The Case in Search of a Crime and the Dogs Sniffing It Out

THE WOEFULLY LEGALLY DEFICIENT business records case levied against 45th President Donald Trump by Alvin Bragg in New York is single-handedly making a mockery of the state’s judicial system. 

The prosecution is setting to rest by week’s end, then Trump’s team will ask for a directed verdict, which Judge Juan Merchan will deny, and will proceed with a defense. That it’s difficult to know how to defend a case where no crime has actually been alleged will be a novelty for these experienced lawyers. It’s the case in search of a crime. The jury will deliberate. Hopefully one (or more) will see the problems here and there will either be a hung jury or Trump will be acquitted. If he’s found guilty—who knows? Obviously, he’ll appeal, but…

Keith Davidson, Stormy Daniel’s attorney, testified the $130,000 ‘hush money’ transaction wasn’t that as much as legitimate “consideration.” Hope Hicks testified the N.D.A. with Daniels was meant to shield Melania and Barron from media exposure, not to influence the outcome of the election. These prosecution witnesses helped the defense. As for Daniels’ testimony, it was incredible by any measure as her story has repeatedly changed on whims or schemes, depending how ‘conspiratorial’ one is. 

The latest was star witness and convicted perjurer, Michael Cohen, Trump’s former ‘fixer’/lawyer, who apparently (and awkwardly) still lives at Trump Tower. Cohen has followed Daniels’ path on the stand.  And, like Daniels, he came across  as  a  real  shyster,  not  to  mention,  a  real a$$hole. Oddly for Cohen, his testimony seemed mostly truthful even if he was dishonest and unethical. For example, he admitted to recording Trump (his then-client) without his knowledge or consent. Interestingly, the recordings proved Trump was following Cohen’s own advice. The irony is rather sickening. 

Constitutional attorney and law professor Jonathan Turley aptly titled his article for The New York Post: “The Appearance of Michael Cohen: A Wreck in Search of a Race.” (Read here.) He analogized Cohen’s appearance thusly: “Michael Cohen is to criminal justice what car crashes are to Nascar: few want to admit it, but he is the perverse draw for the wreck-obsessed. The difference is that Cohen was already a rolling smoking wreck when he pulled up to the track.”

Horrified by the notion prosecutors would bring such a case, Turley added, “The assumption was that no rational prosecutor would base a major criminal case virtually entirely on the testimony of Michael Cohen who was just recently denounced by a judge as a serial perjurer peddling ‘perverse’ theories in court.” 

Horrifying is Turley’s conclusion: “The calculus of Alvin Bragg is now obvious. He is counting on the jury convicting Trump regardless of the evidence. He believes that all he needs is to check the boxes on the elements of the crime, no matter how unbelievable the vehicle.”

Also interesting were Tuesday’s revelation about Cohen and Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel’s Office which “wanted a piece of Michael Cohen before he reported to prison in 2018. Indeed, when all the questions are answered, we might discover that it was Mueller’s pitbull, Andrew Weissmann, the FBI, and the DOJ who were responsible for his bizarre plea deal that sparked the idea for this wrong-headed case,” wrote Victoria Taft at pjmedia. 

Cohen testified to meeting with Mueller several times prior to reporting to prison starting in 2018 before he pleaded guilty. He did get a plea deal from federal prosecutors for tax evasion, making false statements to a bank, and—out of the blue—campaign violations. Had he been found guilty of all charges, received the maximum penalties, with concurrent sentencing, he would have faced 45 years rather than the three he ultimately served. (Merchan gave the jury some instructions on this that will likely be grounds for an appeal because they were highly prejudicial.) Oh, and as for the Mueller Report? It seems Cohen’s name was mentioned 75 times. 

Judge Merchan has a blatantly obvious anti-Trump bias. Aside from seemingly biased rulings and his unconstitutionally broad and vague ‘gag order’ on the 45th president, his daughter, Loren Merchan, has not only been a Democrat operative working on the Biden-Harris campaign and profiting off of the trial her father is overseeing in her capacity as a partner in Authentic Campaigns and beneficiary of George Soros cash, it turns out she also worked on ousting Trump from the ballot in Colorado, according to a comprehensive report by Natalie Winters. (Even if he is swayed by his daughter’s activities, which she she should be allowed to do, he should’ve recused himself or at least avoid the appearance of, and actual conflict of interest in shielding Lauren, an adult, from criticism.)

