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The GOP was expecting a ton of fireworks from today’s Impeachment hearing against President Biden. Rudy Giuliani henchman Lev Parnas gave them an entire 4th of July display.
Lev Parnas, a convicted criminal and former associate of Rudy Giuliani, said during testimony in the House of Representatives on Wednesday that he and Giuliani knowingly spread misinformation from Russia about President Joe Biden.
What's more, said Parnas, the two men knew at the time that this misinformation came from Russian intelligence operatives.
Ruh roh.
During an impeachment hearing into President Joe Biden over unfounded bribery allegations, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) questioned Parnas about the work he did with Giuliani back in 2019, shortly before he was indicted for making fraudulent campaign donations.
"Were you aware, was Mr. Giuliani aware, that these people were basically just doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin?" Raskin asked him.
"Absolutely," Parnas replied.
"So he had no hesitation about spreading lies that were concocted by Russian agents?" Raskin asked.
"As long as it fit the narrative," Parnas said.
"How were you and Giuliani able to take these false allegations, peddled by corrupt officials and Russian agents, and promote and amplify them here, in the United States?" he asked. "Weren't media groups skeptical of your claims?"
"Most media groups," Parnas acknowledged. "I'd probably say all, except for Fox and a few other right-wing media groups, didn't want to take that information. And that aggravated Rudy Giuliani and John Solomon and other players."
Parnas then pointed the finger at Fox News' Sean Hannity as someone who was particularly eager to launder such disinformation, while also singling out Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) for doing the same.
Parnas' claims about right-wing media being more receptive to Giuliani's overtures are backed up by the historical record.
In the fall of 2020, Giuliani pitched stories about Hunter Biden's laptop to the Wall Street Journal. When the Journal's reporters appeared skeptical of the claims he was making about the laptop potentially exposing criminal activity by Joe Biden, he then took the story to the New York Post, which promptly ran with it.
And Parnas testified that Trump personally encouraged Giuliani to seek out this dirt on Biden.
"So was Rudy Giuliani just doing this as a rogue on his own because he's a patriotic American who loves Donald Trump, or had somebody encouraged him to engage in this kind of political interference in another country?" asked Connolly.
"I think he was encouraged by Donald Trump," said Parnas.
"Personally?" Connolly questioned.
"Personally, yes," Parnas replied.
"That is your testimony?" Connolly confirmed.
"Yes," agreed Parnas.
Hey, remember that time that Elon Musk and GOP were screaming about the so-called “Twitter Files?” That was when the Trump CIA warned Twitter about sharing the link to the New York Post story that we now know that Giuliani had generated using “Russia Disinformation.”
They said that the allegations of Russian involvement were a “Hoax.”
Over the past two weeks, Musk has been releasing internal documents to a handpicked group of journalists who are digging through them and posting excerpts on Twitter.
Musk and his allies promote these tweet threads — dubbed the "Twitter Files" — as bombshell revelations proving that Twitter intentionally muzzled conservatives because of their political views. That's a long-running claim by Republicans who are convinced social media companies censor them, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Twitter's internal researchers, for example, have found its algorithms favor right-leaning political content.
[...]
Take Twitter's decision right before the 2020 presidential election to briefly block users from sharing a New York Post story alleging shady business dealings by then-candidate Joe Biden's son, Hunter, in Ukraine.
The article was based on files from Hunter Biden's laptop, which the Post said it got from Trump's private attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon. At the time, it was unclear whether that material was authentic. After being burned by the Russian hack and leak of Democratic National Committee emails in 2016, tech companies were on edge over the possibility of a repeat — and so Twitter decided to restrict the Post story.
And remember that Twitter did this because 51 Intelligence Professionals told them this information was probably Russian Disinformation?
The GOP claimed that their letter was “orchestrated by the Biden Administration and Anthony Blinken.”
