Hunter Biden Tinfoil issues

[a fan]

Great summary on Twitter from Jeff Tiedrich:

listen up, stupids:
there is no "Hunter Biden laptop."
what exists is a disembodied hard drive that Rudy Giuliani farted on.
here's a dose of reality:
someone hacked Hunter Biden's iPhone.
they stole his data and downloaded it to a laptop.
"a" laptop — not "Hunter Biden's" laptop.
the hackers mixed some of Hunter Biden's actual data with a lot of faked bullsh!t.
forensic analysis has proved this.
this laptop's hard drive made its way to Rudy Giuliani.
the drive may have also passed through the hands of as many as 40 people.
your so-called "evidence" is f*cking worthless.
go read up about 'chain of custody' and get back to me.
meanwhile, sit the f*ck down and stop making noise, you sound like a weird obsessed loser

There is _far_ more evidence for this view than any other…

....to the surprise of no one. And even still, for both the IRS and FBI investigation, there was nothing there in terms of evidence of crimes.

But sure: Deep State. Oh, and the MSM is "in on it".

So sick of this stupid stuff. How about your tell your team to get off their a**es , and legislate some good policies for the working class? Naaaaah.

[old salt]

Great summary on Twitter from Jeff Tiedrich:

listen up, stupids:
there is no "Hunter Biden laptop."
what exists is a disembodied hard drive that Rudy Giuliani farted on.
here's a dose of reality:
someone hacked Hunter Biden's iPhone.
they stole his data and downloaded it to a laptop.
"a" laptop — not "Hunter Biden's" laptop.
the hackers mixed some of Hunter Biden's actual data with a lot of faked bullsh!t.
forensic analysis has proved this.
this laptop's hard drive made its way to Rudy Giuliani.
the drive may have also passed through the hands of as many as 40 people.
your so-called "evidence" is f*cking worthless.
go read up about 'chain of custody' and get back to me.
meanwhile, sit the f*ck down and stop making noise, you sound like a weird obsessed loser

There is _far_ more evidence for this view than any other…

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fbi ... erm=second

FBI Told Twitter Hunter Biden Laptop Was Real on Day It Was Censored

by JEFF ZYMERI, July 20, 2023

House Judiciary committee Republicans revealed Thursday that a senior FBI official told Twitter that Hunter Biden’s laptop was real and not Russian disinformation on the day the social-media company censored a New York Post story relying on emails from that laptop.

Laura Dehmlow, the now-section chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), confirmed in a closed-door deposition that when Twitter asked whether the laptop was real, an official said: “Yes, it was.” An FBI lawyer on the call then promptly jumped in and said: “No further comment.” According to Dehmlow, internal deliberations were held after that call in which the decision was made that FITF would say “no comment” going forward. Later on the same day, there was a call between the FBI and social-media company Meta in which the agency declined comment when asked if the laptop was real.

Dehmlow added in the deposition that she’s “pretty certain” then-FITF section chief Brad Benavides and the chief of the Russian unit were aware of the laptop’s authenticity.

The Post‘s story alleging an influence peddling scheme involving the president and his family ran early in the morning on October 14, 2020, weeks before the general election. The calls the FBI had with Twitter and Meta occurred later that day.

In the hours following the publication of the story, Twitter blocked the story from being shared and Meta, which owns Facebook, suppressed the story.

According to a letter from chairman Jim Jordan to FBI director Christopher Wray, the FBI had constant information-sharing up to that point with social-media companies. It then made the institutional decision to refuse to answer direct questions about the laptop’s authenticity.

“Put simply, after the FBI conditioned social media companies to believe that the laptop was the product of a hack-and-dump operation, the Bureau stopped its information sharing, allowing social media companies to conclude that the New York Post story was Russian disinformation,” read the letter.

The news comes after a federal judge banned officials from coordinating with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content. The injunction from Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana applied to officials from the DOJ and FBI as well as other agencies, but was lifted by the Fifth Circuit as it considers an appeal to the order.

The judges of the Fifth Circuit did not elaborate on their reasoning for the stay.

According to Doughty, “the FBI’s failure to alert social-media companies that the Hunter Biden laptop was real, and not mere Russian disinformation, is particularly troubling. The FBI had the laptop in their possession since December 2019 and had warned social-media companies to look for a ‘hack and dump’ operation by the Russians prior to the 2020 election.”

