FBI 'Biden' Informant Tied to TRUMP & 'Associates' Records Reveal

[Ladybbird]

Classified Documents Found at Bidens’ Private Office



Bidens' Legal Team Found Another Batch of Classified Documents

US President Joe Bidens' aides have found a fresh batch of classified government records at a second location, in a growing political embarrassment for the White House.

BBC News.12 JAN 2023






The first cache was found at a private office in Washington DC that Mr Biden used after his vice-presidency.

The matter is under review by the US Department of Justice.

Former President Donald Trump is facing a criminal investigation for allegedly mishandling classified files.

It was not yet clear on Wednesday when or where the additional tranche of files was found by Biden aides.

The original batch of about 10 documents was discovered in November at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank near the White House, but only came to light this week.



Those papers reportedly include US intelligence memos and briefing materials related to Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom.

They relate to his time as vice-president under President Barack Obama but it is unclear why they turned up in a private office he started using after that.

Access to classified documents is limited by law to people with special authorisation and there are rules about how they are kept and stored.

All White House records, including classified ones, are required to be turned over to the US National Archives after an administration's time in office.

The White House has not yet commented on the newly discovered batch. However, the find has been confirmed by the BBC's US partner CBS and other US media.

During her daily press briefing on Wednesday, Biden press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to answer questions about the first cache of files.

"This is under review by the Department of Justice," she said. "I'm not going to go beyond what the president shared yesterday."

She was pressed on why it took two months for the news to be made public and refused to say when Mr Biden had been briefed on it. The discovery happened just days before the midterm congressional elections.

Mr Biden said on Tuesday he was "surprised" when he found out and he was "co-operating" with the justice department's review.

The controversy comes as the Democratic president faces scrutiny from a new Republican majority in the US House of Representatives.

"Now that Democrats no longer have one-party rule in Washington, oversight and accountability are coming," James Comer, the new chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said on Wednesday.

The committee is launching inquiries into the president and his family, including a request for the White House to turn over documents and communications related to the classified files.

The White House has said Mr Biden's lawyers alerted the archives as soon as they recovered the classified materials at the think tank, and the agency retrieved them the next morning.

Last August, FBI agents searched the Florida home of Mr Biden's predecessor and seized more than 10,000 files that Mr Trump had not turned over to the National Archives.

The justice department had issued a subpoena for the return of the sensitive files before the FBI showed up at Mar-a-Lago.

More than 300 documents with classified markings, including 18 marked top secret, were recovered by federal agents from the golf club in Palm Beach.

[Ladybbird]

Special Counsel to Look Into Bidens' Handling of Classified Files

US Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to investigate President Joe Biden's handling of classified documents.

BBC 13 JAN 2023




Robert Hur, a former senior justice department official during the Trump presidency, will lead the investigation.


Robert Hur was a senior justice department official during the Trump presidency



Classified files were recently found in Mr Biden's home and at an office he used after his term as vice-president.

The White House said Mr Biden will fully cooperate with the investigation.

The discovery of the documents have been called a political embarrassment for Mr Biden, as it comes during an ongoing investigation into former President Donald Trump's own alleged mishandling of classified files.

The first batch of files were found on 2 November at the Penn Biden Center, a think-tank Mr Biden launched in Washington DC. They were then handed over to the US National Archives, Mr Biden said.

Mr Garland said a second batch of files were located on 20 December at Mr Biden's home in Wilmington, Delaware. He added that on Thursday morning, Mr Biden's lawyers called investigators to notify them of an additional document, also found at the president's private home.

After an initial probe by US Attorney John Lausch, Mr Garland said his office decided that a special counsel was needed to investigate Mr Biden's handling of the files due to the "extraordinary circumstances" of the matter.

"This appointment underscores for the public the department's commitment to both independence and accountability in particularly sensitive matters, and to making decisions undisputedly guided only by the facts and the law," Mr Garland said.

Mr Hur said he will investigate the issue "with fair, impartial and dispassionate judgement".


White House lawyer Richard Sauber said Mr Biden has cooperated fully with the justice department's review, and will continue to do so.

"We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the President and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake," he said.

Sources familiar with the case told CBS, the BBC's US partner, that the review has so far included interviews with witnesses who may have knowledge of how the classified documents were handled.


Speaking to reporters on Thursday morning, Mr Biden reiterated again that his lawyers had notified officials of the discovery and that he takes the matter seriously.

He added that the additional documents found were locked in a garage next to his 1960s Chevrolet Corvette sports car, "not sitting out in the street".

