Everyone is talking about Smirnov when we should be talking about Weiss.

[druidity33]

There are other threads that go further back into this mess, but here is something to chew on courtesy of Dr. Wheeler (re: the indictment):

It describes that after Pittsburgh closed their assessment (something Bill Barr has public disputed), the FBI interviewed Smirnov again, and he lied again.

It doesn’t describe that after Smirnov changed his story, and days after (in October 2020) Donald Trump yelled at Bill Barr about Hunter Biden, Richard Donoghue ordered David Weiss to accept a briefing on the FD-1023.

And the timing of the claimed investigation stinks.

It claims that some time in July 2023, the FBI asked David Weiss to help investigate the source that Weiss had been ordered to integrate into his investigation years before.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/02/15/the-gaps-in-leo-wises-belated-indictment-of-alexander-smirnov/

But Wait! There's more!

Now, perhaps it’s a good thing that David Weiss didn’t know he was (at least per Ziegler, who — bizarrely — has more credibility than the people who have a stack of warrants and lots more metadata) falsely claiming that this picture depicted cocaine. Perhaps that means he didn’t breach Hunter’s privileged communications with Ablow and read what the then still-licensed psychiatrist had to say to his client.

But he has just made the competence of his team’s forensic analysis an issue, and done so in a filing in which Derek Hines appears to be claiming they don’t need any expert forensic reports.

https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/02/14/export-reports-when-david-weiss-claimed-keith-ablows-sawdust-was-hunter-bidens-cocaine/

Weiss was trying to be a Comey! By outing this spy he's actually saving his own skin! (see first link)

If you don't know Emptywheel... it's all in the weeds legal commentary and analysis. Thorough as fuck. I never comment because it's all mostly over my head. But a great reference point if there's a big legal case in the news... as there often is these days.

On edit, here's Josh Marshall at TPM picking up the ball:

The interplay between Special Counsel David Weiss’ prosecutions of Hunter Biden and Alexander Smirnov is going to take a lot of unpacking. Biden’s attorneys began to do some of that in filings yesterday, claiming that it had been Smirnov’s bogus allegations that undid the plea deal Biden had agreed to last summer.

The suggestion from the Biden camp is that Weiss seized on Smirnov’s claims well after the fact and hoped to use them to prosecute Biden, which is why prosecutors suddenly could no longer promise that the plea deal would extinguish all of Biden’s outstanding criminal liabilities.

Eventually Smirnov’s claims proved false, but Biden is still facing criminal charges on both coasts that would have been resolved but for Weiss being initially duped by Smirnov. At least that’s the argument.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/russias-staggering-success-in-duping-willing-republicans-and-right-wing-media

[republianmushroom]

1. You think ?

Could get very "political".

[druidity33]

2. Already is Shroom, already is. nt.

[The Roux Comes First]

3. Spot on With Your Citing of Emptywheel, a Favorite Though Challenging and Even at Times Harrowing

Site.

I also agree that Weiss should be getting a lot more attention, if we could just drum up the slightest bit of good old-fashioned journalism (NYT, WaPo, LAT, wink, wink!!).

But for me, the take-home is still just how pathetically much lying, cheating, and systemic dishonesty is embodied in the supporters of the republican candidates and those candidates themselves, and how absolutely despicably the MSM (former, so-called) has just adopted this as their world model. Both-siderism is still a perfectly wonderful worldview (hi, Jon Stewart) and the absolute upside-down crap of the nearly insanely narcissistic criminal former president needs no special attention.

[gab13by13]

4. OK I cut this from your link

John Pinsonsays:
February 15, 2024 at 6:56 pm
To this point, Merrick Garland looked monumentally incompetent and not up to the job. After today, it’s clear he’s fully supportive of Wise, Weiss, Burr and the rest of the Barr / Rosenstein deadenders engaged in the corrupt Hunter prosecutions and attacks on the administration. The president needs to have him and the rest of these assholes forcibly removed from the Justice Dept. Anything less is political and parental malpractice.

From your link:

Weiss indicted Smirnov to make him the fall guy because the judge was about to release discovery to Hunter Biden's lawyer. Once Smirnov was indicted it is a coverup to prevent himself from being investigated which would also lead to the involvement of Donaghue, Rosen, and Barr.

The indictment of Smirnov is a coverup.

I am going to repost this.

[druidity33]

5. Emptywheel has been all over this...

if you go back in Dr Wheelers threads over the past year or so she has detailed every part of the Hunter Biden prosecution. And has been suspicious of the prosecutors, process and motives since the beginning. She is a prolific twitterer.

[bigtree]

6. this is bullshit, emptywheel took an exoneration for Burisma and tried to turn it into a negative

...positing that the SC who declined to bring charges on Burisma, and charged the guy who made the accusations, did that to keep it going is just fantastical, at best.

And I posted that to emptywheel.

