Posted on 10/11/2019 5:43:33 PM PDT by jazusamo
Judicial Watch Files Two More Lawsuits on Biden Ukraine-China Scandal
Judicial Watch Battles in Court to Question Hillary Clinton Under Oath
Trump Boots Chinese Communists Out of U.S. Port
Judicial Watch Files Two More Lawsuits on Biden Ukraine-China Scandal
Our government doesn’t assume that every business investment opportunity is good for our country, and so there are checks in place, including something called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). CFIUS is commissioned to review “transactions involving foreign investment in the U.S. to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.”
What does CFIUS know about Hunter Biden’s questionable overseas ventures? The agency is playing its cards close to the vest. So we are suing the State and Treasury Departments for information on CFIUS’ handling of investments in the U.S. by two companies tied to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The companies are Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings and China’s Bohai Harvest RST (BHR).
We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the departments failed to respond to June 24, 2019, FOIA requests for CFIUS records related to investments by the Ukrainian company Burisma Holdings LTD or any of its affiliated entities and records related to investments by the Chinese company Bohai Harvest RST or any of its affiliated entities ( Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:19-cv-02960)), ( Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of the Treasury (No. 1:19-cv-02961).
Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, is reported to be one of nine directors of BHR Partners, which was registered 12 days after the vice president’s son, in December 2013, flew to Beijing aboard Air Force Two, while his father made an official visit as vice president. Hunter Biden, then-chairman of the private equity firm Rosemont Seneca, reportedly signed a deal with the Chinese government-owned Bank of China to set up the BHR $1 billion joint venture investment fund.
In 2015, BHR Partners participated in a $600 million buyout of Michigan automotive-suspension-systems maker Henniges Automotive. Henniges produces anti-vibration technologies which have important military uses, particularly in military aircraft.
In April 2014, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, one of the Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies. Hunter was reportedly paid $50,000 a month to, in the words of a Burmisa news release , “provide support for the Company among international organizations.” Biden has denied that was his role.
In 2015, Viktor Shokin, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, launched an investigation into allegedly corrupt practices by Burisma. Shokin was ousted in 2016. And in a widely distributed 2018 video , Joe Biden confirmed that he had successfully pressured the Ukrainian government, under threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. government aid, to fire Shokin. (In September, we sued the State Department for records about the firing of Ukraine’s top prosecutor after then-Vice President Joe Biden threatened to withhold aid.)
The Commerce Department recently barred over two dozen Chinese companies from doing business in the U.S., one of which is reported to be Megvii Technology , an artificial intelligence company focused on developing facial recognition technology . BHR Partners owns a stake in Megvii.
Have no doubt: We will continue to press for information to get to the bottom of this influence-peddling scandal involving Joe Biden and his son. As Congress is obsessed with attacking President Trump, it is again up to us to do the basic investigative work on this growing scandal.
Judicial Watch Battles in Court to Question Hillary Clinton Under Oath
Here’s an update on the Clinton email deposition.
A federal court will soon rule on whether Hillary Clinton and her top aide can be questioned under oath by our lawyers about her email and Benghazi controversies. The court has already granted us additional discovery and is now considering Clinton’s objections, filed on September 23 , to being questioned. We filed our response to Clinton on October 3 ( Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:14-cv-01242)).
The court previously ordered discovery into three specific areas: whether Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server was intended to stymie FOIA; whether the State Department’s intent to settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith; and whether the State Department has adequately searched for records responsive to our request. The court specifically ordered Obama administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and Clinton aides to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The court ruled that the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to government transparency.”
On August 22, 2019, the court then ruled that Clinton and Mills had 30 days to oppose being questioned in person under oath by us related to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Additionally, we were granted seven new depositions, three interrogatories and four document requests. In granting the additional discovery, U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth commented: “I’ll tell you everything they’ve discovered in this period raises serious questions about what the hell the State Department’s doing here.”
Clinton’s lawyers, in opposing the request to question her, argued that she’s already answered all important questions about her emails and Benghazi. We reject this, noting her answers about her email use raise additional, important questions:
Judicial Watch should be permitted to directly question Secretary Clinton about her motives, thoughts, and efforts regarding the “convenience” she relies upon in justifying her use of a secret, private server and email address in direct violation of federal records laws and State Department policies.
Clinton also suggests that her emails would have been captured by State Department records systems, which is contradicted by Tasha Thian , a retired senior State records official, we recently questioned:
According to Ms. Thian’s testimony, there are at least six occasions Secretary Clinton was or should have been fully informed of federal records management, including email records, and compliance responsibilities. Yet Secretary Clinton’s actual understanding of her obligations with respect to official State Department records is completely absent from the record.
Thian implied that it was inconceivable that Clinton was not aware of her obligations regarding federal records and email management:
I don’t understand why she would come up with this statements that she was allowed – or how she would save record email by emailing another employee’s account. She had resources there aplenty. So it just doesn’t make sense to me.
[Even before taking office, Secretary Clinton] knew we had a process.
Additionally, Clinton’s former Chief of Staff Huma Abedin, testifying on whether Clinton understood that FOIA applied to the clintonemail.com system, stated that we “would have to ask Mrs. Clinton.”
Hillary Clinton is now joking about her emails even as she seeks to avoid being questioned on this serious scandal. The court has found that this email use and cover-up are no joking matter.
Last month, the State Department, under court order, finally provided us a previously hidden email , which shows top State Department officials used and were aware of Hillary Clinton’s email account.
Our discovery over the last several months found many more details about the scope of the Clinton email scandal and cover-up:
Hillary Clinton said things in those missing emails that she doesn’t want the world to know. Well, we’re curious.
