#david weiss

[puntidifuga]

Peter Fischli David Weiss from Equilibre series, 1984

[tomorrowusa]

I'm sure that everybody here is shocked, utterly shocked, that a Republican conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden had Russian intelligence agents as its source.

The former FBI informant charged with lying about the Bidens’ dealings in Ukraine told investigators after his arrest that Russian intelligence officials were involved in passing information to him about Hunter Biden, prosecutors said Tuesday in a new court filing, noting that the information was false. Prosecutors also said Alexander Smirnov has been “actively peddling new lies that could impact US elections” after meeting with Russian spies late last year and that the fallout from his previous false bribery accusations about the Bidens “continue[s] to be felt to this day.” Smirnov claims to have “extensive and extremely recent” contacts with foreign intelligence officials, prosecutors said in the filing. They said he previously told the FBI that he has longstanding and extensive contacts with Russian spies, including individuals he said were high-level intelligence officers or command Russian assassins abroad. Prosecutors with special counsel David Weiss’ team said Tuesday that Smirnov has maintained those ties and noted that, in a post-arrest interview last week, “Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story about Businessperson 1,” referring to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. [ ... ] Prosecutors alleged that Smirnov “claims to have contacts with multiple foreign intelligence agencies,” including in Russia, and that he could use those contacts to flee the United States. The explosive revelation comes amid backlash over how Smirnov’s now-debunked allegations played into House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into the president. Smirnov has been charged with lying to the FBI and creating false records. He has not yet entered a formal plea, and his lawyers told CNN in a statement, “Mr. Smirnov is presumed innocent.” According to the new court filing, Smirnov told investigators he was in contact with “four different Russian officials,” all of whom are “top officials” and two of whom “are the heads of the entities they represent.” Prosecutors did not independently verify in the filing whether Smirnov’s reported contacts are legitimate, nor whether the Russians provided him with disinformation about the Bidens. The false information that Smirnov reported “was not trivial,” prosecutors wrote.

Republicans probably wouldn't care that their information was fake or that it came from Russia. It gave Marjorie Taylor Greene a chance to lasciviously flash Hunter Biden dick pics at a House committee meeting.

Putin and his flunkies are busy fabricating even more bullshit to help their client Donald Trump win this year.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

On Thursday, the Justice Department announced charges against an FBI informant with inventing the claims that the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had hired Hunter Biden as a way of channeling bribes to Joe Biden. David Weiss—the Trump-appointed special counsel who had also levied charges against Hunter Biden—announced the charges, contending the informant had “transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts” into salacious allegations targeting the president.

The informant, 43-year-old Alexander Smirnov, had allegedly given agents false information in 2020 and was known to strongly dislike Joe Biden. According to the indictment, Smirnov’s story fell apart upon questioning in 2023. He was arrested in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

So just how much does it matter to Republicans that this FBI informant has been charged with fabricating his claims? How much does it change the narrative about the “Biden crime family” that has become entrenched among both right-wing politicians and media?

We can’t assume the development will be taken seriously on the right, given Trump supporters’ distrust of the FBI. On Fox News, the biggest peddler of this narrative, the hosts ignored the news. But if it were taken seriously, it would come as a significant blow.

The FBI informant, who had not been publicly named previously, was the star figure of possibly the most credible accusation against the president. You may recall the whole drama from May 2023 in which Rep. James Comer and Sen. Chuck Grassley demanded the FBI release “an unclassified record alleging a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national.” That was the form that contained this fabrication from Smirnov.

Known in the Fox News internet sleuth community as the FD-1023 form, it contained claims from an informant asserting that the then-unnamed Smirnov had spoken with Burisma’s founder and discovered that Burisma officials had tried to pay the two Bidens $5 million each for their help in ousting Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who had been investigating Burisma for corruption. If that had been true, it would have been a true bombshell: As vice president, Joe Biden would have leveraged his power over U.S. foreign policy to protect a foreign company from prosecution in exchange for a bribe. In other words, it would have been a clear-cut case of corruption. But there was a real reason the FBI resisted sharing this form: It contained an unsubstantiated allegation from a dubiously reliable source. In 2020, the Trump DOJ had investigated Smirnov’s claims and failed to find any evidence supporting them. There was no reason to present the allegations as legitimate.

