giuliani got all the assistance he needed in extorting the Ukrainian government into pretending to investigate Joe Biden. 

As soon as Volker completed his testimony, it was clearly at odds with that delivered by other witnesses. Volker testified that he never talked about the company Burisma, where Hunter Biden was on the board, in his discussions with Ukrainian officials. He completely omitted any reference to a series of meetings and calls on July 10, 2019, after which then-Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman took his concerns about what was going on to the NSC’s lead counsel. Volkman contradicted the content of text messages he sent on July 19, in which he joined Rudy Giuliani in urging the Ukrainian president to initiate an investigation of Biden. He left out how Burisma and the Bidens factored into a statement Trump wanted from the Ukrainians. And he completely failed to testify about how he had insisted—as text messages showed—that Ukrainian officials had to include both claims that Ukraine had interfered with the U.S. election in 2016, and that Biden had tried to block an investigation into Burisma, if they wanted to “prevent a recurrence” of Trump blocking military aid to the country.

But what really excited the Republicans was the fact that Volker provided them with the Big Talking Point: a claim that there was “no quid pro quo” connecting the request for an investigation into the Bidens and the release of U.S. assistance to Ukraine. In his deposition to the House committee, Volker made it clear: “At no time was I aware of or took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former vice president Biden.”

But text messages at the time also made it clear this wasn’t true. And calls that CNN released this week while looking into the actions of Giuliani make this one thing exceedingly clear: In his sworn testimony to Congress, former ambassador Kurt Volker was lying his ass off.

As The Washington Post reports, it was Volker’s testimony that Republicans leaned on when they claimed that Trump had been exonerated. 

“Ambassador Volker … confirmed what the President has repeatedly said: there was no quid pro quo,” tweeted Rep. Jim Jordan. 

“Ambassador Volker, you just like took apart their entire case,” said a grateful Rep. Michael Turner during questioning.

In his testimony, Volker didn’t hold back. “At no time was I aware of or knowingly took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former vice president Biden. As you know from the extensive real-time documentation I have provided, Vice President Biden was not a topic of our discussions.”

How could this be the case when Volker repeatedly texted concerning an investigation into Burisma? The pretense that Volker put forward was that he didn’t know. He didn’t know why Trump wanted an investigation into a particular Ukrainian energy firm as part of his deal. He didn’t know why this was so vital that it could be a factor in allowing an ally to be preyed on by Russian forces.

Volker wasn’t the only one. His former “amigos”—Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Energy Secretary Rick Perry—pushed the same line. Apparently Trump and Giuliani had it out for this one gas company. After that, they all pled blissful ignorance. 

Yeah, but … Volker was on the call when Giuliani said this to one of the Ukrainian president’s top assistants:

“All we need from the President is to say, I’m going to put an honest prosecutor in charge, he’s gonna investigate and dig up the evidence that presently exists, and is there any other evidence about involvement of the 2016 election, and then the Biden thing has to be run out.”

That was just one of several instances where Giuliani explicitly drew the connection between what was being asked of the Ukrainian president with the Bidens. Volker was on that call. Pretending that he didn’t know what he was asking when he asked about Burisma would mean not just acknowledging an astounding ignorance about the country he was supposed to be assisting—past allegations against Burisma had played a key role in both U.S. and U.K. actions in Ukraine—it would mean he wasn’t actually listening to what Giuliani said during their conversations with Ukrainian officials. In Volker’s testimony he claimed that “In referencing Burisma it was clear he was only talking about whether any Ukrainians had acted inappropriately,” which never made any sense at all. It still doesn’t.

The Post suggests that Volker hewed a very narrow line in his testimony and that he “referred specifically to the idea that Biden wasn’t brought up in the text messages he turned over—rather than at all in any conversations.” But that’s attempting to parse things way, way too finely.

It’s clear that when Volker, Sondland, and others mention Burisma in their text messages, that this is shorthand for announcing an investigation into the role Joe and Hunter Biden played in connection to that company. That’s specifically what Giuliani asks for, again and again.

And in his testimony, Volker goes much further than The Post suggests. Volker’s full statement to the committee, apparently in response to a question by Rep. Adam Schiff, was this:

“At no time was I aware of or took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden. As you will see from the extensive text messages I am providing, which convey a sense of real-time dialogue with several different actors, Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion.”

