Burisma and the Obama administration
Hunter Biden and his Ukrainian gas firm colleagues had multiple contacts with the Obama State Department during the 2016 election cycle, including one just a month before Vice President Joe Biden forced Ukraine to fire the prosecutor investigating his son’s company for corruption, newly released memos show.
During that February 2016 contact, a U.S. representative for Burisma Holdings sought a meeting with Undersecretary of State Catherine A. Novelli to discuss ending the corruption allegations against the Ukrainian firm where Hunter Biden worked as a board member, according to memos obtained under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. (I filed that suit this summer with the help of the public interest law firm the Southeastern Legal Foundation.)…
A person who assisted Blue Star and Buretta in settling the Burisma matters in Ukraine told me in an interview that the late February 2016 overture to State was prompted by a dramatic series of events in Ukraine that included when that country’s top prosecutor escalated a two-year probe into Burisma and its founder, the oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky…
By early 2016 the Ukrainian investigation had advanced enough that then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin authorized a court-ordered seizure of Zlochevsky’s home and other valuables, including a luxury car. That seizure occurred on Feb. 2, 2016, according to published reports in Ukraine.
Not too long after that, Joe Biden pressed for prosecutor Shokin’s removal – ostensibly for not being hard enough on corruption – and he was indeed removed. But Shokin says he was removed because he was investigating Hunter Biden’s firm.
Joe Biden has publicly admitted, nay, publicly bragged about using US foreign aid in a situation which is, at best, a major conflict of interest for him. I’m supposed to, instead, get upset about the American president asking a foreign country for information about American official corruption involving that country? Nope.
Give it a break.
It’s not corruption and it’s not scandal.
Democrats do not “do” corruption. And they certainly do not “do” scandal.
By definition.
If one doesn’t understand that, then one understands nothing.
And proof of that, as though proof were even necessary, is Susan Rice’s intriguingly high-minded email.
(Might there be such a thing as being too clever? Too innocent?)
Joe Biden would have us know that his splendid, philandering, cokehead son was being unfairly persecuted merely because Hunter had no knowledge of the Ukrainian language or custom nor of the oil and gas business, and what’s it to ya? Go see Joe out behind the gym building where he’ll set you straight.
And will any of this get any reportage on the MSM? Of course not. Just another nothing burger for them.
More and more the corruption of Biden et al during that time becomes apparent, but unless Warren, Sanders, and the others mention any of this, it might as well never exist.
Trumps very own state department has been warning him for some time now that the John Solomon pieces cannot be trusted…calling one of his original claims (the “do not prosecute” list) “an outright fabrication”.
Solomon has gone after Ambassador Yovanovitch. But he also works closely with Lev Parnas, a grifter who has already been arrested. Parnas along with fellow already-arrested goon Igor Fruman have apparently been trying to change the management of a Ukrainian gas Co.. and Yovanovitch has been in the way…as the current management is apparently an anti-corruption success story.
Parnas and Fruman work for Dmytro Firtash, a Putin mobster who is fighting extradition to the US. But they also work for Rudy Gulliani and (at least in Parnas’ case) President Trump. You can’t make this shit up.
Anyhoo, Firtash appears to be the source for much of Solomon’s material. Solomon’s either a useful idiot or something worse.
You can make it up munchie: you’ve been at it for years and years. Shit then, shit now, that’s what you bring. Keep shoveling that shit and maybe you’ll finally find that pony.
Trumps very own state department has been warning him for some time now that the John Solomon pieces cannot be trusted…calling one of his original claims (the “do not prosecute” list) “an outright fabrication”.
manju, I see you got the DNC talking points on time. Do you even read the stuff you post ? Why not read the 1998 Clinton-Ukraine treaty ?
Joe Biden has publicly admitted, nay, publicly bragged about using US foreign aid in a situation which is, at best, a major conflict of interest for him. I’m supposed to, instead, get upset about the American president asking a foreign country for information about American official corruption involving that country? Nope.
–Kate
How is this not a fair summation of the Ukraine situation? I guess I’m asking the wrong people.
