RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/democrats-tyranny-and-sophistry-bruce-thornton/

The Democrats are furiously busy with preemptive damage control of the ongoing investigation by U.S. Attorney John Durham. As well they should. This and other investigations of the origins of alleged Russian electoral interference has morphed into a criminal probe that likely will implicate members of the Obama administration’s FBI, DOJ, and CIA, and tear off the veil of misdirection that the Democrats and their lackeys in the media have draped over the dirty tricks they employed during the 2016 campaign and Trump’s first years in office. If this happens, the Democrats’ equally dicey attempts to impeach the president will crumble.

Once again, we are being subjected to progressive double standards and “projection” of their own sins onto others. But something more ancient and dangerous is going on: The links between tyranny and sophistry.

With the hoax of Trump’s collusion with Russia to wound his rival Hillary Clinton debunked by the Dems’ hand-picked special prosecutor and his team of partisan Democrats, California Democrat Representative Adam Schiff has been attacking Durham and AG William Barr. Schiff’s joint statement with Jerry Nadler (D. NY), his accomplice in the House impeachment show-trial, is a masterpiece of jaw-dropping hypocrisy:

These reports, if true, raise profound new concerns that the Department of Justice under AG Barr has lost its independence and become a vehicle for President Trump’s political revenge. If the Department of Justice may be used as a tool of political retribution, or to help the President with a political narrative for the next election, the rule of law will suffer new and irreparable damage.

The glaring double-standard––this description more accurately fits Obama’s self-described “wingman,” AG Eric Holder, more than AG Barr–– is laid out in a Wall Street Journal editorial:

Democrats know that the Hillary Clinton campaign paid Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Mr. Trump, and Fusion hired former British spook Christopher Steele, who compiled a dossier of allegations about Mr. Trump from Russian sources that turned out to be false. Worse, Fusion funneled the dossier to the FBI, which used it to persuade the secret FISA court to issue a warrant to eavesdrop on Trump official Carter Page. Democrats now want to discredit any attempt to hold people accountable if crimes were committed as part of this extraordinary dirty trick.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/did-obama-apply-his-clinton-rules-to-the-bidens-11573069621

It’s not clear whether the Ukrainian company Burisma got its money’s worth when it paid handsomely to add Hunter Biden to its board. But the company’s representatives used the family name in attempting to influence the U.S. Government while Joe Biden was Vice President.

If an American business made a similar effort with the son of a government official overseas, it would likely attract a U.S. Department of Justice investigation under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. So why shouldn’t the United States urge that other countries also examine such arrangements?

The Journal’s Jessica Donati reports that a consulting firm hired by Burisma mentioned that “Joe Biden’s son served on the Ukrainian gas company’s board so the firm could leverage a meeting with the State Department, according to documents and a former U.S. official.”

The documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Southeastern Legal Foundation on behalf of its client John Solomon. Ms. Donati adds:

The documents—email exchanges between State Department staff members made public this week—show that the consulting firm, Washington-based Blue Star Strategies, used Hunter Biden’s name in a request for a State Department meeting and then mentioned him again during the meeting as part of an effort to improve Burisma’s image in Washington.
Mr. Biden was appointed to the Burisma board in 2014, when the company and its owner faced allegations of corruption, and he remained there until April of this year… Hunter Biden served on Burisma’s board when his father, then the vice president, was overseeing U.S. efforts to get Ukraine to reduce corruption.

Ms. Donati reports that the 2016 Burisma meeting included a State Department undersecretary named Catherine Novelli.

What are the odds that, having learned that she was being lobbied by a foreign company which was under a corruption investigation and which happened to employ the son of the sitting Vice President of the United States, Ms. Novelli never mentioned this fact to anyone else?