Sam Bankman-Fried slapped with new indictment alleging $40 million bribe to Chinese official
March 28, 2023, 10:01 AM ET
For customer support contact
support@rawstory.com. Report typos and corrections to
corrections@rawstory.com.
Stories Chosen For You
"He's got dementia," claims radio host Joe Rogan about President Joe Biden.
Donald Trump joined in the attacks, crafting a whole new conspiracy theory: "Joe Biden's second bout of Covid, sometimes referred to as the China Virus, was sadly misdiagnosed by his doctors. He instead has Dementia, but is happily recovering well," Trump wrote. "Joe is thinking of moving, part time, to one of those beautiful Wisconsin Nursing Homes, where almost 100% of the residents miraculously, and for the first time in history, had the strength and energy to vote — even if those votes were cast illegally."
For years, Trump called Biden "sleepy Joe."
Stephen Miller said Biden should be in “assisted living” and “is not cognitively present.”
But it seems Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) isn't on message.
Asked about Biden, McCarthy said: "I thought his team was very professional, very smart, very tough, at the same time, so...." The fact that McCarthy said "team" threw reporters off. They asked again, specifically about Biden. "What I was referring to was the president. I was talking about President Biden, yes."
Listening to a few Biden speeches, namely his big Warsaw speech in Feb. 2023, Desert News columnist Jacob Hess, said that there's evidence of Biden's stutter and some slurred words. Folks are forgetting Biden's decades of gaffes. It became an ongoing joke during Barack Obama's administration, where Biden would tell a crowd "The problem isn't I mean what I say, it's that sometimes I say what I mean." It's a joke about politicians holding back their thoughts or being calculated. Biden, he explained, could never be that guy.
"Often catches himself and turns it into a joke, like when he said 'saloon' instead of salon, or offered $100K for citizens to get vaccinated. You might have also missed how the president handled hecklers with notable grace and patience at the recent State of the Union," Hess said.
See the McCarthy comments in the video below or at the link here.
Not so Sleepy Joe! youtu.be
CONTINUE READING
Show less
Former federal prosecutor cites the real reason Trump can't stop attacking special counsel Jack Smith
May 28, 2023
Former federal prosecutor Katzberg, who does commentary for Slate told the site that former President Donald Trump has a serious problem controlling himself.
No person likes being attacked, but it's dangerous when it comes to a judge or a federal prosecutor going on a public attack campaign that endangers the lives of those working for the court. There's no rule against it, given there isn't an indictment, much less a case. Still, Trump has gone on a spree over the past several months, alluding to special counsel Jack Smith being a partisan hack. He's attacked Smith's wife.
For a while, Trump had a bizarre conspiracy theory claiming Jack Smith wasn't his real name. His name is John Smith, but he goes by Jack. Slate cited Smith's local hometown newspaper that went to the high school to find a yearbook, finding that Smith did go by Jack as far back as his teens.
Slate asked Katzberg why Trump was doing it.
“I just don’t think he’s able to control himself. Any experienced lawyer would have resigned a long time before that," he said.
He attacked Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a “degenerate psychopath that truly hates the USA.” He insulted New York Attorney General Letitia James and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as “racists in reverse.” He then began using racially charged language about the two Black women and calling James "Peekaboo," confusing many trying to figure out what it meant. In the Urban Dictionary, "Peekaboo" has an X-rated connotation. The other is that Trump is referring to the racist word that begins with "J" and sounds a lot like peekaboo.
Katzberg thinks it all goes to Trump's insecurities. He explained Trump "has the thinnest skin of any human being in history and is incapable of keeping his mouth closed."
Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen thinks Trump has dementia.
"Let me put it to you this way," Cohen told Insider last year. "As you sit and listen to Trump speak, you realize that he has, at best, a 10-year-old's vocabulary. He's using peekaboo as a hide-and-seek term."
"His rambling about 'we were settling' and then questioning why anyone would settle when they're not guilty is indicative of some cognitive impairment," alleged Cohen.
He doesn't appear to be alone in allegations about Trump's health. Former White House adviser Omarosa Manigault Newman said that. Trump intends to run for president again; then he should come clean about his "health" to the American people. She didn't elaborate further.
Another option could be similar to a legal tactic that Roger Stone used in 2020 during his case. During his trial, Stone regularly attacked the judge in his case. It finally came to a head when he posted a photo of the judge with a target by her face. Not long after, Stone and his lawyers demanded a different judge in the case, saying that Judge Amy Berman Jackson couldn't possibly be impartial after they'd spent months attacking her.
It could be a strategy Trump is trying to use, hoping he could get a better judge.
