Knowing What We Now Know - Do You Find It Hard To Imagine What It Was Like To Be Trump This Year?

That Big Bobulinski China Shoe Dropped On The Bidens Yesterday

NYPost  |  Wait until Scranton hears about this.

One of Joe Biden’s ways of contrasting himself with President Trump has been to declare the election a battle of Park Avenue values vs. Scranton, Pa., values.

Now we learn that Biden has secretly been playing footsie with China.

The statement Wednesday night asserting that the former vice president was a willing and eager participant in a family scheme to make millions of dollars by partnering with a shady Chinese Communist firm is a singular event in a presidential race already overflowing with drama and intrigue.

The dynamite assertion, believable because it aligns with earlier information we know to be true, came in a statement by Tony Bobulinski, who describes himself as a former partner of Hunter Biden, Joe Biden and Joe’s brother Jim in the China scheme. Bobulinski unloads his bill of accusations in blunt but precise language and detail.

He confirms that he was one of the recipients of the May 13, 2017, email published by The Post eight days ago. That email, from another partner in the group, laid out cash and equity positions and mysteriously included a 10 percent set-aside for “the big guy.”

Sources have said the “big guy” was Joe Biden.

Hunter Biden text exchange from June 2017 obtained by #FoxNews ranting to his business partners about not wanting to "sign over my family's brand", "the keys to my family's only asset" to Tony Bobulinski. Warning: foul language. pic.twitter.com/8gn1KuVOBu

— Mike Emanuel 🇺🇸 (@MikeEmanuelFox) October 22, 2020

In a matter-of-fact manner, Bobulinski states that the “email is genuine” and that the former vice president and the man leading in the 2020 race is indeed “the big guy.” 

My name is Tony Bobulinski. The facts set forth below are true and accurate; they are not any form of domestic or foreign disinformation. Any suggestion to the contrary is false and offensive. I am the recipient of the email published seven days ago by the New York Post which showed a copy to Hunter Biden and Rob Walker. That email is genuine.

This afternoon I received a request from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the Senate Committee on Finance requesting all documents relating to my business affairs with the Biden family as well as various foreign entities and individuals. I have extensive relevant records and communications and I intend to produce those items to both Committees in the immediate future.

I am the grandson of a 37 year Army Intelligence officer, the son of a 20+ year career Naval Officer and the brother of a 28 year career Naval Flight Officer. I myself served our country for 4 years and left the Navy as LT Bobulinski. I held a high level security clearance and was an instructor and then CTO for Naval Nuclear Power Training Command. I take great pride in the time my family and I served this country. I am also not a political person. What few campaign contributions I have made in my life were to Democrats.

If the media and Big Tech companies had done their jobs over the past several weeks I would be irrelevant in this story. Given my long standing service and devotion to this great country, I could no longer allow my family’s name to be associated or tied to Russian disinformation or implied lies and false narratives dominating the media right now.

After leaving the military I became an institutional investor investing extensively around the world and on every continent. I have traveled to over 50 countries. I believe, hands down, we live in the greatest country in the world.

What I am outlining is fact. I know it is fact because I lived it. I am the CEO of Sinohawk Holdings which was a partnership between the Chinese operating through CEFC/Chairman Ye and the Biden family. I was brought into the company to be the CEO by James Gilliar and Hunter Biden. The reference to “the Big Guy” in the much publicized May 13, 2017 email is in fact a reference to Joe Biden. The other “JB” referenced in that email is Jim Biden, Joe’s brother.

Hunter Biden called his dad “the Big Guy” or “my Chairman,” and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing. I’ve seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about his business. I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not true, because it wasn’t just Hunter’s business, they said they were putting the Biden family name and its legacy on the line.

I realized the Chinese were not really focused on a healthy financial ROI. They were looking at this as a political or influence investment. Once I realized that Hunter wanted to use the company as his personal piggy bank by just taking money out of it as soon as it came from the Chinese, I took steps to prevent that from happening.

The Johnson Report connected some dots in a way that shocked me — it made me realize the Bidens had gone behind my back and gotten paid millions of dollars by the Chinese, even though they told me they hadn’t and wouldn’t do that to their partners.

I would ask the Biden family to address the American people and outline the facts so I can go back to being irrelevant — and so I am not put in a position to have to answer those questions for them.

I don’t have a political ax to grind; I just saw behind the Biden curtain and I grew concerned with what I saw. The Biden family aggressively leveraged the Biden family name to make millions of dollars from foreign entities even though some were from communist controlled China.