Yet, I visit the George Will links Art Deco provided and Will considers Trump’s impeachment a slam-dunk, if for no other reason Trump refuses to cooperate with the bizarre “impeachment inquiry” Democrats insist upon:
This refusal, which is analogous to an invocation of the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, justifies an inference of guilt. Worse, this refusal attacks our constitutional regime. So, the refusal is itself an impeachable offense.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-spiraling-president-adds-self-impeachment-to-his-repertoire/2019/10/10/8c1a739c-eb7c-11e9-9c6d-436a0df4f31d_story.html
That’s all Will has, other than usual huffing and puffing about Trump’s “frivolousness and stupidity.”
I guess I’m asking the wrong people.
You can read the stuff yourself its on scribd…
https://humanevents.com/2019/10/30/enough-quid-pro-quo-gaslighting/
The bolded part is the key to the Democrats’ impeachment theory: that just the act of investigating the activities surrounding Joe Biden’s son in Ukraine will profit Trump by damaging Biden in the election.
However, that requires believing at least three not-too-impossible things before breakfast:
(1) that Biden will, in fact, be the Democrat nominee, and Trump believed that would happen — otherwise, why would he bother pressuring Ukraine to investigate?
(2) that the investigation by Ukraine will indeed show that Joe Biden acted corruptly himself — because if you think Joe is innocent, why complain about requesting an investigation?
(3) that the media would actually allow the general public to find out the results of the investigation if they are negative —
Okay, that last one is impossible.
However, they are implicitly arguing that just letting the public know there is an eensy-weensy possibility that Biden is corrupt could damage him against Trump, even though the results of the investigation might not even come out until after the 2020 election. Otherwise, there is NO profit to Trump in bringing up the matter at all. After all, that was the script for the dossier, so they know the drill, even if it didn’t pay off for them in 2016.
IMO, if you claim Biden’s motive in shutting down Shokin’s investigation — which he admitted to — was not at all related to his son’s position, then you open the door for Trump to claim that his request to pursue that investigation has no relation to Biden’s candidacy.
To an outside observer, those claims look remarkably the same.
As long as we’re on the subject, here is some more information about the person alleged to be the Whistleblower — and it is still quite interesting even if he isn’t, as Dyer makes clear. The impetus for her investigation is Ciaramella’s appearances at a couple of state functions where one would not expect him to be invited.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/11/04/the-curious-case-of-the-departed-nsc-staffer-and-the-french-state-visit/
She connects the dots of who Ciaramella is connected with, but never answers the question of why his presence was requested for those functions — and why Trump let him get on the guest list considering that he was booted from the WH for leaking. Was the President even consulted? Did he notice Ciaramella was there? What’s the deal here anyway?
Duelling testimonies.
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/11/05/former-ambassador-yovanovitch-testimony-quid-pro-quo-situation-did-not-exist/
https://libertyunyielding.com/2019/11/05/schiff-witness-sondland-changes-story-now-suddenly-sort-of-remembers-quid-pro-quo-like-thing/
That’s all Will has, other than usual huffing and puffing about Trump’s “frivolousness and stupidity.”
Trump has supervised a multi-line business with 22,000 employees and $9.5 bn in annual revenue. Will has supervised…his desk.
I’m waiting for Trump to have a new phrase instead of “whistleblower” –
maybe “deep state blower”.
I’m pretty sure Trump is headed for re-election if there’s no recession, and his tariffs on China are bringing in billions $$ from buyers of Chinese stuff. Plus more development outside and around China, to avoid those tariffs — and more focus on Chinese human rights abuses.
So Dems who think they lose for sure without impeachment, seem likely to go with impeachment, fishing for some real dirt on Trump.
AesopFan on November 6, 2019 at 3:13 am
actually its more pernicious….
They are trying to convince the people that the president does NOT set foreign policy, but they do, or at least congress does…
when the man who testified with the V name, in uniform, breaking Article 88 Contempt Toward Officials (or equivalents), you get an idea of how far they would go
its not for Mr V (i dont want to say that persons name, my son is an officer, and so, its quite insulting what this person did) to second guess foreign policy. its his job to help implement it, and for good or ill, someone of his level is also not allowed to 2nd guess the highest ranking officer in the land, the commander and chief – ie president
its slight of hand to make the presidency a figure head position as it is in china
[Xi is a puppet… ]
ok. pull out the air poppers, and get that butter clarified!!
Impeachment: Trump’s son tweets name of alleged whistleblower
such a big piece of news and the press is saying what he did, not what he said!!!
