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Court Docs: Private Investigator Claims Hunter Biden Under Criminal Probe for Burisma-Linked Money Laundering

Hunter Biden, the youngest son of former Vice President Joe Biden, is allegedly the subject of a criminal investigation relating to money laundering with Burisma Holdings, according to documents filed in Arkansas court.

The New York Post reported on Monday that a private investigator hired by Lunden Roberts, a woman suing Biden for child support in Arkansas circuit court, has declared he is the subject of multiple criminal investigations.

“One of those purported investigations relates to Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company with which Biden held a lucrative board post while his father, Joe, was vice president — drawing allegations of impropriety from Republicans including President Trump,” the Post noted.

The private investigator claims the younger Biden “established bank and financial accounts with Morgan Stanley” for a “money laundering scheme” involving Burisma Holdings Limited. According to documents filed in court, nearly $6.8 million was transferred from Burisma to the account between March 2014, when the younger Biden joined Burisma’s board of directors, and December 2015.

Court filings also allege that Biden and a group of business associates “utilized a counterfeiting scheme to conceal” the payments.

The revelations come as Hunter Biden’s role with Burisma continues to draw scrutiny, especially in light of the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

Congressional Democrats claim that Trump’s suggestion the government of Ukraine looking into Hunter Biden’s work with the natural gas company amounted to asking a foreign power for dirt on a political opponent. Trump and his allies, on the other hand, have countered that Hunter Biden’s appointment, coming around the same time former Vice President Joe Biden was tapped to lead Obama-era policy towards Ukraine, and his relative inexperience in the energy industry warrant investigation.

As Peter Schweizer, senior contributor at Breitbart News, detailed in Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends, Hunter Biden’s background in investment banking, lobbying, and hedge fund management paled in comparison to that of current and past members of Burisma’s board.

The elder Biden claims he has never talked to his son about his business in Ukraine, but the former veep has yet to answer questions about a photograph showing him, Hunter, and another Burisma board member playing golf together in 2014.

Adding to concerns is the fact that, at the time Hunter Biden joined Burisma—where he was paid as much as $83,000-per-month—the company was seen as actively courting western leaders to prevent further scrutiny of its business practices.  The same month Hunter Biden and Kwasniewski were tapped to join the group’s board, the government of Great Britain froze accounts belonging to Burisma’s founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, under suspicion of money laundering.

A Ukrainian official with strong ties to Zlochevsky admitted in October the only reason that Hunter Biden secured the appointment was to “protect” the company from foreign scrutiny. The claim has credence given that at the time, Joe Biden was tasked with leading the Obama administration’s policy towards Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion of Crimea.

It is in the context of Burisma and Zlochevsky’s legal troubles that Joe Biden’s political influence has raised the most red flags. The former vice president has particularly drawn questions over his conduct in demanding the Ukrainian government fire its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in 2016.

Joe Biden, who has publicly bragged about the firing, reportedly threatened to withhold more than one billion dollars in U.S. aid if the Ukrainian government did not remove Shokin. He has claimed the demand came from then-President Barack Obama, who had allegedly lost faith in the prosecutor’s ability to tackle corruption.

Unofficially, though, it was known that Shokin was investigating both Burisma and Zlochevsky for public corruption. It is uncertain if the probe extended to Hunter Biden, although Shokin has recently admitted that prior to his ouster, he was warned to back off the matter. Regardless of what occurred, Shokin’s successor, who is now himself being investigated for public corruption, dropped the investigation into Burisma and Zlochevsky.

Since the start of impeachment, the Ukrainian government has reopened its case into Zlochevsky, this time broadening the investigation to include public corruption and embezzlement.

 

via Breitbart News

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NYT: We Spied On Trump And Other Powerful People With Phone Tracking Data

In an extensive report that is part of its “Privacy Project,” The New York Times revealed Thursday that it has gained access to cell phone tracking data for millions of Americans and was able to rather easily track the movements of regular Americans as well as high-profile and powerful figures, including President Trump himself — details of whose actions the Times published in a follow-up report.

In its initial report, titled “Twelve Million Phones, One Dataset, Zero Privacy,” the Times warns that if you were able to see the data which they obtained from a single private cell phone app company, “you might never use your phone the same way again.”

“The data was provided to Times Opinion by sources who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to share it and could face severe penalties for doing so,” the Times explains. “The sources of the information said they had grown alarmed about how it might be abused and urgently wanted to inform the public and lawmakers.”

