Posted on 07/24/2021 9:03:48 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
This is one of those “make of it what you will” stories.
In July of 2020, the Trump administration began a crackdown on Chinese intelligence activities in the United States.
The Trump administration is intensifying U.S. pressure on China, piling on visa bans, sanctions and other restrictions that are battering already unsettled ties between the world’s two largest economies.
Attorney General William Barr, in a speech Thursday, warned U.S. businesses that they are at risk of collaborating with a Chinese government that ultimately seeks to supplant them in its expanding state-run economy. Administration officials are also discussing banning travel by China’s Communist Party members and their families to the U.S., people familiar with the matter said.
Discussions are in early stages, with no timeline for being put into effect, the people said. If put into policy, advisers and policy analysts said the ban would strike at the legitimacy of the increasingly powerful party.
The administration has amped up a broader confrontation with Beijing in recent weeks by imposing sanctions on a member of the Communist Party leadership, signing legislation that targets other Chinese officials and holding full-scale military exercises in the South China Sea.
The Democrat-controlled media attributed this to Trump’s poll numbers and alleged failings in confronting the Wuhan virus, and Beijing’s hirelings made a point of quoting Chinese sources making this baseless allegation:
Behind the scenes, senior Chinese officials seem to have little desire to escalate the tensions even further, concerned that any moves could play into President Trump’s hands as he mounts his re-election campaign. A highly visible showdown with China could distract Americans from Mr. Trump’s botched response to the pandemic and allow him to campaign as a leader who is defending his country against a foreign power.
“This is a classic game, to find an external distraction and rouse the people behind the president,” said Lau Siu-kai, a senior Beijing adviser on Hong Kong issues.
While the move may have come too late, it was clearly justified. For a couple of decades, China has bought its way into the very fabric of American economic and political life. Many of our major research universities are awash in Chinese money and Chinese researchers. Intellectual property is stolen or given up under coercive circumstances. After the breach of Office of Personnel Management files by Chinese hackers that was made public in 2015, there is no telling how many senior US bureaucrats are now Chinese assets. Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein had a Chinese agent as her personal driver for years (see How the FBI Let a Chinese Spy Skate to Protect This Powerful Democrat). A Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee had a sexual liaison with a Chinese intelligence agent (see While Eric Swalwell Was Sleeping With a Chinese Spy Adam Schiff Put Him in Charge of CIA Oversight. New Information Indicates Democrat Eric Swalwell Is Lying About Breaking Ties With Chinese Honeytrap, and Jim Sciutto Gives Eric Swalwell a Tongue Bath (NTTAWWT) Instead of Holding Him Accountable for His Compromise by Chinese Intelligence). Our CIA appears to be riddled with Chinese assets. Mainstream US publications run multipage Chinese advertising specials and then, mysteriously, defend China from attacks.
One of the big moves was directed against Chinese researchers who had ties to the Chinese government, particularly the Chinese military and had concealed those ties.
Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said in a speech this month that the agency was opening a new China-related counterintelligence investigation every 10 hours. Of the examples he cited, four involved researchers in states under the jurisdiction of the Houston consulate.
On Monday, the Justice Department announced visa fraud charges against Song Chen, a visiting Stanford University researcher accused of concealing her active membership in the Chinese military. In January, the F.B.I. announced it was seeking a Boston University student, Yanqing Ye, who had hidden her affiliation with the People’s Liberation Army when applying for a visa. American officials believe Ms. Ye is in China.
In December, the U.S. authorities arrested a Chinese cancer-cell researcher, Zaosong Zheng, at Boston Logan International Airport and charged him with trying to smuggle 21 vials of stolen biological research back to China.
In April 2019, officials at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston said they were investigating several scientists for improper disclosures. The officials did not identify the scientists, two of whom had resigned. But redacted investigative reports referred to ties to China or Chinese residents or institutions.
In all, eight Chinese nationals were facing federal criminal charges for concealing their links to the Chinese military. Now all those cases have been dismissed at the request of Joe Biden’s Justice Department.
The Justice Department moved this week to drop cases that it brought last year against five visiting researchers accused of hiding their ties to China’s military, prompting questions about the department’s efforts to combat Chinese national security threats.
The department filed motions on Thursday and Friday to dismiss visa fraud and other charges it brought last summer against the researchers as the Biden administration grapples with holding Beijing accountable for its cyberattacks and its harsh crackdowns in Hong Kong and in the far western region of Xinjiang. The dismissals also come as the State Department’s No. 2 official, Wendy R. Sherman, is to meet in the coming days with Chinese officials in Tianjin, China.
What was the problem?
A federal court granted the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss Ms. Tang’s case on Friday, several weeks after a judge concluded that the F.B.I. had not informed her that she had the right not to incriminate herself and dismissed the department’s charge of making false statements.
The case was complicated by a draft F.B.I. analysis issued this year that said it could not show a clear link between people who obfuscated their ties to China, as she and the four other defendants were accused of doing, and those who illegally transferred information to the country.
A senior Justice Department official said that the analysis prompted the defense counsel to raise questions that the department could not resolve before Ms. Tang’s trial was to begin.
Axios has more:
An FBI agent’s admission he baselessly targeted a Chinese Canadian researcher in an economic espionage probe is driving calls for a federal investigation into the Justice Department’s conduct under the China Initiative.
…Catch up quick: Last week, FBI agent Kujtim Sadiku said he used a Google-translated webpage to implicate Anming Hu as having ties to the Chinese military in meetings with Hu’s bosses at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.
- Hu had been fired as a result, Knoxville News Sentinel reports.
- When asked if Hu was actually affiliated with a Chinese defense company, Sadiku said, “Based on that summary translation [shared with UTK] and my bullet point in my outline, no,” court transcripts show.
The government has requested the dismissal of the three remaining cases, but judges have yet to make a ruling.
How does a “law enforcement” agency manage to arrest someone and charge them with a felony and not Mirandize them? Did the agents involved miss that day at the FBI Academy? How does a US attorney’s office and the FBI charge someone with a crime and obtain an indictment without any evidence they committed the crime alleged? A Google Translate output is considered sufficient evidence to charge someone with a crime?
This is simply not plausible. Even I don’t believe the FBI is this stupid and corrupt…well, maybe I do, but I also believe they are more cunning than this story indicates. To me, this smells like a deliberate effort to blow up the prosecution of these cases and to poison the well so that future prosecutions will be exponentially more difficult. I’m sure none of this has anything to do with Hunter Biden’s ties to China and the vast quantity of compromising material (I guess all the smart kids at the New York Times will have to learn how to say “kompromat” in Mandarin) rumored to be in the hands of Chinese intelligence.
The corrupt FBI is too busy hunting down MAGA grandmas and spying on Tucker to investigate communist Chinese spies. https://t.co/Cte9n4ocsQ
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) July 24, 2021
Owned. Lock, stock, and barrel.
I wonder how much $ Joe and Merrick pocketed for this.
“A native of the Chicago area[affluent Lincolnwood], Garland attended Harvard University for his undergraduate and legal education. After serving as a law clerk to Judge Henry J. Friendly of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan Jr., he practiced corporate litigation at Arnold & Porter and worked as a federal prosecutor in the Department of Justice, where he played a leading role in the investigation and prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombers.”
“Garland graduated from Harvard in 1974 as class valedictorian with an A.B. summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.”
“Garland then attended Harvard Law School. During law school, Garland was a member of the Harvard Law Review.”
“Garland graduated from Harvard Law in 1977 with a Juris Doctor magna cum laude.”
“In Motor Vehicles Manufacturers Ass’n v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. (1983) Garland acted as counsel to an insurance company suing to reinstate an unpopular automatic seat belt mandate. After winning the case in both the District of Columbia Circuit Court and the Supreme Court.”
“Garland was one of the three principal prosecutors who handled the investigation into Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry’s possession of cocaine.”
“....Garland’s confirmation vote came to the floor of the Republican-controlled Senate on March 19, 1997. He was confirmed in a 76–23 vote and received his judicial commission the next day. The majority of Republican senators voted to confirm Garland, including Senators John McCain, Orrin Hatch, Susan Collins, and Jim Inhofe. Senators Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, and Jeff Sessions were among those who voted against Garland. All of the 23 ‘no’ votes came from Republicans, and all were based ‘on whether there was even a need for an eleventh seat’ on the D.C. Circuit.”
“Garland became chief judge of the D.C. Circuit on February 12, 2013.”
“Garland had more federal judicial experience than any other Supreme Court nominee in history”
“In April 2018, McConnell said the decision not to act upon the Garland nomination was ‘the most consequential decision I’ve made in my entire public career’”
“Financial disclosure forms in 2016 indicated that Garland’s net worth at the time was between $6 million and $23 million”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrick_Garland
“Lisa O. Monaco (born February 25, 1968) is an American lawyer who has served as United States Deputy Attorney General since April 2021. She previously served as Homeland Security Advisor under President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2017. In this role, she served as the chief counterterrorism advisor to the president and was a statutory member of the United States Homeland Security Council.”
“Monaco was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents Anthony and Mary Lou Monaco and was raised in Newton, Massachusetts.”
“Monaco attended Harvard University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts cum laude in field in American history and literature in 1990. She earned her Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago Law School in 1997. She joined the New York State Bar Association in 1998.”
“After earning her bachelor’s degree, she worked as a research associate for The Wilson Quarterly at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars from 1990 to 1991, and as a senior associate for the Health Care Advisory Board, a healthcare advisory group, from 1991 to 1992. She worked as a research coordinator for the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1992 to 1994 under then chairman Joe Biden, where she worked on the Violence Against Women Act. She enrolled at the University of Chicago Law School, where she was editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law School Roundtable. During her time at the University of Chicago, she spent summers working in Washington, D.C. as an intern on the D.C. Superior Court and as an intern for the United States Department of Justice in 1995. She also worked as an intern for the White House Counsel in 1996, and as a summer associate for the law firm Hogan and Hartson, LLP.”
“From 1997 to 1998, Monaco worked as a law clerk for the Honorable Jane Richards Roth on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and as the counsel to then Attorney General Janet Reno from 1998 to 2001. From 2001 to 2007, she was an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the United States Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, and was appointed as a member of the Justice Department’s Enron Task Force, co-leading the trial team in the prosecution of five former Enron executives from 2004 to 2006. Monaco received Department of Justice Awards for Special Achievement in 2002, 2003 and 2005. She received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional service for her work on the Enron Task Force, the Department’s highest award. After the end of the Enron trial and the Justice Department’s disbandment of the special task force, Monaco worked as a special counselor to FBI Director Robert Mueller. She was later chosen by Mueller to be his Deputy Chief of Staff, and then his chief of staff, a position she held until January 2009.”
“In April 2020, it was announced that Monaco would assist with vetting efforts for the selection of Joe Biden’s running mate in the 2020 presidential election.”
“On January 6, 2021, Monaco was reported to be the nominee for Deputy Attorney General in the Biden Administration. A hearing on her nomination before the Senate Judiciary Committee was held on March 9, 2021. She was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 25, 2021, and her nomination was sent for a full Senate vote. It was approved in a 98–2 vote on April 20, 2021. She was sworn in the next day.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisa_Monaco
DOJ Criminal Division organizational chart
https://www.justice.gov/criminal/sectionsoffices/chart
Kenneth A. Polite, Jr.
Assistant Attorney General
https://www.justice.gov/criminal
“Kenneth Allen Polite Jr. (born 1976) is an American lawyer who served as a United States attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana from 2013 to 2017. On July 20, 2021, Polite was confirmed by the United States Senate to serve as the assistant attorney general for the criminal division in the United States Department of Justice.”
“...he headed the firm’s White Collar Crime Defense Group and served as the hiring partner. From 2018 to 2021, he was a partner at the law firm of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Polite
“Morgan Lewis & Bockius clients include 75 per cent of all Fortune 100 companies, nearly 300 Fortune 500 companies, 65 Fortune Global 100 companies, and nearly half of all Fortune Global 500 companies.”
“Morgan, Lewis & Bockius represents United States President Donald Trump, advising him and the Trump Organization since 2005.”
“Morgan Lewis partner James ‘Jim’ Hamilton was one of three assistant chief counsellors of the United States Senate Watergate Committee during 1973 - 1974, the findings of which prompted the impeachment process against Richard Nixon that led to Nixon’s resignation on August 9, 1974. Hamilton was reported by the Washingtonian, in 2016, as the ‘go-to guy for Democratic nominees in search of a vice-presidential pick;’ he has vetted running mates for:
Hillary Clinton, in 2016
Barack Obama (with Eric Holder and Caroline Kennedy), in 2008
John Kerry, in 2004
Al Gore, in 2000.”
“In 2015, Morgan Lewis filed a historic amicus brief for the definitive Supreme Court case of Obergefell v. Hodges, on behalf of 379 companies, including Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, and the New England Patriots, which argued ‘a business case for legalizing same-sex marriage across the country.’”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan,_Lewis_%26_Bockius
What I think is that China told the US to back off or the US would be sanctioned by Beijing.
Behind the scenes, senior Chinese officials seem to have little desire to escalate the tensions.
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