As of Tuesday evening, it was being reported that Trump’s motion on the gag order in the New York appeals court was denied. “We find that Justice Merchan properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases..,” quoted CNN anchor, Kaitlan Collins, on X. Appealing that ruling, even if it were favorable and expedited, will be too little, too late. 

Things are out of control in Merchan’s frigid and hostile courtroom. Just to make sure the public sees as little of the unfolding disaster as possible, he has now banned the once per day morning ‘photo spray’ where still photographers were allowed for a few moments to capture the scene before festivities began. Audio and video has been banned altogether.

Is Google Too Big to Compete?

IT FELL OFF MY RADAR SCREEN, what with all the Trump criminal, civil, equitable, administrative, appellate, and bullsh!t cases being heard in myriad tribunals around the nation in advance of the 2024 presidential election. It gave the MSM something to distract the public with. 

I’m talking about U.S. v. Google, a case brought by the U.S. government and 38 states against the tech mega-corporation with annual revenue in 2023 of $307 billion—than the gross domestic product of not-inconsequential countries. At issue, of course, is whether or not Google is a monopoly, and one that abuses its power as such. Closing arguments in the case were heard on Friday in Virginia. First brought in 2020, the lawsuit, with over 50 witnesses, took ten weeks to try before Federal Judge Amit Mehta.

Google, whose parent company is Alphabet, has nine products that have more than a billion users each. These include Google search (4.9b), Chrome browser (3.4b), Android smartphone operating system (3b), Google Play Store (2.5b), YouTube (2b), Google Workspace (3b), Gmail (1.8b), Google Photos (1b), and Google Maps (1b). 

Google Search is the product most at question as it controls 92% of the market, equating to 4.9 billion users. The second-largest is Microsoft’s Bing, controlling a mere three percent, with the remainder being country-specific, like Yandex in Russia or Baidu in China. The market share of Google search also isn’t likely to diminish on its own. The company has used its market strength to scrape the internet to generate AI answers for users, a project now in beta, but not yet ready for prime time. Presumably Chrome will only enhance its AI answers availability when it is ready. 

As for the Android OS, it controls 70% of that market, with Apple’s iOS a distant second at 28.5 percent. Gmail is a market leader, too, after the early days of email competition between Microsoft and Yahoo. Aside from all that, Google has a self-driving car company, a medical research company, and its own venture capital firm, among other things.

One of the more interesting revelations from unsealed trial documents is that as a long-term default search engine for Apple’s Safari web browser, Google paid a jaw-dropping $20 billion to Apple to maintain its default status on Apple devices in 2022. The default setting can be changed to, say, DuckDuckGo, of course, and by now, one would suppose most people know how to do it, but the default could just as easily require that input from a user, enabling more meaningful competition. 

The gist of Google’s defense is that there are plenty of ways to search the internet, and people use them, citing examples of websites that users may very well go to, or be linked to directly. Examples: Amazon or Expedia. 

They have a valid point. Most of us know how to shortcut internet searches this way and vastly prefer it over going to a search engine that harvests our data and shoves unwelcome and sometimes offensive advertising into our search for which they charge huge sums that they likely wouldn’t get if they weren’t, in fact, a monopoly. For this reason, I personally disdain the company and wouldn’t feel bad if they lost—until I looked at my monthly brokerage statement where I hold Alphabet shares afterward, that is. 

No American trial would be complete without missing records and this one has it in spades. A question remains over whether the company deleted or failed to retain documents which were to be used as evidence at trial. Apparently, executives chatted about sensitive matters with chat history off, which Google maintains is its default, but plaintiffs believe it was an intentional decision and the judge seemed incredulous the company would leave such a matter up to the c-suite. The D.O.J. has asked for sanctions. 

It wouldn’t be the first such time evidence was lost at Google. In a separate case brought by game maker Fortnite’s Epic Games last year, U.S. District Judge James Donato found it “willful and intentional suppression of relevant evidence” calling it “troubling,” and saying it “undercuts due process” and is “antithetical to our system.” 

If Google is found by Judge Mehta to be liable in this case, there will be a remedies phase where corrective measures will be determined in order to increase the competition in the internet search market. 

A second antitrust case between the D.O.J. and Google scheduled for this fall will be over advertising technology. 

