Tag Archives: Joe Biden

What they accuse Trump for is what Hunter has been doing

Russia to Hunter Money Graph

Important Takeaways:

  • Joe DINED with oligarchs who paid Hunter: New bank records detail part of the $20 MILLION in foreign cash to Biden family – including $142,000 from Kazakh oligarch to president’s son that he used to buy Porsche after DC dinner
  • New detailed bank records show $20 million in payments to the Biden family and their partners from foreign actors in places like Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan during Joe’s time as vice president.
  • House Oversight Republicans released documents suggesting Hunter and his former business partner Devon Archer used shell companies to ‘hide’ millions in payments from overseas companies and oligarchs – though none of the newly released records directly link payments to Joe Biden.
  • The new evidence backs up Archer’s bombshell testimony to the committee that Hunter was raking in large amounts of cash from foreign deals, and how his father Joe was present in-person during dinner meetings and sat in on at least 20 phone calls with foreign associates.
  • Hunter Biden used $142,000 wired from a Kazakh oligarch to his shell company to buy a Porsche before setting up a dinner with his father Joe, the bank records show.
  • The bank records also reveal links between Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and the Biden family, as well as detail $1 million yearly payments to Hunter and Archer for their positions on the Ukrainian oil company Burisma’s Board of Directors.
  • They show Baturina – the wife of a former Moscow mayor who has links to Vladimir Putin – wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, a shell company belonging to Hunter and Archer, in February 2014.

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Special Prosecutor incurred over $9 million in costs on case against Trump

Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the poor oppressed in a district, and justice and rights denied, do not be surprised at such things; for one official is eyed by a higher one, and over them both are others higher still

Important Takeaways:

  • Special counsel Jack Smith tallied about $5.4 million in personnel, rent and other expenses on his own budget and prompted about $3.8 million in spending by other Justice Department agencies in the roughly four months after he was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland last November to lead the classified documents probe as well investigations related to efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, according to figures DOJ released Friday.
  • Those figures may dramatically underestimate Smith’s total spending since they only account for his activities through the end of March
  • The report also highlights the unusual nature of Smith’s investigations and the strong reactions they have generated.
  • The new report doesn’t indicate how much the Justice Department spent on the related investigations in the months before Smith, a former head of DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, agreed to leave his job as a war-crimes prosecutor in Europe and return to Washington to take over the politically sensitive Trump probes.
  • By contrast, a special counsel appointed in January to look into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents discovered in his Delaware home spent $615,000 through March and led other parts of DOJ to incur about $572,000 in expenses

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Economists Warn Biden’s Admin’s Student Debt Forgiveness Will Only Increase Inflation, Courts Could Also Chime In

President Biden announced his plan to forgive up to $20,000 in student loan debt for millions of Americans. But, some lawmakers and economic experts have raised concerns over its potential impact on inflation and the cost of college tuition. CBS News correspondent Christina Ruffini joined CBS News’ Caitlin Huey-Burns on “Red and Blue.”

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Joe Biden Announces Release of Another 15 Million Barrels of Oil from Strategic Reserves to Boost His Chances in Midterm Elections

Joe Biden announced another release of more oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve ahead of the 2022 midterms in an effort to (artificially) bring gas prices down.

 

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Israeli rightist seeks to outlaw opening of U.S. Palestinian mission in Jerusalem

By Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – An Israeli right-wing opposition legislator is seeking to outlaw the planned reopening of a U.S. mission in Jerusalem that has traditionally been a base for diplomatic outreach to the Palestinians.

Israel’s new cross-partisan government led by nationalist Prime Minister Naftali Bennett also opposes the re-inauguration of the consulate, potentially buoying Likud lawmaker Nir Barkat’s effort to scupper the move, though it would strain relations with Washington.

The consulate was subsumed into the U.S. Embassy that was moved to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv in 2018 by then-U.S. President Donald Trump, steps hailed by Israel and condemned by Palestinians.

With an eye towards repairing U.S. relations with the Palestinians, and rebuilding mutual trust, President Joe Biden’s administration says it will reopen the consulate while leaving the embassy in place.

Barkat’s legislation, filed in parliament last month and with voting as yet unscheduled, would outlaw opening a foreign mission in Jerusalem without Israel’s consent.

“I think that the current Israeli government is weak. It depends on the left, it depends on radicals on our side,” he told Reuters. “We must do everything we can to maintain the unity of the city of Jerusalem.”

Israel regards all of Jerusalem as its capital. Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in a 1967 war along with the West Bank and Gaza Strip, as capital of the state they seek.

Ahmed Al-Deek, adviser to the Palestinian foreign ministry, said Barkat “represents the position of far-right parties in Israel which seek to block any chance of reaching a two-state solution”.

Barkat said polling showed some 70% public support for the bill – enough to garner votes from within the coalition. Asked for Bennett’s position, his spokesman cast the bill as a PR stunt, saying: “We don’t comment on trolling.”

U.S. officials have been largely reticent on the issue, saying only that the reopening process remains in effect.

Asked whether precedent existed in U.S. diplomacy for opening a mission over objections of a host country, the State Department’s Office of the Historian declined comment.

