(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Former Attorney General Bill Barr didn’t hold back when sharing his views on what he termed the “abomination” Manhattan criminal trial involving his former boss, Donald Trump.
In a Wednesday interview with Fox News’s America Reports, Barr criticized the case as “obviously political” and asserted that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg was mistaken on the law.
Barr’s comments came in response to co-host Dana Perino’s question, “I know you think the prosecution seems farfetched. … Your thoughts as to how this is going now that it is underway and what you think about it?”
To this, Barr replied, “I’ve said from the beginning this case is an abomination, it’s obviously political. Seven years after he pays hush money to try to come up with this case.”
Barr elaborated that Bragg’s legal justification for the charges was questionable. “It’s not only farfetched,” he said. “They are trying to predicate it on a federal crime which wasn’t prosecuted. They are wrong about it. This was not a campaign contribution. They are just wrong on the law.”
The former attorney general, who has not communicated with Trump since their fallout during the certification of the 2020 presidential election, asserted that the case poses a threat to the nation,
“To me, this shows that the real threat to liberty,” Barr continued. “The real threat to our system, are the excesses of the progressive left. They are perverting the system of justice and that’s where the danger lies. The corruption and subversion of our institutions by the left.”
During the interview, co-host Bill Hemmer asked whether Barr would endorse Trump ahead of the 2024 presidential election, to which Barr replied affirmatively.
“I’ve said all along, given two bad choices it is my duty to pick the person I think would do the least harm to the country and in my mind that’s—I will support the Republican ticket,” Barr concluded. “The real danger to democracy as I say is the progressive agenda and while Trump — I said Trump may be playing Russian roulette, but a continuation of the Biden administration is national suicide in my opinion.”
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Attorney General Merrick Garland faced intense scrutiny Wednesday from Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., regarding the expiration of the statute of limitations concerning alleged tax mishaps involving Hunter Biden in 2014.
Kennedy’s questions likely referred to IRS whistleblower testimony suggesting that the DOJ might have deliberately delayed the investigation into Hunter Biden to allow the statute of limitations to expire.
“Mr. Hunter Biden failed to pay taxes on $1 million in 2014 and 2015, and he claimed deductions for personal expenses when he did file,” Kennedy began, emphasizing that the expenses included payments for escorts, visits to sex clubs, pornography, a Lamborghini and strip clubs.
“Why did the Department of Justice let the statute of limitations run as? So you can’t prosecute?” Kennedy asked Garland, who appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee.
In response, Garland claimed: “As you well know Senator that investigation is being conducted by Mr. Weiss who was appointed by President Trump to be the U.S. attorney in Delaware.”
Garland alleged that most of the investigation was carried out during the Trump administration. “Mr. Weiss has continued his investigations it’s now a special counsel. He will issue a report which will explain,” he continued.
At this point, Kennedy interjected, questioning, “Are you saying it’s Trump’s fault?”
Garland clarified, “No, I don’t know whether there’s fault or not. Mr. Weiss will explain this in his report.”
Unsatisfied with Garland’s response, Kennedy reiterated his concerns about whether the DOJ deliberately allowed the statute of limitations to expire.
Garland replied: “I’m not going to comment on decisions made in a pending investigation. In the end, Mr. Weiss will issue a report. I will provide the report to Congress you’ll be able to question Mr. Weiss as to his reasoning and he will be able to defend his reasoning.”
Weiss was appointed as U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware by former President Donald Trump in 2018, based on the recommendation of Delaware senators.
Currently, Weiss is prosecuting criminal charges against Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, relating to alleged tax evasion and an illegal gun purchase. Weiss’s handling of the investigation nearly concluded with what many criticized as a “sweetheart deal,” characterized by intricate details that lacked clarity.
The presiding judge scrutinized the plea agreement and its potential grant of immunity for other crimes that Hunter Biden may have committed. This scrutiny led to the dissolution of the case, prompting Weiss to seek special counsel designation from Garland. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty.
After suspending a longtime NPR editor who questioned the outlet’s objectivity and called out its atrocious groupthink, Maher is now facing criticism for a trove of far-left tweets and a Ted Talk video in which she claimed that seeking the truth was overrated.
NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher @krmaher believes that truth is relative. The CCP would agree with her wholeheartedly and tell her that it is “Chinese culture” to kill tens of millions of political undesirables and that the truth is that it is “good” for the Chinese people. pic.twitter.com/JlzH1rAcQO
While Maher has been an infrequent and miniscule donor, all of her donations have gone to Democrats, perhaps providing more fodder for her critics.
