The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[N.E. Brigand]

Meanwhile, David Weiss, the Special Counsel who was appointed to investigate Hunter Biden and brought the charges against Smirnov, is pushing back on the decision to release him pending trial....

Apparently, the judge in California agreed, and Smirnov has been re-arrested.

And Smirnov's attorneys have filed an "emeregency" motion (submitted today but dated two days ago) arguing the re-arrest was improper.

[N.E. Brigand]

Meanwhile, David Weiss, the Special Counsel who was appointed to investigate Hunter Biden and brought the charges against Smirnov, is pushing back on the decision to release him pending trial....

Apparently, the judge in California agreed, and Smirnov has been re-arrested.

And Smirnov's attorneys have filed an "emeregency" motion (submitted today but dated two days ago) arguing the re-arrest was improper.

Business Insider reports today that a "former KGB agent handed a thumb drive with Hunter Biden disinformation to an aide for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo at a gala event in May 2019. The former KGB agent also presented the same disinformation to Justice Department officials in January 2019."

[RoseMorninStar]

West Virginia Republicans pass a bill to prosecute librarians over 'obscene' books. "Supporters of the bill have bristled at the claim that the legislation is a book ban. That's exactly what it is."

Because the bill is not well defined and is subjective I would think few would want to take the chance of 5 years in jail. What a pathetic loss for a state already short on education.

[N.E. Brigand]

Meanwhile, solid proof that the Russians have been behind the push to get Biden all along.

[Tweet from Kyle Cheney: "JUST IN: Feds say in a detention memo that Alexander SMIRNOV -- charged with fabricating claims that Joe Biden was bribed by Ukrainians -- had high-level contacts with Russian intelligence operatives."]

This is properly being treated as a big deal in the press, but it's probably worse than it looks. The story now is that the FBI, the Dept. of Justice, and Congress were duped by a Russian agent, but [arguably] some of them wanted to be duped and made it possible. Scott Brady was the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania for much of Donald Trump's presidency. ... Brady testified ... that his team had vetted Smirnov's claims, by e.g., checking whether Smirnov was in the cities he claimed when he received the information he was sharing about Hunter Biden. The Dept. of Justice filing yesterday says that Smirnov was not in those cities at those times. And the DOJ should have known that. It's possible that Smirnov's FBI handler was lying, and Brady didn't know it. But somebody in the U.S. government seems to have been covering for Smirnov in order to smear Joe Biden.

Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the highest-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, has written to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Dept. of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz asking for an investigation into Scott Brady.

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Meanwhile, David Weiss, the Special Counsel who was appointed to investigate Hunter Biden and brought the charges against Smirnov, is pushing back on the decision to release him pending trial....

Apparently, the judge in California agreed, and Smirnov has been re-arrested.

And Smirnov's attorneys have filed an "emeregency" motion (submitted today but dated two days ago) arguing the re-arrest was improper.

On the other hand, NBC reports that the federal judge in California who ordered Smirnov's re-arrest was convinced by prosecutors that Smirnov was making plans to flee the country.

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Glenn Kessler, a fact-checking reporter at the Washington Post reached out to former Attorney General William Barr to ask about the apparent Russian efforts to use the Dept. of Justice as a conduit for disinformation about Joe Biden. Barr "spoke briefly ... off the record, before hanging up the phone."

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"GOP's Star Witness in Hunter Biden Probe Has Ties to Russian Oligarch" (The Daily Beast).

That witness, Tony Bobulinski, is testifying again to the House behind closed doors today.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, who famously replaced her attorney and then became much more forthcoming with the January 6th Committee, has written that in November 2020 at a Trump campaign event in Georgia, she saw Tony Bobulinski, formerly a business partner of Hunter Biden, hand something to Trump's then-chief of staff, Mark Meadows. She said the meeting seemed to be clandestinely staged behind some Secret Service vehcles and that Bobulinski was wearing a ski mask. Bobulinski last week testified that Hutchinson is "a liar and a fraud," because he wasn't wearing a mask and didn't hand anything to Meadows. Bobulinski's lawyer, by the way, is the man that Hutchinson fired who seemed to be trying to get her to cover up the truth. Today Hutchinson's lawyers wrote in a letter that Bobulinski had defamed Hutchinson with that testimony, and they included a photo of that meeting. You can't see the two men's hands, but Bobulinski was definitely wearing a mask.

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Jon Paul Mac Isaac, the Delaware computer repairman who gave what is purportedly Hunter Biden's laptop to the FBI and to Rudy Giuliani, is suing Hunter Biden for defamation for having said in 2021, "There could be a laptop out there that was stolen from me. It could be that I was hacked. It could be that it was the–- that it was Russian intelligence. It could be that it was stolen from me. Or that there was a laptop stolen from me." There was a hearing yesterday in this case. I think that would be a stretch to prove as defamation under any circumstances, but now that it appears there really was a Russian intelligence operation targeting Hunter Biden in order to hurt his father, Hunter's 2021 comments seem downright restrained.

