February 16, 2024

Friday, February 16, 2024. Annette’s News Roundup.

I think the Roundup makes people feel not so alone.

To read an article excerpted in this Roundup, click on its blue title. Each “blue” article is hyperlinked so you can read the whole article.

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Joe is always busy.

BREAKING: New analysis shows that every other developed economy experienced some form of recession following the COVID-19 pandemic. Only the United States, led by President Biden, is exiting the pandemic stronger than it entered.

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Kamala is always busy.

This is the third year in a row, the Vice President has traveled to Germany to represent the United States at the Munich Security Conference.

Touch to activate.👇

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A big change is happening in the Democratic leadership.

Like Speaker Pelosi, Representative Clyburn will remain in the House, fighting the good fights.

I don’t know who else will want to jump in to lead the Blue, but I admire Representative Neguse.

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The GOP’s key witness on Hunter and Joe’s Biden supposed corrupt is a liar? No surprise there.

But it is a surprise to have the Special Counsel and the FBI expose it.

Special counsel charges FBI informant over false Biden information.

Special counsel David Weiss charged an FBI confidential source with felony false statement and obstruction crimes for providing allegedly false information about President Biden and his son Hunter Biden, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

The big picture: Alexander Smirnov, 43, was indicted by a federal grand jury in the Central District of California after being arrested at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Tuesday, according to a DOJ statement.

• Prosecutors allege Smirnov falsely told FBI agents in June 2020 that officials with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid the Bidens $5 million each in 2015 or 2016, according to an indictment that was unsealed on Thursday.

• The indictment against does not specifically name the Bidens.

Zoom in: Smirnov became what the FBI refers to as a "Confidential Human Source" in 2010, and it's alleged he first reported "fabrications" about the Bidens in June 2020, according to the indictment.

• "In truth and fact, the Defendant had contact with executives from Burisma in 2017, after the end of the Obama-Biden Administration and after the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General had been fired in February 2016," the indictment states.

• "[I]n other words, when Public Official 1 [Joe Biden] had no ability to influence U.S. policy and when the Prosecutor General was no longer in office," it adds.

• “In short, the Defendant transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations against Public Official 1, the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties for President, after expressing bias against [Joe Biden] and his candidacy."

Of note: Smirnov allegedly said Burisma officials told him they hired Hunter Biden, who's identified in the indictment as a businessperson, because he would "protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems."

• When FBI agents interviewed him last September, the indictment alleges Smirnov "repeated some of his false claims, changed his story as to other of his claims, and promoted a new false narrative after he said he met with Russian officials."

Context: Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss last August as special counsel to lead the investigation into Hunter Biden related to tax charges.

Zoom out: House Republicans have cited unverified information provided by FBI informants as part of their so-far unproven Biden bribery allegations in their impeachment inquiry into the president.

• Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees committees for a deposition on Feb. 28 as part of that inquiry.(Axios)

Read the indictment in full, via DocumentCloud.

The New York Times article on this began this way -
“The special counsel investigating Hunter Biden has charged a former F.B.I. informant with fabricating claims that President Biden and his son sought two $5 million bribes from a Ukrainian energy company, according to an indictment in a California federal court.”

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A messy situation in Georgia with possible terrible implications.

The hearing continues tomorrow at 9:00 am.

Takeaways From the Hearing in the Georgia Trump Case.

Fani T. Willis, the district attorney, defended her personal conduct in a tense courtroom appearance as defense lawyers sought to disqualify her from the prosecution of Donald J. Trump and his allies in Georgia.

It was one of the most striking developments yet in the Georgia election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and his allies: The two lead prosecutors took the witness stand Thursday in a daylong hearing, with defense attorneys grilling them about their personal lives.

The defense is arguing that Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, and her office should be disqualified and removed from the prosecution, accusing her of benefiting financially from a relationship with the lead prosecutor that she hired to manage the case, Nathan Wade.

If the judge removes them from the case, it would delay and potentially derail a proceeding that has major implications for the 2024 presidential election. Here are takeaways from the combative hearing:

Defense attorneys focused on spending by the couple.

Touch to activate👇

Nathan Wade says Fani Willis reimbursed him for trips in cash

Special prosecutor Nathan Wade says Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis reimbursed him for travel expenses in cash during a hearing on misconduct allegations against Willis.

In some of the sharpest questioning of the day, defense lawyers pressed Mr. Wade on his finances, attempting to raise doubt about his assertions that Ms. Willis had repaid him with cash for her share of expensive trips while they were dating, including to Belize, Aruba, Tennessee and California.

Mr. Wade called Ms. Willis an “independent strong woman” who insisted that “she is going to pay her own way.” Regarding a trip to California, he said, “everything we did when we got into Napa, she paid for.” But Mr. Wade also said she typically reimbursed him in cash, so there were no receipts available.

