RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/3812679-white-house-under-pressure-to-explain-why-it-didnt-reveal-documents-discovery-earlier/

The White House is under mounting pressure to explain why the discovery of classified Biden documents was not immediately revealed to the public, with critics openly questioning if there was an intentional effort to keep the first find quiet in the lead up to the midterm elections.

The first batch of documents were first discovered on Nov. 2, which was just six days away from the election. But the White House did not disclose the findings until after they were reported by CBS News earlier this week. 

“That’s your version of the case,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked on Friday if not revealing the discovery when it happened was to protect the president from political damage.

“I’ve been very clear here and I’ve answered that question multiple times, in different versions, in the last couple of days. Look, I want to very clear: There’s a process here, we are going to respect that process,” she added, responding “no” when asked if staff were involved in crafting a strategy as to when the disclosure should be made.

A second batch of classified documents was found in a storage space in the garage of Biden’s Wilmington, Del., residence on Dec. 20, and another one-page document was discovered among stored materials in an adjacent room this week. The search of Biden’s residence was completed on Wednesday.

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Robert Hur as special counsel to investigate the discovery of classified documents on Thursday, following the announcement of additional documents found at Biden’s Wilmington residence. He also said he was notified in real time when the White House found the documents.

“The timing of the revelation of the document discovery is indeed curious,” said former Rep. Chris Carney (D-Pa.), a longtime Biden ally and former intelligence officer. “President Biden must be accountable and accept responsibility for this awkward episode. The most important thing here is not preventing political embarrassment, it’s protecting our nation’s security.”

https://thespectator.com/topic/double-standard-for-the-biden-documents-trump-hillary/

President Biden said Tuesday he was “surprised” to learn that in November his lawyers had found classified documents in his former office at a Washington think tank. No doubt he was equally shocked when more classified docs turned up in his Delaware home.

Yet the tone of the mainstream media seems to be that boys will be boys. Since Biden is being so cooperative with authorities after being caught red-handed, maybe this has nothing in common with Donald Trump’s cache of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Or Hillary’s cache on her private e-mail server. Could there be a double-standard?

Biden had some/several/a bunch of classified documents while Trump had hundreds so that’s different. Yes, on Sesame Street four is bigger than three, but with classified documents it is not a meaningful difference. The law is clear: each document is a violation, and there are no discounts for having under a certain number. One classified document is enough to seek an indictment. But let’s not forget about Hillary Clinton, who was allowed not only to carry over 33,000 subpoenaed documents in the form of emails out of secure spaces on her server, but to delete them. Imagine if Biden reported that he and his team had simply deleted whatever they had found, never mind whether Trump had had a bonfire.

Biden’s documents were safe inside a locked closet. Classification law is extremely clear as to how documents must be stored, specifying, for example, how many minutes a safe is expected to withstand an attempt to cut it open. In the case of the Secure Compartmentalized Information (SCI) level of docs that Biden, Trump, and Hillary held, details are written into law and regulation as to what type of room, with what type of door, they are to be stored in. “Closet” does not fit the definition, whether it is at Biden’s place, Mar-a-Lago or Hillary’s home.

Nobody saw the documents. Maybe it wasn’t to standard, but they were kept under lock and key. No blood, no foul. Really? The reason all those laws and regulations regarding classified material exist is to safeguard them absolutely, so arguing whether the cleaning crew would have had access to them does not cover it. Marines guard these documents 24/7 in the equivalent of a bank vault deep inside the White House. With Hillary, an unclassified, insecure, out-of-the-box email server connected to the internet meant any hacker with moderate skills, including those assigned to attack her official trips to China and Russia, presumably had full access.

Biden’s documents were just old briefing notes, nothing so important. If the documents were labeled Top Secret or SCI when they were created, then that was their classification, no matter what we think of the contents today. The law is clear that arguing the level of classification after getting caught is not a viable defense strategy, and retroactive declassification is not an option. “The documents were not important even though they were classified” is not any better.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/13/is-the-deep-state-coming-after-joe-biden/

The second half of Joe Biden’s presidential term has officially gotten off to an ignominious start.