All of her donations were recorded before she took the helm of NPR.
Her only large donation was $1,500 to Virginia Rep. Tom Perriello in 2017. After losing his seat in Congress and a 2017 primary bid for Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Perriello went on to become the executive director of George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, underscoring his radical nature.
Shortly thereafter, they dismissed the second article as well, without ever hearing evidence or conducting a trial.
Two impeachment charges were delivered by the U.S. House to the Senate on Tuesday. The Republican-controlled House voted to impeach Mayorkas in February over allegations related to the ongoing border crisis.
On Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, said a debate would be held. However, within minutes of the proceedings beginning, no debate was held and Schumer moved to dismiss both articles of impeachment.
He said the articles of impeachment were unconstitutional, didn’t rise to level of a high crime and misdemeanor and should be dismissed.
After several motions filed that failed by votes along party lines of 51-49, the Senate voted to dismiss the first article of impeachment by a vote of 51 to 48 with Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, voting present.
The first article delivered by the Republican-controlled House cited “willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., was the first senator to object to the first article being dismissed.
“To dismiss or table articles of impeachment against Secretary Mayorkas without a trial here today or in committee is an unprecedented move by Senator Schumer,” he said.
“Never before in the history of our Republic has the Senate dismissed or tabled articles of impeachment when the impeached individual was alive and had not resigned,” he added. “As Sen. Schumer said in 2020, ‘A fair trial has witnesses. A fair trial has relevant documents. As part of the record, a fair trial seeks the truth, nothing more, nothing less.’ I will not assist Sen. Schumer in setting our Constitution ablaze and bulldoze 200 years of precedent.”
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, then filed a motion to proceed with the trial.
Schumer “has argued that Secretary Mayorkas’ defiance of federal immigration law and active aiding and abetting of the worst criminal invasion in our nation’s history does not constitute a high crime or misdemeanor,” Cruz said.
“He has presented no argument on that question,” Cruz continued. “He’s presented no briefing on that question and his position is directly contrary to the original understanding of the Constitution at the time it was ratified and to the explicit position of the Biden Department of Justice has argued before the Supreme Court.”
Schumer’s position “is asking members of the Senate to vote on political expediency to avoid listening to arguments,” Cruz said. “The only rational way to resolve this question is actually to debate it, to consider the Constitution and consider the law.”
His motion was defeated by a vote along party lines of 51-49.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., also filed a motion to adjourn the impeachment until April 30. It was defeated by a vote of 51-49, also along party lines.
Republican Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., stood up expressing shock by the development.
“The Senate just swore an oath to do impartial justice according to the Constitution and the laws of our country,” McConnell said.
“We swore to discharge a duty that is quite different from our normal work,” he continued. “As a court of impeachment, we’re called not to speak, not to debate, but to listen to the case against the accused and to his defense.”
He encouraged Democrats to follow the normal protocol that any other case would follow
Under Schumer’s scheme, “the Senate will not hear the House managers present the details of their case against Secretary Mayorkas that he willingly neglected the duties of his office and that he lied to Congress about the extent of that failure,” McConnell said. “Likewise, we will not hear the secretary’s representatives present the vigorous defense to which he’s entitled.”
He further chided Democrats for not taking their constitutional duties seriously.
Holding a trial “is what the framers actually envisioned,” McConnell said.
“The power of impeachment is one of the most delicate balances our constitutional system strikes with a portion of the American people’s sovereign electoral authority,” he continued. “It purchases a safeguard against malpractice and gives the Senate the power and the duty to decide. This process must not be abused. It must not be short circuited. History will not judge this moment well.”
He filed a motion to table Schumer’s motion, which also lost along party lines by a vote of 51-49.
The Senate then voted to dismiss the first article of impeachment.
Schumer then moved to dismiss Article 2, arguing it “does not allege conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor as required under Article 2 Section 4 of the United States Constitution and is therefore unconstitutional.”
Schumer was “very wrong” for dismissing the articles “but he is even more wrong” for dismissing the second one because it accuses Mayorkas “of knowingly making false statements,” said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.
“This is a violation of 18 USC section 1001—a felony offense,” Lee added. “If this is not a high crime and misdemeanor, what is? If this is not impeachable, what is?”
