Supreme Court strikes at heart of regulatory state with rulings on free speech, religion, education - Greg Piper

 

​ by Greg Piper

Rulings for creative professionals and religious accommodations, and against EPA and Education Department, suggest politically convenient interpretations of statutory authority and constitutional rights will face heavy scrutiny.

 

The Supreme Court took square aim at the regulatory state this term, striking down perceived executive overreach in free speech, religious freedom, education and the economy and sending a warning that politically convenient interpretations of statutory authority and constitutional rights will face heavy scrutiny.

That included the Biden administration's unilateral cancelation of up to $400 billion in student loan debt and U.S. Postal Service's refusal to accommodate employees' religious beliefs if it causes any burden, both handed down this week.

Colorado and Oregon also suffered major defeats in their quest to compel creative professionals to affirm same-sex marriage under public accommodations laws. 

A majority of justices Friday said Colorado could not force a Christian web designer to "celebrate and promote" such ceremonies. In light of that ruling, the court vacated Oregon's fines against a Christian couple for refusing to make a custom same-sex wedding cake, remanding their case to state court.

In a cross-ideological lineup of justices, the high court also overturned Colorado's conviction of a man for Facebook stalking because it didn't show he realized the messages could be construed as threatening, cementing the reputation of the court under Chief Justice John Roberts as a First Amendment bulwark regardless of viewpoint.

A month earlier, the Supreme Court barred the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating wetlands without a "continuous surface connection" to federally regulated waterways, a huge victory for property owners.

While President Biden ran on a promise to restore trust in American institutions, he has repeatedly attempted to erode trust in the high court for undermining his preferred policies.

"This is not a normal court," Biden told reporters at the White House on Thursday after it ruled racial preferences in higher education were at odds with equal protection under the Constitution.

He later expanded his thoughts to MSNBC that the conservative majority has "done more to unravel basic rights and basic decisions than any court in recent history."

Last term, the justices forecast their skepticism of federal agencies claiming wide new powers under their statutes by blocking the Occupational Health and Safety Administration's COVID-19 vaccine mandate for large employers. 

While the Biden administration soon rescinded that rule rather than defend OSHA's mandate for 84 million workers as a legitimate "emergency temporary standard," the president barreled ahead with student loan forgiveness for up to 43 million borrowers on the theory that the COVID-19 pandemic relief law known as the HEROES Act gave the Education Department unlimited authority.

Roberts wrote for the 6-3 court that the administration went beyond "a few narrowly delineated situations specified by Congress" to expand debt forgiveness to "nearly every borrower in the country." The action violates the "major questions" doctrine by assuming broad regulatory authority from a vague congressional authorization, the opinion says.

The justices unanimously ruled employers could not infringe on employees' religious rights without showing an accommodation – in this case, a postal worker exempted from work on Sundays to observe the Sabbath – "could result in substantial increased costs in relation to the conduct of its particular business,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote.

First Amendment rights to speech pertaining to religion also got major boosts. 

Colorado's public accommodations law – which applies to "almost every public-facing business in the state," can be enforced by either state officials or private citizens and carries "a variety of penalties" from training to fines – cannot supersede the constitutional right against compelled expression, the court ruled.

The "very purpose" of Colorado's law is "[e]liminating" viewpoints at odds with the state's, in this case opposition to same-sex marriage, the 6-3, reads the majority opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch. He also said the state agrees with web designer Lorie Smith that the websites she creates with clients inherently "involve her speech … her own words and original artwork" in addition to their own.

"Taken seriously," the logic of Colorado's argument "would allow the government to force all manner of artists, speechwriters, and others whose services involve speech to speak what they do not believe on pain of penalty," going far beyond the "unexceptional" laws in about half the states prohibiting discrimination by sexual orientation, Gorsuch wrote.

The ruling means Oregon's Aaron and Melissa Klein might get out of fines entirely for refusal to make a same-sex wedding cake. 

The state Bureau of Labor and Industries originally fined them $135,000 but reduced it to $30,000 after SCOTUS ordered a state court to re-evaluate the Kleins' lawsuit in light of its ruling against Colorado for anti-religious hostility against a fellow baker, Jack Phillips. The state court found the same anti-religious hostility against the Kleins but sent them back to the bureau anyway.

The Friday order list for SCOTUS shows the Kleins' case will return to the Oregon Court of Appeals for review under the high court's ruling for Smith in Colorado.

Greg Piper

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/supreme-court-strikes-heart-regulatory-state-rulings-free-speech-religion

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The Biden Administration's Dangerous Nuclear Deal: Congressional Approval Required - Majid Rafizadeh

 

​ by Majid Rafizadeh

"..[A]ny arrangement or understanding with Iran, even informal, requires submission to Congress." — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023 [Emphasis added].

• "I urge the Administration to remember that U.S. law requires that any agreement, arrangement, or understanding with Iran needs to be submitted to Congress." — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023.

• "INARA [the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015] was enacted with strong bipartisan support to ensure Congressional oversight of U.S. policy regarding Iran's nuclear program.... This definition makes clear that any arrangement or understanding with Iran, even informal, requires submission to Congress." — Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in a letter to US President Joe Biden, June 15, 2023 [Emphasis added].

• [T]he return to the nuclear deal means that the current sanctions against Tehran will be lifted and the regime would reportedly receive $100 billion a year "to Destabilise [the] Region," as well as legitimately to rejoin the global financial system. Through the nuclear deal, the Iranian regime will again buy itself a blank check to advance its aggressive and fundamentalist policies across the Middle East, just as it did after the 2015 nuclear deal, but this time with the potential of threatening other countries with its nuclear breakout capability.

• "To give them another windfall of cash like we did as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal, which led to an expansion of their proxy wars in the Middle East, it doesn't make any sense. It's not in our national interest.... They're gonna fuel their proxy wars and they're seeking domination and control in the Middle East.... No, it's not a good deal. It wasn't a good deal in 2015. It's not a good deal now." — Retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane, The Hill, June 18, 2023.

