Tag Archive for: Ukraine

Biden Focuses On Issues Americans Care Least About In Biggest Speech Of Presidency

President Joe Biden set aside immigration, inflation and crime to lead his 2024 State of the Union speech with a trio of issues that hardly register in polls of the American people.

During the first ten minutes of his 2024 State of the Union address, Biden spent his time discussing the war in Ukraine and the Jan. 6 Capitol riot before moving on to discuss the COVID-19 pandemic. At least an hour after the president was scheduled to take the podium, he finally touched on concerns about his age, the southern border crisis and answered the growing calls to say Laken Riley’s name, the deceased Georgia 22-year-old who was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant.

“If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not,” the 81-year-old began. “But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking. They are not asking for American soldiers.”

“In fact, there are no American soldiers at war in Ukraine. And I am determined to keep it that way. But now assistance for Ukraine is being blocked by those who want us to walk away from our leadership in the world,” he continued.

After stressing his message to Putin and making a pitch for more Ukraine aid, Biden pivoted to another topic that occurred nearly three and a half years ago: the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The president never addressed former President Donald Trump by name, rather referring to him as his predecessor.

“January 6th and the lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to steal the election, posed the gravest threat to our democracy since the Civil War,” Biden said. “But they failed. America stood strong and democracy prevailed. But we must be honest the threat remains and democracy must be defended.”

“My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth of January 6th. I will not do that,” Biden continued.

Biden cast the recovery from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic as a story of American comeback.

“America’s comeback is building a future of American possibilities, building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down, investing in all of America, in all Americans to make sure everyone has a fair shot and we leave no one behind,” Biden said.

“The pandemic no longer controls our lives. The vaccines that saved us from COVID are now being used to help beat cancer,” he continued.

While Biden and his advisors deemed Ukraine, COVID-19 and the January 6th Capitol as the best topics to open the address with, the American people have indicated an interest in other topics. Immigration is now Americans’ top concern, with 28% naming it their top priority, according to a February Gallup poll. Twenty percent of American voters called “government” their top priority while 12% named the “economy in general.”

Only nine percent of Americans called “threats to democracy,” a common phrase Biden and his allies have used to characterize Trump and his administration, their top priority, according to a January Data for Progress survey.

Just 3% of American voters said foreign aid and issues overseas are their priority — the very topic Biden chose to open his State of the Union with.

Those issues that Americans have deemed their top concerns came in the second half of Biden’s speech, about thirty minutes into his address. When discussing the border crisis, the president repeated his calls for Congress to pass a supplemental funding bill that would provide funds to stem the border crisis, while also giving aid to both Ukraine and Israel. Most notably, the president was confronted by Georgia Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, who called out during the address and begged the president to say the name of Riley.

Biden tried to, but he botched Riley’s first name and instead referring to her as “Lincoln.”

“Lincoln. Lincoln Riley,” Biden said, holding up a pin with the late female’s name. “The innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right.”

The slip-up was the only major flub for Biden, who saved the final moments of his speech to address his age, another key concern for voters.

“Now some other people my age see a different story. An American story of resentment, revenge, and retribution. That’s not me,” Biden said, before going on to tout the experience his age gives him.

Biden’s fitness for office remained a main concern ahead of his address. At least 66% of American voters are worried about Biden’s age and health ahead of the 2024 election, according to a Feb. 6 NBC poll. But the worries for Biden’s health truly ignited following special counsel Robert Hur’s report on the president’s handling of classified documents last month. Hur noted that in a five hour interview with the special counsel, the president appeared to forget when he began and ended his vice presidency and was unable to identify the date that late son passed away.

There was an emphasis on the president’s energy during his State of the Union address, a moment his re-election campaign is reportedly planning to use as a reset while he trails in the polls. In preparation, Biden reportedly spent ample time fine tuning his address and doing physical tests. Regardless of the prep work, some Democrats and allies still feared potential gaffes.

“If I was smart I would go home now,” Biden said as he took the podium.

AUTHOR

REAGAN REESE

White House correspondent. Follow Reagan on Twitter.

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Dr. Strangelove Returns From The Dead

Vladimir Putin on Thursday threatened global nuclear war if the West followed through on hints by French president Macron that NATO was contemplating sending troops to Ukraine.

Putin made those comments in his annual “state of the nation” address. Less than 24-hours later, he followed up by test-firing a solid-fuel Yars ICBM, which NATO dubs the SS-29.

The Yars, like its newer cousin, the liquid-fueled Sarmat (Satan-2), can carry nuclear-armed hypersonic glide vehicles that fly at speeds up to Mach 25 and that can defeat any missile defense systems currently deployed or under development. Both missiles, and a variety of hypersonic re-entry vehicles, are part of a $650 billion upgrade to Russia’s nuclear arsenal Putin announced more a decade ago.

As for Macron (or Little Cookie, as I call him in my latest book, Raising Olives in Provence), made his careless comments at a NATO summit in Paris on Monday.

But the one who really let the cat out of the bag was German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who told the group that Germany was not going to send its Taurus long range cruise missiles to Ukraine because it would require German military personnel on the ground.

Taurus “is a very long-range weapon,” he said, “and what was done on the part of the British and French in terms of target-control and target-control assistance can’t be done in Germany.” That prompted British lawmaker Tobias Elwood to tell London’s Daily Telegraph that Scholz had committed “a flagrant abuse of intelligence.”

That is undoubtedly true. Both comments were picked up by the online service of Russia Today (or RT, as it’s now called), Putin’s megaphone to the West.

The deployment to Ukraine of NATO weaponry that can reach deep into Russia has long been a red line for Putin. “They should eventually realize that we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory,” he said on Thursday. “Everything that the West comes up with creates the real threat of a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and thus the destruction of civilization,” he added.

And if the threat of global nuclear war from Russia wasn’t enough, also on Thursday the commander of U.S. Space Force, General Stephen Whiting, told Congress that China has expanded its military capabilities in space at a “breathtaking pace,” with some 359 satellites currently in orbit, three times the number aloft in 2018.

Whiting testified that some of China’s satellites “could function as weapons that can disrupt” U.S. satellites. Like Russia, China was developing hypersonic glide vehicles capable of defeating U.S. missile defenses.

You could call this week’s events a throwback to the era of Dr. Strangelove, except that they involved real leaders, not Hollywood fictions.

©2024. Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Western Islamists Work to Build the Taliban’s Afghanistan into a Global Caliphate


I discuss this and developments in Iran and Israel on this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend. As always, you can listen live on Saturday at 1 PM on 104.9 FM or 550 AM, or by using the Jacksonville Way Radio app. And if you miss it, you can download the podcast here.

Negotiate, you fools!

For the first time since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine two years ago, the possibility of negotiations has emerged on the horizon.

Both Putin and Zelenskiiy have indicated in recent interviews that they are now open to negotiations. In his two-hour history lesson to Tucker Carlson, Putin recalled the Istanbul negotiations in March-April 2022. “We were ready to sign it and the war would have been over long ago,” Putin said, but British Prime Minister Boris Johnson swung by and told Zelenskiiy to hold off.