His remarks were cut short and talked over by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who presided over the proceedings.
Lee also filed a motion to debate the article behind closed doors, which failed along party lines by a vote of 51-49.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said as jurors they had not had the time to review if Schumer’s point of order was contrary to the U.S. Constitution and moved to adjourn proceedings. His motion failed.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., asked, “are we about to set a precedent that an allegation of a felony is not a high crime and misdemeanor? Do the [Democratic] senators understand what they are doing?”
Murray said his question “wasn’t an appropriate parliamentary inquiry.”
Kennedy said lying to Congress is a felony and “since we’re not allowed to talk among ourselves about the absurdity of this and my Democratic colleagues will not allow us to go into closed session to talk about this,” he moved to adjourn and hold a trial on May 1.
He filed two motions, which also failed.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., tried to table Schumer’s point of order, which failed.
Senate Democrats then passed Schumer’s motion to dismiss the second article of impeachment by a vote of 51-49.
Within less than an hour and a half, Senate Democrats ended any possibility of a trial.
(Paul Sperry, RealClearInvestigations) The ‘whistleblower’ who sparked Donald Trump’s first impeachment was deeply involved in the political maneuverings behind Biden-family business schemes in Ukraine that Trump wanted probed, newly obtained emails from former Vice President Joe Biden’s office reveal.
In 2019, then-National Intelligence Council analyst Eric Ciaramella touched off a political firestorm when he anonymously accused Trump of linking military aid for Ukraine to a demand for an investigation into alleged Biden corruption in that country.
Eric Ciaramella
But four years earlier, while working as a national security analyst attached to then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office, Ciaramella was a close adviser when Biden threatened to cut off U.S. aid to Ukraine unless it fired its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Ukraine-based Burisma Holdings. At the time, the corruption-riddled energy giant was paying Biden’s son Hunter millions of dollars.
Those payments—along with other evidence tying Joe Biden to his family’s business dealings—received little attention in 2019 as Ciaramella accused Trump of a corrupt quid pro quo.
Neither did subsequent evidence indicating that Hunter Biden’s associates had identified Shokin as a “key target.” These matters are now part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
“It now seems there was material evidence that would have been used at the impeachment trial [to exonerate Trump],” said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who has testified as an expert witness in the ongoing Biden impeachment inquiry. “Trump was alleging there was a conflict of interest with the Bidens, and the evidence could have challenged Biden’s account and established his son’s interest in the Shokin firing.”
Ciaramella’s role—including high-level discussions with top Biden aides and Ukrainian prosecutors—is only now coming to light thanks to the recent release of White House emails and photos from the National Archives.
The emails show Ciaramella expressed shock—“Yikes” is what he wrote—at Biden’s move to withhold the $1 billion in aid from Kyiv, which represented a sudden shift in U.S. policy.
They also show he was drawn into White House communications over how to control adverse publicity from Hunter taking a lucrative seat on Burisma’s board.
Yet there is no evidence Ciaramella raised alarms about the questionable Biden business activities he witnessed firsthand, which is in sharp contrast to 2019. In that instance, he was galvanized into action after being told by White House colleague Alexander Vindman of an “improper” phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
During the call, Trump solicited Zelenskyy’s help in investigating Burisma and Hunter Biden’s role in the company.
Some former congressional investigators say Ciaramella effectively helped cover up a scandal far worse than what Trump was impeached over. What’s more, he failed to disclose that he had a potential conflict of interest stemming from his connection to the matter Trump asked Zelenskyy to probe when he lodged his complaint against Trump.
RealClearInvestigations was the first to identify the then-33-year-old Ciaramella as the anonymous impeachment “whistleblower”—something major media continue to keep under tight wraps.
Ciaramella worked under CIA Director John Brennan when then-President Barack Obama made Biden his point man on Ukraine in 2014, the same year Burisma hired Hunter.
The next year, the CIA detailed Ciaramella, a longtime advocate for aid to Ukraine, to the White House, where he worked closely with Biden and his staff as a top adviser on key Ukrainian policies.
After Biden left office, he stayed on at the GOP White House until mid-2017 even though he’s a Democrat, working as a Ukrainian and Russian analyst on Trump’s National Security Council. Co-workers there accused him of trying to sabotage Trump, including allegedly leaking sensitive information to the press.
RealClearInvestigations has reviewed more than 2,000 pages of newly disclosed archived emails from the former vice president’s office related to Ukraine, of which more than 160 contained references to Ciaramella.