The FBI was right to worry that releasing the form would be dangerous. When it gave a redacted version of the form to the legislators, the Republican hype machine went into overdrive. In his position as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Comer repeatedly alluded to proof of corruption, seemingly based on the form. But more importantly, Fox News latched onto the allegations, accusing the FBI of covering up for the Bidens and portraying the informant as highly credible and in danger of retaliation. Sean Hannity emerged as the form’s biggest booster. According to data from the liberal group Media Matters, his show aired 85 segments promoting the bribery claim in 2023. On Fox, the president’s corruption became an assumed truth. Smirnov’s claims also became central to the House GOP’s failed effort to impeach Biden.

One might hope that there would be vast recriminations and public embarrassment now that the feds have formally charged the source of so much drama with making it all up. But the damage in public perception from this episode is done and likely can’t be corrected with the news of the informant’s arrest. Even if the right took it seriously, though, Fox News still has a few other “Biden crime family” storylines to mine that are not connected to Smirnov or his form.

As the Media Matters data showed, while Smirnov’s claims were the most exciting accusations, Hannity had even more segments (though fewer triumphant monologues) on Comer’s vague claims that Hunter Biden had used shell companies to “launder the money they were receiving from foreign nationals.” (The Washington Post reported that these were all actually legitimate businesses, except for one short-lived company that may have been unconnected to Hunter Biden.)

Then there’s the connected claim from a Comer memo that the committee had found more than $20 million in payments from “foreign sources” to Biden family members or their associates. None of the payments were directly connected to Joe Biden, and the Post found that only $7 million of that total went to Biden family members.

There’s also the 2017 email in which a Hunter Biden associate used the phrase “10 held by H for the big guy?” in discussions of a partnership between Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden and the Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy. The draft agreement and later official agreement that resulted from this exchange made no mention of Joe Biden; there’s no evidence the president was involved in any of this.

And finally, there’s a threatening 2017 WhatsApp message that Hunter sent to a Chinese executive: “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.” Democrats have maintained that this was pure bluster from Hunter, who was struggling with drug addiction at the time. An associate of Hunter’s testified that they were trying to create the “illusion of access.”

There are even more snippets the right has fixated on. For years now, the right-wing media world has been meticulously scouring all communications and documents related to Hunter Biden for evidence of his father betraying the American public. While officials have found evidence of Hunter’s illegal and unethical behavior around his taxes and use of firearms, there has been nothing officially tying Joe Biden to any wrongdoing. Smirnov’s claims were the most likely source of anything solid showing that the president was involved. Joe Biden may have been reckless in failing to prevent his son from using his family name for clout, but the Republicans’ case for actual corruption is now a lot emptier.

[slack-wise]

Fischli and Weiss

[may8chan]

The Toxic Avenger - Michael Herz & Lloyd Kaufman 1984

[aperint]

Movimiento Terraplanista, ¿tiene fundamentos?

Movimiento Terraplanista, ¿tiene fundamentos? #aperturaintelectual #vmrfaintelectual @victormanrf @Victor M. Reyes Ferriz @vicmanrf @victormrferriz Víctor Manuel Reyes Ferriz

14 DE NOVIEMBRE DE 2023 Movimiento Terraplanista, ¿tiene fundamentos? POR: VÍCTOR MANUEL REYES FERRIZ Con la finalidad de apegarme a la visión de este medio y tocar los diferentes temas con APERTURA INTELECTUAL, recibí con mucho gusto la propuesta de hablar de un tema, que en lo personal no comparto empero, nunca me había puesto a investigar la postura de quienes lo creen y defienden, me…

[moonflower91]

Game of Thrones Under D&D Logic

Realistic and complex emotions after finding out your real dad is actually your uncle? Nah. How about instant joy/acceptance?

Complex story about vengeance, involving well rounded, interesting characters? Nah, how bout  band of bimbos who show their tits for the lols and say “bad pussy”?

Respecting Jon’s character and having him dish out justice to the woman who just committed genocide without regret and plans on conquering the world? Eh, sure, but he’s in love and he cries over her body and goes back to the Wall as punishment. 

Have an epic, well deserved death for Cersei? Nah, just have a fuckin building come down on her while in Jaime’s arms.

