- Hunter Biden’s business dealings draw more scrutiny as Republicans release trove of private documents POLITICO
- New evidence in Hunter Biden investigation, House Republicans claim CBS News
- New texts show Hunter Biden complaining his money is ‘all gone’ and seeking dad’s help: ‘Can’t pay alimony’ New York Post
- House Republicans release more than 700 pages of internal IRS documents from whistleblowers in Hunter Biden probe CNN
- Missouri Congressman releases whistleblower materials in Hunter Biden investigation Missourinet.com
Tag Archives: dealings
Twitter Files Part 7: FBI, DOJ ‘discredited’ information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings
Independent writer Michael Shellenberger released part 7 of the “Twitter Files” on Monday, delving into how the FBI and intelligence community “discredited factual information about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.”
Elon Musk had been vocal about being transparent when it comes to Twitter’s past and present actions curating content on the platform, including censored content. The Twitter owner has enlisted independent journalists to slowly release evidence of these actions in a series dubbed the “Twitter Files” that continue to expose once-secret communications.
“In Twitter Files #6, we saw the FBI relentlessly seek to exercise influence over Twitter, including over its content, its users, and its data,” Shellenberger wrote, later adding, “We have discovered new info that points to an organized effort by the intel community to influence Twitter & other platforms.”
Billionaire industrialist Elon Musk took over Twitter in late October and immediately fired several top executives.
(Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto, CARINA JOHANSEN/NTB/AFP via Getty Images (Photo illustration))
TWITTER FILES PART 6 REVEALS FBI’S TIES TO TECH GIANT: ‘AS IF IT WERE A SUBSIDIARY’
“In Twitter Files #7, we present evidence pointing to an organized effort by representatives of the intelligence community (IC), aimed at senior executives at news and social media companies, to discredit leaked information about Hunter Biden before and after it was published,” he continued. “The story begins in December 2019 when a Delaware computer store owner named John Paul (J.P.) Mac Isaac contacts the FBI about a laptop that Hunter Biden had left with him On Dec 9, 2019, the FBI issues a subpoena for, and takes, Hunter Biden’s laptop.”
TWITTER FILES PART 6 REVEALS FBI’S TIES TO TECH GIANT: ‘AS IF IT WERE A SUBSIDIARY’
“It’s important to understand that Hunter Biden earned *tens of millions* of dollars in contracts with foreign businesses, including ones linked to China’s government, for which Hunter offered no real work,” Shellenberger wrote.
“During all of 2020, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies repeatedly primed Yoel Roth to dismiss reports of Hunter Biden’s laptop as a Russian “hack and leak” operation,” he wrote, screenshotting a sworn declaration by Roth discussing years of weekly meetings warning of such an operation happening right before the 2020 election.
Shellenberger noted that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg once said the FBI approached Facebook and also warned of Russian “propaganda” ahead of the 2022 election.
“Were the FBI warnings of a Russian hack-and-leak operation relating to Hunter Biden based on *any* new intel? No, they weren’t,” Shellenberger wrote in a tweet sharing comments from FBI agent Elvis Chan.
“Through our investigations, we did not see any similar competing intrusions to what had happened in 2016,” Chan wrote.
Shellenberger also noted that Twitter executives “repeatedly” indicated there was “very little” Russian activity on the platform.
NBC NEWS’ BEN COLLINS TEMPORARILY BANNED FROM COVERING ELON MUSK ON AIR AFTER ATTACKING TWITTER OWNER: REPORT
Shellenberger wrote that Twitter even “debunked false claims by journalists of foreign influence on its platform,” including polarizing NBC News reporter Ben Collins who reported White nationalists posing as Antifa called for violence on Twitter.
“We haven’t seen any evidence to support that claim,” former Twitter exec Yoel Roth wrote to Chan on June 2, 2020.
“It’s not the first time that Twitter’s Roth has pushed back against the FBI. In January 2020, Roth resisted FBI efforts to get Twitter to share data outside of the normal search warrant process,” Shellenberger wrote before noting “pressure had been growing” and sharing an email in which a Twitter executive told Roth the intelligence community wanted the company to share more information and change API policies.
“They are probing & pushing everywhere they can (including by whispering to congressional staff),” Twitter’s director of policy and philanthropy wrote.
“Time and again, FBI asks Twitter for evidence of foreign influence & Twitter responds that they aren’t finding anything worth reporting,” Shellenberger wrote.