Other lawsuits against other companies have also been filed to reign in Big Tech.  

The original Complaint can be viewed here. Other trial documents are linked to, here. A brief overview of the case from the Congressional Research Service (recommended) is here. 

My own uninformed guess as to what Judge Mehta will rule is this: he will find Google to be anti-competitive and apply remedies requiring it to build user preferences into its products. Not having followed the case, I don’t think this based on anything said by him in court: it’s more that it seems rather obvious, but also has an easy remedy. The question is, would that remedy be enough. My stock portfolio hopes that it is…

“Dirty Prosecutors. Dirty Case.”

CONTRARY TO what they affirmed to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, the Biden regime’s D.O.J. and their likely illegally-appointed hatchet man, special counsel Jack Smith, admitted to what isn’t surprising—namely, they rearranged cartons of ‘classified’ documents seized at Mar-a-Lago, and don’t know the order or placement of them as they were originally found.Their authenticity is therefore put into question. This came from a government’s response to a motion to extend time filed with the court on 5/3/24, here. 

Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton tweeted this out late on Friday, stating the government acknowledged the inconsistency with what their attorney represented to the court:

“After the boxes were brought to WFO, the FBI created an index to correlate the documents with classification markings to codes (e.g., document “bb”) and labeled the classified cover sheets in the boxes with the codes for the seized documents. The FBI also generally replaced the handwritten sheets with classified cover sheets annotated with the index code, but regardless, any handwritten sheets that currently remain in the boxes do not represent additional classified documents—they were just not removed when the classified cover sheets with the index code were added. In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet.“

Independent investigative reporter Julie Kelly was also busy tweeting Friday night, writing, “Dirty prosecutors. Dirty case. Now you know why Cannon is unsealing as much as she can, appointed a special master after raid, and why the ‘legal experts’ want her recused.” 

President Donald Trump was quick to comment: 

Judge Aileen Cannon has been aiming for transparency in the Trump ‘documents case,’ having already redacted some elucidating facts Biden, his D.O.J., and Smith wanted under wraps. 

An Election Interference Conspiracy Is Between Bragg, Smith, Willis, Etc.

ON TUESDAY, the House G.O.P. conference chair, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) filed an ethics complaint with the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility against special counsel Jack Smith over his pro- persecution of 45th President Donald Trump, contending he has “unlawfully interfere[d] with the 2024 presidential election.” Her primary gripe, for which she wants Smith censured, is that Smith’s “rushing” the case unjustly to ensure the publicity will maximize adverse coverage of the leading presidential candidate. 

The D.O.J. has a selectively utilized tacit policy of avoiding actions that could influence an election in the 60 days prior to it. (Hillary Clinton appeared unable to escape this ‘rule’ in 2016 for her unsecured, unauthorized private email server used for work. She didn’t need to, however, given then-F.B.I. Director James Comey’s conclusion “no reasonable prosecutor” would pursue a case against her, though that seems especially absurd given today’s presumably ‘reasonable’ Trump prosecutors have shown themselves to be most enthusiastic and zealous about taking on more frivolous and vengeful cases against him.) Apparently, this ’60-day rule’ is also a pretext for rushing cases through the judicial system precipitously, with the ultimate result of denying due process to a defendant, at least if his last name begins with a ’T’ and rhymes with ‘chump.’

Stefanik isn’t really the appropriate person to file a complaint with any bar associations Smith may be a member of, but Trump’s attorneys certainly could if they believed he was violating the Rules or Code of Professional Conduct. Perhaps they don’t think he has, are too busy defending their client, or don’t want to play nasty—who knows. 

More likely, it is Stefanik putting in yeoman’s effort to appear to be taking affirmative action to defend the president whose vice president she’d presumably like to be. She has done similar things in the past. In December, she requested an ethics investigation into U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell who was sitting on cases connected to Trump and the Jan. 6th defendants.  (Read it here.) And the month before, she filed an ethics complaint against N.Y. Judge Arthur Engoron, who sat on the Trump ‘civil fraud’ case, requesting he resign and accusing him of “inappropriate bias and judicial intemperance.” (Read it here.) In its defense, the D.O.J. prosecutor, Jay Bratt, informed the judge that Smith’s tea, had sought advice from the department’s Public Integrity Section of a manual Stefanik had cited. 

