New election year means another Russiagate as Biden, Dems try to smear impeachment probe

By Miranda Devine Published Feb. 25, 2024, 10:22 p.m. ET1/3

Democrats pretend the impeachment inquiry has "utterly collapsed" because of the curious indictment last week of trusted FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, writes columnist Miranda Devine.

For the 2016 election, Democrats launched Russiagate 1.0: the Trump-Russia collusion hoax proven groundless by the Mueller investigation.

For the 2020 election, it was Russiagate 2.0. Biden campaign adviser Antony Blinken prompted former CIA Acting Director Mike Morell to concoct the “Dirty 51” letter falsely claiming that Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop was Russian disinformation.

That lie justified censorship of The Post’s accurate stories from the laptop of Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s international influence peddling schemes.

Now that we’re heading into the 2024 election, we have Russiagate 3.0.

Democrats pretend the impeachment inquiry has “utterly collapsed” because of the curious indictment last week of trusted FBI informant Alexander Smirnov on false statement charges after he allegedly told his FBI handler that Hunter and Joe each had received a $5 million bribe from the Ukrainians.

In a frantic effort to keep Smirnov in jail pre-trial, prosecutors for notorious Biden protector David Weiss, the Delaware US attorney, used language ripped straight out of the Russiagate textbook: “Smirnov’s efforts to spread misinformation about a candidate of one of the two major parties [Joe] continues.”

Now Smirnov is being used as make-believe vindication of the 51 former intelligence officials who signed the fake laptop letter to help Biden win the 2020 election.

Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA operations officer who claims to be a victim of the dubious “Havana syndrome,” pounced on the Smirnov story. “It validates exactly what we were warning about,” he told NBC News. “The Russians were going to push this narrative of Hunter Biden and corruption, to hurt Joe Biden.”

No. Hunter’s “laptop from hell” was not Russian disinformation. It still isn’t. The FBI has had it in its possession since December 2019 and has authenticated it as real and valid for use in court.

The Dirty 51 are grasping at straws to try to justify their interference in the 2020 election. It wasn’t the Russians. It was Trump-deranged former CIA management who felt any means justified the ends if they could stop Trump winning a second term.

But now, as the laptop is augmented by whistleblower receipts and witness testimony, and as House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer unravels the complex web of corrupt foreign payments to the Biden family, the president’s praetorian guard is desperate. They are drowning in evidence of corruption while burbling, “There is no evidence!” Russia is all they have.

The joke is on Biden’s media handmaidens still pushing Joe Biden’s absurd lies.

No, the laptop is not a “Russian plant,” as he claimed. And, yes, Joe did talk to Hunter about his “overseas business dealings.”

https://nypost.com/2024/02/25/opinion/new-election-year-means-new-russiagate-as-biden-dems-try-to-smear-impeachment-probe/

>>20479654

2/3

Heck, he did a lot more than talk. He made himself available for breakfasts, lunches, dinners, coffees, and pleasant chit chat on the speakerphone with Hunter’s foreign benefactors, all to oil the wheels of the family business — which was selling access to him, as he well knew.

“Look after my boy,” he told Kremlin-backed oligarch Elena Baturina and her husband, Yuri Luzhkov, the corrupt former mayor of Moscow, when Hunter activated the speakerphone at a Russian restaurant in Brooklyn called Romanoff on May 4, 2014.

They sure did. Just three months earlier, Baturina had wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC, the firm cofounded by Hunter, his “best friend in business” Devon Archer, John Kerry’s stepson Chris Heinz, and Jimmy Bulger, nephew of mobster “Whitey” Bulger.

Joe’s speakerphone spotlight

This latest chapter of Joe’s speakerphone diplomacy on behalf of Hunter’s finances comes courtesy of Jason Galanis, a former business partner of the first son who is serving 14 years in jail for his part in the $60 million Burnham securities fraud.

Archer and two other Burnham executives were convicted over the scheme.Hunter was vice president of the company but was deemed by prosecutors from the Southern District of New York to have had no involvement in the fraud, and Archer was not asked one question about him.

Galanis, who testified to Comer’s committee from an Alabama jail Friday, says he offered to provide SDNY prosecutors evidence of Hunter and Archer’s alleged involvement.

“The offer was rejected [and] the SDNY’s prosecution strategy was intended to protect Hunter Biden, and ultimately Vice President Biden,” he said.