A nuclear deal will allow the flow of billions of dollars into the Iranian regime's treasury, thereby providing the funding for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that they need to escalate their military adventurism in the region. (Image source: iStock)

The Biden Administration, in an attempt to revive the Iran nuclear deal, has been quietly negotiating with the theocratic regime of President Ebrahim Raisi, known -- for his crimes against humanity and his involvement in a massacre of nearly 30,000 political prisoners -- as "the Butcher of Tehran."

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal wrote on June 16:

"Here we go again. The same people who gave us the Iran nuclear deal in 2015 are trying to pull off a new version that would send Iran cash on day one in return for promises down the road."

The Biden Administration is planning to release $17 billion in frozen assets to Iran, in exchange for the release three Iranian-Americans prisoners, thereby incentivizing the hostage-taking shakedown racket, and for some easily breakable promises down the road on Iran's nuclear program.

The Biden Administration has also been keeping these negotiations secret, most likely to dodge Congress and keep the American people in the dark. This has led to an outrage among officials. "Iran is an adversary and a state sponsor of terrorism," Senator Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, tweeted. "Any back-door agreement here is an attempt to skirt congressional oversight."

"The Biden Admin is long-overdue to address reports of these misguided 'proximity talks' with Iran, Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Senator Jim Risch (R-Idaho) noted on Twitter. "Sanctions relief will only free up cash for the regime's support for Russia, terror proxies, and state-sponsored murder of its own citizens. Shameful."

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote Biden a letter warning him about congressional review of any nuclear deal with the regime of Iran, saying:

"I urge the Administration to remember that U.S. law requires that any agreement, arrangement, or understanding with Iran needs to be submitted to Congress pursuant to INARA [the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015]."

"INARA was enacted with strong bipartisan support to ensure Congressional oversight of U.S. policy regarding Iran's nuclear program.... This definition makes clear that any arrangement or understanding with Iran, even informal, requires submission to Congress." [Emphasis added.]

The Biden administration is already allowing the flow of cash to the top state sponsor of terrorism. As State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller confirmed, the Biden Administration has already allowed Iraq to transfer to Iran $2.76 billion by issuing a waiver for sanctions imposed on the Iranian regime.

"We approved a transaction, consistent with previous transactions that have been approved, to allow Iran to access funds held in accounts in Iraq."

Iran's leaders are doubtless excited about the prospect of resurrecting the nuclear deal for several reasons. First, the return to the nuclear deal means that the current sanctions against Tehran will be lifted and the regime would reportedly receive $100 billion a year "to Destabilise [the] Region," as well as legitimately to rejoin the global financial system. Through the nuclear deal, the Iranian regime will again buy itself a blank check to advance its aggressive and fundamentalist policies across the Middle East, just as it did after the 2015 nuclear deal, but this time with the potential of threatening other countries with its nuclear breakout capability.

A nuclear deal will allow the flow of billions of dollars into the Iranian regime's treasury, thereby providing the funding for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that they need to escalate their military adventurism in the region. That project includes financing, arming and supporting their terror and militia groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and the Gaza Strip, as well as throughout South America (here, here and here).

One possible repercussion of a new nuclear deal is that countries in the region may find no other option than taking military action against Iran, a move that could spiral into regional war. According to retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane:

"To give them another windfall of cash like we did as a result of the 2015 nuclear deal, which led to an expansion of their proxy wars in the Middle East, it doesn't make any sense. It's not in our national interest.... They're gonna fuel their proxy wars and they're seeking domination and control in the Middle East.... That's the windfall that's going to take place, for what? The hold in 60 percent enrichment and curtailing some activities against Syria and Iraq? No, it's not a good deal. It wasn't a good deal in 2015. It's not a good deal now."

• Follow Majid Rafizadeh on Twitter

 

Dr, Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US Foreign Policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19758/dangerous-nuclear-deal

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Supreme Court Moves Us Closer to A Colorblind Society - Alan M. Dershowitz

 

​ by Alan M. Dershowitz

The Supreme Court of the United States has finally and firmly declared that the Constitution does not permit publicly funded universities to consider race, as such, in its admission processes.

 

• Although this decision was split along current conservative-liberal lines, with the court's three liberals dissenting, it actually reflects traditional liberalism. Justice William Douglas, perhaps the most liberal justice in Supreme Court history, advocated precisely this race neutral approach when affirmative action was first introduced. He was right then, and his liberal, colorblind approach, has now been vindicated.

• A simple example demonstrates why employing race as a criteria is both unconstitutional and immoral. As the Supreme Court correctly pointed out, admission to elite universities is a zero-sum game: for every student or group that is given preference, another is disadvantaged. So consider this zero-sum choice:....

The Supreme Court of the United States has finally and firmly declared that the Constitution does not permit publicly funded universities to consider race, as such, in its admission processes. Pictured: Asian Americans protest against racial discrimination in university admissions, outside the Supreme Court Building on June 29, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

After decades of vacillation, the Supreme Court of the United States has finally and firmly declared that the Constitution does not permit publicly funded universities to consider race, as such, in its admission processes. This is a decision that many, including this author, have been advocating since the 1970s, when my first law review article appeared, calling for affirmative action to be based on non-racial criteria and individual accomplishments.

The Supreme Court has been moving in this direction for some time now, but it has until now allowed loopholes the size of university football stadiums. These loopholes were exploited by universities to enforce quota systems whereby approximately the same percentage of minority applicants would be admitted every year. The results of these quotas impacted most heavily on one of the most discriminated against groups in American history – Asian Americans. The plaintiffs in the Harvard case were such Americans. It will be interesting to see how their numbers are affected by the decision.

Within two hours of the decision, Harvard released a statement and a video by its new president promising compliance, while also assuring a continued concern for diversity and other criteria which often serve as covers for racial quotas. It remains to be seen what Harvard and other schools believe constitutes compliance.

The majority decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, still allows for some consideration of race, so long as it is individualized. It permits universities to consider student essays that focus on an applicant's race, so long as she or he relate their race to individual disadvantage, inspiration or other vague criteria. Harvard highlighted that part of the decision in its statement and will surely employ it to the greatest extent possible in order to maintain current percentages.