Earlier in the week, CBS News first broke the story that Biden had been storing classified documents, taken from his previous stint as vice president to Barack Obama, at the Chinese-funded Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement “think tank.” Those classified documents were first identified by Biden’s personal attorneys, CBS reported, on Nov. 2—a full six days before the midterm elections. Richard Sauber, Biden’s special counsel, claimed that the White House counsel’s office quickly notified the National Archives, which seized the documents posthaste.

That alone would be bad enough for a president who utterly excoriated former President Donald Trump in the aftermath of last August’s unprecedented predawn FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s palatial Palm Beach estate, due to Trump’s own classified document retention scandal. Biden openly wondered to CBS’ “60 Minutes” news program weeks after the FBI raid “how anyone could be that irresponsible.”

The galling hypocrisy from the Penn Biden Center incident would have been bad enough. But then, Joe Biden’s week got even worse.

Adding insult to injury, on Thursday two separate tranches of additional classified documents from the Obama-Biden Administration were found in Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, personal home. All but one of the documents was found in a storage space in Biden’s garage. That garage was “locked,” the president quickly pointed out in a flippant attempt at deescalation, and also housed his prized Corvette. One other classified document was found strewn about elsewhere in the house, outside the garage.

Attorney General Merrick Garland responded to the news with the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Biden’s misdeeds. Garland, of course, had done the same for Trump almost two months prior, on Nov. 18. At least from Garland’s perspective, it seems both men are “irresponsible” enough and present sufficiently politically delicate positions so as to require a special counsel.

But obvious similarities—hence, Biden’s egregious hypocrisy stemming from his earlier attempt to seize a moral high ground—in these situations aside, there are some crucial differences. Those differences do not reflect well on the current White House occupant.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/01/13/meet-lyin-clyde-shavers-the-democrat-george-santos-n1660846

Americans are shocked, shocked that there are liars in politics. The most gobsmacked of all are politicians – especially Democrats – who can’t believe that the likes of that evil Republican, George Santos, a gay-ish, Jew-ish, Catholic, non-college graduate was elected to a Long Island, N.Y., congressional seat after lying about his resume. Strangely, Democrats have been nothing but ebullient about the successful campaign of a newly elected Washington State legislator known locally as Lyin’ Clyde Shavers.

‘Lyin’ Clyde’s story is one for the books. Clyde wants to be your president someday and he’s willing to go the Joe Biden route to do it. If Joe Biden can be president after co-opting the life story of a UK politician; lying about law school and how many degrees he has; lying about being right about any foreign policy opinion he’s ever had (see Afghanistan); lying about being Jewish, Puerto Rican, Italian, a truck driver, sexually assaulting a staffer, jobs numbers, infrastructure, his role as The Big Guy, Chinese and Ukraine payoffs, and his dad, Corn Pop, all while swearing he’s telling the truth “on his word as a Biden,” then so can Lyin’ Clyde.

Clyde has a magnificent start.

The newly elected state legislator who just took his seat this week was outed as a liar by his own father, who, during the campaign, wrote an extraordinary letter to The Lynwood Times, a local newspaper.

His Dad says Lyin’ Clyde lied about his family background, claimed to be a submariner with the U.S. Navy when he never served on a sub; parachuted into the district, and moved into a bed and breakfast to qualify as a “resident”; claimed to be a working attorney when he hasn’t passed the Washington State bar; made up inspirational quotes his father never said; and claimed to be homeless at a point in his life.

In his letter, Brett Shavers laid bare what he called his son’s lies about his U.S. Navy service while running for office in a district that contains the Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

https://www.realclearbooks.com/articles/2023/01/11/the_new_jew_874920.html

It was early December when The Chosen Comedy Festival came to Miami. It had been a tough few weeks for Jews.

Kanye was on his “I love Hitler” tour and it seemed like too many people wanted to hear what he had to say. The New York Times was running regular pieces about problems they saw in the Haredi communities of Brooklyn, and absolutely nowhere else, and even the secular Jews who nodded approvingly at the first write-up were starting to notice the obsession.

A rabbi friend once told me that Jews are the only people that when someone says “I hate you” say “let’s hear him out.” But at the end of 2022, Jews were finally unwilling to hear anyone out. The hatred at us had gotten old. We were collectively tired of being the target and we were craving being together in an actually safe space.

