Biden routed the China trade through son Hunter, a frequent flyer on Air Force Two. Hunter’s laptop was the equivalent of Hillary Clinton’s private server, enabling the vice president to avoid scrutiny. The FBI had Hunter’s laptop but by all indications FBI bosses believed that, as Comey said of Hillary Clinton, no reasonable prosecutor would bring charges against Joe Biden’s son, especially with the “Big Guy” running for president. The New York Post broke the story, but the Democrat-media-tech axis promptly banned the October surprise.
Biden, Afghanistan and China
Troubling links.
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No matter what else he might do, Joe Biden will be remembered forever for inciting the United States' chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, abandoning American civilians who remain trapped there and displaying utter contempt for American soldiers who have died there. Those soldiers include the ones killed in the barbaric suicide bombing in Kabul yesterday.
Those events raise a puzzling question: Why would a veteran of nearly five decades in Washington, a former Senator and vice president, risk destroying his own legacy?
Perhaps Americans need to consider that Biden's decisions reflect his and his family's previous dealings with China, which views the United States as its main competition for world dominance.
FrontPage Magazine explored China's possible interference in November's Presidential election in "Beijing Is Called For Biden," China's clandestine support for Black Lives Matter in "Beijing's Lies Matter" and COVID-19's role as a potential bioweapon in "China Virus, Indeed."
China benefits tremendously as American influence evaporates in Afghanistan. Those benefits came not by accident but from deliberate foresight and preparation.
Afghanistan contains a range of minerals worth between $1 trillion and $3 trillion. The United States Geological Survey estimated that the country has 2.2 trillion tons of iron ore, 60 million metric tons of copper, and 1.4 million tons of rare earths, as well as gold, silver, platinum, uranium, aluminum and lithium.
Rare earths are indispensable for producing consumer and military electronics, especially guidance and communications systems. Rare earths also can provide the key for Afghanistan's economic recovery.
"Afghanistan’s rich mineral resources, if exploited effectively, could prove to be the best substitutes for foreign aid and decrease the country’s dependence on donor countries and foreign support," wrote Ahmad Shah Katawazai, a former diplomat who belonged to the Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan. "Robust policies, strong institutional arrangements together with clear policy direction will pave the way for attracting both domestic and foreign investors."
Enter China, which already owns a monopoly in processing rare earths.
In 2016, China signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of the now-deposed president, Ashraf Ghani. As part of that agreement, China sent $100 million in aid. That funding provided the seed money for China to become the largest investor in Afghan business, and to spend $62 billion on Afghan infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative.
Projects include natural gas pipelines, electrical transmission, fiber optics networks, and massive highway and railway reconstruction. Two pivotal lines are the Five Nations Railway, which links China to Iran through Afghanistan, and a north-south route to Pakistan, a key Chinese ally.
By asserting itself economically in Afghanistan, China does more than enhance its presence as a major player in a volatile region. Access to increased mineral wealth strengthens China's dominance in rare earths, making such developed countries as the United States more dependent on that nation.
The Chinese also can mine Afghan uranium, which they can use for their own nuclear weapons or send to Iran or Pakistan.
Nearly three weeks before the Taliban seized Kabul, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the movement's co-founder, met with China's foreign minister, Wang Yi. Baradar is now Afghanistan's president.
"We welcome them," Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told the South China Morning Post on July 7. "If they have investments, of course we ensure their safety. Their safety is very important for us."
Secretary of State Antony Blinken even called China's involvement in Afghanistan "a positive thing" if the Chinese sought a "peaceful resolution of the conflict" and a "truly representative and inclusive" government.
Biden ensured China's permanent involvement by disregarding advice from various government quarters. In doing so, he sabotaged an agreement that President Donald Trump brokered between the United States and the Taliban. That agreement included parameters for withdrawing American troops.
In February, Congress' Afghanistan Study Group released a report stating that withdrawal depended "not on an inflexible timeline but on all parties fulfilling their commitments, including the Taliban making good on its promises to contain terrorist groups and reduce violence against the Afghan people."
The study group advocated extending the original May 1 deadline for troops to leave. That extension would provide needed time to transfer power peacefully, reinforce civil institutions and secure international support.