Even if universities manage to circumvent the Court's primary holding that race alone cannot be considered, the 6-3 decision, written by the Court's centrist leader, announces an important principle of Constitutional law that had been in doubt since the advent of race-based affirmative action. The opinion explains in detail why taking race, as such, into account – whether to advantage or disadvantage an applicant – is inconsistent with the history and policies underlying the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. The opinion rejected the argument that the post-Civil War Amendments were designed only to protect African Americans who had just emerged from the horrors of slavery. The opinion also rejected the argument that race alone can be taken into consideration in an effort to increase equality, diversity or other values that universities are entitled to preserve. It makes the important point that using race as such necessarily stereotypes and reduces individuals to being part of racial groups.

Although this decision was split along current conservative-liberal lines, with the court's three liberals dissenting, it actually reflects traditional liberalism. Justice William Douglas, perhaps the most liberal justice in Supreme Court history, advocated precisely this race-neutral approach when affirmative action was first introduced. He was right then, and his liberal, colorblind approach has now been vindicated.

A simple example demonstrates why employing race as a criteria is both unconstitutional and immoral. As the Supreme Court correctly pointed out, admission to elite universities is a zero-sum game: for every student or group that is given preference, another is disadvantaged. So consider this zero-sum choice: a black applicant comes from a wealthy and well-educated family; his mother is a federal judge and his father runs a billion-dollar hedge fund; they both went to elite high schools and universities; they live in an affluent neighborhood with excellent schools; they receive top-notch healthcare (I know such people). A white applicant grew up in a rural Midwestern area; his mother died of a fentanyl overdose when he was 6; his father, an alcoholic, abandoned the family shortly before that; he went to mediocre public schools; but he struggled to achieve high grades and test scores. Before today's decision, a publicly funded university could give preference to the privileged black applicant over the unprivileged white applicant, even if the white applicant had higher numbers and better recommendations. That is simply wrong. And now it is also illegal.

Under the Supreme Court's new decision, all applicants must be treated as individuals. Of course, individuals belong to groups – racial, religious, gender, etc. These groups may have a profound influence on the individual and individual applicants are entitled to use their group association as part of their total profile. But universities are not allowed to make decisions based solely on skin color (which itself is often a continuum).

It will be fascinating to observe how universities respond to this decision. So stay tuned. The quest for a color-blind society based on Martin Luther King Jr's dream is still a long way off. This decision brings us a giant step closer to achieving it.

• Follow Alan M. Dershowitz on Twitter and Facebook

 

Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at Harvard Law School, and the author most recently of Get Trump: The Threat to Civil Liberties, Due Process, and Our Constitutional Rule of Law. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute, and is also the host of "The Dershow" podcast.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19759/colorblind-society

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'Nothing but retaliation:' IRS agent details adverse career impact after blowing whistle on Biden - John Solomon and Nicholas Ballasy

 

​ by John Solomon and Nicholas Ballasy

Whistleblower details loss of promotion, canceling of special project and ouster from Biden case.

 

After helping to recover billions in taxpayer funds from tax cheats, IRS agent Gary Shapley was rising in stature and responsibility. He was in line for a big promotion and his plans for a new project to pursue tax evasion around the globe were on the fast tracks.

But all that, he says, came crashing down after he and a fellow agent blew the whistle last October on what they saw as political tampering from the DOJ in a tax evasion case against first son Hunter Biden.

"The actions taken by my leadership right now could be nothing but retaliation," Shapley told Just the News in an exclusive interview on the John Solomon Reports podcast. "They know what prohibited personnel practices are, and they know how to how to try to engage in retaliatory activities that somehow you obfuscate that piece, whether it's a prohibited personnel practice."

In the interview plus earlier testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee made public last week, Shapley detailed a series of actions he viewed as retaliatory from the DOJ removing he and his entire team from the Biden case to being passed over for a promotion and seeing his special tax recovery project paused and then canceled.

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on April 27, IRS Commissioner Werfel was asked if he could commit to not taking retaliatory actions against whistleblowers.

"I can say without hesitation, any hesitation, there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation," he said.

Shapley argued that he's been retaliated against since October 2022.

"I was passed over for a promotion for which I was clearly most qualified. The special agent in charge and assistant special agent in charge of the Washington, D.C. Field Office have sent threats to the field office, suppressing additional potential whistleblowers from coming forward," he said in the official interview transcript released by the committee.

"Even after IRS CI senior leadership had been made aware on a recurring basis that the Delaware U.S. Attorney's Office and the Department of Justice was acting improperly, they acquiesced to a DOJ request to remove the entire team from the Hunter Biden investigation, a team that had been investigating it for over 5 years. Passing the buck and deferring to others was a common theme with IRS CI leadership during this investigation," he added.

He and his lawyers said some of the actions aren't just reprisals but they are going to hurt taxpayers by preventing the IRS from recovering money that bad actors around the world are hiding from the federal government.

"What kind of what kind of mentality is there when an agency is more interested in retaliating against Gary Shapley than they are in putting bad guys, you know, collecting taxes for the taxpayer from bad guys who aren't paying it," attorney Jason Foster told Just the News.

Shapley said the status of a separate case involving a $6 billion entity is evidence that he's being retaliated against after he went public with allegations about the Hunter Biden investigation.

He said the case was moving toward phase one, where actions would be taken against "high income non-filers," after his team conducting about 120 interviews across the country. He revealed that this investigation was paused a few weeks ago.

"They're not going to move forward with the phase one and it's really disconcerting that the AUSAs [Assistant United States Attorneys] working the case are questioning whether or not it's retaliation because of what's going on. So there's just a lot of things moving in the background that support the fact that this is just retaliation," he said.

Following the release of Shapley's interview transcript, House Republican committee chairs are seeking interviews with more than a dozen investigators who worked on the Hunter Biden case. The chairs wrote to senior leaders at the U.S. Department of Justice, IRS and the U.S. Secret Service (USSS) calling on them to make the investigators available for transcribed interviews.

Former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes described Shapley as one of the most credible witnesses he has seen to date.

"This is the best whistleblower in modern history that I've seen," he said on the Just the News Not Noise TV program. "This guy came prepared. I mean, he had all the goods. He did it exactly the right way and I mean, look, this is the biggest corruption scandal in politics in history. I mean, some $40 million that's moving around."

