USA 2024 Elections Thread

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FOIA: Corrupt Joe Biden used multiple Fake Email Addresses while VP...

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Biden's Defenders Are Blowing Smoke

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2023/09/20/bidens_defenders_are_blowing_smoke_149777.html
https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/09/19/spinning_the_press_on_hunter_biden_980044.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYto2Rf_xcg&t=2255s
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/09/17/david_brooks_hunter_bidens_alleged_influence_peddling_merits_an_inquiry_but_not_an_impeachment_inquiry.html
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/conservatives-praise-mccarthy-for-grilling-reporter-until-she-admits-gop-has-evidence-of-biden-wrongdoing
https://nypost.com/2023/09/13/medias-covert-protection-of-scandal-plagued-bidens-comes-to-light-while-still-protecting-president-and-hunter/
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html

I was expecting a lively exchange when Mike Gallagher invited me to
debate the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter James Risen on his “No
Interruptions” podcast last week. Instead, I was gobsmacked as the
former New York Times reporter abruptly hung up the phone after some
15 minutes.

Like the recent viral video showing Washington Post columnist Philip
Bump suddenly terminating an interview, Risen’s breaking point came
when I questioned his reporting on Hunter Biden’s foreign business
dealings.

Before we get to that, Risen, who now reports for The Intercept, does
deserve some backhanded praise: In the few minutes he spoke on Mike
Gallagher’s podcast, Risen delivered a master class in concision,
echoing most every major talking point fashioned by Biden’s handlers
and the mainstream media to defend the president.

The Loving Father: Risen framed his defense of Joe Biden by asserting
that the president’s major fault may be that he loves his son too
much. Young Hunter and his brother Beau were in the car that December
morning in 1972 when his mother and his baby sister died. This trauma,
armchair psychologists suggest, set the stage for Hunter’s later drug
abuse and his father’s boundless efforts to support his troubled son –
whose problems were deepened by Beau’s death from cancer in 2015.
Risen said Joe’s compassion probably led him to be too “permissive”
toward his prodigal son, implying that he did what any good parent
would.

Perhaps. But who knows? Each of us is driven by a confluence of
personal forces that are often a mystery to ourselves – and nearly
impossible for anybody else to precisely untangle. Everybody has a
reason, but discerning those motives is often beyond our powers. This
is especially true of Joe Biden, a congenital fabulist whose public
career has been an exercise in grandiose self-mythologizing. Claiming
to know what makes him tick is an act of hubris.

Slotting the president, or anybody else, into some archetypal
narrative – the man who loved too much – is just blowing smoke. That
is why, especially in public life, we assess people by their
verifiable actions. You don’t have to be religious to see the apostle
Matthew nailed it when he wrote, “By their fruit you will recognize
them.”

No Evidence: As to Joe Biden’s actions, Risen repeated the
scandalously common claim that there is no evidence the president has
done anything “illicit or illegal.” That one is a real head-scratcher.
As Miranda Devine of the New York Post recently wrote, such a belief
requires one to:

    Forget the bank records, shell companies, SEC complaints, sworn
testimony, IRS whistleblower statements, FBI informant files, emails,
texts, WhatsApp messages, photos, speakerphone calls, voicemails,
White House visitor logs, Air Force Two travel logs, Joe’s
pseudonymous email addresses and a parade of Hunter’s shady foreign
benefactors lining up for handshakes with Joe in Beijing, breakfasts
at the VP’s residence and dinners at Café Milano, not to mention
millions of dollars in filthy foreign lucre for no discernible product
or service other than access to Joe.

Risen and Biden’s other defenders are playing word games. By evidence
they really mean proof. Indeed, we don’t have a signed memo by Joe
Biden stating he changed a specific policy in exchange for payments to
his son. While we have multiple examples of Hunter’s business
associates identifying Joe as the “big guy” who would get a cut of the
action, we do not, as yet, have a check made out to the president. The
evidence clearly shows that Joe personally facilitated Hunter’s
efforts to earn money from China, Ukraine, and Romania based on the
promise of access to his father. These hard facts cannot be wished
away.

The Jared Defense: Risen also worked to normalize Hunter’s shady
dealings by suggesting that familial influence-peddling is common in
the nation’s capital. Suddenly changing his definition of evidence
from proof to conjecture, Risen pointed to the $2 billion the Saudi
government “gave” Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner a few months
after Trump left office. In fact, the Saudis did not give Kushner $2
billion; they placed that sum with him to be invested – hoping for a
fat return on the generous fees they are paying him.

It’s not a good look for the Trump family. But when have two wrongs
ever made a right? More importantly, there truly is no evidence that
the Saudi investment was payback for action taken during the previous
administration. Risen’s comparison is a canard. Foreigners gave money
to Hunter in the hopes of currying favor with the government while Joe
was serving as Obama’s vice president. Investing money with Kushner in
2021 – as Trump was being reviled for his claims of a stolen election
and the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol – seems like the last thing one
would do to gain influence in Washington.

The Trump Card: In defending Biden, Risen repeatedly brought up Trump,
whom he branded a “criminal.” From his Manichean perspective, any
effort to hold President Biden to account is aiding and abetting
Trump’s return to the White House. He called me a Trump “toady” for
supporting the Biden impeachment inquiry. This may be his more
dangerous assertion, as it suggests that we should give a free pass to
wrongdoing on our side because it might help the other side.

Asked and Answered: The interview ended after Risen cast himself as a
fearless journalist whose exoneration of Biden should have special
weight because he had written one of the first articles, back in 2015
for the New York Times, addressing Hunter’s dealings in the Ukraine.
I’m familiar with his piece and told him it reflected the problem with
so much mainstream reporting on Hunter’s position on the board of the
Ukrainian gas company Burisma: It noted the company’s shady history
but dug no deeper as it regurgitated spin concocted by the company,
Hunter, and his team.

While we now know that Hunter was paid the princely sum of $83,000 per
month for his service, I reminded Risen that he simply quoted a
Burisma spokesperson who said Hunter’s pay was “not out of the
ordinary” for similar corporate board positions. I also pointed out
that he merely quoted a Burisma spokesperson who suggested Hunter was
brought on to help with “strong corporate governance and
transparency.” This seems fanciful on its face. As Lee Fang reported
this week for RealClearInvestigations, emails from Hunter’s laptop
show his employment was connected to lobbying efforts in Washington
and access to his father.

In response, Risen said he refused to be “insulted,” and hung up the phone.

I don’t fault Risen for failing to get the whole story from the
get-go. Reporters depend on sources, and sometimes they mislead us.
What was stunning was that this experience of being used and misled
did not seem to stoke much skepticism in him about the false
narratives advanced by the Bidens to dismiss the evidence of
wrongdoing.

When it comes to the mainstream press, it seems you can fool all of
the people all of the time.