The Joe Biden Presidency Thread

[swordfish]

Uncle Joe this weekend - Are you telling me that Hezbollah and Hamas are terrorist organizations, not countries?  And Iran ain't our friends?

https://nypost.com/2023/10/08/failed-foreign-policy-gave-terror-the-element-of-surprise-agencies-blinded-by-joes-fiascos/

The weekend’s depraved attack by Iran-sponsored Hamas terrorists on Israel reportedly blindsided US and Israeli intelligence. How could that be?

Any postmortem of what went wrong has to include:

1. The Biden administration’s preoccupation with its diabolical Iran nuclear deal, the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action launched by the Obama administration, scrapped by Trump’s, and reanimated by President Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
2. The recent bust of an Iranian spy ring said to reach into the highest levels of the State Department and the Pentagon.
3. The crackdown on anti-Iranian dissident group, MEK, in Albania in June.

1. APPEASEMENT: The same Biden-Blinken brain trust responsible for the debacle in Afghanistan has done nothing but appease the terrorist regime in Tehran since day one.

They just released an additional $6 billion to Iran, have eased off on sanctions enforcement, pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into Gaza and betrayed Iranian dissidents, all to curry favor with Tehran. 

There are inadvertent favors, too, like the US weapons left behind in Afghanistan which found their way to Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip, according to a Newsweek report in June.

Biden also has struggled to hide his disdain for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government he has called “extremist.”

Administration flacks insisted over the weekend that the $6 billion returned to Iran was only to be used for “humanitarian purposes and medicine” and was strictly monitored. Sure.

That’s not what Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told NBC’s Lester Holt last month.

 “This money belongs to the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Raisi, “and naturally we will decide to spend it wherever we need it.”

Every dollar of the $6 billion Iran spends domestically on “medicine” frees another dollar to give to terrorist proxies like Hamas.

2. SPY RING: The Biden administration’s hand-picked, virulently anti-Israel Iran envoy Robert Malley was quietly removed without pay in June and had his security clearance suspended pending an investigation by the FBI for security breaches. 

The State Department has been tight-lipped about the scandal, but Lee Smith wrote in Tablet last week that Malley allegedly had helped “fund, support, and direct an Iranian intelligence operation designed to influence the United States and allied governments” and helped to infiltrate an Iranian agent of influence “into some of the most sensitive positions in the US government — first at the State Department and now the Pentagon.”

The reporting is based on thousands of emails between Iranian diplomats and analysts obtained by Iran International, a London-based émigré opposition media outlet, and shared with Semafor.

Malley previously was the Obama administration’s top negotiator on the initial 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. One of Biden’s first actions upon becoming president was to name Malley as his special envoy for Iran.

What effect did Malley’s alleged activities on behalf of Iran have on US intelligence capabilities going into Saturday’s attack on Israel?

3. MEK RAID: On June 20, the Albanian government raided the headquarters of the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq or MEK, the exiled Iranian opposition group that previously had been resettled in Albania from Iraq under the protection of the United States government. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Vice President Mike Pence were among the MEK’s most high-profile supporters in the Trump administration.

But it seems that US protection was withdrawn last November, when the State Department declared that “the United States does not see the MEK as a viable democratic opposition movement that is representative of the Iranian people.” 

Malley was quickly fingered as being behind the about-face by a bipartisan group of 23 high-profile former US lawmakers, and pro-Israel intellectuals, including former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Sen. Joe Lieberman and Professor Alan Dershowitz, who issued a statement denouncing the State Department’s disavowal of the MEK.

They criticized Malley for what they described as a “flagrant betrayal” of the Iranian people:

“Desperate to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), US Envoy Robert Malley has sought to appease the Iranian government by publicly discrediting one of the regime’s primary opposition groups. . . . What further acts of appeasement does Mr. Malley intend to offer to get his Iranian counterparts back to the negotiating table?”

Good question.

‘A terrible betrayal’

Soon after the MEK raid, former Albanian president Sali Berisha, a thorn in the side of the Albanian government, told me it was “a terrible betrayal” of the Iranian resistance by Biden-backed Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, an intimate of Alex Soros. The ramifications for dissidents inside Iran were catastrophic.

Berisha pointed to the 230 MEK computers seized by Albanian authorities during the raid which he claimed were handed over to the Iranians.

While Albanian police denied Berisha’s claims, Iranian authorities appeared to confirm them.

Two weeks after the raid, Iran’s Information Council head, Sepehr Khalaji, boasted on X (formerly Twitter), that “some of the hard drives and PC towers have arrived. [We are] currently retrieving the data [and] results so far are encouraging.”

Khalaji’s boast followed a statement from Iran’s intelligence ministry thanking Albanian authorities for raiding the MEK camp and announcing that it had arrested four people in northern Iran allegedly linked to the MEK, and had identified another alleged MEK operative in Tehran.

