Can't pay your bill? Just claim the people you owe money to are canceling you......
Mike Lindell claims Fox News ‘canceled’ MyPillow
Election denier and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is claiming that Fox News stopped running his company’s commercials on the network, asserting that he was “canceled” in an effort to silence him, a claim that Fox denies.
Lindell went public on Friday, sharing a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, where apart from pleading for monetary support in a time of “cancelation,” he suspected that the network is “getting rid” of “his voice.”
In the Friday video, Lindell speculated that Fox is silencing him because his online platform TV/FrankSpeech online channel hired former Fox Business host Lou Dobbs, who recently interviewed former President Trump. Dobbs’s show was canceled three years ago. The MyPillow CEO also quipped it is because he wants to “our election platforms,” something that Fox also denies.
Fox disputes Lindell’s claims, saying that the removal of the ads was due to financial issues. “As soon as their account is paid, we would be happy to accept their advertising,” Fox spokeswoman Irena Briganti told the Associated Press.
Lindell admitted that he owes $7.7 million to Fox and that, on average, he spent $1 million a week to run his ads on the network.
Influenza hospitalizations up 250% in Iowa | Experts say vaccinations are vital
POLK COUNTY, Iowa — Hospitalization rates in Iowa the past four weeks have increased by 250% for influenza, 58% for COVID-19 and 60% for RSV in the U.S., according to the CDC.
"We saw a surge in COVID going into Thanksgiving, so we knew following Thanksgiving it was going to be pretty bad," said Janae Brown, a nurse practitioner at Unity Point Health. "So we've seen a lot of COVID, some flu, some RSV, but mostly COVID as far as what we are testing for."
Fox disputes Lindell’s claims, saying that the removal of the ads was due to financial issues. “As soon as their account is paid, we would be happy to accept their advertising,” Fox spokeswoman Irena Briganti told the Associated Press.
There it is in a nutshell.... Lindell follows his leaders footsteps.
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
Almost two-thirds of Iowa caucusgoers say Biden 2020 win was not legitimate: Entrance polls
Nearly two-thirds of Iowa Republicans say President Biden’s victory in the 2020 election was not legitimate, according to Monday’s entrance polls ahead of the state’s caucuses.
Around 66 percent of Iowa caucusgoers say they believe Biden’s win in the last election was illegitimate, while 29 percent say it was legitimate, according to the polls. Despite the numbers, allegations of voter fraud have been widely disproven.
Sixty-nine percent of those who doubted the legitimacy of Biden’s 2020 victory also supported former President Trump on Monday, per the polls.
Among those caucusgoers who said the president was legitimately in the White House, 53 percent of respondents supported former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley — including most of those who described themselves as “moderate” or “liberal.”
Roughly 20 percent supported Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who emerged in second place after Iowa’s caucus, according to election data from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ.
The former president’s various legal battles — from four criminal indictments to his civil cases — also didn’t seem to have much of an effect on his loyal base during the caucuses, which kickstarted primary voting season.
Two-thirds of the caucusgoers said they would still consider Trump fit for the role, even if convicted of a crime, per the survey. Roughly one-third of them did not agree, with nearly half backing Haley.
The Associated Press’s VoteCast survey reflected a similar sentiment among caucusgoers, with much enthusiasm surrounding the former president. Most Iowans, about 7 in 10, said they knew all along that they would support him on Monday.
By the end of the night, Trump had won a historic 51 percent of support in Iowa, getting 20 delegates, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis had 21.2 percent support and earned 8 delegates, and Haley earned 19.1 percent with 7 delegates. Trump also had a significant lead in far stretches of the state.
Following his dismal polling numbers, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy opted to suspend his campaign and endorse the former president.
Trump won 98 of Iowa’s 99 counties, with only Johnson County siding with Haley, by a margin of one vote.
The entrance polls were conducted Monday across the Hawkeye State by Edison Research among 1,628 caucusgoers randomly selected as they entered to vote.
It might be important to point out Trump won 51% of the votes. But it's also important to note that only 14% of eligible voters voted. That may be a weather thing..
