The Threats that Hunter Biden’s Prosecutors Pretended Didn’t Exist Continue Unabated
Twice in the lead-up to Hunter Biden’s first trial, Leo Wise and Derek Hines pretended that threats elicited by the political firestorm surrounding the case didn’t exist.
When Abbe Lowell raised the threats David Weiss faced and cited a story describing Weiss’ testimony about the safety of his family, Derek Hines continued to insist that there was no way Trump — who attacked Weiss personally after the plea deal was docketed — could have influenced the case (before Judge Noreika, prosecutors had claimed to be incompetent to find the offending Trump posts on Truth Social).
If the statements by politicians prior to the hearing truly influenced the prosecution in the way the defendant claims they did, why did the government sign the agreements and present them at the hearing? Second, to state an obvious fact that the defendant continues to ignore, former President Trump is not the President of the United States. The defendant fails to explain how President Biden or the Attorney General, to whom the Special Counsel reports, or the Special Counsel himself, or his team of prosecutors, are acting at the direction of former President Trump or Congressional Republicans, or how this current Executive Branch approved allegedly discriminatory charges against the President’s son at the direction of former President Trump and Congressional Republicans. The defendant’s fictious [sic] narrative cannot overcome these two inescapable facts.
Then, in a March hearing on that motion as well as one arguing that the publicity campaign from the disgruntled IRS agents had unlawfully influenced the prosecution, Leo Wise claimed there’s no proof that the IRS agent campaign started the dominoes that led Weiss to renege on the plea deal.
MR. WISE: So I think the Defense’s problem is the same problem you identified in the last motion, which is they offer no proof. None. None whatsoever that there’s causation.
I wrote down what Mr. Lowell said. He said the agents “did the causation.” What does that mean?
Where’s the proof that these two guys going on TV had anything to do with what we did?
Well, they said, “Oh, they started the dominoes.”
What dominoes? Where is the proof of any of that?
Other than insulting us, where is the proof that anything these two agents — who I couldn’t have picked out of a lineup — had anything to do with our decision-making?
Wise said that as David Weiss looked on. While neither Jim Jordan nor DOJ have released the transcript proving it, according to Special Agent in Charge Thomas Sobocinski, both Sobocinski and Weiss acknowledged, after Gary Shapley first started his media tour, that the publicity campaign, “would have had it had an impact on our case,” and that impact had been doxing and pressure on members of the investigative team.
Q After it became public that Gary Shapley was going to come to Congress and he gave, I think, an interview on CBS in the at the end of May before his congressional testimony, who did you discuss that with?
A My team within Baltimore, probably folks within the Criminal Investigative Division. Definitely David Weiss.
Q And what was the nature of your conversation with David Weiss?
A I need to go off the record for a minute.
Mr. [Steve] Castor. Okay.
[Discussion held off the record.]
Mr. Sobocinski. Yeah. In general, it was concerns about how this was going to affect the ongoing case and were there issues we needed to take into at least from the FBI side to move forward.
BY MR. CASTOR:
Q After Shapley’s testimony became public in June, did you have any conversations with David Weiss about that?
A We acknowledged it, but it wasn’t I mean, we didn’t sit there with the transcript going back and forth. We both acknowledged that it was there and that it would have had it had an impact on our case.
Q Okay. Did any of your conversations with David Weiss, you know, have anything to do with like, can you believe what Shapley’s saying, this is totally 100 percent untrue?
A I don’t remember that level of it.
Q If it was
A I was more concerned about how this is affecting my employees. I now have FBI employees that names are out there. I have FBI employees and former FBI retired agents who’ve served for 20plus years whose parents are getting phone calls, whose photos with their girlfriends, who their children who are being followed. That is not something that we were prepared for, and I was concerned about having that continue or expand to other one of my employees. [my emphasis]
The transcripts in which David Weiss, Lesley Wolf, and Martin Estrada described the threats they and their families faced as a result of the pressure campaign from the IRS agents, House Republicans, and Trump have not been released. The outcome of any investigations into those threats likewise remains secret. Similarly, the efforts US Marshals made in response, especially, to the threats against Wolf and Estrada remains secret, though even Ken Dilanian described a special unit to investigate threats against FBI agents on these high profile investigations.
While Abbe Lowell did not focus on the threats elicited by the pressure campaign as much as he might have, to the extent he did, prosecutors simply pretended those threats didn’t exist.