Coincidence Theory: Does Ghislaine Maxwell's Deposition Distract From The Sordid Drip Of Huntergate?

 slate |  On Thursday morning, a federal court released a 2016 deposition given by Ghislaine Maxwell, the 58-year-old British woman charged by the federal government with enticing underage girls to have sex with Jeffrey Epstein. That deposition, which Maxwell has fought to withhold, was given as part of a defamation suit brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre, who alleges that she was lured to become Epstein’s sex slave. That defamation suit was settled in 2017. Epstein died by suicide in 2019.

In the deposition, Maxwell was pressed to answer questions about the many famous men in Epstein’s orbit, among them Bill Clinton, Alan Dershowitz, and Prince Andrew. In the document that was released on Thursday, those names and others appear under black bars. According to the Miami Herald, which sued for this and other documents to be released, the deposition was released only after “days of wrangling over redactions.”

It turns out, though, that those redactions are possible to crack. That’s because the deposition—which you can read in full here—includes a complete alphabetized index of the redacted and unredacted words that appear in the document. For example, after cracking the redactions, we know that Maxwell was asked about an email that Dershowitz allegedly sent to Epstein. In that email, Dershowitz reportedly wrote that he was “working on several possible articles about unfairness in the legal process that allows false charges to be inserted into legal documents.”

Here’s how to deduce the redacted words, using former President Bill Clinton as an example.

 

What Domination Of The Genetic Lottery Looks And Sounds Like...,

It's Not What's Been Said, Rather, It's What's Been Left Unsaid...,

When asked local Wisconsin TV station WISN if there was any legitimacy to comments by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) that Hunter "together with other Biden family members, profited off the Biden name," the former Vice President replied "None whatsoever," adding (without finishing the sentence) "This is the same garbage Rudy Giuliani, Trump's henchman..."

"It's the last ditch effort in this desperate campaign to smear me and my family."

Except, Hunter admitted he profited off his family name!

"If your last name wasn’t Biden, do you think you would’ve been asked to be on the board of Burisma?" asked ABC News' Amy Robach in an October 15, 2019 interview.

"I don’t know. I don’t know. Probably not, in retrospect," said Hunter. "I don’t think that there’s a lot of things that would have happened in my life if my last name wasn’t Biden," he added, "because my dad was Vice President of the United States."

"There’s literally nothing, as a young man or as a full-grown adult that — my father in some way hasn’t had influence over."

j|onathanturley  |  The convergence of law and politics is a common occurrence in Washington. While law is used to ascertain truth, politics is often used to obscure it.

That is why the truth is rarely evident in looking at a scandal straight on. Rather it requires peripheral vision or analysis – often what is not evident is what is most enlightening.

This most famous example of such reasoning was found in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story “Silver Blaze,” on Sherlock Holmes’s investigation of the disappearance of a racehorse.

The local inspector asked if there was “any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

Holmes responds, “To the curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.”

When the inspector objects, “The dog did nothing in the night-time,” Holmes replies, “That was the curious incident.”

There is always something a tad curious of Washington legal scandals in what has not occurred. That is why the latest Hunter Biden scandal is so curious.

When the story broke in the New York Post, the Biden campaign was faced with thousands of emails that purportedly showed clear support for allegations that Hunter Biden was given millions as part of an influence-peddling scheme related to his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.

There was ample reason to be skeptical about the sketchy account of a computer being left by Hunter Biden at a computer store with a man who cannot see beyond a couple of feet.  And then there is the timing of disclosure just weeks before an election.

The problem was the absence of “barks” from the Biden camp. The computer files revealed a host of embarrassing pictures of Hunter Biden using drugs or exposed in other embarrassing ways. The emails contain dates and addresses that match up with confirmed records.

If they are fabricated, there were three barks that we would have expected within hours of the release.

Bark 1: This was not Hunter Biden’s computer

The most obvious response would be that this is not the computer of Hunter Biden.  After all, the computer store owner John Paul Mac Isaac who is legally blind said that he could not recognize the person who dropped off the laptop.

However, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani has now stated, as a fact, that “the laptop was left by Hunter Biden, in an inebriated, heavily inebriated state with the merchant.”  That does not purport with what Isaac said.

However, there remains the question of a laptop with a “Beau Biden Foundation” sticker on it with highly incriminating files.

Someone in the campaign must have called Hunter Biden and he had to have told them whether or not it was his laptop.

The response on ownership has been crickets for days.