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
It might be important to point out Trump won 51% of the votes. But it's also important to note that only 14% of eligible voters voted. That may be a weather thing..
Or the reason could be the hot garbage that is our choices from both sides.
Once again the petulant child refuses to maintain his composure in the courtroom. But when a man such as him has shown time and time again his contempt for the law what else is one to expect.....
Judge threatens to kick Trump out of court
A New York federal judge threatened to kick former President Trump out of his courtroom for being “disruptive” during a trial proceeding Wednesday determining how much he owes writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her after she alleged he raped her.
“Mr. Trump has the right to be present here. That right can be forfeited and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive, which what has been reported to me consists of. And if he disregards court orders, Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial,” U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said Wednesday, according to CNN.
“I understand you’re probably eager for me to do that,” the judge continued.
“I would love it,” Trump replied, according to several outlets.
“I know you would,” Kaplan said back. “You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently.”
“You can’t either,” Trump muttered, according to The Associated Press.
The judge’s warning to Trump followed a complaint from Carroll’s lawyer that Trump disregarded orders from the judge to “keep his voice down” and had continued making comments about the case audible to jurors, including that the trial is a “witch hunt” and “con job.”
Earlier in the day, Trump had made comments insinuating that Carroll was lying about her assault and that she seemed to have “gotten her memory back,” according to Carroll lawyer Shawn Crowley.
Carroll has claimed that Trump forced himself on her in a luxury department store dressing room after a chance meeting in 1996. After she told the story publicly in a 2019 memoir, he publicly undercut her honesty and motive for coming forward, she says.
Trump has denied wrongdoing, saying he never met her and that nothing happened between them.
A previous trial in the case occurred last May, when a jury determined Trump did sexually abuse and defame Carroll but that the columnist had not proven her claim that the former president raped her. Trump did not attend that trial, which ended with Carroll being awarded $5 million in damages.
Now, Carroll is seeking some $10 million in compensatory damages and millions more in punitive damages.
Trump has used his legal battles to better his standing in the GOP presidential primary. During his months-long fraud trial, also in New York, the former president made frequent stump speeches from the courthouse hallways and raised money off his presence there. He also butted heads with the judge in that case, whom he decried as “Trump hating” and politically biased against him.
Trump coasted to a victory in the Iowa caucuses this week and heads to next week’s New Hampshire primary as the favorite. He’s also edging out President Biden in various national polls.
Trump: NBC, CNN should have ‘licenses or whatever’ pulled for not airing Iowa speech
Former President Trump says NBC and CNN should be taken off the air for their decision to not air in full the speech he gave in Iowa following his win in Monday’s caucuses.
White House: Comer ‘blatantly lying’ about Hunter Biden benefactor’s testimony
The White House went after House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) for “blatantly lying” about testimony from a benefactor of Hunter Biden on Friday.
“Yet again it appears @JamesComer is blatantly lying about closed-door testimony in the Republicans’ baseless, meandering, and failing so-called ‘impeachment inquiry’ of the President,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. “This has happened over and over and over.”
Sams’s post was in reference to an attorney for Kevin Morris, a friend of President Biden’s son, alleging House Republicans did not accurately represent his testimony in the wake of a closed-door interview Thursday.
“Your staff as well as the staff of other committees responded that Mr. Morris would be treated fairly,” Bryan Sullivan, Morris’s attorney, wrote in a letter to Comer. “And, then you did not treat Mr. Morris fairly and engaged in your standard practice of partially and inaccurately leaking a witness’s statements.”
The letter comes alongside complaints from Democrats about Republicans misrepresenting witness testimony while investigating Biden family business dealings and amid their impeachment inquiry looking into connections to the president.
Comer hailed the Thursday news that Hunter Biden will sit for a closed-door deposition later this month before Comer’s committee and the House Judiciary Committee.
“I think at the end of the day, this is a huge victory for the House Oversight Committee,” Comer said Thursday on Fox News. “This is exactly what we wanted.”
