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‘Angry’ and ‘Defensive’: Hur Accused of Using Report to Trash Biden, Get Trump Re-Elected

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Former Special Counsel Robert Hur appeared to grow angry and defensive during his sworn congressional testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday when confronted by Democratic U.S. Rep. Hank Johnson over his motivations and aspirations in providing what some critics have characterized as lies about President Joe Biden.

Associated Press reporter Farnoush Amiri wrote Hur was “angry” and “on the defensive when Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Georgia, says the special counsel used his ‘report to trash and smear President Biden,’ to fit into a Republican narrative.”

During questioning Rep. Johnson asked Hur, “Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed you to serve as Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice to conduct a full and thorough investigation of certain matters to determine whether or not Joseph Biden should be charged with unlawfully removing and retaining classified documents. Isn’t that correct?”

“Correct,” Hur replied.

“And nowhere in that order does Attorney General Garland authorize you to conduct an investigation and issue a report on whether President Biden is mentally fit to serve as president, isn’t that correct?” Rep. Johnson continued.

READ MORE: ‘Like the Nazis Did’: Critic Slams Trump Plans to Remake US Education System

“That does not appear in the appointment order,” Hur replied.

“And pursuant to your appointment to conclude your investigation you issued a report that was published by Attorney General Garland, correct?” Johnson asked.

“He made it available to Congress, sir,” was Hur’s reply.

“And your report concluded that, after a full and thorough investigation, the evidence was insufficient to establish that President Biden had willfully retained classified documents. Isn’t that correct?” Johnson asked.

“My judgment was that based on the state of the evidence, a conviction at trial was not the probable outcome,” Hur tersely responded.

“And you determined that there was no evidence of willful retention because each time classified documents were discovered to be in the President’s possession, the White House notified the National Archives right away, the Biden legal team in the White House fully cooperated with the National Archives during the investigation, once the DOJ opened the investigation, President Biden and his personal counsel fully cooperated. Isn’t that correct?

“We did identify some evidence of willful retention and disclosure. But we also noted –” Hur began before Johnson interjected.

“The point is though that the President cooperated fully with you,” J0hnson added, asking, “They never tried to hide any documents from you, did they?”

READ MORE: Trump Praised Hitler While He Was in the White House: Ex-Official

“The report does note steps of cooperation taken by the president,” Hur replied, growing more defensive.

“And last but not least, unlike in the Trump classified documents case, President Biden’s counsel never falsely certified that there was no classified documents in the President’s possession, correct?”

“The report does include some comparisons and contrasts between the facts alleged in the Trump case and the Biden case,” Hur stated.

“Despite clearing President Biden from being prosecuted, you use your report to trash and smear President Biden because he said in response to questions over a five-hour interview that he didn’t recall how he got the documents. And you knew that that would play into the Republicans’ narrative that the President is unfit for office because he’s senile, and the American people saw during the State of the Union address that that was not true,” J0hnson proffered. “But yet, that’s what you tried to offer to them. And that’s why they are having you here today, so that they can expand upon that narrative and you knew that that’s what was going to happen, didn’t you?”

“Congressman, I reject the suggestion,” Hur stridently replied. “That is not what happened.”

After both talked over each other, with Hur appearing angry and defensive, Johnson moved on and asked Hur if he is a member of the right wing Federalist Society. Hur said he was not. Asked if he is a Republican, Hur said, “I am a registered Republican.”

Yes, sir. And you’re doing everything you can do to get President Trump re-elected so that you can get appointed as a federal judge or perhaps to another position in the Department of Justice. Isn’t that correct?” Johnson asked.

READ MORE: ‘Incomprehensible’: Trump Decimated for ‘Word Salad on Crucially Important Policy Question’

Congressman, I have no such aspirations, I can assure you, and I can tell you that partisan politics had no place whatsoever in my work,” Hur said. “It had no place that in the investigative steps that I took, it had no place in the decision that I made, and it had no place in a single word of my report.”

Watch a clip of the exchange below or at this link.

 

 

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DOJ Takes Down Thousands of Epstein Documents After Privacy Concerns Raised

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The Trump Department of Justice reportedly has removed thousands of documents from its Friday dump of millions of pages of Epstein files.

Politico senior legal affairs reporter Kyle Cheney reported on Monday that the DOJ told “the court that it has taken down ‘several thousands’ of documents from the Epstein Files website after victim privacy concerns were raised.”

In its message to two U.S District Court judges, the DOJ wrote: “The Department has worked all hours through the weekend from the point when the first victim-related concerns were raised. To that end, out of the larger production described above, the Department now has taken down several thousands of documents and media that may have inadvertently included victim-identifying information due to various factors, including technical or human error.”

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that the DOJ had “exposed the names of dozens of Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, including many who haven’t shared their identities publicly or were minors when they were abused by the notorious sex offender.”