In his interview with FoxNews host Bret Baier that aired on Thursday night, Zelenskiiy poured cold water on the notion that an agreement had been at hand in Istanbul in 2022, but said he was ready to talk with Putin today. Clearly the near-encirclement of Ukrainian forces at Avdiivka, and the heavy losses they took in their hot withdrawal, helped focus his mind. So has the reticence of Republicans in Congress to write Kyiv another blank check.

Exactly how, and under whose auspices those talks take place is another story. Since Zelenskiiy is understandably demanding great power guarantees, that will mean buy-in from the U.S., France, and Germany as well as Russia.

Ironically, the party most reticent to come to the table is Joe Biden. Just this week, he doubled-down yet again on his “Putin the murderer” rhetoric (aided, for sure, by the apparent murder of dissident Alexei Navalny in a Siberian jail). But like the Chekist he is, Putin didn’t take offense at Biden’s words, telling a Russian journalist Russia would deal with anyone the American people elected president, but would prefer Biden because he was more “predictable” than Trump and a known quantity.

Meanwhile, the rumors of expanded war in Europe intensified this week. Putin’s deputy, former president Dmitry Medvedev played bad cop and said that Russia needed to change the government in Kyiv and probably occupy the Ukrainian capital, to prevent “encroachments” on Russian land.

And in Moldova, the Russian breakaway region of Transnistria hinted it would call a referendum to approve Russia’s annexation of the territory, possibly as soon as February 28, with a Putin speech already planned for the next day.

As I explain in this week’s Prophecy Today Weekend, Transnistria is a narrow strip of land on Ukraine’s southwest border with Moldova. If it fell under Russia control, this would add yet another front to the war. But as It is completely landlocked, and not contiguous with the Russian front lines, resupply would be a challenge.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sketched out his vision for the future of Gaza this morning, and it fell pretty much in line with what I previously surmised in my white paper, “Israel’s War of Survival and the End of the Two-State Solution,” released by the America First Policy Institute last month. Gaza must be completely demilitarized, with Israel in control of security, and local Palestinians with no prior ties to Hamas or other terror groups in charge of civilian affairs.

What Netanyahu did not say, however, was how Israel would find such a rare breed of Palestinian. As I write in And the Rest is History: Tales of Hostages, Arms Dealers, Dirty Tricks, and Spies, Israel has been trying for decades to find such Palestinians, and when they do, the other Palestinians (i.e., the PLO or Hamas) murder them.

©2024. Kenneth R. Timmerman. All rights reserved.

Reflections on Russia-Ukraine War — 2 Years Later

This is a repost of an article authored by a priest in the Orthodox Church of America whose wife is Ukrainian and still has family in Ukraine. The article was written two years ago, just as the war broke out, and as I read over it, it struck me how it could have easily been written yesterday. Truth is like that. It ages well. Below is an excerpt from his article, published February 25, 2022, under the title A Reflection on Ukraine, America, Russia, and War


A Reflection on Ukraine, America, Russia, and War

By Fr. Zachariah Lynch

Few it seems have cared, up until now, that the faithful of Ukraine are being subjected to spiritual violence (which has manifested physically). Few it seems have cared that the Ecumenical Patriarchate is in open and full communion with unrepentant schismatics.

(To educate yourself on the Ukrainian government’s pernicious work to divide the Orthodox in that country and use one side to commit violence against the other, see my article from last year, U.S./NATO-funded proxy war in Ukraine fueling hatred, persecution of ancient Christian community.)

So spiritual violence has been ravaging Ukraine, and few have said much. We value a nominal “peace” above true peace, for true peace cannot be had in communion with false brethren. Now major physical violence is taking place, but what is worse for the soul, spiritual or material violence?

Could it be that the assault on the spiritual peace of Ukraine has affected its physical peace?

How many Americans have been aware that there has been an effective civil war in eastern Ukraine since 2014? How many of us were concerned when Ukrainians were shooting at and killing Ukrainians? Was that okay?

As an American, I will speak to my country. I’m not in Russia. I don’t support the attack. But, we, as Americans, should ask ourselves – is Russia doing anything much different than our own country has done? When in the 21st century alone have we “respected” other nations’ sovereign boards? (Look at our southern border at current!)

At the end of the 20th century, it was a US-led NATO that dismantled Yugoslavia. New borders, created by the US and friends, were established. These borders served US interests. Let us look at the Middle East, when did we respect borders there? The US has stated and acted upon the notion – if a leader is deemed bad and against “freedom and democracy,” it is a duty to overthrow such a leader and carve up the country as the Western powers see fit. When we do it, it is “good.” When Russia does the same thing, it is bad. (Again I’m not justifying anything, I’m making an analogy.) The US government is the epitome of the pot calling the kettle black, as are most of the European powers. Let us as Americans reflect that in this century alone our government waged almost none stop war since 2001. The US government has been in conflict with some countries or states for two decades. If we go back and count the years starting from the end of World War II, the number of years of war or conflict involving the US government is much more than the number of years with no conflict. And we are going to lecture the world on peace? All that to say, we are guilty of the very things we accuse Russia of doing. I guess that is called hypocrisy. The finger we are pointing at Russia is dripping with blood. Maybe we should wash our own hands first.

I’m an American. I honor my country, but I do not support the agenda of war and violence driving much of foreign policy. I’m very grieved by it. Let us take care of our own house first. As in many places, I do not think the government always reflects the people. I think most people want peace and to live their daily lives in calm. Sadly, there are many in power who are hell-bent on stirring up conflict and trouble for the world and people at large. We should also realize that US foreign policy has also played a role in cultivating the current events in Ukraine.

I think that a part of what is transpiring is the typical distraction tactic. The Covid crisis has revealed that the “free” West is not as “free” as it claims. Many Western countries went full dictator mode, thus revealing their true colors. Oh, yes, of course, to keep us all safe because they care for us from their million-dollar mansions. America is in deep crisis and turmoil, much of it fed by certain agendas that are actively seeking to encourage fear, hatred, and division. Our own house is tumbling and corroding away. Oh, but look! That dastardly Putin! He’s a new Hitler. I guess it takes one to know one. In America, the attempt is being made to distract us again. And yes some are insane enough to pursue a war with Russia to do so. I don’t know how far the events will go, but I do know from history that war is a great distraction and even a wonderful tool for “rebuilding” the world.

Of course, one could wander down the labyrinth of geopolitical agendas. I’m familiar with a number of them. I won’t do that right now. The historic discrimination of the Western world against Orthodoxy could be noted as an aspect also. But that is a big subject.

In closing to this my few thoughts, I will return to the spiritual aspect.

What can we as Christians do? Repent. Russia, for all its problems, is not our enemy.

Have we in America repented of the many wars and atrocities perpetrated in the name of our country? Should we not start there? Are we repenting for the “legal” slaughter of babies in their mother’s womb? Are we repenting for the open promotion, in the name of our country, of numerous forms of debauchery and immorality? Are we repenting for the epidemic of drug abuse and suicide in our nation? Are we repenting for being the top exporter of corrosive “culture” and “values?” Are we repenting for the destruction of the family and the explosion of divorce, adultery, fornication, and porn? This list could go on. It seems our own house is full of enemies.

Read the entire article here.

Copyright 2024. Leo Hohmann. All rights reserved.


LeoHohmann.com is 100 percent reader supported, not beholden to any corporate ads or sponsorships. If you appreciate the independent analysis you see here and would like to support my work, you may send a donation of any size c/o Leo Hohmann, P.O. Box 291, Newnan, GA 30264, or via credit card HERE. Thank you.