The MEK’s network of dissidents in Iran had just had their cover blown, less than four months before Hamas’ attack on Israel. How much damage was done to Israel and US intelligence gathering capabilities in Iran?

Any honest postmortem will have to include a damning judgment of the bumbling fools who currently control US foreign ­policy.

 

[swordfish]

Oh - wait....Yep, it's Trump's fault - he talked to the Russians back in 2017 about an ISIS plot.......

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-israel-intel-russia-hamas-attack-1833094?fbclid=IwAR1q_YSAucC9OlFCUlFlvj2WUgJ2Hu2vUTcyEi6vuBnz5cuL1ICDMHXskNg

Donald Trump's sharing of alleged classified intelligence to Russian officials in the White House has come under scrutiny amid a large-scale attack by the Hamas Islamist military group against Israel.

In May 2017, the former president defended his actions after he was found to have discussed sensitive details about an alleged Islamic State (ISIS) plot with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in the Oval Office. Trump said he had an absolute right to do so. The intel was said to have been provided to the U.S. from Israel.

 

[temptation]

Insurrection at the capitol…10/18 is the worst day for democracy since Pearl Harbor and 9/11…I expect a full investigation.

[swordfish]

In 2016 under the Obama Administration, Putin had just finished taking Crimea and was set to head into the greater Ukraine until Trump was elected Hillary lost the election.  After hearing Trump's warning to stay out of the rest of Ukraine, Putin decides to wait.  Now we are back to the old established ways of dealing with the world.

https://nypost.com/2023/10/18/do-our-adversaries-fear-biden-they-did-trump

[swordfish]

Pro-Hamas protesters stormed a Senate office building, demanding a ceasefire in the Middle East. They obstructed lawmakers on their way to work. They prevented media reports from taking place. It was an insurrection.

Not a single one of those rioters will be placed in solitary confinement by Joe Biden’s DOJ. They won’t face 20-year prison sentences. Just like the women who stormed Capitol buildings during the Kavanaugh hearings, none of these pro-Hamas degenerates will face any consequences whatsoever. That’s because they didn’t mock the people in power. They didn’t put their feet up on Nancy Pelosi’s desk. They didn’t smile while parading Pelosi’s lectern around the Capitol building. So in the eyes of the Biden DOJ, they’re not a threat.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/10/19/israel-hamas-protesters-swarm-house-buidling-washington-arrests/71237857007/

Protesters with Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow were detained on Capitol Hill while calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. They've since been ticketed and released.

U.S. House and Senate office buildings are open to the public but protests are forbidden in congressional buildings.

[temptation]

[swordfish]

SF wonders where the money Hamas was promising actually came from........IDK?  Anyone?  Hmmm - I know the US (under the Biden Administration) sure wouldn't be used to fund a terrorist group......Right?

https://nypost.com/2023/10/24/news/hamas-terrorists-promised-10000-apartment-for-bringing-back-hostages/

The Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel were promised $10,000 and an apartment if they captured hostages and brought them back to Gaza, one of the jihadists revealed in an interrogation video.

“In Gaza, whoever brings a hostage gets a grant – an apartment and $10,000,” the terrorist says in footage released by Israel’s security agency Shin Bet, the Jerusalem Post reported.

“The instructions were to kidnap elderly women and children … clear the houses and kidnap as many prisoners as possible,” he tells the interrogator.

[swordfish]

"I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life!" Biden said on the debate stage. "I have not taken a single penny from any country whatsoever, ever."

BS then - Still BS today.......The Biden crime family simply wasn't as good as the Clintons or Obamas (or Bushs) at laundering funds and keeping them hidden.....

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2020-debate-claims-coming-back-haunt-biden-gop-probes-hunter-swirl

President Biden made several claims during the 2020 presidential debates that 3 years later are being labeled as falsehoods by conservatives as evidence continues to trickle out in the investigations into his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings. 

"My son has not made money in terms of this thing you’re talking about, what are you talking about, China," Biden said on the debate stage leading up to the 2020 election. 

Since that claim, Hunter Biden contradicted his dad earlier this year, admitting in court that he received $664,000 from a "Chinese infrastructure investment company."

In December 2013, Hunter Biden traveled with his dad on an Asia trip, which included China as a stop, and introduced him to his Chinese business partner Jonathan Li in the lobby of the hotel where the U.S. delegation was staying. A recent closed-door interview with Hunter's former business partner, Devon Archer, revealed that the elder Biden would have coffee with him too during the visit. Less than two weeks later, Hunter would enter into a joint-venture called BHR Partners, a Beijing-backed private equity firm controlled by Bank of China Limited.

"Lie, deny, counter accuse," GOP Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas, a member of the House Oversight Committee, posted on X on Wednesday with a clip of Biden’s claim about his son’s dealings in China. "The three principles of the Biden family influence peddling scheme!"

