DOJ ordered Hunter Biden investigators to 'remove any reference' to Joe Biden in FARA probe warrant: House GOP - Brooke Singman

 

by Brooke Singman

House Ways & Means Committee voted to release new whistleblower documents

 

The U.S. Department of Justice ordered FBI and IRS investigators involved in the Hunter Biden probe to "remove any reference" to President Biden in a search warrant related to a Foreign Agents Registration Act probe, new documents released by the House Ways & Means Committee reveal.

Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., led a vote Wednesday to release new documents provided by IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler that "corroborate their initial testimony to the Committee and reinforce their credibility and their high esteem among colleagues."

DOJ REVEALS HUNTER BIDEN STILL UNDER FEDERAL INVESTIGATION FOR POTENTIAL FARA VIOLATIONS

"The Biden Administration — including top officials at the Justice Department — lied to the American public and engaged in a cover-up that interfered with federal investigators and protected the Biden family, including President Biden himself," the committee said.

President Biden. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

One document released Wednesday was an August 2020 email sent by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf in which she ordered investigators to remove any reference to "Political Figure 1" from a search warrant. Subsequent documents released Wednesday revealed that President Biden is "Political Figure 1."

"As a priority, someone needs to redraft attachment B," Wolf writes in the email. "I am not sure what this is cut and pasted from but other than the attribution location, and identity stuff at the end, none of it is appropriate and within the scope of this warrant." 

Wolf adds: "Please focus on FARA evidence only. There should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here." 

A document released Wednesday and reviewed by Fox News Digital states that "Political Figure 1" is "Former Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr."

"VP BIDEN is currently the Democratic Party Presidential candidate for the United States and served as the 47th officeholder for the position of the Office of the Vice President of the United States (VPOTUS) in the Barack Obama Administration from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017," the document states. "He is the father of SUBJECT 1."

"SUBJECT 1" is presumably Hunter Biden, the target of the investigation.

President Biden is seen with his son, Hunter Biden, who's been engaged in several controversial foreign business deals. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

The Justice Department indirectly revealed that Hunter Biden is still under investigation for a potential violation of FARA during his first court appearance in July, in which his "sweetheart" plea deal collapsed.

When asked by federal Judge Maryellen Noreika of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware whether the government could bring a charge against Hunter Biden related to FARA, the DOJ prosecutor replied, "Yes."

Whistleblowers Shapley and Ziegler have testified that Wolf, throughout the years-long investigation into Hunter Biden, sought to "limit" investigators' questioning related to President Biden, despite objections from FBI and IRS officials. 

HUNTER BIDEN INVESTIGATORS LIMITED QUESTIONS ABOUT 'DAD,' 'BIG GUY' DESPITE FBI, IRS OBJECTIONS: WHISTLEBLOWER

Meanwhile, the committee said that documents also revealed that the Hunter Biden federal investigation was being "hampered and artificially slowed." 

The committee said during a September 2022 interview with the president’s brother, James Biden, that investigators were "not allowed to ask if then-Vice President Biden was involved in Hunter Biden’s deal with CEFC China Energy," or follow "normal investigative leads."

The committee also said a May 2021 report from investigators detailed that they were "not allowed to follow investigative leads on potential campaign finance violations related to a wealthy Hollywood lawyer, Kevin Morris, who was enlisted to help the family, and who paid millions of dollars to help Hunter around the time that Joe Biden becomes president." 

"Investigators wrote that ‘there may be campaign finance criminal violations. AUSA Wolf stated on the last prosecution team meeting that she did not want any of the agents to look into the allegation,’" the committee said Wednesday. 

Chairman Jason Smith said the new documents show a "clearer connection between Joe Biden, his public office, and Hunter Biden’s global influence peddling scheme that resulted in over $20 million in payments to the Biden family." 

"In addition to then Vice-President Joe Biden attending lunches and speaking on the phone with his son’s business associates, the details released today paint a fuller picture of how Joe Biden’s vice presidential office was instrumental to the Biden Family’s business schemes," Smith said.

President Biden and Hunter Biden. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Smith said that the evidence included in the documents shows "a pattern of Hunter Biden creating for-profit entities to shield at least $20 million from foreign sources from taxes and hide the trail of payments that led to members of the Biden family."

A congressional aide told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that the Biden family and their associates collected more than $24 million in foreign payments between 2014 and 2019.

Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo., arrives for the start of the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on releasing former President Donald Trump's tax returns on Dec. 20, 2022.

"The growing body of evidence further calls into question the Justice Department’s attempted sweetheart plea deal for Hunter Biden, and the reasons for appointing the architect of that plea deal as the special counsel for Hunter Biden’s case, in light of officials’ efforts to protect President Biden and his son," Smith said. "This evidence makes clear Hunter Biden’s business was selling the Biden ‘brand’ and that access to the White House was his family’s most valuable asset — despite official claims otherwise."