“Even after Facebook specifically asked whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, Dehmlow of the FBI refused to comment, resulting in the social-media companies’ suppression of the story. As a result, millions of U.S. citizens did not hear the story prior to the November 3, 2020 election,” Doughty continued.

According to Jordan, had the Hunter Biden story been a product of an actual Russian disinformation campaign, FITF would have been fully authorized to warn the companies of such a campaign. Dehmlow explained: “If there is a foreign malign influence operation and we’ve got specific details about how those actors are propagating information operations, influence operations on platforms, that’s something we could share the specific details of.”

Jordan argued that the refusal of FBI officials — the very officials who knew the laptop was real — to verify the authenticity of the laptop allowed widespread censorship.

[youthathletics]

It's far more important to listen to a graphical design, political blogger, who is famous for attacking Trump and loves HRC.

[old salt]

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/07/ ... term=first

Bidens Pressured Burisma Founder into Paying $10 Million Bribe to Get Ukrainian Prosecutor Fired, FBI Source Claims

by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY & JACK CROWE, July 20, 2023

According to an unidentified informant businessman, the founder of Burisma recounted being pressured by then-Vice President Joe Biden to put Biden’s son Hunter on the Ukrainian energy company’s board, and for $10 million in bribes — $5 million each to Joe and Hunter Biden — in order to use Biden’s political influence to force the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.

The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was fired by the Ukrainian government a few months after Vice President Biden, in late 2015, threatened then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko that the Obama administration would withhold $1 billion in congressionally approved U.S. funding unless Kyiv fired Shokin. Biden later bragged about the threat in a 2018 interview at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The bribery information was provided to the FBI in a series of meetings with the informant beginning in 2017. Those meetings were summarized in re-interview of the informant on June 30, 2020, and outlined in a Form 1023, the standard FBI form used to record information from an interview with a confidential human source (CHS). As National Review previously reported, this 1023 report has been the subject of an extensive dispute between the House Oversight Committee, which subpoenaed the document, and the FBI, which fought its release and then made a redacted version of the document available to the committee with significant restrictions.

The 1023 report was released Thursday afternoon with minimal redactions by Senator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa), who explains that he obtained the document via legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers. Indeed, the senator has previously explained that it was through whistleblower agents that he learned of the existence of the document.

Senator Grassley and the House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer, have been pressing the FBI for an explanation of what, if any, follow-up investigation has been done regarding extensively detailed disclosures that implicate now-President Biden in a $10 million bribery scheme (among other corrupt acts) from a CHS with a track-record of reliability. Thus far, the FBI and its Justice Department superiors have declined to respond to those inquiries.

Burisma’s founder and CEO is Mykola Zlochevsky. The CHS, a businessman, first dealt with him indirectly in the 2015-16 time frame. The CHS was introduced to Burisma executives by an associate, identified as Oleksandr Ostapenko, who accompanied the CHS to a meeting at Burisma headquarters to discuss the company’s acquisition of an American energy firm that would allow them to IPO in the U.S.

During the meeting, Burisma CFO Vadim Pojarskii listed the company’s board of directors, which included the former president and prime minister of Poland as well as Hunter Biden who, he said, was brought on “to protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”

The CHS then asked why Burisma needed his assistance with the acquisition of a U.S. energy company given Hunter Biden’s involvement, prompting Pojarskii to concede that the younger Biden’s limited intelligence meant he was of little value outside of the influence he could exercise over his father.

It has previously been reported that Hunter Biden’s laptop stored emails from Pojarskii (sometimes spelled Pozharskyi) explicitly discussing the understanding that Hunter would “use your influence” to assist Burisma, including in arranging for U.S. government officials to help Zlochevsky’s company fend off Ukrainian government pressure.

At a subsequent meeting two months later, the CHS expressed concern that Shokin’s investigation of Burisma would damage the company’s prospective IPO in the U.S. Zlochevsky, the Burisma CEO, replied something to the effect of, “don’t worry Hunter will take care of all of those Issues through his dad.” He allegedly went on to say that he had paid $5 million each to Hunter and Joe Biden, an admission the CHS said was not at all unusual in Eastern European circles, where businessman enjoy bragging about their influence.