And then, hours and days after the Hunter Biden verdict, the vicious conspiratorial threats went public with the arrest affidavit for Timothy Muller, a Trump supporter in Texas who, six hours after the verdict, called the FBI agent who picked up the laptop from John Paul Mac Isaac (and who may not have been involved in the case since 2021) and threatened him and his family.
Hey [j], you little cock-sucking pussy! You can run, but you can’t fucking hide. You covered up child pornography. You covered up [Hunter Biden] raping his own fucking neice, you fucking piece of fucking degenerate shit! So here’s how it’s gonna go: [Trump’s] gonna win the re-election. and then we’re gonna fucking go through the FBI and just start throwing you cock-suckers in jail. OR, you can steal another election, and then the guns will come out, and we’ll hunt you cock-suckers down and slaughter you like the traitorous dogs you are in your own fucking homes. In your won fucking beds. The last thing you’ll ever hear are the horrified shrieks of your widow and orphans. And then you know what we’re going to do? Then we’re going to string those fucking cock-suckers up. We’re going to slaughter your whole fucking family, you fucking pedophile! It’s like THAT now. So choose. Jail? Or getting strung up and lynched like the fucking traitor you are. That’s what happens when you cover up for fucking pedophiles, you piece of fucking shit!
Trump supporters are calling investigators and threatening to lynch them because they’re not prosecuting conspiracy theories ginned up by fellow Trump supporters.
When staffers asked David Weiss last November about these threats, he offered up the word, “intimidation” (then disclaimed understanding the motive for such threats).
Q Has this outsized attention led to increased attention on your office specifically?
A It’s led to increased attention for everyone who has touched the case. I think that’s correct.
Q Has the outsized attention given to this case resulted in threats and harassment against members of your office?
A Yes. Members of my office, agents assigned to the case, both from the IRS and from the FBI, doxing family members of members of my office. So, yeah, it’s part and parcel of this case.
Q Do you have concerns for the safety of individuals working in your office?
A Sure. I have safety concerns for everybody who has worked on the case, and we want to make sure that folks — yeah, folks are encouraged to do what they need to do with respect to the pursuit of justice generally and they not be intimidated in any way from performing their responsibilities.
[snip]
Q Do you have concerns for your safety or that of your family because of these threats?
A You know, I’m not — for myself, I’m not particularly concerned. Certainly I am concerned, as any parent or spouse would be for — yeah, for family, yep.
And at least as expressed by Muller, these threats are intimately tied (as exploitation of Rudy Giuliani’s copy of the laptop and Trump’s threats to replace DOJ officials with Jeffrey Clark were in the first place) to Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, to Trump’s bid to become a dictator from day one.
And even as prosecutors serve up one after another humiliating trial during campaign season, they’re pretending the campaign against Hunter Biden isn’t all part of Trump’s bid for unaccountable power.
Ho-
Ly
Shit!
It has long been rumored, and I have firmly believed, that threats against family were the secret sauce tot was using via surrogates to get so many to fall in line. I have used SD’s report of the guy in the parking lot as example. I knew threats might be more explicit and have been a little sympathetic, thinking “what would I do?” if someone promised to rape/kill my wife & dtrs & I knew they were MOB as tot is? This guy may be a lone nutjob, but shit like this would be damned hard to ignore. What could Liz Cheney or Adam K tell us? Why don’t they?
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Without a doubt, the dark forces have been doing shit like this for years. Although this kind of thing, as with surveillance, has often been the domain of former spooks, i think we’re going to see much more of it coming from just general shitbags.
I only recently learned of this fascinating — and appalling — case. I think many here will likewise find it fascinating and creepy. It’s about how eBay’s crappy executives were so triggered by reporting on their crappiness that they resorted to some very dark shit. And then walked away without charges. Throw in some hack-tastic attempts at covering up the fact that a former (?) spook has been soliciting other execs as agents.
The Strange eBay-CIA Connection | An Unsolved Mystery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnQMuS87gLw
I’m not comfortable watching that video because the producer appears more intent on spreading content across monetizable sites (X, TikTok, Instagram, so on — not a personal, professional website or blog, not even a Substack). Is there any other source on this eBay-CIA story?