It had been 4 years since the Tree of Life shooting, 3 years since the Monsey stabbing. We weren’t over those attacks, at least in part because less deadlier attacks on Jews in places like Brooklyn were happening regularly both before and after those killings. We weren’t raw anymore. We were something else. Inside the community, something was shifting.

The easy explanation is political. Jews are moving rightward. Slowly. An Associated Press survey found that President Donald Trump’s share of the Jewish vote went from 24% in 2016 to 30% in 2020. Exit polls had 33% of Jews voting Republican in the midterm elections and exit polls require someone to tell the truth to a pollster, something a lifelong Democrat switching sides for the first time might not be ready to do. Some people credit the Jewish vote with swinging several close House seats in New York and ultimately netting Republicans the House of Representatives.

https://victorhanson.com/the-january-6th-insurrection/

Here is what we do not understand about the January 6th Committee—if it truly was intended to appear as a disinterested investigatory body.

1. Why for the first time in memory did Speaker Pelosi forbid the House Minority Leader’s pro forma nominees to a special House committee? Fairly or not, the result was that the only two Republicans who did serve shared two embarrassing requisites: they would likely be out office, and not by their own volition, in January 2023; and two, they despised Donald Trump and voted for the second Trump impeachment.

So, what were the Democrats afraid of to make them break all precedents with past hearings? Pelosi, in other words, ensured that there would be no cross-examinations of any witnesses, no disagreements about witness lists, no contrasting interviews to the media about the work of the committee, and no diversity in staff interrogatories.

2. Why did not the Committee investigate whether the FBI had numerous agents and informants present on January 6th? Michael Rosenberg, the New York Times assigned reporter to the demonstration, claimed they were ubiquitous. Were they?

3. Why did not the Committee review the circumstances in detail of the deaths of Officer Brian Sicknick and the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt. These were the two most high-profile and controversial deaths on January 6th, and Babbitt’s perhaps was the only violent death at the direct hand of a known other?

4. Why did not the Committee investigate and release all the communications between the House leadership and the Capitol police to learn why the Capitol was virtually open and unsecured on a day that everyone knew would be the scene of mass protests there?

5. Why did not the Committee investigate all incendiary speech by major elected officials at iconic Washington buildings, deemed inflammatory and allegedly resulting in violence at a subsequent time? For example, in 2020 then Senator Minority Leader Chuck Schumer screamed to a large demonstration massed at the doors of the Supreme Court:

I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh—you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19316/george-santos

Unless he has lied on government forms, it is unlikely that he can be successfully prosecuted or civilly sued. His victims are primarily the voters who cast ballots for a person who was very different from who they believed him to be.

No congressman has ever been removed for defrauding voters, but if there were ever a case for doing so, this would be it. The House would be reluctant to use that nuclear option because it would subject many incumbents to scrutiny for their electoral lies.

The dangers of punishing general falsehoods is demonstrated by the laws of other countries. In Poland it is a crime to state that the Polish people participated in the Holocaust, although that statement is absolutely true as a matter of history. Polish people not only collaborated with Nazis, some continued to kill Jews even after the Nazis left. The Polish parliament has declared the historic truth to be a punishable lie.

In Turkey, it is a crime to say that the Armenian genocide occurred. In France it is a crime to say that this very same event did not occur.

The alternative to freedom of speech is necessarily some form of censorship. Throughout history censorship by governments, churches and other powerful institutions has been the rule. It has not worked. Nor has untrammeled free speech worked perfectly. But history has clearly demonstrated that censorship is far more dangerous to liberty than is free speech.

“[W]e have nothing to fear from the demoralizing reasoning of some, if others are left free to demonstrate their errors…” – Thomas Jefferson, July 3, 1801.

[A]s long as truth tellers are able to respond to liars, we have far more to fear from censorship than from free speech.

Congressman George Santos has lived a life of lies. He has lied about his early life, his academic record, his business experience, his wealth, his heritage, his personal life and his criminal record. He is fortunate that the vast majority of these lies have not been under oath. Nor have they defamed specific individuals. Unless he has lied on government forms, it is unlikely that he can be successfully prosecuted or civilly sued. His victims are primarily the voters who cast ballots for a person who was very different from who they believed him to be.