They reveal that his role advising Biden’s office potentially intersects with the current impeachment inquiry in several areas.
Chiefly, Ciaramella focused on aid to Ukraine and anti-corruption reforms in the country. In that capacity, he:
Hosted, cleared into the White House, and met face-to-face there with senior Ukrainian prosecutors.
Gave a “readout” of the meeting to his superiors, who in turn pushed for Shokin’s firing.
Traveled with Biden to Kyiv during the 2015 trip during which Biden demanded Shokin’s firing.
Wrote media “talking points” for Ukrainian officials.
Huddled with the top Biden officials involved in discussions concerning the $1 billion aid package and Shokin, including: Amos Hochstein; Victoria Nuland; Geoffrey Pyatt; Bridget Brink; and Michael Carpenter.
Corresponded with Biden officials coordinating responses to negative media reports about Hunter’s cushy and controversial Burisma job.
Former Obama–Biden administration officials have confirmed in recent closed-door congressional testimony that Ciaramella was a key part of Biden’s process for making policy in Ukraine.
In 2016, for instance, a White House photo shows him taking notes at a White House meeting Biden held with then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to discuss Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms and other issues.
Ciaramella also worked directly with top Obama and Biden administration diplomats on Ukraine, including senior State Department official Victoria Nuland.
“Eric was regularly the clearing authority to get me into the White House for interagency meetings on Ukraine,” Nuland revealed in a 2020 Senate deposition.
Asked if she ever discussed Ukraine policy and Shokin with Ciaramella, Nuland testified: “Of course, I did. He was part of the interagency process. He was also on my negotiating team for the six, seven rounds of negotiations I did with the Russians on [the disputed Ukraine region] Donbas.”
Ciaramella was directly involved in talks concerning the massive U.S. aid package to Ukraine that Biden conditioned on the removal of Shokin, who at the time had seized the assets of the corrupt Burisma oligarch employing Hunter Biden. He also arranged and participated in White House talks with Ukrainian prosecutors visiting from Shokin’s office.
White House visitor logs confirm Ciaramella escorted Shokin’s deputy prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze, into the White House for a January 2016 meeting. A White House agenda for the meeting lists Ciaramella as “point of contact” for the Ukrainian delegation.
He also checked in Andriy Telizhenko, the Ukrainian Embassy official who says they discussed Burisma and Hunter Biden during the meeting and struggled to understand why his U.S. counterparts were suddenly hostile to Shokin after praising him in earlier talks.
Emails from the time show Ciaramella appeared surprised to hear about the linkage between the $1 billion loan to Ukraine and the dismissal of Shokin.
Though Biden maintains he insisted Kyiv oust Shokin because he was too soft on weeding out fraud in entities that included Burisma, Ciaramella suggested he didn’t share the view that Shokin was corrupt.
“We were super impressed with the group,” Ciaramella added, “and we had a two-hour discussion of their priorities and the obstacles they face.”
In an email, Ciaramella expresses shock at the quid pro quo to oust the Ukrainian prosecutor. / SOURCE: U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs/Committee on Finance, Page 134
On Jan. 21, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt emailed Ciaramella and other White House aides an article from the Ukrainian press—“U.S. loan guarantee conditional on Shokin’s dismissal.”
“Yikes. I don’t recall this coming up in our meeting with them,” Ciaramella replied, referring to the White House meeting he hosted with top Ukrainian prosecutors.
But in a closed-door 2020 deposition before the Senate, Pyatt sounded skeptical that Ciaramella was in the dark about the decision. “I think you have to ask Eric what he meant by ‘Yikes,’” Pyatt told Senate investigators.
He said that he believed conditioning the loan guarantee on Shokin’s removal “obviously came up in those meetings” hosted by Ciaramella, suggesting that Biden’s aide knew of the quid pro quo before Pyatt circulated the article about it from the Ukrainian press.
The day before he hosted the Ukraine prosecutors, Ciaramella received an agenda from a State Department official that asked him to “note the importance of appointing a new PG [Prosecutor General], reiterating that Shokin is an obstacle to reform,” according to emails.
The agenda also called on Ciaramella to “ask the del [Ukrainian delegation] what high-level cases are on the docket for prosecution,” which raises suspicions in some quarters that Biden’s advisers were fishing for information about Shokin’s plans for prosecuting Burisma oligarchs, something Hunter Biden had been asked to find out.
