Will Hunter Biden Walk?

[Res Ipsa]

Hunter Biden testifies today in a closed door deposition to one of the House Committees to elect Trump by any means. Given that he has been charged with eight felonies and the government recently opened up a criminal investigation into his position with Burisma based on false information from Russian Intelligence agents, I expect lots of 5th Amendment privilege invocations.

Remember, the same people who will claim that Hunter’s testimony proves Joe Biden drinks the blood of babies (1) Have a proven track record of lying about testimony given behind closed doors; and (2) Desperately want you to forget that they smeared Hunter and Joe with Russian disinformation after being warned by the FBI that the information was not trustworthy.

Me, I’m only trusting the transcript.

[Vēritās]

We likely won't see the transcript anytime soon.

[Res Ipsa]

We likely won't see the transcript anytime soon.

If things go true to past practice, Rs will claim that Hunter admitted to all kinds of nefarious activities. The Senior democratic member of the committee will the end a letter to the R chair with quotations from the transcripts showing what was actually said.

I think that the Rs who control the committee will have to release the transcript. Otherwise, they confirm that they got nothing.

[Res Ipsa]

Hunter should be thankful that he was charged with tax evasion and lying on a gun registration form. This way he doesn't have to answer questions about it to Comer. Once this interview is given, I predict the DOJ will drop the charges. Hunter will never serve a day in jail.

Add the fifth amendment to things Ajax knows nothing about.

The DOJ won't drop the charges against Hunter. To do so would be an admission that it reneged on the plea deal and substituted misdemeanor charges with felony charges solely because of interference in the prosecution by Republican Congresscritters.

What should happen is the court should enforce the diversion agreement signed by both the prosecution and the defense and approved by the probation department. The prosecutor represented to the court that it was a binding agreement that did not require court approval. All charges should be dismissed because of the express terms of the diversion agreement.

I've said from the beginning that Hunter should be investigated and charged as appropriate. But there is a ton of evidence that shows both selective and vindictive prosecution, both of which violate his constitutional rights as an American citizen. No other American citizen in Hunter's circumstances, as shown by when the DOJ prosecutes the crimes Hunter was originally charged with, would have been charged with any crime. He was only charged because he was Joe Biden's son and the R's wanted to smear Joe Biden with Hunter's conduct.

Trying to renege on a plea deal after enormous pressure from R Congresscritters, including the unprecedented step of forcing those responsible for an ongoing prosecution to testify, is exactly the kind of weaponizing of government that Ajax pretends happens to conservatives. So, if the judge (actually, the judges -- there are proceedings in Delaware and California) doesn't enforce the plea agreement, I think they should grant Hunter's motions to dismiss based on selective and vindictive prosecution. The Trump cultists in Congress have politically poisoned the entire case. The judges should not reward their weaponization of the government.

Even though I think those are the right answers, I'd like to see Hunter's attorney's get the laptop discovery they have requested before any dismissal. The DOJ's actions concerning the laptop are impossible to explain if there weren't something really stinky (technical legal term) about the evidence on the laptop. Here's just one part of the stinky.

The DOJ has told Hunter's attorneys that it will rely both on iCloud backups and independent evidence (like a person's phone on the other end of a text) to prove its case. But when it presented examples of evidence in the now infamous "sawdust is coke" filing, the photos and snippets of text came from the laptop, not an iCloud backup or independent source. And none of the photos or texts had an index number that identifies the file it came from on the laptop.

I've dealt with many large document cases over the years. Back in the day, we used a "Bates Stamp," which was a mechanical stamp that advanced one number every time you stamped a document with it. Every document produced in discovery had such a number. Today, it's a feature in Acrobat and other software and is done electronically. It's necessary to allow all parties to know which page out of hundreds of thousands an exhibit is a copy of.

This raises a couple of disturbing issue for me: Did the government's photos and texts come from the laptop because they weren't in the backups or in the possession of an independent source? And if the government is really going to use the laptop as its primary evidence source, why, after all the time law enforcement has been in possession of the laptop hasn't it indexed the information with Bates numbers or their equivalent? There are too many questions about the contents of the laptop that I suspect will go unanswered if the case is resolved at this time.