“We also now know the name of the whistleblower… I say tonight to the media, do your job and print his name.” Senator Rand Paul
a system that first started with the feminists and the idea you can violate the constitution to protect women… that was expanded… and then selectively used..
the feminists preferred that family court was a secret court
given its overwhelming one sided outcomes, statements like you have no rights to the males, and more… would never be allowed to be seen as it was protecting people
this actually became more interesting as they protected women who were actually not the victim but the perpetrators… ie. not only could you not know the accuser in a public court… but in many cases they would protect the perpetrator by the penumbra added that doing so would protect her children or another (but that just didnt apply to the men)
the whisleblower statutes do NOT protect the whistle blower from the public
it protects them from the people who they are blowing whistles over.
[and for the new word trump will use.. its a snowblower, not a whistle blower]
while we are supposed to be equal, there is tons of language that describe women as being more vulnerable to this and that
after 30 years of precedent, your now seeing the real reasons.
its not about women, its about precedent and expansion
which then allows for Soviet Style Secret Kamera
the key for the left was finding the reasons the public would accept exceptions that would be used to set precedent that was always wider than the reason… see protecting the woman.. see forfeiture… and more
The entire FBI case against Flynn; meaning the central element that he lied to FBI investigators (he didn’t); is predicated on the FD-302 interview reports generated by the two FBI agents; later discovered to have been edited, shaped and approved by Andrew McCabe…. And for almost two years the entire outline of their documented evidence has been misattributed? (snip)
Obviously what triggered this re-review of the notes was a smart sur-surreply from the defense that highlighted how Peter Strzoks notes were far too neat, organized and well constructed to have been written during an actual interview
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2019/11/04/reconstructing-justice-flynn-defense-submits-outstanding-sur-surreply-to-counter-prosecution/
and the actual letter
https://theconservativetreehouse.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/doj-letter-fbi-notes-1.jpg
Report: Former CIA Analyst Says Brennan Created Secret ‘Task Force’ To Destroy Trump
[snip]
According to a column from Larry C. Johnson, who is a former analyst at the CIA, Brennan created a secret task force to combat the election of Trump.
Johnson says the “invitation-only” task force was created in early 2016.
Johnson says the average American has no idea how badly Brennan wanted to stop Trump because he desperately wanted to get Hillary Clinton into the White House.
Brennan was so desperate, according to Johnson, that it led to him creating this secret task force with the mission of spying on and carrying out covert actions against the campaign of then-candidate Trump.
https://trendingpolitics.com/report-former-cia-analyst-says-brennan-created-secret-task-force-to-destroy-trump/
When this is done, Nixon will look like a saint
As Tucker Carlson has often shown with his montages, Democrats/MSM often repeat exactly the same talking points. To hear them all repeat, “Joe Biden did nothing wrong, Joe Biden did nothing wrong” is amusing, because it’s so obvious that Hunter was being paid for his influence with Joe and others in the Obama administration. If an American company had gone to a foreign country and paid the ne’er-do-well son of the country’s vice-president $50K a month to be a director, that would be a prima fascia violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
I think Nancy Pelosi has lost control of the House Dems. She must know that if there is an impeachment trial, or even public House “impeachment inquiry” hearings, that a lot of very bad stuff will come out that will severely hurt the Dems in 2020. Whether she can derail the runaway train is a question.
where the true power of the president lies in compelling…
Issued by President Barack Obama in 2009, Executive Order 13526 replaced earlier executive orders on the topic and modified the regulations codified to 32 C.F.R. 2001. It lays out the system of classification, declassification, and handling of national security information generated by the U.S. government and its employees and contractors, as well as information received from other governments.
The United States does not have a British-style Official Secrets Act; instead, several laws protect classified information, including the Espionage Act of 1917, the Atomic Energy Act of 1954 and the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.
Declassification is the process of removing the classification of a document and opening it for public inspection.
The official documents governing classification and declassification stem from executive orders. But even these executive orders aren’t necessarily binding on the president. Indeed, the controlling executive order has been rewritten by multiple presidents. The current version of the order was issued by President Barack Obama in 2009.