Also on Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee released information it says shows that Biden received $40,000 in "laundered China money" from the bank account of his brother and his sister-in-law in the form of a personal check which would contradict another debate claim from candidate Biden. 

"I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life!" Biden said on the debate stage. "I have not taken a single penny from any country whatsoever, ever."

House Oversight Chair James Comer said that even if the check — which was 10% of the $400,000 sent to Hunter's company Owasco — was, in fact, a loan repayment, "it still shows how Joe benefited from his family cashing in on his name — with money from China no less."

While President Biden has maintained he was never in business with his son, text messages obtained by Fox News Digital back in 2020 revealed that Joe Biden, in May 2017, met with Hunter's business associates for the Sinohawk venture — specifically, Tony Bobulinski. The meeting on May 2, 2017, would have taken place just 11 days before a May 13, 2017, email obtained by Fox News in 2020, which included a discussion of "remuneration packages" for six people in the business deal with CEFC. 

The email includes a note that "Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate." A proposed equity split references "20" for "H" and "10 held by H for the big guy?" with no further details.

 

[swordfish]

Ole Uncle Joe - Loving himself some young-uns.........WH deploying "Operation Bubble Wrap"......

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12769303/Creepy-Joe-strikes-Biden-slammed-telling-girl-6-love-EARS-Thanksgiving-event.html

'I love your ears!', Biden said reaching down to a girl who was wearing a headband with leopard ears, almost touching them.

 'I love 'em. They're really cool! What's your name?' the president asked. 'Catherine', the little girl responded. 

'What a beautiful name,' Biden said. 'That's my mommy's name. How old are you? 17?' he joked. 'Six!' the youngster replied shyly.   

The reaction on social media found Biden's reaction 'disturbing', 'creepy' and 'cringe'. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12769657/president-biden-turns-81-operation-bubble-wrap.html?ico=related-replace

Unhappy birthday, Joe? Biden turns ahead of Thanksgiving as White House launches 'BUBBLE WRAP strategy' to try and stop president tripping in public

• The president has been repeatedly asked about fitness for office due to his age
• The White House at the weekend swerved and rattled off his list of achievements
• In the background staff are deploying a Bubble Wrap strategy to stop him falling

 

[swordfish]

SF is wondering - Is this indictment occuring now because the left is concocting a plan to remove Joe Biden from the 2024 election, or is it so the trial(s) will be over in time for President Biden to pardon his son before the election is over?

https://nypost.com/2023/12/07/opinion/this-is-the-case-feds-should-have-brought-against-hunter-biden-in-the-first-place/

Hunter Biden’s indictment on tax charges already is eliciting howls on the left, who feel the case has been “politicized.”

But the details show that the real scandal was the sweetheart deal Hunter was offered in the first place, not what he faces now.

Hunter “spent . . . money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes,” the indictment states.

This wasn’t an ordinary accounting mistake.

Hunter Biden went out of his way to avoid paying taxes and “subverted the payroll and tax withholding process of his own company, Owasco, PC,” the feds allege.

It was a “scheme” to not pay $1.4 million to Uncle Sam but instead give it to Chastity at the Gentlemen’s Club.

After dithering for years, Hunter was originally offered a no-jail, no-fault misdemeanor plea that would send him merrily on his way.

Why?

The evidence seems pretty clear that the Justice Department was burying it as a favor to Joe Biden.

It took a small number of brave whistleblowers and a straight-talking judge to stop the sham.

[swordfish]

SF is throwing the BS flag on this one - The reason Hunter Biden WASN'T indicted 3 years ago is precisely because his name is Biden.

https://nypost.com/2023/12/11/news/hunter-biden-lawyer-whines-new-indictment-because-hes-the-son-of-the-president/

Here’s a new one: First son Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell claimed Monday that his client was indicted because of his proximity to power — not in spite of it.

“It’s because he is the son of the president who’s named Biden,” Lowell told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in response to last week’s indictment of the 53-year-old handed up by a Southern California grand jury convened by special counsel David Weiss. “Republicans … have tried and tried to say that President Biden has done something wrong. They can’t find a shred of evidence.”

“What they’ve successfully done … is basically saying, ‘OK, I can’t get the president, so I’ll besmirch his son in a way that suggests that there’s something going on between the two of them,'” Lowell added.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they reach back at a time that Hunter was in a stationery store when he was 11 and took a piece of bubblegum and see if they could charge that,” Lowell moaned about the charges.

 

[swordfish]

So nobody in the MSM is going to even question the President or Former President Obama about the Billions they freely handed over to Iran?  

https://nypost.com/2024/01/28/opinion/president-joe-bidens-got-blood-on-hands-after-appeasing-iran-for-years/

President Biden has for three years obsessively pursued a dangerous and naive strategy toward Iran: Appeasement at any cost.

