Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

The Empty Wheel is an excellent source, the detail again reminding of how little we really know. Of how little, i anyhoooo am able to recall at will.

"DAVID WEISS IS WRECKING THE THE RIGHT WING STORY (AND LIKELY SANDBAGGING HUNTER BIDEN)"
[...]
I can’t speak to whether any FARA charges against Hunter are meritorious or not and if they are, without taint, by all means prosecute him. The admitted facts about Burisma and CEFC, while far smaller than laid out by Republicans (including, potentially, by Joseph Ziegler and Gary Shapley under oath), are interesting as much for the kind of information operation we saw being alleged in the Gal Luft prosecution as they are for the possibility they support a FARA prosecution (which is one of two things — the other being the loan that Hunter got from Kevin Morris to pay off his taxes in the first place — for which the statute of limitations would not have expired).
Your link - https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/07/28/david-weiss-is-wrecking-the-the-right-wing-story-and-likely-sandbagging-hunter-biden/

To Luft - U.S. Attorney Announces Charges Against Co-Director Of Think Tank For Acting
As An Unregistered Foreign Agent, Trafficking In Arms, Violating U.S. Sanctions Against
Iran, And Making False Statements To Federal Agents
Monday, July 10, 2023
For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, Southern District of New York
Gal Luft, a Dual U.S.-Israeli Citizen, Allegedly Evaded FARA Registration While Working to Advance the Interests of China in the United States and Sought to Broker the Illicit Sales of Chinese-Manufactured Weapons and Iranian Oil to China
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-charges-against-co-director-think-tank-acting-unregistered

To your above embedded link .. “I can get any source on the planet.” The Pre-History of Gal Luft’s Pre-“Whistleblower” Indictment

July 17, 2023 / 14 Comments / in 2016 Presidential Election, 2020 Presidential Election, 2024 Presidential Election, emptywheel, Hunter Biden /by emptywheel

In this post .. https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/07/11/james-comers-imaginary-whistleblower-friend-gal-luft-was-charged-last-november-for-lying-in-that-march-2019-meeting/ .. I noted that Gal Luft — the guy who got James Comer all hot and bothered about having a “whistleblower” confirming his conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden — was indicted on November 1, 2022, before the Republicans even won back the House. The timing alone debunks Luft’s and GOP claims that he was charged as retaliation for coming forward to Republicans.

But he might have been charged even before that.

That’s because the statutes of limitation for many of the substantive charges against him — save the alleged conspiracy to violate FARA — would have expired before he was indicted if he hadn’t fled the country when the person referred in his indictment as co-conspirator-1, Chi Ping Patrick Ho, was arrested in November 2017.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/07/17/i-can-get-any-source-on-the-planet-the-pre-history-of-gal-lufts-pre-whistleblower-indictment/

Add - Could James Comer Possibly Get More Embarrassing? (Um, Yes.)

If the Justice Department is right, Comer’s whistleblower behaved in exactly the way Comer accuses Biden of acting.


Rep. James Comer at a House Oversight Subcommittee hearing in May. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

All links

If you’re old enough, you remember when the GOP fashioned itself the “law and order” party. This was because of its tough-on-crime stance, which, like most Republican policies (excessive tax cuts for rich people, relentless punishment of people on food stamps, contempt for science and environmental responsibility, etc.), has done immeasurable harm to the nation in our modern history, wrecking the lives of God-knows-how-many young people apprehended with a couple joints on their person. It was terrible, but at least it was true.

Here’s your “law and order” party at work today. House Republicans like to refer incessantly .. https://clayhiggins.house.gov/media/press-releases/higgins-issues-statement-evidence-incriminating-biden-crime-family .. to the “Biden crime family.” They claim to be in possession of evidence of criminal wrongdoing, like secret Biden bank accounts that were set up to hide the numerous bribes they say Joe Biden has taken from foreigners. They claim all kinds of stuff. I guess we should not rule out the possibility, however remote, that this proof exists.

But we have the right to come to certain conclusions based on what they’ve shown us so far, half-a-year-plus into their majority. It’s been a complete and total clown show, culminating this week in a development that is so beyond absurd that if I were saying it instead of typing it, I’d be spitting out my coffee: The GOP’s whistleblower is literally a fugitive .. https://newrepublic.com/post/174222/house-republicans-biden-investigation-witness-china-agent .