Shapley’s lawyers suggested Friday evening that the retaliation has continued in the form of criticism from Hunter Biden’s lawyers who have accused the agent of leaking, something that his team adamantly denies.

Hunter Biden attorney Abbe Lowell wrote to House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith suggesting that Shapley and the other agent had chosen to blow the whistle  "in an attempt to evade their own misconduct."

The "timing of the agents’ leaks and your subsequent decision to release their statements do not seem innocent," Lowell further contended, before suggesting that Smith had released the transcripts of those interviews to "feed the misinformation campaign to harm our client, Hunter Biden, as a vehicle to attack his father."

Shapley's attorneys stated their client has followed proper legal procedure.

"All the innuendo and bluster that Biden family lawyers can summon will not change the facts," they said in a statement. "Lawful whistleblowing is the opposite of illegal leaking, and these bogus accusations against SSA Shapley by lawyers for the Biden family echo threatening emails sent by IRS leadership after the case agent also blew the whistle to the IRS Commissioner about favoritism in this case—as well as the chilling report that Biden attorneys have also lobbied the Biden Justice Department directly to target our client with criminal inquiry in further retaliation for blowing the whistle."

John Solomon and Nicholas Ballasy

Source: https://justthenews.com/accountability/whistleblowers/nothing-retaliation-irs-agent-details-adverse-impact-career-after-he

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Hunter Biden prosecutor refusing to cooperate with Congress, but adjusts earlier story - John Solomon

 

​ by John Solomon

David Weiss, the Delaware U.S. attorney, now admits it’s possible he contacted other federal prosecutors as whistleblowers allege.

 

The lead prosecutor in the Hunter Biden criminal tax case is refusing for now to cooperate with a congressional investigation into IRS whistleblower allegations that the Justice Department substantially interfered with the investigation to spare the president’s son more severe punishment.

“I am not at liberty to provide the materials you seek,” Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss wrote House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Friday in a letter obtained by Just the News.

“The whistleblowers’ allegations relate to a criminal investigation that is now being prosecuted in the United States District Court for the District of Delaware,” Weiss added. “At this juncture, I am required to protect confidential law enforcement information and deliberative communications related to the case. Thus, I will not provide specific information related to the Hunter Biden investigation at this time.”

You can read the letter here:

2023.06.30-OUT-Jordan-David Weiss.pdf

But Weiss did weigh in on two topics that lawmakers are concerned about since IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley and a colleague made their bombshell revelations in recent weeks.

First, the prosecutor steadfastly denied he or the DOJ retaliated against Shapley and his entire IRS team, though Weiss did not address the core allegation that DOJ sought to remove the investigators from the Hunter Biden case after they started blowing the whistle.

“The Department of Justice did not retaliate against ‘an Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) Criminal Supervisory Special Agent and whistleblower, as well as his entire investigative team... for making protected disclosures to Congress,’” he wrote.

But Weiss gave some new ground on a second key allegation by the whistleblowers: that more severe charges against Hunter Biden were blocked when Joe Biden-appointed federal prosecutors in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. declined requests to seek tax evasion indictments in their cities.

Weiss previously asserted in an earlier letter to Congress that he had been “granted ultimate authority” to decide what charges were brought against President Joe Biden’s son.

But he wrote in the new letter it was possible he contacted the other two prosecutors seeking their help on indictments because he was “geographically limited” on where he could file charges.

“I stand by what I wrote, and wish to expand on what this means,” Weiss wrote.

“As the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, my charging authority is geographically limited to my home district,” he added. “If venue for a case lies elsewhere, common Departmental practice is to contact the United States Attorney’s Office for the district in question and determine whether it wants to partner on the case. If not, I may request Special Attorney status from the Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 515.

“Here, I have been assured that, if necessary after the above process, I would be granted § 515 Authority in the District of Columbia, the Central District of California, or any other district where charges could be brought in this matter.”

Shapley has told Congress and Just the News that after the Washington and Los Angeles prosecutors appointed by President Biden declined prosecution, the DOJ allowed the statute of limitations to expire on felony counts that would have charged Hunter Biden for evasion back to 2014 and on monies he received from a controversial Ukrainian oligarch’s firm.

Shapley said agents had evidence that Hunter Biden failed to declare more than $8 million in income over several years and avoided more than $2 million in taxes.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers and Weiss have announced the presidential son will plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges alleging he did not pay a few hundred thousand dollars in taxes in 2017-18.

John Solomon

Source: https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/hunter-biden-prosecutor-refusing-cooperate-congress-adjusts-earlier

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Hezbollah refuses to remove posts set up on Israeli side of border with Lebanon - Jerusalem Post Staff

 

​ by Jerusalem Post Staff

Mohammad Raad announced that Hezbollah would not dismantle the tents after Israeli attempts at diplomacy failed.

 

Mohammad Raad, head of the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc (Hezbollah's political wing), announced Saturday that Hezbollah would not be removing two tents placed on the Israeli side of the Blue Line, according to Lebanese media.

For the past two months, Hezbollah fighters have been manning two tents placed on the Israeli side of the Blue Line, the ceasefire line and border with Lebanon, established after the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. 

The specific area in question is called Mount Dov in Israel, for the IDF officer killed there in 1970, and called Shaba farms in Lebanon. The area was part of the Syrian Golan Heights before the Six-Day War, and had Israeli law extended to it along with the rest of the Golan Heights, in 1981.

Jerusalem wanted diplomacy

The government had preferred that the dispute be handled diplomatically by the UN  in order to avoid escalation in the northern sector, so it had asked the UN to apply pressure on Lebanon and also Hezbollah to remove the tents.

The IDF also stated that the tents were not a threat to national security.

According to the request, "Unless Hezbollah evacuates the two sites, the Israeli army will itself take the initiative to evacuate them by force, after two weeks of mediation by European capitals in contact with Hezbollah in Lebanon."

Head of Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc Mohamed Raad gestures as he talks at the presidential palace in Baabda, Lebanon July 26, 2021. (credit: REUTERS/MOHAMED AZAKIR)

"Israel has been talking a lot about the two tents on the border for a month, and they consider that they have been placed at an advanced point on the Blue Line, according to their interpretation. Israel requests that these two tents be removed and that Israel prefers that the resistance remove them, because if the Israeli enemy wants that, war will occur and Israel does not want it," said Raad at a memorial ceremony held in the town of Marwaniya.

