Just like Biden authorizing use of long range weapons into Russia, this is just more leftist monkey wrenching before Trump takes over. On day one, look for hypocritical democrats saying “look, look how Trump is screwing up and backing out on his promises!”. Everyone will see the truth but the MSM will run with the falsified stories.

Peaceful transition my ass (headlines tell the story, links to the stories for your enjoyment):

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2y3mdv2y7o

Biden administration informs Congress it will forgive $5B in economic loans to Ukraine

https://www.foxnews.com/politi...onomic-loans-ukraine

Biden admin quietly loosening immigration policies before Trump takes office — including letting migrants skip ICE check-ins in NYC

https://nypost.com/2024/11/21/...yc-ice-appointments/

Biden administration approves sending anti-personnel mines to Ukraine in another major policy shift

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/19...s-ukraine/index.html

Biden authorizes Ukraine to use long-range US weapons in Russia

https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/17...n-targets/index.html

Biden Administration Races to Issue Final Grants, Spending Projects Before Trump Takes Office
Administration officials are working at the last minute to issue billions in grants before Biden leaves office in January.

By Jacob Burg
11/23/

In the remaining weeks of his administration, President Joe Biden and his officials are racing against the clock to issue billions in grants and take other steps to retain as much as possible of his legacy before President-elect Donald Trump takes over in January.

Since Trump has promised to revoke any unspent funds from Biden’s climate and health care laws and end renewable energy development projects, the Biden administration is processing last-minute grants as quickly as it can. Trump and his Republican trifecta will likely move to undo much of Biden’s regulations and spending projects if they conflict with the president-elect’s agenda.

“There’s only one administration at a time,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told reporters at a Thursday news conference. “That’s true now, and it will also be true after January 20th. Our responsibility is to make good use of the funds that Congress has authorized for us and that we’re responsible for assigning and disbursing throughout the last three years.”

Specifically, Biden administration officials want the $1 trillion infrastructure law and the $375 billion climate law to survive past Biden’s tenure and are moving fast to make sure the money and grants continue to disperse.

Buttigieg announced more than $3.4 billion in grants on Friday, including projects for U.S. ports, reducing highway fatalities, supporting American manufacturing, and improving passenger rail service.

“We are investing in better transportation systems that touch every corner of the country and in the workers who will manufacture materials and build projects,″ the transportation secretary told reporters. ”Communities are going to see safer commutes, cleaner air, and stronger supply chains that we all count on.″

White House officials are also sprinting to issue major grants for environmental projects before the end of Biden’s term. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced almost $3 billion in grants to help local water utilities comply with its nationwide deadline for the removal of lead pipes. The issue rose to prominence after the 2014 Flint water crisis, where residents from Flint, Michigan, were poisoned from lead leeching out of public water line pipes. Ten years after the crisis began, many of the pipes have been replaced, but others have not.

The EPA also said that for the first time, oil and gas companies will be required to pay a federal fee if they’re responsible for dangerous methane fumes beyond a certain threshold.The Energy Department announced a $544 million loan for a Michigan company expanding the manufacture of electric vehicle silicon carbide wafers. This was one of 28 deals worth roughly $37 billion granted under a “clean-energy” loan program that Biden revived and expanded.
Ukraine aid is also among the last-minute spending efforts from the Biden administration. The president wants to “spend down the authority that Congress has allocated and authorized before he leaves office,” Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters this week. “So we’re going to work very hard to make sure that happens.”
In order to exhaust all congressionally allocated funds for Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration, Biden officials would have to push out $7.1 billion in weapons from Pentagon stockpiles, including from 2024 supplemental spending and $2.8 billion that remains on the books after the Department of Defense recalculated the value of weapons sent.
Additionally, another $2.2 billion is available for putting weapons on long-term contracts, although recent aid packages have totaled roughly $200-$300 million a piece. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said those funds were already obligated, which means the next administration would likely have to reverse that to take the funds back.
There’s also the topic of last-minute judicial appointments before Inauguration Day. This week, the Senate voted 51–44 to confirm former prosecutor April Perry as a U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of Illinois. So far, the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved more than a dozen pending judicial nominees. Another eight nominations are awaiting committee votes, while six are waiting for hearing dates. Trump has told Senate Republicans to block any efforts to confirm last-minute judicial nominees.
The Energy Department announced a $544 million loan for a Michigan company expanding the manufacture of electric vehicle silicon carbide wafers. This was one of 28 deals worth roughly $37 billion granted under a “clean-energy” loan program that Biden revived and expanded.
Ukraine aid is also among the last-minute spending efforts from the Biden administration. The president wants to “spend down the authority that Congress has allocated and authorized before he leaves office,” Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters this week. “So we’re going to work very hard to make sure that happens.”
In order to exhaust all congressionally allocated funds for Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration, Biden officials would have to push out $7.1 billion in weapons from Pentagon stockpiles, including from 2024 supplemental spending and $2.8 billion that remains on the books after the Department of Defense recalculated the value of weapons sent.
Additionally, another $2.2 billion is available for putting weapons on long-term contracts, although recent aid packages have totaled roughly $200-$300 million a piece. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said those funds were already obligated, which means the next administration would likely have to reverse that to take the funds back.
There’s also the topic of last-minute judicial appointments before Inauguration Day. This week, the Senate voted 51–44 to confirm former prosecutor April Perry as a U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of Illinois. So far, the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved more than a dozen pending judicial nominees. Another eight nominations are awaiting committee votes, while six are waiting for hearing dates. Trump has told Senate Republicans to block any efforts to confirm last-minute judicial nominees.