Ms. Willis forcefully rebutted suggestions that she had not paid her share of the trips, saying that she keeps thousands of dollars in cash secured at her home. “For many many years, I’ve kept money in my house,” she said.

A former friend challenged the timeline of the relationship.

Defense attorneys have said that the relationship between the two prosecutors started before Mr. Wade was hired in November 2021. Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade have disputed that, saying the relationship started in early 2022.

Their timeline was disputed Thursday by testimony from a former friend of Ms. Willis, Robin Bryant-Yeartie, who said she had “no doubt” that the two had started a romantic relationship earlier than they have claimed.

But Mr. Wade, who testified for several hours, stood firm in the assertion that the relationship began only after he was hired. He also revealed that it had ended in summer 2023.

Fani Willis pushed back hard at the defense attorneys.

The sparring between Ms. Willis and the defense lawyers grew so tense at various points that the presiding judge, Scott McAfee, warned the parties several times to limit their answers in order to preserve decorum.

Ms. Willis angrily accused defense lawyers of spreading lies about her and Mr. Wade.

“I’m not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial,” she told a defense attorney, Ashleigh Merchant, at one point. It is the defendants, she said, who are on trial for trying to steal an election.

A disqualification would be a major roadblock in the Trump prosecution.

If Judge McAfee determines that Ms. Willis has a conflict of interest, and that it merits disqualification, the case would then be reassigned to another Georgia prosecutor, who would have the ability to continue with the case exactly as it is, make major changes — such as adding or dropping charges or defendants — or to even drop the case altogether.

It would be up to a state entity called the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia to find someone else to take up the case. The council’s executive director, Pete Skandalakis, has been criticized for moving slowly in the effort to find a prosecutor to consider whether Georgia’s lieutenant governor, Burt Jones, should also face charges related to the Trump case.

But the case against Mr. Trump and the other defendants is a different circumstance, since a grand jury has already handed down charges. Mr. Trump and 18 of his allies were charged last August with racketeering in connection with a plot to subvert the 2020 presidential election results. Four of the defendants have already pleaded guilty. (New York Times).

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Katie Phang, NBC correspondent, who is a lawyer and was in the Fulton County Court House, said that she didn’t think that Trump’s team had proved the case against Fani Willis.

Sure hope so. 🤞🙏

Sure looks so.

No ‘conflict of interest’ here.

No ‘forensic misconduct’ has been charged.

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Updates on the fight to support Ukraine and stop Putin.

To repeat.

The President said - “Failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten.”

US has new intelligence on Russian nuclear capabilities in space.

WashingtonCNN — 

The US has new intelligence on Russian military capabilities related to its efforts to deploy a nuclear anti-satellite system in space, according to multiple sources familiar with the intelligence.

The intelligence was briefed to Congress and key US allies, and some lawmakers say it is serious enough that it should be declassified and made public. While the intelligence is concerning, multiple senior members of Congress briefed on the information on Wednesday emphasized that it does not pose an immediate threat to the US or its interests.

The system remains under development and is not yet in orbit, according to three US officials familiar with the intelligence. It’s not clear how far the technology has progressed, one of the officials said. A separate US official told CNN the threat does not involve a weapon that would be used to attack humans.

It was not immediately clear whether the intelligence referred to a nuclear-powered, anti-satellite capability or a nuclear-armed capability.

While members of Congress downplayed the immediacy of the threat, an anti-satellite weapon placed in orbit around Earth would pose a significant danger to US nuclear command and control satellites, said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists. The US relies on such satellites – which he called “essential” – to ensure constant, seamless control over its nuclear arsenal.

Other countries have tested anti-satellite weapons in the past, but this would be an escalation, Kristensen said, and the US has made clear that it would react “very forcefully” to an attack on its nuclear command and control satellites.

“If it’s orbital, it’s a new level of threat [to the system], whether it’s nuclear or not,” said Kristensen, who added that even conventional weapons on an orbital anti-satellite system could pose a significant threat to the US.

ABC News first reported that the intelligence related to a Russian space-based nuclear capability.

Earlier Wednesday, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, ignited a firestorm on Capitol Hill when he issued a cryptic statement announcing that the panel had “information concerning a serious national security threat.”

In a letter to lawmakers inviting them to view the intelligence in the committee’s classified spaces, he said that it related to a “destabilizing foreign military capability that should be known by all congressional policymakers.”

Immediately, lawmakers began tramping down to the House basement to learn what the intelligence was.

Some left underwhelmed. One Democratic member with deep national security experience said that they had never before received that kind of urgent summons over a national security matter during their time in Congress — and that the intelligence they saw when they arrived was not urgent enough to justify Turner’s alarm-pulling.

Within hours, the Republican speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson, attempted to tamp down the imbroglio, telling reporters that “there is no cause for alarm” and indicating that he had known about the intelligence since at least January.