It really is an exercise in abnormal psychology to read some of the deranged mental diarrhea emanating from Trump supporters. So, this guy thinks Hunter Biden is a pedophile [where is that coming from?] so he threatens to murder the family of the FBI agent investigating the presumed pedophile?? How does this make any sense? These people are mentally ill and it is very troubling that those mentally ill Americans gravitate to this vile man and are apparently willing to lay down their lives for his (ahem) “honor”. Sad and sick.
Might not hurt to ask ourselves if there’s an influence operation which fallaciously paints Hunter Biden as a sex offender — you can see it wouldn’t be a far walk to distort the truth like so: [ HB used sex workers (true) -> is a sex offender (false) -> is a pedo (false) ], inserting bits of truth with falsehoods which the most vulnerable minds will latch onto readily. Which should make us wonder what’s next? How do we pre-empt the continuation of distortion based on the entirety of existing falsehoods?
I’ve seen it at the former bird hellsite, used against anyone whose views the (right-wing) poster doesn’t like. (For medical people, they tend to use “pharma shill”. For people left of center, it’s “socialist”, “marxist”, or “commie”.)
I think Guo played a role in this. But like the many different species and habitats of slime mold, single entities fuse or aggregate. Additionally, some are dispersed by animals. So, Q, Bannon, Stone, Alex Jones, Posobiec, Mackey, Maxey, Ziegler (1,2,3), and on and on…
Everything from those pants on head retards is that good old never wrong RWNJ projection, Moldy Gym Shorts covered up pedophile sexual abuse as a college wrestling coach, Matt Gaetz credibly accused of having/paying for sex with underage girl, so of course in their sick minds if our sides doing it they must be doing it also, or the good old reliable accuse others of what your doing, wingnut projection
Across the right-wing, accusations are so often admissions; it’s a component of DARVO at scale in which victims are reversed with offenders, or in this case the innocent is reversed with the offender.
I have heard from Trump supporters that they cannot vote for Biden because Biden is a pedophile. When confronted with anything negative about Trump they say, but how can you vote for Joe Biden, he’s a pedophile. If you ask what their evidence is, they say, look it up.
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Accusations of pedophilia go back a long, long ways, probably connected to the “blood libel” against Judaism in which the blood of sacrificed new-born human babies is supposedly used to make matzoh (wouldn’t that make it red?). Remind anyone of the adenochrome rumors about the Clintons et alia? Reminds me of the plot of Norman Spinrad’s book Bug Jack Barron.
from Lady Bette and the Murder of Mr Thynne_ by NA Pickford
(London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 2014 ISBN 978-0-297-87085-2):
“Among the women the hot topic of the day [summer 1671] was how young children were disappearing, spirited away to be killed for their blood, which was supposedly being transported to France to be used to cure the French King of a leprosy. There were mothers who were so terrified at the rumors that they had taken to keeping their children at home from school. It was typical of the insidious manner in which fears about secret Catholic conspiracies and diabolical witchcraft had become commingled.”
Trump supporters have the same mindset as those of the Spanish Inquisitors:
“I am the way … “ John 14:6
“I alone can fix it.” John 45
It doesn’t require a lot of imagination to conclude that a lot of folks in the DOJ & the FBI are looking over their shoulders and thinking that Trump might actually end up back in the White House and altering their behavior as a result. Also knowing that there are colleagues of anyone investigating Trump who are still holdovers from trump’s administration would have an intimidating effect on investigators.
Yes. “Looking over your shoulder” is an excellent description.
If stories about DoJ and FBI folk receiving threats (like the one the FBI agent who picked up the laptop from John Paul Mac Isaac received) circulate among co-workers, even if they weren’t reported publicly, a lot of people may be looking over their shoulders.
Given the names Trump is floating for his next Attorney General these days, if he’s elected, the calls would be coming from inside the building.
This also happened in Seattle the day after the Hunter Biden verdict:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/woman-taken-into-custody-after-armed-standoff-at-fbi-building-in-seattle-authorities-say
Not enough detail to know if it’s connected, but anything is possible.
These are going to make Aileen Cannon’s hearing on whether Trump’s lies about the FBI risk violence.
“ Attorneys stated in court Thursday that Gray does not have any serious felony criminal history, but there are prior misdemeanor charges on her record.”
“Gray is now facing a federal misdemeanor charge for bringing a gun into a federal building. If convicted, she faces up to a year in prison, one year of supervised release, five years on probation, and a $100,000 fine.”