‘Dead On Arrival’: Mike Johnson Rips Reported Details Of Senate Border Deal

House Speaker Mike Johnson sent a letter to all House Republicans on Friday indicating his opposition to reported details of a border security deal being negotiated in the Senate.

The Senate is currently considering proposals to increase border security and reform the immigrant parole process for asylum seekers, demanded by Republicans, in exchange for authorizing aid to Ukraine to be used in its war against Russia. After alleged details of the plan were reported in the press, Johnson indicated that he would not support the deal should they be included, according to the letter which was obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I wanted to provide a brief update regarding the supplemental and the border since the Senate appears unable to reach any agreement,” began Johnson in his letter. “If the rumors about the contents of the draft proposals are true, it would have been dead on arrival in the House anyway.”

Letter from Speaker Mike Johnson of Jan. 26, 2024 by Daily Caller News Foundation on Scribd

The negotiations — currently being led by Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — have not yet been completed and a draft proposal has not been published. However, several media reports have alleged contents of the deal, which have spawned conservative opposition.

One alleged aspect of the deal, reported by The New York Times, concerns reform of “humanitarian parole,” a status granted by the Department of Homeland Security that temporarily permits some foreign nationals fleeing persecution to remain in the United States without obtaining a visa. The Biden administration has issued parole status to millions of foreign nationals from nations such as Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Ukraine.

Republicans seek to significantly curtail parole issuance to foreign nationals seeking asylum, who either present themselves at a port of entry or cross the border illegally. The draft proposal in the Senate would reportedly add detention capacity for U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to preclude the issuance of parole to illegal entrants, which is often done due to a paucity of space, the Times reported.

The deal also reportedly includes a reported threshold of migrant encounters per day that, if reached, would suspend parole and processing of foreign migrants. The threshold is reportedly 5,000 individuals per day, though that number is far below the current number of daily migrant encounters by Border Patrol, the Times reported.

“[T]here needs to be a hard cap on parole,” said Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

“[T]hey want this outcome and this outcome is terrible for the American people,” said Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas on Thursday during a press conference to oppose the deal, which he termed a “stinking pile of crap,” according to The Hill.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell supports the deal, according to a report by Politico. “He’s fully behind the border bill, fully behind the support for Ukraine and is not going to let political considerations of any campaign stand in the way of his support,” said Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, regarding McConnell’s views on the matter.

In 2023, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2, known as the “Secure the Border Act,” which has served as the body’s border security proposal in negotiations. The bill would appropriate funds to construct a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico, prohibit asylum status for persons who enter the country illegally and expand the authority of law enforcement to remove foreign nationals ordered deported.

Other Republicans, however, have attacked the alleged parole reform for not being strict enough. “What is currently being worked on in the Senate will be meaningless in terms of Border Security and Closure,” wrote former President Donald Trump, the leading candidate for the party’s presidential nomination, in a statement.

Democrats, by contrast, want to preserve parole authority and limit removals of aliens, who have long been settled in the country yet are ordered deported from the United States. “Expanded nationwide expedited removal is an incredibly dangerous tool,” said Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla of California to NBC.

“I am emphasizing again today that House Republicans will vigorously oppose any policy proposal from the White House or the Senate that would further incentivize illegal aliens to break our laws,” Johnson wrote.

AUTHOR

ARJUN SINGH

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Senior Ukrainian Military Officer Behind Nord Stream Pipeline Attack: REPORT

A Ukrainian military officer involved with the country’s intelligence services allegedly played a leading role in the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022, sources familiar with the matter told The Washington Post.

Roman Chervinsky, a 48-year-old colonel who served in Ukrainian Special Forces, was the “coordinator” of the operation to blow up the pipeline, according to the Post. Chervinsky’s role allegedly involved managing logistics for the team that rented a sailboat and used diving equipment to plant explosives on the pipelines.

Chervinsky allegedly took orders from senior Ukrainian officials who reported to the Ukrainian Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, sources familiar with the matter told the Post. Chervinsky denied being involved in sabotaging the pipeline.

“All speculations about my involvement in the attack on Nord Stream are being spread by Russian propaganda without any basis,” Chervinsky told the Post.

Chervinsky served in a unit of the Ukrainian Special Forces focused on resistance in Russian-occupied areas earlier in the conflict, sources familiar with the matter told the Post. He reported to Maj. Gen. Viktor Hanushchak who communicated with Zaluzhny.

Chervinsky previously served in the Ukraine’s military intelligence agency as well as Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, according to the Post.

Authorities allege that Chervinsky, who was arrested in April, acted without permission and that the operation gave away the coordinates of a Ukrainian airfield, prompting a Russian rocket attack that killed a soldier and injured 17 others. Chervinsky is being held in a Kyiv jail on charges that he abused his power stemming from a plot to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022.

“All of those involved in planning and execution reported directly to [chief of defense] Zaluzhnyy, so Zelensky wouldn’t have known about it,” according to intelligence obtained by the CIA allegedly shared by Jack Teixeira, a member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard. Officials in multiple countries privately said they did not believe Zelensky approved the Nord Stream attack, according to the Post.

Accusations flew following the pipeline explosion, with world leaders blaming a multitude of different actors. Former President Donald Trump hinted that it might have been done by the U.S. and European Parliament representative for Poland Radek Sikorski appeared to cheer on the pipeline explosion. Some pointed to Russia and Vladimir Putin for the bombings, according to The Hill.

Chervinsky could not be reached for comment.

AUTHOR

BRANDON POULTER

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Kirby Says US Not Investigating Nord Stream Pipeline After Report Shows Biden Admin Knew Months In Advance

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

House Passes H.R. 8126 the ‘Israel Aid Bill’ Funded by IRS Cuts

The House of Representatives passed a bill on Thursday that would send military aid to Israel during its conflict with Hamas, which will be funded by cuts to funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

The Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 would provide funds to the Department of Defense to replace equipment provided to Israel as military aid, fund research for new air defense systems that are being developed by Israel, such as the Iron Beam aerial laser program, and fund the Department of State’s programs to evacuate U.S. citizens from the region as well as protect U.S. diplomatic missions under new threats due to the conflict. The bill was passed by a vote of 226 yeas to 196 nays, with most Democrats voting against the bill.

“House Republicans are bringing forward a bill to ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself as it fights to eliminate the threat from Hamas,” wrote House Majority Steve Scalise in an email to the Daily Caller News Foundation ahead of the vote. “Israel has every right to defend itself against such heinous actions, and we must stand with them in their fight against our shared enemies for self-determination, democracy, and freedom.”

H.R. 6126 – Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 by Daily Caller News Foundation on Scribd

The bill was introduced by Republican Rep. Kay Granger of Texas, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, along with 100 other Republican co-sponsors. It has been strongly opposed by Senate Democrats, with Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray tweeting that “[t]he House GOP’s bill is dead on arrival” in the upper chamber, and the Biden administration stating that President Joe Biden would veto the bill if presented to him.

Biden had previously proposed a supplemental appropriations bill worth over $100 billion to fund aid not only to Israel but also to Ukraine during its war against Russia as well as provide funds for border security and immigration processing at the U.S. border with Mexico. That request was widely criticized by House Republicans, who indicated that the proposal would not receive support in their chamber, where they hold a majority.

A nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) review of the bill’s budgetary effects estimated that it would increase the fiscal deficit by nearly $12.5 billion over ten years until 2033. The CBO noted that funds cut from the IRS are intended to support enforcement actions against delinquent taxpayers, which “would result in fewer enforcement actions over the next decade and in a reduction in revenue collections,” according to the office’s report to Congress.

“Speaker Johnson and House Republicans released a totally unserious and woefully inadequate package that omitted aid to Ukraine, omitted humanitarian assistance to Gaza, had no funding for the Indo-Pacific, and made funding for Israel conditional on hard-right, never-going-to-pass proposals. What a joke,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the floor of the Senate on Wednesday.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Will Reinart criticized Democrats in a statement to the DCNF for opposing the bill “as terrorists continue their barbaric attacks.”

Ahead of the bill’s consideration by the House, several House Republicans indicated to the DCNF that they would not have voted for a bill providing military aid unless it was offset by corresponding spending cuts.

“We are in the worst fiscal crisis our country has ever faced,” said Republican Rep. Bob Good of Virginia to the DCNF. “We ought to require offsets, cuts to … the IRS expansion in order to fund [the bill]. We shouldn’t be borrowing from China, borrowing from our kids’ and grandkids’ future to fund the Israeli funding. Even though it’s good policy, we literally don’t have the money.”

“We need to have the offsets,” Good said when pressed on whether he’d support a bill to aid Israel without offsetting cuts. This point was echoed by Republican Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus.

“Funding for many of those things needs to be offset because we are running trillion-dollar deficits at this point,” Perry told the DCNF. “Since the president refuses to be the adult in the room … that’s going to be the House of Representatives,” he added.

“I do not believe we should write another blank check to anyone, including ourselves, we must pay for it. And the American people must see that it’s going to cause something if we’re going to give another $14 billion to Israel,” said Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas in comments shared with the DCNF. “If you see me in the end having to vote against Israel funding, just make sure you heard it here first, right? I support Israel. But I am not going to continue to go down this road where we bankrupt our country.”

Schumer and the Israeli Mission to the United States did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

ARJUN SINGH

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘White Rage’: General Mark Milley Leaves Behind A Checkered Legacy

  • Gen. Mark Milley retired Friday after serving four years as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under both presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
  • Some view Milley as an upstanding adviser and protector of democracy, but many conservative leaders deride him as a political actor too willing to make his views on controversial progressive policies known.
  • “It’s his nature to pitch into a fight if he sees one going on,” retired Lt. Col. Thomas Spoehr, who served with Milley in the Pentagon, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Gen. Mark Milley retired Friday after serving four years as the top military adviser to the president and the secretary of defense. He is perhaps the most well-known individual to ever serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a development that seems likely to color his legacy for years to come.

Milley’s term was punctuated with crises: the Afghanistan withdrawal, nuclear tensions with Iran and North Korea, defense of Taiwan and Ukraine against would-be conquerors, and domestic turmoil. While some venerate Milley as an American hero who shepherded democracy through a chaotic administration turnover, many conservatives deride him as a political actor who obediently went along with the Biden administration’s progressive agenda.

“General Milley destroyed the U.S military’s 250-year tradition of staying above partisan politics. That’s his legacy,” Republican Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana, a Navy reserve veteran who serves on the Armed Services Committee and leads the House Anti-Woke Caucus, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Milley was a brash, combative former special operations officer with strong opinions informed by his four decades of experience in the Army and his deep affinity for history and literature, retired Lt. Col. Thomas Spoehr, who served with Milley in the Pentagon, told the DCNF.

Former President Donald Trump, who appointed Milley as chairman, is thought to have appreciated Milley’s machismo and appearance as the general’s general.

“​​He kind of really seemed to have a warrior’s mentality. He was clearly an officer who wasn’t afraid to say what he thought. Or so it seemed,” retired Maj. Chase Spears, a former Army public affairs officer, told the DCNF.

The DCNF spoke to multiple current and former officials who served alongside Milley as well as several military experts to form a fuller picture of the former chairman’s tenure. Milley, through a spokesperson, did not respond to questions.

As chairman, Milley’s job was to advise the president and the secretary of defense on national-security threats and operations abroad and maintain military communication channels with friends and adversaries.

“Sometimes, that advice would be misinterpreted or purposely used by others for political purposes despite trying very hard to avoid politics,” Col. Dave Butler, Milley’s spokesman, told the DCNF.

Yet, Milley has shown willingness to delve into political fights and mud sling when it suits him, experts told the DCNF. In his farewell speech, Milley said the military does not answer to a “wannabe dictator,” which many interpreted as a jab at former President Trump.

In a June 2021 House Armed Services Committee hearing, Milley gave a full-throated defense of the Biden administration’s budget request for funding to purge “domestic extremists” from its ranks.

“There is no room in uniform for anyone who doesn’t subscribe to the values of the United States of America,” Milley said during the hearing.

Milley himself seemed to be aware of how he was being perceived. Speaking in November 2021 before the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, Milley lamented that he had “become a lightning rod for the politicization of the military,” targeted by both Republicans and Democrats, the transcript shows.

“It’s his nature to pitch into a fight if he sees one going on,” Spoehr told the DCNF.

Some congressional Democrats criticized Milley for defending the strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassim Suleimani, leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force in January 2020, according to CNN.

Then, Milley was blasted by Republicans when he apologized for having joined Trump in a march across Lafayette Square after the square had been cleared of people protesting the killing of George Floyd in 2020. Milley said he did not mean to give the impression the military had taken sides in a political fight.

Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, called Milley’s apology video “self-serving.”

The apology proved the first major incident in a trend lasting for the next four years of his career through two politically opposed administrations. Milley would often project disdain for interfering in politics, but then make exceptions in crisis situations or to defend core military values.

Milley “tried his hardest to actively stay out of politics,” but if extraordinary events demanded he step in, “so be it,” an unnamed official told CNN in July 2021.

Perhaps Milley’s most politically perilous moment came after he admitted holding two calls with his Chinese counterpart in October 2020 and January 2021 during the tumultuous administration handover. Lawmakers hammered Milley for his actions months later during a September 2021 hearing. Milley defended his actions as apolitical and in the interest of national security.

“I firmly believe in civilian control of the military as a bedrock principle essential to the health of this republic, and I am committed to ensuring the military stays clear of domestic politics,” he told Congress.

This was a refrain he would reiterate time and time again.

“He’s been saying those things for as long as I’ve known him. And I do think he’s true to those words,” said Spoehr.

‘A Tight Rope To Walk’

Others have pointed to Milley’s willingness to defend social policies in the military and to comment on broader trends in society as undermining the very norm of the apolitical military he claims to embrace.

Milley showed himself “willing to wade into topics that many including myself would argue are beyond the scope of the Joint Chiefs,” said Spears, the former Army public affairs officer.

In the days following the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, Milley took it upon himself to “land the plane” as he and other leading national security officials worried the former president was displaying increasingly erratic behavior, Bob Woodward and Robert Costa reported in their book “Peril.”

Woodward and Costa portray Milley’s acts — including convening a “secret” meeting of senior military officials involved in nuclear command and control on Jan. 8 to review the procedures for launching nuclear weapons — as orchestrating the peaceful transfer of power and restraining a rogue president from triggering an international crisis.