Biden’s agreement to a late February deposition follows his avoidance of an earlier December deposition that resulted in lawmakers threatening him with contempt of Congress.
“Hunter Biden will appear before our committees for a deposition on February 28, 2024. His deposition will come after several interviews with Biden family members and associates. We look forward to Hunter Biden’s testimony,” Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote in a statement.
Of course having Hunter testify behind closed doors is exactly what they wanted. So they can continue to lie about what gets said and twist some political narrative even they know isn't true. Plus if it were a public hearing the public would find out just how little they have on Hunter and what a huge fishing expedition this all really is.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
It will be interesting to see if they ever give Hunter a hearing in a public setting. It’s going to be a “he said she said” behind closed doors. Won’t be able to believe either party until then.
A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. – Jackie Robinson
It will be interesting to see if they ever give Hunter a hearing in a public setting. It’s going to be a “he said she said” behind closed doors. Won’t be able to believe either party until then.
I asked myself a simple question. Why don't they want Hunter Biden to be questioned in public? what are they afraid he will say? Will it rip their thinking apart? What's the big deal. If they got their facts right, they should have someone smart enough on the Republican side that is capable of getting to the truth.
Or maybe they are afraid that their beliefs will be exposed and they won't be able to spin it.
Off topic for a moment, what is the meaning of Debank?
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
"Alternative facts hurt us all. Think before you blindly believe." Damanshot
It will be interesting to see if they ever give Hunter a hearing in a public setting. It’s going to be a “he said she said” behind closed doors. Won’t be able to believe either party until then.
I asked myself a simple question. Why don't they want Hunter Biden to be questioned in public? what are they afraid he will say? Will it rip their thinking apart? What's the big deal. If they got their facts right, they should have someone smart enough on the Republican side that is capable of getting to the truth.
Or maybe they are afraid that their beliefs will be exposed and they won't be able to spin it.
Off topic for a moment, what is the meaning of Debank?
I honestly don't pay much attention to this chicanery, but I think it's mostly a big pissing contest because Donald Trump Jr complied with protocol and spent several visits and many hours "behind closed doors".
Just pointing out the difference between Hunter and Don Jr. I don't recall Don Jr. ever being given the choice to appear in public or private and then be threatened with contempt charges for making a choice the GOP didn't like. Actually it backs up your assertion that it's nothing but a big pissing contest.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Didn't Hunter demand that, Comer agree to it, then Comer change his mind? I don't even remember anymore. But yeah, pissing contest. And a huge failure by Comer. I don't think it's for any of the reasons Damon stated (questioned) though.
I actually don't remember if Hunter demanded it or not. Comer was talking to a media reporter during an interview and seemed happy to offer him that choice.
But I do think it's a fair point to ask that if Comer has all of this evidence he claims to have against hunter, why wouldn't he want the public to see it? It's an election year after all and nothing would help them more than putting this on public display if he has the goods on hunter as he continues to claim. There's also the fact that Comer has made false claims about what was and would actually be testified to behind closed doors before. It wouldn't new anything new.
White House: Comer ‘blatantly lying’ about Hunter Biden benefactor’s testimony
I've said it before, and I'll say it again...I don't think I've ever encountered a politician who lies, misdirects and deflects as much as Comer. Maybe it's just because he has directly touched a few of the things that I have actually worked on personally, but in those experiences, he was the one person on the oversight committee who stood out above all others, both Republican and Democrat, as just rotten, I'll call it.
Gerry Connolly I thought was the most pragmatic and logical.
Tlaib and AOC had the perfect chance on a couple occasions to knock the ball out of the park, given the issue that was being discussed, and they completely whiffed by trying to marry the fact pattern of that issue into their campaign platform, IMO.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
Maybe because the public would see the facts (good or bad) immediately?
Maybe part of the plan is to slow play this 'til closer to the election, that way the impact against Joe's re-election prospects would be greater?