Three American service members paid that cost in blood this weekend — their murders subsidized by the billions in sanctions relief Biden has provided Tehran and all but guaranteed by the president’s refusal to hold Iran accountable for nonstop attacks on US forces.

The deadly assault on a US base near the Jordanian-Syrian border was the 159th Iran-directed attack on American forces in the Middle East since Oct. 17.

Those attacks have included suicide drones, mortars, rockets and close-range ballistic missiles, leaving dozens of other Americans injured. One Christmas Day drone attack left a member of the 82nd Airborne in a coma with shrapnel stuck in his head. A US contractor died of a cardiac event during a drone attack two months prior.

But these assaults didn’t start Oct. 17. US Central Command’s chief testified to Congress last year that Iran had directed 78 attacks on American forces in Iraq and Syria from January 2021 to March 2023.

These attacks left two other contractors dead and many more Americans injured.

Tehran never once paid a price for these strikes. Nor does it today.

 

https://dailyprogress.com/opinion/column/wall-street-journal-biden-keeps-billions-flowing-to-iran/article_00d365a0-ad57-57dc-835d-17c508ebd2db.html

The Iranian surge in oil exports since President Biden took over has brought Iran an additional $32 billion to $35 billion, according to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The calculations are tricky, but the cause of the Iranian windfall is clear: As part of Biden’s quiet diplomacy with Iran, the U.S. has curtailed sanctions enforcement. Customers and middlemen have concluded the risk is low and the discount on Iran’s oil is too good to pass up.

https://www.newsweek.com/us-give-iran-150-billion-barack-obama-jack-posobiec-1835083

A post on X by Jack Posobiec, posted on October 16, 2023, referenced a Charlie Kirk tweet from September 11, 2015, which stated "Iran funds Hamas. Hamas kills Americans and Jews. Now we give Iran $150 billion. Where do you think that money will go? #IranDeal"

 

 

[swordfish]

“At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the report says.

Holy Shnikies - This guy is our President........

https://nypost.com/2024/02/08/news/special-counsel-robert-hur-issues-report-on-bidens-mishandling-of-classified-documents/

WASHINGTON — President Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials,” special counsel Robert Hur found in a bombshell report released Thursday — though Hur recommended against criminal charges, in part because a jury might find Biden to be an “elderly man with a poor memory.”

Biden, 81, flouted legal restrictions on sensitive documents throughout his 36 years in the Senate and eight years as vice president — stashing them in cardboard boxes in his garage in Wilmington, Del., and other locations, the 388-page report said, with photos showing Biden’s storage practices.

Investigators even uncovered a recording of Biden confiding in his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer in April 2017 — after leaving office as vice president — that he still had official records because “I didn’t want to turn them in” — similar to former President Donald Trump, who faces 40 criminal charges and up to 450 years in prison for resisting handing over documents after leaving the White House in 2021.

Zwonitzer also told Hur’s investigators that he deleted some audio files of Biden after the special counsel investigation began — and was aware of the probe when he did so. 

“I’m not going to say how much of the percentage it was of my motivation,” the writer said, according to the report.

Material mishandled by Biden implicated the nation’s most guarded secrets, the report said, with authorities finding “information in [recovered] notebooks [that] remains classified up to the Top Secret level and includes Sensitive Compartmented Information, including from compartments used to protect information concerning human intelligence sources.”

But perhaps most damangingly for the president, Hur — a former Maryland US attorney, — suggested that jurors would not hold Biden liable for his actions on account of his perceived mental decline, even though he is seeking a second four-year term in November.

“At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the report says.

When Biden sat for questions with Hur’s investigators over two days in October, he presented himself as confused on many points — though the White House has regularly maintained he is mentally fit for office despite similar public errors.

Biden “did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’),” the report says.

“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died [May 2015]. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he ‘had a real difference’ of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving [2009] memo to President Obama.”

Although Biden’s lapse of memory may be useful for avoiding criminal liability, it is likely to be a serious political problem, as national polls already show large majorities of voters believe he is too old, infirm, or both to hold office.”If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president,” said Alex Pfeiffer, spokesman for the pro-Trump Make America Great Again PAC.

Trump himself fumed about what he called a double standard.

“THIS HAS NOW PROVEN TO BE A TWO-TIERED SYSTEM OF JUSTICE AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL SELECTIVE PROSECUTION!” the 77-year-old wrote on Truth Social.

“The Biden Documents Case is 100 times different and more severe than mine. I did nothing wrong, and I cooperated far more. What Biden did is outrageously criminal – He had 50 years of documents, 50 times more than I had, and ‘WILLFULLY RETAINED’ them. I was covered by the Presidential Records Act, Secret Service was always around, and GSA delivered the documents. Deranged Jack Smith should drop this Case immediately. ELECTION INTERFERENCE.”