"This new approach would protect U.S. national interests in Afghanistan and the region by reducing terrorist threats, promoting regional stability, and protecting important gains in human rights and democratic institutions," the report stated. "A rash and rushed approach could increase the chances of a breakdown of order in Afghanistan that threatens the security and interests of the United States and its allies."
Then in April, Biden rejected the advice of three leading generals to keep a force of 2,500 troops in Afghanistan until peace was secured. Those generals were Gen. Austin Scott Miller, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of American forces in the Middle East, and Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
In June, reported the Washington Free Beacon, Biden disbanded a State Department bureau Trump established to oversee the emergency evacuation of Americans overseas. Deputy Secretary Brian McKeon signed a memo that approved the "discontinuation of the establishment, and termination of, the Contingency and Crisis Response Bureau."
In July, diplomats at the American embassy in Kabul sent Blinken a confidential cable. They said the Taliban would quickly assume power after Western troops left, the Afghan army would collapse and the State Department would need to expedite plans for an evacuation.
"The classified cable represents the clearest evidence yet that the administration had been warned by its own officials on the ground that the Taliban’s advance was imminent and Afghanistan’s military may be unable to stop it," reported the Wall Street Journal.
Whether Biden saw the cable, let alone whether Blinken acted on it, remains an open question.
Regardless, Biden's inaction not only exposed thousands of Americans to danger. It allowed the United States' enemies to gain access to sophisticated military equipment, as veteran journalist Lara Logan told Fox's Tucker Carlson.
"They're not talking about why the Taliban is dismantling advanced U.S. military equipment and sending it back over the border to Pakistan," Logan said about Biden's administration. "Worse, they're not stopping it.
“The (National Security Agency) and the National Geospatial Agency, which control the satellites, and all these other arms of the United States government are watching this happen in real time. They are seeing advanced military equipment going over the border into Iran, and going into Pakistan, and they're doing nothing to stop it. Why not?”
If that equipment is going to Pakistan, the Pakistanis could then send it to their ally: China, which could analyze it and develop countermeasures.
"The United States government could change this even today, and they don't do it," Logan said. "The United States has the power to affect anything, and the Afghans know that. They know that the United States could bomb the Taliban's supply lines, right now. They're all coming from Pakistan. Everybody knows it."
So why would Biden disregard sound advice and the facts on the ground? Could the answer lie beyond incompetence or dementia?
It might be important to keep these facts in mind.
1. The troubling transactions involving Biden and his son, Hunter, with businesses owned by the Chinese government, and the amount of money both men likely received. In one transaction, Hunter received $1.5 billion for his private equity fund.
2. Hunter's public lust for sex and drugs, and his liaison with a young Chinese woman who suggested numerous times that his father should run for president.
3. The successful intimidation of Ukraine. As vice president, Biden demanded a state prosecutor to stop investigating his son's relationship with Burisma, an energy company, or he would withhold $1 billion in foreign aid. He even bragged about his success to the Council on Foreign Affairs.
4. The millions of dollars that the Clinton Foundation received once Secretary of State Hillary Clinton allowed Rosatom, Russia's nuclear-power agency, to buy Uranium One, a Canadian mining company that owns 20 percent of the United States' uranium reserves. Biden served as vice president when that transaction took place.
5. The accusations about Trump being a Russian agent by his opponents. Did those accusations represent a campaign of projection, disinformation and deflection from Biden's China affairs?
Given current events, Americans must ask themselves many questions about the catastrophe in Afghanistan. Some of those questions should, arguably, include the peculiar ingredients of the Bidens' dealings with the Chinese.
Joseph Hippolito is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to FrontPage Magazine. His commentaries have appeared in The Federalist, The Stream, Wall Street Journal, Jerusalem Post and National Post.
Biden Tried to Send Pallets of Cash to the Taliban as Kabul Fell
Creating a hostage situation is a great pretext for funding Islamic terrorists.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
On August 14, Secretary of State Blinken spoke with Afghanistan’s former president and promised that the Biden administration would provide a bulk shipment of dollars.
The next day Kabul fell.
On that same call, Afghanistan’s former leader had agreed to surrender power to the Taliban.