In November 2021, Milley told House lawmakers about a January 8 phone call he had with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who he described as “quite animated.” During this call, Milley sought to “assure her” of the security of the nation’s nuclear weapons systems.

“It’s clearly recognized that the President and only the President can authorize the launch,” Milley said, “so he, alone, can authorize the launch, but he doesn’t launch alone.”

“Best practice suggests that ‘regular order is your friend,’” Peter Feaver, an expert in civil-military relations who previously taught Milley, told the DCNF. But the military has no role in the democratic transfer of power from one administration to the next, Feaver said.

Many in the media framed Milley’s actions in the latter days of the Trump administration as heroic measures taken to safeguard democracy. Milley “saved the constitution” from Trump, The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in a glowing Nov. 2023 profile.

But, the savior of American democracy is not how Milley wants to be remembered.

“He would prefer not to be portrayed in that light,” a senior military official close to Milley told the DCNF.

While the chairman does not have command authority, he does serve at the top of the “chain of communication.” Some experts have argued this can give the chairman undue influence on policymaking.

“There’s a tightrope to walk here,” Bret Devereaux, a military historian who teaches at North Carolina State University, told the DCNF. “He’s expected to speak for the military as an institution and while, as an institution, the military does not have politics, it does have policies. In his capacity as an advisor, he advocates for certain policies.”

Milley repeatedly considered resigning during the Trump administration, according to reports. He felt Trump was “doing great and irreparable harm” to America and “ruining the international order,” according to a copy of the resignation letter included in Susan Glasser and Peter Baker’s “The Divider.” But resigning in protest of a legal policy with which he disagreed would be the “consummate political act,” Milley said, and he never submitted the letter.

“Milley concluded that difficult times do not release him from a duty to uphold those norms and traditions,” said Devereaux. “Milley was put in a situation where those two parts of the oath might conflict. He might have to say that the president himself was the constitutional danger.”

In the end, Milley testified to Congress that he never received an illegal order. Milley also admitted to speaking with reporters, including Woodward, who were working on books about the Trump administration. The former joint chief also said he spoke to Leonning and Rucker, for their book, and to Michael Bender, for his.

Milley’s expansive media presence “comes with some clear downsides since it means he becomes part of many stories that he probably could have stayed out of, or at least minimized,” Feaver explained.

“I don’t think that served him well. I don’t think it served the country well, for him to be talking to those guys,” Spoehr added.

‘White Rage’

Milley may also not have been served well by his outspoken defense of “woke” Biden administration defense policies and his willingness to wade into the culture wars.

“I want to understand white rage, and I’m white, and I want to understand it,” Milley said, deflecting criticism of Critical Race Theory being taught at West Point, during the June 2021 hearing. “What is it that caused thousands of people to assault this building and try to overturn the Constitution of the United States of America? What caused that? I want to find that out.”

Republicans in Congress who see CRT as antithetical to American values derided Milley.

“That was a partisan political question, framed in a particularly partisan way, and so he could have and should have deferred to the political figure on his side of the hearing table,” Feaver said.

In a CNN interview on Sept. 17, just weeks before his retirement, Milley pushed back against assertions the military had gone “woke.”

“The military is a lot of things, but woke, it’s not,” Milley said. “So I take exception to that. I think that people say those things for reasons that are their own reasons, but it’s not true. It’s not accurate. It’s not a broad-brush description of the U.S. military as it exists today.”

When Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville held up military promotions in opposition to a new Pentagon policy facilitating abortion access, Milley elaborated on the detrimental impact it could have on military readiness. But he declined to comment on the policy itself.

“I don’t want to enter into the whole discussion of abortion and the culture war. I’m staying out of all that,” he told the Washington Post.

The accusation of wokeness “certainly wasn’t something that we expected to have to deal with,” Butler, Milley’s spokesman, told the DCNF. “We did not expect that to be a new issue brought up by Congress or anybody else.”

Nor does the chairman have time to spend focusing or advising on internal personnel policies when he has global crises to attend to, Butler said. Butler estimated Milley spent 13 hours each day on external threats and operations, and maybe one on other issues.

‘Some Very Difficult Dives’

Just two months after the “white rage” comment, Milley would be dealing with a catastrophe abroad.

Afghanistan collapsed amid the U.S. military withdrawal much faster than administration analysts expected. Both Trump and Biden sought to wipe out the military’s footprint in Afghanistan and end the war. But they planned for the Afghan army to resist the Taliban. It didn’t.

At the September 2021 Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, Milley echoed Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina in calling the Afghanistan evacuation “a logistical success, but a strategic failure.”

Milley did not explicitly describe conversations with the presidents, but he made it easy to deduce both Biden and Trump had resisted his “best military advice” to maintain a contingent of American troops in Afghanistan. Military leaders’ advice to Biden in the lead-up to the withdrawal had not changed from the previous fall, and that his opinion was to keep 2,500 troops in country. He had also pushed back on a signed order directing a full withdrawal by January, according to his testimony. Trump rescinded the order.

“Based on my advice and the advice of the commanders, then-Secretary of Defense Esper submitted a memorandum on 9 November, recommending to maintain U.S. forces at a level between about 2,500 and 4,500 in Afghanistan until conditions were met for further reductions,” Milley said in his testimony.

A national security official close to the situation told the DCNF that Milley repeatedly warned Biden “of the risks of a poorly-timed withdrawal by recounting details from the chaotic 1975 Saigon evacuation.” in the hours before the president announced his decision in April 2021.

Likewise, Milley saw Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine coming, The New York Times reported.  He is blunt and level-headed in his assessment of Russia’s capabilities and Ukraine’s challenges — and he has often proven correct, according to Spoehr.

“He’s been a very good chairman,” Spoehr told the DCNF.

As Milley closed out his career, high-level military communication between the U.S. and China, America’s greatest competitor, had been stalled for more than a year. The war between Russia and Ukraine shows no signs of abating. And his successor, Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, faces the same culture war pressures.

Military leaders should be judged like Olympic divers, “taking into account the difficulty of the dive they have to do,” Feaver told DCNF. “Circumstances have conspired to force General Milley to do some very difficult dives. Even though he has kicked up some splash that does not necessarily mean he has under-performed.”

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

RELATED ARTICLE: China Is On The Fast Track To Wage War Against Taiwan — And The US, Experts Say

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: From One Unapologetic Media Hoax To The Next

Joe Biden lied repeatedly when he claimed he knew nothing of his son Hunter’s influence-peddling businesses.

The president further prevaricated that he had no involvement in Hunter’s various shake down schemes.

Yet, the media continued to misinform by serially ignoring these facts.

Had journalists just been honest and independent, then-candidate Joe Biden might have lost a presidential debate and even the 2020 election. The public would have learned that Hunter’s business associates and his laptop proved Joe was deeply involved in his son’s illicit businesses.

Later, as the evidence from IRS whistleblowers mounted, the White House stonewalled subpoenaed efforts and sought to craft an outrageous plea deal reduction in Hunter’s legal exposure.

Reporters ignored the Ukrainians who claimed Joe Biden himself talked to them about quid pro quo arrangements.

They again discounted Hunter’s laptop that explicitly demonstrated that Hunter was whining that he had handed over large percentages of his income to his father Joe — variously referred to as the Big Guy and a “ten percent” recipient on many deals.