In a Jan. 21 email, Pyatt told Ciaramella to “buckle in” because, as he later explained to Senate investigators, the deal was a “difficult issue” and “there was going to be political controversy around this [news].”
The former ambassador demurred when asked if conditioning the $1 billion on Shokin’s firing was Biden’s idea or came from his office. “It was the—our interagency policy,” he testified, adding, “I don’t remember when the vice president would have weighed in on this.”
However, Pyatt allowed that it was a sudden change in policy. “At the beginning,” he said, “it was not our expectation that Shokin’s removal would be necessary.”
Indeed, an Oct. 1, 2015, memo summarizing the recommendation of the Interagency Policy Committee on Ukraine stated, “Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its [anti-corruption] reform agenda to justify a third [loan] guarantee.”
Ciaramella was a member of the IPC task force, which monitored Shokin’s office. The next month, moreover, the task force drafted a loan guarantee agreement that did not call for Shokin’s removal. Then, in December, Joe Biden flew to Kyiv to demand his ouster.
If what Ciaramella expressed in his email (which he knew would be part of archived White House records) was a genuine reaction, it appears that Vice President Biden went against the recommendation of one of his top NSC advisers on Ukraine.
If Ciaramella were genuinely alarmed, he might have blown the whistle on his boss like he did on Trump, but he stayed mum. If, on the other hand, Ciaramella were a party to the quid-pro-quo discussions, as Pyatt suggests, then he had “a direct conflict,” noted Derek Harvey, the former congressional investigator involved in the first impeachment.
Either way, Ciaramella clearly found himself in the middle of a major controversy.
Just weeks prior, White House photos indicate that Ciaramella traveled with Biden on the same December 2015 Air Force Two flight the vice president took to Kyiv to threaten Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to ax Shokin.
Republicans have accused Biden of pushing Shokin’s ouster to block scrutiny of his son’s actions.
“Biden called an audible and changed U.S. policy toward Ukraine to benefit his son on the plane ride to Ukraine,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., said, and “later bragged about withholding a U.S. loan guarantee if Ukraine did not fire the prosecutor [Shokin].”
Biden and his supporters have repeatedly claimed Shokin had to go because he wasn’t cracking down on corruption and that everyone else in the administration, as well as Europe, agreed Shokin should be fired.
This remains the prevailing narrative in major U.S. media. But around that time, Shokin had conducted a raid of Burisma oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky’s home, seizing his house, cars, and other assets.
IRS Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, who examined Hunter’s emails as part of his investigation of Hunter for tax evasion, said Shokin was identified as a “key target” in emails exchanged between Hunter and Burisma officials in November 2015—the month before Biden traveled to Ukraine to demand Shokin’s removal.
Just days before Biden arrived in Kyiv in early December 2015 to demand Shokin’s ouster, Hunter allegedly called his father from Dubai following a meeting there with Burisma official Vadym Pozharskyi, who asked him to pressure his father to shut down Shokin’s investigation.
Vice President Biden was familiar with Pozharskyi, having met with him in April 2015 during a dinner at the Cafe Milano in D.C. arranged by Hunter.
“The unstated goal was to have the Ukrainian prosecutor removed in an effort to close the criminal case against [Burisma founder] Zlochevsky,” Ziegler said in recent testimony before the House impeachment inquiry.
After Shokin was pushed out of office, the Burisma investigation dried up.
Ciaramella tried to marshal a defense for Biden in the whistleblower complaint he sent to Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., in August 2019. He listed among Trump’s concerns at the time of the fateful July phone call “that former Vice President Biden had pressured Poroshenko in 2016 to fire Shokin in order to quash a purported criminal probe into Burisma Holdings.”
But Ciaramella attempted to pour cold water on the notion by referencing a Bloomberg News article that quoted a “former senior Ukrainian prosecutor” who falsely claimed “that Mr. Shokin in fact was not investigating Burisma at the time of his removal in 2016.”
White House emails reveal that Ciaramella was looped into messages sent by Biden’s communications team, who were concerned that Hunter Biden taking a position on corrupt Burisma’s board created unseemly optics and undercut their boss’ mission to clean up corruption in Ukraine.
In a Dec. 8, 2015, email, for example, Biden’s communications director Kate Bedingfield copied Ciaramella on a link to a New York Times article headlined, “The Knotty Ties Between Joe Biden, His Son and Ukraine.”