Have Tyrion actually still be smart after season 4? lol what smarts?

Have a proper punishment for Tyrion after he helped bring Daenerys to Westeros? Lol he’s Hand of the King again.

Write a personality for Euron? Nah he just smirks, laughs and kills people

The Night King means something? Eh, not really. Just shiv him in the heart and he’s dust

[professeur-stump]

Pouvez toujours aligner vos installations

2229.  Der Lauf der Dinge, Fischli & Weiss (Peter Fischli & David Weiss, Der Lauf der Dinge, 1986-1987) (T&C Film AG, 1987)

⌘

[maria-aegyptiaca]

Well the coin landed in favour of rube goldeberg.

[quo-usque-tandem]

Untitled by Peter Fischlil and David Weiss

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Republicans are decrying the plea deal reached between Hunter Biden and the Department of Justice (DOJ) as a "sweetheart deal" and proof of a double standard in federal prosecutors' treatment of former President Donald Trump—but Trump himself appointed the United States attorney who signed off on the agreement.

The DOJ on Tuesday charged Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden, with failure to pay federal income tax and illegally possessing a weapon. His legal team reached a deal with federal prosecutors that allows him to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses, and he is expected to reach a deal with prosecutors on the felony charge of illegally possessing a firearm as a drug user, the Associated Press reported Tuesday morning.

The deal has sparked criticism from many Republicans, who view the agreement as a slap on the wrist for Hunter Biden while the DOJ has thrown more severe charges at Trump, who pleaded not guilty to 37 charges in the case surrounding whether he improperly stored classified documents, including at least one related to the U.S. military, at his Mar-a-Lago residence. Republicans have claimed the Justice Department has been weaponized against Trump under the Biden administration.

"People are going wild over the Hunter Biden Scam with the DOJ!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

However, U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who offered the agreement to Hunter Biden, was appointed to that position by Trump.

Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware, launched the Hunter Biden probe in 2018 after being appointed to the role by Trump in 2017. The U.S. Senate confirmed his appointment by voice vote in February 2018.

Newly-elected Presidents typically request their predecessors' U.S. attorneys step down when they come into office, but Biden has refrained from removing Weiss over the Hunter Biden investigation, as doing so would likely draw criticism and allegations of trying to interfere in the investigation.

Former U.S. Attorney Gene Rossi told Newsweek in a phone interview that while parts of the deal may be generous to the younger Biden, the fact that a Republican-appointed attorney made the call likely indicates that "politics did not sway the deal either way."

"The decision by Republican U.S. attorney seems to in fact throw cold water on their major argument that this was a sweetheart deal and that they did it to help President Biden's reelection chances," he said.

Still, Rossi said he has never seen a defendant receive only a misdemeanor charge for failing to report taxes worth $3 million but would need to see if Hunter Biden took "any specific acts that he took to either hide, conceal or divert attention" from that $3 million to determine if the deal was "overly generous."

Newsweek reached out to the Trump campaign for comment via email.

Christopher Clark, an attorney for Hunter Biden, told the Associated Press: "I know Hunter believes it is important to take responsibility for these mistakes he made during a period of turmoil and addiction in his life. He looks forward to continuing his recovery and moving forward."

Karoline Leavitt, the spokesperson for the Trump-aligned Make America Great Again Inc. super PAC, slammed the deal in a statement posted to Twitter.

"As President Trump predicted, Biden's Justice Department is cutting a sweetheart deal with Hunter Biden in order to make their bogus case to 'Get Trump' appear fair," Leavitt tweeted. "Meanwhile, Biden's DOJ continues to turn a blind eye to the Biden family's extensive corruption and bribery scheme. The American people need President Trump back in office to appoint a truly independent special prosecutor that will finally bring justice."

[slack-wise]

Peter Fischli & David Weiss

[theghostwhotumbles]

The Naked Gun

Hunter Biden could face 10 years in the slammer for illegally possessing a gun while hooked on crack cocaine. In a shock court ruling filed Wednesday, federal prosecutors say they want to charge him by the end of September.  The 53-year-old drug addict, gun nut and hooker aficionado thought he had it made with a plea deal that would have avoided a trial in exchange for two years of parole. But…