That is another possibility. But thus far they've made some pretty audacious claims as to what these witness will and have testified to and it's fallen flat. If your proposition is correct it would certainly be counter to everything we've seen up to this juncture.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
I don't really have any first hand knowledge of you personal business relationships or experiences with any of these people. But I will say that as for me I find you a very rational and non bias poster. Therefore I have no reason not to take you at your word. And with people who conduct themselves the way that Comer has been doing on a regular basis as of late, it's quite rare when such patterns are an anomaly or relegated to one topic.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
The Trump campaign reportedly dropped its access to an NBC reporter who was assigned to cover the candidate as a pool reporter. According to Deadline, which viewed the pool report, correspondent Vaughn Hillyard was told “that if he was the designated pooler by NBC News that the pool would be cut off for the day. After affirming to the campaign that your pooler would attend the events, NBC News was informed at about 2:20 p.m. ET that the pool would not be allowed to travel with Trump today,” the pool report stated. NBC News reportedly believes the retaliation comes after Hillyard probed big-time Trump supporter Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) about the writer E. Jean Carroll’s ongoing defamation case against the former president.
This lady is so out of touch, so of course she’s becoming the newest face of the GOP
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Ron DeSantis Vows To Veto Florida Bill That Would Help Trump Ed Mazza Tue, January 23, 2024 at 12:09 AM EST·1 min read 521
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Monday indicated he would veto a bill that would give up to $5 million in taxpayer money to Donald Trump to help pay his extensive legal fees.
DeSantis, who ended a bitter campaign against Trump for the Republican presidential nomination on Sunday, shared a story about the bill on X, along with his veto comments:
This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Update your settings here to see it. The “Florida Freedom Fighters Fund” bill, introduced earlier this month by State Sen. Ileana Garcia (R), would offer cash to Florida residents running for president who are charged with crimes and are “victims of political discrimination.”
Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis ― a Republican ― rationalized it by saying in a statement that Trump is a “Florida Man” and supporting him is “just good from a dollars and cents perspective.”
Garcia initially said in a statement that “anything we can do to support Florida Presidential candidates, like President Trump, will not only benefit our state, but our nation.”
She withdrew the bill on Monday after DeSantis’ veto threat.
″[H]e can handle himself,” she wrote on X.
Democrats pushed back.
“What this shows you is who the Florida GOP is loyal to, because it’s certainly not the people of Florida,” Florida Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikki Fried told the Miami Herald. “They’re quick and ready to dole out up to $5 million dollars for Trump, but have yet to put forward a solution to our property insurance and housing crisis, the 4,000-teacher shortage, or the crippling costs of healthcare because the legislature simply refuses to expand Medicaid.”
I don't really have any first hand knowledge of you personal business relationships or experiences with any of these people. But I will say that as for me I find you a very rational and non bias poster. Therefore I have no reason not to take you at your word. And with people who conduct themselves the way that Comer has been doing on a regular basis as of late, it's quite rare when such patterns are an anomaly or relegated to one topic.
Thanks man. You can see the full thing on display here (it's long) if you ever want to check it out. Could even just zero into the parts where Comer speaks.
Blue ostriches on crack float on milkshakes between the sidewalk titans of gurglefitz. --YTown
Fact check: Republicans make false, misleading claims at first Biden impeachment inquiry hearing
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is holding its first hearing Thursday in the impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden – and Republicans on the committee have made a series of false and misleading claims, as well as some other claims that have left out critical context.
Below is a CNN fact check. This article will be updated as additional fact checks are completed. Republicans have presented no evidence Biden himself received foreign money
Republican Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said in his opening remarks at the hearing on Thursday that the committee has uncovered how “the Bidens and their associates created over 20 shell companies” and “raked in over $20 million between 2014 and 2019.”
Facts First: The $20 million figure is roughly accurate for Joe Biden’s family and associates, according to the bank records subpoenaed by the committee, but the phrase “the Bidens and their associates” obscures the fact that there is no public evidence to date that President Joe Biden himself received any of this money. And it’s worth noting that a large chunk of the money went to the “associates” – Hunter Biden’s business partners – not even Biden’s family itself.