Bark 2: These were not Hunter Biden’s photos or emails

Even if the campaign cannot deny that the computer was Hunter Biden’s, it could deny that these incriminating pictures and emails were his.

Again, crickets.

Note that if these are fabricated emails or pictures, this would be a serious federal crime and the basis for legal action.

The Biden camp has no shortage of lawyers. Indeed, they have been signing up lawyers in droves in preparation for election challenges.

Yet, there is not a single allegation of fraud or fabrication after days of a brewing scandal.

Bark 3: This is defamation

Perhaps this bark is the most telling. If these emails or pictures are fabricated, it is a clear case of defamation and other tort actions.

It would seem that one of the hundreds of lawyers currently lined up by the Biden campaign would fire off an “intent to sue” letter.

Truth is a defense to defamation, so the letter might start with the earlier bark and deny that this was Hunter Biden’s computer and these were Hunter Biden’s file.

One big difference between the legal and political worlds is that in the latter there is no protection for the right to remain silent. In politics, scandals can be managed but not silently.

Instead of these obvious barks, the public heard something closer to a whimper: that the campaign could not find any notation on Vice President Biden’s official schedule that he met with a Ukrainian figure connected to the payments to his son Hunter Biden.It would be a curious sight in itself for Biden’s official schedule to include “meeting with Ukrainian connected to Hunter.” Many meetings are not part of an official schedule that staffers know is subject to official records laws for preservation and review.

That is what is so curious about the Hunter Biden story and, to move from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Lewis Carroll, it is becoming “curiouser and curiouser.”

 

Rudy Cold Busted: Thought He Was Fitna Get It In....,

guardian  |  Although unfortunate, the circumstances of the set-up appear consensual, with Giuliani led to believe he was being courted. Bakalova, 24, is highly plausible in the sting, despite also having to pretend, for the benefit of viewers, to be a feral child posing as a far-right journalist.

In a radio interview after news of the scene broke, Giuliani claimed that he was only trying to take off his microphone and tucking in his shirt.

“I had to take off the electronic equipment,” Giuliani told WABC. “And when the electronic equipment came off, some of it was in the back and my shirt came a little out, although my clothes were entirely on. I leaned back, and I tucked my shirt in, and at that point, at that point, they have this picture they take which looks doctored, but in any event, I’m tucking my shirt in. I assure you that’s all I was doing.”

He added that he had believed the interview with Bakalova was entirely legitimate. “At one point she explained to me some problems she had. I actually prayed with her,” he said. “And then I had to leave. I had my jacket on. I was fully clothed at all times.”

Later on Twitter, Giuliani derided the film as “a complete fabrication”.

“At no time before, during, or after the interview was I ever inappropriate. If Sacha Baron Cohen implies otherwise he is a stone-cold liar,” he added.

Why Say "China" Since The FBI Has Been Holding The Kompromat All Along?

justthenews  |  Giuliani dismissed suggestions that filing a police report as Trump's private attorney two weeks before Election Day should be deemed political.

"The conduct falls under the mandatory reporting requirements for child endangerment," Giuliani said. "If I was the U.S. attorney or the mayor or Bernie was still the commissioner, it would have been a crime for us not to report what we had."

The Delaware Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act mandates reporting by "any person, agency, organization, or entity who knows or in good faith suspects child abuse or neglect."

The police report is the latest drama to unfold from the week-old Biden laptop revelations, news about which influential social media sites choose to block from public view, including stories from The New York Post, purportedly because of "potential harm." Facebook and Twitter did not disclose any details of the "potential harm." Conservatives have pointed out that the FBI has possessed the computer materials for a year. Giuliani said the FBI's apparent inaction factored into his decision to report the matter to local police.

"The FBI has had this for a long time," Giuliani said. "No indication they did anything about this, so I went to the local police and said, 'What are you going to do about this?'"

Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings was a protege of the vice president’s late son Beau Biden, who served as the state's attorney general from 2007-2015. She began her tenure as state prosecutor in 2011 and was named Delaware's top law enforcement officer in January 2019. Jennings' Chief Deputy Attorney General is Alexander S. Mackler, who was Vice President Biden's deputy legal counsel.

Why Say "Russia" If China's Holding All The Kompromat?!?!

churchmilitant |  A whistleblower is claiming there are multiple videos on Hunter Biden's laptop showing him raping and torturing underage Chinese girls, and that the Chinese Communist Party is using these videos as blackmail against Democrat presidential contender Joe Biden.