“Zlochevsky made some comment that although Hunter Biden ‘was stupid, and his (Zlochevsky’s) dog was smarter,’ Zlochevsky needed to keep Hunter Biden (on Burisma’s board) ‘so everything will be okay,’” the document reads.

In a subsequent phone call that occurred shortly after the 2016 election, Zlochevsky expressed disappointment that President Trump had been elected and said that he had never wanted to pay off the Bidens but was “pushed to pay” them, even using the Russian term “poluchili,” a slang term often employed by criminals to describe being forced to pay a bribe.

The CHS told the bureau that Zlochevsky claimed to have a total of 17 recordings implicating the Bidens in the bribery scheme, two of which involved Joe directly.

The CHS also recalled a 2019 phone call in which he mentioned that Zlochevsky might have difficulty explaining suspicious wire transfers that could prove illicit payments to the Bidens. Zlochevsky, he said, responded that he did not send funds directly to “the big guy” (a reference to Joe Biden), and that the payments to the Bidens had been routed through so many companies and bank accounts that it would take investigators ten years to trace the payments to Joe Biden.

The Oversight Committee’s ongoing probe indicates, mainly through bank records, that millions of dollars from foreign actors in Ukraine and other countries were transferred to at least nine different family members, through a dizzying array of shell companies and LLCs that were established mainly by Hunter Biden while his father was the Obama administration vice president. An interim report released by the Committee in May said that, although the investigation and review of bank records is far from complete, over $10 million was transferred from foreign actors to Biden family members, beginning when Joe Biden was vice president and continuing after he left public office in 2017.

While President Biden has repeatedly claimed to have no involvement in his son’s business dealings, he did meet with Hunter’s business partner Devon Archer in 2014, around the time they both joined the Burisma board, according to Obama White House visitor logs. The elder Biden also met with Pojarskii, the Burisma CFO, at Cafe Milano in Washington, D.C., in 2015, the New York Post reported.

[njbill]

Sigh. How many times do we have to go over this? Yes, there was a “real” laptop. But it did not belong to Hunter Biden. Biden was hacked, and his data was uploaded by the hacker. The hacker then found a laptop and downloaded the data onto this laptop. So some, maybe a lot, of the data on the laptop was “real” in the sense that it was genuinely Hunter Biden‘s data. The hacker also salted in some additional data that they tried to pass off as genuine Hunter data. It was not, as has been well established. The hacker then took the laptop to the blind guy computer repair man in Delaware. And we were off to the races.

Two key problems that the conspiracy theorists have never been able to answer. One, if that laptop really belonged to Hunter, why has no one ever said that his DNA or fingerprints were on it? There is zero chance the FBI did not test for that. Two, Hunter was in California when the laptop was dropped off in Delaware. So he wasn’t the person who dropped off this “laptop” in Delaware.

On the tax issue, these statute of limitations arguments are simply wrong. Sometimes I wish the Internet had ever been invented.

[cradleandshoot]

Sigh. How many times do we have to go over this? Yes, there was a “real” laptop. But it did not belong to Hunter Biden. Biden was hacked, and his data was uploaded by the hacker. The hacker then found a laptop and downloaded the data onto this laptop. So some, maybe a lot, of the data on the laptop was “real” in the sense that it was genuinely Hunter Biden‘s data. The hacker also salted in some additional data that they tried to pass off as genuine Hunter data. It was not, as has been well established. The hacker then took the laptop to the blind guy computer repair man in Delaware. And we were off to the races.

Two key problems that the conspiracy theorists have never been able to answer. One, if that laptop really belonged to Hunter, why has no one ever said that his DNA or fingerprints were on it? There is zero chance the FBI did not test for that. Two, Hunter was in California when the laptop was dropped off in Delaware. So he wasn’t the person who dropped off this “laptop” in Delaware.

On the tax issue, these statute of limitations arguments are simply wrong. Sometimes I wish the Internet had ever been invented.

How are they wrong counselor? You have an explanation that over rides the testimony under oath of the 2 IRS agents who watched their felony case go up in flames.They testified it was foot dragging that allowed that happen. Your very stern tone isn't very convincing short of an explanation on your part that you never gave. I for one would like to hear it.