Trump Boots Chinese Communists Out of U.S. Port
As the coup cabal assaults the rule of law in Washington, there has been some important, positive news for our national security. Consider our reclaiming of a major U.S. port from a Chinese Communist company. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the story .
Under a long-term deal sealed by the Obama administration, a Chinese Communist company was set to control the second-busiest container port in the United States. In an unreported Trump administration victory, the Communists are out after a drawn-out national security review forced a unit of China-based COSCO Shipping Holdings Co. (Orient Overseas Container Line—OOCL) to sell the cherished container terminal business, which handles among the largest freight of imports into the U.S.
It all started with a 40-year container terminal lease between the Port of Long Beach in southern California and Hong Kong. The Obama administration proudly signed the agreement in 2012 giving China control of America’s second-largest container port behind the nearby Port of Los Angeles. One of the Trump administration’s first big moves was to get the Communists out of the Port of Long Beach. After a national security review and federal intervention, the Long Beach terminal business, which handles millions of containers annually, is finally being sold to an Australian company called Macquarie Infrastructure Partners. That essentially kills China’s decades-long contract with the Obama administration.
The deal never should have been signed in the first place considering the facility’s size, significance and the national security issues associated with a hostile foreign government controlling it. The southern California port is the premier U.S. gateway for trans-Pacific trade, according to its website, and handles trade valued at more than $194 billion annually. It is one of the few ports that can accommodate the world’s largest vessels and serves 140 shipping lines with connections to 217 seaports around the world. The facility encompasses 3,200 acres with 31 miles of waterfront, 10 piers, 62 berths and 68 post-Panamax gantry cranes. In 2018, the Long Beach port handled more than 8 million container units, achieving the busiest year in its history.
Removing Chinese Communists from this essential port is a tremendous feat and a huge victory for U.S. national security. You’d never know it because the media, consumed with the impeachment debacle, has ignored this important achievement. The only coverage of the finalized transfer is found in Long Beach’s local newspaper, which published a brief article omitting important background information on the Trump administration’s work to take back the terminal from the Communists. The story makes it seem like a regular business transaction in which “a Chinese state-owned company, reached a deal to sell the terminal, one of the busiest in the port, for $1.78 billion.” The piece also quotes the Port of Long Beach’s deputy executive director saying that the transaction process was intricate and involved one of “our most valuable port assets.” Buried at the bottom of the article is a sentence mentioning that the U.S. government, which regulates mergers for antitrust and security reasons, stepped in and required COSCO to sell its rights to the container terminal.
In the last few years China has bought cargo ports throughout the world, including in Latin America, the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Chinese-owned ports are located in Greece, Italy, Spain and other European locations. In sub-Saharan Africa there are dozens of existing or planned port projects funded or operated by China, according to a study that highlights the threat the Chinese investments present to U.S. influence in the region. One troubling analysis points out that “COSCO’s commercial expansion has created leverage for Beijing — leverage that has already resulted in countries that host COSCO ports adopting China’s position on key international issues.”
Until next week,
Off the Wall Ping!
Contact to be added.
If you or I had done even a slight fraction of what she is GUILTY of....
I was privy to a lot of this last week;)
Just wondering.....
<><> Who transported Hillary’s server from NY to NJ’s Platte River Networks? The Secret Service?
<><> Hillary insists SS had been guarding it since it was really Bill’s Library/Foundation asset.
<><> Did Platte River Networks take it, lock it up, not power it up, connect it to the internet, or not have it functioning as an active email server?
<><> Was there continuity of server activity between May 2013 to August 2015, or did the server go off-line starting in June 2013?
<><> Who received actual server in NJ - the name of the Platte River Networks employee/technician? What WAS it - make/model/form factor, etc.?
<><> Was the company that would provide data services qualified to handle national-security-level data?
<><> Platte River Networks repeatedly stated they were to “upgrade, manage, and secure” the server. What - specifically - does that mean?
<><> What did Hillary’s RFP/contract order the data center to do specifically?
<><> Does Platte River Networks have sufficient security clearance to handle this type of contract?
<><> What were the firewall protocols in place at the time?
<><> Who - by name - had access to the server, and the administrative authorization to wipe and cleanse the server? When was that done?
<><> Does “upgrade, manage, and secure” the server mean that they PRN was given the task to remove all data from the server when it received it in June 2013?
<><> Was malware or antivirus also on the server?
<><> Was the inherent firewall, virus protection, or operating system “upgraded, managed, and secured”?
<><> Any incidents reported such as DOS attack, hacking, etc.? What were they? How were they resolved?
<><> Other than arranging for the server to be moved from NY to NJ, what was the Denver company contracted to do in relation to maintaining the server?
<><> What tangible evidence is there that the server arrived in functioning condition?
<><> What tangible evidence is there that it was being used as an email server?
<><> What tangible evidence is there that it was “upgraded, managed, and secured”, then wiped just prior to seizure by the FBI?
<><> Were normal and regular backup procedures executed on the server, and where would the back ups be kept?
<><> If no backups were taken, was there a disaster recovery location? Where was that?
<><> If no backups and no disaster recovery, what was the plan if the equipment failed or found to have been wiped of any functionality?
<><> Were any foreign nationals employed at Platte River Networks, or at Datto, that had access to the Clinton server?
JW has been on this Ukraine case long before this scandal was exposed a few weeks ago.
We are truly blessed to have these Citizen Warriors. It's their actions that are moving the needle in returning our government back into the hands of We the People.
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Oooooooo.....I like it.....Tom and Judge Jeannine immortalized.
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