Et tu, Mike Pence? Yes, Pence too. It was the lat­est rev­e­la­tion in what start­ed as Don­ald Trump’s clas­si­fied doc­u­ments scan­dal involv­ing nuclear weapons last August the has now mor­phed into one of that those meta-scan­dals that had tak­en on a life of its own. Yes, the fla­grant embrace of his A meta-scan­dal about a sys­tem for clas­si­fy­ing and track­ing gov­ern­ment doc­u­ments that appears to be utter­ly bro­ken. That’s on top of the now-typ­i­cal scan­dal of Trump act­ing com­plete­ly insane and claim­ing that he owns the clas­si­fied doc­u­ments while obstruct­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion into them.

So with this scan­dal over miss­ing clas­si­fied doc­u­ments now a fes­ter­ing mess in DC with no end in sight and promis­ing to spill into an 2024 pres­i­den­tial race, here’s a pair of arti­cles that point out what could end up being one the of dynam­ic beneath the sur­face here that we should be keep­ing an eye on:
While the pos­ses­sion of the clas­si­fied doc­u­ments is part of the sto­ry here, there’s also all the ques­tions about the actu­al­ly con­tents of the doc­u­ments. And it looks like the con­tents of the clas­si­fied doc­u­ments found in Biden res­i­dence are focused on Biden’s for­eign pol­i­cy roles as Barack Oba­ma’s vice pres­i­dent. Specif­i­cal­ly, the roles Biden played on Iran, the UK, and Ukraine.

That for­eign pol­i­cy focus of these dis­cov­ered doc­u­ments rais­es all sorts of fas­ci­nat­ing ques­tions. Ques­tions like whether or not any of the doc­u­ments cov­ered poten­tial­ly high­ly scan­dalous top­ics like the US’s role in fos­ter­ing Ukraine’s 2014 Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion. But that brings us to one of the fas­ci­nat­ing fun facts to keep in mind about this sit­u­a­tion: it’s a good bet any Biden for­eign pol­i­cy scan­dals that might be tucked away in those doc­u­ments are almost cer­tain­ly scan­dals of the broad­er US intel­li­gence and for­eign pol­i­cy com­mu­ni­ties too.

And that brings us to anoth­er fac­tor to keep in mind in this sto­ry: it’s the US intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty lead­ing the inves­ti­ga­tions into these miss­ing doc­u­ments. So it’s hard not to notice that the Biden admin­is­tra­tion has ‘loos­ened’ the US’s pol­i­cy on arm­ing Ukraine pret­ty dra­mat­i­cal­ly over the last month. The same peri­od of time when the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty has been car­ry­ing out its inves­ti­ga­tion.

So we are now in a sit­u­a­tion where the US intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty has some pret­ty sig­nif­i­cant lever­age over Biden at the same time Repub­li­cans in the House are gear­ing up for a range of polit­i­cal­ly charged inves­ti­ga­tions focused on top­ics like Hunter Biden’s d*ck pics...topics that are awful­ly tan­gen­tial to a lot of the US’s poli­cies towards Ukraine over the last decade. And at the same time, that lever­age held by the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty over Biden is lever­age that would like­ly involve intel­li­gence-relat­ed scan­dals. Scan­dals that had bipar­ti­san sup­port at the time. How is a mess like this going to play out?

And that at brings us all to the fol­low­ing sto­ry about the ongo­ing intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty’s inves­ti­ga­tion into the miss­ing doc­u­ments of Trump, Biden, and now Pence: it turns out the con­tents of those miss­ing doc­u­ments are NOT being be shared with the Sen­ate intel­li­gence com­mit­tee. At least not while the spe­cial coun­sel inves­ti­ga­tions are ongo­ing. That was the mes­sage deliv­ered by Nation­al Intel­li­gence Direc­tor Avril Haines to the com­mit­tee on Wednes­day, result­ing in bipar­ti­san fum­ing by both Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans over what they viewed as a bogus argu­ment. As they not­ed, the com­mit­ted was reg­u­lar­ly receiv­ing updates about the then-ongo­ing ‘Rus­si­a­gate’ inves­ti­ga­tion at the same time the spe­cial coun­sel inves­ti­ga­tions were tak­ing place.