The two tents were erected on Mount Dov, where there is no border fence, most of which is marked by rocks and barrels.

The mountain area where there are no Israeli settlements is actually what is called an Israeli enclave with several IDF outposts. The area is on constant alert and the army operates in the area regularly in order to thwart attempts to penetrate into Israeli territory.

Jerusalem Post Staff

Source:https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-748465

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Pakistan's Genocide - Uzay Bulut

 

​ by Uzay Bulut

"Hindus were the special targets of this violence, as documented by official government correspondence and documents from the United States, Pakistan, and India" — hinduamerican.org

 

• "The conflict resulted in the massacre of an estimated three million East Pakistani citizens, the ethnic cleansing of 10 million ethnic Bengalis who fled to India, and the rape of at least 200,000 women (some estimates put the number of rape victims at closer to 400,000)." — hinduamerican.org

• "Hindus were the special targets of this violence, as documented by official government correspondence and documents from the United States, Pakistan, and India.... The Pakistan military's conflation of Hindu, Bengali, and Indian identities meant that all Bengalis (the majority of people in Bangladesh) were suspect.... In the eyes of the Pakistani military, Hindu, Bengali, and Indian identities were one and the same." — hinduamerican.org

• "Bengali Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, and other religious groups were also significantly affected. By the end of the first month in March 1971, 1.5 million Bengalis were displaced. By November 1971, 10 million Bengalis, the majority of whom were Hindu, had fled to India." — hinduamerican.org

• "II]in the eyes of Western Pakistanis and their fundamentalist Muslim collaborators 'the Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that should best be exterminated.'" — Rudolph Joseph Rummel (1932–2014), leading American scholar of genocides, quoted by sociologist Massimo Introvigne, bitterwinter.org, November 2, 2021.

• The genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Pakistani military against millions of people due to their ethnicity, religion, language and political views urgently need to be called out and the perpetrators held accountable.

The genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Pakistani military against millions of people due to their ethnicity, religion, language and political views urgently need to be called out and the perpetrators held accountable. Pictured: A woman and her grandchildren in a field hospital in Calcutta, India, after they fled the war in East Pakistan (Bangladesh), on November 23, 1971. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images)

The genocide committed by Pakistan needs immediate recognition.

"According to Bangladesh Government estimates 3 million people were killed, over two-hundred thousand women were sexually and physically violated, and 10 million people were forced to cross the border into India, leaving behind their ancestral homes and worldly possessions just to save their lives and dignity of their women," wrote Stichting BASUG (Bangladesh Support Group), a non-governmental organization, together with other Bangladeshi diaspora organizations to the United Nations Secretary General on May 29.

"Over 20 million citizens were internally displaced in search of safety. Newspapers, magazines and publications which are available in libraries and archives all around the world bear testimony to the fact."

Although this genocide took place after the Turkish genocide of Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks (1913-1923), and after the German genocide of the Jews (1938-1945), it was no less deadly. The letter to the UN stated:

"We must recall that the 1971 GENOCIDE in Bangladesh conceived by the Pakistani authorities, planned and perpetrated by the Pakistani military aided by their Bihari and Bengali collaborators is one of the world's gravest mass atrocities witnessed after the Second World War."

The genocide committed against the Bengali nation by the Pakistani military, during the Bangladesh war of independence, began on March 25, 1971 with the launch of Operation Searchlight when the government of Pakistan (then West Pakistan) began a military crackdown on East Pakistan (Bangladesh) to suppress Bengali calls for self-determination.

On that day, the Pakistani military launched a campaign of genocide against the ethnic Bengali and Hindu religious communities in East Pakistan that would last for 10 months. This spurred the 10-month Bangladesh liberation war and later a 13-day India-Pakistan war. Both ended on December 16, 1971, with the surrender of Pakistan.

The recent letter from Stichting BASUG to the UN secretary general, demanded "the 'International Recognition of the 1971 GENOCIDE' committed against the Bengali nation by the Pakistani occupation army and their collaborators during Bangladesh War of Independence."

Dr. Rounaq Jahan, a Bangladeshi political scientist, details the grievances of the people in what was then East Pakistan that led them to demand independence from West Pakistan and the motives of Pakistani genocide perpetrators:

"The Bengalis had to defend not only the right to practice their own language, but other creative expressions of their culture such as literature, music, dance, and art. The Pakistani ruling elites looked upon Bengali language and culture as too 'Hindu leaning' and made repeated attempts to 'cleanse' it from Hindu influence. First, in the 1950s, attempts were made to force Bengalis to substitute Bengali words with Arabic and Urdu words. Then, in the 1960s, state-controlled media such as television and radio banned songs written by Rabindra Nath Tagore, a Bengali Hindu, who won the Nobel Prize in 1913 and whose poetry and songs were equally beloved by Bengali Hindus and Muslims. The attacks on their language and culture as 'Hindu leaning' alienated the Bengalis from the state- sponsored Islamic ideology of Pakistan, and as a result the Bengalis started emphasizing a more secular ideology and outlook.

"The Bengali nationalist movement was also fueled by a sense of economic exploitation. Though jute, the major export- earning commodity, was produced in East Pakistan, most of the economic investments took place in West Pakistan. A systematic transfer of resources took place from East to West Pakistan, creating a growing economic disparity and a feeling among the Bengalis that they were being treated as a colony by Pakistan."

The Hindu American Foundation notes that Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan in 1971 was the culmination of several longstanding factors, including linguistic and cultural repression, economic marginalization, political disenfranchisement, and a quest for greater provincial autonomy.

"The West Pakistani military and civilian elite sought to create a cohesive polity unified by Islam and the Urdu language. In the process, they suppressed the Bengali culture and language, which was viewed as closely linked to Hinduism and therefore, a threat to their conception of an Islamic nation.