The Biden administration had effectively agreed to provide a massive infusion of cash to the Taliban. But the final deal fell through, the Afghan government fled, and the Taliban took Kabul.
The bulk shipment of dollars never did arrive.
Biden’s diplomats scrambled to evacuate from Kabul. Ajmal Ahmady, the governor of DAB, Afghanistan's central bank, already had a ticket and headed to the airport. He managed to get on a military plane.
Since then he's tweeted that he was warned that the Taliban had come looking for him.
The Taliban were hoping to get their hands on Afghanistan’s money, but much of it is in the United States. The most tangible part of Afghanistan’s assets, $1.3 billion in gold, is sitting in downtown Manhattan, a little bit south of Ground Zero, in the vaults of the Federal Reserve.
If there were any justice, that money would be used to compensate the police officers, firefighters, and workers who died on that day or later on from ailments related to 9/11.
Meanwhile, all the Taliban have to do is fly into JFK, take an Uber to 33 Liberty Street, and ask to be taken down to the basement to see all the bars of gold. And even in Biden’s America and De Blasio’s New York City, they might have trouble walking away with over a billion in gold bars.
Not unless they trade their camos and kameezes for Black Lives Matter t-shirts.
The United States did plenty of dumb things in Afghanistan, but it kept the gold locked up in the basement vaults and $3.1 billion of DAB’s assets went into U.S. Treasury bills and bonds.
Ahmady estimates that $7 billion of DAB's assets are being held by the Federal Reserve which includes the gold, the bills and bonds, $300 million in cash, and another $2.4 billion in World Bank funds for aiding developing countries. There’s also $700 million at the Bank for International Settlements and another $1.3 billion in international accounts.
Those are likely being held in Turkey which is an Islamist dictatorship friendly to the Taliban.
The Taliban would like some or all of that money.
The problem is that while the Taliban expected to find vaults full of gold and cash, Afghanistan had been plugged into the international finance system in which access to cash depends on either great internal wealth or good international relations. The Taliban have neither.
To the extent that the Taliban have been behaving themselves, at least in Kabul, it’s because they want to lay claim to the stream of international wealth that used to flow into Afghanistan.
A week after Kabul fell, the International Monetary Fund was supposed to disburse $460 million in Special Drawing Rights to Afghanistan, but that, like all the other international funding mechanisms that the Taliban wanted to lay claim to, was blocked. While the Biden administration’s diplomats and national security people had made a complete hash of the withdrawal, the treasury people proved to be surprisingly on top of cutting off Taliban cash.
The Taliban still control border crossings and they’ll be able to take advantage of Chinese money, but that’s a long way from the cash they need to run any kind of functional country.
Paradoxically, we were the single biggest revenue source for the Taliban’s money machine.
One expert estimated that at the peak of Obama and Biden's Afghanistan surge, "the Taliban’s ‘taxes’ on truckers supplying NATO likely even surpassed the Taliban’s income from drugs, being tens of millions of dollars at least, maybe up to $100 million annually."
Like a lot of failed states, remittances from Afghans living overseas made up 4% of their GDP. Last year that amounted to $788 million. Some of that money is being blocked. For now.
Without an ongoing war, the money from both NATO and the international financiers of the Jihad will stop flowing. Chinese state businesses won’t allow the Taliban to rob them the way that they looted NATO and while drugs are big money, they’re no substitute for an economy.
Just ask Venezuela and Iran. Or Detroit.
The Taliban’s options are limited. They've appointed Mohammad Idris, a previously unknown Taliban official, to head the central bank. Afghanistan’s currency is imploding and dollarization without dollars doesn’t work so well. Much of Afghanistan’s economy, which was propped up by foreign aid, will collapse leaving behind subsistence farming, opium, and smuggling rackets.
The arms and vehicles looted from the United States will be sold off to fellow Jihadists for a one-time cash infusion because there’ll be no more armored vehicles and drones handed out.
Before 9/11, Afghanistan was facing drought and famine under the Taliban. The United States campaign not only toppled the Taliban, but saved parts of the country from starvation.
But the Taliban do have two key assets: people and trouble.
Those are the same assets held by Jihadists around the world from Hamas in Gaza to the Houthis in Yemen. The Taliban don’t care if portions of the population, especially non-Pashtuns and non-Sunni Muslims suffer, but they know that we do.
