Trump IMPEACHED by the US House; US Senate Trial Allows No New Witnesses & Acquits Trump
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Fox News Silent on Bogus Hunter Biden Witness It Hyped Constantly
Alexander Smirnov was a mainstay of coverage about the supposed “Biden Crime Family,” but his arrest for lying to Feds drew crickets.
nymag.com
Fox News Silent on Bogus Hunter Biden Witness It Hyped Constantly
By Matt Stieb, Intelligencer staff writer
Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
When Russian businessman Alexander Smirnov landed at the Las Vegas airport on Valentine’s Day, the FBI was waiting for him. Since 2010, he had worked with the agency as an informant, providing intel on what the Feds described as “various criminal investigations” — the most infamous of which was the special-counsel inquiry into Hunter Biden’s business dealings abroad. Smirnov claimed to have explosive information revealing that Joe Biden had taken a cut of his son’s considerable payments as a consultant in exchange for influencing an investigation in Ukraine. But federal prosecutors say Smirnov strayed from the truth: On Thursday, they charged him with making false statements and obstructing the yearslong investigation of the president’s son.
Frequent viewers of conservative media are well acquainted with Smirnov. Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity have said that his allegations are key to what they describe as the “Biden crime family” — the narrative that Hunter Biden accepted millions of dollars in bribes from the energy company Burisma to give to his father in exchange for then-VP Biden making a Ukrainian investigation into Burisma go away. According to the watchdog group Media Matters, Hannity alone featured 85 segments in 2023 on the allegations. (Republican politicians also trusted the source: Last July, Representative James Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley released an FBI record detailing the unsubstantiated allegations, describing Smirnov as a “trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme.”)
Fox News viewers have heard plenty about the lesser charges Hunter Biden is facing, including possession of a firearm as a drug user and tax evasion. But after prosecutors provided evidence that the corruption allegation was false, there was no mention of the story on Hannity on Thursday — or anywhere in Fox News’s prime-time programming, for that matter. (Chuck Grassley’s office has also stood by his public release of the unsubstantiated allegations.)
In the 37-page indictment, prosecutors state that Smirnov lied about his claims of Joe Biden’s criminal activity. The indictment states that, in June 2020, Smirnov told his FBI handlers that he had two meetings in 2015 in which Burisma executives told him that they hired Hunter Biden as a consultant to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” Smirnov claimed that Burisma paid Hunter Biden $10 million for his trouble.
But prosecutors state that Smirnov never provided any evidence for this explosive allegation. A meeting Smirnov described taking place in 2015 in which he said he first heard about Biden-related corruption never occurred: Prosecutors found that Smirnov’s first meeting with Burisma happened in 2017, after Biden had left office. “The Defendant’s story to the FBI was a fabrication,” the indictment states. “An amalgam of otherwise unremarkable business meetings and contacts that had actually occurred but at a later date than he claimed and for the purpose of pitching Burisma on [Smirnov’s] services and products, not for discussing bribes to [Joe Biden] when he was in office.”
“For months, we have warned that Republicans have built their conspiracies about Hunter and his family on lies told by people with political agendas, not facts,” Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement on Thursday. “We were right, and the air is out of their balloon.” Addressing reporters on Friday, Joe Biden stated that the allegations have “been an outrageous effort from the beginning.”
The Donald Trump Fire Sale Starts Now
He’s going to have to sell his stuff to pay a half-billion dollars’ worth of legal penalties.
nymag.com
The Donald Trump Fire Sale Starts Now
By Kevin T. Dugan, staff writer at Intelligencer, who covers money and business
Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer; Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images
Donald Trump’s companies have filed for bankruptcies six times, but now he may actually be about to go broke. On Friday, a New York judge penalized the former president $355 million after finding him liable for lying about his wealth and the value of his properties in New York — and that’s before pre-judgment interest charges, which according to the New York Attorney General’s office, adds another $100 million or so. Then there’s the $4 million owed by Eric Trump and Don Jr. each — which, come on, whose money is that really? The giant liabilities are due in part to Trump and his organization’s “complete lack of remorse,” Justice Arthur Engoron ruled, as well as for its deterrent effect: Trump and the Trump Organization’s officers were “likely to continue their fraudulent ways unless the Court grants significant injunctive relief.” Add this to the $88 million he owes writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her, twice, and Trump owes roughly $540 million. That would wipe out almost his entire estimated cash pile and vaporize about a sixth of his total net worth.
Trump can afford this, but he is probably going to have to sell something big. His net worth, according to both Forbes and Bloomberg, is between $2.6 and $3.1 billion, but most of that is tied up in his buildings and other properties. His cash pile is about $600 million, Bloomberg estimates, and he cannot use campaign or political-action-committee money to pay these fines. Some of his attorneys’ fees can be paid for with money that he’s raised from donors, but it’s not clear what money is paying for which lawyers between the four criminal cases he’s fighting off.