So far, none of the bank records obtained by the committee have shown any payments to Joe Biden. And a Washington Post analysis in August found that, of about $23 million in payments the committee had identified from foreign sources, nearly $7.5 million went to members of the Biden family – almost all of it to Hunter Biden – and the rest to people Hunter Biden did business with. (The Post also questioned the use of the vague phrase “shell companies,” noting that “virtually all of the companies” that had been listed by the committee at the time had “legitimate business interests” or “clearly identified business investments.”)
A Republican aide for the House Oversight Committee disputed the Post’s analysis on Thursday, saying that bank records obtained by the panel actually show that, of $24 million in payments between 2014 and 2019, $15 million went to members of the Biden family and $9 million went to associates. CNN has reached out to the Post for comment; the committee has not publicly released the underlying bank records that would definitively show the breakdown in payments.
The records obtained by the committee have shown that during and after Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president, Hunter Biden made millions of dollars through complex financial arrangements from private equity deals, legal fees and corporate consulting in Ukraine, China, Romania and elsewhere. Again, Republicans have not produced evidence that Joe Biden got paid in any of these arrangements. Jim Jordan falsely claims Hunter Biden said he was unqualified for Burisma board
Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio repeated a false claim about Hunter Biden that CNN debunked when Jordan made the same claim last week.
Jordan claimed that Hunter Biden himself said he was unqualified to sit on the board of directors of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings.
“Hunter Biden’s not qualified, fact number two, to sit on the board. Not my words, his words. He said he got on the board because of the brand, because of the name,” Jordan said Thursday.
Facts First: It’s not true that Hunter Biden himself said he wasn’t qualified to sit on the Burisma board. In fact, Hunter Biden said in a 2019 interview with ABC News that “I was completely qualified to be on the board” and defended his qualifications in detail. He did acknowledge, as Jordan said, that he would “probably not” have been asked to be on the board if he was not a Biden – but he nonetheless explicitly rejected claims that he wasn’t qualified, calling them “misinformation.”
When the ABC interviewer asked what his qualifications for the role were, he said: “Well, I was vice chairman on the board of Amtrak for five years. I was the chairman of the board of the UN World Food Programme. I was a lawyer for Boies Schiller Flexner, one of the most prestigious law firms in the world. Bottom line is that I know that I was completely qualified to be on the board to head up the corporate governance and transparency committee on the board. And that’s all that I focused on. Basically, turning a Eastern European independent natural gas company into Western standards of corporate governance.”
When the ABC interviewer said, “You didn’t have any extensive knowledge about natural gas or Ukraine itself, though,” Biden responded, “No, but I think I had as much knowledge as anybody else that was on the board – if not more.”
Asked if he would have been asked to be on the board if his last name wasn’t Biden, Biden said, “I don’t know. I don’t know. Probably not.” He added “there’s a lot of things” in his life that wouldn’t have happened if he had a different last name.
A side note: Biden had served as the board chair for World Food Program USA, a nonprofit that supports the UN World Food Programme, not the UN program itself as he claimed in the interview. Jordan’s misleading claim about the Justice Department
Jordan cited new documents obtained from IRS whistleblowers, made public by House Republicans on Wednesday, to argue that the Justice Department improperly blocked investigators from asking about Joe Biden in a 2020 search warrant related to Hunter Biden’s overseas dealings.
“We learned yesterday, in the search warrant…examining Hunter Biden electronic communications, they weren’t allowed to ask about Political Figure 1,” Jordan said. “Political Figure number 1 is the big guy, is Joe Biden.”
Facts First: This is highly misleading. The Justice Department official who gave this instruction said Joe Biden’s name shouldn’t be mentioned in the search warrant because there wasn’t any legal basis to do so. Furthermore, this occurred during Trump’s presidency, so it doesn’t prove pro-Biden meddling by the Biden-era Justice Department.
The August 2020 email from a deputy to now-special counsel David Weiss, the Trump-appointed federal prosecutor who is leading the Hunter Biden probe, said the warrant was for “BS,” an apparent reference to Blue Star Strategies, a lobbying firm that represented Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden was on the board.