It might be possible to twist that statement so that the last mention of Biden is directed toward the text messages. It’s not possible to do so with the first mention. “At no time was I aware of or took part in an effort to urge Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Biden” is simply a lie. An out and out lie. A lie that was intended to cover Volker’s ass, and which Republicans seized on as justification to exonerate Trump.

It was always clear that Volker was lying when he claimed to not understand the connection between Burisma and Joe Biden. The most recent revelations just underline the extent of that lie.

it may be too late for a do-over of that first impeachment, this time with honest testimony. It’s not too late to charge Kurt Volker for his lies.

The ‘wet laptop’ story absolutely is a scandal, but it has nothing to do with Joe Biden

An official in a foreign country stumbles on a briefcase left behind by his opposing number from another delegation. Sneaking a peak at the information inside, the official discovers that it contains not only the usual stacks of diplomatic reports, but secret information providing insight into an upcoming military operation. Immediately, the official rushes this information to his superiors who … have just fallen into one of the most timeworn traps of intelligence tradecraft. The “accidently” left-behind wallet, briefcase, or letter is an absolute classic of Soviet-era dezinformatsiya schemes.

In the argot of spies, a “cobbler” assembles a dezinformatsiya packet, accompanied by more truthful “litter” and “chicken feed” that makes it appear as if a deceptive document is real. If possible, the information is left where it’s handily accessible to the target of the dezinformatsiya campaign, but a special purpose “floater” may be used to pass the information along—often without that person understanding their role in the scheme. 

Now, substitute “hard drive” for “briefcase” and “email” for “document.” Because that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday as the New York Post ran a story about a soggy computer left behind by a mysterious stranger at a Delaware repair shop. That computer was supposed to kick off a scandal about Hunter Biden. But what it really proves is that Rudy Giuliani and Rupert Murdoch are neck-deep in a scheme to spread disinformation to the American public.

That the story of this left behind computer ran in the New York Post on Wednesday isn’t the sign of a successful disinformation campaign—it’s a clear signal of its abject failure.

According to the story, the computer was dropped off at a repair shop in April 2019—as in over a year and a half ago. The computer was left apparently without signing any form or even providing a name. In fact, the shop owner declared that because he is legally blind, he could not identify the person who brought in the supposedly water-damaged computer. However, that shop owner eventually concluded that it was Hunter Biden’s computer because … there was a sticker from the Beau Biden Foundation on the computer.

This shop owner has been identified as 44-year-old John Paul “Mac” Isaac. Isaac is a vocal Trump supporter whose social media profile is full of not just statements about voting for Trump, but also  comments about Joe Biden. That includes mention of a “Biden bubble” that keeps Biden from being affected by bad news. His social media also shows that Isaac likes to wear kilts, but that seems beside the point. 

In any case, Isaac is a Trump supporter who has been open about his disdain for Biden and his belief that the media goes easy with stories about Biden. Then in spring of 2019, a computer lands in his lap with a Biden sticker attached. 

What happens next is massively unclear, because in interviews Wednesday afternoon, Isaac gave completely contradictory statements about his follow-up actions. What seems to be clear is that at some later point, Isaac hooked up the hard drive, read the emails, and watched a video that supposedly shows Hunter Biden having sex with a prostitute while smoking crack. Apparently Isaac could see that much.

At some point between April and December, Isaac contacted the FBI. Or at least, that appears to be the case since the Post included an image of a Dec. 9, 2019 grand jury subpoena—though since that subpoena has the name blacked out and the objects to be provided are obscured, it’s only their word that it is actually connected to this incident. However, before giving the laptop to the FBI, Isaac first made a copy of the hard drive which, like his original perusal through the emails and videos, is very likely to have been a violation of Delaware privacy laws. It’s also worth noting that nothing Isaac did appears to be related to actually fixing the damaged laptop. 

At some point Isaac talks to Giuliani and eventually gives him a copy of the hard drive. But what’s extremely confusing is the order of any of these events. Did Isaac talk to Giuliani before or after he spoke with the FBI? Was it Giuliani who told Isaac to take the computer to the FBI? Taking one step back, why did a Delaware computer repair store owner think to call Giuliani in the first place, and how did he get in touch with Giuliani?