Even now there’s talk about how to continue providing humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. And the flow of humanitarian aid to a population in a terrorist area means funding terrorists.
Beyond inflicting misery on Afghans, the Taliban have a variety of options for causing trouble for their enemies. They can speed the flow of migrants and refugees to Europe and also boost the opium business and demand money to “fight drug trafficking” in order to shut it down. (This scam is common in both South America and Southeast Asia, and helps fund the drug trade in the name of fighting it as corrupt politicians cash in on both the drug and anti-drug businesses.)
And their biggest short-term asset are the Afghans and Americans trapped in Afghanistan.
Whatever agreements the Biden administration reached with the Taliban to allow it to operate and to coordinate on security arrangements were almost certainly financial. Once the United States leaves, the Taliban will be able to extract money for every single Afghan who leaves.
But what the Taliban really want is all that money sitting in the Federal Reserve.
There have been precedents for terror states toppling legitimate governments and leaving their wealth in the hands of the United States. From the Bolsheviks of the Soviet Union to the Shiite Islamists of Iran, Democrats eventually turned over the money to the red-green terrorists.
There’s little doubt that the Taliban will get their hands on much of the money.
China, Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, and Qatar will likely push to legitimize the Taliban in international forums. The Biden administration will make a token show of resistance. As the international governance bodies topple and humanitarian groups cry about famine, the money pipeline will reopen. And even though there won’t be a single American soldier in Afghanistan, Biden will go on funding the Taliban long after the withdrawal is wholly complete.
The $7 billion will end up being another down payment in the funding of Islamic terrorism.
The day before Kabul fell, Biden nearly allowed a massive bundle of pallets of dollars to be shipped to Afghanistan. He did so knowing that the money was destined for a Taliban regime.
His cash shipment to the Taliban only fell apart because the Afghan government did.
How long will it be until Biden is shipping money to the Taliban? He may already be doing it.
"Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran," Biden proposed after September 11. His previous administration illegally shipped $1.7 billion in pallets of cash to Iran. The question isn’t whether Biden will fund the Taliban, but when.
Creating a hostage situation is, as Obama already discovered, a convenient pretext for funding Islamic terrorists. Biden has created a massive hostage crisis in Afghanistan. What better way could there be to force the United States to fund our worst enemies once again?
JOE BIDEN HAS NO MORAL FIBER. HE IS NOTHING BUT A BRIBES SUCKING SOCIOPATH LAWYER GAMING THE LAWS LIKE HE GAMES OUR BORDERS
The only thing Biden inherited, based on his family tree, was a lack of moral fiber.
Whether it’s oil or Afghanistan, Biden became the agent for enabling leftist ideological goals. His value, like that of any good agent, lies in being able to “humanize” a radical agenda with his grins, gladhandling, and malapropisms without looking like a radical. But that just makes him the final fall guy when the tattered remnants of his charm aren’t enough to deflect attention from the leftist wizards behind the curtain. And then it’ll be time for him to retire and spend “more time with his family”. His family being his crackhead artist son who almost cost him the election.
Blame Anyone But Biden
The president knows he’s disposable - and surrounds himself with scapegoats.
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Biden and his cronies are busy blaming anyone and everyone else for Afghanistan.
Culprits for Biden’s folly thus far include the Trump administration, intelligence people (who warned him this would happen), the military (which also warned him this would happen), and Trump supporters whom the media implausibly alleges he was too afraid of to defy.
By next week, the media will find some way to blame Afghanistan on the unvaccinated, on systemic racism, and Ron DeSantis. Except that all the excuses aren’t working this time.
And that’s a problem because blaming other people for his failures is all Biden knows.
The Biden administration is one long search for scapegoats to protect the old goat at the top.
When gas prices soared, the Biden administration turned to OPEC to lower prices by raising output. OPEC's response was a contemptuous shrug that didn’t even acknowledge the little man in the big house while making it clear that it’s happy with the way things are.
Biden has no leverage with OPEC. He can’t open up American production because he’s in thrall to the Big Green lobby that is gobbling up a trillion dollars of the economy with its subsidized Chinese junk projects. A huge chunk of Biden’s infrastructure dollars are going to Big Green.