HUNTER BIDEN RECEIVED $250K WIRES ORIGINATING IN BEIJING WITH BENEFICIARY ADDRESS LISTED AS JOE BIDEN'S HOME

Smith, who is leading the House impeachment inquiry against President Biden alongside House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said his committee will continue to take "appropriate steps" in its investigation, including sharing documents with committee Democrats ahead of their release.

"We have promised to go where the facts lead us, and that is exactly what we will do to get answers for the American people," Smith said.

The documents come out as part of House Republicans' formal impeachment inquiry investigation against President Biden. The House Oversight Committee is set to hold its first public hearing as part of the inquiry on Thursday at 10 a.m. ET.

White House spokesperson Sharon Yang dismissed the new documents Wednesday evening, telling Fox News Digital that House Republicans have "again cried wolf and provided no evidence tying President Biden to wrongdoing." 

"Instead of wasting time with media stunts trumpeting half-baked conspiracy theories, House Republicans should realize the clock is ticking – it’s time they stop trying to distract and start focusing on priorities that matter to the American people, like doing their jobs to prevent a government shutdown that would inflict real pain on working families," Yang added. 

The Justice Department did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

 

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-ordered-hunter-biden-investigators-remove-any-reference-joe-biden-fara-probe-warrant-house-gop

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

While China and Russia Test Nukes, Biden Wants to Ban U.S. Testing - Gordon G. Chang

 

by Gordon G. Chang

China is already thinking of first strikes with nukes. We do not have to speculate: Chinese officials... [have] threatened them.

 

• "Learning from Russia, China is likely developing Low Yield and Very Low Yield nuclear weapons.... to which the U.S. is not prepared to respond." — Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center, to Gatestone Institute, September 2023.

• In short, China is almost certainly detonating nuclear devices and definitely fast building its nuclear arsenal. The Pentagon in a November 2022 report forecast that China would quadruple its warheads from about 400 then to 1,500 by 2035.

• "For decades, they were quite comfortable with an arsenal of a few hundred nuclear weapons... to act as a deterrent. That expansion... they're undertaking puts us into a new world that we've never lived in before, where you have... three great powers, essentially — with large arsenals of nuclear weapons." — Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall, in testimony referring to China; stripes.com, March 28, 2023.

• China is already thinking of first strikes with nukes. We do not have to speculate: Chinese officials... [have] threatened them.

• China's leader Xi Jinping may be preparing to make good on the threats. The simultaneous removal this summer of the top two officers of the Rocket Force, the branch of the Chinese military in charge of almost all of the country's nuclear weapons, and 11 Rocket Force generals overall, suggest that Xi is installing officers who will obey commands to launch nukes.

• Furthermore, across the other branches of the Chinese military, Xi is apparently removing officers opposed to war, including retired air force General Liu Yazhou, who is thought to have received a death sentence.

• There are other interpretations for these moves, but all of them are ominous. War, likely to be fought with nuclear weapons, looks increasingly likely.

• To deter, the U.S. needs to go beyond subcritical testing and detonate a nuclear device.

• "We do not have the luxury of time as we have not modernized our nuclear forces for nearly four decades and our legacy systems are nearing the end of their already extended lives." America needs to make sure that new systems work and old warheads still function. — Peter Huessy, GeoStrategic Analysis, to Gatestone, September 2023.

• America's survival depends on its nuclear arsenal. As Huessy points out, disarmament advocates think the U.S. can deter adversaries and enemies with conventional forces only. That, he points out, ignores the reality of the battlefield: "Any use of nuclear weapons in a conflict would render the combat plans of our conventional combat commanders ineffective."

• Although the U.S. can learn much from computer simulations and other techniques, at some point the U.S. will have to detonate a nuclear device at least to validate three decades of assumptions.

• The United States, therefore, must resume testing nuclear weapons now.

China is almost certainly detonating nuclear devices and definitely fast building its nuclear arsenal. War, likely to be fought with nuclear weapons, looks increasingly likely. To deter, the U.S. needs to go beyond subcritical testing and detonate a nuclear device. Pictured: An aerial view of the subsidence crater formed by the Huron King underground nuclear test in Nevada on June 24, 1980. (Photo by FPG/Archive Photos/Getty Images)

CNN on September 23 reported that, based on satellite imagery it had reviewed, China, Russia and the U.S. all are upgrading nuclear weapons testing facilities.

Although the news outlet states "there is no evidence to suggest that Russia, the U.S., or China is preparing for an imminent nuclear test," it is clear that the world's prohibition on nuclear testing cannot last long.