However it happened, Isaac made the copy at some point before December 2019. According to a Daily Beast interview, Isaac “switched back and forth” between saying that he contacted the FBI and saying the FBI contacted him. He also claimed that the FBI asked him for help in accessing the drive, though he didn’t indicate that the drive was encrypted or protected in any way. 

There’s are several huge missing pieces in this story. For example, what did Isaac say to the FBI? “Hello, someone brought in a computer, and I think it belongs to Beau Biden.” If so, why would the FBI say anything other than, “Then give it back?” Why would Beau Biden dropping off a wet laptop cause the FBI to have any interest at all?

This, then, is the “official” story from the Post and Giuliani: A mysterious stranger drops off a laptop at a shop belonging to a legally blind Trump supporter who has said disparaging things about Biden. Nine months later, the FBI asks for that computer. Then 10 months after that, Giuliani hands over to the New York Post what he says is a copy of that computer’s hard drive. In between those dates, we have nothing. Well, nothing except for more Facebook statements from Isaac, who does devote some time to saying that Trump’s impeachment is a sham, but says nothing at all about Hunter Biden’s crack-smoking video that he found on a computer left at his store. And we have a lot of statements from Giuliani during this period, many of them essentially identical to what will eventually appear in the Post story.

So … let’s look at this from a different angle.

Giuliani has spent over two years traveling back and forth to Ukraine, making promises that he had found red-hot information supporting Trump’s conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden. In the process, Giuliani has made numerous statements to the media—frequently in The New York Times—claiming that he has the “smoking gun” for Biden’s misdeeds. That included a letter supposedly showing that Biden had worked to protect Burisma holdings from investigation. Except that a few weeks later, a Ukrainian legislator admitted to making up the information to “curry favor with Trump and Giuliani.” The timeline of events showed that the story Giuliani was peddling was not even possible.

But at the same time Giuliani is waving letters in front of the media, someone is dropping off a computer at Isaac’s shop. Then nothing happens in April, or May, or June … nothing happens at all. Until for some reason Isaac decides to take a closer look at that computer. A reason like, perhaps, a phone call from someone who already knew what was on it. That someone might even suggest that Isaac contact the FBI, or they might contact the FBI and tell them to talk to Isaac, because the information now available has it both ways.

Even then, 10 months after the FBI has taken receipt of the laptop, nothing has happened. Christopher Wray is not on TV making an announcement about emails. The DOJ has not announced that it is opening an investigation. No one is talking about Hunter Biden’s laptop, dammit!

So with the clock ticking down to the election, Giuliani takes the hard drive straight to the one person he can trust to make a big deal about it: Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch then points a finger at a booker on Sean Hannity’s show, turning her into an instant editor for the paper he owns, the New York Post, and this brand spanking newly minted “journalist” then publishes Giuliani’s story.

That doesn’t make this an “October surprise.” This makes this an abject failure of a con job. Giuliani and Murdoch are absolutely not in the position they wanted to be at this point. In their ideal world, Emma-Jo Morris would be back in Hannity’s green room, booking Giuliani for his guest appearance to discuss the how The New York Times is running with the astounding breaking news that the FBI is looking into revelations from Hunter Biden’s laptop.

That did not happen. What happened instead was that Giuliani had to hand-carry the dezinformatsiya to Murdoch, and Murdoch had to get his mitts all over this mess to package it up for a multiday run on Fox and the Post. This is what is generally known as very, very, very bad tradecraft. 

This is a busted operation from a man whose whole Ukrainian adventure has been marked by:

What Rudy Giuliani and Rupert Murdoch have on their wrinkly fingers is a big ball of dirty tricks shading toward outright espionage, supported by Vladimir Putin.

Sorry, comrades, you’ve been caught.

Explosive Report On Hunter Biden, Burisma Reveals Questionable Financial Transactions – Including Millions From Ex-Moscow Mayor’s Wife

A bombshell report reveals questionable financial transactions between Hunter Biden and his associates involving his role on the Board of the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings.

Biden, the son of Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, engaged in “extensive and complex financial transactions” that were thoroughly analyzed by the Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees.

The report was released on Wednesday by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA).

It states that Hunter “formed significant and consistent financial relationships” with Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of Burisma.