A president, using powers granted by the Constitution, is able to declassify essentially anything. – Risch
And while the liberal press and others want this to be invalidated in terms of “payback”, it cant be…
because such a thing cant be used in anticipation, but only AFTER the fact… and so, there is no way to prevent such action
Beware acting too far on a president, for in his hands is the power to open up many many books inconvenient for any reason, including payback
It is important to remember that power over classification and declassification rests fully with the president, and the president can delegate declassification authority among his senior intelligence advisors—a group that includes the attorney general—as he wishes.
HE holds the power to say screw it, and lets open up the books, names and all, and reveal anything he wants…
and so Section 3.5(a) is contained in Sec. 1.6 Limitations on Classification. – which makes for an interesting read when applied to things going on:
Now remember… all this is controlled by Executive Orders, and a sitting president can change them at whim…
You want to know what happened with Kennedy? fine… he can release it
Want to know all the details of Benghazi… he can do that too
in fact.. there is not a thing or piece of information that he can be compelled to keep secret if he feels he shouldnt
you really want to put the fear into the democrats and the congress..
just open the books on large scale events that people want to know, and havent been able to know
oh… and his powers remain till he is completely out of office…
let them scream, let them howl, but at the end of the day, he can pull a huge nuclear move.
he can sit in a fireside chat and say under executive order xxx i will release YYY, zzz, and ZBAZZ
Call it the Covfefe order to inform the public of political shenanigans..
While more junior people and those who are not voted into office may not realize to what degree this power goes
i am sure that Nancy Pelosi and a hell of a lot of others are very aware, and aware that if Trump was as unhinged as they say
bombing another state which he would have a problem doing, is nothing like the bomb of opening up the books for a look see
The problem that one has going after a man who is honest yet perceived as not, may be his opening up the pages to prove it…
this is the REAL nuclear option…
and as a lame duck in 2nd term, they may fear this more than anything else..
Aesop Fan @12.22pm:
“The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, such as information operations. A nice sounding euphemism for propaganda, and computer network operations. There has been some informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation of this Task Force.”
The DNC server was examined by Crowdstrike as mentioned by Trump in his call with Zelensky. Crowdstrtike identified the DNC server hacker as “Fancy Bear and/or Cozy Bear” known Russian hacking signatures. (Not Gucifer 2.0, a Hungarian hacker who claimed he did the hacking.) The DNC did not allow the FBI to examine its server to verify the hacker’s identity. So, the identity revelaed by the DNC and Crowdstrike may be fictitious or it may be misleading. Assange claims that he didn’t get the DNC e-mails from the Russians, for whatever that’s worth. But why didn’t Mueller’s team at least go to London and depose him? He knows who gave him the e-mails. He might have been willing to tell Mueller the truth in exchange for a writ of leniency in the charges against him from the “Chelsea” Manning leaks. That Mueller didn’t do so that indicates to me that they weren’t searching for the facts. They “knew” the Russians did it. Their minds were made up. They just had to prove Trump was privy to the info.
Another fact worth mentioning is that the U.S., China, and Russia can hack into a server and leave a false fingerprint – making identifying the true hacker difficult/impossible. It isn’t too big a leap to conclude that Brennan’s CIA team hacked the DNC server and left the Russian fingerprint as an intentional misdirection to make it look like the Russians were helping Trump. No, that gives Brennan and company entirely too much credit for deviousness. Doesn’t it?
im an applications engineer with over 30 years experience… and been a white hat hacker… its how i got started… the public has very little idea of what level of sophistication is out in the world, and not necessarily just governments, who actually try to find people.
to give you a taste… [for laymen not coders, so dont get all up in it if its simplified]
one of the older hacks for PDF was to define a invalid postscript fonts… why? because fonts at are stored in the kernel, behind the operating system and below it. now the trick here was to actually have your code be generated by the output of a mathematical formula that was used to create curves in fonts which would write outside the bounds of the area, and into other areas and so be activated.. .
there are more of them
have fun with
“One font vulnerability to rule them all” A story of cross-software ownage, shared codebases and advanced exploitation
https://av.tib.eu/media/32820
did anyone answer my post in which the ideas, inventions and such of mine are going in the trash as i am not connected to anything… with a degree, i can claim that tech and space is a construct of being white… without one, ic an have a major solution, and it means nothing.
enjoy
Let us focus again on AesopFan’s citation that Biden was put in charge of policy toward Ukraine by Obama. His comment includes “Biden’s being designated by Obama as the lead on Ukraine issues. It was a designation formalized by having the NSC Director for Ukraine (Ciaramella) occupy an EOVP billet.”