Biden said in his own paper statement: “This was an exhaustive investigation going back more than 40 years, even into the 1970s when I was a young Senator. I cooperated completely, threw up no roadblocks, and sought no delays”

“Over my career in public service, I have always worked to protect America’s security,” the president added. “I take these issues seriously and no one has ever questioned that.”

Hur, whose report was released by Congress after the White House declined to assert privilege of any of its contents, found that classified records hoarded by Biden included documents concerning military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, as well as notebooks with handwritten entries about national security and foreign policy issues “implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”

According to the special counsel, Biden kept the documents to inform the writing of two memoirs published in 2007 and 2017, as well as “to document his legacy, and to cite as evidence that he was a man of presidential timber.”

“In a recorded conversation with his ghostwriter in February 2017, about a month after he left office, Mr. Biden said … that he had ‘just found all the classified stuff downstairs,'” the report noted. 

Hur’s investigation into the 81-year-old president was notably quiet, with few leaks to the media — unlike the headline-grabbing probe of former President Donald Trump on similar grounds.

When taking note of evidence that “Biden knew he could not keep classified handwritten notes at home after leaving office,” Hur highlighted the president’s reaction to the classified document ordeal engulfing his predecessor.

13

Hur reported that Biden presented himself during the interview as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Sensitive records from Biden’s vice presidency and Senate tenure were stored without proper safeguards at his residence in Wilmington and at his pre-presidency office in DC provided by the University of Pennsylvania.

Hur’s investigation into the president was notably quiet, with few leaks to the media — unlike the headline-grabbing probe of Trump on similar grounds.

When taking note of evidence that “Biden knew he could not keep classified handwritten notes at home after leaving office,” Hur highlighted the president’s reaction to the classified document ordeal engulfing his predecessor.

“Asked about reports that former President Trump had kept classified documents at his own home, Mr. Biden wondered how ‘anyone could be that irresponsible,’” the report archly noted.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur to investigate Biden’s handling of records dating to his vice presidency and Senate years on Jan. 12 of last year — after sequential admissions of new discoveries by the White House.

Biden was interviewed by investigators in October — roughly a year after he chided Trump as “irresponsible” for retaining classified documents.

Biden’s lawyers said they initially found classified documents on Nov. 2 while clearing out his former office at the Penn Biden Center near Capitol Hill.

The discovery, six days before the midterm elections, was kept quiet until CBS News broke the story Jan. 9.

Additional Biden classified documents were found on Dec. 20 in his Wilmington garage, followed by a series of additional discoveries at the home, including by the FBI, which also searched Biden’s Rehoboth Beach, Del., vacation home and left with written notes.

Biden sought to downplay the controversy, telling PBS last February, “To the best of my knowledge, the kind of things they picked up are things that — from 1974, stray papers.”

“There is no there there,” Biden told reporters last January.

Biden first publicly acknowledged the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center at a Jan. 10 press conference in Mexico City.

In his initial remarks, Biden didn’t say that a second cache of classified documents had been found in his Wilmington garage.

Biden admitted on Jan. 12 that records were found next to his classic Corvette in Wilmington, but denied he was reckless with the nation’s secrets.

“My Corvette is in a locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” Biden said.

The White House said at the time that searches for records were complete, but additional documents were found by Biden’s lawyers. An FBI search found six more items with classification markings.

Trump, 77, is seeking a rematch against Biden in the November election and has alleged a double standard.

The 45th president faces 40 criminal charges and a maximum penalty of 450 years in prison for allegedly mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021.

The FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm beach, Fla., to retrieve documents in August 2022 — just months before the revelation that Biden had stashed classified documents at various locations, including in his home garage, which lacked Secret Service protection for a period of time.

The ex-president allegedly hindered attempts by the National Archives to retrieve the documents, which he argued he was entitled to keep under the Presidential Records Act.

 

[temptation]

On 2/8/2024 at 4:54 PM, swordfish said:

“At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the report says.

Holy Shnikies - This guy is our President........

https://nypost.com/2024/02/08/news/special-counsel-robert-hur-issues-report-on-bidens-mishandling-of-classified-documents/

WASHINGTON — President Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials,” special counsel Robert Hur found in a bombshell report released Thursday — though Hur recommended against criminal charges, in part because a jury might find Biden to be an “elderly man with a poor memory.”

Biden, 81, flouted legal restrictions on sensitive documents throughout his 36 years in the Senate and eight years as vice president — stashing them in cardboard boxes in his garage in Wilmington, Del., and other locations, the 388-page report said, with photos showing Biden’s storage practices.

Investigators even uncovered a recording of Biden confiding in his ghostwriter Mark Zwonitzer in April 2017 — after leaving office as vice president — that he still had official records because “I didn’t want to turn them in” — similar to former President Donald Trump, who faces 40 criminal charges and up to 450 years in prison for resisting handing over documents after leaving the White House in 2021.