The additional search in Mr Biden's home garage uncovered "among personal and political papers a small number of additional Obama-Biden Administration records with classified markings", Mr Sauber said.

Lawyers also searched Mr Biden's home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, but found no additional files.


A Timeline on The Discovery of Bidens' Cassified Documents

2 November: Lawyers for Mr Biden found a batch of classified documents in a storage closet at the University of Pennsylvania's Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington DC while they were moving out of the space. The files were turned over to the US National Archives as soon as they were discovered, Mr Biden said. They reportedly included intelligence information about Ukraine, Iran and the UK
4 November: The National Archives informed the US Department of Justice that the classified documents had been found
9 November: The FBI conducted an assessment, per protocol, to see if the classified information had been mishandled in violation of US federal law
14 November: US Attorney John Lausch was assigned by the Department of Justice to conduct an initial probe into the matter
20 December: Mr Biden's lawyer told Mr Lausch that a second batch of documents was found at the president's private home garage in Wilmington, Delaware. The documents were from Mr Biden's time as vice-president. Those documents were then secured by the FBI
5 January: Mr Lausch advised US Attorney General Merrick Garland that a special counsel should be appointed to conduct a further investigation of Mr Biden's handling of the files. Mr Merrick agreed, and appointed Mr Hur to lead the investigation in the subsequent days
12 January: Mr Biden's lawyers notified Mr Lausch than an additional classified document was found at the president's Delaware home



Mr Biden is now facing questions about whether the newly discovered files hold sensitive information that could have jeopardised matters of US national security.

Republican Speaker of the US House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy also raised concerns about the timing of the discovery being made public.

"They knew this had happened to President Biden before the (US midterm) election, but they kept it a secret from the American public," Mr McCarthy said.

Mr Biden's predecessor, Mr Trump, is currently under investigation by the justice department after more than 325 classified files - including some marked with Secret and Top Secret designations - were discovered last year at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Investigators said they are looking at whether Mr Trump violated federal law by obstructing the document recovery process or destroying government materials. The former president has denied any wrongdoing

[Ladybbird]

President Joe Biden Will Not be Charged Over Top Secret Documents. He is an Elderly Man With a Poor Memory.

The report says it would be difficult to convict him as he comes across as an "elderly man with a poor memory".

MailOnline 9 FEB 2024











US President Joe Biden "wilfully retained and disclosed classified materials", a special counsel has found, but he will not be charged.


"We conclude that the evidence does not establish Mr Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," says the report by justice department Special Counsel Robert Hur.

The special counsel's report says that it would be difficult to convict the president of improper handling of files because "at trial, Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory".

"It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him - by then a former president well into his 80s of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness."

Mr Hur's report said Mr Biden's memory seemed to have "significant limitations". He could not recall when he was vice-president (from 2009-2017), or "even within several years, when his son Beau died".

[Ladybbird]

What a Mex-Up! Defiant Biden Mixes Up The Presidents of Egypt and Mexico in Furious Response to Special Counsel Robert Hurs' Bombshell Report Targeting His Hazy Memory, Proclaiming

'I Know What The Hell I'm Doing!'

The surprise announcement came hours after DOJ released its long-awaited investigation into Joe Bidens' mishandling of classified documents

MailOnline 9 FEB 2024







President Joe Biden angrily addressed the nation on Thursday night telling Americans 'I know what the hell I am doing!' and insisting that 'my memory is fine.'



However, moments later he committed another startling gaffe, referring to the Egyptian leader as the President of Mexico.

Bidens' furious tirade from the White House came after a report into his handling of classified documents was released by the Justice Department.

The 388-page report by Special Counsel Robert Hur confirmed he would not be charged for keeping classified documents in his garage.

But it said that was because a jury would probably conclude he had 'diminished faculties' and was a 'well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.'

In a hastily arranged press conference an agitated Biden insisted: 'I know what the hell I'm doing! My memory has not gotten worse. My memory is fine. Take a look at what I have done since becoming president.




'No one thought I could pass any of the things I got passed. How did that happen?






I guess I just forgot what was going on...'





'Absolute Rage': Biden delivers forceful rebuttal to special counsel reports' memory claims

[Ladybbird]

Angry and Defensive: Special Counsel Robert Hur Accused of Using Report & LYING to Trash Biden to Get TRUMP Re-Elected.

He Asked Biden What Was THE MONTH His Son Died. Biden Replied “Oh, God, May 30th 2015.”