DingGang Wang, a member of Miles Guo's team, which has worked with Steve Bannon and Rudy Giuliani for many months, said in a Sept. 24 broadcast for Lude Media — two weeks before the New York Post bombshell — that he has reviewed the contents of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden.

"So what about Hunter Biden? Sex tapes, pedo tapes, one by one — Hunter Biden," said Wang. "Extremely disturbing and obscene ..."

Indicating extreme abuse, he continued, "Not treating the Chinese as human beings."

"Who filmed these?" he asked. "The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did it!"

Wang indicates there is much more compromising material on the laptop, and that the CCP is using the child porn videos as blackmail against Joe Biden, whom they hope is elected president. 

"The message of the CCP is: Don't ever think I don't have your secrets in possession," Wang explained. "To give you this hard drive is to let you know that, don't forget, we have evidence of your crimes. You have to win this election."

Sexual blackmail is a classic tactic of the communists, and was routinely used by the KGB. In addition to the famed "honeytrap," wherein female KGB agents seduced American men and caught their misdeeds on tape, there is evidence General Secretary Yuri Andropov created pedophile rings in order to blackmail businessmen and political leaders.

The tactic is also used in communist China.

"The CCP was accused in 2015 of using attractive women to seduce spies from the British MI6 intelligence agency and lure them into honeytraps to obtain state secrets," writes Joshua Philipp. "A top-secret MI6 memo obtained by the UK's Mirror news outlet said Chinese spies were 'aggressively' targeting spies and their families."

The New York Post confirmed porn was found on Hunter's laptop: "A computer camera roll of nearly 25,000 images is loaded with sexually explicit selfies and porn (which The Post is not publishing) ... ."

 

Hunter Biden Has Been A Longtime Victim Of Joe Biden's Corruption And Greed

brucewilds  |  Both giving and receiving bribes is usually a felony with significant legal ramifications. Influence peddling, the illegal practice of using one's influence in government or connections with persons in authority to obtain favors or preferential treatment falls into this category. One thing is clear, whenever we are talking about the involvement of huge sums of money, foreign players, officials holding high public office, or family members of politicians a few eyebrows should get raised. With this in mind, the Biden problem extends well past Hunter but also into how other family members have profited from Joe's time as Vice President such as his brother's involvement in a huge government contract in Iraq.

The issue of Hunter Biden receiving money from Russia, Ukraine, and China surfaced during the first Presidential debate and Biden claimed it was a story already discredited by authorities. This narrative was destroyed when the Washington Times acknowledged the Treasury Department records confirm Hunter Biden received a wire transfer for $3.5 million from the Mayor of Moscow’s wife. It is difficult to find anyone that holds Hunter in high esteem and the fact the United States suspects the woman sending him this money built much of her wealth through corruption does little to improve his standing. For those of us cynical of all the so-called public servants that seem to line their pockets and hold the attitude they are above the law this is a big red flag. 

If the veil of secrecy surrounding Hunter's career is lifted we will most likely find Hunter's dad did share in the spoils bestowed upon not only his son but others in the Biden family. I contend Joe Biden's cozy relationship with corruption is why former President Obama did not rush to endorse Biden when he announced he planned to run. To be clear, we are talking about, millions, and hundreds of millions of dollars or more. For us cynics, we see this as what may be only the tip of the spear when it comes to public officials throwing the American people under the bus for fun and profit. As a voter, this dovetails with my concern about Biden's relationship and attitude towards China which I consider a major issue. 

Let's Consider A Little History Of Huntergate's Degenerate Father-Bagman Son Relationship

NYPost |  Rather than set up shop in New York City, the financial capital of the world, Rosemont Seneca leased space in Washington, DC. They occupied an all-brick building on Wisconsin Avenue, the main thoroughfare of exclusive Georgetown. Their offices would be less than a mile from John and Teresa Kerry’s 23-room Georgetown mansion, and just two miles from both Joe Biden’s office in the White House and his residence at the Naval Observatory.

Over the next seven years, as both Joe Biden and John Kerry negotiated sensitive and high-stakes deals with foreign governments, Rosemont entities secured a series of exclusive deals often with those same foreign governments.

Some of the deals they secured may remain hidden. These Rosemont entities are, after all, within a private equity firm and as such are not required to report or disclose their financial dealings publicly.

Some of their transactions are nevertheless traceable by investigating world capital markets. A troubling pattern emerges from this research, showing how profitable deals were struck with foreign governments on the heels of crucial diplomatic missions carried out by their powerful fathers. Often those foreign entities gained favorable policy actions from the United States government just as the sons were securing favorable financial deals from those same entities.

