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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MSNBC correspondent Ali Vitali on Tuesday’s Ana Cabrera Reports forwent her role as a journalist, peddling overused Democrat talking points and a ridiculous and baseless comparison in her coverage of Hunter Biden’s cushy plea deal with his father’s Justice Department, which included no jail time on federal tax and gun charges.
Vitali accused Comer of having “several press events around this, not producing any tangible evidence, but instead just continuing to say that they will go where the investigation leads.”
The lack of “tangible evidence” blasted at Republicans could hardly be used to fault them, though. The FBI refused to submit to a congressional subpoena for a whistleblower form that detailed accusations of bribery against President Biden- FBI Director Christopher Wray was threatened to be held in contempt of Congress, and eventually only allowed lawmakers to view the documents in a secure location.
Vitali unfortunately wanted to frame the Comer investigation in a negative light in order to paint it as nothing more than a Republican hit job, and mislead viewers into thinking Biden is innocent before the investigation had even finished.
She went on to create a “whataboutism” to try and deflect criticism of Hunter Biden:
“I think the other important thing to note is that when Comer has been pressed on the things that former President Trump’s children have done, deals that they have done, for example with Saudi Arabia, deals that Jared Kushner has done, that Comer has sidestepped that and not been interested in going down a line of inquiry into those.”
And lamented Comer’s doggedness in investigating Hunter Biden:
“He goes on to say that ‘Biden is getting away with a slap on the wrist, when growing evidence uncovered by the Oversight Committee reveals the Bidens engaged in a pattern of corruption, influence peddling, and possible bribery.’ He goes on to say that this is a ‘sweetheart plea deal’ in the same way that we have been talking about that being one of the things that political opponents will leverage against this current decision.
And then Comer finishes to say ‘we will not rest until the full extent of Biden's involvement in the schemes are revealed.’
"Again, I think it is really important to note though that Comer has embarked on this investigation from the very moment that the committees were able to be formed here at the end of January,” she huffed.
Forget about Hunter Biden and any of the corruption or crimes he has been involved in, what really mattered was Jared Kushner. The problem with that whataboutism is that Hunter Biden was given a lucrative position at Burisma while he had no experience or qualifications for it, aside from being close to his father President Biden. Jared Kushner, however, does have significant qualifications from being, as The Times of Israel puts it, “instrumental in negotiating the Abraham Accords.”
Since Ali Vitali couldn’t get her whataboutism correct, she should have stuck with actual journalism.
Ali Vitali’s bad reporting was sponsored by The Farmer’s Dog. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera Reports
06/20/23
10:20 AM ET
(…)
ALI VITALI: Yeah, and Comer has been one of the leading voices on this, trying to use the power of the gavel once Republicans got the majority to make inquiries into Hunter Biden. He's held several press events around this, not producing any tangible evidence, but instead continuing to just say that they will go where the investigation leads, and that is effectively what he's saying again, reiterating that now in a statement saying, “let's be clear,” these are Comer's words, “the DOJ's charges against Biden's son Hunter reveal a two-tiered system of justice.”
He goes on to say that “Biden is getting away with a slap on the wrist, when growing evidence uncovered by the Oversight Committee reveals the Bidens engaged in a pattern of corruption, influence peddling, and possible bribery.” He goes on to say that this is a “sweetheart plea deal” in the same way that we have been talking about that being one of the things that political opponents will leverage against this current decision.
And then Comer finishes to say “we will not rest until the full extent of Biden's involvement in the schemes are revealed.” Again, I think it is really important to note though that Comer has embarked on this investigation from the very moment that the committees were able to be formed here at the end of January. He has yet to produce anything tangible and yet he's still continuing to push this idea that there could be something there.
I think the other important thing to note is that when Comer has been pressed on the things that former President Trump's children have done, deals that they have done, for example, with Saudi Arabia, deals that Jared Kushner has done, that Comer has sidestepped that and not been interested in going down a line of inquiry or investigation into those. And so certainly it allows Democrats and others to say that he's politically leaning in the way that he's using the gavel on the Oversight Committee, but certainly this is also something I think that is going to come up because you have John Durham, one of the prosecutors who was leading an inquiry for several years, into the way that the FBI conducted investigations of former President Donald Trump and potential collusion with Russia. Durham is supposed to be up here on The Hill today for a closed door meeting. Tomorrow for an open testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee.
That committee, another one of the ones led by a Trump ally, Jim Jordan, who has also been leading the charge on investigations into Biden and into his son Hunter, this is certainly something that was already going to be an issue this week. Now, though, Republicans actually have the information at hand of what this plea deal could look like, the fact the Department of Justice could be saying that the investigation is ongoing, the fact that Hunter Biden's attorney is saying that this plea deal makes it a closed matter, certainly that's something that I would expect them to seize on when they come back to town in just a few hours.
But as we question whether the investigation is open or closed from a DOJ perspective, certainly it is an open investigation that Republicans I think will continue to exploit here on Capitol Hill. Not just as an example of something that they were already investigating, but as an example of something that they want to use to muddy the waters around the former president.
(…)