Some OPEC members have crucial security concerns about Iran. But Biden has made it clear that he’s going to appease Iran. If Iran goes nuclear, it will be able to choke off much of our oil supply from the region. And even before then Iran’s expanding terror sphere threatens OPEC members like Saudi Arabia which were shelled by Iran’s Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
The Biden administration cut off support for the campaign to dislodge the Houthis from Yemen.
Even without nukes, Iran’s terrorist proxy wars risk creating all sorts of instability. And that will affect energy prices and lead producers to act conservatively out of fear of the next crisis.
Biden won’t allow American energy companies to compete with OPEC. And he isn’t offering any real sense of security to OPEC members in the region. Why should OPEC raise production?
But Biden wasn’t serious about expecting OPEC to raise production.
A recurring theme of his failed administration has been finding someone else to blame for his disasters. The lousy economy, the pandemic, and the collapse of Afghanistan are always someone else’s fault. The Biden administration’s messaging machine exists to play politics with the pandemic while blaming its latest setback on DeSantis, Trump, or disinformation.
The Biden administration didn’t expect OPEC to do anything. They were just seeking another scapegoat for Biden’s bad decisions. The media will receive its administration talking points blaming high energy prices, not on Biden’s Keystone XL pipeline cancelation, his hostility to the domestic energy industry, and the rising instability due to the rise of Iran, but on OPEC refusing to boost production. But who made America dependent on OPEC and, by extension, Iran?
The same politician who made Americans trapped in Afghanistan dependent on the Taliban
Biden wanted credit for withdrawing from Afghanistan when he thought it would make him look good. Once the Taliban took over, he began whining that he had “inherited” the withdrawal.
The only thing Biden inherited, based on his family tree, was a lack of moral fiber.
The dumbest and most destructive elements of the withdrawal, the evacuation of soldiers before civilians, the stealthy withdrawals from bases, the refusal to coordinate with NATO allies, had nothing to do with Trump or even the general idea of a withdrawal. It was Biden’s call whether to withdraw the troops before the civilians, and it was the absolute wrong one.
Even in the final hours before the fall of Afghanistan, Biden could have secured Kabul.
The Taliban kept indicating that they didn’t want to enter Kabul. Whether they really meant it or were testing our response, this was the opportunity to send in forces, secure Kabul, and create a safe evacuation zone for Americans. Instead, Biden dithered. Having American soldiers secure the city would have made it very difficult to then pull out the troops.
Biden and his people decided that it was better to abandon Americans behind Taliban lines and hope that they can negotiate their way out, than to be stuck being responsible for Kabul.
Since then the Taliban have reportedly handed over security in Kabul over to the Haqqani Network which is a component of the Taliban that is intertwined with Al Qaeda, has carried out numerous terrorist attacks, and is holding an American hostage.
But Biden prioritized forcing a harsh break at any cost over the lives and safety of Americans.
Now that the strategy has failed, in the sense that it’s widely unpopular, the Biden administration is searching for scapegoats. Biden is blaming intelligence and the military. The intelligence people are blaming the military and the diplomats. The diplomats are blaming the military. And the military knows that its job is to take the fall for every stupid thing that the politicians do.
There’s plenty of blame to go around, beginning with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and General Milley, Secretary of State Blinken, and CIA Director William Burns. But their underlying failure was following orders. Milley had boasted of undermining President Trump by refusing to go along with his proposals, but he was happy enough to enable anything that Biden wanted.
The intelligence reports were there. And it’s impossible to imagine the military brass and their aides didn’t understand the risks of a scenario in which the Taliban trapped Americans behind enemy lines while only a meager force of 600 American troops remained to protect them.
They gave Biden what he wanted. And now Biden is blaming them for giving it to him.
Whether it’s oil or Afghanistan, Biden became the agent for enabling leftist ideological goals. His value, like that of any good agent, lies in being able to “humanize” a radical agenda with his grins, gladhandling, and malapropisms without looking like a radical. But that just makes him the final fall guy when the tattered remnants of his charm aren’t enough to deflect attention from the leftist wizards behind the curtain. And then it’ll be time for him to retire and spend “more time with his family”. His family being his crackhead artist son who almost cost him the election.