Nowhere is that more true than in their commercial dealings with Chinese government-backed enterprises.

Rosemont Seneca joined forces in doing business in China with another politically connected consultancy called the Thornton Group. The Massachusetts-based firm is headed by James Bulger, the nephew of the notorious mob hitman James “Whitey” Bulger. Whitey was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang, part of the South Boston mafia. Under indictment for 19 murders, he disappeared. He was later arrested, tried, and convicted.

James Bulger’s father, Whitey’s younger brother, Billy Bulger, serves on the board of directors of the Thornton Group. He was the longtime leader of the Massachusetts state Senate and, with their long overlap by state and by party, a political ally of Massachusetts Senator John Kerry.

Less than a year after opening Rosemont Seneca’s doors, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were in China, having secured access at the highest levels. Thornton Group’s account of the meeting on their Chinese-language website was telling: Chinese executives “extended their warm welcome” to the “Thornton Group, with its US partner Rosemont Seneca chairman Hunter Biden (second son of the now Vice President Joe Biden).”

The purpose of the meetings was to “explore the possibility of commercial cooperation and opportunity.” Curiously, details about the meeting do not appear on their English-language website.

Also, according to the Thornton Group, the three Americans met with the largest and most powerful government fund leaders in China — even though Rosemont was both new and small.

The timing of this meeting was also curious. It occurred just hours before Hunter Biden’s father, the vice president, met with Chinese President Hu in Washington as part of the Nuclear Security Summit.

 

No Greater Love Than This - But Groping Joe Has Used Hunter As A Bagman....,

Slate  |  Last week, the New York Post began publishing reports on a series of photos, emails, and documents allegedly taken from a laptop hard drive that belonged to Hunter Biden, the son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. As it became increasingly clear that the Post was using hacked, unverified information that may have been manipulated by a foreign entity for the purposes of influencing the upcoming presidential election, social media companies started to ban or otherwise attempt to reduce the spread of the Post’s initial story. But the tabloid continued printing information from the hard drive, a copy of which it says it received from disgraced Donald Trump associate and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Given that Giuliani and Steve Bannon were the Post’s two sources of information about the hard drive, the provenance of the Rupert Murdoch­–owned paper’s information is more than a little suspect. Giuliani, for one, has said that there’s a 50-50 chance he worked with a Russian spy to dig up embarrassing material about the Biden family. And the computer repair shop owner who allegedly obtained the hard drive and turned it over to Giuliani’s lawyer doesn’t exactly seem like a trustworthy fellow either. So it is with a massive grain of salt that we consider the contents of the hard drive itself. One of the stories contains an alleged text exchange between Hunter and Joe Biden from two months before Joe announced his presidential campaign. It began with a text Joe sent around 7 a.m. to Hunter, who was residing in a rehab facility. “Good morning my beautiful son,” the text reads. “I miss you and love you. Dad.”

Whether or not the hacked material is accurate and complete, the father-son text exchange does the exact opposite of what Giuliani and Trump have been trying to do. For years, Trump and his allies have attempted to paint Hunter as the beneficiary of (Trump-style) nepotism and a shameful sleazeball who reflects poorly on his father. Yet, in the text conversation, Biden comes off as loving and concerned. Hunter certainly admits to struggling with addiction and the pressures of living under intense public scrutiny, but there is nothing politically damaging about the exchange—only a sad, humanizing portrait of a family working through a difficult time.

What Universe Do These Unfounded And Unvetted Claims Come From?!?!?!

msdnc  |  It must've seemed like a good idea at the time. Rudy Giuliani and his allies apparently thought they could package an anti-Biden smear, hand it to a media ally, and watch as the closing weeks of the 2020 presidential race focused on their "October Surprise." It'd fundamentally change the trajectory of the election and put Donald Trump in a position to hold onto power.

It's not quite working out that way.

As we've discussed, Giuliani and Steve Bannon delivered an anti-Biden smear to the New York Post, and the conservative tabloid ran its literally unbelievable story last week. The article was filled with convoluted details involving a Ukrainian gas company, Hunter Biden, his alleged laptop, some of his alleged emails, and an unnamed shop owner in Delaware. Of course, the underlying premise of the allegations was discredited quite a while ago, which is why most major news organizations had the good sense to steer clear of the Post's reporting.

As scrutiny of the scheme intensified, we learned that many inside the tabloid disagreed with the decision to publish the anti-Biden article. But more importantly, they're not the only ones with concerns.

