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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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‘Grifters’: A MAGA Civil War Is Eating Away at Its Own Power

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A MAGA “civil war” is playing out across the right-wing ecosystem, sapping attention from the ideas that once powered the base and held GOP leaders to power. Now, the movement appears more consumed by infighting than achieving political goals.

MAGA is being drained of “its political muscle, leaving it defenseless as the Trump administration revisits policies previously opposed by the base,” according to Axios. The strength of MAGA “lies in its ability to rally influencers, politicians and activists behind a hard-charging conservative agenda.” But that “superpower is faltering amid a cascade of bitter personal feuds.”

The National Pulse’s editor-in-chief Raheem J. Kassam told Axios, “There’s no focus on anything philosophical or even ideological right now.”

READ MORE: ‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label

“It’s all just a cacophony of grifters tussling over audience and ego,” Kassam said. “So, corporate America gets to wield power with the admin virtually unencumbered by scrutiny from the base.”

Serving up a series of examples, Axios reported that on issues such as artificial intelligence, marijuana, Venezuela, and redistricting — all of which “would have triggered significant MAGA backlash” earlier — there has been “mostly crickets.”

Trump reportedly will loosen federal regulations on marijuana soon — an act that once would have attracted MAGA influencers to scream about “pothead culture,” Axios noted. This time, however, the news “barely made a ripple on right-wing social media.”

The “America First” president seizing a tanker loaded with Venezuelan oil and refusing to rule out boots on the ground to overthrow the Maduro regime “barely pinged on MAGA’s radar.”

MAGA influencer CJ Pearson told Axios that “the movement is wholly consumed right now on personality clashes. That is a recipe for electoral doom, and it’s unfortunate to see the unity that we saw after Charlie [Kirk]’s death dissipate so quickly.”

READ MORE: ‘His Heart Just Ain’t in It’: Report Reveals Trump’s ‘Achilles Heel’

 

Image via Reuters

 

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‘Political Vendetta’: DOJ Blasted for Suing Fulton County Amid Debunked Fraud Claims

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President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against Fulton County, Georgia, demanding records related to the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden.

Trump “has increasingly pressured his administration to find widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, despite those claims having been debunked and dismissed in dozens of cases by the courts,” The Washington Post reported.

The lawsuit calls for Fulton County to hand over to DOJ “all used and void ballots, stubs of all ballots, signature envelopes, and corresponding envelope digital files from the 2020 General Election in Fulton County.”

READ MORE: ‘Wall of Resentment’: Trump’s ‘Affordability Weave’ Isn’t Working Says Columnist

Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, according to the Post. “indirectly and without evidence accused Georgia officials of ‘vote dilution'” in a statement.

“States have the statutory duty to preserve and protect their constituents from vote dilution,” Dhillon said.

“At this Department of Justice,” Dhillon added, “we will not permit states to jeopardize the integrity and effectiveness of elections by refusing to abide by our federal elections laws. If states will not fulfill their duty to protect the integrity of the ballot, we will.”

Trump in a recorded telephone call told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in January 2021, “All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”

READ MORE: Trump Is the ‘Biggest Security Threat’ Facing America: Columnist

Two years later, a Georgia grand jury indicted Trump on racketeering charges. The case ultimately was recently dismissed after setbacks and that Trump, having since become a sitting president, could not be indicted.

Democracy Docket, which covers voting rights, elections, and the courts, called the move “a major escalation in the Trump administration’s dangerous effort to revive President Donald Trump’s fraudulent claims that the election was stolen.”

The news site also reported that Kristin Nabers, the state director for All Voting is Local, said in a statement: “This administration’s unending obsession with the 2020 election results in Georgia uses outright lies to compensate for the fact that they lost.”

“With this terrible overstep of power, the DOJ is now weaponizing laws meant to protect voters for their political vendetta,” Nabers added.

Larry Sabato, Director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics called it “More insane nonsense.”

READ MORE: ‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label

 

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‘Wall of Resentment’: Trump’s ‘Affordability Weave’ Isn’t Working Says Columnist

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President Donald Trump’s “signature” weave — where he goes off-script and off-topic — is not working for Americans when it comes to affordability.

That’s according to CBS News correspondent John Dickerson, writing at The Atlantic.

His weave was “on display” this week during a speech that the White House promoted as focused remarks on the economy, but his comments included, Dickerson noted, “the topics of tariffs, U.S. Steel, fracking, wind turbines, electric-vehicle mandates, immigration, crime, gender policies, Obamacare, the Fed, his election victories, rare-earth negotiations, a D.C. terror attack, and ‘the lips that don’t stop’ of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt.”

READ MORE: Trump Is the ‘Biggest Security Threat’ Facing America: Columnist

The problem, he noted is, “now that the engine of the U.S. economy is smoking, the American people are looking for a technician, not an improv comic.”

Trump is hitting “a wall of resentment,” according to Dickerson, who pointed to a Politico poll which, he noted, found that “nearly half of voters—including 37 percent of Trump’s own 2024 coalition—said that the cost of living is the ‘worst they can ever remember.'”

There’s more.

“Only 31 percent of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, a new AP/NORC poll found, down from 40 percent in March,” he reported. “It’s the lowest economic approval that AP/NORC has registered in either of Trump’s two terms. In a recent CBS News/YouGov survey, a majority of respondents said that his policies are driving up food and grocery prices.”

During times of crisis other presidents have worked to get results:

“Franklin D. Roosevelt passed 15 major bills in 100 days. Ronald Reagan, in the teeth of double-digit unemployment, pushed for sweeping tax cuts week after week. Bill Clinton built an economic ‘war room’ before he even took office, and his team introduced what has now become a political cliché: focusing ‘like a laser beam’ on the economy. Barack Obama instituted a morning economic briefing that put the issue on par with national security. Each practiced the same principle: If you can’t solve the problem fast, at least get caught trying.”

READ MORE: ‘Where Is Antifa Headquartered?’: FBI Official Struggles Defending Top Threat Label

He say that now, Trump is trying. “Kind of.”

Despite talking about “affordability” during his Pennsylvania speech, he also knocked it.

“The president’s most focused message on affordability is that affordability concerns are a hoax. He used that word, or an equivalent, several times on Tuesday, as he has in Oval Office remarks, in a Cabinet meeting, and on social media.”

The “unavoidable truth, no matter how hard you weave,” Dickerson wrote, is that “his argument is weak because he has to overcome people’s lived experience.”

READ MORE: ‘You’re a Loser Dude’: Carville Scorches Trump as ‘Done’

 

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