Barkat’s bill recognizes that there are a handful of countries with Jerusalem missions, like the former consulate, that predate Israel’s founding in 1948.

In what may signal a bid to persuade Israel to reconsider the former mission as a candidate to rejoin that group, Thomas Nides, Biden’s pick for ambassador, noted in his Sept. 22 confirmation hearing: “That consulate has existed, in one form or another, for almost 130 years.”

Barkat was unmoved, saying: “We respect what happened before 1948 (but) never did we give anybody consent to open up a diplomatic mission for Palestinians in the city of Jerusalem.”

(Additional by Ali Sawafta; Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Mark Heinrich)

U.S. envoy Sullivan to meet China’s top diplomat Yang amid Taiwan tensions

BEIJING (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden’s national security adviser will hold talks with China’s top diplomat in Switzerland on Tuesday and Wednesday, the South China Morning Post said, at a time of rising tension over several issues including Taiwan.

“They aim to rebuild communication channels and implement consensus reached between presidents Xi Jinping and Joe Biden,” the newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing an official familiar with the arrangements for the meeting between Jake Sullivan and Yang Jiechi.

Both the White House and the Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Ties between China and the United States deteriorated sharply under former U.S. President Donald Trump, and the Biden administration has maintained pressure on China on a range of issues from Hong Kong and the Xinjiang region to the origins of COVID-19.

China has also been angered by increased U.S. support for Taiwan, believing the United States is colluding with forces there seeking the island’s formal independence, a red line for Beijing.

“Our commitment to Taiwan is rock solid and contributes to the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and within the region,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday.

“We have been clear privately and publicly about our concern about the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) pressure and coercion toward Taiwan, and we will continue to watch the situation very closely,” she said.

Trade tensions are also at the top of the U.S.-China agenda, with U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai traveling to Paris Monday to participate in Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development meetings later this week.

On Monday, the USTR unveiled the results of a months-long “top-to-bottom” review of China trade policy, pledging to hold “frank” talks with Beijing about its failure to keep promises made in Trump’s trade deal and end harmful industrial policies.

The Global Times, a tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, said in a commentary China was willing to build mutually beneficial trade with the United States but would not make concessions on principle and was not afraid of a drawn-out contest.

“The China-U.S. trade war has lasted for more than three-and-a-half years. Instead of being weakened, China’s economy has taken a step forward in comparison with the scale of the U.S.,” it said.

The meetings this week will be yet another round of in-person talks between officials from the two powers since Biden took office, with little in the way of concrete progress in the earlier sessions.

In late July, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, the second-ranking U.S. diplomat, held face-to-face meetings with Xie Feng, a Chinese vice foreign minister, in the Chinese port city of Tianjin.

No specific outcomes were agreed and the prospect of a meeting between Biden and Xi was not discussed, senior U.S. administration officials said at the time.

In March, during high-level talks in Alaska, Chinese officials including Yang Jiechi railed against the state of U.S. democracy, while U.S. officials accused the Chinese delegation of grandstanding.

(Reporting by Ryan Woo in Beijing and Aakriti Bhalla in Bengaluru and Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Kim Coghill, Robert Birsel, Heather Timmons and Steve Orlofsky)

U.S. and Mexico fly Haitian migrants away from border as pressure builds on Biden

By Daina Beth Solomon

CIUDAD ACUNA, Mexico (Reuters) – Mexico and the United States were on Wednesday preparing to fly more Haitian migrants away from chaotic U.S.-Mexico border camps, as pressure mounted on U.S. President Joe Biden to stop expulsions of Haitians to their poor, disaster-hit homeland.

U.S. authorities have deported more than 500 Haitians since Sunday from a camp housing thousands of mostly Haitian migrants on the U.S. side of border, by the small Texan city of Del Rio.

Such deportation flights back to Haiti would continue, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said.

At the same time, Mexico has begun flying migrants away from the U.S. border, as well as sending some by bus, towards its border with Guatemala in the south.

U.S. politicians have criticized Biden’s handling of the situation with some opponents calling it a “disaster.”

U.S. authorities have ordered an investigation into an incident in which mounted U.S. border agents used their reins like whips to intimidate migrants trying to cross the Rio Grande border river.

Photographs of the incident sparked anger and the Biden administration said the agents had been pulled from front-line duties.

The deportations came amid profound instability in the Caribbean nation, the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, where a presidential assassination, rising gang violence and a major earthquake have spread chaos in recent weeks.

Filippo Grandi, the head of the U.N refugee agency, has warned that U.S. expulsions to such a volatile situation might violate international law.

Hundreds of the migrants have also gathered on the Mexican side by Ciudad Acuna, across from Del Rio. The migrants crossed back over the Rio Grande, to retreat from the U.S. camp because of shortages of food and poor conditions there.

On Tuesday, after talks with Haitian government representatives, Mexico said repatriation flights would be offered to those “who wish to return to their country”.

‘IT’S DIFFICULT’

While reports abound of Haitians across Latin America heading towards the United States, some are having second thoughts.

In Ciudad Acuna, Haitian migrant Maurival Makenson, 31, said his older sister was making her way to the border from Colombia but he was trying to persuade her to turn back.