They played dumb about Joe Biden’s use of pseudonyms and alias email accounts to hide thousands of his communications to Hunter and associates.

They attacked the former Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who now claims Biden was likely bribed by Ukrainians.

Yet the media can no longer hide the reality that the president of the United States likely took bribes to influence or alter U.S. policy to suit his payers. Those two crimes — bribery and treason — are specifically delineated in the Constitution as impeachable offenses.

In denial, the media has instead pivoted with hysterical glee over various weaponized prosecutions of former President Donald Trump.

But now, to use a progressive catchphrase, the proverbial “walls are closing in” on Joe Biden.

So will we at last expect the media finally to confront the truth?

Answer — only if Joe Biden’s cognitive and physical health continues to deteriorate geometrically to the point that he can no longer finish his term or run for reelection — and thus becomes expendable.

Such a cynical view of the media is justified given their record of both incompetence and unapologetic deceit.

From 2015 to 2019, we were suffocated 24/7 with lies like “Russian collusion,” “Putin’s puppet,” “election rigging” and the “Steele dossier.”

When all such “evidence” was proven to be a complete fraud cooked up through Hillary Clinton’s stealthy hiring of and collusion with a discredited ex-British spy, a Russian fabulist at the Brookings Institution and a Clinton toady in Moscow, did the media apologize for their untruth?

Was there any media confessional that perhaps Robert Mueller and his left wing legal team (the giddy media-dubbed “all-stars,” “dream team” and “hunter killers”) proved a colossal waste of time?

Not at all.

Instead, the media went next right on to “the phone call” and “impeachment.”

The country then wasted another year.

The same biased reporters now claimed that the heroic Alexander Vindman had caught Trump fabricating lies about the Bidens — given Joe Biden was a possible 2020 opponent — to force Ukraine to investigate them or lose American foreign aid.

On that accusation Trump was impeached.

Then the truth emerged that unlike Joe Biden, Trump never threatened to cancel aid, but merely to delay it.

Trump was right that the Bidens were knee deep in Ukrainian bribes and influence peddling.

And that the whistleblower had no first-hand knowledge of the Trump call but was spoon fed a script cooked up by the gadfly Vindman and California Rep. Adam Schiff.

The result was journalistic glee that we impeached a president for crimes that he did not commit but exempted another president, Biden, who had likely committed them.

Then came the next hoax of the Russian fabricated facsimile of Hunter’s laptop.

The 2020 Biden campaign along with an ex-CIA head rounded up “51 intelligence authorities” to mislead the country into believing that Russian gremlins in the Kremlin had fabricated a fake laptop.

Ponder that absurd fantasy: Moscow supposedly had created fake nude pictures, fake photos of Hunter’s drug use and fake email and text messages from Hunter to the other Bidens.

The media preposterously convinced the country that the Russians and by extension Trump had once again sandbagged the Biden campaign.

No apologies followed when the FBI later admitted it had kept the laptop under wraps for more than a year, knew it was authentic and yet said nothing as the media and former spooks misled the country and warped an election.

Now we are enmeshed in at least four court trials on cooked-up charges that could as easily apply to a host of Democrats as to Trump.

For the last eight years, a discredited media has never expressed remorse for any of the damage they did to the country. And they will not again, when their latest mythological indictments are eventually exposed.

AUTHOR

VICTOR DAVIS HANSON

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. He is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University and the author of “The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won,” from Basic Books. You can reach him by e-mailing authorvdh@gmail.com.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden Admin Seeks Long-Term Ukraine Aid Plan To Prevent Next President From Scaling Back Funding

The Biden administration is seeking to hammer out a long-term Ukraine aid agreement with European allies in hopes of both preventing Russia from gaining an edge on the battlefield and hamstringing a future president’s ability to scale back U.S. commitments, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

The scheme emerged during sideline talks among Group of Seven leaders at a NATO summit in July, and so far involves negotiations between the U.S. and Ukraine, and between the United Kingdom (U.K.) and Ukraine, according to the WSJ. It’s an attempt, in part, to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin he can simply wait until a new American administration, as several top GOP political contenders have expressed intention to reduce or eliminate U.S. aid that makes up the brunt of Western support.

Building up Kyiv’s defense forces in the long term can theoretically deter Russia from invading again, officials calculated, according to the WSJ.

Former President Donald Trump has maintained a lead in Republican primary candidate polling and could face a second showdown with President Joe Biden in the 2024 election. Trump has claimed he could solve the war “within 24 hours.”

At the first Republican primary debate Wednesday, several candidates indicated they would support drawing down aid for Ukraine.

Eighteen countries not belonging to the G-7 wealthy democracies, including the Netherlands and Sweden, have also agreed to the long-term security assistance pledge for Ukraine, according to the WSJ.

European capitals want to cement support and restrict ways countries could renege on pledges, fearing what might happen during a second Trump administration, according to the WSJ. At present, Western European nations lack the industrial and financial capacity to match the billions in annual military aid provided by the U.S.

Since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the U.S. has devoted more than $40 billion worth of weapons and equipment, as well as training and investment into U.S. weapons companies, for the purpose of aiding Ukraine’s resistance. The aid has exposed weaknesses in American military readiness and industrial base capacity, provoking criticism that the U.S. should be using those funds to shore up defenses with an eye toward China as the war in Ukraine drags on with no end in sight.

However, the practical workings of the agreement pose significant hurdles to the Biden administration’s goals, the WSJ reported, citing officials. A sitting president has limited ability to bind his successor to any initiative or policy.

The State Department led the first U.S. meeting on the initiative on Aug. 3, involving Ukrainian officials and representatives from the White House and the Pentagon, according to the WSJ. U.S. officials hope to convene a second meeting soon.

France expects to begin negotiations in the coming weeks, a senior French official told the WSJ.

“Our bilateral security commitments will focus on ensuring Ukraine has a sustainable force capable of defending Ukraine now and deterring Russian aggression in the future,” the State Department told the WSJ.

So far, no party has yet decided what the agreement will actually look like, according to the WSJ.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

‘They Were Being Bribed’: Fired Ukrainian Prosecutor Blames Dismissal On Biden ‘Corruption’

The Ukrainian prosecutor fired following pressure from then-Vice President Joe Biden alleged his firing was due to “corruption” in the Biden family.

Biden boasted about forcing the Ukrainian government to fire Viktor Shokin, a prosecutor who was investigating Burisma, an energy company, during an event held by the Council on Foreign Relations. Biden’s son, Hunter, was appointed to the board of Burisma in 2014.

“I do not want to deal in unproven facts, but my firm personal conviction is that, yes, this was the case,” Shokin said in a clip from an interview that will air on Fox News Saturday. “They were being bribed. The fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in U.S. money in exchange for my dismissal, my firing, isn’t that alone a case of corruption?”

Republican Sen. Charles Grassley released the FD-1023 form containing allegations that the Bidens received millions of dollars in bribes obtained from a whistleblower on July 20. The document, which recounted what a “confidential human source” (CHS) told the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in June 2020, says that a top Burisma executive felt he was “pushed to pay” the Bidens.

Shokin had been investigating Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma during his Hunter’s tenure at the company. Biden later bragged about forcing Shokin’s ouster.