A former CIA official testified that then-Biden campaign senior adviser, now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken "played a role in the inception" of the public statement signed by current and past intelligence officials that claimed the Hunter Biden laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell testified before the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, and revealed that Blinken was "the impetus" of the public statement signed in October 2020 that implied the laptop belonging to Hunter Biden was disinformation.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Blinken Thursday, notifying him that the panels are "conducting oversight of federal law-enforcement and intelligence matters within our respective jurisdictions."
"We are examining that public statement signed by 51 former intelligence officials that falsely discredited a New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop as supposed Russian disinformation," they wrote. "As part of our oversight, we have learned that you played a role in the inception of this statement while serving as a Biden campaign advisor, and we therefore request your assistance with our oversight."
Let me point out something that gets glossed over in this statement. Anthony Blinken was not Secretary of State when this happened. Biden wasn’t President when this happened. Donald Trump was President when this CIA document was generated. So the accusation is that the Donald Trump CIA created a false accusation in order to protect Joe Biden.
Exactly why would they do that? Because Anthony Blinkin said so? Say what now?
This is what they actually said.
We want to emphasize that we do not know if the emails, provided to the New York Post by President Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, are genuine or not and that we do not have evidence of Russian involvement -- just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.
If we are right, this is Russia trying to influence how Americans vote in this election, and we believe strongly that Americans need to be aware of this.
There are a number of factors that make us suspicious of Russian involvement.
Such an operation would be consistent with Russian objectives, as outlined publicly and recently by the Intelligence Community, to create political chaos in the United States and to deepen political divisions here but also to undermine the candidacy of former Vice President Biden and thereby help the candidacy of President Trump. For the Russians at this point, with Trump down in the polls, there is incentive for Moscow to pull out the stops to do anything possible to help Trump win and/or to weaken Biden should he win. A “laptop op” fits the bill, as the publication of the emails are clearly designed to discredit Biden.
[...]
Such an operation is also consistent with several data points. The Russians, according to media reports and cybersecurity experts, targeted Burisma late last year for cyber collection and gained access to its emails. And Ukrainian poltician and businessman Adriy Derkach, identified and sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for being a 10-year Russian agent interfering in the 2020 election, passed purported materials on Burisma and Hunter Biden to Giuliani.
Our view that the Russians are involved in the Hunter Biden email issue is consistent with two other significant data points as well. According to the Washington Post, citing four sources, “U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that Giuliani was the target of an influence operation.”
What Parnas just testified to today — exactly confirms what the CIA reported in October of 2020. Parnas was actually Giuliani’s go-between with Derkach — so he should know.
Most telling of all — when Parnas got to this part of his testimony — Fox News cut him off.
So now we know exactly what they don’t want their audience to hear.
Parnas has also previously revealed that the FSB and Russian Secret Police had managed to obtain a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive, and that those contents has also been examined by Burisma. He was told by them that “there was no evidence of financial crimes on the drive” and also he had a letter from Burisma’s chief Mykola Zlochevsky that stated “Hunter is innocent” of all the financial allegations against him, and that no one at Burisma had “any conversations with Joe Biden” during Hunter’s engagement with the company.
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To be fair to the other witnesses:
Bobulinski testified that he was present for a business meeting switch Hunter, James and Joe and claimed that Hunter lied about this. Joe wasn't VP at the time. However, the committee already has the business records which don't show Joe as part of the deal.
Biden didn't say he never talked to any of Hunter's business partners, he said he never talked about *Business* with them. The GOP are playing a Semantic game with us arguing the Devon Archer had “20 conversations” with Hunter’s partners, but he also said they “never talked about business.”
Mr. Galanis, who testified from jail, said that he was a business partners of Hunter’s and that he’d been at a business meeting with Joe and Devon — but obviously, Devon denies this. He said he had text messages to prove this meeting happened but when Rep. Goldman put in a parliamentary inquiry to ask if the committee actually had copies of those messages, his inquiry was ignored.