[Insert: Luft gets a mention, here - And don't forget the Republican House inquiry that cleared Joe.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172388403
here .. LOL, 'slowly' indeed as in not at all. The main witness, Comer's 'holy grail', is on the lam, charged as he is as a Chinese spy and the IRS witness testimony has not ben corroborated. So who TF are you kidding? You must have been a huge fan of the Keystone Cops.
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172408314
here .. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172310229
and initially .. GOP’s ‘Missing’ Biden Probe Witness Faces Laundry List of Federal Charges
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172309422]

Gal Luft is the whistleblower around whom House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky built considerable drama in recent weeks. Comer repeatedly told Fox News and Hill reporters that he had a guy who had the goods on Capo di Tutti Capi Biden but was being silenced by those crazy Marxists over at the FBI. Well, news broke this week that Luft was indicted for acting as an unregistered agent for China, trying to do various arms deals, including to Iran (in violation of U.S. sanctions), and more. And he is quite literally a fugitive from justice: Luft has lived outside the United States since November 2017.

You’ll notice that I didn’t say he was indicted this week, only that the news broke. This is an important point that you need to keep straight. Republicans like Comer and Jim Jordan have been whining about the timing of the indictment, accusing the Justice Department of attempting to silence their star witness at the crucial moment. But the indictment was actually filed last November. In other words, Luft has been under suspicion and investigation for some time, and the government came down on him before even the midterm elections. The indictment was logged when Justice didn’t even know who’d be running the House now.

Here’s just one charge from the indictment. Luft was working for a think tank. In the summer of 2015, it is alleged, a Chinese national who was the head of something called the China Energy Fund Committee, or CEFC, approached Luft and offered him and his think tank $350,000 a year to engage in some pro-China agitprop. Luft duly carried this out, hosting conferences, placing op-eds, and so on. Luft, the indictment alleges, was working with a former high-ranking U.S. official, who was called only “Individual 1” in the indictment but is known to be .. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/gop-house-informant-indicted-allegations-was-agent-china-rcna93633 .. James Woolsey, who was for a couple years the head of the CIA under Bill Clinton.

Woolsey’s involvement here is interesting. He has referred to himself as a “Scoop Jackson Democrat” (that means hawkish), but evidently he decided at some point that Barack Obama was destroying America with his defense cuts. Woolsey threw in with Trump in the fall of 2016, at a time when dozens of national security eminences were warning what a danger he was.

Luft agreed to work on behalf of the CEFC to “educate” Woolsey, who would make public statements that were in the interests of China. Sure enough, on November 30, 2016, with Trump as president-elect, Woolsey spoke at an event called the Belt & Road Forum in Washington, co-hosted by the CEFC. “We want to joyfully participate with China in international trade operations and economic growth,” Woolsey said. “I think we have no reason why China and the U.S. cannot be close and friendly nations.” (Woolsey, it must be noted, later quit the Trump transition team .. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/06/former-cia-chief-leaves-trump-transition-team/96238644/ , claiming he was being cut out of meetings.)

Maybe, as is always the case in such matters, none of the indictment is true. Like anyone, like even Donald Trump, Luft is entitled to the presumption of innocence.

But if the charges are true, put yourself in James Comer’s shoes. Would you really decide to try to build a case at least in part around a man who was accused of the things Luft is accused of? Is that a credible witness? Then there’s the simple practical matter that the guy hasn’t set foot in the U.S. in nearly six years. Was Luft going to Zoom his way to stardom from some undisclosed location in Cyprus? (That’s where he was when he skipped bail in April.)

This just scratches the surface, but take a breath with me here. What does Comer accuse Joe Biden of? Corruption pertaining chiefly to China—taking bribes mostly to get filthy rich, but in part to conceal the regime’s true face, thereby gussying up China’s image in the West. And what does the government allege his star-witness-in-waiting did? Took several payments of $350,000—to gussy up China’s image in the West. In other words, Comer wants us to believe that Biden behaved in a certain way with respect to China. But if the Justice Department is right, Luft behaved in exactly the way Comer accuses Biden of acting!

Luft released a video .. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jul/11/gal-luft-biden-china-agent-charged .. earlier this month saying, among other things, that he’s on the lam because “I did not believe I will receive a fair trial in a New York court.” Perhaps one day we’ll find out. But right now, we know this much. James Comer doesn’t look like he could run a one-car funeral, let alone the proverbial two-car version. The right-wing media has fashioned a ready excuse for such situations: It’s all the deep state covering up for the Bidens and persecuting truth tellers. Back here on planet Earth, though, the bottom line remains that Comer’s star witness is a fugitive from justice. If Joe Biden actually is corrupt, he couldn’t ask for a better, more Clouseau-like pursuer than James Comer.

This article first appeared in Fighting Words, a weekly TNR newsletter authored by editor Michael Tomasky. Sign up here.
https://newrepublic.com/post/174336/james-comer-possibly-get-embarrassing-um-yes

Lastly - WOW - You went to a heap of trouble to embed all those links (unless you
have a mysterious wand/method to make it easier). And the green is a super touch.