Biden knows he’s disposable and surrounds himself with scapegoats. And that leads to a work culture in which no one goes out on a limb to avoid becoming one of Biden’s scapegoats.
Why did none of the brass, the intel people, or the diplomats stand up to Biden?
Why does every interview or press conference by an administration official seem like a parade of excuses for inaction? The safest thing for anyone to do is to do nothing and let the blame rise, like hot air, up to Biden who, for at least one term, is considered too big to fail.
Biden’s age and mental state have created an unprecedentedly weak administration.
Few expect him to run for a second term. And whether he’s replaced by Kamala, another Democrat, or a Republican, there will be a clean sweep leaving few of the old gang.
A weak king inspires little loyalty. Biden’s loyalists don’t expect him to be around for long and they have little incentive to prop him up for a second term that isn’t likely to ever happen.
They have no loyalty to Biden, he has none to them, and none of them have any to America.
Hunter Biden Art Dealer Served Jail Time and Allegedly Defrauded Investor
White House tapped Georges Bergès to vet art sales for ethical conflicts
The art dealer who the White House has tapped to vet Hunter Biden’s art sales for ethical conflicts was sentenced to three months in jail in 1998 for threatening to stab a man to death and was later accused of defrauding an investor in a messy 2016 lawsuit, raising alarms with ethics watchdogs.
Georges Bergès, the gallery owner who is scheduled to host exhibitions of Hunter Biden’s paintings this fall, will be responsible for approving sales of the art works—which are priced between $75,000 and $500,000 and will be open to foreign buyers—according to the White House.
Court records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon shed additional light on Bergès’s legal history, which was first reported by the New York Post in January. Bergès was accused in May 1998 of assaulting a man with a knife and making death threats, according to charging documents filed in Santa Cruz County. According to prosecutors, Bergès threatened the victim "with the specific intent that the statement be taken as a threat" and "was so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate and specific as to convey to the victim a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution."
Bergès pleaded no contest to making terrorist threats, a misdemeanor charge. He was sentenced to 90 days in jail, required to submit to warrantless police searches, and barred from contacting the victim or possessing deadly weapons for 36 months, according to court records.
Ethics watchdogs, already critical of the Biden administration’s decision to outsource the vetting process to Biden’s art dealer, called for public transparency to ensure prospective buyers don’t use the process to try to purchase influence with the White House. Critics say the sales could attract lobbyists or foreign nationals who would be willing to buy the paintings for way over their value in order to curry favor with the White House. Bergès's legal history serves as a reminder that Hunter Biden's dealings have not always been on the up and up. Biden was tapped for a high-paying board position at the Ukrainian oil company Burisma and at a Chinese hedge fund while his father was vice president, arrangements that drew criticism during the elder Biden’s presidential campaign. He is also under federal investigation for his tax activities.
"Everything about Hunter’s art deal screams shady, and the new information about the organizer only solidifies what we have been saying: Hunter’s shenanigans threaten to derail the entire Biden agenda," said Tom Anderson, director of the National Legal and Policy Center’s Government Integrity Project.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters in July that "all interactions regarding the selling of art and the setting of prices will be handled by a professional gallerist, adhering to the highest industry standards, and any offer out of the normal course would be rejected out of hand." She added that Bergès would "not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration."
Kendra Arnold, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, said the administration’s "complete lack of transparency regarding the sale of Hunter Biden's art is deeply troubling."
"There is no way for the public to know who the buyers are and whether or not those buyers are using their purchases to influence decisions made by the president," Arnold said. "This arrangement is opaque and ripe for abuse."
Bergès was also caught up in a 2016 lawsuit in which artist Ingrid Arneberg, the daughter of a Norwegian shipping tycoon, accused Bergès of defrauding her out of a $500,000 investment in his gallery.
Arneberg claimed that Bergès made numerous financial misrepresentations in the investment proposal and that his gallery was in dire economic straits at the time, according to federal court filings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. She said the art dealer misled her about how much additional funding he raised and falsely claimed that he sold two dozen paintings by a well-known contemporary artist for $50,000 each, when the actual numbers were significantly lower.
In court records, Arneberg also cited alleged text messages between Bergès and a friend in which the gallery owner supposedly mused that he might have to have sex with Arneberg to convince her to invest.