The United States should resume nuclear tests now.

An American test would not come out of the blue. "There are really a lot of hints that we're seeing that suggest Russia, China, and the United States might resume nuclear testing," Jeffrey Lewis of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies told CNN.

A test of a nuclear device would lead, almost inevitably, to the end of what Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association has labeled "one of the most successful agreements in the long history of nuclear arms control and nonproliferation," the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty of 1996. Kimball points out that 186 countries have signed the CTBT, as the pact is known, and made nuclear testing "taboo."

America's last test of a nuclear device occurred in 1992.

"As with other critical nuclear risk reduction, nonproliferation, and arms control agreements, the CTBT is under threat due to inattention, diplomatic sclerosis, and worsening relations between nuclear-armed adversaries," writes Kimball this month in "Defending the De Facto Nuclear Test Ban."

Kimball should also mention that the CTBT is ailing because belligerent regimes have ignored the agreement. The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and State Department have charged that Russia violated the U.S.'s "zero-yield standard" and suggested China also did not meet all its compliance obligations.

The State Department compliance report covering 2019, for instance, states that China's "use of explosive containment chambers, extensive excavation activities at Lop Nur, and lack of transparency on its nuclear testing activities," among other things, "raise concerns regarding its adherence to the 'zero yield' standard adhered to by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France in their respective nuclear weapons testing moratoria."

The State Department notes that China had been "frequently blocking the flow of data" from monitoring stations to the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization.

"Learning from Russia, China is likely developing Low Yield and Very Low Yield nuclear weapons," Richard Fisher of the International Assessment and Strategy Center told Gatestone. "The Chinese construction in Lop Nur would support the testing of such devices, to which the U.S. is not prepared to respond."

In short, China is almost certainly detonating nuclear devices and definitely fast building its nuclear arsenal. The Pentagon in a November 2022 report, forecast that China would quadruple its warheads from about 400 then to 1,500 by 2035.

"For decades, they were quite comfortable with an arsenal of a few hundred nuclear weapons, which was fairly clearly a second-strike capability to act as a deterrent," Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall stated in testimony in March, referring to China. "That expansion that they're undertaking puts us into a new world that we've never lived in before, where you have three powers—three great powers, essentially—with large arsenals of nuclear weapons."

China is already thinking of first strikes with nukes. We do not have to speculate: Chinese officials, both in and out of uniform, have throughout this century publicly threatened them. As Kendall testified, "I don't think I've seen anything more disturbing in my career than the Chinese ongoing expansion of their nuclear force."

China's leader Xi Jinping may be preparing to make good on the threats. The simultaneous removal this summer of the top two officers of the Rocket Force, the branch of the Chinese military in charge of almost all of the country's nuclear weapons, and 11 Rocket Force generals overall, suggest that Xi is installing officers who will obey commands to launch nukes.

Furthermore, across the other branches of the Chinese military, Xi is apparently removing officers opposed to war, including retired air force General Liu Yazhou, who is thought to have received a death sentence.

There are other interpretations for these moves, but all of them are ominous. War, likely to be fought with nuclear weapons, looks increasingly likely.

The U.S., China, and Russia have all conducted "subcritical" tests, which the CTBT does not prohibit because they do not create nuclear detonations.

The United States signed but has not ratified the CTBT, and President Joe Biden is committed to achieving Senate ratification. Fortunately, the Senate has so far refused to ratify it.

To deter, the U.S. needs to go beyond subcritical testing and detonate a nuclear device.

Why? For one thing, China and Russia have undoubtedly been detonating small nuclear devices.

As Peter Huessy of GeoStrategic Analysis told Gatestone, "We do not have the luxury of time as we have not modernized our nuclear forces for nearly four decades and our legacy systems are nearing the end of their already extended lives." America needs to make sure that new systems work and old warheads still function.

America's survival depends on its nuclear arsenal. As Huessy points out, disarmament advocates think the U.S. can deter adversaries and enemies with conventional forces only. That, he points out, ignores the reality of the battlefield: "Any use of nuclear weapons in a conflict would render the combat plans of our conventional combat commanders ineffective."

The U.S. cannot allow its arsenal, as Huessy says, to "rust to obsolescence." Although the U.S. can learn much from computer simulations and other techniques, at some point the U.S. will have to detonate a nuclear device at least to validate three decades of assumptions.

The United States, therefore, must resume testing nuclear weapons now.

• Follow Gordon G. Chang on X (formerly Twitter)

 

Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a Gatestone Institute distinguished senior fellow, and a member of its Advisory Board.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19998/nuclear-weapons-testing

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

The Ukrainian Gordian Knot - Victor Davis Hanson

 

by Victor Davis Hanson

Risk of being cut by a Russian nuclear sword

 

Most Americans understandably favor the Ukrainian resistance against Vladimir Putin’s Russian naked 2022 aggression.