The Weiss deputy said in the email that “other than the attribution, location and identity stuff at the end, none if it is appropriate and within the scope of this warrant” and that “there should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here,” according to emails released by House Republicans. Another document released by the GOP confirm that Joe Biden is “Political Figure 1.”
Before obtaining a search warrant, investigators need to establish probable cause and secure approval from a judge. If federal prosecutors believed the references to Joe Biden weren’t within the legal scope of what the warrant was looking for, it wouldn’t have been appropriate or lawful to include them. Key context around wire transfers to Hunter Biden
Comer said in his opening remarks that the committee recently uncovered “two additional wires sent to Hunter Biden that originated in Beijing from Chinese nationals; this happened when Joe Biden was running for president of the United States – and Joe Biden’s home is listed on the beneficiary address.”
Facts First: This lacks important context. Comer was correct that the committee has found evidence of two wire transfers sent to Hunter Biden from Chinese nationals in the second half of 2019, during Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, but he did not explain that Joe Biden’s home being listed as the beneficiary address doesn’t demonstrate that Joe Biden received any of the money. Nor did he explain that there may well be benign reasons for the inclusion of the address. Hunter Biden has lived at his father’s Wilmington, Delaware, home at times and listed that address on his driver’s license; Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a statement to CNN this week that the address was listed on these transfers simply because it was the address Hunter Biden used on the bank account the money was going to, which Lowell said Hunter Biden did “because it was his only permanent address at the time.”
“This was a documented loan (not a distribution or pay-out) that was wired from a private individual to his new bank account which listed the address on his driver’s license, his parents’ address, because it was his only permanent address at the time,” Lowell said in the statement. “We expect more occasions where the Republican chairs twist the truth to mislead people to promote their fantasy political agenda.”
White House spokesman Ian Sams wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday: “Imagine them arguing that, if someone stayed at their parents’ house during the pandemic, listed it as their permanent address for work, and got a paycheck, the parents somehow also worked for the employer…It’s bananas…Yet this is what extreme House Republicans have sunken to.”
Comer told CNN this week his panel is trying to put together a timeline on where Hunter Biden was living around the time of the transfers, which occurred in July 2019 and August 2019. Joe Biden was a candidate in the Democratic presidential primary at the time. Mace’s false claim about a supposed bribe
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina claimed at the Thursday hearing, “We already know the president took bribes from Burisma,” a Ukrainian energy company where Hunter Biden sat on the board of directors.
Facts First: Mace’s claim is false; we do not “already know” that Joe Biden took any bribe. The claim about a bribe from Burisma is a completely unproven allegation. The FBI informant who relayed the claim to the FBI in 2020 was merely reporting something he said he had been told by Burisma’s chief executive. Later in the hearing, a witness called by the committee Republicans, George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, called “the bribery allegation” the most concerning piece of evidence he had heard today – but he immediately cautioned that “you have to only take that so far” given that it is “a secondhand account.”
According to an internal FBI document made public by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa earlier this year over the strong objections of the FBI, the informant said in 2020 – when Donald Trump was president – that the CEO of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, had claimed in 2016 that he made a $5 million payment to “one Biden” and another $5 million payment to “another Biden.” But the FBI document did not contain any proof for the claim, and the document said the informant was “not able to provide any further opinion as to the veracity” of the claim.
Republicans have tried to boost the credibility the allegation by saying it was in an FBI document and that the FBI had viewed the informant as highly credible. But the document merely memorialized the information provided by the informant; it does not demonstrate that the information is true. And Hunter Biden’s former business associate Devon Archer testified to the House Oversight Committee earlier this year that he had not been aware of any such payments to the Bidens; Archer characterized Zlochevsky’s reported claim as an example of the Ukrainian businessman embellishing his influence. Burchett on Hunter Biden’s taxes
Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, falsely claimed that Hunter Biden never paid taxes on his foreign income.
He said Hunter Biden “failed to pay any taxes” on the millions of dollars he got from Ukrainian companies, and that this shows how “the Biden family doesn’t have to” pay taxes.