Journalist Matt Taibbi went viral with the first installment in early December with his “Twitter Files” focusing on Twitter’s internal discussions leading to it censoring the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 presidential election, with some officials struggling to explain how it violated its “hacked materials” policies.
It was later revealed that the first batch of “Twitter Files” were vetted without Musk’s knowledge by Twitter deputy general counsel Jim Baker, who previously served as the FBI’s general counsel and was involved in the Russia probe. Musk fired Baker shortly thereafter.
Baker was swept up Taibbi’s reporting about the suppression of the Hunter Biden story, telling his colleagues at the time, “I support the conclusion that we need more facts to assess whether the materials were hacked” but added, “it’s reasonable for us to assume that they may have been and that caution is warranted.”
Additionally, Taibbi initially reported, “Although several sources recalled hearing about a ‘general’ warning from federal law enforcement that summer about possible foreign hacks, there’s no evidence – that I’ve seen – of any government involvement in the laptop story.” It is unclear whether Baker’s involvement in vetting the “Twitter Files” led Taibbi to draw that conclusion and whether Baker omitted files that would have shown the federal government intervening in Twitter’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story.
The second installment published by Weiss revealed Twitter’s “blacklisting” of prominent conservatives, including Fox News host Dan Bongino, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, as well as Stanford University’s Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a longstanding opponent of COVID groupthink during the pandemic who expressed opposition to lockdowns.
EX-NYT COLUMNIST SWIPES MEDIA DOWNPLAYING TWITTER FILES: ‘LESS INTERESTING’ FACEBOOK LEAKS MADE FRONT PAGES
Internal communications also reveal Twitter staffers admitting that the popular account Libs of TikTok never violated its “hateful conduct” policy despite being punished several times for allegedly doing so.
Those revelations appear to contradict what former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told Congress in 2018, saying under oath that Twitter did not censor or shadowban conservatives.
The third, fourth and fifth installments of the “Twitter Files” focused on the permanent suspension of former President Trump around the Capitol riot events in January 2021.
Taibbi reported how Twitter circulated election-related tweets from various users leading up to the 2020 election that were “flagged” by the FBI as being problematic.
Shellenberger revealed that Dorsey was phoning it in as he was on vacation while his deputies were pushing to deplatform Trump with Roth in particularly spearheading efforts to censor other users pertaining to tweets about the 2020 election. It became known that Roth met on a weekly basis with the FBI, DHS as well as the office of DNI in the weeks leading up to the election.
Weiss addressed the pressure Twitter management was facing from its employees who called for Trump’s permanent suspension, though the Free Press editor also revealed several Twitter staffers who enforce policies did not believe Trump’s tweets from Jan. 6 actually violated its rules.
However, it was Vijaya Gadde, then-Twitter’s head legal chief, who asked if Trump’s tweets could be “coded incitement to further violence.” Moments later, the so-called “scaled enforcement team” suggested that based on how Twitter interprets Trump’s tweets, it could violate the violence incitement policies.
CNN’S ‘TWITTER FILES’ COVERAGE INVOLVING HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY HAS GLARING OMISSIONS
Part six of the “Twitter Files” put a spotlight on Twitter’s close ties with the FBI. Taibbi alleged the law enforcement agency was acting like a “subsidiary” of the tech giant revealing communications that showed the FBI, as many as 80 agents, systemically flagged Twitter users for tweets that included “possible violative content” pertaining to the election.
In response to the “Twitter Files,” a spokesperson for the FBI told Fox News Digital, “The FBI regularly engages with private sector entities to provide information specific to identified foreign malign influence actors’ subversive, undeclared, covert, or criminal activities. Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers after the FBI has notified them.”
The FBI’s routine contact with Twitter regarding users that would ultimately face punishment for their tweets has raised major flags about potential First Amendment violations.
This is a developing story, more to come…
Fox News’ Joseph A. Wulfsohn, Adam Sabes and David Rutz contributed to this report.
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Uber leak: Macron defends dealings with company as inquiry looms
Macron, who appeared to be visibly emotional, ignored several attempts from aides to get moving as he defended himself against accusations that he unjustifiably supported the controversial company against the will of the left-leaning government he served at the time.
“I saw foreign business leaders — horror!,” he said sarcastically. “If they created jobs in France, then I’m super proud of it. And you know what? I would do it again tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow.”
Macron’s comments came amid public outrage over a trove of documents detailing close links between him and Uber during his time as economy minister, which some members of the opposition have described as a looming “state scandal” and potential evidence of a “collusion of interests.”