Galanis recalls being “stunned” when Hunter put his dad on speakerphone with the Russians.

“Hunter called his father, said hello and ‘hold on, Pops,’ then put the call on speakerphone and said, ‘I am here with our friends I told you were coming to town, and we wanted to say ‘hello’ . . . It was clear to me this was a pre-arranged call with his father meant to impress the Russian investors that Hunter had access to his father and all the power and prestige of his position.”

The call to Joe was part of a well-established pattern in the Biden family business, as testified to by Archer and by Tony Bobulinski.

The then-VPwas not just the brand his son and brother sold but the in-person deal-closer held out to foreign partners as “a potential board member [and] potential equity owner,” Comer told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo Sunday.

Galanis testified that in August 2014Hunter angled for a post-vice presidency board seat for his dad on the Burnham joint venturewith Harvest Fund Management, a $300 billion Chinese financial services company.

His claims need to be tested, but Democrats’ sneering at Republicans for taking testimony from a convicted felon ignores the fact that Hunter associated with a lot of shady characters.

Galanis alleges he is the “victim of a pattern of retribution” by the DOJ after he submitted information implicating Hunter in December 2020, after which he was sexually assaulted by prison staff in Pensacola, Fla.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/25/opinion/new-election-year-means-new-russiagate-as-biden-dems-try-to-smear-impeachment-probe/

>>20479670

3/3

Which brings us to Smirnov, 43, the Ukrainian-born, Russian-speaking Israeli-American dual national who has spent almost half his life in the US and has been one of the FBI’s highest paid informants for the past 14 years.

So determined is the federal government to keep him in jail that, after he was released by one judge in Nevada, prosecutors convinced another judge that he was a flight risk and had him arrested him at his lawyers’ office.

He is due in court Monday in Los Angeles, so the facts may become clearer. But there are key discrepancies between the indictment and what Smirnov told his FBI handler in 2020, as recorded in the infamous FD-1023 form that Senator Chuck Grassley released last year.

The indictment also doesn’t square with the due diligence done in 2020 by the US attorney in Pittsburgh, Scott Brady, who confirmed aspects of Smirnov’s story that prosecutors now call into question.

The $5 million pyramid

For instance, in the FD-1023, Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky is quoted by Smirnov as saying: “it cost [$5 million] to pay one Biden, and [$5 million] to another Biden.” The indictment has Zlochevsky saying: “it cost [$5 million] to pay [Public Official 1 — Joe Biden] and [$5 million] to [Businessperson 1 [Hunter Biden].”

But Smirnov didn’t mention Joe.

Devon Archer speculates “one Biden” could be him since he was on the Burisma board with Hunter, who once told him “you are a Biden . . . You are part of a great family.” Hunter was paid $4.1 million by Burisma from March 2014 to April 2019, and Archer $2.3 million. Hunter’s final take would have been over $5 million but his $83,333 monthly payments were slashed in half a few weeks after his father left office.

Archer’s Burisma takings didn’t hit $5 million because he had to step down from the board in 2016 before he was indicted in the Burnham case.

Smirnov also referred to Joe Biden as the “big guy” in June 2020, four months before The Post published emails from Hunter’s laptop in which the code name was used.

Discrepancies in dates of meetings between Smirnov and Burisma areportrayed as a deliberate lie by Smirnov, but could just as easily stem from a false assumption by the FBI. The more you look, the murkier it is.

Most curious is that the federal government prefers the word of a Ukrainian stranger, Alexander Ostapenko, over their own American spy, whose life FBI Director Chris Wray worried would be in danger if Republicans looked at his FD-1023.

Suddenly, this valuable American spy is a liar and national security threat due to his “extensive foreign ties,” including contacts with Russian intelligence for which the FBI paid him handsomely and which he reported back dutifully to his handler.

Now his life is of such little concern, that Delaware prosecutor Leo Wise has spewed into open court details of his contacts with Russian officials.

It doesn’t pay to cross the Bidens.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/25/opinion/new-election-year-means-new-russiagate-as-biden-dems-try-to-smear-impeachment-probe/

=Trump may have the last laugh on traitor Prince Harry==

By Piers Morgan Published Feb. 26, 20241/2

Trump has said Harry will be "on his own" if the former prez wins back the White House in November.