What changed? Haines isn’t answer­ing. But it’s a good time to recall how she was appoint­ed the Deputy Direc­tor of the CIA in 2013, putting her in a very knowl­edge­able posi­tion with respect to the US’s poli­cies towards Ukraine dur­ing that cru­cial Maid­an peri­od. It’s a mess. A mess that could end up shap­ing both US pol­i­tics and, qui­et­ly, pol­i­cy as the next elec­tion cycle plays out.

Ok, first, here’s an NBC report describ­ing the frus­tra­tion in the sen­ate on being kept in the dark. Bipar­ti­san frus­tra­tion over an expla­na­tion from Avril Haines that just does­n’t add up:

NBC News

Sen­a­tors vent frus­tra­tion after top intel offi­cial refus­es to brief on Biden and Trump clas­si­fied docs

Sen. Tom Cot­ton threat­ened to block pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nees until Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee mem­bers are shown the clas­si­fied mate­r­i­al at the cen­ter of spe­cial coun­sel inves­ti­ga­tions.

By Scott Wong, Liz Brown-Kaiser, Frank Thorp V and Kate San­taliz
Jan. 25, 2023, 7:21 PM CST

WASHINGTON — Sen­a­tors in both par­ties voiced frus­tra­tion after they left a closed-door brief­ing Wednes­day with Nation­al Intel­li­gence Direc­tor Avril Haines, who declined to show them copies of the clas­si­fied doc­u­ments dis­cov­ered at Don­ald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and Joe Biden’s office and Delaware home.

Haines also refused to dis­cuss the sen­si­tive mate­r­i­al, cit­ing ongo­ing spe­cial coun­sel inves­ti­ga­tions, accord­ing to mem­bers of the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee who attend­ing the clas­si­fied brief­ing.

Sen. Tom Cot­ton, R‑Ark., was so furi­ous after the brief­ing that he threat­ened to block pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nees or fund­ing for some fed­er­al agen­cies until the Biden admin­is­tra­tion shows key law­mak­ers the clas­si­fied doc­u­ments.

“Whether it’s block­ing nom­i­nees or with­hold­ing bud­getary funds, Con­gress will impose pain on the admin­is­tra­tion until they pro­vide these doc­u­ments. And that is com­ing from both par­ties,” Cot­ton told reporters.

“I’m pre­pared to refuse con­sent or to fast-track any nom­i­nee for any depart­ment or agency and to take every step I can on every com­mit­tee on which I serve to impose con­se­quences on the admin­is­tra­tion until they pro­vide these doc­u­ments for the Con­gress to make our own informed judg­ment about the risk to nation­al secu­ri­ty.”

Sen­a­tors were told Wednes­day that Biden admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials can­not brief Con­gress about a dam­age assess­ment of the doc­u­ments until the spe­cial coun­sels inves­ti­gat­ing the Trump and Biden doc­u­ments give the green light.

The bipar­ti­san lead­ers of the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence pan­el emerged togeth­er from the secure brief­ing room and reject­ed the administration’s argu­ment.

That is “not a ten­able posi­tion,” said Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee Chair­man Mark Warn­er, D‑Va. “What I think the direc­tor heard is she didn’t just hear it from Sen. Rubio and I. Lit­er­al­ly every mem­ber of the com­mit­tee, with­out excep­tion, said this won’t stand.”

Sen. Mar­co Rubio, R‑Fla., the committee’s vice chair, called it a “very unsat­is­fy­ing hear­ing.”

“The bot­tom line is this: They won’t tell us what they have until the spe­cial coun­sel allows them to tell us. That’s an unac­cept­able posi­tion,” Rubio said.

Warn­er and oth­ers point­ed out that the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence pan­el received reg­u­lar brief­in­gs on Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in the 2016 elec­tion at the same time a spe­cial coun­sel was appoint­ed to inves­ti­gate the mat­ter.