“We just want to assure everyone steady hands are at the wheel. We’re working on it and there’s no need for alarm,” Johnson said.

Rep. Jim Himes, the committee’s top Democrat, said in a statement that “the classified intelligence product that the House Intelligence Committee called to the attention of Members last night is a significant one, but it is not a cause for panic.”

National security adviser Jake Sullivan on Wednesday said he was “surprised” that Turner had made the existence of the intelligence public, noting that he was already scheduled to brief the top Republican and Democratic leaders of the House as well as Turner and Himes on Thursday.

“We scheduled a briefing for the House members of the Gang of Eight tomorrow,” Sullivan said. “That’s been on the books. So I am a bit surprised that Congressman Turner came out publicly today in advance of a meeting on the books for me to go sit with him alongside our intelligence and defense professionals tomorrow.”

Turner in his statement has urged the Biden administration to declassify “all information relating to this threat so that Congress, the Administration, and our allies can openly discuss the actions necessary to respond to this threat.”

Meanwhile, in a joint statement, the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee suggested that they had been tracking the intelligence but that it would be difficult to declassify it without exposing sensitive sources and methods.

The uproar over the new intelligence comes as a $60 billion aid package to support Ukraine in its fight against Russia has stalled in the House and former President Donald Trump has been publicly supporting GOP members who have opposed the package. Trump has also in recent days said that he would encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies that do not meet alliance-set spending goals on their own defense.

Johnson has said that he will not bring the Senate-passed aid measure to the floor.

But Turner has publicly supported continuing to fund the Ukraine war effort. Some lawmakers and US officials privately speculated that his effort to brief lawmakers on the intelligence — something the House Intelligence Committee voted on Tuesday night to do — might be an attempt to shore up flagging support for Ukraine.

Sources declined to provide further detail on the intelligence or the Russian capabilities it describes.

But for years, Russia has pursued counterspace systems designed to neutralize US military and commercial space systems, according to a 2022 Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report on space security. Russian doctrine called for being able to target an enemy’s satellites from the ground, air, cyber and space, using attacks that range from temporary jamming to outright destruction.

In 2020, Russia tested a space-based anti-satellite weapon with sophisticated orbital capabilities that could have a dual purpose: it could service and inspect friendly satellites while having the capability to attack enemy satellites.

An attempt to launch a nuclear-armed anti-satellite system into space would violate The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, which explicitly prohibits “any objects carrying nuclear weapons or any other kinds of weapons of mass destruction” in orbit. (CNN).

Russia Using Thousands of Musk’s Starlink Systems in War, Ukrainian General Says.

Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov- Ukraine’s top military-intelligence officer.

KYIV—Ukraine’s top military-intelligence officer said Russian invasion forces in his country are using thousands of Starlink satellite internet terminals, and that the network has been active in occupied parts of Ukraine for “quite a long time.” 

Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov’s comments in an interview suggest that Russia is starting to acquire Starlink terminals, made by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, at a scale that could cut into a major Ukrainian battlefield advantage. Ukraine’s government said last year that around 42,000 terminals are used by the military, hospitals, businesses and aid organizations.

Starlink, which is more secure than cell or radio signals, is considered so vital to Ukrainian operations that the Pentagon struck a deal with SpaceX last year to help fund access for Kyiv’s forces. Up to now, Russian forces have had no similarly secure communications system.

Russian private firms buy the terminals off intermediaries who pass off purchases as for personal use and deliver the equipment to Russia via neighboring countries, including former Soviet republics, Budanov said. Russian army units down to company level were seeking to acquire Starlink terminals, often by collecting money for the purchases, he said.

It’s an open market,” said Budanov, who heads Ukraine’s military-intelligence agency, known as HUR. “It’s not a military item.”

A search for Starlink terminals on Russian search engine Yandex.ru yields numerous dealers in Moscow and outside the Russian capital who promise to install the systems across the country and the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.

One website, strlnk.ru, promised “tested performance” in the occupied areas of Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson with monthly fees starting at $100 a month. The website provided contacts for a dealer, including a Russian cellphone number and a Yandex email. A representative of the firm declined to speak to a Wall Street Journal reporter.

Another website that uses the name of a German appliance company sells Starlink terminals for nearly 300,000 rubles, or just over $3,000.

Like other space communications systems, Starlink relies on satellites in orbit, infrastructure called ground stations and terminals to allow people to tap in to its high-speed internet connections. Customers use a flat antenna array that needs an unobstructed view of the sky to connect with satellites.

SpaceX, which doesn’t want to provide connections to users in countries where regulators haven’t permitted its use, wields significant control over where it offers service and where it doesn’t.

Budanov said Starlink service has worked on occupied territory for “quite a long time,” without elaborating. Asked whether he knew from personal experience, he replied: “Of course.” HUR units often work behind enemy lines.