TRUMP-Appointed Special Counsel bent the truth when he reported Biden couldn’t remember when his son died, transcript shows... He also LIED about when Biden returned the Classified Docs to the FEDS

MSRAW 14 MAR 2024






Former Special Counsel Robert Hur (L)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.




President Joe Biden embraces his son Beau Biden before he died of cancer





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.

“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,” Johnson added, asking, “They never tried to hide any documents from you, did they?”

“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,” Johnson 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.

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.”







‘I’d Rather Sit Down With Hannibal Lecter Than TRUMP’








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

[Ladybbird]

GOTCHA: US Firm That Paid Indicted FBI Informant Tied to TRUMP & 'Associates' Records Reveal

Alexander Smirnov was paid $600,000 in 2020 – the same year he allegedly began lying to FBI about Bidens’ role in Ukraine business...

The Guardian 2 APR 2024





A sketch of defendant Alexander Smirnov in federal court in Los Angeles on 26 February 2024


An American company that paid the now indicted FBI informant Alexander Smirnov in 2020 is connected to a UK company owned by Trump business associates in Dubai, according to business filings and court documents.

The exact business model of Texas-based ETT is murky

Smirnov is now accused of lying to the FBI about Hunter Biden and his father, President Joe Biden, alleging that they engaged in a bribery scheme with executives at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Smirnov’s accounts to the FBI, beginning in 2020, that federal prosecutors now say are fabrications, served as a major justification of the House impeachment investigation into the Bidens.

Republican lawmakers have repeatedly touted Smirnov as a reliable informant, and the chairman of the House oversight committee, James Comer, even threatened to hold the FBI director, Christopher Wray, in contempt unless he “handed over” a June 2020 FBI form with Smirnov’s claims to the committee.

Back in 2020, Smirnov was paid $600,000 by a company called Economic Transformation Technologies (ETT), prosecutors said. That same year, Smirnov began lying to the FBI about the Bidens, according to the indictment. There is no suggestion the payment was linked to Smirnov’s alleged fabrications.

ETT’s CEO is the American Christopher Condon, who was also one of three shareholders in ETT Investment Holding Limited in London. Other shareholders in the UK company, now dissolved, included the Pakistani American investor Shahal Khan and Farooq Arjomand, a former chairman and current board member of Damac Properties in Dubai who is also listed as an adviser on ETT’s American website.

Last month, Smirnov was charged with lying to the FBI, and is being held without bail. Prosecutors argued he posed a flight risk because of his contacts with Russian officials in the Middle East and access to millions of dollars.

Smirnov’s indictment alleged that the assertions in a document, known as a 1023, and other statements made to his FBI handler beginning in 2020 and continuing until December 2023, were factually impossible.

The exact business model of Texas-based ETT is murky. Its mission statement reads in part: “ETT set up the chess board to bring in top notch executives from those sectors to help implement its vision of love and social impact to improve the quality of human existence through the application of ‘new age’ technologies.”

The current CEO, Condon, is a California man who has been involved in several civil lawsuits, including a civil Rico case in 2010 that he won on appeal. Condon’s official biography says he is “a former professional tennis player, financial advisor, and currently is an entrepreneur focused on social-impact projects, public-private partnerships, and creating smart communities that benefit both individuals and governments”.

Condon, Arjomand and Khan registered ETT Investment Holding Limited in the UK on 6 March 2020. Khan, an investor who purchased the Plaza hotel in 2018, and Arjomand have ties to Donald Trump through Trump associates and Damac, a major Middle East developer that has partnered with Trump for a decade. Arjomand, Khan and Condon owned 34%, 33% and 33% of ETT Investment Holding Limited respectively, according to UK business filings. No other information on the UK company is readily available.

The former Damac chairman Hussain Sajwani is also close to Trump and has been described as his friend in multiple news reports. Trump has called the billionaire a “friend” and a “great man”, and his family “the most beautiful people”.






Sajwani attended Trumps’ 2016 inauguration, and Trump’s sons Donald Jr and Eric Trump attended the 2017 ribbon-cutting of the Trump International golf club in Dubai, licensed by Damac in 2014.


Sajwani and his family also attended a party in 2017 at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s sons would go on to attend Sajwani’s daughter’s wedding in 2018.

In 2017 FEC filings, Trump disclosed making up to $5m from the Damac licensing deal, but said he would no longer do personal business deals when he became president. The two continued at least talking business into his presidency, however, according to multiple reports.