[Doctor Steuss]

I'm sorry but I don't count RINOs. Comey and Wray represent the views of the GOP base maybe even less than those of Liz Cheney. Read Carter Paige's book if you think Comey wasn't a despicable "get Trump and his supporters at any cost" AG.

So the problem is that a career law enforcement officer didn't like an unethical lifetime conman? I don't think that's so much political as it is an inherent bias that one will find with any career law enforcement official. They tend to not like dishonest criminals. It's part of their DNA.

[ajax18]

I'm sorry but I don't count RINOs. Comey and Wray represent the views of the GOP base maybe even less than those of Liz Cheney. Read Carter Paige's book if you think Comey wasn't a despicable "get Trump and his supporters at any cost" AG.

So the problem is that a career law enforcement officer didn't like an unethical lifetime conman? I don't think that's so much political as it is an inherent bias that one will find with any career law enforcement official. They tend to not like dishonest criminals. It's part of their DNA.

Except that Carter Paige did absolutely nothing wrong other than working for the Trump campaign. What Comey did to Carter Paige was despicable. And RINOs like Paul Ryan let the Deep State and the Democrats do it.

[Doctor Steuss]

So the problem is that a career law enforcement officer didn't like an unethical lifetime conman? I don't think that's so much political as it is an inherent bias that one will find with any career law enforcement official. They tend to not like dishonest criminals. It's part of their DNA.

Except that Carter Paige did absolutely nothing wrong other than working for the Trump campaign. What Comey did to Carter Paige was despicable. And RINOs like Paul Ryan let the Deep State and the Democrats do it.

Even the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee's report disagrees with this take. Outside of the most hardcore MAGA loyalists, and Russian plants and propogandists, everyone has found that the FISA warrants and surveillance was justified. Even the Inspector General report.

I'm guessing based on the Senate report's findings, that James Risch, Marco Rubio, Roy Blunt, Tom Cotton, John Cornyn, and Ben Sasse are all RINO too. At what point does the so-called RINO pile become so large that there are no "true" Republicans left? Rejecting the report, and tossing them into the RINO pile does cause a bit of a problem, because while they found that Cart Page surveillance and warrants were justified, and they lay out his contacts and ties with Russian intelligence, they say that there was no evidence that his attempts to be a Russian plant in the campaign were successful.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

So the problem is that a career law enforcement officer didn't like an unethical lifetime conman? I don't think that's so much political as it is an inherent bias that one will find with any career law enforcement official. They tend to not like dishonest criminals. It's part of their DNA.

Except that Carter Paige did absolutely nothing wrong other than working for the Trump campaign. What Comey did to Carter Paige was despicable. And RINOs like Paul Ryan let the Deep State and the Democrats do it.

The surveillance of Carter Page by the federal government was carried out based on legitimate concerns regarding potential foreign influence and national security threats. Intelligence agencies had credible evidence suggesting that Page was in contact with Russian operatives and could have been unwittingly, or knowingly, involved in espionage, but we can’t get details because they, whoever that is, have classified much of the investigation’s information. The decision to surveil Page was made in accordance with established legal procedures, including obtaining warrants under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The most compelling evidence linking Page to Russian agents came from communications intercepted by the FBI and detailed in the FISA warrant applications. These communications reportedly raised suspicions that Page may have been acting as a conduit between the Trump campaign and Russian officials or operatives, which I believed we discussed extensively on this board. Additionally, Page's prior business dealings in Russia and his interactions with individuals with ties to the Russian government further fueled suspicions of his involvement, but the intel community urged the FBI not to pursue it further because human intelligence sources and operatives were involved.

Page also claimed he was a CIA asset along with some anonymous ‘officials’ who spoke with The Hill supporting his assertion.

- Doc

[Res Ipsa]

Well, color me surprised — no assertion of the 5th. I wonder if there was some kind of agreed scope. Also, the usual post deposition bluster was pretty muted.

[Doctor Steuss]

He wasn't a closet New York liberal as many claimed in the primary.

I was thinking about this comment, and it struck me just how comical it is that Trump's persona is basically him just pretending to be a New York liberal's caricature of what a right-wing Republican is. He just pretends to be his own shallow negative caricature of a conservative... and MAGA types eat it up.