There are very few workarounds available to him to get cash. According to Bloomberg, Trump’s businesses have been bringing in cash from renters, and he made about $100 million in profitafter selling the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., in 2022, though it’s unclear how much of that money is left. The self-proclaimed “ King of Debt” won’t be able to get a loan from a financial institution overseen or chartered by New York state regulators, Engoron ruled. While that doesn’t eliminate all the banks in the country, it does rule out a lot that could afford that kind of risk. (There are, of course, hedge funds and other shadow banks, but they’d likely charge him a lot more.) Trump is going to appeal the ruling, but that doesn’t really buy him a lot of time or give him any real relief. He will have to pay up or post a cash bond in 30 days, and delaying adds interest and other expenses to the money he already owes.
Take a closer look at his holdings and it seems Trump might have bigger problems ahead. His largest holding, by value, is a minority partnership with Vornado at 555 California Street in San Francisco — a commercial office building in a city experiencing a “doom loop.” Microsoft, a former tenant, is trying to dump its office space there, and a neighboring building recently saw its value plunge by 80 percent. If you go down the list of Trump’s other holdings in New York, much of what his name is attached to are similar properties, but through deals that are not as cut-and-dried as somebody just holding the title to a property. At 40 Wall Street, for instance, he owns a ground lease — that is, he pays the building’s owners, the wealthy German Hinneberg family, for the right to lease it out. Since commercial real estate is in the throes of a valuation crisis, if Trump has to start selling any of these assets, he’ll likely be handing someone a fire-sale deal.
This post has been updated.
Piff Perkins
Veteran
EARLY AND OFTEN FEB. 16, 2024Fox News Silent on Bogus Hunter Biden Witness It Hyped Constantly
Alexander Smirnov was a mainstay of coverage about the supposed “Biden Crime Family,” but his arrest for lying to Feds drew crickets.
Fox News Silent on Bogus Hunter Biden Witness It Hyped Constantly
By Matt Stieb, Intelligencer staff writer
Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
When Russian businessman Alexander Smirnov landed at the Las Vegas airport on Valentine’s Day, the FBI was waiting for him. Since 2010, he had worked with the agency as an informant, providing intel on what the Feds described as “various criminal investigations” — the most infamous of which was the special-counsel inquiry into Hunter Biden’s business dealings abroad. Smirnov claimed to have explosive information revealing that Joe Biden had taken a cut of his son’s considerable payments as a consultant in exchange for influencing an investigation in Ukraine. But federal prosecutors say Smirnov strayed from the truth: On Thursday, they charged him with making false statements and obstructing the yearslong investigation of the president’s son.
Frequent viewers of conservative media are well acquainted with Smirnov. Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity have said that his allegations are key to what they describe as the “Biden crime family” — the narrative that Hunter Biden accepted millions of dollars in bribes from the energy company Burisma to give to his father in exchange for then-VP Biden making a Ukrainian investigation into Burisma go away. According to the watchdog group Media Matters, Hannity alone featured 85 segments in 2023 on the allegations. (Republican politicians also trusted the source: Last July, Representative James Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley released an FBI record detailing the unsubstantiated allegations, describing Smirnov as a “trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme.”)
Fox News viewers have heard plenty about the lesser charges Hunter Biden is facing, including possession of a firearm as a drug user and tax evasion. But after prosecutors provided evidence that the corruption allegation was false, there was no mention of the story on Hannity on Thursday — or anywhere in Fox News’s prime-time programming, for that matter. (Chuck Grassley’s office has also stood by his public release of the unsubstantiated allegations.)
In the 37-page indictment, prosecutors state that Smirnov lied about his claims of Joe Biden’s criminal activity. The indictment states that, in June 2020, Smirnov told his FBI handlers that he had two meetings in 2015 in which Burisma executives told him that they hired Hunter Biden as a consultant to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” Smirnov claimed that Burisma paid Hunter Biden $10 million for his trouble.
But prosecutors state that Smirnov never provided any evidence for this explosive allegation. A meeting Smirnov described taking place in 2015 in which he said he first heard about Biden-related corruption never occurred: Prosecutors found that Smirnov’s first meeting with Burisma happened in 2017, after Biden had left office. “The Defendant’s story to the FBI was a fabrication,” the indictment states. “An amalgam of otherwise unremarkable business meetings and contacts that had actually occurred but at a later date than he claimed and for the purpose of pitching Burisma on [Smirnov’s] services and products, not for discussing bribes to [Joe Biden] when he was in office.”
“For months, we have warned that Republicans have built their conspiracies about Hunter and his family on lies told by people with political agendas, not facts,” Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement on Thursday. “We were right, and the air is out of their balloon.” Addressing reporters on Friday, Joe Biden stated that the allegations have “been an outrageous effort from the beginning.”
This is probably why they've pivoted to attacking "Jim Biden" ie his brother lol, based on the headlines I'm seeing in the news feed from conservative networks. It's a shell game, it'll never stop. All that matters is creating a sense that Biden is corrupt amongst voters. The facts are irrelevant, no one will go to jail.