"The Bangladeshi independence movement in 1971 was met with a brutal genocidal campaign of violence by the Pakistani army and local Islamist militias. The conflict resulted in the massacre of an estimated three million East Pakistani citizens, the ethnic cleansing of 10 million ethnic Bengalis who fled to India, and the rape of at least 200,000 women (some estimates put the number of rape victims at closer to 400,000). Hindus were the special targets of this violence, as documented by official government correspondence and documents from the United States, Pakistan, and India. However all Bengalis, regardless of religious identity were targeted. The Pakistan military's conflation of Hindu, Bengali, and Indian identities meant that all Bengalis (the majority of people in Bangladesh) were suspect.

"In the eyes of the Pakistani military, Hindu, Bengali, and Indian identities were one and the same. Although Hindus were a special target of the Pakistan military, Bengali Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, and other religious groups were also significantly affected. By the end of the first month in March 1971, 1.5 million Bengalis were displaced. By November 1971, 10 million Bengalis, the majority of whom were Hindu, had fled to India."

In the Harvard International Review, Kimtee Kundu recently wrote about the motives of the perpetrators of this genocide:

"Started as a mission to maintain autocratic Pakistani governance over the self-determination driven Bangladeshis, the operation intended to capture activists, intellectuals, and troopers. However, they were not the only victims. Humanitarian crisis broke loose as millions of civilians endured the violent realities of displacement, financial instability, trauma, and death.

"Pakistan's leaders also aimed to enforce Islamic unification of the west and the east. Due to differences between Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, intolerance spread from a multitude of aspects. Pakistan was predominantly an Islamic, Urdu speaking region; meanwhile, Bangladesh was both a Hindu and Islamic, Bangla speaking region. As the Pakistani leaders, or the then Muslim League, determined, these apparent differences made Bangladeshis undesirable and inferior, especially given the Pakistani agenda to create an Islamic nation. Consequently, the Bangla language—which relates more to Hinduism and Sanskrit—was deemed undesirable, and those who were Hindu were the primary targets. Fearing the dangers of war, over 10 million Bangladeshis fled."

"One of the goals of the West Pakistanis and their collaborators in 1971 was to exterminate the Hindu community by killing all males," noted Massimo Introvigne, a prominent sociologist of religions:

"The roots of the ideology considering the Eastern Pakistanis 'inferior' or 'bad' Muslim was... the accusation that they were 'crypto-Hindus,' and had included in their religious practices Hindu elements that had tainted their faith.

"Two third of the eight million refugees who escaped East Pakistan were Hindus. What the Western Pakistanis did not consider was that, faced with such an enormous influx of refugees, even the Indian politicians most reluctant to go to war would conclude that an armed conflict was an easier solution than accommodating in India the whole Hindu population of East Pakistan.

"A disproportionate number of Hindus, however, were killed in 1971. In [1971], Hindus were some 20% of the East Pakistan's population, yet it was estimated that they might have been 50% of those killed. American leading scholar of genocides Rudolph Joseph Rummel (1932–2014)... wrote that in the eyes of Western Pakistanis and their fundamentalist Muslim collaborators 'the Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that should best be exterminated.'

"The parallel with the Nazi persecution of Jews is made even more appropriate by the fact that the Western Pakistani army compelled Hindus to have a yellow 'H' painted on their homes, thus designating those who lived there as targets for extermination.

"Hindu women, however, in most cases were not killed but massively raped, forced into prostitution, or forcibly married to Western Pakistani soldiers and local collaborator militiamen, just as it happened to their Muslim Bengali counterparts."

"Academic research and scholarship related to the study of genocide has largely recognized the historical event of 1971 as GENOCIDE," according the Stichting BASUG's letter to the UN.

" The recent issuance of a statement by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) recognizes the Genocide and calls for action by world bodies....

"The world body of Genocide scholarship is fully convinced of the fact that documentation available on Bangladesh Genocide in 1971 is quite adequate for recognition by the UN and countries across the globe...

"New generations across the world must know what happened in Bangladesh in 1971. We must learn from atrocities in the past to prevent future ones to achieve the universal goal of 'Never again', which was the prime goal while enacting the UN Genocide Convention. Early recognition of Bangladesh Genocide is crucial today to champion the cause of protecting human rights, practicing what we preach, and preventing more genocides to happen in the future while holding perpetrators accountable for the crime they committed.

"Therefore, we strongly demand that the 1971 GENOCIDE be recognized to give justice to the victims of the atrocities and bring the perpetrators to justice. We also call upon the United Nations General Assembly and other international entities to formally recognize the Bangladesh GENOCIDE of 1971 – one of the darkest yet most overlooked chapters in the human history. We believe that only through confronting the past with sincerity and truth, rising above narrow political interests, we can acknowledge our shared humanity and join hands for a safer, peaceful world."

The genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Pakistani military against millions of people due to their ethnicity, religion, language and political views urgently need to be called out and the perpetrators held accountable.

 

Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. She is also a research fellow for the Philos Project.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19755/pakistan-genocide

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Biden admin spent millions of dollars to fund LGBT activism overseas, report - Charlotte Hazard

 

​ by Charlotte Hazard

Advocacy groups from at least 55 nations have received money from the current administration to promote LGBTQ ideology.

 

The Biden administration has spent nearly $4.6 million on promoting LGBTQ projects and activism in other countries, according to recent reports. 

According to The Washington Free Beacon, advocacy groups from at least 55 nations have received money from the current administration to promote LGBTQ ideology to citizens of its countries.

The U.S. reportedly contributed to organizing pride parades in at least seven different countries.

It also paid for drag queen shows in Ecuador and funded a Polish group that promotes putting children who struggle with gender dysphoria on puberty blockers. 

The State Department told the Free Beacon in an interview that these programs were meant to create "a world that is safer and more prosperous for all."

A Mexican advocacy group called Impulso Trans received $10,000 this year from the State Department in order to "raise awareness and connect key stakeholders of the LGBTQ community."

Senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation's Border Security and Immigration Center Simon Hankinson criticized the Biden administration for the money spent toward these projects. 

"The Biden Administration’s activist-led diplomacy is managing to leverage small grants of money to remarkable success—in alienating the target countries and uniting them in opposition," Hankinson told the Free Beacon.