Yet for Ukraine to break the current deadlock—our generation’s Verdun with perhaps 600,000 combined casualties so far— and “win” the war, it apparently must have the military wherewithal to hit targets inside Russia.

Such strategically logical attacks might nevertheless provoke a wounded and unpredictable Russia finally to carry out its boilerplate and ignored existential threats.

From the last 75 years of big-power rivalries, the operational “rules” of proxy wars are well known.

In Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan, Russia supplied America’s enemies—sometimes even sending Russian pilots into combat zones.

Thousands of Americans likely died due to our adversaries’ use of Russian munitions and personnel.

Likewise, Russia lost 15,000 fatalities in its decade-long misadventure in Afghanistan. In part, Moscow’s defeat may have been due to deadly American weapons, including sophisticated Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

In the bloody decades of these big-power proxy wars, many were fought on or near the borders of Russia or China.

Yet none of these surrogate conflicts of the nuclear age ever led to hot wars between the U.S. and Russia or China.

But Ukraine risks now becoming a new—and different—proxy war altogether.

Never has the U.S. squared off against Russia or China in a conventional proxy war over either’s respective historical borders (whether illegitimate or not).

Neither has Russia nor the U.S. itself ever provided weapons to a proxy belligerent that were used directly inside the respective homeland of either side. They understood superpowers react unpredictably to any third-party who fuels direct conventional attacks on their homelands.

Nobly protecting both Ukraine and Taiwan understandably holds a potential risk of big-power escalation that even Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq likely did not.

The U.S. rightly is very sensitive to intrusions of any rival big power near its own borders.

When the Soviets had supplied missiles aimed at the U.S. to its proxy communist Cuba, the Kennedy administration was willing to risk war against Moscow. Indeed, America went to DefCon 2, the second highest level of nuclear readiness.

If all the current 1916-style talk of going into Mexico—ostensibly to stop the cartels from importing drugs over an inert border that kill 100,000 Americans a year—were to be reified, would the U.S. warn Moscow not to supply Mexico or the cartels with weapons or advisors?

The U.S. in 1917 declared war in part because of German interference in our own territorial affairs.

A hacked telegram from German State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Arthur Zimmermann revealed Germany had promised a potential proxy, Mexico, some U.S. territory if it were to join the Central Powers to defeat the Allies. That provocation helped convince enraged Americans to enter World War I.

The 9/11 hit was followed by an immediate American invasion of Afghanistan on the grounds that the third-party Taliban helped terrorists strike our homeland.

Additionally, nowhere in the world has territory been more disputed than in Ukraine.

Seventy-eight years ago, Joseph Stalin’s Russia formally annexed his previously stolen western regions of currently independent Ukraine. The lands were taken mostly from Poland, but also a few parts from Hungary, Romania, and the former Czechoslovakia.

Russia also seized and occupied Crimea in 2014. The peninsula had previously been Russian from 1783-1954.

Yet Crimea was only ceded by Soviet Russia to Soviet Ukraine in 1954 as a political ploy of then Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev —himself born near the Ukrainian border.

Khrushchev sought to ensure that a restive Ukraine stayed an integral part of a supposedly eternal Soviet Union by ceremonially including Crimea into one of its own Soviet state’s sub-jurisdictions.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the short-lived Russian-majority, and independent Republic of Crimea (1992-95), was annexed by the newly independent Ukraine.

It then remained part of the Ukrainian nation for 19 years until the 2014 invasion.

Why Putin for a third time dared invade Ukraine is obfuscated by contemporary domestic politics.

He likely enacted his irredentist agenda of restoring the borders of the former Soviet Union in 2008, 2014, and 2021, because he gambled—correctly—that the Bush, Obama, and Biden administrations could not successfully oppose his serial annexations.

Equally forgotten were the policies of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations regarding the 2014 Russian annexation of the Donbas and Crimea. Prior to the February 24, 2022 Russian attack on Kyiv, none of the three had ever sought to force Russia to give up either the borderlands or the Crimea.

The Obama administration’s disastrous 2009-2014 Russian “reset” appeasement policy, the 2015-16 Russian collusion hoax, and the humiliating American skedaddle from Kabul also convinced Putin that America either would not or could not oppose his 2022 invasion.

America should help Ukraine resist Russian aggression. But we should be mindful in doing so that the entire region is an historical Gordian Knot of poorly understood but ancient intertwined and competing threads—one that may risk being cut by a Russian nuclear sword.

Victor Davis Hanson

Source: https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/28/the-ukrainian-gordian-knot/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter