I tend to skim long posts unless it seems like new info. Skimming Brian Cates thread seems like so many other threads I have skimmed lately. Am I missing something because it looks like they are just reiterating what is already known?
How the Hobbs Act Could Sink Joe Biden
To say the drive-by media have circled the wagons for Joe Biden is putting it mildly. Every day, in print and on their TV broadcasts, they thunder that there is no evidence! He broke no laws when his son raked off millions of dollars from China and Ukraine for no-show jobs. Even New Jersey’s most famous traffic judge seems to be confused. A guy in Ukraine also posits that Biden broke no laws there, either, as if there were really any laws to break in that wild West corruption show.
But as an American lawyer, who often has to advise public officials on state and federal ethics laws, I can say yes, just by the public record we already have, Joe Biden, his son, their bag-man Devon Archer, and possibly John Kerry likely violated 18 USC 1951, the dreaded Hobbs Act, the federal anti-extortion law. Hobbs has a really nasty bite to it for public officials, because it prohibits not just bribery, but merely the collecting of political tribute under color of official right.
A couple of important things to remember about Hobbs: “Color of official right” applies only to public officials while they are in office. This guy, for example, is very confused, mixing up Jeb Bush’s sleazy fundraising while out of office with Hillary’s activities in and out of office. It would apply to Hillary, for example, only during the time she was secretary of state. Also, the illegal payoff money can go to a close relative or associate, or even a charity, if there is enough of a connection to the accused, like the Clinton Foundation scam. Anybody assisting the public official in the pay-offs would also be guilty of conspiracy, at the very least.
Now, if you are up on your corruption law, you might ask, what about the SCOTUS 2015 decision in McDonnell v. United States? Didn’t that cut back on the effect of the Hobbs Act? Indeed, it did, but the Bidens’ conduct was so obvious and outrageous that they still easily meet the new standard.
In his unanimous opinion, Justice Roberts held that under the Hobbs Act, the prosecution must show two things. “First, the Government must identify a ‘question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy that may at any time be pending or may by law be brought before a public official.’” Well, we have that: the very legitimacy of the entity known as Burisma Holdings in Ukraine was at stake, and whether the company, and its oligarch owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, faced prosecution or sanctions from both the United States and Ukraine. After several years of negotiations, Zlochevksy has returned, still in control, but there is no question that Burisma was very much a “matter” triggering the law.
I haven’t read it carefully yet. Had to do stuff and just sat down at comp. again. I’ll read it now.
I think the Cates worth reading, makes some interesting points.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1181564969273450496.html?refreshed=yes
Indirectly, this thread makes a point that will appear in my next column:
The swamp creatures have been furiously scrubbing all this stuff that **used to be out there** because hey, before now, they never really had any reason to hide it.
Dr.Quigley@CarrollQuigley1
This whole Ukraine whistleblower scam is an obvious hoax. The Nevertrumper Neocons peddling hearsay & rumors to smear Trump. They did this w/ Fusion GPS & McCain in 2016. Now another Soros funded campaign w/ more McCain clowns laundering disinfo.
It’s an alleyoop for the Dems.
There was no reason to hide it before, all the corruption networking that was going on, because, hey, who was in a position to do anything about it, right?
That’s why most of this crap was sitting out there in PLAIN SIGHT.
Well here’s a MAJOR REASON why in the last 5 months you’ve seen impeachment theater take off and remain white noise nonstop.
The Swamp ***knows somebody is digging into all this stuff*** so they’re suddenly trying to hide it.
These people have what in the intel world are known as ‘tripwires’. Signs someone’s following the money, tracing the deals that are being made, asking all the right questions [or the wrong questions, depending on your perspective].
For years, NONE OF THESE PEOPLE’S TRIPWIRES EVER WENT OFF.
Oh sure, they had some media stories come out, but nothing that couldn’t be managed with a trite denial & everybody quickly moving on.
Like the NYT’s expose of the Clinton U1 bribes back in 2015.
The Clintons, the Bidens, the Obamas, the Feinsteins, the Kerrys, the Peolosis, these are the people that are at the very TOP of this corruption network.
Beneath them are the rank & file that make it all work, mostly out of the public eye.
You don’t start rolling this up at the TOP. You start with the rank and file. And the rank & file folks at these various ‘non profit’ orgs & networking outfits, something SCARED THE BEJESUS out of them a few months back, right around the time Mueller ended his investigation.
All of a sudden you see people furiously trying to scrub their connections to one another.
Some tripwires went off.
All that graft & bribery & pay for play that was going on in plain sight, they’re NOW trying to hide it, pull it under a curtain.
I was saying 2 years ago: the scope of this thing is so massive it will boggle your mind when it all comes out.
It was the sheer scope of it that gave them the confidence nobody could ever stop it, much less expose it and prosecute it.
The Horowitz IG report only deals with ONE SPECIFIC PART of this stuff.
HOW federal officials knowingly took fake Trump/Russia info from Clinton’s paid political lackeys & used it to start investigations of the Trump campaign.
With Hillary’s victory being a foregone conclusion, WHY where so many powerful people in the Obama fed. gov’t determined to leave NOTHING to chance to ensure The Witch won that election?
Because they couldn’t even leave a 8% or 5% chance.
They had to be CERTAIN.
WHY did they have to be certain?
Why couldn’t they leave well enough alone?
Because the scope of the corruption their political masters were engaging was so MASSIVE they couldn’t take the chance of a ‘Trump Miracle’.
Session, Barr & Horowitz & US Attorneys leading the grand juries didn’t just stop with the nuts-and-bolts of HOW the FISC abuse happened to help launch the RussiaGate hoax.
They had to keep digging & find out WHY Comey & McCabe & others went to these illegal lengths.
And the massive scope of what they found when they started digging into the “WHY” is why it’s taken almost 3 years to get to this point.
Tracing the $$$ trails, mapping out the networks, building the cases against some the most powerful & influential people - not just in the US.
When Horowitz flips the light on & pulls the curtain back to SHOW the entire country how the fake Trump/Russia Hoax was started by corrupt officials take what they knew was fake propaganda coming from Hillary’s lackeys at Fusion GPS, that’s merely the START of this.
WHY in the world would these top LEO & Intel people engage in these crimes? people are going to ask.
And Durham & Huber & others who’s names we don’t know yet, these are the US Attorneys who will take it from there.
As I said in a thread yesterday, all the massive corruption by the Clintons, the Bidens, the Feinsteins, the Bushes, the McCains, the Pelosis, the Reids, the Romneys...it was sitting out there in the open.
All the ‘right’ people knew how to handle it when any of it became an issue. Especially the people in the DNC Media Complex.
Briefly cover it, talk about the ‘troubling questions’ that this corruption raises...then drop it and everybody moves on..
“We covered that.”
I call this “the wink and nod game”. Everybody pauses for a second when some really bad corruption gets spotlighted, then all the right people ‘wink and nod’ at each other and it gets ‘handled’ the ‘right way’.
Some brief stories are done, then it’s buried out of sight.
This is what they’re gonna say when the lid gets ripped of the Clinton Foundation’s massive hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes in the U1 & other pay for play deals.
“We covered that. We did a story on this back in 2015. This is not new, you wingnuts.”
Same thing with the Biden/Ukraine/China scandals.
“Oh hey here’s a story our outlet did about Hunter Biden and the **troubling questions** his sudden new job at Burisma raised! We did it back in 2015! Leave us alone!”
Oh sure you ‘covered’ it. You stood in front of the story for about 5 seconds and said “Wow this looks really bad.”
And then 10 seconds later you’d moved on, not doing any digging or investigating.
Meanwhile you remained parked on the Trump/Russia hoax for THREE YEARS.
So that was the MEDIA’S handling of this blatant, sitting-right-there-out-in-the-open corruption that skyrocketed during the Obama years.
What about the federal agencies that are supposed to stop/prosecute these kinds of crimes?
By the time Obama came into office, all of these agencies, the LEO agencies, the Intel agencies, the financial enforcement agencies, they’d ALL been firmly co-opted & the people running them **understood their role**.
You didn’t get a top job without pledging allegiance.
You pledged allegiance to your political masters & you fully understood that your role was **helping them get away with all the corruption they were engaging in when you got there**.
You had to agree to become a CRIMINAL YOURSELF.
And now I have to go do laundry.
Leaving this thread for now, will finish it later.
Sometimes it seems like that because we’ve known a lot of this stuff for almost 2 years and it’s a matter of getting it out there and reiterating it for the public to hear. However, I always find Brian’s columns to be upbeat and good for my morale so I still enjoy reading them. Much better than say Rush, whom half the time I listen to and wind up MORE depressed about things than when I started.