"American realists have long understood that even our allies will not agree with us on everything, and that we need to build out from areas of consensus like peace, democratic governance, and the rule of law," he continued.

Charlotte Hazard

Source: https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/biden-admin-spends-millions-dollars-fund-lgbt-activism-overseas-report

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Antisemitic incidents report: June 24-30 - David Swindle

 

​ by David Swindle

From a heavy-metal singer calling out fellow rocker Roger Waters, a man dressed in neo-Nazi clothing giving balloons to children to a Bangladeshi cleric who said Hitler “did a good job on killing Jews.”

 

Bangladeshi cleric Enayet Ullah Abbasi was granted entry into the United Kingdom for a lecture tour, June 2023. Source: Twitter.

JNS publishes a weekly listing of antisemitic incidents recorded by Jewish, pro-Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, as well as international news media. By the Anti-Defamation League’s count, an average of seven instances of varying measure occur daily in the United States. (Dates refer to when the news was reported, not when the events took place.)

White supremacist and antisemitic incidents nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022 (and were up more than 600% since 2017) in the state of Indiana. The mayor of an Oregon city has apologized for sharing a Facebook post that formed a swastika out of gay pride flags. To make a point about censorship, the comedian Roseanne Barr, who is no stranger to controversy, said on a podcast that nobody died in the Holocaust. (She, the host and others have said that the comment was sarcastic.)

June 25

The coastal city of Long Beach, Calif., adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism. In Waukegan, Ill., a rededication ceremony was held at a Jewish cemetery months after tombstones were vandalized with swastikas.

June 26

The penalty phase began in the trial of the Pittsburgh synagogue mass murderer Robert Bowers. Jurors will decide if execution is appropriate. Two former California police officers pleaded not guilty to felony vandalism for allegedly spray-painting a swastika on a suspect’s car.

June 27

In Bowers’s trial, doctors who testified disagreed about whether the 50-year-old defendant had suffered brain damage. Police in Maine are investigating a swastika spray-painted on a road. In Germany, law enforcement began investigating a man dressed in neo-Nazi clothing distributing balloons to children.

June 28

Breitbart News reported that Pedro Gonzalez, politics editor of the conservative magazine Chronicles, has a history of sending racist and antisemitic messages. The Anti-Defamation League found that online hate and harassment have reached record highs. The American Jewish Committee is facilitating a summit on fighting online antisemitism. B’nai Brith Canada filed suit against anti-Israel activist David Mivasair, 69, for defamation. In Finland, a politician criticized for a Hitler joke and neo-Nazi associations weathered a no-confidence vote.

June 29

Texas authorities released bodycam footage of a police officer killing a neo-Nazi gunman who opened fire at a mall last month. A Michigan man was charged in federal court for vandalizing a synagogue in 2019. Bangladeshi cleric Enayet Ullah Abbasi, and Islamist who has said that “Hitler did a good job on killing Jews in the Holocaust,” was granted entry into the United Kingdom for a lecture tour.

June 30

A forensic psychologist testified in the Tree of Life*Or L’Simcha Synagogue trial that the murderer had considered other targets to kill Jews at large. French Jewish groups condemned the vandalism of a Jewish cemetery during anti-police riots. In Michigan, a neo-Nazi was indicted for planning a mass shooting of a synagogue. The ADL is calling out the White House for not talking about anti-Zionism enough in its rollout of the federal strategy to counter antisemitism. David Draiman, lead singer of the heavy-metal band Disturbed, called out Roger Waters aggressively in a profanity-laced proclamation at a Tel Aviv concert. “We’ve survived worse than them, and we will continue surviving worse than them!” he said.

David Swindle

Source: https://www.jns.org/antisemitism/anti-israel/23/6/30/299268/

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Palestinians furious over Netanyahu claims that Israel must 'crush' statehood ambitions - Mohammed ak Kassim

 

​ by Mohammed ak Kassim

The veteran Israeli politician has revealed his true goal, critics say: no Palestinian state and a Palestinian Authority that serves only as Israel’s “subcontractor”

 

Netanyahu and Abbas

(photo credit: REUTERS)

Palestinian officials are enraged by reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told an Israeli parliamentary committee Monday that he rejects an independent Palestinian state but is also not interested in the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) demise.

For more stories from The Media Line go to themedialine.org

Palestinian hopes of establishing a sovereign state “must be eliminated,” Netanyahu told Knesset (Israeli parliament) committee members in a closed-door meeting about his government’s plans for the eventual departure of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

“We are preparing for the period after Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas],” Netanyahu said, adding that Israel “need[s] the Palestinian Authority. We must not allow it to collapse.”

The Israeli prime minister said his government was ready to offer economic support to the PA based in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Netanyahu’s remarks were reported on a radio news program owned by Kan, the Israeli public broadcaster.

The Palestinian Authority's response

In an official response, Hussein al-Sheikh, civil affairs minister for the PA, rejected Netanyahu’s remarks. “The role of the Palestinian Authority is to achieve the Palestinian national project of freedom, independence, and protection of the Palestinian people,” al-Sheikh said. The PA “has not and will not accept anything other than this national and historical role.”

Palestinians have long sought to establish an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside Israel. This arrangement is popularly known as the “two-state solution” to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during an IDF ceremony on June 29, 2023 (credit: CHAIM ZACH / GPO)

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office did not deny Netanyahu’s comments. If accurate, Palestinian leaders say, the comments prove the premier’s “true motives.” In years past, Netanyahu has offered perfunctory support for the internationally backed notion of an independent Palestinian state, provided it had no military or security power.

Netanyahu’s statements aroused widespread anger in other Palestinian political quarters.

Nabil Abu Rudeineh, Abbas’ spokesperson, said that establishing an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, is the only solution to achieve long-term security and stability.

“Netanyahu may not hope for the collapse of the PA, publicly at least, but his goal is clear: Keep it as weak as can be,” an aide to President Abbas told The Media Line. The aide, who requested anonymity, insisted that the PA is a “national achievement” that no one, including Netanyahu, can change.

“The alternative to the PA collapse is chaos, and it will mean the end of the Oslo Accords and any peace process,” he said.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders signed the first and second Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995. In those agreements, Palestinian leaders recognized Israel’s right to exist in return for Israel’s recognition of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination.