“I tell her it’s difficult to get papers, there’s deportation,” he said.

Some of the deported Haitian migrants on Tuesday reacted angrily as they stepped off flights in Port-au-Prince after spending thousands of dollars on arduous voyages from the troubled Caribbean nation via South America hoping for a better life in the United States.

Some 130 people have traveled on Mexican flights to the southern Mexican city of Villahermosa, and another 130 people to the city of Tapachula on the Guatemala border, a Mexican government official said.

On Tuesday evening, officers from Mexico’s national migration institute (INM) entered two budget hotels on a small street in Ciudad Acuna and escorted about two dozen migrants, including toddlers, onto vans.

One woman, speaking from behind a partition, told Reuters she did not know where they were being taken.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon; Editing by Drazen Jorgic, Robert Birsel)

White House warns of economic catastrophe without action on debt limit

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House warned on Friday that a failure by the U.S. Congress to extend the debt limit could plunge the economy into a recession and could lead to cuts in critical state services.

The government faces an October deadline on the debt limit, after which it may not be able to pay all of its bills without congressional approval.

President Joe Biden, a Democrat, and his aides have been trying to broker a deal with Republicans to resolve a showdown over raising the $28.5 trillion federal borrowing limit.

The administration is warning lawmakers that the country risks a new financial crisis and a default on its payment obligations.

“Economic growth would falter, unemployment would rise, and the labor market could lose millions of jobs,” the White House said in a new fact sheet.

For months, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has urged Congress to act, saying cash and “extraordinary measures” being used to temporarily finance the U.S. government will run out in October.

But Republicans, who lost control of the White House in the 2020 election and do not hold the majority in the Senate or the House of Representatives, have balked and placed the potential crisis on Democrats’ shoulders.

“It’s absolutely unspeakable, unthinkable that we would allow the federal government to default on the obligations it has already made,” White House economic adviser Brian Deese told MSNBC on Friday.

“We’re confident that this is going to get done.”

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Steve Holland and Trevor Hunnicutt; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)

Biden says Republican governors are undermining COVID safety response

By Nandita Bose

(Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday directed his ire at the governors of Florida and Texas, accusing the Republican leaders of “doing everything they can to undermine the life-saving requirements” he proposed to counter the spread of COVID-19.

Some Republican governors, including Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida, have vowed to fight the vaccine mandate for big companies that Biden rolled out last week in the face of surging U.S. COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, mostly among the unvaccinated.

Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves earlier this week likened Biden’s mandate to tyranny.

“I propose a requirement for COVID vaccines, and the governor of that state calls it a ‘tyrannical-type move?'” said Biden, noting that the pandemic has killed over 660,000 people in the United States.

“This is the worst type of politics…and I refuse to give in to it,” Biden said, adding that the policies rolled out by the White House are “what the science tells us to do.”

Some Republican-led states and a sizable minority of Americans have defied vaccine recommendations from health officials, arguing that mandates infringe on their personal freedoms.

With just 63% of the eligible U.S. population having received at least one vaccine dose, the U.S. vaccination rate now lags most developed economies.

Biden’s vaccine policy is expected to face a string of legal challenges from Republicans, including Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich, who became the first to file a lawsuit against it on Tuesday.

DeSantis has threatened fines for cities and counties that require employees get vaccinated against COVID-19, saying they violate Florida state law.

(Reporting by Nandita Bose; Writing by Tyler Clifford; Editing by Heather Timmons and Bill Berkrot)

New flight carrying at-risk Afghans arriving in U.S. later on Monday

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A new flight carrying evacuated at-risk Afghans will arrive in the United States later on Monday from Ramstein air base in Germany, a senior State Department official said, adding that the pace of flights will ramp up from transit hubs temporarily housing those evacuated from Kabul.

Speaking at a briefing with reporters, the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there were currently eight transit hubs across six countries that were hosting more than 17,000 people.

“The transit hubs that we have arranged in Germany, Italy and Spain will have the combined capacity to process approximately 15,000 people on a rolling basis, which in turn will enable us to keep evacuating people continuously from Kabul,” the official said.

“Today the first onward flight of SIV applicants took off from Germany to the United States and we expect those to continue to ramp up,” the official added, in reference to the Special Immigrant Visa, designed for issuing visas to people who worked with the U.S. military.

The Taliban seized power just over a week ago as the United States and its allies were withdrawing troops after a 20-year war launched in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States by al Qaeda militants in 2001.

Panicked Afghans and foreigners have thronged the airport for days, clamoring to catch a flight out before the U.S.-led forces complete their pullout by the end of the month.

The official said the U.S. commitment to at-risk Afghans would not end on Aug. 31, but did not elaborate on how Washington could continue its efforts to airlift people if it withdraws completely from the country.

U.S. President Joe Biden has said that the United States expects to evacuate between 50,000 and 65,000 people from Afghanistan. That is fewer than the number eligible for safe harbor, according to estimates by advocates.

The official also dismissed reports that only Americans were able to get through to Kabul airport and that others had been blocked.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Simon Lewis and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by David Holmes)