“Hussein, Damac, a friend of mine, a great guy. I was offered $2bn to do a deal in Dubai, a number of deals, and I turned it down,” Trump said in 2017.....LIES...

The Trump Organisation is STILL working with Dubai-based Damac Properties, to build golf courses at two of their latest developments, Akoya bt Damac and Akoya Oxygen....






Trump Jr: ‘We want to build everything in Dubai’

Donald Trump Jr revealed the organisations' plans for the Emirate



Arjomand was the vice-chairman of Damac when the Trump International golf club, along with adjoining Trump-branded luxury homes, opened, and he replaced Sajwani as chair in 2021 when Sajwani stepped down to privatize the company.


Khan, who owns Dubai-based Trinity White City Ventures, is a New York native who partnered with New York City developer Kamran Hakim to buy the Plaza hotel in 2018 for $600m. He was a board member of ETT from 2019 to June 2020, according to his LinkedIn page, appearing in event photographs with Condon in Miami that year.

Khan is involved in a range of business from AI to mining to cybersecurity, according to his official biographies. In 2019, he was one of a dozen Pakistani American business owners invited to meet the then Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan, the day before Imran met with Trump and Mike Pompeo, then the secretary of state, in Washington DC. The group was there to discuss the expansion of business in Pakistan.

In 2017, Khan reportedly approached Brad Zackson, dubbed Paul Manafort’s “real-estate fixer”, to help him broker a deal to buy the Roosevelt hotel in Manhattan, owned by the Pakistani government via its national airline, for $500m, according to the Real Deal. When the real-estate publication asked Khan about the reports, he denied that Zackson and Manafort, a former Trump campaign chairman, were involved. Khan purchased the Pakistani embassy building in DC in 2022 for $6.8m.

Khan is also CEO of BurTech Acquisition Group, a “blank check company”, or public shell company. Patrick Orlando, listed as a “special adviser” and shareholder of BurTech in 2021, was the CEO and chair of Digital World, another blank check company, from September 2021 to March 2023. When it began a merger with Trump Media & Technology Group in 2021, it was held up by an SEC investigation until given the green light last month.

The finalization of the merger may garner Trump as much as $4bn in shares, and help bolster his finances after his recent civil litigation losses. Orlando has known Trump since at least 2021, according to news reports.

Arjomand and Khan’s relationship is unclear. Arjomand, a former HSBC banker from the United Arab Emirates, also invests in hospitality businesses, including the celebrity Wahlberg brothers’ restaurant chain Wahlburgers, and owns a coffee company called Reborn Coffee.

ETT Investment Holding Limited was dissolved in 2021. Condon and Arjomand also registered a company called Atlas UK Group Limited the same day they registered the UK ETT, now dissolved.

The American ETT, then called Pandora Venture Capital Corp, was first registered in Florida in 2014 by a Wisconsin resident, Boris Nayflish, according to Florida business filings. Ukrainian American Nayflish is the ex-husband of Smirnov’s current partner, according to a Wall Street Journal report, which also claimed Nayflish stayed close to his ex, Diana Lavrenyuk, and Smirnov after the divorce.

Smirnov, born in Ukraine, lived in Israel before coming to the US in 2006.



Pandora changed its name to Skylab in 2017, then in 2018 Skylab seemed to split from what is now ETT, according to a lawsuit, when Condon first registered ETT websites and appeared on ETT’s Florida filings.

An unnamed former business associate told the Wall Street Journal that the $600,000 payment from ETT to Smirnov was “in exchange for a stake in an Israel-based crypto trading platform, called Bitoftrade, [that] Smirnov was working on launching”.

Calls and emails to Condon, Arjomand, Sajwani and Smirnov’s lawyer, and to Trump’s team, were not returned.

Khan told the Guardian: “I was on the board for a very short period, [and] there was no connection on my part.”

ETT responded after publication saying the company had “no involvement with Alexander Smirnov” and that “his association with ETT was a direct result of a merger with another company, making him a shareholder”.

“His introduction to ETT was strictly professional,” the company said, “and any money sent to a corporation called Avalon Group Inc., a Delaware corporation, related to ETT’s investment in a cryptocurrency platform, Bitoftrade”.

“This investment, like all ETT’s investments, was made following standard due diligence processes” and was “a straightforward business investment in the technology sector and had no connections to any political figures ... ETT has never had any ties to President Biden or President Trump or their associates, or any political campaigns,” it said, adding that Christopher Condon has never met Biden or Trump or members of their families.




Smirnov is scheduled for a jury trial in April, according to court filings.