“I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden said. “Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”

Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, told investigators that then-Vice President Joe Biden spoke with his son, Hunter, “more than 20 times about their business deals,” according to Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.

The New York Post reported on the contents of a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop on Oct. 14, 2020 that included emails related to business dealings by the Biden family.

The Daily Caller News Foundation confirmed the authenticity of one of the emails in October 2020. The Washington Post and New York Times confirmed the authenticity of the data in March 2022 in articles about investigations into Hunter Biden by the Department of Justice.

AUTHOR

HAROLD HUTCHISON

Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Former Intelligence Director Slams New Biden Docs As The ‘Smoking Gun And The Bloody Knife’

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Biden DOJ Imports Ukrainian-Style Corruption

A third felony indictment targeted former President Donald Trump Tuesday, as U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Counsel Jack Smith persuaded a D.C.-based grand jury to indict Trump on four felony counts for his actions to contest the results of the 2020 election. Trump already faces felony indictments from Smith in a Florida federal court for retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for buying a former mistress’s silence. Both the process of indicting a former president and the charges themselves savor more of Ukrainian-style corruption than they do of American-style peaceful transition of power.

In the third indictment, Trump has been charged with four crimes: “Conspiracy to Defraud the United States,” “Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding,” “Obstruction of and Attempt to Obstruct an Official Proceeding,” and “Conspiracy against Rights.” But not everyone is convinced by the evidence presented. “I felt that the Mar-a-Lago indictment was strong. This is the inverse,” said law professor Jonathan Turley. “It’s 45 pages of First Amendment protected activity broken up by four captions listing conspiracy statutes that do not apply,” summarized lawyer and retired colonel Kurt Schlichter.

In fact, “It is far from clear that any law was broken,” agreed National Review’s (NR) Dan McLaughlin (who said in the same paragraph that “the Senate should have convicted him in his impeachment trial”). “But crimes,” he added, “are supposed to be about the law — which has to be plain enough to govern us all.” Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy, also no Trump fanboy, said Smith “extravagantly stretched these statutes” to try and cover Trump’s behavior, and he tellingly stopped short of charging Trump with inciting a riot on January 6, 2021. “If you’ve got evidence that Trump committed incitement, then charge him with incitement,” McCarthy said. To dive deeper into the faults of the indictment, the NR editors compiled an excellent though lengthy analysis.

As many wiser heads have already noted, the exercise of jailing political opponents is a trademark of oppressive regimes with little respect for the rule of law — not an ordinary feature of American political life. In fact, it bears a striking resemblance to Ukraine’s recent history — a history which relatively few Americans know.

Ukraine gained independence from the Soviet Union as the autocratic federation dissolved in 1991. However, Ukraine inherited its culture of corruption and maintained close economic and political ties to Moscow for years. Had history unfolded differently, Ukraine could have resembled the neighboring Russian puppet state of Belarus. That began to change with what is known as the Orange Revolution of 2004.

In Ukraine’s 2004 presidential election, the pro-West opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko challenged the pro-Russia incumbent prime minister Viktor Yanukovich (like many parliamentary systems, Ukraine has both a popularly elected president and a prime minster chosen by the largest parliamentary coalition). At first, Yanukovich narrowly won in a run-off election, amid allegations of vote rigging and intimidation. After massive street protests, the country’s Supreme Court vacated the election results, and Yushchenko won the second run-off election. Yushchenko and Yanukovich remained the two most important figures in Ukrainian politics for the next decade.

Yanukovich won back the job of prime minister in 2006 after a minor party switched coalitions, and in 2007 President Yushchenko dissolved the parliament to stem his waning influence there. Naturally, his opponents challenged this move as unconstitutional, but when the matter came before the Constitutional Court, Yushchenko charged three of the judges with corruption and had them dismissed. This only served to drive his popularity even lower. By the 2010 presidential election, Yushchenko’s coalition had split, and his former ally Yulia Tymoshenko jumped in to make it a three-way race, and Yushchenko finished in a distant third place, while Yanukovich won.

Newly elected President Yanukovich then had his new rival, Tymoshenko, arrested in 2011 and sentenced to seven years in prison for abuse of office, behavior loudly condemned by Western powers. The European Union foreign office said “justice was being applied selectively in Ukraine under political motivation,” while the Obama White House responded, “The charges against Mrs. Tymoshenko and the conduct of her trial … have raised serious concerns about the government of Ukraine’s commitment to democracy and rule of law.”

In 2014, Yanukovich’s efforts to steer Ukraine away from the West and back towards Russia sparked widespread protests, leading him to flee the country (his successor as president, Petro Poroshenko, continued the pattern of corruption). Moscow then invaded and annexed Crimea and supported irregular forces in the eastern Donbas region, eight years before its attempt to invade the rest of Ukraine — and that brings us up to the present.

Does any of this sound vaguely familiar to you? Contested elections thrown to the courts, allegations of vote rigging, mass street protests, and a political opponent imprisoned due to political, selective application of justice — these are symptoms of innate Ukrainian corruption, but they also appear in the U.S.

In fact, the Ukrainian people got so fed up with the endless corruption of their political class that in 2019 they elected as president a TV star with no political experience. (I could have sworn I’ve read this script somewhere before.)

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s fledgling, corrupt business world offered an enticing prospect to unscrupulous foreigners looking to make a quick buck (or rather millions of bucks). In 2014, Hunter Biden, who has no experience in energy business, joined the board of a Ukrainian oil company called Burisma and collected a monthly income of up to $50,000, nearly equal to the U.S. median annual salary.

At the time Biden joined Burisma’s board, his father, Vice President Joe, led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, and Burisma was under investigation for corruption. Soon after, then-Prosecutor General Victor Shokin, the official investigating Burisma was fired. Joe Biden boasted in 2018 that the Poroshenko administration fired Shokin because he threatened to withhold $1 billion in foreign aid unless they did so.

As Joe Biden told the story, “I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in’ — I think it was, what, six hours? — I looked, and I said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor’s not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a —–, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid.”

Shokin was succeeded as Ukraine’s Prosecutor General by Yuriy Lutsenko, who had been convicted of embezzlement and abuse of office in 2012 and implicated in a poisoning attempt against Yushchenko. During his tenure as prosecutor general, he obstructed the investigation into Paul Manafort, former Trump campaign chairman who failed to register as a foreign agent while working for a pro-Russia political party in Ukraine and was later convicted on money laundering charges. It’s good to know the sort of character President Biden described as “solid.”

In an ironic twist, President Trump was impeached (the first time) for a phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky he made as part of an effort to uncover evidence of the Biden family’s corrupt dealings in that country. The notion that a sitting president would use his official position to dig up evidence of crimes by his chief political rival seemed beyond the pale to a Democrat-controlled House of Representatives at the time. By contrast, no member of the Biden family has yet suffered any consequences for their corrupt dealings in Ukraine or any other foreign nation.

Corruption in American politics has ebbed and flowed throughout her 247-year-long history, and election tampering has too. Yet few observers would dispute that both are currently at a high tide. What other conclusion is there when, recent events in American politics mimic those of a fledgling democracy still struggling to wriggle free of Soviet-era corruption?