Lynnanne Nguyen
KOMO News
June 14, 2024
https://komonews.com/news/local/fbi-building-armed-standoff-seattle-police-department-spd-law-enforcement-chelsea-alexis-gray-everett-woman-42-years-old-9mm-semi-automatic-pistol-negotiators-assistant-attorney-tate-federal-court
One of the House majority’s first acts was to remove the magnetometers from outside the House chamber.
“Prior misdemeanors” mean next to nothing usually.
I’m looking at
and thinking I don’t understand what a misdemeanor is at all – I didn’t think the range of punishments for misdemeanors went NEARLY that high.
Never forget Brett Kavanaugh’s crying and whining comments during his confirmation hearing that the Clintons were the source of his confirmation problems and that the Clintons were out to get him. It was truly an informative admission on Kavanaugh’s part.
Republicans like Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Ginni Thomas, Samuel Alito, Martha-Ann Alito, David Weiss, Leo Wise and Hines believe all Democrats are out to destroy them, their political allies and their political power.
Vladimir Putin and his trusted oligarchs Abramovich, Mogilevich, Deripaska and Firtash and their organized crime syndicate are masters at using social media and free speech societies to disseminate lies, BS, propaganda and disinformation.
Putin learned early in his political career under Boris Yeltsin that the Clintons and the Democrat Party in the 1990s believed more in a mixed race, mixed religion participatory republic democracy than either Trump or the Republican Party did at that time.
Today, Putin, his puppet, Viktor Orban, and other authoritarian dictators around the world regularly spew their hatred of the Clintons and of a mixed race, mixed religion, mixed sexual preference society. And today’s Republican Party completely embraces this same hatred regularly spewed by Putin and Orban.
The fight in Ukraine is not only about defending Ukraine’s right to its territory, it is also about the need to destroy Putin, his oligarchs and their organized crime syndicate before it destroys the American system of government.
I just listened to an episode of This American Life, the subject of which was Trump’s vows of retribution. Naturally there was no mention of the Hunter Biden prosecution, despite the fact that one of the segments profiled Alexander Vindman and the consequences of his involvement in “the perfect call” – which I’m old enough to remember was to solicit dirt on Hunter. It’s all been memory holed.
To refresh one’s memory of “the perfect call” which Trump was impeached for, you can read the reconstructed transcript of the call that was released by the White House in 2019. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/09/25/trump-ukraine-phone-call-transcript-text-pdf-1510770
Trump, right after slagging Marie Yovanovitch, the now-former US Abassador to Ukraine:
Trump at this time was blocking $250 million in military aid to Ukraine and trying to use it to extort Zelenskyy. He wants Ukraine to announce they are starting some kind of investigation of Trump’s political opponent, Joe Biden.
I’m still waiting for the real transcript of that call which was buried in a hypersecure vault, according to Vindman’s testimony, if I recall correctly.
In the segment of This American Life that Ruthie2the referred to (https://www.thisamericanlife.org/833/come-retribution), Ira Glass notes “There is no tape of the Zelenskyy phone call. The transcript we have comes from staff notes made during the call.” That transcription memo was released, as dopefish said/linked to.
There’s also a transcript of Vindman’s testimony (https://www.npr.org/2019/11/08/777514772/read-testimony-of-alexander-vindman-the-white-houses-ukraine-specialist), and his discussion of the transcription memo starts on p. 47. He didn’t suggest that “the real transcript of that call … was buried in a hypersecure vault.” He said that the memo went through a more secure editing process than is usual (p. 50).
.Perhaps the threatening man had just watched a John Wick installment. Or got super frustrated trying to figure out how to take advantage of his Barrett rifle under a concealed carry permit.
Off-topic: in the classified docs case, Team Trump filed their reply to SCO’s motion to modify Trump’s bail conditions, which they style as PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP’S OPPOSITION TO THE MOTION FOR A GAG ORDER BY THE SPECIAL COUNSEL’S OFFICE.
Its written in the typical bombastic style that has worked on Cannon before:
Like the “at trial, should there be one” message, this seems to announce Team Trump’s expectation that their rather weak justifications to dismiss the case will be sufficient. IANAL, but I think with most judges they would be wrong, but Cannon has been pretty deferential to them so far.
It’s okay, she’s “quirky.”