The Energy Department announced a $544 million loan for a Michigan company expanding the manufacture of electric vehicle silicon carbide wafers. This was one of 28 deals worth roughly $37 billion granted under a “clean-energy” loan program that Biden revived and expanded.
Ukraine aid is also among the last-minute spending efforts from the Biden administration. The president wants to “spend down the authority that Congress has allocated and authorized before he leaves office,” Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters this week. “So we’re going to work very hard to make sure that happens.”

In order to exhaust all congressionally allocated funds for Ukraine before Trump’s inauguration, Biden officials would have to push out $7.1 billion in weapons from Pentagon stockpiles, including from 2024 supplemental spending and $2.8 billion that remains on the books after the Department of Defense recalculated the value of weapons sent.

Additionally, another $2.2 billion is available for putting weapons on long-term contracts, although recent aid packages have totaled roughly $200-$300 million a piece. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said those funds were already obligated, which means the next administration would likely have to reverse that to take the funds back.

There’s also the topic of last-minute judicial appointments before Inauguration Day. This week, the Senate voted 51–44 to confirm former prosecutor April Perry as a U.S. District Court judge for the Northern District of Illinois. So far, the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved more than a dozen pending judicial nominees. Another eight nominations are awaiting committee votes, while six are waiting for hearing dates. Trump has told Senate Republicans to block any efforts to confirm last-minute judicial nominees.

“No Judges should be approved during this period of time because the Democrats are looking to ram through their Judges as the Republicans fight over Leadership,” Trump wrote in a Nov. 10 post on X, before Senate Republicans voted for new leadership.

Lastly, Biden’s Education Department is hoping to finalize a new federal rule that would allow the agency to cancel student loans for those with financial hardships. The proposal is one of the president’s few student loan plans that federal courts have not halted or reversed. The program’s public comment period ends on Dec. 2.

This would leave the agency a small window of time to finalize and enact the rule, which usually spans months and would likely encounter legal challenges. It’s not yet clear what Trump would do regarding student loan forgiveness, although Republicans have criticized the policy in the past.


https://www.theepochtimes.com/...&ea_med=desktop_news

Hunter Biden’s lawyers issue lengthy defense as pardoning window closes

https://www.washingtonexaminer...oning-window-closes/

Claims that the incoming Trump administration would weaponize the legal system against Hunter Biden justifies a pardon for President Joe Biden’s criminally convicted son, his legal defense team said.

With just weeks until Hunter Biden is sentenced by California and Delaware judges, his lawyers on Saturday released a lengthy document titled “The political prosecutions of Hunter Biden” that argued his gun and tax evasion convictions this year were politically motivated. The 52-page document pushed for clemency by alleging President-elect Donald Trump would turn the country’s justice system against Hunter Biden once he takes office on Jan. 20, 2024.

“A system that is supposed to protect against abuses failed to do so and was corrupted by political leaders in this country,” the document said. “As a result, Hunter faces significant sentences for felonies and misdemeanors far beyond precedents of others committing less serious offenses or where civil resolutions or consent judgments are normally sought — all on the basis of his mistakes, made while in the throes of serious drug addiction.”

