Federal criminal investigation Hunter Biden focuses on his business dealings (Update: DOJ appoints special counsel) (1 Viewer)

[SaintForLife]

Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia and the widow of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, Senate Republicans revealed in their report on the younger Biden’s work in Ukraine.

Baturina is referenced in the 87-page report, which was released Wednesday, addressing her payment to Biden’s investment firm in early 2014.

“Baturina became Russia’s only female billionaire when her plastics company, Inteko, received a series of Moscow municipal contracts while her husband was mayor,” it said in providing background on the businesswoman.

The report described her involvement with Biden as “a financial relationship,” but declined to delve deeper into why the wire transfer was made.

The probe also found that Baturina sent 11 wires transfers between May and December 2015 to a bank account belonging to BAK USA, a tech startup that filed for bankruptcy in March 2019.

Nine of those 11 wire transfers were first sent to Rosemont Seneca Partners, the investment firm founded by Biden and Chris Heinz, stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry, before being transferred to BAK USA.

Hunter Biden received $3.5M wire transfer from Russian billionaire: Senate report

Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia and the widow of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, Senate Republicans revealed in their r…

nypost.com

We all know their is massive corruption on both sides of the aisle. Here is an alleged allegation against Hunter Biden who was allegedly enriching himself because his Dad was Vice President.

 

[SaintForLife]

Answer, no they are anonymous sources.

the official response to Johnson from the FBI is linked in this article. It very carefully says nothing about whether there is even an investigation, or that they have the laptop or anything of the sort.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-hunter-biden-laptop-russia/2020/10/20/3478408a-133d-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html

Also, Ratcliffe said there’s no current intelligence to support the theory, not that the theory is false, IIRC.

These are important distinctions, SFL, you just gloss over this stuff and repeat things incorrectly.

It's amazing how everyone is suddenly skeptical of the story that affects Biden. I've been mocked repeatedly for having that same skepticism on Russiagate.

 

[SystemShock]

I thought they had a receipt with his signature for $85, which is an incredibly low price for that service. The signature on it was supposedly his.

I wouldn't address all the craziness, but I think a simple "I never dropped a laptop off at x shop for repair." One sentence, not anything on the emails or child porn, just a simple statement on if that shop had Hunters laptop or not.

I get not wanting to engage on this. I think the mistake Hillary made was constantly trying to defend her emails instead of saying "if that's what you want to focus on go ahead, I'm going to focus on the American people". Heck, the only person that handled the email issue well was Bernie Sanders infamous "we're tired of talking about her damn emails". I just think it must be his laptop or he'd have issued a statement that it wasn't.

I agree with everyone they should ignore the contents and rumors and I suspect the reason they are ignoring the existence of the laptop is that it's his.

"It's not my laptop".
"IT IS YOUR LAPTOP! YOU ARE LYING!!!"
Rinse and repeat, over, and over, and over again. Just like the emails.

Is that what we want?

 

[coldseat]

It's amazing how everyone is suddenly skeptical of the story that affects Biden. I've been mocked repeatedly for having that same skepticism on Russiagate.

You're amazed because we're not falling for a lame Giuliani/Trump election disinformation plot with baseless claims? Lol. I imagine you're amazed by a lot of things in life.

 

[superchuck500]

I find your dismissal of an opinion or a person due to your offense of a word much more worrisome. This is how communication between people breaks down. Ask if the use is reasonable given the context. Ask “why” a person used a word or phase before writing off that opinion or person

The context: Hunter has admitted to smoking crack. He was discharged from the military for a positive drug test for cocaine. A crack pipe was found in his rental car. There are reports of him smoking crack in strip clubs and he is paying child support to a former stripper. Feel free to read the New Yorker piece that interviewed Hunter and use your experience to read between the lines.

The Lives and Losses of Hunter Biden

Joe Biden’s son has been scrutinized for his business dealings and tumultuous personal life.

www.google.com

Also, you are free to ask the “why”, but I think a thread on offensive language and why you shouldn’t be offended may be a better place for that.

Here's the thing I find curious about this whole angle: this presentation from Giuliani and the right-wing media running with the story has Hunter Biden as the operations end of an international racketeering enterprise where the Biden family makes untold millions in China and Eastern Europe because Hunter Biden peddles access to his father (and hence to the top of the American Democratic Party). And Hunter Biden has done this beyond the reach of prosecutors who seem to regularly prosecute this kind of activity (see, e.g. charges against Elliot Broidy, Manafort/Gates, Imaad Zuberi, etc.).

But at the same time, Hunter Biden is a "crackhead" who is so irresponsible or impaired that he would drop off laptops containing material of a compromising (or even incriminating) nature to a mom-and-pop computer repair store with which he had no apparent history or familiarity, and then simply abandon them there.