The entire mess is now being investigated by federal authorities as potentially being part of a hostile foreign influence operation illegally targeting our election. Indeed, Politico published this report overnight:

More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden's son "has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation."

These dozens of former officials added that their extensive national security experience has left them "deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case" and cited several elements of the story that suggested the Kremlin's hand at work.

Wikipedia Proclaims Huntergate Already Been Debunked Or Where The Cocaine Cigarettes At?!?!?!

wikipedia  |  Robert Hunter Biden (born February 4, 1970) is an American lawyer and investment advisor who is the second son of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden. He is a founding partner of Rosemont Seneca Partners, an investment and advisory firm.

Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, a major Ukrainian natural gas producer, from 2014 to 2019. He and his father have been the subjects of debunked right-wing conspiracy theories pushed by Donald Trump and his allies concerning Biden business dealings and anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.^[1]

Naval career

In May 2013, Biden's application for a position in the U.S. Navy Reserve was approved.^[73] At age 43, Biden was accepted as part of a program that allows a limited number of applicants with desirable skills to receive commissions and serve in staff positions.^[74] He received an age-related waiver and a waiver due to a past drug-related incident, and was sworn in as a direct commission officer.^[73] Joe Biden administered his commissioning oath in a White House ceremony.^[3]

The following month, Biden tested positive for cocaine during a urinalysis test and was subsequently discharged administratively.^[75][76] Biden attributed the result to smoking cigarettes he had accepted from other smokers, only later suspecting they had been laced with the drug.^[3] He chose not to appeal the matter as it was unlikely that the panel would believe his explanation given his history with drugs, and also due to the likelihood of news leaking to the press, though it was ultimately revealed to The Wall Street Journal by a Navy official who provided information to the newspaper on condition of anonymity.^[3][73]

 

.45's Gut Instinct, Dumb-Luck, And Kayfabery Is The Equivalent Of "Strong In The Force"

technologyreview |  The news: When Twitter banned, and then unbanned, links to a questionably sourced New York Post article about Joe Biden’s son Hunter, its stated intention was to prevent people from spreading harmful false material as America heads into the final stretch of the election campaign. But thanks to the cycle of misinformation—and claims from conservatives that social-media platforms are deliberately censoring their views—Twitter managed to do the opposite of what it intended. 

According to Zignal Labs, a media intelligence firm, shares of the Post article “nearly doubled” after Twitter started suppressing it. The poorly-thought-through ban triggered the so-called Streisand Effect and helped turn a sketchy article into a must-share blockbuster. And then on Friday, the Republican National Committee filed a Federal Election Commission complaint against Twitter, claiming that the ban “amounts to an illegal corporate in-kind political contribution to the Biden campaign.” 

The ban: Twitter blocked shares of the story under its policy against hacked materials, in part because of the dubious sourcing by the New York Post, the company said. The article also contained screenshots of emails with the addresses unredacted. Federal investigators are now looking into whether they are tied to a foreign intelligence campaign, according to NBC News. 

But on Thursday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that blocking the URL was “wrong,” and that the company has changed its policy and enforcement procedures in response to the outrage over this decision.

Huntergate: What Comes Next?

revolver  |  What is the most incriminating thing on the hard drive? Rudy has suggested illegal things, and as Revolver reported, the FBI person tasked with the hard drive is associated with the child pornography division. Could you give more insight into how bad it is we’re talking about?

Mr. Bannon: Joe Biden is a liar, a fraud, and compromised by Chinese cash. In short, he is a national security crisis. The hard drive combines emails and text messages that show a massive involvement with companies controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. Also, there are 25,000 images that show a drug-addled, depraved lifestyle — one that decent hardworking Americans will not want near the White House.

Revolver: The FBI has been holding onto the hard drive for almost a year? Any sense of why? Was there any indication that they were seriously interested in a criminal case, assuming that there is, in fact, illegal material on there? If not, why would the FBI simply hold onto information like that?

Mr. Bannon: The President must confront the director of the FBI on why the information housed on this hard drive was not moved on immediately. If the content of the hard drive had been released when received in November 2019, there would have been no impeachment of Trump, and Bernie Sanders would be the Democratic Party nominee. This confrontation should take place this weekend in the Oval Office. If Wray doesn’t have a bulletproof reason he should be fired in the room.

Revolver: What are your best estimates on how many foreign entities may have obtained possession of the hard drive? Chinese intel?

