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.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

Try the Steele Dossier and the pee tape specifically.

Right so, you're going to have to be a bit more specific to go through it, which is going to take a lot of homework, which I'm not sure you'll want to do.

For example, my recollection of the "pee tape" specifically, was that it was mentioned as being part of the Steele Dossier, but other than the media stating it was part of the dossier (and at the same time they also said the dossier was not confirmed) I only ever heard about it from Conservatives complaining about it, and late night comedians. I don't remember any media outlet reporting it as a fact. I could be wrong of course, which is why you'll need to do homework if you want to make the case.

There were stories on the Steele dossier, but most of them I remember as being relatively cautious about it early on. As a sanity check the Wikipedia entry also said this:
" The media, the intelligence community, and most experts have treated the dossier with caution due to its unverified allegations, while Trump has denounced it as fake news. "

So, obviously, I'm not saying that's 100% correct, but that's my recollection and appears to be the recollection of others. So, I think if you wanted to prove me wrong, you'd have to show articles that do the following:

1. Date of knowledge of the Steele dossier
2. within a couple of days of Steele dossier knowledge - articles/stories from the media you are complaining about that sensationalize that dossier. Like headlines and so on saying something like "Bombshell report shows Trump may be compromised".

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

OK - reading up about it, it seems that knowledge of the dossier was an open secret among journalists in September and October of 2016, but no one reported on it b/c it wasn't verified.

The first one to report it was Mother Jones on October 31st. (https://www.motherjones.com/politic...ing-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/)

There were no specific allegations from the Steele dossier - just that one existed, and it had to do with Trump being cultivated by Russians and that the veteran spy had turned it over to the FBI.

Then came Buzzfeed in I think January of 2017 (maybe December 2019) - which was who published all the salacious details.

So, if that's the timeline, I don't think that makes your case. The main players that you are complaining about (CNN, NYT, WaPo, etc) all stayed away from it. Do you have anything that shows differently?

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

OK - I'm doing more research b/c this is fun. I found the first article by CNN on the issue on January 11th (almost 4 months after people in the media knew about it), and in that article they just said they were not going to publish the allegations b/c they have not been verified.

Intel chiefs presented Trump with claims of Russian efforts to compromise him

Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.

edition.cnn.com

Then Buzzfeed released the 35 page draft dossier.

And then you get this from the "mainstreet media" - a condemnation of Buzzfeed for being reckless with unfounded allegations:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/01/10/buzzfeeds-ridiculous-rationale-for-publishing-the-trump-russia-dossier/

I don't know @SaintForLife , I'm not seeing gross hypocrisy here on this issue. For the Steele dossier - the media at first refused to publish anything for months. Then after it was known that it was circulating at the FBI, the media just reported it's existence but not any salacious details. Then after an internet site published the details, the mainstream media condemned that internet site.

 

[UncleTrvlingJim]

And for the record, I'm just reading Wikipedia's source page... so I'm definitely open to the idea that there were earlier articles talking about the pee tape or whatever and I just haven't seen them.

 

[DaveXA]

It's been a while, but I thought the dossier was pointed to as pretext for establishing the Mueller report and investigation. Without the dossier, does that investigation get off the ground? I don't remember, so just wondering if that's correct or not.

 

[LA - L.A.]

It's been a while, but I thought the dossier was pointed to as pretext for establishing the Mueller report and investigation. Without the dossier, does that investigation get off the ground?

Yes.

 

[MT15]

It's been a while, but I thought the dossier was pointed to as pretext for establishing the Mueller report and investigation. Without the dossier, does that investigation get off the ground? I don't remember, so just wondering if that's correct or not.

That is incorrect. The dossier, IIRC, wasn’t turned over to the FBI until after the investigation had already been launched. For some reason a large portion of right wing media (the more irresponsible part) loves to complain about the dossier.

 

[Ayo]

Once again, it’s up to others to donSFL’s homework for him.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

It's been a while, but I thought the dossier was pointed to as pretext for establishing the Mueller report and investigation. Without the dossier, does that investigation get off the ground? I don't remember, so just wondering if that's correct or not.

The FBI Investigation preceded the dossier. The Mueller investigation was really started because of Comey being fired. If Comey wasn’t fired the FBI would have just finished their existing investigation (Crossfire Hurricane) and there would have been no Mueller investigation.