The accusations on Tuesday partly dominated the first parliamentary question session since elections last month. Macron lost his absolute majority, leaving him exposed to substantially more scrutiny than in his first term, and under political pressure from his emboldened far-left and far-right opponents.
“In substance, your project is [to create] Uber’s society of a worker without rights. It is a collective social suicide,” said Danielle Simonnet, a left-wing member of parliament, addressing the government in the National Assembly on Tuesday.
The opposition’s criticism is based on Uber executives’ internal messages from 2013 to 2017, revealed by Le Monde, The Washington Post and other outlets on Sunday, which suggest that Macron’s backing for the company went far beyond what had been known publicly — and on occasion conflicted with the policies of the left-leaning government he served at the time.
The documents are part of the Uber Files, a trove of more than 124,000 internal records obtained by the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a D.C.-based nonprofit newsroom, and dozens of other news organizations worldwide.
On Monday, former Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann publicly identified himself as the source of the files. The Post and other project partners previously had agreed to keep his identity confidential.
According to the files, Uber managers and lobbyists believed that Macron was willing to support them by pushing regulators to be “less conservative” in their interpretation of rules limiting the company’s operations and by attempting to ease rules that hampered the company’s expansion in France. At times, even Uber was surprised by the extent of his backing, internal communications show.
Macron’s allies appeared ready this week to defend his interactions with the company. Budget Minister Gabriel Attal portrayed the outrage as overblown on Tuesday. “As usual, we make a ton of foam with a gram of soap,” he said on BFM TV. “I don’t even see an issue.”
But the files could prompt uncomfortable questions for Macron and his supporters.
Although the documents end in 2017, the year Macron was elected president, they directly relate to how he has tried to implement his agenda since.
Macron, who was reelected in April, has sought to liberalize the French economy — and, according to his critics, that has involved steamrolling anyone who raises concerns over the social impact of his moves.
Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon has regularly complained of the “uberization” of French society, an umbrella term used to describe ride-hailing and home delivery services, and he lashed out against Macron’s support for a sector that he views as having undermined worker rights. Mélenchon is now the public face of the biggest opposition bloc in the lower house of Parliament, where the possible inquiry would be expected to take place.
Members and allies of Mélenchon’s party, France Unbowed, were among the most vocal critics this week.
Mathilde Panot, the alliance’s leader in Parliament, suggested that Macron had helped Uber in “looting the country” and criticized the president for having acted as a “lobbyist for a U.S. multinational aiming to permanently deregulate labor law.”
Uber files leak: Macron’s dealings may prompt parliamentary inquiry
France’s left-leaning and far-right opposition parties, emboldened by recent gains in the country’s parliamentary election, jumped on the revelations on Sunday night and Monday morning, describing them as a looming “state scandal” and potential evidence of a “collusion of interests.”
Macron never hid that he was an early Uber supporter. But company executives’ internal messages from 2013 to 2017 suggest that his backing went far beyond what had been known publicly — and on occasion conflicted with the policies of the left-leaning government he served at the time.
The documents are part of the Uber Files, a trove of more than 124,000 internal records obtained by the Guardian and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit newsroom, and dozens of other news organizations worldwide, including The Washington Post.
On Monday, former Uber lobbyist Mark MacGann publicly identified himself as the source of the files. The Washington Post and other project partners previously had agreed to keep his identity confidential.
According to the files, Uber managers and lobbyists believed that Macron was willing to support them by pushing regulators to be “less conservative” in their interpretation of rules limiting the company’s operations, and by attempting to ease rules that hampered the company’s expansion in France. At times, Uber was even surprised by the extent of his backing, internal communications show.
Asked for comment ahead of publication of the documents, the French presidency said in a statement to The Post and other outlets that the “economic and employment policies at the time, in which [Macron] was an active participant, are well known” and that his “functions naturally led him to meet and interact with many companies.” Asked for additional comment after publication, the Élysée on Monday referred reporters back to its earlier statement.
“I knew that [Macron] was in favor of Uber,” said Alain Vidalies, who was France’s transportation state secretary from 2014 to 2017. But “I must say that even I am flabbergasted,” Vidalies told France’s public broadcaster.
Although the documents end in 2017, the year Macron was elected president, they directly relate to how Macron has tried to implement his agenda since.
Macron, who was reelected in April, has sought to liberalize the French economy — and, according to his critics, that has involved steamrolling anyone who raises concerns over the social impact of his moves.