Additionally, Biden and his business partner Devon Archer’s firms “made millions of dollars from that association” while his father served as vice president.

The Senate and Finance committees claim that they have obtained records from the US Treasury Department.

Those records reportedly “show potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals.”

RELATED: Documentary Claims Hunter Biden’s Business Dealings ‘Served’ China and Their Military

Hunter Biden, Bursima Accused of Questionable Financial Transactions

A documentary earlier this month narrated by Peter Schweizer, claims Hunter Biden’s numerous business deals in China “served” the communist country and their military.

“This isn’t just another story about a politician’s kid getting rich,” Schweizer said.

“Hunter’s new firm started making investment deals that would serve the strategic interests of the Chinese military.”

The Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees address concerns that Biden had contacts with individuals linked to the Chinese military.

“During the Obama administration, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved a transaction that gave control over Henniges, an American maker of antivibration technologies with military applications, to a Chinese government-owned aviation company and a China-based investment firm with established ties to the Chinese government.”

One of the companies involved in the transaction was a private investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR), where the son of the Democrat nominee for President was a board member.

Schweizer claimed that he had information suggesting the Bidens cooperated with Chinese partners to bypass certain laws.

By extension, this allowed them to acquire companies that helped the Chinese military excel in technology.

RELATED: Report: Bill Clinton Invited Accused Sex-Trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell To An ‘Intimate’ Dinner

Biden and Obama’s Conflict of Interest

The report goes on to suggest that the Obama administration “ignored the glaring warning signs” when Biden’s son joined the board of Burisma.

Officials “knew” that Hunter’s position on the board was “problematic.”

His “position on the board created an immediate potential conflict of interest that would prove to be problematic for both U.S. and Ukrainian officials and would affect the implementation of Ukraine policy,” according to the report.

When asked earlier this year how his role as Vice President and his son’s dealing in Ukraine were not a conflict of interest, Joe Biden became enraged.

“Let’s focus on the problem,” he yelled, avoiding the question. “Focus on this man, what he’s doing, that no president has ever done. No president!”

The media ‘focused’ on any mundane transaction involving Russia rather intently over the last few years.

Why wouldn’t they be just as interested that Biden’s financial transactions, according to this latest news, include a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow?

Republican strategist Andrew Surabian openly wondered if the media would be handling this explosive report a little differently if it had involved President Trump’s son.

Joe Biden spokesman Andrew Bates has been trying his best to divert attention from the news about Hunter’s financial transactions.

“Ron Johnson has wasted months diverting the Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee away from any oversight of the catastrophically botched federal response to the pandemic,” Bates told the New York Post.

Odd, Democrats weren’t concerned about attention and resources being diverted away from the pandemic when they were conducting their impeachment sham.

The post Explosive Report On Hunter Biden, Burisma Reveals Questionable Financial Transactions – Including Millions From Ex-Moscow Mayor’s Wife appeared first on The Political Insider.

Biden Troubles Deepen: Bribe To Stop Probe Of Son’s Ukraine Job Intercepted

Over the weekend Ukrainian government officials announced they have intercepted a $6 million bribe attempt intended to stop a state criminal investigation into the president of energy giant Burisma. The firm is steeped in controversy because Hunter Biden, the son of de facto Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, once had a seat on the company’s board even though he had no experience whatsoever in the energy field. He joined the Burisma board in 2014, when his father was still vice president and the main figure in U.S. relations with Ukraine. He left the position in 2018.

As the U.S. election cycle heats up over the summer and the national nominating conventions take place, scrutiny over the Biden (both father and son) relationship to Burisma may become an issue used by the Trump campaign to negatively affect the way voters see the former vice president. This is especially true because there is video of Biden bragging of how he got the prosecutor who was leading the probe into his son’s firm fired; the then-vice president said they could possibly lose a billion dollars in U.S. funding.

Former Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin has claimed he was pushed out by Joe Biden’s threat of delaying the $1 billion loan to the country, to prevent him from investigating Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma.

The obvious quid quo pro stands in stark contrast to the unsuccessful charges brought against President Donald Trump in the impeachment trial in the Senate earlier this year. At the outset of that trial, President Trump was acquitted on all charges and exonerated on the issue.