[MDlaxfan76]

Sigh. How many times do we have to go over this? Yes, there was a “real” laptop. But it did not belong to Hunter Biden. Biden was hacked, and his data was uploaded by the hacker. The hacker then found a laptop and downloaded the data onto this laptop. So some, maybe a lot, of the data on the laptop was “real” in the sense that it was genuinely Hunter Biden‘s data. The hacker also salted in some additional data that they tried to pass off as genuine Hunter data. It was not, as has been well established. The hacker then took the laptop to the blind guy computer repair man in Delaware. And we were off to the races.

Two key problems that the conspiracy theorists have never been able to answer. One, if that laptop really belonged to Hunter, why has no one ever said that his DNA or fingerprints were on it? There is zero chance the FBI did not test for that. Two, Hunter was in California when the laptop was dropped off in Delaware. So he wasn’t the person who dropped off this “laptop” in Delaware.

On the tax issue, these statute of limitations arguments are simply wrong. Sometimes I wish the Internet had ever been invented.

How are they wrong counselor? You have an explanation that over rides the testimony under oath of the 2 IRS agents who watched their felony case go up in flames.They testified it was foot dragging that allowed that happen. Your very stern tone isn't very convincing short of an explanation on your part that you never gave. I for one would like to hear it.

And would you end this nonsense if explained?

[a fan]

Sigh. How many times do we have to go over this? Yes, there was a “real” laptop. But it did not belong to Hunter Biden. Biden was hacked, and his data was uploaded by the hacker. The hacker then found a laptop and downloaded the data onto this laptop. So some, maybe a lot, of the data on the laptop was “real” in the sense that it was genuinely Hunter Biden‘s data. The hacker also salted in some additional data that they tried to pass off as genuine Hunter data. It was not, as has been well established. The hacker then took the laptop to the blind guy computer repair man in Delaware. And we were off to the races.

Two key problems that the conspiracy theorists have never been able to answer. One, if that laptop really belonged to Hunter, why has no one ever said that his DNA or fingerprints were on it? There is zero chance the FBI did not test for that. Two, Hunter was in California when the laptop was dropped off in Delaware. So he wasn’t the person who dropped off this “laptop” in Delaware.

On the tax issue, these statute of limitations arguments are simply wrong. Sometimes I wish the Internet had ever been invented.

How are they wrong counselor? You have an explanation that over rides the testimony under oath of the 2 IRS agents who watched their felony case go up in flames.They testified it was foot dragging that allowed that happen. Your very stern tone isn't very convincing short of an explanation on your part that you never gave. I for one would like to hear it.

Well, even I know that there's no statute of limitations if you don't file your taxes for a given year. The clock is never started. I'm sure the lawyers will jump in.

[MDlaxfan76]

Sigh. How many times do we have to go over this? Yes, there was a “real” laptop. But it did not belong to Hunter Biden. Biden was hacked, and his data was uploaded by the hacker. The hacker then found a laptop and downloaded the data onto this laptop. So some, maybe a lot, of the data on the laptop was “real” in the sense that it was genuinely Hunter Biden‘s data. The hacker also salted in some additional data that they tried to pass off as genuine Hunter data. It was not, as has been well established. The hacker then took the laptop to the blind guy computer repair man in Delaware. And we were off to the races.

Two key problems that the conspiracy theorists have never been able to answer. One, if that laptop really belonged to Hunter, why has no one ever said that his DNA or fingerprints were on it? There is zero chance the FBI did not test for that. Two, Hunter was in California when the laptop was dropped off in Delaware. So he wasn’t the person who dropped off this “laptop” in Delaware.

On the tax issue, these statute of limitations arguments are simply wrong. Sometimes I wish the Internet had ever been invented.

How are they wrong counselor? You have an explanation that over rides the testimony under oath of the 2 IRS agents who watched their felony case go up in flames.They testified it was foot dragging that allowed that happen. Your very stern tone isn't very convincing short of an explanation on your part that you never gave. I for one would like to hear it.

Well, even I know that there's no statute of limitations if you don't file your taxes for a given year. The clock is never started. I'm sure the lawyers will jump in.

And civil charges and penalties when fraud/evasion go to 10 years.

But bottomline, the Trump DOJ, Trump IRS, Trump FBI, Trump US Attorneys either had plenty of proof in 2020 when the IRS investigation was filed as 'complete'...or they didn't. Indict or shut up.