Special counsel David Weiss has overseen the investigation into Hunter Biden for over a year. President Joe Biden’s head of the Department of Justice, Attorney General Merrick Garland, appointed Weiss to lead the investigation in August 2023. Weiss’s team is staffed with attorneys from the Biden administration’s DOJ.

The document claimed that “There is no disputing that Trump has said his enemies list includes Hunter. The prospect that Trump will turn his vengeance on the Special Counsel prosecutors if they fail to take a harder line against Hunter no doubt exerts considerable pressure on them not to let up on Hunter.”

Hunter Biden was found guilty by a Delaware jury in June of all three charges related to a 2018 gun purchase, including lying on a federal form about his drug use to purchase a revolver, submitting a false statement into a federal record, and unlawfully possessing the firearm for 11 days.

Months later, he pled guilty to all nine tax charges he was facing in a California court, meaning he could face up to 17 years in prison and up to $1.3 million in fines. Hunter Biden’s move in September came after he faced accusations he spent millions of dollars made from foreign business ventures on prostitutes, drugs, and other frivolous purchases while neglecting to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers on Saturday argued the case against him was bogus because he “fully paid his past-due taxes with interest and penalties in 2021 — over two years before any charges were brought.”

President Joe Biden has said he will not pardon his son for the convictions relating to the tax and gun charges before he leaves office.

However, Trump indicated last month he would be open to pardoning Hunter Biden.

The news came after Trump has repeatedly railed against the president’s son, particularly in the wake of the laptop scandal that broke in 2020. At the time, reports said Hunter Biden left a laptop at a computer store containing potentially damning information and indicating the Biden family had used the family name to peddle influence and grow their fortunes. Nude photos of Hunter Biden engaged in sexual acts on the hard drive also had critics steaming as Republicans took off with allegations of corruption.

Joe Biden and his allies called the laptop story a hoax and a Russian plant. Meanwhile, X released the “Twitter files” in 2022 confirming that the story had been suppressed as misinformation.

Following a years-long investigation, court filings from the DOJ released in January verified the computer’s authenticity.

“I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said in June. “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”

But by the time fall rolled around, Trump was sounding a new note of unity.

While he called Hunter Biden “a bad boy,” in October, arguing that “All you had to do is see the laptop from Hell,” he continued to leave the door open to pardoning Joe Biden’s son during his second term.

Trump has also suggested he could “easily” put former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in jail over her misuse of handling classified information during her time in the Obama administration.

Clinton was found to have sent “110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency [Department of State] to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received,” according to then-FBI Director James Comey, whose department led the investigation into Clinton.

“Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time,” Comey continued in a July 2016 press release before adding that there was “evidence” that Clinton and her colleagues were “extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”

“I could have gotten Hillary Clinton very easily,” Trump reflected during a recent conversation with Republican radio show host Hugh Hewitt. “I could have had her put in jail.”

However, the president-elect said he decided he “didn’t want to do that” because he believed it would be bad for the country.

“I thought it would look terrible,” Trump said.


Separate article/ More at link:

https://www.washingtonexaminer...e-biden-could-issue/

5. Blanket pardons to end mass incarceration
Progressive Democrats are pushing Biden for sweeping action before Jan. 20, 2025, to free thousands of people incarcerated in federal prisons.

Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Jim Clyburn (D-SC) led a letter to Biden this week that urged him to free countless people in prison.

“Now is the time to use your clemency authority to rectify unjust and unnecessary criminal laws passed by Congress and draconian sentences given by judges,” the letter reads.

Apparently, actor George Clooney is furious at his buddy Barrack for having Georgie holding the bag in regards to Biden's ouster, while Obama disappears.

quote:

A political mole told RadarOnline.com it was Obama who urged Clooney to call for Biden – his own vice president – to end his sputtering campaign, fearing the fallout if he did it himself.

"Obama and Clooney have been tight for years, and George became Barack's surrogate in leading the charge for Joe to step away", explained the source. "Barack knew he would look like a traitor if he publicly called for Joe to be cut loose. And now, he's trying to walk away from it all.

Typical scumbag behavior by Kaptain Kenya- have someone else be the villain while he escapes quietly. I truly believe Obama is done as the party leader, he has burned some bridges in this election.

https://radaronline.com/p/geor...lamed-for-trump-win/

The FBI and DOJ’s ‘politically motivated’ persecution of a former informant — all to protect the Bidens

https://nypost.com/2024/11/27/...-protect-the-bidens/

One of the most disturbing scandals of the Hunter Biden saga is the imprisonment without trial of former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov.