"Malcolm [Bricklin] thinks I may have to sleep with her [Arneberg] because she is just divorced," Bergès allegedly said in one text message. In other texts, he reportedly described Bricklin, one of his business associates, as "the Godfather shark" who "smells money" and "is about a quick buck and I have to reign him in all the time."
Bergès countersued Arneberg for defamation and breach of fiduciary duty. Both cases were dismissed after an undisclosed settlement in 2018, according to records.
Bergès and Arneberg did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Are we helplessly witnessing America’s destruction?
“In government, the secret is Integrity. Use it, and you’ll be like the polestar: always dwelling in its proper place, and other stars turning reverently about it.
“If you use government to show them the Way and punishment to keep them true, the people will grow evasive and lose all remorse. But if you use Integrity to show them the Way and Ritual to keep them true, they’ll cultivate remorse and always see deeply into things.” --Confucian Analects
We have a complete lack of integrity in every facet of our government, leading to a lack of faith by the people. Is it ironic, to choose ancient Chinese wisdom to explain this? Nope. What we have done by installing Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and the Democrat-run Congress, is sell our country’s soul. The beneficiary will be the Chinese communists. Hopefully, we haven’t gone too far to wrest it back if we can just wake up our impotent congressional toadies and weak-wristed courts, and demand they find the cojones to take appropriate, immediate, drastic action to end this threat to our existence.
The worst, most in-your-face example, by far, is what’s happening in Afghanistan. Coupled with our chaotic border, we are inviting a violent and destabilizing reign of terror aimed squarely at our homeland.
The Biden administration was installed through deceit, and it is rapidly (finally!) becoming an albatross, even to democrats. Biden’s actions have exposed the abject degradation of our government.
We knew Biden sold out to the Chinese well before he assumed office, and he proves it every day, with the most recent example being his plattering up billions in sophisticated weaponry, served like luxury hors d’oeuvres, for our enemies to take from within Afghanistan, and turn against us. Even if it all goes to Pakistan, not China, terrorism against us will serve them. Biden’s given the Chinese a gift, his actions clearly demonstrating to the world that we are a toothless paper tiger. They will take advantage every way they can.
Listen to people who have first-hand knowledge of what’s happening to our citizens in Afghanistan, including the phone calls some of them have recorded with friends trying to help from here. The inhumanity of Biden’s ineptitude is treasonous, and I’d never use that word without intention. Listen to our citizens’ anguish. They face torture and death, and they know it. They are trapped, with nowhere to turn and no faith in the military and our government to rescue them. The government doesn’t even know how many people need rescue.
Biden opted to close Bagram Airbase first, destabilizing our mission, and then he pulled the last 2,500 troops—all so that he could crow about symbolism on the anniversary of 9/11. This decision has destroyed 20 years of progress in a matter of weeks.
He’s installed ruthless, soulless caveman barbarians, posing as a government. He’s had to rush in triple the number of troops he wanted to remove to deal with the chaos he created, all micromanaged by superiors safely watching from DC. He’s betrayed the trust of every single Afghan citizen who chose to help us, now all marked for death, along with their entire families, except, of course, girls of marriageable age (whatever that is, over 9?), who will be enslaved.
Biden’s actions have destroyed US credibility on the world stage. Lies by the media, the tech moguls, as much as Biden himself, are to blame. They created this monster. They’ve all collectively betrayed our citizens, our allies, and the world. Other governments know it, and we’ve lost our standing as a great nation because of it. We are a country that threw integrity overboard, and we are reaping predictable results.
We have no border, we have no idea who is in our country, or who is coming. Our government values the refugees of the world over its own citizenry. Remember border stability, financial stability, our growing economy, our ability to supply our own energy needs, our excellent relationships with our allies, the respect by our enemies? We had four years of peace under Trump, and in eight months, we’re on a trajectory to doom.
We who endeavor to live with integrity, have always seen through the farce. We’ve shouted, but nobody listened. Greed and a thirst for absolute power permeate our government-tech complex.
Biden used Hunter as a playing piece as he sold out to China, so the Chinese have moved ever closer to power over us. But it doesn’t even stop with him. Everyone, from the highest echelons of power to the deep state peons, has a stake in our ruination for their personal gain.