The single data file the Times obtained is “by far the largest and most sensitive ever to be reviewed by journalists,” the Times claims, containing “more than 50 billion location pings from the phones of more than 12 million Americans as they moved through several major cities, including Washington, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.” That data covers a period of several months in 2016 and 2017, the Times notes.

Times researchers spent “months” analyzing the data, and in that time tracked cell phone activity involving some very famous names. “One search turned up more than a dozen people visiting the Playboy Mansion, some overnight,” the Times reports. “Without much effort we spotted visitors to the estates of Johnny Depp, Tiger Woods and Arnold Schwarzenegger, connecting the devices’ owners to the residences indefinitely.” They also took some time to track the movements of participants at both pro-Trump and anti-Trump rallies.

Using the data — which the Times notes can be legally obtained by companies, who defend collecting the data because it is “anonymous” and app users give their “consent” to being tracked — the Times says they spent most of their attention “identifying people in positions of power”:

With the help of publicly available information, like home addresses, we easily identified and then tracked scores of notables. We followed military officials with security clearances as they drove home at night. We tracked law enforcement officers as they took their kids to school. We watched high-powered lawyers (and their guests) as they traveled from private jets to vacation properties. We did not name any of the people we identified without their permission.

The data set is large enough that it surely points to scandal and crime but our purpose wasn’t to dig up dirt. We wanted to document the risk of underregulated surveillance. Watching dots move across a map sometimes revealed hints of faltering marriages, evidence of drug addiction, records of visits to psychological facilities.

In a follow-up report titled “How to Track President Trump,” the Times reveals that it easily followed the movements of Trump — even providing a map of those movements — by simply identifying a cell phone owned by a person in his entourage:

The device’s owner was easy to trace, revealing the outline of the person’s work and life. The same phone pinged a dozen times at the nearby Secret Service field office and events with elected officials. From computer screens more than 1,000 miles away, we could watch the person travel from exclusive areas at Palm Beach International Airport to Mar-a-Lago.

The meticulous movements — down to a few feet — of the president’s entourage were recorded by a smartphone we believe belonged to a Secret Service agent, whose home was also clearly identifiable in the data. Connecting the home to public deeds revealed the person’s name, along with the name of the person’s spouse, exposing even more details about both families. We could also see other stops this person made, apparently more connected with his private life than his public duties. The Secret Service declined to comment on our findings or describe its policies regarding location data.

Read the initial report here.

via The Daily Wire

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Four Pillars: Educating for America

This article is from Hillsdale College’s Imprimis. To view the original, click here: Imprimis.

Colleges today are increasingly collections of hostile identity groups, each clamoring against the crimes of the other. Students are not invited to step outside themselves, to step outside their own time, and to look at things as they have been understood by the best over time. If they did that, they would then learn and grow not by invention but by discovery.

The article Four Pillars: Educating for America originally appeared on Imprimis.

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COMMANDER IN THIEF: Liz Warren Stole ‘Youngest Woman’ Debate Zinger From Hillary Clinton

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D., Mass.) memorable zinger from Thursday night’s Democratic debate was blatantly plagiarized from renowned humorist Hillary Clinton.

Asked to address the fact that, if elected, she would be the oldest president ever inaugurated, the 70-year-old Warren unleashed what some social media users have described as an "epic clap back," noting that she would "also be the youngest woman ever inaugurated." Warren touted the zinger on her campaign Twitter account during the debate.

Warren is not the first female candidate to deploy the "youngest woman" line. Hillary Clinton used it all the way back in June 2015 during a speech at her official campaign launch on Roosevelt Island in New York City. "I will be the youngest woman president in the history of the United States," the twice-failed candidate said. "You won’t see my hair turn white in the White House. I’ve been coloring my hair for years."

Warren’s failure to come up with an original gender-themed zinger comes at a time when the candidate is facing grave questions about her credibility. The white senator, who was once described as Harvard Law’s "first woman of color" because of her self-proclaimed Native American heritage, was recently caught on video lying to a school-choice activist about sending her children to public school.

The candidate’s blatant plagiarism and lack of originality did not stop the so-called blue checkmarks on Twitter from "stanning" for Warren on the popular social networking platform.