If there is one thing that Aileen Cannon will not do, it is dismiss the case. Such a dismissal is appealable, at least before jeopardy attaches.
More than one conservative pundit, and several elected GOP members, have recently argued that the gun case should not have been brought and that Hunter Biden should not go to prison because of it.
So why, then, did the right scream and yell a year ago about Biden getting a “sweetheart deal” after pleading guilty? They wanted Garland impeached or jailed over it.
Upisdown wrote:
“ So why, then, did the right scream and yell a year ago about Biden getting a “sweetheart deal” after pleading guilty? They wanted Garland impeached or jailed over it.”
It fits, imho.
The promise of immunity in the diversion agreement set hair on fire and now there are convictions for *gun charges* previously rarely brought.
Ruh roh.
Yep.
I don’t recall there being any expressed immunity promises in the diversion agreement. Only there being a misunderstanding regarding whether or not the investigation ends after the diversion agreement is formalized.
“The main issue, though, was that question of Hunter’s immunity from further prosecution (which, unusually, was laid out in the diversion agreement, not the plea agreement). The key paragraph states:
“The United States agrees not to criminally prosecute Biden, outside of the terms of this Agreement, for any federal crimes encompassed by the attached State of Facts (Attachment A) and the Statement of Facts attached as Exhibit 1 to the Memorandum of Plea Agreement filed this same day.”
Andrew Prokop
Vox
“ The mystery of Hunter Biden’s failed plea deal
What happened: incompetence, malfeasance, or politics”
August 17, 2023
https://www.vox.com/2023/8/17/23828938/hunter-biden-plea-deal-special-counsel-weiss
“ …assuming that the judge who intervened to kill the diversion that would have amounted to a probation sentence would sentence Hunter leniently if he took responsibility as he tried to last July.”
https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/06/12/the-scolding-that-hunter-biden-should-have-pled-guilty-ignores-the-complexity-of-what-happened/
Also see:
“ The mystery of Hunter Biden’s failed plea deal
What happened: incompetence, malfeasance, or politics?”
Andrew Prokop
Vox
Aug 17, 2023 at 12:00 PM PDT
https://www.vox.com/2023/8/17/23828938/hunter-biden-plea-deal-special-counsel-weiss
My apologies Rayne, if this is a duplicate.
Clare: That Prokop article is a year old. It doesn’t account for the documents that came out in the MTD fight, which show that the scope wasn’t uncertain at all, but Weiss/Wise instead reneged on the terms of the scope.
More importantly, that’s not why the plea failed.
Clare Kelly did a more detailed reply, but I suspect the other part of the “why were they complaining about a sweetheart deal a year ago and complaining about a conviction on gun charges now” is that they wanted Hunter to be charged under FARA, and have that charge suck Joe Biden into the maelstrom. That’s what I took away from everything I heard, pretty much since the first “perfect phone call” reports surfaced, and why the GOP kept insisting they have proof that Joe benefitted from Hunter at Burisma throughout their hearings.
If that was what you wanted, and what you got was a brand-new conviction under a law restricting gun ownership, you’d be mad, too. You didn’t get Joe, and now you can’t push back against the conviction in a Second-Amendment way because it would help Hunter (and make Joe happy).
Does that sound about right?
I think we are talking about the same thing. Republicans obviously wanted to see more than what the deal(s) covered, but the agreed upon terms of the tax plea and the gun diversion were specifically dealing with what the penalty for what Hunter Biden was pleading to, and not some potential added outshoot of the investigation. Hunter’s counsel believed the agreement would end the investigation.
From the first (VOX) link above:
“Prosecutors have not offered any explanation for exactly what changed. But from the day the initial deal was announced, there was a clue that they were not on the same page as Hunter’s attorneys, in their insistence that the investigation was “ongoing.” Hunter’s team claimed they thought the deal would end the probe. It is unclear what exactly this continuing investigation is focusing on.”
The problem I have is with reporting that the shutting down of a clearly political investigation, which hasn’t produced additional charges, is the same as wanting “immunity”. Investigations shouldn’t stay active indefinitely when there is no new evidence expected. Another year has passed and there is still no evidence of FARA, money laundering, or influence violations. And no evidence is likely now that Hunter Biden is just an artist. How can the investigation continue as active other than as a political exercise?
Is Weiss hoping that Biden will pen another memoir this time copping to bribery and influence peddling?