“Who’s going to write the check for the money Hunter Biden didn’t pay?” Burchett asked, adding that “hardworking Americans” would end up footing the bill.
Facts First: This is false. Hunter Biden repeatedly missed IRS deadlines, and his conduct was so egregious that federal investigators believe it was criminal, but he eventually belatedly paid all of his back taxes, plus interest and penalties, to the tune of about $2 million.
Documents from Hunter Biden’s criminal cases indicate that he repeatedly missed tax deadlines, even though he had the funds and was repeatedly warned by his accountant and business partners. He was prepared to plead guilty to two misdemeanors in July, for failing to pay taxes on time in 2017 and 2018, before the plea deal collapsed.
But there’s a difference between failing to pay taxes on time and failing to pay taxes at all. In 2021, while the criminal investigation was still underway and before any charges were filed, Hunter Biden paid roughly $2 million to the IRS to cover all the back taxes, plus penalties and interest.
Hunter Biden was able to make the massive payment thanks to a roughly $2 million loan from a friend and attorney who has been supporting him during his legal troubles, according to court filings. Byron Donalds omits key context about James Biden text message
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York accused a Republican member of the committee, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, of cutting out “critical context” from an image of a purported text message that Donalds displayed earlier in the Thursday hearing. Ocasio-Cortez also said that Donalds had displayed a “fabricated image.”
The dispute was over an image Donalds showed of a purported 2018 text message from the president’s brother James Biden to the president’s son Hunter Biden – provided by IRS whistleblowers and released by House Republicans on Wednesday – in which James Biden purportedly wrote, “This can work, you need a safe harbor. I can work with you father [sic] alone !! We as usual just need several months of his help for this to work.”
After showing the image, Donalds asked a witness at the committee, “If you saw a text message like this between the president’s brother and the president’s son, wouldn’t you be concerned about them trying to give plausible deniability for the president of the United States to not have any knowledge of said business dealings?”
Facts First: Donalds didn’t invent the James Biden text message, but Ocasio-Cortez was correct that Donalds left out critical context – specifically, context that showed there was no sign that the purported text exchange between James Biden and Hunter Biden was about business dealings. The information released by House Republicans this week appeared to show that James Biden’s purported text about getting “help” from Joe Biden came in direct response to a purported Hunter Biden text saying he could not afford alimony, school tuition for his children, food and gas “w/o [without] Dad.” Donalds did not display this purported Hunter Biden text at the Thursday hearing.
In other words, when James Biden purportedly mentioned the possibility of several months of help from Joe Biden, he gave no indication he was referring to some sort of business transaction, much less the foreign transactions that House Republicans have been focused on in their investigations into the president. But Donalds didn’t make that clear.
With that said, Ocasio-Cortez herself could have been clearer about what she meant when she claimed the image Donalds showed was “fabricated.”
The contents of the purported James Biden text Donalds displayed were not made up, according to the IRS whistleblowers. What appeared to be novel was the graphic Donalds used; he showed the text in a form that made it look like a screenshot from an iPhone text conversation, with white words over a blue background bubble. The House Republican spreadsheet that the words were taken from did not include any such graphics, and, again, it did include the preceding purported Hunter Biden message that Donalds didn’t show. What Hunter Biden said to The New Yorker
Republican Rep. Pat Fallon of Texas said at the Thursday hearing, “In an interview back in 2019 with The New Yorker, even Hunter admitted that he talked to his dad about business, specifically Burisma.”
Facts First: This needs context. The 2019 New Yorker article in question reported that Hunter Biden said he recalled Joe Biden discussing Burisma with him “just once” in a brief exchange that consisted of this: “Dad said, ‘I hope you know what you are doing,’ and I said, ‘I do.’”
It’s fair for Fallon to say that this counts as Joe Biden discussing business with his son, but Fallon did not mention how brief and limited Hunter Biden said the purported discussion was.
“Anybody that makes a ‘Contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them, and will not accept them, because we Put America First, and ALWAYS WILL!” Trump continued, using the nickname “Birdbrain” to refer to Haley.
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