Mr. Bannon: It’s the actions represented on the hard drive that the American people must understand our enemies know about. The cash and equity given for access to Biden, the favors done for that cash, the drugs, the depravity. The CCP, Russian Intel, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Intel Services — they know the Bidens are for sale.

Did The FBI Conceal Huntergate In Order To Control Preznit Joe Biden?

americanthinker  |  It didn’t surprise the informed, and understandably a bit cynical, to hear that the FBI sat on Hunter Biden’s laptop instead of seeking justice. The bureau was previously involved in an illegal plot to take down Donald Trump, after all, and its Deep State elements would assuredly love to see Joe Biden succeed him in January. So why would they reveal damning information on their establishment hope? Yet suppressing Huntergate perhaps provided a secondary benefit:

The information could be used against Biden once he was in office.

This wouldn’t be anything new. It’s believed that longtime, legendary FBI director J. Edgar Hoover used “dirt files” on politicians for leverage; for one thing, it’s said, this enabled him to remain bureau head for as long as he wished. William Sullivan, once the number three official under Hoover, put it this way: From the moment the director got damning information on a senator, the man would be “right in his pocket.”

So not only could suppressing Huntergate get Biden in office, but then maybe it’s, “Nice presidency you’ve got there, Mr. Biden — I’d hate to see anything happen to it.”

Since the criminality in question could, apparently, put Hunter in prison along with destroying China Joe, the leverage is profound. It could not only be used to control Biden but also his wife, Jill, in the unlikely event she for a time is able to pull off an Edith Wilson (who supposedly ran the show when Woodrow Wilson became incapacitated). She wouldn’t want to see her stepson in the hoosegow and her family’s reputation ruined, after all.

DNI Ratcliffe Shut That Russian Disinformation Operation Shit DOWN This Morning....,

pic.twitter.com/YZlLZfUr01

— OBX (@OBX) October 19, 2020

caitlinjohnstone |  Fight it all you want, but there’s nothing you can do. “The emails are Russian” is going to be the official dominant narrative in mainstream political discourse, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. Resistance is futile.

Like the Russian hacking narrative, the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, the Russian bounties in Afghanistan narrative, and any other evidence-free framing of events that simultaneously advances pre-planned cold war agendas, is politically convenient for the Democratic party and generates clicks and ratings, the narrative that the New York Post publication of Hunter Biden’s emails is a Russian operation is going to be hammered and hammered and hammered until it becomes the mainstream consensus. 

This will happen regardless of facts and evidence, up to and including rock solid evidence that Hunter Biden’s emails were not published as a result of a Russian operation.

This is happening. It’s following the same formula all the other fact-free Russia hysteria narratives have followed. The same media tour by pundits and political operatives saying with no evidence but very assertive voices that Russia is most certainly behind this occurrence and we should all be very upset about it.

“To me, this is just classic textbook Soviet Russian tradecraft at work,” Russiagate founder and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is heard assuring CNN’s audience.

“Joe Biden – and all of us – SHOULD be furious that media outlets are spreading what is very likely Russian propaganda,” begins and eight-part thread by Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, who claims the emails are “Kremlin constructed anti-Biden propaganda.”

“It’s not really surprising at all, this was always the play, but still kind of head-spinning to watch all the players from 2016 run exactly the same hack-leak-smear op in 2020. Even with everyone knowing exactly what’s happening this time,” tweets MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.

“How are you all circling the wagons instead of being embarrassed for peddling Russian ops 18 days before the election. It’s not enough that you all haven’t learned from your atrocious handling of 2016 — you are doubling down,” Democratic Party think tanker Neera Tanden tweeted in admonishment of journalists who dare to report on or ask questions about the emails.

 

NBC/MSDNC Amp Up Anti-Constitutional Pandemic Lockdown Lies And Disinformation

jonathanturley |  For four years, I have written about the alarming loss of neutrality and objectivity in journalism — a trend that is reflected by many polls showing that the majority of the public no longer trusts the media for fair and honest reporting. While I have regularly criticized President Donald Trump, I have also objected to unrelentingly biased reporting as well as embarrassingly soft coverage of former Vice President Joe Biden. Now, Stanford Communications Professor Emeritus Ted Glasser has publicly called for an end of objectivity in journalism as too constraining for reporters in seeking “social justice.”

In an interview with The Stanford Daily, Glasser insisted that journalism needed to “free itself from this notion of objectivity to develop a sense of social justice.” He rejected the notion that the journalism is based on objectivity and said that he views “journalists as activists because journalism at its best — and indeed history at its best — is all about morality.”  Thus, “Journalists need to be overt and candid advocates for social justice, and it’s hard to do that under the constraints of objectivity.”