I'm having a hard time reconciling these two sets of alleged behavior from the same person.

 

[MT15]

SFL, when I read anonymous sources I don’t present them as fact. I think that’s the big difference. I evaluate whether they make sense or not and then either accept them as “likely“ or “not likely” true.

The letter from the national security experts was an opinion, clearly labeled as such. It’s an expert opinion, however, and points out that previous Russian disinformation efforts are very similar to this.

With the shop owner changing his story quite a bit, and there being no official word that any of this is true and the source being a huge conspiracy theorist nut case (Rudy), I think some disbelief is warranted.

Nobody ever, ever, ever said that everything in the Steele dossier was true. In fact, it was repeatedly labeled as speculative. Some of it is probably true, some not, which is what everyone said from the beginning. I don‘t know why you have some idea that everyone believed the Steele dossier, it’s simply not true and the entire dossier is basically a footnote anyway.

 

[CoolBrees]

If the information in question was reported by a reputable news organization, and for a timeline that wouldn’t require Hunter to be in both coasts at the same time, etc etc etc, I would believe it.

I believe that the embarrassing photos are real of him using drugs. Drug addicts do things like that. Using cocaine- even when it is cooked into crack- doesn’t make you a pedophile. I can attest to all of this first hand.

But embarrassing wasn’t going to move the meter so we had to fake all kinds of stuff - like doctoring emails.

Finally, as an aside, using the term crackhead to describe someone is derogatory. As someone who battled drugs and alcohol I take offense at that term. I have been off drugs for 15 years and haven’t had a drink in nearly 10 years. I am still a drug addict. Just a recovering one. You wouldn’t make light of someone’s weight or battle with cancer so why would you make light of other afflictions?

Hunter certainly has his demons. By all accounts he is getting through it the same way we all do- day by day. I just ask that we think of others before we use derogatory terms.

 

[efil4]

SFL, when I read anonymous sources I don’t present them as fact. I think that’s the big difference. I evaluate whether they make sense or not and then either accept them as “likely“ or “not likely” true.

The letter from the national security experts was an opinion, clearly labeled as such. It’s an expert opinion, however, and points out that previous Russian disinformation efforts are very similar to this.

With the shop owner changing his story quite a bit, and there being no official word that any of this is true and the source being a huge conspiracy theorist nut case (Rudy), I think some disbelief is warranted.

Nobody ever, ever, ever said that everything in the Steele dossier was true. In fact, it was repeatedly labeled as speculative. Some of it is probably true, some not, which is what everyone said from the beginning. I don‘t know why you have some idea that everyone believed the Steele dossier, it’s simply not true and the entire dossier is basically a footnote anyway.

id like the record to show that i , Efil4, do believe the golden shower portion of the dossier.

Uber wealthy/famous/good looking dudes are quite kinky.

Ask Darren Sharper.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

id like the record to show that i , Efil4, do believe the golden shower portion of the dossier.

Uber wealthy/famous/good looking dudes are quite kinky.

Ask Darren Sharper.

Michael Cohen talked about a similar type of thing happening in Vegas. Like a lot of Trump stuff, I think there's truth at a macro level, but the details take on a life of their own.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

id like the record to show that i , Efil4, do believe the golden shower portion of the dossier.

Uber wealthy/famous/good looking dudes are quite kinky.

Ask Darren Sharper.

I believe the "golden shower" thing happened as well. What most people are forgetting is that he didn't have them piss on him, they were there to piss on the mattress that the Obamas slept on and that's perfectly in line with his character.

 

[SFIDC3]

Also in that compelling evidence (sarcasm) appears the line "does has possession"

How many times have we seen disinformation with grammatical errors like this....almost like it was written by someone who doesn't entirely have a good grasp of the English language....or something?

Sorry, not about to believe this junk....

 

[Saint by the Bay]

I believe the "golden shower" thing happened as well. What most people are forgetting is that he didn't have them piss on him, they were there to piss on the mattress that the Obamas slept on and that's perfectly in line with his character.

I've seen more than one person who has seen the intelligence kind of smirk when asked if everything in the dossier was false as they say it's not confirmed.

I think I know what they are smirking about.

 

[EmBeeFiveOhFour]

Edit: I'm deleting the Rudy stuff here because I don't want to threadjack.

 

[B4YOU]

I think it's fine to question the legitimacy of the story, but that's not the big issue here. The big issue is how the media and the big tech worked together to censor a story because it can harm Joe Biden. They probably regret covering the 2016 Hillary email story and want to make sure they don't make the same mistake.