Bedingfield is quoted in the story, authored by James Risen, denying Hunter had traveled with his father to Ukraine in an attempt to downplay his influence.
She also said Ukrainian officials never raised his position on the Burisma board with Biden as an issue of concern. Risen got spun, however, on the issue of compensation for Hunter, reporting that it was “not out of the ordinary.”
At the time, Burisma was paying Hunter, who had no energy sector experience, $1 million a year just for lending his name to its board. It turns out that Hunter never traveled to Ukraine for a single meeting in the five years he sat on Burisma’s board.
Republicans suspect Biden got the prosecutor ousted to keep the money flowing from Burisma to the Biden family.
Career State Department officials led by George Kent, who was stationed in Ukraine at the time, tried to get Biden’s aides to raise the issue of potential family conflicts with the vice president.
Despite their concerns, Biden never asked his son to step down from the Burisma board, which would have made all questions go away. And despite Kent and other officials identifying Burisma founder Zlochevsky by name as a corrupt actor in Ukraine, Biden himself never publicly called Zlochevsky out as corrupt while Hunter served on his board and pocketed millions in payments from him.
For all his talk of fighting corruption in Ukraine, Biden failed to distance himself from one of the most corrupt oligarchs in the country.
Harvey, who served as the staff investigator for the Republican side of the House Intelligence Committee during the 2019 Trump impeachment hearings, said: “The [Biden] impeachment inquiry should compel Ciaramella to testify since we now know he was involved in communications about Biden using the $1 billion in aid to extort Ukraine into firing Shokin.”
Harvey said Ciaramella would make a valuable material witness against Biden in the probe, which centers on whether Biden used his White House clout or political influence on behalf of his son’s foreign paymasters.
White House photos indicate Ciaramella took notes during his meetings with Biden, his staff, and Ukrainian officials—materials that lawmakers could subpoena along with his testimony.
Another former staff investigator noted that Ciaramella is no longer protected by federal whistleblower laws. He has left the government and now works as a senior fellow focusing on Ukraine and Russia for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, where he is consulting with White House officials and pushing for billions more in U.S. aid for Ukraine—including “a Marshall Plan for the Ukrainian military.” Through a spokesperson, Ciaramella declined to comment.
“None of the whistleblower protections apply to this particular situation,” said Jason Foster, former chief investigative counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee and a whistleblower expert.
He also noted that the Whistleblower Protection Act doesn’t shield whistleblowers from any other conduct they might have been involved in, including their own conduct. Nor does it give them a legal right to anonymity.
A spokeswoman for the House Oversight Committee, which is leading the Biden impeachment inquiry, declined to say whether Ciaramella is on the witness list. “I don’t have anything for you on this at this time,” said House Oversight Communications Director Jessica Collins.
However, Comer has publicly described the “whistleblower” impeachment of Trump as a “cover-up” operation for the alleged Biden blackmail scheme in Ukraine involving U.S. aid and the Burisma corruption probe.
What Ciaramella witnessed and what he documented in notes he took during high-level Biden–Ukraine meetings could now be relevant to the active impeachment inquiry of President Biden.
The House may have little choice but to hold the kind of hearings the Democrats blocked during the earlier impeachment by keeping Ciaramella’s identity—and his own potential conflict—secret.
As the catalyst for Trump’s impeachment, Ciaramella could now be a reluctant witness for Biden’s.
(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) President Joe Biden stirred confusion when he falsely claimed that his uncle, Ambrose Finnegan, might have been eaten by cannibals in New Guinea during World War II. Biden reiterated these claims not once, but twice on Wednesday.
Despite Biden’s efforts to honor his late uncle, who perished during the war, military records present a different explanation about Finnegan’s death, the New York Postreported.
According to military records, Finnegan died following a plane crash, with his aircraft plunging into the Pacific. Despite this, Biden persisted with his unproven claims during two separate instances while campaigning in Pennsylvania ahead of the state’s Democratic primary.
“He got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals at the time,” Biden asserted to reporters gathered outside a WWII memorial in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
“They never recovered his body, but the government went back when I went down there and they checked and found some parts of the plane,” Biden added.
Biden’s got a new story about Uncle Bosey being shot down and eaten by cannibals…
The 81-year-old President repeated these unverified claims about his uncle during his conversations with members of the United Steelworkers, as reported by the Post.