That criticism is expected to find a bigger stage in Parliament during his second term, now that he has lost his absolute parliamentary majority, amid gains from the far left and far right. Far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a staunch critic of Uber and other multinationals operating in France, is now the public face of the biggest opposition bloc in the lower house of Parliament, where the possible inquiry would take place.
Mélenchon has regularly complained of the “uberization” of French society, an umbrella term used to describe ride-hailing and home delivery services, and he lashed out against Macron’s support for a sector that he views as having undermined worker rights.
Members and allies of Mélenchon’s party, France Unbowed, were among the most vocal critics on Monday.
Mathilde Panot, the alliance’s leader in Parliament, suggested that Macron had helped Uber in “looting the country” and criticized the president for having acted as a “lobbyist for a U.S. multinational aiming to permanently deregulate labor law.”
Aurélien Taché, a left-wing member of Parliament, said the files raised questions about “Emmanuel Macron’s conception of loyalty in politics, toward the government to which he belonged at the time and toward his country.”
According to the files, Macron was in frequent contact with Uber executives between 2014 and 2016 and strategized over moves that at times appeared to conflict with the objectives of then-Prime Minister Manuel Valls and others who advocated stricter rules for Uber and similar companies.
Marine Le Pen’s far-right party — which, despite her defeat in the presidential contest, won 11 times more seats in last month’s parliamentary election than it did in 2017 — similarly seized on the files, describing them as “the first scandal of Emmanuel Macron’s five-year term.”
But Macron’s allies — who still hold a simple majority in Parliament — appeared ready to defend his interactions with the company.
“Above all, he is the president who has allowed the arrival of a certain number of companies and indeed to promote the emergence of companies in our country, promote their establishment, support our reindustrialization, facilitate job creation. I believe that this is clearly the role of a minister of the economy and of a head of state,” Aurore Bergé, who leads Macron’s party in Parliament, said on French TV.
The Uber files may raise questions in France that go beyond the extent of Macron’s support.
The files also show that Uber used covert tech to thwart government raids during its global expansion. And as enraged taxi drivers, fearing for their professional survival, clashed with their Uber competitors on the streets of Paris in 2015 and 2016, some company executives viewed the physical confrontations as a means to win public sympathy and support.
“The most important question” now, wrote Cédric O, France’s former state secretary for digital affairs under Macron, “is whether or not the establishment [of Uber] was a good thing socially and economically.”
Army now reviewing Pentagon investigation into Michael Flynn’s dealings with Russia and other foreign entities
It is unclear when the Defense Department may announce its decision in the matter. The Washington Post first reported the report’s referral to the Army.
Former President Donald Trump pardoned Flynn, his first national security adviser, last November, an action that wiped away the guilty plea Flynn had made in 2017 — and then attempted to withdraw in 2020 — for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia during the 2016 presidential transition.
The Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General had opened its own investigation in April 2017, looking into money that Flynn had received from Russian and Turkish entities after his retirement from the service and whether he had failed to obtain the proper approval to do so. The military has strict rules for payments that retired officers can take from foreign countries after their retirement from service.
That investigation had been put on hold as then-special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential campaign and other investigations got underway.
“On April 11, 2017, the DoD OIG initiated an investigation into an allegation that retired Lieutenant General (LTG) Michael Flynn failed to obtain required approval from the Army and the Department of State before receiving any emolument from a foreign government or a foreign government-controlled entity. At the request of the Department of Justice (DOJ), we placed our investigation in abeyance in June 2017, pending the outcome of criminal allegations against LTG Flynn,” IG spokeswoman Dwrena Allen said in a statement.
“After the former President pardoned LTG Flynn on November 25, 2020, we received permission from the DOJ to continue our investigation. On January 27, 2021, we closed our investigation against LTG Flynn and forwarded several administrative matters to the Acting Secretary of the Army for review and appropriate action,” Allen added.
In December 2017, Flynn became one of the most significant and earliest defendants to plead guilty and cooperate in the Mueller investigation. He admitted to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia during the Trump presidential transition in 2016, and secretly lobbying for Turkey.
But he dramatically reversed course in 2019, tried to withdraw his guilty plea in 2020 and promoted conspiracy theories about the Mueller investigation.
Flynn gravitated back into Trump’s orbit, and he and his lawyer ultimately assisted the former President’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
CNN’s Marshall Cohen contributed to this report.
‘For Christ’s sake, watch yourself’: Biden warns family over business dealings
Relatives’ money-making ventures, most prominently his son Hunter’s overseas dealings, have long dogged Biden. But it’s taking on a new dimension now that he’s in the White House.