Too bad we’re all getting the bill. Their gain will prove illusory, as our economy and strength crumble. The greatest country in the world could be destroyed in just a few months more. We can only hope it’s not too late to stop it.
Image: Our military is reduced to giving bottles of water to people who are either dead men (and women) walking or who will bring sharia (which 99% of Afghans support) to America. Department of Defense.
A brief review of the Biden family's financial dealings in China begs the question of a compromised or even installed presidency.
With Biden in the White House, President Trump predicted, China would “own the United States.” There’s also something to Trump’s charge that the Bidens are an “organized crime family.” LLOYD BILLINGSLEY
THE BIDEN KLEPTOCRACY
American people deserve to know what China was up to with Joe Biden, especially when Beijing had already shelled out millions of dollars to Biden family members — including millions in set-asides for “the big guy.” What else is on that infamous Hunter Biden laptop? The conflicted Biden Justice Department cannot be trusted to engage in any meaningful oversight on this issue. We need a special counsel now.
TOM FITTON - JUDICIAL WATCH
IMAGES OF JOE BIDEN’S MANSIONS:
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/real-estate/a33809100/joe-biden-real-estate-homes/
RIDING THE DRAGON: The Bidens' Chinese Secrets (Full Documentary)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRmlcEBAiIs
Report: Despite Chip Shortage, Biden Administration Approves Sales to Huawei
U.S. officials have approved licenses for China’s Huawei to purchase hundred of millions of dollars of chips for its auto component business, a report from Reuters said Wednesday.
The report cites two unnamed sources.
From Reuters:
Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker, has been hobbled by trade restrictions imposed by the Trump administration on the sale of chips and other components used in its network gear and smartphones businesses. The Biden administration has been reinforcing the hard line on exports to Huawei, denying licenses to sell chips to Huawei for use in or with 5g devices.
But in recent weeks and months, people familiar with the application process told Reuters the U.S. has granted licenses authorizing suppliers to sell chips to Huawei for such vehicle components as video screens and sensors. The approvals come as Huawei pivots its business toward items that are less susceptible to U.S. trade bans.
Not everyone is a fan. Republican Senator Tom Cotton, who has been deeply critical of Huawei in the past, said in a statement, “It’s unacceptable for the Biden administration to ease the pressure campaign against Chinese spy companies like Huawei.”
Critics of the Biden administration’s kowtow to China on the Huawei chips say it will weaken efforts to get allies across the globe to ban Huawei products from critical information infrastructure.
Just over a year ago, the U.S. government announced new sanctions against Huawei that sought to block its supply of semiconductors.
Breitbart News’ John Hayward reported:
The new sanctions essentially finish the job of cutting Huawei off from its supply of Kirin chips, a custom-designed advanced processing chip supplied until now by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Huawei began seeking alternative suppliers after restrictions imposed by the U.S. in May, but Monday’s order from the Commerce Department comprehensively blocked all Huawei entities from purchasing the chips from any other viable sources.
“Huawei and its foreign affiliates have extended their efforts to obtain advanced semiconductors developed or produced from U.S. software and technology in order to fulfill the policy objectives of the Chinese Communist Party. As we have restricted its access to U.S. technology, Huawei and its affiliates have worked through third parties to harness U.S. technology in a manner that undermines U.S. national security and foreign policy interests. This multi-pronged action demonstrates our continuing commitment to impede Huawei’s ability to do so,” explained Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
Huawei is the top mobile phone maker in China. Beijing considers it a “national champion” and it is central to the country’s “Made in China 2025” scheme to dominate high-tech manufacturing. As one of China’s few truly global brands, it has become something of a symbol for the nation around the world. The company is also the central actor in China’s bid to dominate next-generation 5G telecommunications technology.
Ren Zhengfei, the founder and CEO of Huawei, was a high-ranking intelligence officer with the People’s Liberation Army, according to U.S. officials. Two years ago, a federal grand jury indicted Ren’s daughter—who was also Huawei’s chief financial officer—Meng Wanzhou, charging her with fraud and violations of Iran sanctions. She was arrested in Vancouver, Canada, and remains there under house arrest while fighting her extradition to New York for trial.
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