The Ukrainian-born Israeli-American, who once told his FBI handler about Ukrainian claims of a $10 million bribe to the Bidens, has been languishing in a Los Angeles prison for nine months on charges that he lied to the FBI.

Last week, federal prosecutors slapped new tax-evasion charges on Smirnov, 43, which suggests they know their original indictment is too weak for a jury to convict him when he faces trial beginning Jan. 8.

Smirnov was one of the FBI’s most trusted confidential human sources, paid more than $100,000 during what his lawyers call “undivided, years-long loyalty to the United States” before he was thrown to the wolves in the middle of the Biden impeachment inquiry.

Busted in February

He was arrested in February on charges that he “provided false derogatory information to the FBI in 2020 about Joseph Biden, who at the time was a candidate for president and had previously been the vice president.

“The alleged false information concerned Joseph Biden’s and his son Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma Holdings Ltd., a Ukrainian energy business.”

When the FBI searched Smirnov’s Las Vegas apartment, they found “a hat emblazoned with an anti- [Biden] euphemism” — presumably “Let’s Go Brandon” — which the indictment says demonstrates “bias” against Joe Biden and “bears on the defendant’s motive in providing the FBI with false derogatory information about” Joe.

Joe managed to evade impeachment over his family’s influence-peddling schemes — in part because of the Smirnov indictment — and is expected either to pardon his son or commute Hunter’s twin sentences next month in felony gun and tax-fraud cases.

Yet it is Smirnov who is under indictment, when he merely relayed to his FBI handler a conversation he claimed to have had about Hunter with Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma.

The corrupt energy company at the time was paying the then-vice president’s crackhead son $1 million a year.

There is no direct evidence that Joe and Hunter were paid $10 million by the Burisma owner to order the removal in 2016 of Viktor Shokin, the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma, as Smirnov claimed he was told by Zlochevsky.

But since when does an FBI informant have to guarantee that the raw intelligence he provides to his handler is 100% factual, on threat of criminal prosecution?

That’s a surefire way to ensure nobody will ever be an FBI informant.

It’s up to the FBI to investigate allegations provided by confidential human sources like Smirnov. Obviously.

Handler’s mistakes

But the case against Smirnov is that he did not tell his FBI handler the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

His lawyers have told the court that any inconsistencies in his information as recorded by the FBI were not lies told by him, but errors made by his handler, whom they accuse of “shoddy work and negligent record keeping.”

Smirnov’s handler memorialized his reports in an FBI form called an FD-1023, which is used to record unverified reporting from informants.

When Smirnov told his handler in 2017 that Hunter Biden was mentioned during a conversation he had with Zlochevsky, the hand­ler recorded it on an FD-1023 as “brief [and] nonrelevant” to the FBI’s “kleptocracy” investigation that Smirnov was assisting. The “kleptocracy” probe into Zlochevsky, coincidentally or not, was closed by the FBI Washington Field Office in December 2019, the same month the FBI took possession of Hunter’s laptop computer containing all sorts of incriminating evidence about Burisma’s relationship with the Bidens.

In January 2020, with the Democratic presidential campaign in full swing, then-Pittsburgh US ­Attorney Scott Brady was tasked by then-Attorney General Bill Barr to vet the torrent of allegations about Biden corruption that were pouring into the DOJ, including from then-President Don­ald Trump’s attorney, Rudy Giuliani.

Brady found the brief mention of Hunter and Burisma in the Smirnov handler’s FD-1023 from 2017.

Smirnov was reinterviewed by the FBI for a new FD-1023 and elaborated on his conversation with Zlochevsky, adding the bombshell allegation of the $10 million bribe.

Brady judged the allegations sufficiently credible to send the Smirnov file for further review to Delaware US Attorney David Weiss, who was in charge of the five-year investigation into Hunter over potential tax, money-laundering and foreign-agent violations.

But Weiss concealed the Smirnov file and never mentioned the allegations to IRS agents conducting the investigation, Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler.

When the IRS agents blew the whistle to Congress in 2023 about the DOJ’s obstruction, slow walking and political favoritism to Joe and Hunter, Shapley testified that the Smirnov file would have “likely been material to the ongoing criminal investigation of Hunter Biden . . .

