EDITOR’S NOTE, February 16, 2024: On February 15, Justice Department Counsel David Weiss indicted FBI informant Alexander Smirnov on two felony counts of making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record for claims made to the bureau. The charges are in relation to June 2020 FD-1023 form alleging President Joe Biden and son Hunter Biden received a combined $10 million in a bribery scheme involving the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma.
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Between Monday and Tuesday, four new Biden family scandals emerged, ranging from Hunter Biden’s artwork to business dealings inside Delaware to conflicts of interest in his tax probe to a former ally finally agreeing to spill the beans to a House committee about the Biden family’s ties to Burisma. If course, none of these scandals made it on the flagship morning and evening newscasts of ABC, CBS, and NBC.
Instead, the networks had other priorities, such as lying about Florida’s Department of Education and screeching about Israel’s judicial reforms signaling the end of its democracy. And, in the case of ABC, Good Morning America shelled out 12 minutes and 41 seconds to their first two stops on a tour of MLB ballparks, including a look at some of their unique snacks.
First came word late Monday that former Hunter Biden confidante Devon Archer finally committed to a closed-door deposition with the House Oversight Committee in which he could reveal the depths to which then-Vice President Biden knew of his son’s Burisma dealings.
The Fox News Channel’s flagship newscast Special Report led Monday with this development (as would numerous FNC shows after them). After three no-shows, correspondent Gillian Turner revealed July 31 is when Archer, who had already “convicted of securities fraud,” will arrive as the committee has said “they have evidence that President Biden, himself, communicated with Hunter Biden’s business partners’ business associates overseas many times in the past.”
Hours later, Fox News @ Night also led with what could be the source of new bombshells (click “expand”):
JONATHAN HUNT: But we begin with explosive new testimony that will give new insight about just how involved President Biden might have been with his son, Hunter’s overseas business dealings.
(....)
KEVIN CORKE: Good evening, Jonathan. Hunter Biden would dial in his father, and then, he would put him on speakerphone back, when he was the VP into meetings with his overseas business partners. Now, that is according to testimony expected before Congress this week from Devon Archer, the First Son’s former best friend. Archer is scheduled to testify to the House Oversight Committee about the meetings that he apparently witnessed. That, again, according to him, were attended by Joe Biden, either in person or via speakerphone, when Hunter would call his father to introduce him to his foreign business partners or prospective investors.
(....)
CORKE: Recall, and this is important. The President has on multiple occasions, strongly denied ever speaking with the son about his foreign business dealings, which, if true, would directly contradict the latest allegations.
Though FNC was only joined by its sister channel Fox Business Network, Newsmax and NewsNation were also on the case. For NewsNation, its flagship AM show Morning in America had a story near the top across each of its four hours.
“Now to another major House hearing possibly on the horizon. This one starting a whistleblower who says they have specific claims of Biden family corruption,” said co-host Adrienne Bankert in the first hour.
Correspondent Tom Dempsey said this showed Comer was “diving into the allegations then-Vice President Joe Biden took part in a bribery scheme connected to his son Hunter’s business relationship with Ukrainian energy company Burisma.”
Also late Monday, Business Insider released a bombshell investigation into Hunter Biden’s comically corrupt and unremarkable art career. According to reporter Mattathias Schwartz, Hunter’s “art brought in $1.3 million” with one dropping $875,000, but “documents do not indicate the buyer's identity.”
Another buyer, Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, not only purchased art from Hunter, but is a prominent Democratic donor and been appointed to a presidential commission by Hunter’s father (click “expand”):
That buyer, Insider can reveal, is Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real-estate investor and philanthropist. Hirsh Naftali is influential in California Democratic circles and a significant Democratic donor who has given $13,414 to the Biden campaign and $29,700 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year. In 2022, she hosted a fundraiser headlined by Vice President Kamala Harris.
(....)
In July 2022, eight months after Hunter Biden's first art opening, Joe Biden announced Hirsh Naftali's appointment to the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. It is unclear whether Hirsh Naftali's purchase of Hunter Biden's artwork occurred before or after that appointment. Membership on the commission is an unpaid position often filled by campaign donors, family members, and political allies — the same crowd that often winds up with US ambassadorial appointments. Hirsh Naftali's fundraising activities mark her as the kind of well-connected donor who often wins such appointments, regardless of any relationship they might have with the president's family. But they do not address the possibility that Hunter Biden might have voiced his support for her appointment.
Well, did that happen or not? Did Hunter Biden weigh in with his father about the appointment of Hirsh Naftali?
And did Hirsh Naftali buy Hunter Biden's art before or after she was appointed?
That story was also ignored on the broadcast networks, but had full coverage on FNC, including on Fox & Friends First in which co-host Todd Piro sarcastically revealed, “Hunter Biden made million dollars off his artwork and one of the buyers — shockingly — is reportedly prominent Democrat donor who President Biden appointed to a prestigious position.”
Third, the Biden’s home newspaper the Delaware News-Journal released on Monday and Tuesday two lengthy investigations tallying nearly 5,500 words from reporter Karl Baker delving into what e-mails on Hunter’s infamous laptop revealed about Hunter’s business dealings in the state.
In part one, Baker detailed how Hunter Biden leveraged his name and personal connections to steer state subsidies to a green energy company called Fisker Automotive promising to rehabilitate a shuttered General Motors factory into a plant building hybrid cars with plug-in capabilities.
Despite $22 million in state subsidies in 2010, the plant started failing a year later and its assets were divvied up with the help of two Chinese companies.
Baker’s second story told much the same tale with Hunter and his businesses steering millions to “Bloom Energy, a Californai-based fuel cell manufacturer whose 2011 subsidy deal with Delaware ultimately directed hundreds of millions of dollars to the company” and a special altering of Delaware law for its benefit.
Sure enough, that company too failed in reaching its goals of revitalizing an abandoned Chrysler plant near the University of Delaware and falling woefully short of its promise of 900 jobs.
And, finally, Tuesday morning brought out this stunning revelation from Sarah Bedford with the great folks at the Washington Examiner, “Hunter Biden investigation: Close Biden political aide worked for Weiss when inquiry began”.
Bedford explained that the man in question, Alexander Mackler, is “[a] close associate of the Biden family” who “appears to have spent years working in the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office, including during the months when whistleblowers said the office took up an investigation of Hunter Biden.”
She added that not only was Mackler close to Hunter, but the rest of the family as he worked for Joe Biden’s Senate and vice presidential offices and managed Hunter’s late brother Beau’s “successful campaign for Delaware attorney general in 2010.”
To make matters even more disturbingly corrupt, Mackler came up in Hunter’s laptop with the First Son even calling him a “brother” (click “expand”):
In emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop, Mackler corresponded frequently with Hunter Biden and his business associates and even referred to Hunter Biden fondly as a “brother” in October 2018. Mackler was working under U.S. Attorney David Weiss in the office at that time, according to his LinkedIn page, which lists him as having worked in the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office from August 2016 to May 2019.
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Mackler’s deep connections to the Biden family raise questions about whether he should ever have come close to an investigation involving the Bidens.
He emailed with Hunter Biden and Eric Schwerin, one of Hunter Biden’s business partners, on what appears to be the first day of his new job at the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office to talk about the office’s email retention policy.
Schwerin joked to Mackler that his response was “the last email you ever receive from me.”
Days after Mackler had started working for the U.S. attorney’s office, he was still working with the Bidens, according to Hunter Biden’s emails.
Mackler helped edit public statements related to the launch of an institute in Joe Biden’s name at the University of Delaware while working for the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office, for example.