But seems to me they were greedy, indeed perhaps under considerable political pressure (certainly was a lot from Trump himself publicly), to prove something far more damning about Hunter...and Joe...than some unpaid taxes... and they never found anything they could actually bring to court and not get run out by an honest judge.

So, this is the best they can do...some accusations, no proof of a darn thing.

But those who WANT to believe the worst of the federal government career professionals will believe anything they're told consistent with that desire.

[RedFromMI]

It's far more important to listen to a graphical design, political blogger, who is famous for attacking Trump and loves HRC.

He just made a great succinct summary of what others have done. Look at PMM for more details (emptywheel).

The truth is the hack of Hunter’s account and the long path through many unknown hands pretty much make anything on the drive worthless in a court of law.

But that was not the point - it was to damage Biden (the president) in the election (both 2020 and 2024). Never mind the truth of what actually might have happened.

It is not an accident that the only people believing in the truth of the charges made by the Trumpists are the Trumpists. Most of us are not that gullible.

[cradleandshoot]

The back and forth on this issue has become hopelessly futile. The reality is there are only 2 options here.
Option A: the IRS agents are lying

Option B: the DoJ and FBI are lying.

There is option C... find out who is lying here because one side is not being truthful. This is black or white there are no shades of gray. IMO if it is the DoJ and FBI doing the lying our country is in deep, deep trouble. I doubt that the usual suspects on this forum will ever admit that.
Here is my simple solution... Find out who is lying here if that even matters anymore...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... e54d&ei=19

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news ... stleblower

[Kismet]

The back and forth on this issue has become hopelessly futile. The reality is there are only 2 options here.
Option A: the IRS agents are lying

Option B: the DoJ and FBI are lying.

There is option C... find out who is lying here because one side is not being truthful. This is black or white there are no shades of gray. IMO if it is the DoJ and FBI doing the lying our country is in deep, deep trouble. I doubt that the usual suspects on this forum will ever admit that.
Here is my simple solution... Find out who is lying here if that even matters anymore...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics ... e54d&ei=19

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news ... stleblower

YOUR reality, maybe.

[ggait]

Option 3.

The IRS agents are not lawyers. They are accountants. The IRS agents are not prosecutors. They are part of Treasury, not DOJ.

Non-lawyer IRS investigators do not make decisions on criminal charges. They don't try cases. It is not their job. They don't know shirt about things like admissible evidence, unanimous jury decisions, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and all the other things that prosecutors have to consider when charging cases.

The non lawyer non-prosecutorsy disagreed with the decisions made by the real actual lawyers/prosecutors who actually know how to do their job and were actually doing their job.

Since that is not their job or their expertise, basically no one should care much about their uninformed, un-expertised, water cooler opinions.

Happens all the time. Literally every forking day.

And Weiss will be before congress to explain it all -- again. But loser maroons like you, Comer, Jordan won't hear it.

Sheesh.

[njbill]

Sigh. How many times do we have to go over this? Yes, there was a “real” laptop. But it did not belong to Hunter Biden. Biden was hacked, and his data was uploaded by the hacker. The hacker then found a laptop and downloaded the data onto this laptop. So some, maybe a lot, of the data on the laptop was “real” in the sense that it was genuinely Hunter Biden‘s data. The hacker also salted in some additional data that they tried to pass off as genuine Hunter data. It was not, as has been well established. The hacker then took the laptop to the blind guy computer repair man in Delaware. And we were off to the races.

Two key problems that the conspiracy theorists have never been able to answer. One, if that laptop really belonged to Hunter, why has no one ever said that his DNA or fingerprints were on it? There is zero chance the FBI did not test for that. Two, Hunter was in California when the laptop was dropped off in Delaware. So he wasn’t the person who dropped off this “laptop” in Delaware.

On the tax issue, these statute of limitations arguments are simply wrong. Sometimes I wish the Internet had ever been invented.

How are they wrong counselor? You have an explanation that over rides the testimony under oath of the 2 IRS agents who watched their felony case go up in flames.They testified it was foot dragging that allowed that happen. Your very stern tone isn't very convincing short of an explanation on your part that you never gave. I for one would like to hear it.

You mean as to SOL? The SOL doesn’t begin to run, at the earliest, until he files the return. If he hid money, it doesn’t begin to run until the IRS knew or should’ve known he hid the money.