Dressing up bias as “advocating social justice,” does not remove the taint of yellow journalism.  It is the same rationalization for shaping the news to fit your agenda and treating readers as subjects to be educated rather than informed.

While other professors in The Stanford Daily disagreed, Wesley Lowery, who has served as a national correspondent for the Washington Post, also rejects objectivity.  In a tweet, Lowery declared “American view-from-nowhere, “objectivity”-obsessed, both-sides journalism is a failed experiment…The old way must go. We need to rebuild our industry as one that operates from a place of moral clarity.”

These are major voices in media.  Glasser is a Stanford Department of Communication professor emeritus and served as the director for Stanford’s Graduate Program in Journalism. He is also the former president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication.

 

Brow Furrowed In Mock Concern - The WaPo Composes Disinformation Operation Details

WaPo  |  U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence, according to four former officials familiar with the matter.

The warnings were based on multiple sources, including intercepted communications, that showed Giuliani was interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence during a December 2019 trip to Ukraine, where he was gathering information that he thought would expose corrupt acts by former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

The intelligence raised concerns that Giuliani was being used to feed Russian misinformation to the president, the former officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and conversations.

The warnings to the White House, which have not previously been reported, led national security adviser Robert O’Brien to caution Trump in a private conversation that any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered contaminated by Russia, one of the former officials said.

The message was, “Do what you want to do, but your friend Rudy has been worked by Russian assets in Ukraine,” this person said. Officials wanted “to protect the president from coming out and saying something stupid,” particularly since he was facing impeachment over his own efforts to strong-arm Ukraine’s president into investigating the Bidens.

But O’Brien emerged from the meeting uncertain whether he had gotten through to the president. Trump had “shrugged his shoulders” at O’Brien’s warning, the former official said, and dismissed concern about his lawyer’s activities by saying, “That’s Rudy.”

Officials’ warnings about Giuliani underscore the concern in the U.S. intelligence community that Russia not only is seeking to reprise the disinformation campaign it waged in 2016, but also may now be aided, unwittingly or otherwise, by individuals close to the president. Those warnings have gained fresh urgency in recent days. The information that Giuliani sought in Ukraine is similar to what is contained in emails and other correspondence published this week by the New York Post, which the paper said came from the laptop of Hunter Biden and were provided by Giuliani and Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former top political adviser at the White House.

The Washington Post was unable to verify the authenticity of the alleged communications, which concern Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine and China.

 

 

Can You B'Lee They Say This Isht With A Straight Face? "This Is A Russian Disinformation Operation"

usatoday |   The New York Post story's publication prompted some to draw parallels to the runup to the 2016 election, when emails from the Democratic National Committee were hacked by Russian-affiliated operatives and released by WikiLeaks.

The FBI is now examining whether Russia is tied to the information cited by the New York Post.

Some experts say the story has many hallmarks of a disinformation campaign.

"It is also an old Cold War disinformation tactic to pass information, especially but not exclusively when forged, to low-brow newspapers that have high circulation and low standards of investigation. Ideal for surfacing and amplification," Thomas Rid, a political scientist who focuses on disinformation and information warfare at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, said in a tweet.

Russian operatives worked to sow partisan divisions in the U.S. and spread disinformation during the 2016 presidential election cycle, according to a 2017 report from U.S. intelligence services. That report found that Russian President Vladimir Putin "aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances," in part by discrediting his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. 

Trump's own intelligence officials have warned Moscow is interfering again in the 2020 election.

In September, the Treasury Department sanctioned Ukrainian lawmaker Andrii Derkach, who met with Giuliani in December, for being an "active Russian agent for over a decade."

Bannon was indicted for fraud in August in connection to a border-wall fundraising effort that raised more than $25 million "under the false pretense that all of that money would be spent on construction," according to prosecutors. Bannon has pleaded not guilty. 

More:How many Trump advisers have been criminally charged? Manafort, Stone and Steve Bannon makes 7

In the case of Giuliani associate Derkach, the Treasury Department's move was aimed at "exposing Russian malign influence campaigns and protecting our upcoming elections from foreign interference." It also made clear that Giuliani has engaged with Russian agents in his campaign against the Bidens.

Former Biden aides have also suggested that Russians are behind the story.

"This is a Russian disinformation operation,” Michael Carpenter, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense with a specialization in Eastern Europe who now heads the Penn Biden Center, said to POLITICO. "I’m very comfortable saying that.”