Zwonitzer also told Hur’s investigators that he deleted some audio files of Biden after the special counsel investigation began — and was aware of the probe when he did so. 

“I’m not going to say how much of the percentage it was of my motivation,” the writer said, according to the report.

Material mishandled by Biden implicated the nation’s most guarded secrets, the report said, with authorities finding “information in [recovered] notebooks [that] remains classified up to the Top Secret level and includes Sensitive Compartmented Information, including from compartments used to protect information concerning human intelligence sources.”

But perhaps most damangingly for the president, Hur — a former Maryland US attorney, — suggested that jurors would not hold Biden liable for his actions on account of his perceived mental decline, even though he is seeking a second four-year term in November.

“At trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” the report says.

When Biden sat for questions with Hur’s investigators over two days in October, he presented himself as confused on many points — though the White House has regularly maintained he is mentally fit for office despite similar public errors.

Biden “did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (‘in 2009, am I still Vice President?’),” the report says.

“He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died [May 2015]. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he ‘had a real difference’ of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving [2009] memo to President Obama.”

Although Biden’s lapse of memory may be useful for avoiding criminal liability, it is likely to be a serious political problem, as national polls already show large majorities of voters believe he is too old, infirm, or both to hold office.”If you’re too senile to stand trial, then you’re too senile to be president,” said Alex Pfeiffer, spokesman for the pro-Trump Make America Great Again PAC.

Trump himself fumed about what he called a double standard.

“THIS HAS NOW PROVEN TO BE A TWO-TIERED SYSTEM OF JUSTICE AND UNCONSTITUTIONAL SELECTIVE PROSECUTION!” the 77-year-old wrote on Truth Social.

“The Biden Documents Case is 100 times different and more severe than mine. I did nothing wrong, and I cooperated far more. What Biden did is outrageously criminal – He had 50 years of documents, 50 times more than I had, and ‘WILLFULLY RETAINED’ them. I was covered by the Presidential Records Act, Secret Service was always around, and GSA delivered the documents. Deranged Jack Smith should drop this Case immediately. ELECTION INTERFERENCE.”

Biden said in his own paper statement: “This was an exhaustive investigation going back more than 40 years, even into the 1970s when I was a young Senator. I cooperated completely, threw up no roadblocks, and sought no delays”

“Over my career in public service, I have always worked to protect America’s security,” the president added. “I take these issues seriously and no one has ever questioned that.”

Hur, whose report was released by Congress after the White House declined to assert privilege of any of its contents, found that classified records hoarded by Biden included documents concerning military and foreign policy in Afghanistan, as well as notebooks with handwritten entries about national security and foreign policy issues “implicating sensitive intelligence sources and methods.”

According to the special counsel, Biden kept the documents to inform the writing of two memoirs published in 2007 and 2017, as well as “to document his legacy, and to cite as evidence that he was a man of presidential timber.”

“In a recorded conversation with his ghostwriter in February 2017, about a month after he left office, Mr. Biden said … that he had ‘just found all the classified stuff downstairs,'” the report noted. 

Hur’s investigation into the 81-year-old president was notably quiet, with few leaks to the media — unlike the headline-grabbing probe of former President Donald Trump on similar grounds.

When taking note of evidence that “Biden knew he could not keep classified handwritten notes at home after leaving office,” Hur highlighted the president’s reaction to the classified document ordeal engulfing his predecessor.

13

Hur reported that Biden presented himself during the interview as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

Sensitive records from Biden’s vice presidency and Senate tenure were stored without proper safeguards at his residence in Wilmington and at his pre-presidency office in DC provided by the University of Pennsylvania.

Hur’s investigation into the president was notably quiet, with few leaks to the media — unlike the headline-grabbing probe of Trump on similar grounds.

When taking note of evidence that “Biden knew he could not keep classified handwritten notes at home after leaving office,” Hur highlighted the president’s reaction to the classified document ordeal engulfing his predecessor.

“Asked about reports that former President Trump had kept classified documents at his own home, Mr. Biden wondered how ‘anyone could be that irresponsible,’” the report archly noted.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur to investigate Biden’s handling of records dating to his vice presidency and Senate years on Jan. 12 of last year — after sequential admissions of new discoveries by the White House.

Biden was interviewed by investigators in October — roughly a year after he chided Trump as “irresponsible” for retaining classified documents.

Biden’s lawyers said they initially found classified documents on Nov. 2 while clearing out his former office at the Penn Biden Center near Capitol Hill.

The discovery, six days before the midterm elections, was kept quiet until CBS News broke the story Jan. 9.