Whatever he chased, he didn't charge Hunter with anything Burisma, so whatever he was looking into either didn't rise to what people say he wanted against the Bidens, or it simply satisfied him that there wasn't anything credible in the accusations to charge him with.

FFS, Scot Bradley closed the investigation into Smirnov in 2020, despite Barr claiming it was handed over to Weiss. He didn't get back on the case until 2023.

FBI released the unredacted FD-1023 to Comer, under congressional threats to hold Wray in contempt, warning him as they released them that the raw data contained unproven and unsupported allegations.

Grassley gave Comer an unredacted one which he says he got from a 'whistleblower.' Comer and other House republicans never got anything of substance from Weiss who was actively resisting complying with their demands for documents and other things they claimed incriminated the Bidens.

House republicans were repeatedly told by Weiss they couldn't get the investigative product from him, and it was, in fact, the SC appointment which shielded Weiss from having to report to Congress until his final report.

Weiss who brought zero Burisma charges, doesn't actually look like the shitshow here. I see the indictment of Smirnov as Weiss's way of showing why there are no charges based on the initial reason for his appointment over Hunter and Burisma.

The culprits here are still House republicans and everyone else who tried to turn the Russian intelligence lies into an impeachment of the president.

So far, there's zero evidence that Weiss has done something nefarious, instead of these nothingburger tax charges and his arrest of the person spreading Burisma lies.

[druidity33]

7. You have your opinions... that's clear...

I'll just leave it at that.

[bigtree]

8. not surprising

basically posted someone elses article and don't appear to be able to defend a word of it with something other than 'Weiss bad.'

And what I wrote isn't 'opinion', it's a collection of facts, which used to mean something.

FFS the emptywheel piece you posted is ALL conjecture, supposing that Weiss refusing to prosecute ANYTHING Burisma (fact) and charging the man who made the false accusations which began the probe (fact), was Weiss trying to find Russian dirt to smear the Bidens (opinion), instead of the obvious result right in front of us.

[dlk]

9. As I've posted before, Weiss' level of malfeasance is stunning

He should be disbarred.

[bigtree]

10. why isn't the WH or the Biden campaign saying this?

...are we supposed to be angry that he didn't charge Hunter with anything Burisma, and instead charged the person who made the accusations?

And why should ANYONE care about someone's tax charges that isn't a part of government or candidate for any office?

The WH isn't attacking Weiss because there's nothing in that which helps their campaign in any way.

Imagine the WH starting some kind of 'get Weiss' effort right now. Most people will correctly look at SC's declining action against the Bidens on Burisma stemming from his investigation of same as a postitve thing.

I mean, you have all sorts of folks today touting that arrest as vindication of the Bidens, and an indictment of Comer, Grassley and the rest.

But there are some who think that turning on the SC who made that important decision is some sort of benefit. Not in this election, it isn't.

So what's it actually for? What's all of the diverting from the collapse of the entire congressional MAGA republican case against the Bidens to tear down the person who actually made that happen meant to achieve?

This is a pattern.

Biden's AG appoints an SC on his own volition who quickens and deepens the Trump probes into two historic indictments, and critics can't let one success from his efforts be spoken of without obscuring it in some conjecture about how they think the investigation should have run - without a shred of insight into the actual probe.

Garland appoints a republican clearly opposed to Joe Biden who, nonetheless refuses to bring charges against him, and he's ripped apart for daring to appoint someone from the opposite party as countless other SC appointments have done; exonerations be damned.

Who benefits from focusing on the clear anti-Biden nonsense in the report to the exclusion of any discussion of that exoneration? It's not the Biden campaign, who took the win and moved on.

Now this nonsense bandied about as if it's serving something other than axes grinding. It's not serving the Bidens, or the president's campaign. It just isn't.

[dlk]

12. The WH walks a fine line

They really can’t take action on this bogus investigation. However, Weiss’ intentional malfeasance is another issue and shouldn’t be swept under the rug. Other attorneys can file bar complaints and they should.

[druidity33]

14. To be clear...

no one was charged in the Burisma fiasco because it was an illusion to begin with. There was no evidence other than the word of some very shady characters. No credit to Weiss there when he pursued that avenue for months/years (perhaps knowing full well his main source was a Russian asset). As for Emptywheel... i've been reading her work since FireDogLake. She has "nailed it" on countless occasions. Her legal opinions and insight are a gold standard in the community. Though i've seen your name here on DU for a long time...i don't hold the same weight to your "facts" as i do her opinion. Whether or not you think it benefits the Bidens to talk about this is kind of beside the point. This is a discussion board. So is Emptywheel. It's not nonsense. It's current events.

[wiggs]

11. so Hunter and Lowell must be onto this, which is a threat to Weiss. Will Hunter charges

be dropped?

[druidity33]

13. Motions have already been filed. nt.