The Ukrainian national anti-corruption prosecutor Nazar Kholodnitsky and the head of the national anti-corruption bureau, Artem Sytnik, said the bribe was intended to encourage their offices to halt a probe of Mykola Zlochevsky, the head of Burisma and a former minister of ecology. Zlochevsky was accused of using his government position for personal gain. Post Soviet states have a recent history of corruption at most levels of government. Russia has also been plagued with criminal oligarchs since the downfall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

To have an American presidential candidate, not to mention a former vice president, mixed up in this kind of foreign corruption would be problematic for U.S.-Ukrainian relations under a possible Biden administration, as Biden would be open for compromise if details of his dealings, or those of his son, on sensitive matters regarding Burisma ever saw the light of day.

Three individuals, including a high-ranking tax service official, have been detained in connection with the attempted bribe, officials said Saturday. As the facts emerge in this bribery attempt they may point to those who have met with or have a connection to Burisma, Hunter Biden, or Joe Biden. If that is the case, the Bursima issue will only grow to be a bigger threat to the Biden candidacy as November approaches.

This piece was written by PoliZette Staff on June 15, 2020. It originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Obama’s office slams GOP investigation into Ukraine, Joe Biden, in private letter from March

In a letter from March, the office of former president Barack Obama condemned a congressional investigation into former vice president and now presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. You likely remember the Republicans’ incessant focus on Hunter Biden’s position at Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural energy company. Trump and various Republican allies have alleged that there’s a scandal there, and alleged possible conflict of interest for Joe Biden, who was key on Ukraine policy at the time. And of course, Republicans had claimed this investigation had nothing to do with wanting to distract from Trump’s impeachment proceedings or the upcoming general election. 

In the private letter signed by Obama’s records representative and now available because the office released it to BuzzFeed News upon request, Obama’s office described it as an effort to "to shift the blame for Russian interference in the 2016 election to Ukraine” and said it was “without precedent." The letter, which was first obtained and reported on by BuzzFeed News, does not actually explicitly mention Biden by name, and does agree to release the requested presidential records.  

"The request for early release of presidential records in order to give credence to a Russian disinformation campaign--one that has already been thoroughly investigated by a bipartisan congressional committee--is without precedent," the letter, dated March 13 and sent to the National Archives and Records Administration (which maintains presidential records), says in part. 

As a quick review, Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson made the record request in November 2019. The two senators have effectively spearheaded the investigation into the Bidens and Ukraine, and have been doing so since last fall. Both wanted records on meetings between Ukrainian officials and the Obama administration from the National Archives. 

The letter from Obama’s office refers to former National Security Council analyst and Russia expert Fiona Hill’s now-viral opening testimony about the notion that it was Ukraine, not Russia, that had a misinformation effort in the 2016 election. She said it’s “a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”

The Obama office relented and has allowed the records to be released "in the interest of countering the misinformation campaign underlying this request.” Former presidents (and technically, current presidents, though it’s no surprise that representatives for Trump wouldn’t do so) are allowed to review and use executive privileges on record requests thanks to a federal mandate. But neither Obama’s office nor Trump’s did so. Obama’s office released the records essentially to counter the message that is beneath the request.

The letter finishes: “We emphasize that abuse of the special access process strikes at the heart of presidential confidentiality interests and undermines the statutory framework and norms that govern access to presidential records.”

At the time of Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, Republicans went out of their way to distract from any perceived weakness and create an enemy—in this case, Hunter Biden and Ukraine. But it didn’t end there. For example, Sens. Grassley and Johnson have reportedly recently dug into Secret Service documents to see whether Joe and Hunter Biden ever overlapped on trips to Ukraine. It’s endless. Even now, as a global pandemic rages on and the United States continues to fumble public health crisis management, GOP senators continue to dig into the Burisma theories. 

Republican Senator Announces Plans To Subpoena Consulting Firm Linked To Hunter Biden And Burisma

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) just announced plans to subpoena a consulting firm that has links to Hunter Biden and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma for records that could show a possible conflict of interest.

This comes one month after Johnson announced plans to subpoena a former consultant with the firm Blue Star Strategies, but he ended up deciding to instead subpoena the firm directly for the records. He will also ask for interviews with the firm’s founders so he can ask questions about Burisma, which was one of their clients.