[N.E. Brigand]

President Biden had his fourth annual physical as president today. The White House physician listed Biden's various conditions, e.g. sleep apnea and "sensory peripheral neuropathy of the feet" -- which are unchanged from a year ago -- and concluded that Biden is a "healthy, active, robust 81-year old male, who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency".

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Hunter Biden testified behind closed doors in the House today. One report says he asked if Republicans are troubled by Jared Kushner's dealings.

(Edited to add: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) says that the committee's chair, Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) didn't ask Hunter Biden any questions!)

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Sahil Kapur notes:



I think it's just possible they could break that record and get to 235 judges, but it will be close.

[N.E. Brigand]

Hunter Biden testified behind closed doors in the House today. One report says he asked if Republicans are troubled by Jared Kushner's dealings.

(Edited to add: Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California) says that the committee's chair, Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) didn't ask Hunter Biden any questions!)

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) says "the idea that Jared Kushner did anything wrong is ridiculous."

[N.E. Brigand]

During yesterday's deposition of Hunter Biden -- whose transcript is here -- Representatives Eric Swalwell (D-California) and Jerry Nadler (D-New York) asked the Oversight Committee chairman, Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), when other transcripts from the committee's impeachment inquiry would be released. They noted there are 81 unreleased deposition transcripts in this matter.

[N.E. Brigand]

I'm 84 pages into the 229-page transcript. The Republican questioner spent an hour questioning Hunter Biden about lots of business transactions, trying to imply that he received money from foreign sources which then made its way to his father. Then the Democrat questioner takes over and points out that the various exhibits presented to Hunter for comment in the first hour were misleading. Republicans showed him a bank statement and suggested that he controlled the money in it. He denied it, but the proof that he was correct required the Democrats to show him another document for that account which confirmed that he had no control, not to mention the testimony from a previous hearing -- which Republicans conveniently didn't mention -- from the person who did control the account.

Also a Chinese businessman gave him a "diamond" which turned out to be worthless in exchange for a $20,000 bottle of scotch that Hunter's people had given in return.

[N.E. Brigand]

A little more than halfway through, Rep. Eric Swalwell asks a few questions meant to contrast Biden family business with Trump family business, including:

Swalwell: "As President and the leader of the party, has your father ever tried to install as the chairperson of the party a daughter-in-law or anyone else in the family?

Biden: "No. And I don't think that anyone in my family would be crazy enough to want to be the chairperson of the DNC."

[N.E. Brigand]

I like this line from Hunter Biden: "You have all my emails. You have every email that I've ever written and ones that I never wrote."

[N.E. Brigand]

Rep. Matt Gaetz: "Were you on drugs when you were on the Burisma board?"

Hunter Biden: "Mr. Gaetz, look me in the eye. You really think that's appropriate to ask me?"

Gaetz: "Absolutely."

Biden: "Of all the people sitting around this table, do you think that's appropriate to ask me?"

[N.E. Brigand]

Abbe Lowell [Biden's attorney*]: "Is your background in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act?"

Rep. Matt Gaetz: "My background is I'm a member of the House Judiciary Committee."

Lowell: "I know that, apparently not reading the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act."

*Also (formerly?) Jared Kushner's attorney, by the way.

[N.E. Brigand]

Hunter Biden: "How is contemplation -- let me ask a question. How is contemplation of something evidence of involvement? I alone contemplate. I contemplate that one day you and I are going to be great friends. Is that ever going to happen, Mr. Gaetz? I don't think so."

Rep. Matt Gaetz: "Hope springs eternal, Mr. Biden."

[N.E. Brigand]

And I've read it all. Near the end, Matt Gaetz springs several previously unseen and unverified documents on Hunter Biden, but it really goes nowhere.

[N.E. Brigand]

Could it be? Yes it could.



I seem to recall State of the Union addresses normally being delivered on Tuesdays, but either my memory is incorrect, or it was changed this year so as not to coincide with "Super Tuesday" (the multi-state primaries currently under way): Biden will deliver this speech on Thursday.

[N.E. Brigand]

This is a day old but: "Appeals court slams Florida’s ‘Stop-Woke’ law for committing ‘greatest First Amendment sin’." The court had some choice words about the law.

[N.E. Brigand]

Two charts concerning the economy under Joe Biden:



In other words: inflation was higher for most of Ronald Reagan's presidency than it has been for the past year, but most people don't remember that.



And that chart is pre-pandemic for Trump: it doesn't blame him for job losses in 2020.

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Edited to add two more charts from Steven Rattner:

[N.E. Brigand]

This shows that even adjusting for inflation, all wage levels have seen growth over President Biden's first three years in office, with the lowest earners seeing the largest gains:



I think many national journalists are probably in the top quartile and thus might be disinclined to share this news.

[N.E. Brigand]

Bill Pullman today sounds like the late Robert Loggia did when they were together in Independence Day (and Pullman is older now than Loggia was in 1996):

[N.E. Brigand]

"We are in a golden era of historically low layoffs."