[cradleandshoot]

Well Merrick Garland will have no other option than to appoint an independent counsel. Not that he has the balls to do so. The country has heard one side of the discussion. The DoJ and FBI get the chance to have their agents step up to the mic and tell their side of the story. You would think they would all be chomping at the bit to bury these IRS agents. They appear to me more scared chitless for some reason?? They have nothing to hide after all.

[cradleandshoot]

Sigh. How many times do we have to go over this? Yes, there was a “real” laptop. But it did not belong to Hunter Biden. Biden was hacked, and his data was uploaded by the hacker. The hacker then found a laptop and downloaded the data onto this laptop. So some, maybe a lot, of the data on the laptop was “real” in the sense that it was genuinely Hunter Biden‘s data. The hacker also salted in some additional data that they tried to pass off as genuine Hunter data. It was not, as has been well established. The hacker then took the laptop to the blind guy computer repair man in Delaware. And we were off to the races.

Two key problems that the conspiracy theorists have never been able to answer. One, if that laptop really belonged to Hunter, why has no one ever said that his DNA or fingerprints were on it? There is zero chance the FBI did not test for that. Two, Hunter was in California when the laptop was dropped off in Delaware. So he wasn’t the person who dropped off this “laptop” in Delaware.

On the tax issue, these statute of limitations arguments are simply wrong. Sometimes I wish the Internet had ever been invented.

How are they wrong counselor? You have an explanation that over rides the testimony under oath of the 2 IRS agents who watched their felony case go up in flames.They testified it was foot dragging that allowed that happen. Your very stern tone isn't very convincing short of an explanation on your part that you never gave. I for one would like to hear it.

You mean as to SOL? The SOL doesn’t begin to run, at the earliest, until he files the return. If he hid money, it doesn’t begin to run until the IRS knew or should’ve known he hid the money.

Let an independent counsel get to the bottom of it. I know what the agents testified to. I'm sure you read their testimony. Did you read any testimony from the DoJ agents and FBI agents also involved in this investigation? I'll betcha you haven't

[njbill]

Option 3.

The IRS agents are not lawyers. They are accountants. The IRS agents are not prosecutors. They are part of Treasury, not DOJ.

Non-lawyer IRS investigators do not make decisions on criminal charges. They don't try cases. It is not their job. They don't know shirt about things like admissible evidence, unanimous jury decisions, proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and all the other things that prosecutors have to consider when charging cases.

The non lawyer non-prosecutorsy disagreed with the decisions made by the real actual lawyers/prosecutors who actually know how to do their job and were actually doing their job.

Since that is not their job or their expertise, basically no one should care much about their uninformed, un-expertised, water cooler opinions.

Happens all the time. Literally every forking day.

And Weiss will be before congress to explain it all -- again. But loser maroons like you, Comer, Jordan won't hear it.

Sheesh.

+1. On the nose. I would add that in one instance, it seems abundantly clear that the agent simply misunderstood what Weiss was saying in terms of the type of special appointment he was seeking. Nobody was lying there. Just a misunderstanding by someone probably not conversant in the details of the particular positions involved.

Cradle, ever work for a boss? Ever disagree with the boss about something? I sure did. I’m sure there were times I thought we should make particular arguments or depose particular witnesses or such and such. My boss disagreed and overruled me. Now, I didn’t go testifying before Congress, of course, but I’m sure I very strongly disagreed at times with decisions my boss made.

[jhu72]

Because it was based on IRS investigations of multiple tax years. Have you ever been involved in a dispute with the IRS ? It can take years to sort out, even when there's no criminality charged.

Great. Now we're back to the claims of "foot dragging" are lies from IRS agents who should know about your claim that "it can take years to sort out, even when there's no criminality charged".

They're on the stand, telling everyone that you you're lying, OS, and that they've never seen "slow walking" like this.

Again, we can do this all day, RRR. These are political games, trying desperately to find ways of magically skipping over any blame of the Trump administration, and landing perfectly on blaming Biden. I'm tired of this silly nonsense.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

That's right. And you, naturally, think that applies to me, and not you.

These are Trump guys, OS. Trump's handpicked guys running both the FBI and the IRS for the entirety of Hunter's investigation.