The post COMMANDER IN THIEF: Liz Warren Stole ‘Youngest Woman’ Debate Zinger From Hillary Clinton appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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What Impeachment? New CNN Poll Shows Trump Surging, Leading in Battleground States, Economic Satisfaction Soaring

Even CNN. That’s with more Democrats even: “Among the entire sample, 32% described themselves as Democrats, 27% described themselves as Republicans, and 42% described themselves as independents or members of another party.”

Via Townhall:

If CNN on-air personalities were openly disbelieving their own polling on impeachment, which made their ‘heads hurt,’ they’re likely to have a few sads over their in-house pollster’s latest findings. Immediately on the heels of a presidential impeachment, the latest CNN survey shows Donald Trump tied with Joe Biden and leading all other major Democrats in the 15 crucial battleground states that will determine the 2020 victor.

You can see that all of the numbers — national and swing states — are within the margin of error ballpark. But I think it’s tough to look at these results and conclude anything other than this reality: As things stand, despite the adversity he’s facing, Trump will not be easy to defeat next year. In fact, as the incumbent, I think it’s fair to call him the favorite. Particularly because these results approximately mirror those in the USA Today/Suffolk poll we analyzed earlier in the week, and especially if this sentiment remains intact by next fall:

Keep reading…

Lol, they have no idea why.

via Weasel Zippers

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Maryland Elections Board Sued for Hiding Voter Registration Records

A voter casts their ballot at a polling station

A watchdog group is suing the Maryland state board of elections for hiding voter registration records.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an Indiana-based election integrity group, filed a complaint Dec. 16 against several individuals with Maryland’s state board of elections for alleged violations of the National Voter Registration Act’s public disclosure provision. The group sought a copy of the statewide voter registration list on Nov. 13 and offered to pay the required fees for the records. Two days later, an individual with the board of elections denied PILF’s request, stating that only Maryland residents can obtain voter data.

"Maryland stood to make at least $250 from selling their voter data like usual, but decided to flaunt a recent court decision against them and refused PILF’s application," Logan Churchwell, communications director at PILF, told the Washington Free Beacon. "Now, they have to defend a second federal lawsuit and risk paying attorneys’ fees. It doesn’t pay to hide public records—and here, it’s actually profitable to disclose them."

"This case is greater than a denied open records request," Churchwell continued. "This is a statement to election officials around the nation that you cannot expect to get away with denying a critical voting right—the right to inspect our election records."

Maryland’s state board of elections did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

The lawsuit comes as PILF has found instances across the country of duplicate registrations, deceased individuals still registered to vote, and voter rolls that contain more individuals than there are eligible voters.

PILF filed suit against the city of Detroit last week after discovering 2,500 deceased voters on the city’s rolls, nearly 5,000 voters who appear more than once, and 511,786 registered voters in the city where 479,267 individuals are eligible to vote. President Donald Trump carried Michigan by just over 10,000 votes during the 2016 presidential elections.

In November, the foundation discovered 24,000 voter records in Palm Beach County, Fla., which contained errors and potential fraud, including thousands of deceased voters on the rolls and hundreds of cases of double voting.

PILF also sued a Texas county in March over its refusal to disclose information in relation to noncitizens on voter rolls. The foundation later filed a similar complaint against the North Carolina state board of elections. The group last year sued the Pennsylvania state department after officials refused to release records in relation to noncitizens on voter rolls.

The post Maryland Elections Board Sued for Hiding Voter Registration Records appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

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Democrat Legal Expert: Trump Isn’t Impeached Until Articles Go to Senate

Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman, who testified as a Democrat witness in the House Judiciary Committee’s public hearings on impeachment, argues President Donald Trump is technically not impeached until the House submits the articles to the Senate.

In a Bloomberg News opinion-editorial published Thursday, Feldman writes the definition of impeachment, according to the framers, “assumed that impeachment was a process, not just a House vote,” and impeachment is official only when the articles are transmitted to the Senate, where lawmakers are “obliged by the Constitution to hold a trial.”

Feldman writes:

 

If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president. If the articles are not transmitted, Trump could legitimately say that he wasn’t truly impeached at all.

That’s because “impeachment” under the Constitution means the House sending its approved articles of to the Senate, with House managers standing up in the Senate and saying the president is impeached.