I think there is more to it. For decades, the NRA and their ilk have been saying that the U.S. doesn’t need more gun regulation, what is needed is for the regulations we have to be strictly enforced, and violation result in severe punishment. The talking head pundits have been predicting that Hunter would (or should) receive probation for his gun possession conviction. If the judge is a NRA/Heritage Foundation acolyte, I would suspect that probation will not be the sentence, in the ‘strict enforcement and strict punishment’ sense. We’ll see.
Although I don’t know what the judge’s background is, I have read that she only had one previous gun case decided before her. In that case she sentenced the defendant to serve one year, even though prosecutors were seeking only six months. That individual also lied on their application, but about their residency, not about drug use. That person purchased 29 weapons, transported them across country, and transferred ownership to a gun dealer. Like Hunter Biden, the person had no prior criminal record.
https://nypost.com/2024/06/11/us-news/hunter-biden-judge-gave-stiff-sentence-in-similar-gun-case/
I would argue that the Zhi Dong case was much worse than Hunter Biden’s offense. Therefore, I would not expect Judge Noreika to go beyond the one year sentence she imposed on Zhi Dong.
Good grief. Norieka has only had one gun case before! Cannon has never had a natsec documents case before! This type of analysis is getting truly tedious. Federal judges, both new and old on the bench, deal with new types of cases every day without this kind of micro-analysis. And mostly they do fine. This is just getting silly. And her one previous case you cite would seem to militate that she is indeed tough on gun cases. Something that any other day would likely be celebrated on this blog were it not the most important case in federal courts today: that of Hunter Biden. Jeebus.
Lol, Upisdown I tried to respond in real time, but the quite uneven moderation algorithms prevented it.
bmaz – it’s not about inexperience; it’s about trying to predict future behavior based on past behavior. If she’d had 128 past gun cases and almost always sentenced near the high end of the range, we could predict with a pretty decent probability of being right that she’d be likely to sentence HB to something near the high end of the range. In this case, however, she’s only had one past gun case, so there is very little evidence one way or another. No one is claiming she’s incompetent because she’s only had one such case or that she’s going to screw up sentencing because of that.
Ithaqua0 – If it is not “about inexperience”, why do so many commenters here keep caterwauling about “inexperience”? Why do you need to predict what sentence Norieka may deliver to Biden before sentencing memos and PSR have been lodged? That is a mug’s game. Judges are all different, live with it.
Perhaps for the justice system, but they are very real in world of politics and news coverage. For better or worse, the sentence imposed in this ultra-high profile case is going to be torn apart and heavily scrutinized for fairness or possible political bias from a Trump appointee.
That’s just the nature of the beast.
And, perhaps Upisdown, external voyeurs like you, who think they are preternaturally entitled to constant input and media coverage of a low level criminal unimportant gun case, like that of Hunter Biden, have been the cause of what has resulted for Biden. This is pretty common stuff. It is NOT an important case, nor an unusual one. But self interested voyeurs like you have made it so to the media and court. Congratulations for your participation.
I have done a few cases similar to Biden’s. They went off without a hitch, and that was before there were formal diversion programs with DOJ. But it would not have occurred if a bunch of self professed “politics and news” interlopers focused on it and squelched it. When you whine in the future about the criminal justice system, please remember the role people like you have played in its decline.
Yes, Bmaz, I wish the media would have left the Hunter Biden cases alone, but that never happened. It has been a never-ending attack narrative in RW media and it definitely impacts the judicial system because politics happens. Disinformation sways voting. Elections decide who appoints judges and which laws get passed. Even-handed coverage matters.
Yeah, it would have been great if this played out like any other run of the mill case that you’re familiar with. It didn’t because it was politicized from day one. I tried to call attention to conservative media’s one-sided Hunter Biden reporting more than a year ago. You accused me pushing rightwing spam and heavily censored my comments back then. Now there are lots of posts by EW that expose the “dickishness” of the Hunter prosecution. So clearly it did not go away by ignoring the issue.
Reply to Upisdown
June 18, 2024 at 3:44 pm
You know what would have helped back when you began to call attention to media coverage of the Hunter Biden case?