“He got shot down in New Guinea and they never found the body because there used to be — there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea,” Biden remarked.
Biden, for the third time in less than 24 hours, tells the dubious story about his “Uncle Bosey” and “a lot of cannibals” in New Guinea before repeating the debunked “suckers and losers” hoax.
He also claims D-Day was on a Sunday (it was on a Tuesday).
According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, responsible for gathering information on prisoners of war or missing-in-action servicemen, Finnegan passed away on May 14, 1944, after his plane was compelled to ditch into the ocean off the north coast of New Guinea. His body was never recovered.
“Both engines failed at low altitude, and the aircraft’s nose hit the water hard,” the federal agency said. “Three men failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash. One crew member survived and was rescued by a passing barge. An aerial search the next day found no trace of the missing aircraft or the lost crew members.”
Biden’s Pennsylvania campaign stop was already marred by gaffes, notably when he referenced a discredited story from the Atlantic alleging that former President Donald Trump had canceled a visit to a World War I veterans’ cemetery in France because he purportedly did not wish to visit “suckers” and “losers.”
The Atlantic’s claims have been widely debunked, with 25 White House officials saying such claims never happened and the Washington Post’s fact-checker reporting that many of the 25 individuals were present during the France trip. Subsequent, released documents revealed that the trip to the cemetery was canceled due to inclement weather.
Regarding the lede of this story: I obtained documents from the Navy via #FOIA about Trump’s 2018 trip to Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris and the documents say his transport was canceled by the Navy due to rain. https://t.co/oNWsvAPy1zpic.twitter.com/keFtW7QC8b
The senator’s legal team laid out the possible defense strategy in a motion unsealed on Tuesday. In it, Menendez asks the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to sever his case from his co-defendants, including his wife, Nadine.
“At trial, as part of his defense, Senator Menendez may elect to testify to communications with his wife that serve to materially decrease any inference of culpability on Senator Menendez’s part,” the motion states.
These communications, according to Menendez’s team, will prove that Nadine did not adequately inform Menendez about her meetings with foreign officials from Egypt or why she had received “certain monetary items,” thereby “demonstrating the absence of any improper intent on Senator Menendez’s part.”
The motion even goes so far as to state that Nadine, not the senator, should be inculpated because she “withheld information from Senator Menendez or otherwise led him to believe that nothing unlawful was taking place.”
The court apparently granted the motion last week when U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein ruled that Menendez and his wife will be tried separately on bribery charges.
Both Bob and Nadine Menendez are facing 18 criminal counts in the sprawling bribery case and have pleaded not guilty.
They stand accused of accepting bribes that included more than $150,000 in gold bars, $566,000 in cash payments, a Mercedes–Benz convertible and other lavish gifts to assist businessmen Wael Hana, Jose Uribe and Fred Daibes.
They have also been charged by the Justice Department for acting as foreign agents on behalf of the Egyptian and Qatari governments.
There are more than 40,000 homeless people in Los Angeles, according to the city. But instead of “hiding” them, “what we will do is house people,” Bass said, admitting that the “crisis on our streets is nothing less than a disaster.”
Touting her Inside Safe program, which she said has moved more than 21,000 homeless people into temporary shelters, Bass claimed that moving homeless people into temporary housing would eventually end the crisis.
Obtaining property to house the homeless in, however, is expensive and time-consuming.
To “speed up” the process, Bass argued the city’s wealthy elites should pitch in with their own resources.
“Right now, we’re working to move past nightly rentals,” she explained. “We are asking the most fortunate Angelenos to participate in this effort, with personal, private sector and philanthropic funds—to help us acquire more properties, lower the cost of capital and speed up housing.”
Bass defended this request by pointing out that the homelessness crisis has affected everyone in the city, including businesses, customers and all taxpayers.
“I will just not accept this and our city can’t afford to accept it,” she said.
Just this week, a state audit report found that California failed to track how billions of dollars allocated to the homelessness crisis had been spent.
California has the highest number of homeless people living outdoors in the country. And despite the state spending a record amount of taxpayer dollars to address the issue, the homeless population continues to rise in the Golden State. It is up 6% compared to last year, with about 181,000 people considered as homeless in the state’s 2023 count. Most are suffering from drug addiction or mental illnesses.
(Headline USA) Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer finally condemned a viral “Death to America” chant that took place during a protest in Dearborn earlier this month.