"Federal courts have long held that a party can't insult or antagonize a judge and then demand her recusal on the theory that the insults have biased her. That’s why President Trump couldn’t force United States District Judge Gonzalo Curiel off his case with his bigoted and boorish claims that Curiel’s ethnic background disqualified him from hearing the Trump University case," as The Atlantic explained in a 2019 piece.
CONTINUE READING
Show less
Analyst accuses Fox News of keeping Oversight Republicans' sketchy 'FBI whistleblower' claim alive
May 28, 2023
After struggling to find any scandal they could link to President Joe Biden, House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) asked for a 90-day extension on his investigation. The last thing they uncovered was several different LLCs owned by several president's family members. It prompted analysts to question the significance, given Donald Trump's family has control over 500 of LLCs, all inter-linked, and in many different countries, CNBC reported in 2018.
At the same time, Republicans have been cagey on an interview that the FBI did in June 2020 with someone who had an accusation involving Biden. Neither the FBI nor the GOP will say anything about it, Washington Post columnist Philip Bump wrote Sunday. In fact, Republicans won't even tell Democrats what they know about it or how they learned the details about the investigation.
Comer, along with Senate Budget Committee ranking member, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), subpoenaed form FD-1023 that has the word "Biden" on it. Comer then told Fox host Sean Hannity that they wanted any document saying Biden "and the words 'five million dollars.'"
It's because they have very specific allegations. The Republicans claim that Biden was bribed. The two men sent a press release about the letter and their subpoena. Fox has thus mentioned Biden and "bribe" or "bribery" more than 100 times since then.
But for over a month, Comer has been unable to produce any information or documents to prove it, Bump explained. Comer and Grassley say it's because the FBI is standing in their way. But in a statement to Hannity, the FBI gave a statement:
“Releasing confidential source information could potentially jeopardize investigations and put lives at risk,” it explained. “The FBI remains committed to cooperating with Congress’s oversight requests on this matter and others as we always have.”
Hannity was shocked and appalled. He complained, “Well, then hand it over,” skipping the statement's first sentence saying they won't release anything that is part of an ongoing or open investigation.
Bump looked at other FD-1023 forms to explain that they have a header with information about the agent's name doing the interview, the time and place, the source reporting, which has all of the details involved, and the agent's signature.
"In other words, it is a document that records an allegation and little else," wrote Bump. "That’s the argument the FBI used to reject the request to release it in the first place."
An allegation isn't an investigation, nor is it anything confirmed. It's simply the allegation.
“An FD-1023 form documents information as told to a line FBI agent. Recording the information does not validate the information, establish its credibility, or weigh it against other information known or developed by the FBI,” Bump quoted FBI acting assistant director Christopher Dunham saying. “The mere existence of such a document would establish little beyond the fact that a confidential human source provided information and the FBI recorded it.”
Comer told Fox that he asked the FBI what they did to investigate the claim. The answer is the same as what they told Hannity. They don't reveal anything from an open investigation.
The GOP leaders say the FBI is intentionally refusing to work with them. They're correct. The FBI intentionally informed them they don't reveal information involving ongoing investigations. It isn't new.
Meanwhile, there's no additional information that something is happening beyond what the House Republicans claim.
Comer indicates that there is an informant, which Bump explained folks should be wary of given his "reliability in discussing such an informant is shaky; in the Bartiromo interview, he claimed that the informant was 'missing,' but then his staff clarified that he was talking about someone else." Still, it gave enough speculation that allowed Fox a full day of conspiracy theories.
A few weeks ago, Fox hosts complained Comer didn't have anything.
"There exists a transcript of what was alleged by the whistleblower; Comer told Hannity earlier this month that he’d read such a document. It has not been provided to Democrats on the committee," Bump explained, noting that the House rules require that such information be given to both sides.
“[I]n an effort to maximize innuendo on Fox News and dodge accountability, Chairman Comer has continued to insist he has secret evidence that he has concealed from Committee Democrats and the American public,” said the Democratic spokesperson. “These tactics reflect Republicans’ willingness to weaponize the Committee to achieve their political ends instead of engaging in responsible oversight.”
Bump closed his piece by saying that there's no more information now than there was a month ago when Comer and Grassley made their first allegations.
CONTINUE READING
Show less
Copyright © 2023 Raw Story Media, Inc. PO Box 21050, Washington, D.C. 20009 | Masthead | Privacy Policy | Manage Preferences
For corrections contact corrections@rawstory.com, for support contact support@rawstory.com.
{{ post.roar_specific_data.api_data.analytics }}