I’ve witnessed some incredibly overexcited people in my life.But for sheer unbridled joy, I’ve never seen anything to quite match Donald Trump’s beaming face when he returned to Air Force One after meeting Queen Elizabeth IIfor the first time, at Windsor Castle.

I was waiting to interview him aboard the US presidential plane, and he bounded into the Situation Room with a massive grin on his face.

“Piers, your Queen is FANTASTIC!”he bellowed ecstatically. “She’s a fantastic woman; so much energy and smart and sharp. She was AMAZING! Such a wonderful lady and so beautiful! It was such an honor to finally meet her. To have a Queen like that is great. She is so sharp, so wise, so beautiful. She’s a very special person!”

The reason for his extraordinary enthusiasm became clear when I asked him what went through his mind as he walked toward Her Majesty, and he replied: “I was thinking about my mother. My mother passed away a while ago and she was a tremendous fan of the Queen. She thought she was a woman of elegance, and my mother felt she was a great woman. I said to Melania, ‘Can you imagine my mother seeing this scene?’

The Queen is terrific. She is so sharp, so wise. She’s a very special person. I said to her, ‘You know, my mother was your big fan. She was born in Stornoway in the Hebrides.'”

Trump’s reverence for the Queen dates back to 1953, when he sat with his mother to watch the coronation on their new TV set in New York. Young Donald, then just 6 years old,watched in awe and wonderment the extraordinary scenes from London. As did Mary Trump.

“She was just enthralled by the pomp and circumstance,” her son later wrote in his best-selling book “The Art of the Deal.” “The whole idea of royalty and glamor.”

All this helps explain Trump’s latest blistering attack on Prince Harry, in which he ominously warned the runaway royal he’d be “on his own” if the former president wins back the White House in the November election, because of his “unforgivable” betrayal of the Queen.

Trump, speaking Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC, lambasted his successor President Biden for being “too gracious” to the Duke of Sussex since he quit Britain for America in 2020.

The Biden administration is engaged in a legal battle with a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, which has sought public access to Harry’s visa application to see if he was honest about his extensive illegal drug use as detailed in his best-selling autobiography, “Spare,” or has received preferential treatment from the Biden camp.

In the book, Harry brazenly admitted to using marijuana, cocaine and psychedelic mushrooms, including in America at the homes of friends. For most noncitizens, this would be disqualifying.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/26/opinion/trump-may-have-the-last-laugh-on-traitor-prince-harry/

>>20479796

2/2

But government lawyer John Bardo of the Department of Homeland Security told a court last Friday that the book was not “sworn testimony or proof” that Harry took drugs.

Bardo argued, “Just saying something in a book doesn’t make it true” and added that people say things to “sell books” as he insisted Harry’s immigration records should remain private.

This defense has been widely criticized, with many pointing out that Biden’s team is only doing it because the prince and wife Meghan Markle have made no secret of their dislike of Trump and their support for the Democratic Party.

During his CPAC speech, Trump raged: “I wouldn’t protect him. He betrayed the Queen. That’s unforgivable. He would be on his own if it was down to me.”

If I were Harry, I’d find these words very concerning, because it might indeed soon be down to Trump, who can be a vengeful enemy. This is not the first time he’s taken a whack at Harry or his wife.

When I interviewed him for “Piers Morgan Uncensored” in 2022, he scoffed:“Harry is whipped. I won’t use the full expression, but Harry is whipped like no person I think I’ve ever seen. I’m not a fan of Meghan, and I wasn’t right from the beginning. I think poor Harry is being led around by his nose.”

And he predicted the couple would divorce: “It’ll end, and it’ll end bad. I want to know what’s going to happen when Harry decides he’s had enough of being bossed around. Or maybe when she decides that she likes some other guy better. I want to know what’s going to happen when it ends, OK?”

In the same interview, he said the Sussexes should be stripped of their titles:

“He has been so disrespectful to the country, and I think he’s an embarrassment.”

But this new threat to cut Harry off from any US government support could carry serious risk to the duke’s US ambitions. Only last week, Harry admitted he’s been thinking of becoming an American citizen, but if Trump regains the presidency, he could very well stop that from happening.

And he might go even further and seek to have him deported, using the admitted drug abuse as an excuse — a fate that has befallen many others.

If that nuclear option was pressed — and knowing Trump as well as I do, his capacity for such acts of petty vengeance is unlimited — Harry would be forced to leave his idyllic California mansion and his adoptive country.