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/12/what-the-january-6-videos-will-show/

The jury trial of Richard Barnett, the man famously photographed with his feet on a desk in Nancy Pelosi’s office on January 6, 2021, is underway in Washington, D.C. Nearly two years to the date of his arrest, Barnett finally had a chance to defend himself in court on multiple charges, including obstruction of an official proceeding.

But it was not the fiery, outspoken Barnett who provided the most jaw-dropping testimony in the trial so far. To the contrary, one of the government’s own witnesses confirmed under defense cross-examination that “agents provocateur” were heavily involved in instigating the events of January 6. 

Captain Carneysha Mendoza, a tactical commander for U.S. Capitol Police at the time, testified Wednesday how a group of agitators destroyed security barriers and lured people to Capitol grounds that afternoon:

Defense Counsel Brad Geyer: Isn’t it true that you had a lot of people, a large quantity of people walking down two streets that dead-ended at the Capitol?

Mendoza: Yes, sir.

https://pjmedia.com/columns/davidhasanyi/2023/01/13/on-classified-documents-joe-biden-is-out-of-excuses-n1661357

Every president probably stashes away classified documents. The chances of any president being successfully prosecuted for pilfering them are infinitesimal. Nevertheless, Joe Biden has engaged in the same behavior as Donald Trump — perhaps worse, since vice presidents are unable to declassify documents — and precedent and transparency, our very democracy, demanded that Attorney General Merrick Garland name a special counsel to investigate. 

Right now, none of the rationalizations offered by the media for Biden’s actions over the past few days work anymore. When the story first broke, outlets stressed that one of the vital “distinctions” between the two incidents was that Biden was in possession of fewer documents than Trump. Biden aides, we learned, had been utterly shocked to discover only a “small number” of classified documents “locked” in the personal offices of the president’s “think tank” — as if the location or the number of documents, or the alleged lock, rather than the contents, were the most newsworthy aspect of the story.

Soon we learned that a second “batch” of classified documents was uncovered at an “undisclosed” location. Biden aides, we are told, began diligently rummaging through boxes to ensure they were in complete compliance with the law. NBC News reported that “the search was described as exhaustive, with the goal of getting a full accounting of all classified documents that may have inadvertently been packed in boxes when Biden cleared out of the vice president’s office space in January 2017.” It’s heartening to know that the Bidens are such diligent, law-abiding folk.

Yesterday, we were told that classified documents that are found in a serious office setting, rather than just “lying around” in a home, was an important difference between the two cases. Today, Biden’s lawyer says that “small number” of classified documents was also found “locked” in Biden’s garage and an “adjacent” room of his Wilmington, Delaware, home. (Don’t worry, the president assures us it was safely stored next to his beloved Corvette.) You know, if we find another “small number” of documents, we might just have ourselves a full cache.

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2023/01/12/should-someone-this-dumb-to-be-the-special-counsel-investigating-joe-bidens-stolen-classified-documents-scandal-n1661310

We’re assured that the person hired to be special counsel in the Joe Biden classified document scandal, Robert Hur, “has a great record. He is a superb lawyer.” He was a pivotal right-hand man in a high governmental office. He “has a long and distinguished career as a federal prosecutor.” And was a key person dealing with a very special, special counsel.

That guy sounds like a total legal dreamboat. Except that those accolades were spoken by none other than disgraced former-deputy attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who conspired with the fellow disgracee Andrew McCabe to wear a wire to catch Donald Trump in a 25th Amendment-worthy meltdown because they hated him so much.

Pardon me if I don’t swoon.

The high government official was at the right hand of the awful FBI Director Chris Wray, who has overseen the complete transmogrification of the bureau from a law enforcement agency to an intelligence entity that spies on Americans. And the man touting his “distinguished career” is none other than the most ideologically Leftist hack who’s ever disgraced the office of the attorney general, Merrick Garland. And that’s saying something. Looking at you, “wingman” Eric Holder.

And there’s more. Robert Hur is the man who served as the DOJ point man to Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation looking into Donald Trump’s alleged side hustle as a Russian secret agent — Double 45.

He is the same guy who vetted retired British spy Christopher Steele, a disgraced (sensing a pattern here?) spy who was fired by the FBI (and then used on the QT by his cutout Bruce Ohr) and hired actual Russian spies on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign to make up information on Trump.