https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/12/18/rand_paul_hunter_biden_deserves_the_same_justice_that_paul_manafort_got.html

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): If he's confident he should leave in place the U.S. attorney who is investigating Hunter Biden. There is a U.S. attorney in Delaware doing this.

Traditionally, when a new president comes in they fire all the U.S. attorneys. If he wants to show that this is going to be an upright, upstanding Biden administration and that they're going to actually let the cards lie where the cards lie on Hunter Biden, he needs to leave that U.S. attorney in place. And that's something, very carefully, to watch.

If the U.S. attorney is fired in the first weeks of the administration, and if the investigation goes to a Biden appointee, you can tell the fix is in and there's not going to be justice.

But, Hunter Biden deserves the same justice that Paul Manafort got. Nothing less, nothing more.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202012181081503684-trump-plans-to-issue-wave-of-presidential-pardons-today-axios-reports-/

WASHINGTON, (Sputnik) - US President Donald Trump intends to issue a number of pardons today ahead of the Christmas holiday, Axios reported on Friday, citing sources with direct knowledge of the plans.

While it remains unclear who will be included in the batch of pardons, the sources said family members, friends and allies could be among them, the report said.

The media outlet noted that Trump has considered granting pardons for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his former campaign manager Paul Manafort.

Senator Rand Paul has urged Trump to pardon Edward Snowden, but the Axios report cited a source close to the planning as saying they did not expect the American whistle-blower to be included among today's pardons.

https://www.nreionline.com/investment/nyc-s-plummeting-real-estate-sales-cost-city-12-billion

(Bloomberg)—The pandemic’s slowdown in real estate deals has cost New York City $1.2 billion in lost revenue so far this year.

Sales of commercial and residential properties everything from office buildings to hotels and condo units are down 49% this year through November, according to a report Thursday by the Real Estate Board of New York.

That’s led to a 42% decline in city tax revenue, compared with the same 11-month period in 2019, the trade group said. The money comes from a long list of levies that each transaction generates. A dearth of deals means fewer collections of transfer and mansion taxes, and less income from newly recorded mortgages.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9067673/Chicago-Mayor-admits-DID-know-botched-raid-innocent-naked-black-woman.html

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot admits she DID know about botched no-knock raid where cops handcuffed an innocent naked black woman in 2019 and that the victim filed a request for the bodycam footage

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot claimed Tuesday she had only learned this week about the February 2019 raid on the home of 50-year-old Anjanette Young

'The first thing I knew of any of this was yesterday morning,' she said

Lightfoot admitted Thursday that emails with her staff showed she knew about the incident back in November 2019

She insisted she did not remember hearing of Young's case specifically and that she had not seen the bodycam footage until this week

Lightfoot also denied Young had filed a FOIA request with the Chicago Police Department for the footage saying 'it is not correct' Tuesday

She also walked back this claim Thursday saying Young had filed a FOIA request in November 2019 which was then denied by the force

Her administration went to federal court this week and filed a motion - which was denied - to stop CBS Chicago from releasing the bodycam footage

Footage shows cops raid Young's apartment in February, cuffing the black social worker and leaving her standing naked in front of them

Cops had been acting on a tip and had the wrong address

https://nypost.com/2020/12/18/ny-times-admits-caliphate-podcast-based-on-botched-reporting/

The New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-nominated podcast about ISIS was an “institutional failure” that included shoddy reporting based off interviews with a “con artist,” executive editor Dean Baquet said Friday.

In a blistering editor’s note, the newspaper said the 2018 series “Caliphate” blew its journalistic standards.

An internal investigation into the 12-part series was launched after the main subject, Shehroze Chaudhry, was arrested in late September in Canada on charges he lied about his role in ISIS activity in Syria.

Chaudhry had told the Times that he participated in executions carried out by the terror group.

But the Times “found a history of misrepresentations by Mr. Chaudhry and no corroboration that he committed the atrocities he described in the ‘Caliphate’ podcast,” the paper said in an editors’ note added Friday.

“As a result, The Times has concluded that the episodes of ‘Caliphate’ that presented Mr. Chaudhry’s claims did not meet our standards for accuracy.”