As for the headlines we saw after the House vote saying, “TRUMP IMPEACHED,” those are a media shorthand, not a technically correct legal statement. So far, the House has voted to impeach (future tense) Trump. He isn’t impeached (past tense) until the articles go to the Senate and the House members deliver the message.

…

If the House votes to “impeach” but doesn’t send the articles to the Senate or send impeachment managers there to carry its message, it hasn’t directly violated the text of the Constitution. But the House would be acting against the implicit logic of the Constitution’s description of impeachment. A president who has been genuinely impeached must constitutionally have the opportunity to defend himself before the Senate.

The debate over whether President Trump is formally impeached comes as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) remains noncommittal about sending the articles to the Senate, citing recent Democrat concerns a trial held by the upper chamber will not be “fair” and that senator won’t be “impartial” jurors.

“We’ll make that decision as a group, as we always have, as we go along,” Pelosi told reporters when asked about a timetable for sending the articles. “So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us.”

In a Thursday floor speech, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) denounced Wednesday evening’s partisan impeachment vote and slammed the speaker for being “too afraid” to send “their shoddy work product to the Senate.”

“The framers built the Senate to provide stability,” McConnell said. “To keep partisan passions from boiling over. Moments like this are why the United States Senate exists.”

President Donald Trump also ripped Pelosi for holding up the articles, tweeting Thursday: “If the Do Nothing Democrats decide, in their great wisdom, not to show up, they would lose by Default!”

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Donald Trump Hails Bill Raising Smoking Age to 21

President Donald Trump praised a massive military spending bill on Friday that includes a provision raising the smoking age to 21.

Trump indicated that he would sign the $738 billion spending bill, which includes a slew of other legislative priorities for both Republicans and Democrats.

“It will include 12 weeks Paid Parental Leave, gives our troops a raise, importantly creates the SPACE FORCE, SOUTHERN BORDER WALL FUNDING, repeals ‘Cadillac Tax’ on Health Plans, raises smoking age to 21!” Trump wrote. “BIG!”

The plan to raise the smoking age received support from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as well as other Senate Republicans and Democrats. E-Cigarette maker Juul also backed the new age restrictions to demonstrate to regulators its willingness to keep its products out of the hands of children.

The age limit hike also applies to e-cigarettes and all traditional tobacco products.

Trump also supported the idea to help stop kids from vaping with e-cigarettes.

“We have to take care of our kids, most importantly, so we’re going to have an age limit of 21 or so,” he said in November.

Trump initially proposed banning all flavored e-cigarettes but backed down from the proposal after he learned of a likely backlash from voters.

The president hosted a roundtable discussion of the issue live on camera with vaping and e-cigarette advocates and opponents such as Sen. Mitt Romney.

Romney warned that vaping flavors like “unicorn poop” was specifically branded to appeal to children.

Trump admitted during the discussion that banning flavored e-cigarettes would only move adults to purchase illegal unregulated substances that could poison people.

“They could be selling something on a street corner that could be horrible. … They are going to have a flavor that is poison,” he said.

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Wikipedia Blacklists Epoch Times, Gateway Pundit for Russiagate Criticism

China critics the Epoch Times and conservative outlet the Gateway Pundit have been banned from use as reliable sources on Wikipedia in the latest cases of news outlets that support President Trump being banned from the online encyclopedia. The Epoch Times ban proposal cited NBC’s hit piece on the site over its coverage of improprieties in the Russia investigation, commonly called Spygate, which prompted smear efforts against the outlet on Wikipedia. Gateway Pundit was proposed for a ban shortly after Epoch Times.

The Epoch Times Wikipedia ban proposal was apparently prompted by one of its articles being cited on the Wikipedia page for Joseph Mifsud, a key controversial figure in the origins of the discredited Russia investigation. Gateway Pundit’s ban was in response to the outlet being cited for past media silence over Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election

Over the past year, Wikipedia editors have been on a banning spree targeting conservative news sources. Having previously banned the Daily Mail as a source, the following year marked the beginning of an acceleration of the process. Since then, editors have imposed similar bans on fifteen other sites aside from Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit. While some data-focused sites and state-owned outlets in Venezuela and Iran have also been banned, the bulk of the sites banned have been conservative-leaning news outlets. Breitbart News was blacklisted as a “reliable source” on Wikipedia in 2018.