A spokesman for SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk previously said SpaceX wasn’t selling to Russia. “To the best of our knowledge, no Starlinks have been sold directly or indirectly to Russia,” he wrote in a post on his social-media platform X on Sunday.

Neither Musk nor Starlink has responded directly to questions about whether the devices could be obtained in other countries and used in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Starlink has said SpaceX takes steps to deactivate Starlink terminals if the company determines sanctioned or unauthorized parties are using them.

The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier this week that officially Starlink was neither delivered to Russia nor used in the country. 

The Kremlin has steadily tightened its grip on Russia’s communications infrastructure over the last decade. Current regulations force any foreign satellite operator in Russia to pass traffic through one of several ground stations inside the country. It was unclear whether any Starlink traffic abided by those rules. Exceptions can be made only with permission of the country’s Federal Security Service, or FSB.

Access to Starlink has been a politically charged issue since early in the war, when Musk made the service available in Ukraine.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) said in a statement that reports of Russian military use of Starlink terminals were extremely concerning. “SpaceX needs to do everything in its power to ensure the Russian military isn’t using its technology as part of its invasion of Ukraine,” he said.

Last year, when SpaceX said it could no longer fund access for Kyiv, the Pentagon agreed to pay to help keep the service running. Private donors, governments and other organizations also pay for terminals.

Musk said in September that earlier in the war, he had declined a request to activate Starlink service around Sevastopol in Crimea to avoid directly involving his space company with what he described as a plan to sink Russian ships there.

Musk said that if he had agreed to it, SpaceX would have been “complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.” He didn’t address how this was different from Ukraine’s use of Starlink in many other operations.

Reports on Russian use of Starlink come as Musk has spoken out against further aid to Ukraine, saying on Monday that it would prolong the war and cause more deaths as “there is no way in hell” that Russian President Vladimir Putin could lose the war.

During the discussion in a forum on X, Musk acknowledged that he has been accused of being an apologist for Putin, but called that absurd, pointing in part to the support Starlink has provided to Ukraine.

Asked about Musk’s views on the war, Ukraine’s military-intelligence chief Budanov said: “That’s his personal matter.” (Wall Street Journal).

Heather Cox Richardson - “Today House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) canceled tomorrow’s votes and sent the House of Representatives into recess until February 28.

Yesterday, Johnson told House Republicans that the House will not be “rushed” into passing foreign aid, despite the fact that Ukraine’s desperate need for ammunition is enabling Russia to regain some of the territory Ukraine’s troops reclaimed over the past year.”

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Maybe this time gun control will happen.

6 years after Parkland.

It will when we win the House and Senate and White House in 2024.

BREAKING: Kansas City Chiefs star player Justin Reid demands "real solutions" to America's gun violence after a horrific shooting ripped through his teams triumphant Super Bowl parade, killing at least 1 person and injuring 30.

"Kids are being shot and somebody didn’t come home tonight. We cannot allow this to be normal," Reid wrote on X (Twitter).

"We cannot ourselves to become numb and chalk it up to ‘just another shooting in America’ and reduce people in statistics and then move on tmrw," he added.

"This is a SERIOUS PROBLEM!! I pray our leaders enact real solutions so our kids’ kids won’t know this violence," he added.

Reid should be commended for calling out this country's dire gun problem. Unfortunately, "chalking it up" as just another statistic is exactly what Republicans want to do.

Democrats are offering sane, common sense gun laws like banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Republicans refuse to even consider new laws because they are owned by the NRA and gun manufacturers.

If we want real change in this country, the only way to accomplish it is by electing enough Democrats into power that they can outvote the Republicans. Until we do that, the tragedies will continue. (From X)

Former Senator McCaskill is telling the truth. This happened earlier in the week.👇

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Criminal Trials of Presidents.

France.

Former President of the French Republic, Nicolas Sarkozy, was sentenced on Wednesday to one year in prison, including six months suspended, for corrupt election practices.

A note to all Americans - The world didn’t come to an end.

(Yes, he will appeal and the six months are likely to be under house arrest, but still - he was convicted of a crime).

Remember, this is a serious case, not just about a coverup about a sexual relationship, but about Trump using 34 documents to cover up the payoff to interfere with an election.

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History in the making.

Iowa basketball star Caitlin Clark is now NCAA Women’s Basketball All-Time Leading Scorer, with her 3,528th career point.

Yes, it was one of her trademark 3 pointers.

NBC Sports -Caitlin Clark . . . wasted no time in finding the basket vs. Michigan, scoring a layup and two 3-pointers in just two minutes and 12 seconds to collect her record-breaking points early [in the game.]

Touch to watch the opening 2 minutes and 12 seconds before the Iowa home crowd - and yes, see the record breaking shot!

@IowaBB

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