Stefanik’s belief was advanced by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News two days earlier. He characterized all the cases against Trump as a “conspiracy” intended to skew the presidential election, saying:

“Alvin Bragg [is saying] President Trump was involved in a conspiracy to obstruct the 2016 election. And Jack Smith is saying President Trump was involved in a conspiracy to interfere with the 2020 election. It seems to me the truth really is, Alvin Bragg and Jack Smith are in a conspiracy to impact the 2024 race and frankly, Fani Willis is a part of the effort as well.”

Catch-and-Kill, Checkbook Journalism, and Kangaroo Courts

WHAT HAS BEEN CALLED the Trump “hush money case” by anti-Trump factions, and “business record case” by MAGA Republicans has been proceeding apace in lower Manhattan this week. By Friday, opening arguments (Matthew Colangelo for the prosecution; Todd Blanche for the defense) and three prosecution witnesses were heard by the jury. Additionally, Judge Juan Merchan heard motions and other matters outside the jury’s presence. Audio/video from the trial is not available publicly. Nor is photography allowed—only artist renditions in the courtroom. It’s likely the norm for state courtrooms throughout the nation today, though hard to see why especially in this case.  After all, we do have the technology…

The first witness (for most of the week) was a man named David Pecker, a former magazine executive. The second was Trump’s longtime assistant, Rhona Graff, and the third, a banker named Gary Farro. You’d almost think they were defense witnesses, depending on whose reporting on the testimony you care to believe.  

Pecker, a friend of Trump’s, was the publisher of the tabloid, the National Enquirer and C.E.O. of American Media, Inc. He testified about “checkbook journalism,” the practice of paying for stories. He was asked extensively about something called “catch-and-kill,” which is a publishing practice of paying for stories with the intention of ‘spiking’ rather than printing them. It was—and is—in widespread use and is perfectly legal. It is a way of enforcing an agreement with a publisher to keep quiet (dare I day ‘hush’?) in the future by providing the consideration to the source, necessary to form a contract. 

Pecker provided examples of two people his companies did this with: Dino Sajudin, once a doorman at Trump Tower, who claimed Trump sired a child with a woman out of wedlock; and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, who claimed she had an affair with Trump. (Trump denies both stories.) Pecker testified the deals were to protect his friend, as were the publication of negative stories about then-Trump G.O.P. presidential rivals, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson. 

While this testimony doesn’t absolve Trump of anything, it also doesn’t show him guilty of anything other than being the recipient of the good and legal graces of his friend. Nonetheless, his counsel implied that Pecker’s testimony could be tainted because his company, AmericanMedia, entered into a non-prosecution agreement (sort of an N.D.A. variant meant to keep prosecutors honest) with the Justice Department in 2018. Trump’s team wanted to show Pecker really just wanted to sell magazines, rather than influence the outcome of the election.

As for Sajudin, he was paid $30,000 facilitated by Pecker and Cohen’s efforts, to sell his information about Trump’s supposed love child contained in his book, “Trump Doorman,” which was apparently published in 2021. He claims he had been forced to resign by Trump, and marketed his story as a result. He had signed a contract with AMI putting $1 million at stake if he violated his N.D.A., but it was ultimately lifted in 2018 after The New York Post wrote about the story. For her part, Graff clearly didn’t want to be in court and her testimony added little, though she admitted to having a “vague recollection” of seeing Daniels in Trump Tower before the 2016 election, but that it might have had to do with a possibly appearing on “Celebrity Apprentice,” a TV show Trump starred in at the time. The Trump Organization, she admitted, was paying for her two attorneys in the case. 

Trump faces 34 felony counts (and possibly four years in prison if convicted) for allegedly falsifying business records about a non-disclosure agreement he entered into with adult actress Stormy Daniels in exchange for $130,000 in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election. The monetary exchange reportedly went through Trump’s then-attorney and fixer Michael Cohen who in 2018 was found guilty of, and served three years for, lying to Congress about it. 

Where’s the crime? Good question. Prosecutors claim, with little or no evidence, that the manner of accounting for Cohen’s payment to Daniels was intended to conceal the real reason for the exchange. Again, where’s the crime? Again, another good question. No one really knows. No one really believes there will be any bombshell testimony, either, but we’ll have to wait and see. Trials can start off slow only to reach a crescendo later on. It’s just hard to envision in this trial. 