“As a result of the information being concealed by prosecutors from the IRS [and] FBI investigators assigned to this investigation, we were unable to follow alleged criminal activity as would normally be completed.”

It was only when an FBI whistleblower gave a copy of the Smirnov FD-1023 to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2023 that the allegations came to light.

After the IRS whistleblowers came forward, a sweetheart deal Weiss had stitched up with Hunter fell apart, and Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated Weiss to special counsel investigating Hunter.

This meant Weiss would be investigating his own conduct.

Seven months later, special counsel Weiss indicted Smirnov.

In a pretrial motion, Smirnov’s lawyers anticipate prosecution efforts to “dirty him up” as a “Russian spy,” “unpatriotic” and a “double agent.”

It’s a dubious claim considering that Smirnov was paid by the FBI to spy on Russians as recently as 2023.

Smirnov’s arrest in February came at a convenient time for the Bidens and successfully blunted the attack by House Republicans hoping to impeach Joe.

Hunter gleefully cited Smirnov when he testified to the impeachment committee earlier this year claiming “Smirnov . . . has made you dupes in carrying out a Russian disinformation campaign waged against my father.”

Dem’s false claim

The claim was enthusiastically echoed by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who falsely claimed that Smirnov was the impeachment inquiry’s “star witness” and used him to besmirch the damning evidence the inquiry had unearthed of Joe’s involvement in his family’s corrupt schemes as having “a very strong whiff of a Russian intelligence operation.” That old chestnut.

Smirnov’s Las Vegas lawyers have subpoenaed Hunter’s former partner Devon Archer as a witness, suggesting the Bidens’ foreign influence-peddling schemes will play a role in their defense.

Attorneys David Chesnoff and Richard Schonfeld claim Smirnov, who suffers from the eye disease glaucoma, has been subjected to cruel punishment in prison, with authorities refusing to give him the eyedrops he needs to save his sight.

Biden just pardoned Hunter on tax and gun charges.

Announced by ABC news.

quote:

Originally posted by WaterburyBob:
Biden just pardoned Hunter on tax and gun charges.

Announced by ABC news.

As any father would do. If this shocks or outrages anyone, you're a silly person.

Oh, now, Barn...

God, these people are such buffoons! Announce it while half of America is traveling home, as if that softens the blow. Everybody's got phones, you boobs, and tomorrow is Monday!

After this, I dare any of them to say shit when President Trump pardons some of the J6 people, and others.

Biden said he wouldn't pardon his son. He lied to the face of the American people. All he had to do was remain silent, just ignore the question, as he has ignored so much else, but the fucking asshole chose to lie to us.

I can't wait until that son of a bitch is laid away.

https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1863380292687303070

I’m not surprised. It’s corrupt and nepotistic, but a rattlesnake bites. It’s his nature.

Lawfare against Trump and his supporters, under the tacit or overt approval of the DOJ is OK, but against Hunter? Purely partisan.

Funny how the special counsel that prosecuted the cases against Hunter were under Garland's DOJ and if Joe was so convinced of unfair prosecutions, he could have had them fired.

Now that we have the Biden standard on the taxes (money was paid to the IRS and made whole) it seems very viable to put pressure on the NY AG to drop the false property value case because all parties received the contracted amounts as bargained for aka a true victimless crime.

I'm going to love listening to KJP explain all of this tomorrow.

If I just heard it correctly, he pardoned him for all crimes committed in the last 10 years. Thought it was only 2 he committed, what a load of BS.

I hope he had to pay a shit-load of $$ to his lawyers.

https://x.com/CollinRugg/status/1863383217446752568



https://x.com/Pismo_B/status/1863385321439990248

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
As any father would do. If this shocks or outrages anyone, you're a silly person.

Plus, discovery under Trump's DOJ would be a real hillary.

He may be protecting his son, or he may be protecting himself, as well as his handlers may be protecting themselves.

.

I'm not surprised or even upset, we all knew it was going to happen.

quote:

Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:
As any father would do. If this shocks or outrages anyone, you're a silly person.

Agreed. I honestly would have thought less of Biden had he not pardoned his own son. Of course he was lying when he said he wouldn’t pardon him, just like he lied about so much other stuff. But at the end of the day, any father deserving of that title would help his own son or daughter if he had the ability to do so, especially for the non violent crimes that Hunter was charged with.