Whitmer was one of several prominent state Democrats who had not released a statement on the matter, even after the White House publicly denounced the protest’s “violent rhetoric.”
On Sunday, however, Whitmer’s office finally spoke out. “This hateful rhetoric is unacceptable, and does not represent Michigan or Dearborn,” said the statement.
“The Dearborn community is full of hardworking, proud Americans,” it continued. “Our state is diverse and we are proud of it.”
When asked why they had not released this statement immediately after the protest, a spokesperson for Whitmer claimed it had been “prepared and provided to media upon request,” according to Fox News.
However, a Google search indicated that all online references to the statement in pieces published prior to Sunday attributed it to the Fox News article, in which it is believed to have first appeared.
The protest in Dearbor took place on Al-Quds [Jerusalem] Day, the last Friday of Ramadan, during which celebrants remember Iran’s 1979 revolution and the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s prayer for “the victory of the Muslims over the infidels.”
The April 5 event featured several Muslim activists who have been rallying leftist voters in the state against the Biden administration for its continued support of Israel in its war against Hamas.
“It’s not Genocide Joe that has to go; it’s the entire system that has to go,” local activist Takek Bazzi said, referring to President Joe Biden. “Any system that would allow such atrocities and such devilry to happen and would support it—such a system does not deserve to exist on God’s earth.”
The crowd responded by repeatedly chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
Other Michigan Democrats are still reluctant to condemn the anti-American rhetoric. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., whose district includes Dearborn, refused to say whether she disapproved of the chant when confronted earlier this week.
“I’m talking about your guys’ racist tropes,” Tlaib told Fox Business’s Hillary Vaughn. “You know, you guys know exactly what you do, and I know you’re Islamaphobic, but you guys gotta deal with it on your own selves, you’re not gonna use me.”
(Molly Bruns, Headline USA) During an interview released Tuesday with newscaster Tucker Carlson, Telegram founder and CEO Pavel Durov revealed that the United States government had attempted to coerce a Telegram engineer to open “back doors” into the platform that would allow unfettered spying.
Telegram founder @durov explains to @TuckerCarlson how the US government tried to secretly hire his engineer to create “back doors” for officials to spy on users.
“For us running a privacy focused social media platform that probably wasn’t the best environment to be in.” pic.twitter.com/d8sFvmDuk4
Durov, a Russian native living in Dubai, said officials with an unspecified government agency had attempted to hire an employee from his team last time he traveled to the U.S.
“I brought an engineer that is working for Telegram and there was an attempt to secretly hire my engineer behind my back by cyber-security officers,” he said.
According to Durov’s engineer, the officials wanted more information on Telegram’s open-source libraries and attempted to persuade him to use certain tools to open up back doors into the platform’s code.
Theoretically, this could allow governments to spy on Telegram users.
The vulnerability would not simply have granted access to America’s deep state, however.
“The U.S. government, or any other government!” Durov said. “A back door is a back door, regardless of who is using it.”
The young CEO said he believed his engineer’s story because he also faced scrutiny by the American government.
“One time I was having my breakfast, like 9 a.m., and the FBI showed up at my house that I was renting. That was quite surprising,” he said. “I thought, ‘We are getting too much attention here’ … For us, running a privacy-focused social-media platform, that probably wasn’t the best environment to be in.”
Due to its privacy protections, the Telegram platform has proven popular among fringe anti-government groups deemed by the intelligence communty to be “domestic violent extremists,” as well as Satanic cults, including the O9A, that have been implicated in a series of homicides, and incidents involving pedophilia and child sexual abuse.
The FBI and other agencies are known to have infiltrated many of these groups and, in some cases, assisted in propping them up in order to entrap other would-be members.
Durov explained that the company ended up settling in Dubai because of the ease of doing business, low taxes and accessible infrastructure. The United Arab Emirates is also a neutral country, making it ideal for a neutral social platform.
Telegram reportedly received no pressure coming from the UAE government. However, other governments—including the United States—have continued to pressure Durov and his team to provide (or not provide) information about private citizens.
For example, after the Jan. 6, 2021 uprising at the U.S. Capitol, Durov said Democrats sent a letter to Telegram requesting data on people who participated in the protest. The letter claimed that not doing so would be in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Two weeks later, the staff received another letter from Republicans saying that if Telegram provided such information they would be in violation of the Constitution.
Telegram opted to ignore both congressional letters altogether.