As best as can be understood, prosecutors claim the payments were election fraud: concealed to effectuate Trump’s ascendency to the White House rather than to merely spare him personal embarrassment, thereby violating federal election finance laws. (Never mind this didn’t involve campaign contributions.) But this prosecution needs a state crime. Where is it? Somehow, the alleged federal fraud got bootstrapped to a New York State business records law, which would ordinarily only give rise to a misdemeanor unless connected to another crime. But the statute of limitations ran on that, so…? Well, it’s bootstrapped to the federal felony case that apparently isn’t time-barred and can be used to make the business records ‘violation’ a felony somehow. And never mind the feds flatly refused to prosecute the supposed federal case! It’s not only a novel legal theory, it’s a completely absurd, frivolous, and malicious prosecution persecution. Not that Judge Merchan would realize it: he is clearly well out of his league, which includes the monitoring of the treatment of the City’s mentally ill who hope their voluntary participation will get their offenses dismissed or reduced. 

Also absurd is the surely unconstitutional gag order the judge placed on President Trump. It was alleged he violated it another seven times. A hearing on the matter is set for May 1st. Also absurd is his ruling allowing the D.A.’s office to withhold the names of witnesses it will call until immediately beforehand, ostensibly because they fear he will talk about it publicly. 

Thus went the first week of the first criminal trial of a president not in office. For his part, Trump denies any illegality in his payments to Cohen, any sexual involvement with Daniels, or any business records errors giving rise any crime. The trial continues on Tuesday. Trump will again be relegated to watching from the defense table, unable to leave for any reason or talk to the press. New York and its D.A., Alvin Bragg, should be embarrassed—and sanctioned.

An Unimaginative Supreme Court Envisions Novel Argument in J6 Case.

AN IMPORTANT Supreme Court case has finally wound its way through the judicial system to now be before the nation’s highest court—which seems a bit skeptical of the D.O.J. pedigree behind it. 

The case is styled Fischer v. United States, and it argues that the statute the defendant was charged under, 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1512(c)(2), was too broadly expanded and interpreted beyond the original intent to target crimes of alleged evidence-tampering. Specifically, it was interpreted by the D.O.J. so as to charge the defendants, Joseph Fischer and others, of obstructing Congress’ certification of the 2020 presidential election results thought to favor Biden. A concern was that such an interpretation was being used to sweep up a broad swath of others engaging in legitimate protest activity. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch asked some of the most salient questions. “Would a sit-in that disrupts a trial or access to a federal courthouse qualify?” he asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar. “Would a heckler in today’s audience qualify or at the State of the Union address?” Or pulling a fire alarm before a legislative vote, à la Dem, Rep. Jamaal Bowman of NY? These acts, of course, represent things done not only by Jan. 6th defendants, but in some cases, by those lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights, or by elected officials themselves engaged in legitimate of controversial political activity. 

For his part, Justice Samuel Alito seemed a bit unconvinced by the D.O.J.’s position, too. In fact, the way the statute is being creatively applied here could adversely and inappropriately not only impact hundreds of J6 defendants, but even President Trump’s election interference case. (Indeed, two of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictments (here) against President Trump rely on such an excessively broad read of the statute.) And the penalties are not inconsequential, resulting in a possible 20 years in prison. And of almost 1,387 J6 defendants, some 353 have been charged under this overly-broad interpretation of the statute. Justice Clarence Thomas, also skeptical, asked when the government had applied this statute to other protests in the past. It was, of course, a rhetorical question. 

The novel application of the statute in an overly broad context certainly has serious ramifications for Joseph Fischer, a former PA cop who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6th for a mere four minutes, and who allegedly had a scuffle with law enforcement in that short period, resulting in him being charged with seven offenses, including a felony count of obstructing an official proceeding. 

Fischer and certain other J6 defendants have a lot riding on the statute’s proper reading, as does President Trump. The SCOTUS decision is expected in late June. The procedural history is here. The writ of certiorari is here.

Not Worried About Aliens Voting? Think Again. Then Think Harder…

IN WHAT CAN ONLY BE mostly good news for election integrity advocates, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton upheld most of new Arizona laws in 2022 requiring proof of citizenship to vote in the state. New state law would mandate counties verify registered voters who haven’t provided proof of U.S. citizenship and cross-check voter registration data with various government databases. They were enacted as a direct result of Republican concerns over the authenticity of Biden’s 2020 ‘victory’ over Trump in Arizona. Voting ‘rights’ groups would have nothing of it, however, and neither would the D.O.J. or Democratic National Committee. They sued.