Only a week into his presidency, Biden already has had to answer for matters related to his family. A law firm ad promoting Frank Biden’s relationship with the president caused a stir when it ran on Inauguration Day. A federal investigation into Biden’s son, Hunter, has invited scrutiny of just how strict a firewall he’ll keep between the White House and the Justice Department. And another of the president’s brothers, James, has previously come under fire for his business dealings.
Florida super attorney and Democratic donor John Morgan said business sensitivities were coursing through Bidenworld this week after the report about Frank Biden’s law firm.
“What Frank told me is ‘my brother loves me dearly, but if I lobbied, he would cut my legs from underneath me,” Morgan said Frank Biden told him this week.
The intent of Joe Biden’s initial conversation, according to the person with knowledge of the discussion, was to protect Frank from “being hurt and vilified” in the event his big brother, “Joey,” was elected to the most powerful position in the world.
“Frank made it clear to me what the president made clear to him: The day he got elected, the long knives came out for all things Biden,” Morgan said. “There’s a target on all of them.”
One person interested in working with Frank Biden was Morgan himself, a fellow Floridian who is close to the younger Biden.
“Great guy,” Morgan said of Frank Biden. “I had my jet take him to the inauguration.”
Morgan said he’d started talking with Frank Biden about business opportunities last year but that nothing had come together yet. “We are talking about him doing some things inside the law firm,” Morgan said, referring to his firm, Morgan & Morgan, which bills itself as “America’s Largest Injury Law Firm.”
Any partnership would have a “100 percent legal focus” and wouldn’t involve any lobbying, Morgan added.
There is no evidence of wrongdoing tied to their discussions or violations of ethics rules. Frank Biden is a private citizen. Morgan does not lobby the federal government.
Frank Biden is not a lawyer but works as a senior adviser at another Florida-based law firm, the Berman Law Group. Morgan is a prominent Democratic donor who gave $355,000 to the Biden Victory Fund in August, according to campaign finance records.
Frank Biden’s business partner, Joe Abruzzo, was also involved in a preliminary discussion about the potential business with Morgan and Frank Biden, but pulled out after he was elected Palm Beach County clerk of the circuit court and comptroller.
“As a businessman for years, Frank is inundated with offers and opportunities,” said Abruzzo, who is also one of Frank’s closest friends. “He tends to focus on what he is passionate about: education and social justice issues.”
He added, “John and Frank are good friends and it is not surprising to those who know them that they have engaged in conversations.”
A source with knowledge of the conversations said Thursday, “It is extremely unlikely that there is going to be any business arrangement between Frank Biden and John Morgan.”
Renewed discussion about Biden’s family business ties come after a campaign in which former President Donald Trump relentlessly hammered Hunter Biden for his past dealings in China and Ukraine. Asked about his family’s business ties on the campaign trail in 2019, Biden, then the Democratic front-runner, vowed he would build an “absolute wall” between the White House and his relatives. He also pledged that, if elected, no one in his family would serve on foreign boards. In December, Hunter Biden acknowledged an existing federal investigation into his taxes.
Though nothing was in place, word of the discussions between Morgan and Frank Biden have bounced around Biden’s orbit after he won the presidential election. One person in Bidenworld took calls from senior Biden campaign officials, Florida lobbyists and Washington insiders who had all gotten wind of the conversations. Most expressed shock that Frank Biden was so quickly engaged in talks about new business opportunities, given the uproar his professional dealings caused during his brother’s presidential campaign, the person said.
Frank Biden has long run business ventures in Florida, including with charter schools, and has told others he has no intention of taking on any new work in Washington, D.C. He remains with Berman Law Group and is involved in the firm’s work fighting against sugar companies that burn sugar cane as part of their business practice.
Frank’s work on the case drew headlines this week after CNBC reported the law firm was touting his relationship with his brother, the new president, in an advertisement.
“My brother is a model for how to go about doing this work,” Frank Biden says in an ad that ran in the Daily Business Review, according to the CNBC report. “One of his central tenets is that one should never question another man’s or woman’s motives or assign blame to them. That way, you avoid creating a disparity that prevents any kind of coming together. You can of course question someone’s judgment, and that’s what we’re doing by bringing this to court.”
Asked about the ad on Thursday, a White House official said, “It is this White House’s policy that the President’s name should not be used in connection with any commercial activities to suggest, or in any way that could reasonably understood to imply, his endorsement or support.”