Epoch Times was banned following a proposal by editor “Bender235” in early October. Part of the ban argument was an NBC News article smearing the outlet for its coverage of the “Spygate” controversy regarding the conduct of the Russia investigation, which major news outlets have dismissed as “conspiracy theories” even after the Justice Department Inspector General recently found serious misconduct and use of false information in surveillance warrant applications. NBC’s article was previously the impetus for editors to smear Epoch Times on Wikipedia. Bender also claimed the outlet used “alt-right buzzwords” in ads, identifying phrases such as “mainstream media”, “hidden agendas”, and “Russia hoax” as examples and suggested they could have “well come from a Trump campaign spokesperson.”

As in previous cases, while a number of editors argued for allowing Epoch Times in some cases, left-wing and anti-Trump editors calling for a ban significantly outnumbered them in the discussion. Of those supporting a ban, editor Simonm223 notably has a history of editing favorable to China. Simon, a self-proclaimed socialist, has downplayed the re-education camps for Muslims, particularly Uyghurs, in Xinjiang province and repeatedly removed details about pro-Beijing politicians in Hong Kong associating with members of the Triad criminal organization. He also regularly defends the violent Antifa group and praised Antifa terrorist Wilhem van Spronsen’s attack on an ICE detention facility.

Gateway Pundit’s ban came from a proposal soon after the proposed ban for Epoch Times. The ban proposal came in response to editor “BullRangifer” removing a 2017 piece criticizing media silence on Ukraine colluding with Democrats to influence the 2016 election. The article was originally added to frame Gateway Pundit as “fueling conspiracy theories” related to the impeachment inquiry over Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In fact, the piece correctly noted Politico’s coverage of DNC contractor Alexandra Chalupa soliciting Ukrainian interference and then-Democratic minority leader of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff expressing concerns about the reported interference.

Criticism of Gateway Pundit was harsher during the ban discussion, though still predominantly from left-wing editors. Some regarded the outlet as unreliable, but argued against a full sourcing ban as they believed some legitimate uses may exist. In addition to Simonm223, who also voted for the ban, editors advocating a ban included “Snooganssnoogans” and “Volunteer Marek” who each have a history of smearing the outlet on Wikipedia.

Editor “Snoogansnoogans” previously added a description to Gateway Pundit’s Wikipedia article stating the site “is known for publishing falsehoods and spreading hoaxes.” Marek a year later labeled the outlet a “fake news website” and each description persists to this day in some way despite initially not being based on any sources considered “reliable” on Wikipedia. However, those labels and descriptions subsequently made their way to major media outlets. Those outlets were later cited to back up the material on Wikipedia, in an apparent “citogenesis” case, referring to a form of circular sourcing.

With both Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit, the offense that got them banned was challenging the predominant narrative about the Russia collusion hoax and raising concerns about the propriety of the investigation into the Trump campaign, where these outlets proved more valid in their reporting than sources deemed “reliable” on Wikipedia. That this would prompt Wikipedia editors to ban the outlets is consistent with wider efforts to spin the outcome of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which discredited the collusion allegations, and to spin the impeachment narrative on Ukraine against Trump. Such efforts are also consistent with Wikipedia’s significant left-wing bias.

(Disclosure: The author has been involved in disputes on Wikipedia with some parties referenced in this article)

T. D. Adler edited Wikipedia as The Devil’s Advocate. He was banned after privately reporting conflict of interest editing by one of the site’s administrators. Due to previous witch-hunts led by mainstream Wikipedians against their critics, Adler writes under an alias.

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Booker Downplays Trump Economy — Americans Don’t Measure Their ‘Well-Being’ Based on GDP, Stock Market

During Friday’s “New Day” on CNN, 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) discussed a new CNN poll that shows the United States economy’s highest rating in almost 20 years.

Booker said the economy is “overall good” but Americans are “not measuring their well-being” based on the GDP or stock market.

“Right now, all Americans know that we’re doing nothing on health care costs, prescription drug costs,” Booker told host John Berman. “We know that we have a tax system that’s way, weighted in the hands of the wealthiest amongst us and not creating a fair tax system. Most Americans know the crisis of everything from college to child care are running out of control. So, what I hear from town hall after town hall here in Iowa and around this country is the economy is overall good but [Americans are] not measuring their well-being based upon GDP or the stock market. They’re measuring it on how it’s harder.”

He added, “It’s getting harder and harder for the next generations in our country to have strong senses of economic well-being, and I’m going to change that as President of the United States.”

Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent

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