“This subpoena is in furtherance of the Committee’s ongoing work to address the many unanswered questions about potential conflicts of interest and the extent to which representatives of Burisma—including officials at Blue Star—used individuals with close personal connections to high-level officials within the Obama administration to gain access to and potentially influence U.S. government agencies,” Johnson wrote on Thursday in a letter to notify the committee’s Democratic Ranking Member Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, according to Fox News.

In his subpoena for Blue Star Strategies, Johnson will request records dating back to January 1, 2013, pertaining to their work with Burisma, on whose board Biden was a member. Though he had initially planned to subpoena just one consultant from the company, he later learned this person was “bound by a non-disclosure agreement,” which led him to decide to subpoena the entire company.

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In his letter, Johnson acknowledged that Peters had not even wanted him to subpoena one consultant.

“Your letter stated your concern ‘that the United States Senate and this Committee could be used to further disinformation efforts by Russian or other actors,’ and asked that the Committee receive defensive briefings ‘specifically regarding [the Blue Star consultant],” Johnson wrote. “Over the last several weeks we have had a number of bipartisan meetings and briefings to discuss the subpoena and address the concerns of Committee members. During the course of these discussions, the suggestion was made by both Democrat and Republican members of our Committee that we should issue a subpoena directly to the source of the documents relevant to our work: Blue Star.”

Johnson went on to say that he feels that “appropriate course of action at this time is to accommodate that request.”

After joining the board of Burisma in 2014, Biden reportedly helped connect them with Blue Star. His work with Burisma ended up being at the center of Democrats’ impeachment effort against Donald Trump, as they claimed the president had pressured Ukraine to investigate his business dealings with the company as a way to hurt his father, former Vice President Joe Biden.

It’s clear that this Biden and Burisma thing is a complete mess, and the American people deserve to know the truth about what really went on there. If they really have nothing to hide, they should have no problem complying with the subpoena and letting everyone know exactly what is happening.

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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Mitt Romney Indicates He’ll Vote With Dems to Protect Hunter Biden From Subpoena

The Washington Post reports that Senator Mitt Romney is poised to join Democrats and vote to squash a subpoena related to Hunter Biden’s work with the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings.

Biden has been accused of leveraging his father Joe Biden’s status as vice president to get a role on the board of Burisma, while the company used that relationship to garner access to the State Department.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee has scheduled a vote next week to issue a subpoena related to the matter. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) told Fox News that “Joe Biden has never adequately answered these questions,” explaining Republican motivation behind the investigation.

Biden forced out a Ukrainian prosecutor who had been investigating Burisma

“I’ve said repeatedly, if there’s wrongdoing the American people need to understand that. If there is no wrongdoing, or if it’s not significant, the American people need to understand that,” Johnson added.

Enter Mitt Romney to save another corrupt (allegedly) Democrat …

RELATED: GOP Senator Preparing To Issue First Subpoena In Biden, Burisma Investigation

Romney Indicates He’ll Side With Dems

Romney told the Post that the Republican pursuit of Biden – the lead candidate for the Democrat nomination to the presidency – and his son’s dealings with Burisma, seem political in nature.

“I would prefer that investigations are done by an independent, non-political body,” he claimed. “There’s no question the appearance is not good.”

Romney went on to tell reporters that the investigation “appears political.”

“I think people are tired of these kinds of political investigations.”

In other words, the mighty and righteous Romney is willing to take a stand against pursuits he feels are politically motivated. You know, except for that whole partisan impeachment hack job with which he also chose to team with Democrats.

If party lines hold, Romney’s vote with Democrats would create a 7-7 tie in committee, preventing the subpoena from being issued.

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Romney’s Disgrace

Is it any wonder the Utah senator lost an easily winnable election against Barack Obama in 2012? In hindsight, how could Obama have possibly failed when he was essentially running against his clone?

Romney, as you well know, was the only Republican to betray the nation and vote with Democrats in their clearly politically motivated impeachment scam.

“The President is guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust,” Romney melodramatically claimed at the time, despite his Democrat colleagues in the House failing to prove Trump was guilty of anything.

Funny though, when it benefitted his career, the one-time actual Republican was more than willing to accept Trump’s endorsement for President in 2012 and for Senate in 2018.