Suit was brought alleging the new laws were discriminatory, but the argument was rejected by Judge Bolton because the state has an interest in preventing voter fraud; in not allowing non-citizens to vote; and in promoting public confidence in election integrity. She did, however, limit the state from mandating a state registration form asking for a registrant’s state or country of birth because she found it to violate provisions of Civil Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act. Using the form would result in the investigation of only naturalized citizens based on a county recorder’s subjective belief that the registrant is a non-citizen. So far, so good.

Bolton has ruled on voting cases in the past. Without getting into the weeds of it, these opinions dealt with differing forms required for federal and state voter registrations. She ruled that if one used the federal form, the state could not require anything further in terms of proof of citizenship from Arizona voters voting in federal elections pursuant to a 1993 federal voter registration law.  (The Supreme Court has made a similar holding in 2013.) 

What does the federal form require? NOTHING, except a requirement a registrant ‘swear’ they are U.S. citizens. So that means illegal aliens who broke the law by entering the country won’t break the law when they falsely swear they are citizens on their voter registration forms? Are you frigging kidding me? WTF?!

The Order in Mi Familia Vota v. Fontes is here.  Bolton wrote: 

“The court finds that though it may occur, non-citizens voting in Arizona is quite rare, and non-citizen voter fraud in Arizona is rarer still,” the ruling states. “But while the voting laws are not likely to meaningfully reduce possible non-citizen voting in Arizona, they could help to prevent non-citizens from registering or voting.”

Right result. Wrong rationale. It makes no sense to say that non-citizens voting is rare, but non-citizen voter fraud is rarer. After all, a non-citizen voting is per se voter fraud. But I won’t quibble: at least the state-level safeguards against non-citizen voter fraud have been hardened.

Компромат on Biden Will Eventually Make Him Persona Non Grata.

YOU CAN LAUGH OR CRY, but it’s neither funny nor sad. It’s appalling. It’s appalling when news proclaims something as mis- or disinformation simply because it doesn’t comport to its desired narrative. This has been the case with Dems since, at least, 2015: probably longer, if I cared to examine the facts more closely. Such is definitely the case when on Tuesday, MSM described allegations made by an F.B.I. informant about Joe and Hunter Biden as ‘discredited’ because the informant allegedly has high-level ties to Russian intelligence, and those alleged ties are, ipso facto, all it takes to put a definitive kabosh on his veracity. MSM simply parrots the government’s propaganda without meaningful scrutiny or thoughtful analysis.

Alexander Smirnov, 43, is the individual whose credibility is at stake. He is a former confidential human source for the F.B.I. who told his handler he had had meetings with several Russian officials linked to the country’s intelligence services, according to special counsel David Weiss and his team of prosecutors. Smirnov apparently told his handler that the Russian Intelligence Service had intercepted several cellphone calls initiated from a hotel “by prominent U.S. persons the Russian government may use a ‘kompromat’ in the 2024 election.” Smirnov had reported contacts with “Russian Officials 1 and 2.” 

Essentially, Smirnov said these Russians passed a story about Hunter Biden, according to a detention report filed by Weiss after Smirnov’s his arrest and indictment for allegedly providing false information about Joe and Hunter Biden as well as obstruction, both felonies. (His indictment is here. That report can be viewed here.) The allegedly false statement was to the F.B.I. in June 2020 when Smirnov said that officials with the Ukrainian energy company Hunter was involved in, Burisma Holdings, paid the Bidens $5 million each in 2015 or 2016.

“During his custodial interview on February 14, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1,” prosecutors said, adding, “Businessperson 1 was described as “the son of a a political figure who ran for president in 2020,” and since it is one whose name cannot be uttered, I guess it would be fair to simply point at Hunter Biden and whistle, so long as we don’t blow that whistle.