You wanna blame them? Go right ahead. There's your conspiracy. Is Wray or Retting whistleblowing the DoJ?

Call me when they do. In the meantime, these IRS agents on the stand are claiming you're wrong, and two years is plenty of time for an indictment.

Trump guys ? The Whistle blowers ? The DC & CA US Atty's ? The DE Asst US Atty ? You're not paying attention.

"whistle blowers" no, we don't know for sure their politics. But not political appointees.

But head of IRS and FBI and DOJ were all Trump appointees as of 2020, as were the DC and CA US attorneys, and the Delaware assistant Us attorney. ALL Trump appointees.

And, none of them are claiming that there was political interference preventing an indictment of Hunter in 2020, nor thereafter.

Including the current (Trump appointed) FBI and IRS head and the DE US attorney. None.

Just some investigators who grew frustrated with prosecutors (Trump appointed) who said the evidence they could credibly take to court was insufficient to have a strong confidence of successful prosecution. Happens every day of the week that investigators think they see a crime that prosecutors say they need stronger proof of before they will indict.

Yup, frustrating. What did Weiss actually say in that meeting?
Well, we know the investigators got at least one piece wrong, as Weiss says he was not ever asking for the sort of status Garland decided to do with Jack Smith, taking the DOJ entirely out of the loop, but rather a different status...but decided not to pursue it as he felt he had sufficient powers and no interference.

So, the investigators "misheard" that one...did they also "mishear" this sense that Weiss was being prevented by higher ups from extending the investigation further (after 4 years of investigation)? Was that something Weiss actually wanted to do? Weiss says no...and Weiss is the Trump appointed prosecutor purposely placed to prosecute Hunter...and who Biden/Garland didn't replace under their own authority to switch out US Attorneys..gave him full authority to make charging decisions.

Sure sounds immensely more plausible that the case was concluded to Weiss' satisfaction, given the actual evidence, and not under political pressure from Garland/Biden, etc.

... one democrat, one republican or so they each claim
... neither had law degrees as far as I recall, just accounting -- pretty typical for IRS frontline agents
... I saw the lead agents' purported CV last night, was another overhyped "masterpiece" that to me looked a little light for supposedly having 13 years with the firm. Not surprising given the degree of understaffing at the IRS, they move people around an awful lot, no one stays with a particular job responsibility very long (until very recently thanks to Biden's increased funding of the IRS). I really doubt either of these guys would have been in the room with the DOJ guys and IRS lawyers when the charging discussions were had on a case like this.

[old salt]

On the tax issue, these statute of limitations arguments are simply wrong. Sometimes I wish the Internet had ever been invented.

Please explain the correct SOL for Hunter's 2014 & 2015 tax liability. When would the SOL have run ?

[old salt]

Sigh. How many times do we have to go over this? Yes, there was a “real” laptop. But it did not belong to Hunter Biden. Biden was hacked, and his data was uploaded by the hacker. The hacker then found a laptop and downloaded the data onto this laptop. So some, maybe a lot, of the data on the laptop was “real” in the sense that it was genuinely Hunter Biden‘s data. The hacker also salted in some additional data that they tried to pass off as genuine Hunter data. It was not, as has been well established. The hacker then took the laptop to the blind guy computer repair man in Delaware. And we were off to the races.

Two key problems that the conspiracy theorists have never been able to answer. One, if that laptop really belonged to Hunter, why has no one ever said that his DNA or fingerprints were on it? There is zero chance the FBI did not test for that. Two, Hunter was in California when the laptop was dropped off in Delaware. So he wasn’t the person who dropped off this “laptop” in Delaware.

On the tax issue, these statute of limitations arguments are simply wrong. Sometimes I wish the Internet had ever been invented.

How are they wrong counselor? You have an explanation that over rides the testimony under oath of the 2 IRS agents who watched their felony case go up in flames.They testified it was foot dragging that allowed that happen. Your very stern tone isn't very convincing short of an explanation on your part that you never gave. I for one would like to hear it.

Well, even I know that there's no statute of limitations if you don't file your taxes for a given year. The clock is never started. I'm sure the lawyers will jump in.

...& if Hunter did not file for 2014, then took the 6 mos extension for 2015 => first filing is Oct 2016 + 6 yr SOL = Oct 2022, as the WB's testify.

I'm not sure if that's accurate or not, but the dates match.