Additional Biden classified documents were found on Dec. 20 in his Wilmington garage, followed by a series of additional discoveries at the home, including by the FBI, which also searched Biden’s Rehoboth Beach, Del., vacation home and left with written notes.

Biden sought to downplay the controversy, telling PBS last February, “To the best of my knowledge, the kind of things they picked up are things that — from 1974, stray papers.”

“There is no there there,” Biden told reporters last January.

Biden first publicly acknowledged the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center at a Jan. 10 press conference in Mexico City.

In his initial remarks, Biden didn’t say that a second cache of classified documents had been found in his Wilmington garage.

Biden admitted on Jan. 12 that records were found next to his classic Corvette in Wilmington, but denied he was reckless with the nation’s secrets.

“My Corvette is in a locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street,” Biden said.

The White House said at the time that searches for records were complete, but additional documents were found by Biden’s lawyers. An FBI search found six more items with classification markings.

Trump, 77, is seeking a rematch against Biden in the November election and has alleged a double standard.

The 45th president faces 40 criminal charges and a maximum penalty of 450 years in prison for allegedly mishandling classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021.

The FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm beach, Fla., to retrieve documents in August 2022 — just months before the revelation that Biden had stashed classified documents at various locations, including in his home garage, which lacked Secret Service protection for a period of time.

The ex-president allegedly hindered attempts by the National Archives to retrieve the documents, which he argued he was entitled to keep under the Presidential Records Act.

 

Takeaway:  if you are three years younger and mentally competent, you can face serious felony charges…

If you are a senile, old man whom people feel sorry for…no charges necessary.

[swordfish]

So who would you rather have - The "well meaning" elderly man with a poor memory, or someone competent enough to stand trial? (even if the trial is so obviously frivolous)

[temptation]

“Joe Biden does more in an hour than most people do in a day.”

[Muda69]

[swordfish]

Can anyone anymore even be the least bit unconvinced the Biden family, led by "The Big Guy" Joe, was complicit in this corruption?  This is about to come out as fact and may be the catalyst that ends the Biden Presidency.   

https://nypost.com/2024/03/04/us-news/hunter-biden-helped-hire-aides-who-mishandled-joes-classified-documents/

Within hours of the release of a special prosecutor’s report finding he “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” as a private citizen, President Biden rushed to the White House podium to blame his former “staff.”

“I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing,” the president maintained.

Like Biden, these staffers have avoided any criminal charges. Who are they?

Without identifying them by name, special counsel Robert Hur narrowed the suspects to two former aides: “Executive Assistant” and “Staff Assistant 3.”

He said they gathered up more than 180 classified records totaling more than 600 pages and packed them into 15 boxes as Biden left the White House in January 2017.

Gatekeepers

Documents confirm that the staffers in question are Kathy S. Chung, who worked with Hunter Biden at the Commerce Department, and Anne Marie Muldoon, nee Person, who worked for him at Rosemont Seneca Partners, a key pass-through for foreign wire payments to Hunter Biden.

Chung and Muldoon were the two most important people in Joe Biden’s office suite. They were the gatekeepers who controlled the front office that adjoined his West Wing office, and they stored his classified papers in file cabinets and in his safe.

Biden trusted them implicitly since they came to him on the recommendation of his son Hunter.

In effect, it was Hunter who placed them in their sensitive posts inside the White House, where they had unfettered access to “the most highly classified, sensitive, and compartmented materials recovered during our investigation,” Hur noted in his report.

And they continued to communicate with Hunter throughout their tenure in his father’s office, assisting his foreign business schemes, according to emails obtained from his abandoned laptop and from the National Archives.

Recommended

Hunter got his old Commerce colleague Chung her White House job in 2012, the year before Hunter traveled with the vice president on Air Force Two to Beijing to seal a lucrative investment deal with the Chinese. Chung booked the trip, records show.

The executive assistant post opened up in his father’s office in May 2012, and Hunter proposed his old chum take it.

He described the job as replacing the “primary gatekeeper for the VP [and the] conduit everyone goes through to get to [Joe Biden].” In addition, she’d handle “all personal stuff” for the vice president, according to Hunter’s email to Chung.

That meant, as it turned out, acting as the custodian of all of Biden’s White House records, including classified material. Chung was thrilled to be considered for the position, which required Top Secret security clearance — “Thanks for calling and thinking of me,” she emailed Hunter — and agreed to an interview.

“I just met with your Dad again and he officially offered me the job,” she gushed in a June 13, 2012, email to Hunter. “I cannot thank you enough for thinking about me and walking me thru this.”

Then in mid-2014, Hunter recommended Muldoon for the job of Chung’s assistant. At the time, she was working as Hunter’s aide at Rosemont Seneca. Her husband, Mike Muldoon, had also worked for Hunter at Rosemont Seneca years earlier.