Prosecutors further stated that on that same day, Feb. 14th, Smirnov was arrested in the District of Nevada when he was returning to the U.S. on an international flight. Two days later, he was supposedly scheduled to fly out of the U.S. for a lengthy multi-country trip involving more such meetings with foreign intelligence agencies and officials, prompting a need for his continued detention. However, the court disagreed, releasing Smirnov contingent on his being subject to GPS monitoring and his surrendering of his American and Israeli passports. And prosecutors’ latest complaints concern Smirnov’s “actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November.” The old Russia meddling and collusion narratives meet 2024…

Close, But No Crack Pipe

HUNTER BIDEN CAME CLOSE to being held in Contempt of Congress, but on Tuesday, he escaped that fate because he and his attorneys agreed to negotiate with House Republicans, according to an announcement by the House Rules Committee. The agreement was reached after an exchange of letters between the committees and lawyers.

Since last month, Hunter has been defying the G.O.P.’s subpoenas about his shady business dealings, believed to have enriched his father in a pay-for-play scheme. Over time, the Biden story has changed. At first, Joe Biden said he knew absolutely nothing about his son’s foreign business dealings. Then he knew just a little, Then some more. And so on.

Last Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee approved a resolution to hold Hunter in contempt. The first subpoena, he had just blew off, technically ‘appearing’ outside the Capitol, but where he delivered a public speech instead of sitting and answering questions privately. 

Last week, Hunter strolled into an Oversight Committee hearing that was debating whether to hold him in contempt, according to Rep. Marjorie TaylorGreene (R-Ga.). He mocked the committee in what the Gateway Pundit described as “a choreographed stunt reportedly filmed for an upcoming documentary.” Hunter wanted to grandstand, and actually got away with it. (Don’t even speculate what would happen if Trump did that—it’s too unthinkable.)

Hunter finally agreed to testify before Congress. On Sunday, the G.O.P. said it would issue a deposition subpoena to Hunter. It would be the second. Apparently, Hunter’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, found the earlier subpoena wanting, or deficient in some way. That could be true. After all, Congress only enacts laws, it doesn’t try cases, find facts, or argue law. Still, the support staffs should have this stuff down pat and Hunter, a grown man, should realize arrogance might not be the best approach here. 

Still, Hunter is a crack-addict, so sound judgment obviously isn’t his strength. He doesn’t need it, though, given the Big Guy’s position as a top oligarch in the U.S. kleptocracy. The Biden Justice Department would never prosecute any Congressional contempt referral of Hunter, and could simply pardon the younger Biden even if it did. It doesn’t matter that the same Justice Department prosecuted two former Trump advisors, Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro for the same thing: they had refused to testify before the House Select Committee about Jan. 6, 2021. Nor does it matter that Trump’s adult children had to appear before Congress for various ‘investigations’ into and against the 45th president.

What Was Biden Doing at Monkey Island?

The U.S. HOUSE isn’t the only entity investigating Biden family corruption.  America First Legal is, too, and earlier this week, it filed a Louisiana Public Records Act request to obtain documents from Gov. John Bel Edwards’ office pertaining to communications with Joe, Hunter, and James Biden and the family’s Liquified Natural Gas deals they pursued on behalf of their Chinese business partners and CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming. Jianming is apparently an investigator associated with People Liberation Army intelligence who ran an enterprise implementing China’s Belt and Road Initiative to “obtain overseas resources and serve the national strategy.” And a cool $1 million of Jianming’s money seemingly made its way to the Biden’s hot hands shortly after Joe Biden vacated Air Force 2 in 2017. That, and a 2.8-carat diamond to warm the cockles of Hunter’s heart.

The business arrangement that resulted from this union became Hudson West III LLC right after Hunter’s now-infamous WhatsApp message to a CEFC associate which sounded a tad threatening: “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled … I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.”

Hunter and his firm, Owasco PC got exclusive rights to implement strategic deals on behalf of his Chinese partners. And, according to House Committee on Oversight and Accountability records recently released show that Owasco PC directly made monthly payments to Joe Biden.

One of the exclusive deals was Louisiana’s Monkey Island LNG. I.R.S. whistleblower, Special Agent Joseph Zeigler, stated he spoke with the Louisiana Governor’s Office about the permits for the deal. Monkey Island never materialized, but the Bidens have continued to do deals for their Chinese partners. 

The state FOIA request is here. The Big Coverup by the D.O.J./F.B.I. continues apace while Joe Biden takes another vacation—this time to St. Croix for a week. A full 40% of his ‘presidency’ was ‘on vacation.’ (80% if you count ‘out-to-lunch!’)