Now he goes well out of his way to stab him in the back.

Romney is a snake. The only difference being, snakes are adept at sneaking up on their prey. You can see Romney’s betrayals coming a mile away.

The post Mitt Romney Indicates He’ll Vote With Dems to Protect Hunter Biden From Subpoena appeared first on The Political Insider.

Jill Biden Says Donald Trump’s Attacks on My Kid Are ‘Disgraceful’

During MSNBC’s coverage of the Iowa caucus on Monday, former second lady Jill Biden said that President Donald Trump’s remarks about her stepson Hunter Biden were “disgraceful.”

‘Disgraceful’

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said to Mrs. Biden, “You’ve been in the center of the beginnings of the primaries, but also of the national story in Washington, the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. How have those two things collided for your family on the campaign trail?”

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Biden replied, “Well, you know, it’s been a little difficult. I’m a mother. I know you’re a mother. It’s hard when you see your kids attacked. But I think that voters realized this is about Donald Trump. It’s not about my son Hunter or my husband, and I think it’s disgraceful what Donald Trump has done. And we know this is all a distraction.”

She also said that Trump’s comments could be a rallying cry for supporters of her husband.

It’s All About Beating Trump

“The bottom line I think for most Iowans is they want to beat Donald Trump. That’s the bottom line,” she added. “And so if Donald Trump is doing this because he is afraid of my husband, then that turns out to be a good thing for Joe because they’re getting behind him, and they’re supporting him.”

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Give Us a Break, Jill

Jill Biden seriously wants us to believe that her 50-year-old stepson, Hunter Biden, is somehow beyond reproach? Despite the fact that he earned a significant amount of money through the Ukraine Burisma energy firm without knowing anything about that business? And how this kind of seeming nepotism might look in the midst of a ridiculous impeachment witch hunt against President Trump that centers on U.S. dealings with Ukraine?

Give us a break.

What’s “disgraceful” is Democrats continuing to hound this President over nothing while still insisting  Joe and Hunter Biden’s Ukraine activity doesn’t deserve to be scrutinized.

You can’t blame Jill Biden for standing up for family. But that doesn’t mean certain members of her family aren’t covered in sleazy political grime.

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Senate Impeachment Trial Moves Coming Fast and Furious, Biden Livid

By David Kamioner | January 29, 2020

Since the gavel went down in the Senate Tuesday afternoon the Hill has been abuzz with activity, plots, and counterplots. Here are the latest developments:

  • The Biden campaign is hopping mad with House managers and the Democrat Senate for possibly setting up a scenario where Joe Biden or his son Hunter would have to testify at the impeachment trial of President Trump.They know what it would do to their poll numbers and they have seen that Hunter is notoriously bad under pressure. His recent personal issues also do not play well with women. The Biden effort is putting tremendous pressure on Democrats not to permit witnesses at all, arguing that the numbers are just not there to remove Trump, why drag down Biden in a losing cause?

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  • Word out of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office is that they may try a poison pill defense on witnesses. Oh sure, we’ll have witnesses, they say.And every one will be one the Democrats don’t want on the stand. Not only the Bidens, but Ciaramella, Comey, Brennan, Holder, Schiff, Nadler, and maybe even Hillary or Obama. With that prospect, they think the Democrats will think twice about witnesses.
  • Also, if witnesses are to be called, plots the McConnell office, they will be called at the same ratio they were called in the House. So, the GOP would have four witnesses to every one Democrat witness. Another poison pill gambit.
  • The White House may try to block any Bolton testimony by exerting executive privilege and then watch it play out in the courts. Bolton could testify anyway, but he may not want to go though the legal headaches of doing it.

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  • Internal GOP polling numbers say this process is helping them with swing voters, as the swings cannot believe the Democrats are blindly defending the Bidens when the evidence of corruption on Burisma and other issues is so overwhelming.
  • Rumor is that Senators Warren and Sanders have grown happy with the trial and the effect it is having on the Biden campaign. They want the trial to end, but not too quickly.

Correction: In a recent piece we stated “54 Republicans” are in favor of witnesses being called. There are only 53 Republicans in the Senate. It should have read “54 senators”. Mea culpa- DK

This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.

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