– Not attempting to publish many comments in a thread with little new content, most containing venting more than discussion;
– Using the “truth sandwich” approach to fallacious claims, maintaining awareness that repeating right-wing frames as you complain about them only amplifies the same right-wing frames;
– Applying the kind of rigor Marcy has used to expose the faults in media coverage;
– Recognizing this was never going to go away even with more pushback because it has been the only means of hurting Joe Biden intimately, by attacking his family. The strength of Biden’s love for his family demonstrated his entire career in office is the biggest single contrast between Biden and Trump, apart from the Biden’s lifelong public service and lack of criminal behavior and Trump’s one-term transactional presidency and lifelong scoffing at laws.
Spend more energy on what would have changed the dynamic considering at least one or more hostile nations invested effort in influence operations to which U.S. media fell prey, and less time arguing with other commenters here about what you did back in 2022.
We are 140 days away from the election. FOCUS.
Yes, I believe you have proved my point that you, and similarly situated, are part of the problem, and your incessant focus is unhelpful, if not irrelevant. But press on.
Lol Rayne, I truly hope you understand the irony.
Replying to Rayne;
“– Applying the kind of rigor Marcy has used to expose the faults in media coverage;”
That’s exactly what I attempted to do in the early days of the Murdoch smear campaign against Hunter. You and/or bmaz told me to shut up and then censored my replies.
Props to Marcy Wheeler for untiring work at debunking the lies that went unchallenged by the MSM far too long. She’s the best.
Reply to Upisdown
June 18, 2024 at 7:00 pm
Anything you tried to do initially looked like trolling because you couldn’t stick to the same username — you looked like a sockpuppet account repeating right-wing narrative. You repeatedly ignored my instructions about your username, too, which didn’t help.
You need to let this go and rethink your approach. There are other community members here who’ve made solid contributions to discussions, like earlofhuntingdon, harpie, and zscoreUSA, each of whom are models to consult on how to participate and *add* constructively rather than whatever you’re doing right now which is beginning to DDoS this thread.
Lol “Upisdown”, you are yet another internet dope. How did you magically come to think you determine the discussion on this decades long blog?
I’m looking strictly at the political and public opinion realities of reaction to sentencing. Obviously, the judge can sentence anywhere between nothing and the maximum sentence. But, based on public opinion, juror comments, her past sentencing history, and the universe of sentencing for this type of case, there will be heavy pressure on her to justify any excessive sentence she might impose. This is a high-profile case that has drawn interest of non-lawyer but politically invested persons like me.
I offered the Zhi Dong case as a good starting measure because of similarities. Perhaps we can compare and contrast the particulars that are publicly known, rather than doing another contrarian tap dance.
Those so called “realities” are irrelevant to a sentencing court in a criminal case. This type of thinking has infested and infected too many criminal cases lately, and it is unhealthy for the justice system.
Breach of Duty
Manafort, a channel port
for Rudy and his booty
Funnel for a ton of propaganda,
Breach of duty
Trump and the data dump
Owning Barr to hone his star
Brady in the waiting
with the Smirnov smear and tar
Joseph Z & Shapley
venting voices on TV
The curse of their bad choices:
Their harm to liberty
Mad Mac Isaac on attack
Contact name: Costello
Rudy’s hack, a hijack’s back
And honor made of jello
Gymmy J & Jason Smith
smoking nitty-gritty
Conjure up a dirty myth
to court from a committee
To forsake a deal: Noreika
conferred with Leo Wise & Hines
Astray with Bray things went gray
Data lost between the lines
StarQuest S & S Supply
Shoots the breeze for its survival
Who cares about that Hunter guy
They’re immune, so no reprisal
It all goes to dominos
Trump, Barr, Brady, Weiss all track
Don’t forget to juxtapose:
how Shapley, Jordan, Rudy stack
Swayed old Weiss put on ice
Hunter’s deal we know was real
Perfect phone call final price:
Constitutional appeal
Just going to put this here since the Zhi Dong case came up.
Beyond any question of inexperience or no, what is relevant is that Noreika already raise Zhi Dong (in a bench conference) in context of Hunter’s actions, and invited a claim Hunter did what Dong did, beyond what he was charged for. This is similar to the way she invited prosecutors to add false statements charges to the gun charges.
That is interesting. Thanks.
I have a question about the Zhi Dong case that I haven’t found a quick answer to. Maybe you can find the answer. Was he charged (and convicted) of each gun individually, or was it one charge covering all 29 of the firearms he purchased?
There were two counts, one each for the date of purchase.