Family business

Records show Chung and Muldoon still arranged overseas trips for Hunter Biden and his Rosemont partners while working in VP Biden’s office. They sent and received hundreds of emails with Hunter and Rosemont.

Between July 2012 (when Chung came aboard) and April 2015, the latest data available, Rosemont Seneca shows up in a whopping 921 emails generated from the vice president’s office, according to a recent partial release of Vice President Biden’s records by the National Archives concerning “Hunter Biden, James Biden and their foreign business dealings.”

The records reveal that, among other things, Chung and Muldoon fielded requests from Hunter for signed photos of Joe Biden, letters from the vice president for his associates and tickets to White House events, including several state dinners and luncheons with foreign leaders.

In September 2015, for example, Chung emailed Hunter to invite him to a lunch with Chinese President Xi Jinping hosted by Biden.

In August 2016, according to Secret Service visitor logs, Muldoon escorted into the West Wing James Bulger — nephew of the notorious Irish mobster Whitey Bulger — after Bulger and Hunter formed BHR Partners, an investment fund controlled by the state-owned Bank of China.

A month after Chung oversaw the removal of the secret vice presidential papers in 2017, Hunter Biden attempted to poach her to work for him directly.

“Come work with me,” he wrote, “so that I can make everybody money.”

At the time, Hunter was courting Chinese businessmen who ended up paying him and other Biden family members $6 million for unspecified services.

Though Chung said she was interested in Hunter’s offer, she ultimately stayed on as Joe Biden’s assistant at his new digs at the Penn Biden Center in DC, where Hunter had VIP access.

It was there that Biden’s classified docs were first “discovered” by his lawyers, who were concerned about his own liability after the Justice Department raided former President Donald Trump’s home in Florida and seized boxes of classified papers.

Cozy relationship

Chung told Hur she never noticed any classified papers among the records she packed and unpacked, before filing them in unlocked cabinets and closets in Biden’s unlocked office, according to Hur.

Just weeks before she and Muldoon boxed up Biden’s records, however, they received a Jan. 3, 2017, email from the National Security Council warning them not to pack anything classified and that “only unclassified personal records” could be removed from the White House at the end of the administration, noted Hur, who ultimately punted on indicting either of them, even for gross negligence.

A lawyer for Chung — who now serves as a top aide to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin — did not respond to requests for comment. Attempts to reach Muldoon were unsuccessful.

The issue of Hunter Biden’s cozy relationship with these aides could break into the open during Hur’s March 12 testimony on the Hill. Sources say lawmakers will press him on whether he investigated Hunter or his uncle Jim to see if either of them gained access to the stolen White House docs.

Last week, the House Oversight Committee, as part of its joint impeachment inquiry, subpoenaed the attorney general for Hur’s investigative files, including recovered classified documents about Ukraine and China.

In a statement, the panel said it is “concerned that President Biden may have retained sensitive documents related to specific countries involving his family’s foreign business dealings.”

 

[Impartial_Observer]

I will never in my life see a political money/power consolidation as the Clintons. Can anyone tell me what the hell the Clinton Global Initiative even did aside from make the Clintons rich?

A lot like Phillip Morris’s Mission Winnow BS. 

[Muda69]

[temptation]

What an embarrassment that was last night.  Should have known it was doomed when dude took the podium 20 minutes late.

Dude ran on “unity” 4 years ago and just squinted and yelled at the camera for over an hour while ostracizing half of the country’s voters who dare to challenge his views.

[Muda69]

1 hour ago, temptation said:

What an embarrassment that was last night.  Should have known it was doomed when dude took the podium 20 minutes late.

Dude ran on “unity” 4 years ago and just squinted and yelled at the camera for over an hour while ostracizing half of the country’s voters who dare to challenge his views.

I'm glad I didn't watch.  Had better things to do.

 

[Impartial_Observer]

On 3/8/2024 at 11:32 AM, Muda69 said:

I'm glad I didn't watch.  Had better things to do.

 

I actually did watch a little mainly because there wasn’t squat on TV Thursday night and The Swamp People’s snake hunt show came on. 
Several take aways:

Man I don’t think any of the geriatric power brokers that run things have a clue the crap I’m dealing with living my life, much of which has been caused by them to begin with. 

Biden admonishing the Supremes then stating women are not without electoral power…….Joe holds like several degrees, graduated top in his law class, multiple majors, all the stuff he spews….and apparently he neither understands the separation of powers or the fact the Supremes have lifetime appointments. 

Biden has all the answers, if congress would just give him the money. Well Mr Biden, much like your “predecessor” that you like to talk about, you had two years with control of all three houses, and you produced exactly the same thing as he did to help the American people, jack shit!

Once you realize that both parties exist to:

A) Raise money

B) Get elected

Everything else becomes crystal clear. 

[swordfish]

Nothing will change in DC until congressional term limits are put in place.

[swordfish]