Fortunately, by construction and longstanding tradition, the U.S. legal system is stronger than that of Ukraine’s. There are still officials willing to stand up to defend equal justice before the law, due process, the peaceful transfer of power, and fundamental human rights. The public still, by and large, values and expects government officials to abide by these principles. So, it’s conceivable that a political prosecution that would succeed in Ukraine’s judicial system will fail — or even backfire — in the U.S. But no free and open system of government can withstand the constant abuse of those who wield power in it forever. Sooner or later, the abuse must cease, or freedom will.

AUTHOR

Joshua Arnold

Joshua Arnold is a staff writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©2023 Family Research Council.


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Hunter Biden’s Proposed Plea Deal Lays Out Just How Much He Got From Chinese, Ukrainian, Romanian Sources In 2017

Hunter Biden’s proposed plea deal on two misdemeanor tax charges shows the president’s son earned millions from foreign sources in 2017.

During calendar year 2017 — one of the years Hunter Biden is charged with failing to pay taxes in their entirety — the president’s son earned “just under $1 million from a company he formed with the CEO of a Chinese business conglomerate; $666,666 from his domestic business interests; approximately $664,000 from a Chinese infrastructure investment company; $500,000 in director’s fees from a Ukrainian energy company; $70,000 relating to a Romanian business; and $48,000 from the multi-national law firm,” the memorandum of the plea agreement read, Politico first reported Wednesday.

“He further negotiated and executed contracts for business and legal services that paid millions of dollars of compensation to him and/or his domestic corporations, Owasco, PC and Owasco, LLC,” the plea deal stated.

Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings are being investigated by the House Oversight Committee, and President Joe Biden has been questioned repeatedly about the extent to which he was involved in his son’s business affairs.

House Oversight released a report in May alleging members of the Biden family received $10 million from foreign sources, including from China and Romania, while Joe Biden was vice president.

The president and his administration have repeatedly denied Joe Biden was involved in his son’s business dealings. Joe Biden said in 2019 he has never “spoken” to Hunter Biden about his business affairs, and the White House has stated repeatedly since June that the president was never “in business” with his son.

Hunter Biden served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma from 2014 to 2019, was a founding partner of Chinese investment company BHR Partners, worked as a consultant at CEFC China Energy and did legal work for Romanian oligarch Gabriel Popoviciu.

In June and May, two IRS whistleblowers testified before the House Ways and Means Committee that the IRS investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes was slow-walked by the DOJ.

Biden had “tax issues” for years before 2017, one whistleblower told the committee.

“Back in 2002, he filed his Form 1040 late-filing and owing over $100,000 in taxes; 2003, owed more than $100,000 dollars in taxes; 2004, late-filed and owed more than $20,000 in taxes; and then 2005, late filed his personal return and owed over $100,000 in taxes,” the whistleblower testified.

Biden’s legal team attempted to enter into a plea agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ) on two misdemeanor tax charges for 2017 and 2018 on Wednesday. The deal included Biden pleading guilty to the misdemeanor tax charges in exchange for avoiding jail time on a separate charge for illegally possessing a gun. The judge overseeing the case refused to accept the initial plea deal due to the lack of clarity on what the DOJ could charge Biden on in the future, including the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

The legal teams conferred and came back with a more narrow scope of what the plea deal would encompass, limiting it to the tax and gun charges. The judge refused to accept the deal and requested more briefs, and Biden changed his plea to not guilty.

AUTHOR

DIANA GLEBOVA

White House correspondent.

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Can a President Who Can’t Tell Apart Iraq and Ukraine Make Decisions About Them?

Biden slipped up twice in 24 hours, confusing Iraq with Ukraine.

What is the standard for competency for presidents? At the very least, the ability to tell apart two major conflicts that affect the United States.

President Joe Biden slipped up twice in the last 24 hours by confusing the US war in Iraq with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking to reporters Wednesday on the South Lawn of the White House, Biden said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been weakened by a shocking mutiny by a mercenary group that’s played a critical role in his war with Ukraine.

“He is clearly losing the war in Iraq,” Biden said of Putin, evidently meaning to refer to Ukraine. “He’s losing the war at home, and he has become a bit of a pariah around the world.”

At least he didn’t call Putin, George W. Bush.

Biden made a similar mistake while speaking to donors Tuesday evening at a campaign fundraiser in Chevy Chase, Maryland, about his efforts to galvanize US allies in support of Kyiv.

“If anybody told you — and my staff wasn’t so sure, either — that we’d be able to bring all of Europe together in the onslaught on Iraq and get NATO to be completely united, I think they would have told you it’s not likely,” the president said, again meaning to say Ukraine.

He also spoke about his “new best friend” being the “prime minister of a little country that’s now the largest in the world, China,” before correcting himself that he meant to say India.

Back in November, Biden also mixed up Iraq and Ukraine during a speech in Florida while defending his policies from accusations they have fueled inflation.

“Inflation is a worldwide problem right now because of a war in Iraq and the impact on oil, and what Russia is doing,” the president said.

He quickly caught the mistake. “I mean, excuse me, the war in Ukraine,” he said.

When the president can’t tell apart Ukraine and Iraq, it’s a major problem. Biden keeps flashing back to the Iraq War which defined the final phase of his Senate career and his vice presidency.

Even Bloomberg is forced to notice that Biden is unfit, not only because of corruption, but because his mind is untethered from the realities of the moment.

How long can this go on?

AUTHOR

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LEAKED DOCS: NSC Was Afraid Biden Would Blow Ukraine War Plans With Premature Phone Call

The National Security Council (NSC) was reportedly worried President Joe Biden would jeopardize a shipment of ammunition to Ukraine by making a premature phone call to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, according to classified Department of Defense (DOD) documents obtained by the Daily Caller.

The Biden administration sought artillery ammunition from South Korea as part of a push to further supply Ukraine in its war against Russia, according to the classified documents, which are dated to early March of 2023. The top secret intelligence indicates that NSC officials were concerned Biden would make a premature phone call to Yoon, throwing into doubt whether or not the U.S. would be able to secure the ammunition.

Pentagon Doc 2 by Dylan Housman on Scribd

The classified documents were initially leaked online last month on various social media platforms, the first of which is believed to have been a Minecraft group on Discord. They were subsequently scrubbed from social media, before resurfacing in media reports in recent days, during which time they were acquired by the Daily Caller.

South Korea, while providing non-lethal support directly to Ukraine for over a year, has an official policy against sending lethal aid directly to nations involved in armed conflict. According to the classified documents, South Korean officials including Foreign Affairs Secretary Yi Mun-hui were concerned about who the “end-user” of ammunition sent to the United States would be and whether they would first need to alter their country’s arms policy.

The NSC “was reportedly also worried that the U.S. President would call South Korean President Yoon Sun-yeol directly” before South Korean officials were ready to have a leader-to-leader discussion about the artillery rounds, the document reads.

In response to questions from the Daily Caller about the leaked intelligence, the NSC pointed to a pair of press briefings held Monday. During those briefings, NSC spokesman Kirby and a DOD spokesperson both stated that the U.S. had been in communications with allies implicated in the intelligence leak but did not go into specifics.

South Korea reacted negatively to the leaks, demanding “appropriate measures” and claiming that a “considerable amount” of the information is fabricated. President Yoon is slated to make an official state visit to Washington later this month.

 

AUTHOR

DYLAN HOUSMAN

Chief foreign affairs correspondent.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Follow Dylan on Twitter.


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