READ MORE: Trump to Bongino: ‘Republicans Ought to Nationalize the Voting’

“A review of 47 victims’ full names on Sunday found that 43 of them were left unredacted in files that were made public by the government on Friday, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. Several women’s full names appeared more than 100 times in the files,” the Journal noted, “The Justice Department was required to redact all victims’ names prior to releasing the files. Officials said they had spent weeks doing so after receiving lists of names from victims’ attorneys.”

Late Monday morning, attorney and journalist Aaron Parnas identified two of the Epstein files he said were missing. According to Parnas, they included references to Trump having parties at Mar-a-Lago called “calendar girls.”

On Friday, DOJ blocked access to a document originally released as part of Friday’s Epstein files document dump. That document included language related to accusations against President Donald Trump and others. In just under an hour, access was restored after CNN anchor Jake Tapper noted the block on social media.

The DOJ’s removal of the files on Monday comes as some, including members of Congress, are asking for more files to be released.

“Where are the rest of the Epstein Files?” asked U.S. Senator Mark Warner, the prominent Intelligence Committee vice chairman, on Monday afternoon.

READ MORE: ‘We Don’t Have Much Time’: George Conway Issues Dire Warning About Donald Trump

 

Image via Reuters 

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Trump to Bongino: ‘Republicans Ought to Nationalize the Voting’

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President Donald Trump called into the podcast of his former Deputy FBI Director, Dan Bongino, and said that Republicans should “nationalize” the voting process, especially in fifteen “crooked” states, while insisting that undocumented immigrants are voting in America.

Saying that there are “millions and millions” of undocumented immigrants and “we have to get them out,” Trump warned that “if Republicans don’t get them out, you will never win another election as a Republican.”

He claimed that undocumented immigrants are told, “Oh, well, you can vote, you can do whatever you want.”

“It’s crazy,” he added. “I mean, it’s crazy how you can get these people to vote, and if we don’t get them out, Republicans will never win another election.”

READ MORE: ‘We Don’t Have Much Time’: George Conway Issues Dire Warning About Donald Trump

He went on to say that “they vote illegally, and the, you know, amazing that the Republicans aren’t tougher on it. The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over. We should take over the voting,’ the voting in at least many, 15 places.”

“The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting,” he added, “and we have states that are so crooked, and they’re counting votes, we have states that I won, that show I didn’t win.”

Mediaite reported that Trump “said a big issue with Minnesota is that it has too many Somalis — who he then claimed are, by and large, known for their ‘theft.'”

“Notably, the vast majority of Somalis in Minnesota came to the U.S. legally through refugee programs in the 1990s and are today U.S. citizens,” Mediaite added.

 

READ MORE: Gabbard Spokesperson Goes Off the Rails Spinning Explosive WSJ Report

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‘We Don’t Have Much Time’: George Conway Issues Dire Warning About Donald Trump

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Republican never-Trump attorney and critic turned Democratic congressional candidate George Conway issued a dire warning on Monday about President Donald Trump and his “megalomania.”

“The way things are going in America, it should be clear we don’t have much time,” Conway wrote on social media. “We certainly don’t have three years. We need to help ourselves by pushing for impeachment and removal as hard as we can and carrying it out as soon as humanly possible.”

Reiterating that he sees this as “a race against time,” Conway asked, “How quickly does the megalomaniac lose strength versus how quickly he destroy[s] everything around him. The one thing you can depend on is that the megalomaniac gets more destructive and dangerous over time before he’s done.”

Conway kicked off his social media thread with a New York Times opinion piece by history professor Dr. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a scholar on fascism and authoritarian leaders.

He quoted Dr. Ben-Ghiat, who wrote: “I have seen this brand of strongman megalomania and the adverse effects it can ultimately have on leaders and their governments. I call it autocratic backfire.”

READ MORE: Gabbard Spokesperson Goes Off the Rails Spinning Explosive WSJ Report

“As autocrats surround themselves with loyalists who praise them and party functionaries who repeat their lies, leaders can start to believe their own hype,” the excerpt continued. “As they cut themselves off from expert advice and objective feedback, they start to promulgate unscrutinized policies that fail. Rather than course correct, such leaders often double down and engage in even riskier behavior — starting wars or escalating involvement in military conflicts that eventually reveal the human and financial tolls of their corruption and incompetence. The result: a disillusioned population that loses faith in the leader and elites who begin to rethink their support.”

Conway added that the word “megalomania” is “essentially a synonym for narcissistic sociopathy or malignant narcissism.”

“All three terms accurately describe Trump,” he charged.

He offered some “good news,” saying that, as Ben-Ghiat pointed out, “megalomaniacal leaders ultimately blow themselves up politically or militarily. The bad news is that the longer they survive, the bigger the figurative blast radius.”

Conway ended the social media thread by saying this is why he is running for Congress and posted a link to his campaign website.

READ MORE: ‘Snowflake’ Trump Mocked for 1 A.M. Lawsuit Threat Over Trevor Noah’s Epstein Island Jab

 

Image by Presia Debauch via Flickr and a CC license

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