GOP so 'stupid' that Russia 'can feed disinfo straight into their veins': Morning Joe
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough ripped Republicans for swallowing lies that were fed to them from Russian intelligence.The GOP's star witness in the House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has been arrested for lying to the FBI, and he admitted to investigators that evidence he fed to...
www.rawstory.com
GOP so 'stupid' that Russia 'can feed disinfo straight into their veins': Morning Joe
Travis GettysFebruary 21, 2024 7:38AM ET
MSNBC
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough ripped Republicans for swallowing lies that were fed to them from Russian intelligence.
The GOP's star witness in the House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has been arrested for lying to the FBI, and he admitted to investigators that evidence he fed to lawmakers had come from sources with ties to Russian intelligence, which the "Morning Joe" host said that was more evidence that Donald Trump and the Republican Party are beholden to Vladimir Putin.
"Just shocking, you have Russian security services deciding, hey, we can just send unfiltered crap straight to Congress," Scarborough said. "We don't even have to worry about it being filtered by intel services, as we heard the report earlier, it is just shocking, and why is that? Because Republicans hate Joe Biden more than they fear Vladimir Putin. It's really sick. Trump, once again, and Republicans being played once again by Vladimir Putin."
"Putin has Republicans on a string," Scarborough added. "Think about the fact that Vladimir Putin understands that Republicans are so stupid now in the House, even with the help of their legal counsel, Arnold the pig from 'Green Acres,' that Republicans are so stupid in the House, they can feed Russian disinformation straight into the veins of the United States Congress. straight in, and because they hate them so much. And then you have idiots running around talking about how they have got this disinformation that will bring down Joe Biden, like they depended on Russian disinformation, they depended on an international fugitive illegally selling Iranian oil to communist China... and all of this to try to take down Joe Biden and none of it is hitting, and we've been saying this for months. Keeps making them look worse."
Watch the video below or at this link
MSNBC 02 21 2024 06 16 05 youtu.be
Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine ally runs for office in Russia
Andriy Derkach, a former legislator who was Donald Trump allies' key contact in Kyiv, was stripped of Ukrainian citizenship in January 2023.
www.newsweek.com
Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine Ally Runs for Office in Russia
Published Aug 01, 2024 at 6:37 AM EDTUpdated Aug 01, 2024 at 10:50 AM EDT
Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine Ally Runs For Office In Russia
By Brendan Cole
Senior News Reporter
A former Ukrainian MP who was accused of trying to harm the 2020 U.S. presidential bid of Joe Biden is seeking political office in Russia, it has been reported.
Andriy Derkach, who fled Ukraine for Russia, has become a candidate in the Astrakhan region for the Russian Federation Council, state news agency Tass reported.
Derkach is among three candidates in the southwestern Russian region who are competing to replace the senator, Alexander Bashkin, whose term in the government's upper house ends in September, the agency said.
The U.S. government had accused Derkach of promoting unsubstantiated narratives about Biden to American media and officials, including some close to former President Donald Trump. Newsweek has contacted Derkach for comment by email.
Andriy Derkach, who fled Ukraine for Russia, has become a candidate in the Astrakhan region for the Russian Federation Council. In 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department said that Derkach had been a "Russian agent for...
Belta/Belarus News Agency/ Screengrab by Newsweek
He also met with Trump's then personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in 2019 to build a corruption case against Biden's son Hunter Biden, The Washington Post reported, Giuliani had not made any public comments on the meetings.
In 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department said that Derkach had been a "Russian agent for more than a decade," which he has denied.
In June 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said Derkach had been paid by Russian intelligence to create private security companies Moscow wanted to use to capture Ukraine in its full-scale invasion.
The Ukrainian government sanctioned Derkach for spreading Russian propaganda and stripped him of his citizenship in January 2023. He had served as a member of the country's parliament.
News of Derkach's candidacy for political office in Russia was carried by Ukrainian media outlets and social media users who noted the Giuliani connection.
"So Russian agent Derkach that Giuliani and others worked with, on behalf of Trump, to attack the 2020 US election will be appointed to a Russian government position," Olga Lautman, co-host of the Kremlin File podcast posted on X. "My shocked face."
Financial Times journalist Christopher Miller wrote on X, "Well look at that, Andriy Derkach, the Ukrainian ex-MP who helped Trump and Giuliani pressure Ukraine to smear Biden...has surfaced in Russia with Russian citizenship and is now seeking political office." Newsweek has contacted Giuliani's lawyers for comment.
Ukrainska Pravda noted how in 2023 Derkach was investigated by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) "for treason and illegal enrichment."
He was accused of discrediting Ukraine on the global stage and worsening ties with the U.S. and stopping Kyiv's integration into the European Union and NATO, the outlet added.
The probe found that he received at least $567,000 from Russian law enforcement and intelligence agencies "for subversive activities against Ukraine," Ukrainska Pravda added.
Update 08/01/24, 7:30 a.m. ET: This article has been updated with further information.
This illustrative image from April 12, 2023 shows Russia's Federation Council building. Former Ukrainian MP Andriy Derkach who is accused of links with Rudy Giuliani, is running to be a senator in the upper house,...KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/Getty Images