Also, the media didn't mind running with the unverified Steele dossier and the many stories that spun off of that. There were questions about its authenticity, but that didn't stop the media from covering it at nauseum. There were many other Russiagate stories that were based on questionable evidence or anonymous sources, but once again the media had to problem covering them extensively. The suddenly incurious media had no problem investigating to see if Trump was financially compromised by Russia for four years, but now they can't ask Joe if it's Hunter's laptop or if he profited from his son's relationships in Ukraine and China.

Those 50 intelligence officials, which include the known liars like Brennan and Clapper, didn't provide any evidence for their claims. The Russian disinformation claim or blaming Russia for things happens far too often. Putin has to be laughing that their hacking of the emails and Facebook ads has caused a political party to almost automatically assume Russia is involved whatever the case may be.

You are assuming the primary intent of the media is to protect Biden and not to ensure truthful reporting. I think it’s the latter.

I view the documents as illegally obtained and with suspicion based on who is providing them and the limited proof for verifying their authenticity. We have seen dishonest conspiracy theories amplified by the media affect the outcomes of elections for a long time. I think for a story this salacious at this time, the bar for the truth needs to be high. A rush to report only helps Trump and there is a reason this got published by the NYP two weeks out from Nov 3 despite Rudy saying he had these docs for a year.

 

[efil4]

Since we don't have a Rudy tracker, and this is the current thread most relevant to Rudy Giuliani -- uhhhhhhhhhhh here is a snippet from a review of the new Borat movie.

Borat Subsequent Moviefilm Brings Back Borat, With His Daughter in Tow

Sacha Baron Cohen reprises his most famous role, heckling Mike Pence and pranking Rudy Giuliani alongside excellent new sidekick Maria Bakalova.

www.vanityfair.com

Sounds not great, Rudy!!!

Epic troll.

the understated beauty in all of this is SBC isnt "coercing" or "entraping" - he is simply giving Rudy the opportunity to be...well, Rudy.

This is who he is. full stop.

 

[Ayo]

It's amazing how everyone is suddenly skeptical of the story that affects Biden. I've been mocked repeatedly for having that same skepticism on Russiagate.

What I find interesting on my social media timeline are the people who clamor "WAIT UNTIL THE FACTS COME OUT BEFORE RUSHING TO JUDGMENT!"

And I agree that that is a wise approach to things. It's how I try and work.

But the difference is that they will turn around with something as flimsy as this and start spreading it immediately.

I mean...

It happens two weeks before the election
There are three laptops then one then just a hard drive copy
There's a Biden foundation sticker so it must be Hunter's
He's on the other side of the country
The contact is made with Giuliani before the FBI
The timeline of the contact between the store owner and Giuliani changes
The testimony of the owner changes
He is blind and can't confirm that it was Hunter, after saying it was Hunter
Store Owner is a big Trump supporter
Store owner bought into the Seth Rich conspiracy
Signature inconsistencies don't seem a slam dunk
Steve Bannon is a 'source'
The hack and leak is eerily (and conveniently) reminiscent of 2016
The NY Post reporter didn't want the byline
Two intern/lower staff reporters didn't want the byline (of this nationally explosive story)
Other journalistic institutions' tests for validity and confirmation before publication wouldn't pass this story

And I am sure I am missing something.

But ALLLLLLL of those red flags are waving and people who say, "Wait until the facts come out! Reserve judgment!" positively couldn't wait to spread this.

And when they couldn't spread it how they wanted, they threw a big hissy fit and started claiming victimization.

I mean... this entire thing is showing how gullible and stupid we are.

 

[wardorican]

This is true. Signatures aren't typically static. And it's actually not easy to make 2 signatures, even your own, exactly the same.

I don't know the veracity of the Biden signature, but I'm sure the FBI has the ability to figure that out.

To be sure, the Biden signature comparison posted sure looks like a forgery.

And to be clear, I agree that I think it's forged. Just pointing out that it's not out of the realm to change drastically even.

Nixon's is interesting, because it mostly changed due to Watergate.

Some people change their last name when they have paternal issues, or some sort of psychological change. Whole sale changes. I'm a bit rusty on this, but I did read a pretty solid book on all of this years ago.

 

[wardorican]

It's amazing how everyone is suddenly skeptical of the story that affects Biden. I've been mocked repeatedly for having that same skepticism on Russiagate.

healthy skepticism is always good. 'healthy' is in the eye of the beholder.

Why aren't you skeptical at all on this? because it helps your guy?

I'll say this, the e-mails do kind of sound true. I already talked about those e-mails on their own merits however.

 

[wardorican]

Epic troll.

the understated beauty in all of this is SBC isnt "coercing" or "entraping" - he is simply giving Rudy the opportunity to be...well, Rudy.

This is who he is. full stop.

oh. my. god.

that should be it's own thread though.