But where would he go?It’s surely inconceivable that he could return to Britain, tail between his legs, having been tossed out of the US.

'All recent polls show that most Britons loathe him for his constant attacks on the royal family, which caused such distress to the Queen in the last years of her life, and his brother, William, won’t even talk to him — which, given that he’ll be king one day, could spell even more revenge problems for Harry.

And if he’s not able to live and work in America, Harry’s lucrative family-trashing, money-minting gravy train would derail hard. So this could be a very perilous few months for the man who wants to have his royal cake and eat it too.

How ironic if it’s Donald Trump who has the last laugh on the treacherous little weasel and tells him, “You’re fired!” because of the despicable way he treated his grandmother the Queen.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/26/opinion/trump-may-have-the-last-laugh-on-traitor-prince-harry/

>>20479854

Some of these pics are hysterial, look at the EU leaders in the background, looking for dismissive and angry that PDJT gets close to the Queen, they really don't like him, even the Polish PM behind them

>>20479796

TOUCHY SUBJECT

Donald Trump appears to pat Queen on back at state banquet in violation of ‘no touch’ protocol – but he’s not the first

• By Jon Rogers Updated: 12:11, 4 Jun 2019

DONALD Trump appeared to break royal protocol during the state banquet last night when he seemed to touch the Queen on the back. The US President, 72, looked as if he put his left hand on the monarch’s back as she stood up after his speech during the meal at Buckingham Palace.

Official royal protocol dictates that in order to be able to touch the Queen she must first offer her hand to you but this has been broken several times over the years without any consequence.

Mr Trump had been paying tribute to the monarch at a lavish banquet in front of 170 special guests that included Prince Charles and Camilla, Prince William and Kate Middleton and Theresa May.

Prince Harry also chose to spend the evening with wife Meghan and their baby son Archie after a row over the Duchess of Sussex's previous criticism of the President.

While it is unclear if the ‘no touch’ protocol was breachedthe Queen seemed completely unfazed by the actionas she warmly toasted his speech in which he said she was a “great, great woman”.

Body language expert Judi James told The Sun Online thatthe pair displayed a "warm friendship" towards one another. (You don’t have to be a body language expert to the connection, the smiles were unending)

During Mr Trump's first official visit to the UK last year it was reported he kept the Queen waiting for ten minutes before he arrived at Windsor Castle.

He was alsocriticised for not bowing when greeting her, and then walked ahead of heras they inspected the troops from the Coldstream Guards.

However the Queen later admitted it was she who was on the wrong side.

'GREAT, GREAT WOMAN'

Mr Trump said: “She has embodied the spirit of dignity, duty, and patriotism that beats proudly in every British heart. “On behalf of all Americans, I offer a toast to the eternal friendship of our people, the vitality of our nations and to the long cherished and truly remarkable reign of Her Majesty the Queen.”

In her speech the Queen said: "As we face the new challenges of the 21st century, the anniversary of D-Day reminds us of all that our countries have achieved together." She added: "Mr President, as we look to the future I'm confident that our common values and shared interest will continue to unite us.

"Tonight we celebrate an alliance that has helped to ensure the safety and prosperity of both our peoples for decades, and which I believe will endure for many years to come."

During an official visit in 2009 the then First Lady Michelle Obama put a friendly arm around the Queen during a meeting. Mrs Obama later said the Queen had branded royal protocol as “rubbish”.

In 2017, Canada’s then Governor General David Johnston was spotted gently touching the Queen’s elbow as she walked up the steps at Canada House in London when she visited to celebrate the country’s 150th anniversary.

Defending his actions, Mr Johnston said he had done it to make sure she did not fall over as she climbed the stairs.

Australia’s then Prime Minister John Howard denied he had broken royal protocol in 2000 when it was claimed he had put his arm around the Queen when he was introducing her to MPs at a VIP reception. Back in1992 Paul Keating, who was then the Aussie leader,earned the nickname “Lizard of Oz”when he touched the Queen’s back during her tour of the country.

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/4323927/donald-trump-appears-to-pat-queen-on-back-at-state-banquet-in-violation-of-no-touch-protocol-but-hes-not-the-first/

(The unbelievable trashing of PDJT & Melania when meeting with Queen Elizabeth was bizarre, I think they of them ignored the noise and enjoyed each other's company)