EOVP=Executive Office of the Veep
Not a small thing.
And son Hunter Biden was over there as a parasite sucking money out of Ukraine!
So our president does not get to ask if there was any funny Biden business going on over in Ukraine?
Here is what the Washington Examiner reports today: “Alexander Vindman, the Army lieutenant colonel and Ukraine director on the National Security Council who testified on Capitol Hill last month, works with the whistleblower who filed a complaint against President Trump, according to former White House officials.
“The Washington Examiner has established that the whistleblower is a career CIA analyst who was detailed to the NSC at the White House during the Obama administration and left during the first year of the Trump administration. During the Obama administration, the whistleblower worked on Ukraine issues with 2020 Democratic candidate Joe Biden, who was then vice president and designated as the point man on Ukraine. It is likely that the whistleblower traveled on Air Force Two at least one of the six visits that Biden made to Ukraine.”
Biden likely personally extorted millions from Ukraine on those visits.
It’s what Democrats do.
From this afternoon’s Wall St Journal:
Did Obama Apply His Clinton Rules to the Bidens?
Representatives of a Ukrainian company used the family connection to lobby the State Department.
It’s not clear whether the Ukrainian company Burisma got its money’s worth when it paid handsomely to add Hunter Biden to its board. But the company’s representatives used the family name in attempting to influence the U.S. Government while Joe Biden was Vice President.
If an American business made a similar effort with the son of a government official overseas, it would likely attract a U.S. Department of Justice investigation under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. So why shouldn’t the United States urge that other countries also examine such arrangements?
The Journal’s Jessica Donati reports that a consulting firm hired by Burisma mentioned that “Joe Biden’s son served on the Ukrainian gas company’s board so the firm could leverage a meeting with the State Department, according to documents and a former U.S. official.”
The documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on behalf of its client John Solomon. Ms. Donati adds:
The documents—email exchanges between State Department staff members made public this week—show that the consulting firm, Washington-based Blue Star Strategies, used Hunter Biden’s name in a request for a State Department meeting and then mentioned him again during the meeting as part of an effort to improve Burisma’s image in Washington.
Mr. Biden was appointed to the Burisma board in 2014, when the company and its owner faced allegations of corruption, and he remained there until April of this year… Hunter Biden served on Burisma’s board when his father, then the vice president, was overseeing U.S. efforts to get Ukraine to reduce corruption.
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1190303913045442561?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1190303913045442561&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Famgreatness.com%2F2019%2F11%2F01%2Fcreepy-antifa-goons-show-up-at-journalist-andy-ngos-home-in-andy-ngo-masks-on-halloween%2F
Manju’s hobby.
Tom Grey on November 6, 2019 at 8:48 am said:
I’m waiting for Trump to have a new phrase instead of “whistleblower” –
maybe “deep state blower”.
* * *
On another thread, Artfldgr called him the “snowblower” — maybe a blend of snowflake & whistleblower, or suggesting that the sand the Dems are blowing in our eyes will melt like snow in the sunshine of exposure.
Either way, I like it.
Manju on November 5, 2019 at 6:40 pm said:
…
Parnas and Fruman work for Dmytro Firtash, a Putin mobster who is fighting extradition to the US. But they also work for Rudy Gulliani and (at least in Parnas’ case) President Trump. You can’t make this shit up.
Anyhoo, Firtash appears to be the source for much of Solomon’s material. Solomon’s either a useful idiot or something worse.
* * *
Mike K on November 5, 2019 at 8:12 pm said:
…
manju, I see you got the DNC talking points on time.
* * *
QED
https://www.thenewneo.com/2019/11/06/impeachment-isnt-going-so-well-for-the-democrats-so-far/#comment-2464236
AesopFan on November 8, 2019 at 1:03 am said:
sdferr on November 7, 2019 at 3:12 pm said:
Kyle Cheney @kyledcheney
* * *
I don’t know who this Cheney guy is, but his commenters were almost uniformly leftist, including one of Manju’s colleagues.
@Jake_McQ
Replying to
@kyledcheney
Parnas and Fruman are indicted so the Burisma investigation by Giuliani will come back to haunt Trump.
Burisma >>Shokin affidavit>>Firtash>>Giuliani>>Trump