People like to say the Dossier was the “key” portion of the FISA Warrant but that’s a talking point. The Dossier was 16 pages of the over 400 page warrant application.

 

[DaveXA]

The FBI Investigation preceded the dossier. The Mueller investigation was really started because of Comey being fired. If Comey wasn’t fired the FBI would have just finished their existing investigation (Crossfire Hurricane) and there would have been no Mueller investigation.

people like to so they Dossier was the “key” portion of the FISA Warrant but that’s a talking point. The Dossier was 16 pages of the over 400 page warrant application.

Thanks. I couldn't remember what it was that led to the investigation, but the Comey firing makes sense. Comey was a mess it seems like. Looking back and seeing how he handled his job, he probably deserved to get canned. But that led to a whole slew of other complications.

I had originally thought the dossier was what drove the investigation. So I wanted to get that cleared up.

I wonder if Biden wins the election whether Congress will continue the investigations or if they'll move on to other things.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

I think Comey was in such a tough spot. Without knowing all the details, conversations that were had, and the evidence it's hard to judge Comey.

I watched the Comey movie on Showtime. It was written from his perspective and I'm sure he's putting himself in the most positive light, so it's not the best way to judge him. What it does show was the difficult position he was in. I'm not sure there were any right answers.

 

[DaveXA]

I think Comey was in such a tough spot. Without knowing all the details, conversations that were had, and the evidence it's hard to judge Comey.

I watched the Comey movie on Showtime. It was written from his perspective and I'm sure he's putting himself in the most positive light, so it's not the best way to judge him. What it does show was the difficult position he was in. I'm not sure there were any right answers.

Oh no doubt. That's probably one of the toughest jobs in Washington. I don't envy being in his shoes at all. That said, I think he's handled himself poorly since he got fired. I think the smart thing would have been a much lower profile and let other people deal with the fallout from his firing. He should of course defend himself in Congressional hearings and such. But getting in front of the media as much as he has has hurt his case imo.

 

[FullMonte]

It's been a while, but I thought the dossier was pointed to as pretext for establishing the Mueller report and investigation. Without the dossier, does that investigation get off the ground? I don't remember, so just wondering if that's correct or not.

And, just to clarify...the pretext for establishing the Mueller investigation was Trump firing the head of the FBI, and stating that he did it because of the Russia investigation.

 

[Sandman]

Once again, it’s up to others to donSFL’s homework for him.

That is the SOP for the Trump surrogates on the internet. Make accusations to deflect away from Trump's wrongdoings and hope that people don't investigate. If they do and prove you wrong, change the subject and start over. Rinse and repeat. The truth doesn't matter. Throw a bunch of garbage out there so that the average people who won't investigate themselves are either fooled, or just throw up their hands and say "everyone is corrupt." Either way, it puts the corrupt Trump on even footing with his opponents. It worked in 2016, but it was an easier sell with Hillary.

 

[GrandAdmiral]

Lev throws his two cents into the Hunter Biden matter. Not really surprised by what he has to say...

Former Giuliani associate raises questions about Hunter Biden’s ‘hard drive from hell’

Salacious documents supposedly belonging to Hunter Biden were circulating in Ukraine in May 2019, Lev Parnas says.

www.politico.com

 

[Saint by the Bay]

Lev throws his two cents into the Hunter Biden matter. Not really surprised by what he has to say...

Former Giuliani associate raises questions about Hunter Biden’s ‘hard drive from hell’

Salacious documents supposedly belonging to Hunter Biden were circulating in Ukraine in May 2019, Lev Parnas says.

www.politico.com

Every single person involved in this is so shady it’s impossible to sort it all out. I focus on the fact that Joe was a private citizen in 2017 so even if this stuff is true it wouldn’t matter because he had no policy making authority. Everything else is just shiny objects.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

Also, of every player in this non-scandal I consider Joe the most trustworthy by a country mile, so I’ll believe him until actual evidence is presented otherwise.

 

[B4YOU]

I think Giuliani and Bannon played this all wrong. The Burisma stuff isn’t what they should have led with. They should have said Joe is owned by China because they have compromising video of his only remaining son. Next they should have said they will be releasing all the China bribery material so that if Joe wins he can’t be under China’s thumb because it’s all out there.