Many assumed those agreements would eventually lead to a two-state solution. However, Talks remain frozen, and the Palestine Authority has limited control over roughly 40% of the West Bank. In Gaza, a Palestinian Islamist group, Hamas, seized power from the PA in 2007.

“We know what we want, but Israel can’t seem to get itself to say clearly and publicly what it wants. We are at the mercy of those who are controlling the government, whose main goal is to appease their electoral base,” the PA aide argued.

US-based Palestinian affairs expert Hasan Awwad told The Media Line that the collapse of the PA is “underway” and “inevitable” as its effectiveness is “dismal.”

“Israel has been increasing its settlement expansion, making it impossible to create a Palestinian state. There is no political horizon, and Palestinians don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel,” Awwad said.

Many believe Netanyahu began implementing a plan to eliminate the possibility of a viable Palestinian state years ago. The Israeli leader, who chairs the right-wing Likud party, ruled the country from 1996 to 1999, 2009 to 2021, and January this year.

During that time, critics say, his governments have expanded West Bank settlements and built new roads in such a way as to exclude the establishment of a territorially contiguous, sovereign Palestinian state.

Since retaking office in January, the veteran Israeli politician’s ruling coalition, which is more religious and nationalist than its predecessors, has approved building over 7,000 new housing units for Jewish Israelis living in West Bank settlements.

Many in the international community regard those settlements as violations of the Geneva Conventions and an impediment to peace. However, Netanyahu and his coalition partners regard the settlements as Jewish return to an area they once ruled.

Ahmad Rafiq Awad, president of the Center for Jerusalem Studies at Al-Quds University, told The Media Line, “It is clear that Netanyahu was never an advocate of a two-state solution.” Now, Awad says, Netanyahu has “finally revealed his real strategy: he is not serious about having a neighboring Palestinian state.”

Unlike ministers in his government who have called for an end to PA rule in parts of the West Bank, however, Netanyahu does not want the Ramallah-based authority to disappear. Instead, Awad says, Netanyahu wants the PA to help Israel “manage the occupation and maintain the status quo.”

The Ramallah-based authority, Awwad says, “has helped whitewash Israeli occupation legally, morally, and financially.” Netanyahu wants “an agent that does the dirty work for Israel, and the PA does part of that,” he added.

Palestinian forces are responsible for municipal services and internal security in the West Bank’s areas A and B. In practice, Palestinian police often tacitly cooperate with the Israeli military in its pursuit of suspects.

Palestinian political institutions are under increasing economic pressure. For example, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh warned recently that his agency was not receiving its regular disbursements of international aid, threatening its ability to continue operations.

Moien Odeh, a specialist in Palestinian affairs, human rights, and international law, told The Media Line that Netanyahu’s remarks are, in fact, nothing new.

Israel, Odeh says, has always regarded the PA as “a subcontractor” responsible for Palestinians’ “daily needs” and some of Israel’s “security concerns.” It also offers Israel relief from international pressure to maintain a semblance of political negotiations and provide for some of the Palestinians’ needs.

Now, however, “Netanyahu said explicitly that the Palestine Authority is the end [goal], not a step toward [an eventual Palestinian] state,” as others have assumed since Oslo. “Of course,” Odeh says, “the policy and actions of all Israeli governments have always been in this direction.”

The Palestinian Authority has failed to unite Palestinians, Odeh says, and its fate has always been “linked to Israel in most or even all respects.” The authority cannot “survive without Israeli and international support and funding,” keeping it “permanently hostage to aid.”

Mohammed ak Kassim

Source: https://www.jpost.com/arab-israeli-conflict/article-748435

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GOP demands Treasury hand over reports involving Burisma, alleged Biden bribery - Ben Whedon

 

​ by Ben Whedon

The alleged scheme involved a Burisma executive hiring now-first son Hunter Biden to the board of Burisma to secure access to his father, then-Vice President Biden.

 

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer demanded on Wednesday that the Department of the Treasury hand over suspicious activity reports (SARs) for individuals and entities related to Ukrainian energy firm Burisma and an alleged bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden.

At issue is an allegation outlined in an FBI FD-1023 form containing confidential human source information. The alleged scheme involved a Burisma executive hiring now-first son Hunter Biden to the board of Burisma to secure access to his father, then-Vice President Biden. That Burisma executive allegedly paid a total of $10 million to two Biden family members in exchange for Biden using his influence to pressure the Ukrainian government to fire then-Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the firm at the time.

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Comer indicated that the committee sought to craft legislation to strengthen financial disclosure requirements in light of the allegations.

"The Committee is concerned that foreign nationals have sought access and influence by engaging in lucrative business relationships with high-profile political figures’ immediate family members, including members of the Biden family," he wrote. "The Committee is seeking meaningful reforms to government ethics and disclosure laws that will provide necessary transparency into a Vice President’s or President’s immediate family members’ income, assets, and financial relationships."

To that effect, and to the furtherance of the bribery investigation, Comer asked that Yellen provide the committee with the documents by July 12. Specifically, he is seeking all SARs related to Burisma and its affiliates, the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development, and several individuals, including former Burisma chief Mykola Zlochevsky, who is currently wanted by the Ukrainian government for alleged bribery. His whereabouts remain unknown.

"The FBI has been sitting on allegations for years that Joe Biden solicited and received a bribe while he was Vice President of the United States," Comer said in a statement announcing the letter. "We have no confidence that the FBI did anything to verify the allegations contained within this record and may have intentionally withheld it during the investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax evasion."

"In fact, an IRS whistleblower said that this critical evidence was withheld from tax investigators who have since revealed they had potentially corroborating evidence during the investigation," he continued. "The House Oversight and Accountability Committee is continuing to pursue financial records to follow the Bidens’ money trail to help inform legislative solutions to strengthen public corruption laws. Secretary Yellen must provide financial records related to Burisma executives and entities to help further our investigation to determine whether foreign actors targeted the Bidens, President Biden is compromised, and national security is threatened."

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on Twitter.

Source:https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/gop-demands-treasury-hand-over-reports-involving-burisma-alleged-biden-bribery

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