The sen­a­tors argued that their com­mit­tee has over­sight respon­si­bil­i­ties for intel­li­gence mat­ters and that they need to be able to assess whether the dis­cov­ery of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments at Trump’s and Biden’s unse­cure homes and office pos­es a threat to nation­al secu­ri­ty. On Tues­day, news broke that a lawyer for for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence had dis­cov­ered about a dozen doc­u­ments at his home in Indi­ana and had turned them over to the FBI.

“We’ve got a job to do, and we’re going to do it,” Warn­er said.

Anoth­er com­mit­tee mem­ber, Sen. John Cornyn, R‑Texas, said there is “a lot of con­cern” about Haines and oth­er intel­li­gence offi­cials’ defer­ring to the Jus­tice Depart­ment on decid­ing who gets access to the recov­ered clas­si­fied doc­u­ments.

“Typ­i­cal­ly, in a crim­i­nal inves­ti­ga­tion or a law enforce­ment inves­ti­ga­tion, we wouldn’t want to talk about that to pro­tect the integri­ty of the inves­ti­ga­tion and the rights of the per­son being inves­ti­gat­ed,” said Cornyn, a for­mer Texas attor­ney gen­er­al.

“But here, there are larg­er con­cerns, pub­lic safe­ty con­cerns, nation­al secu­ri­ty con­cerns that make this an excep­tion­al case.”

Wednesday’s brief­ing with Haines had not been sched­uled to focus on the doc­u­ments; it was one of the reg­u­lar updates she gives the Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee. Haines made no pub­lic state­ments as she left the brief­ing in the sen­si­tive com­part­ment­ed infor­ma­tion facil­i­ty, known as the SCIF.

Law­mak­ers in both par­ties and in both cham­bers expressed wor­ry and exas­per­a­tion that the government’s sys­tem for label­ing and track­ing thou­sands of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments appears to be bro­ken.

...

———-

“Sen­a­tors vent frus­tra­tion after top intel offi­cial refus­es to brief on Biden and Trump clas­si­fied docs” By Scott Wong, Liz Brown-Kaiser, Frank Thorp V and Kate San­taliz; NBC News; 01/25/2023

“Haines also refused to dis­cuss the sen­si­tive mate­r­i­al, cit­ing ongo­ing spe­cial coun­sel inves­ti­ga­tions, accord­ing to mem­bers of the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee who attend­ing the clas­si­fied brief­ing.”

Nation­al Intel­li­gence Direc­tor Avril Haines won’t share the con­tent of the dis­cov­ered clas­si­fied doc­u­ments with the pub­lic with the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee. It’s not exact­ly a stan­dard excuse, as the bipar­ti­san group of angry sen­a­tors made clear. This is the same com­mit­tee that was reg­u­lar­ly received brief­in­gs on alleged Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in the 2016 elec­tion at the same time a spe­cial coun­sel was appoint­ed to inves­ti­gate the mat­ter. It just does­n’t add up:

...
Sen­a­tors were told Wednes­day that Biden admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials can­not brief Con­gress about a dam­age assess­ment of the doc­u­ments until the spe­cial coun­sels inves­ti­gat­ing the Trump and Biden doc­u­ments give the green light.

The bipar­ti­san lead­ers of the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence pan­el emerged togeth­er from the secure brief­ing room and reject­ed the administration’s argu­ment.

That is “not a ten­able posi­tion,” said Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee Chair­man Mark Warn­er, D‑Va. “What I think the direc­tor heard is she didn’t just hear it from Sen. Rubio and I. Lit­er­al­ly every mem­ber of the com­mit­tee, with­out excep­tion, said this won’t stand.”

Sen. Mar­co Rubio, R‑Fla., the committee’s vice chair, called it a “very unsat­is­fy­ing hear­ing.”

“The bot­tom line is this: They won’t tell us what they have until the spe­cial coun­sel allows them to tell us. That’s an unac­cept­able posi­tion,” Rubio said.

Warn­er and oth­ers point­ed out that the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence pan­el received reg­u­lar brief­in­gs on Russ­ian inter­fer­ence in the 2016 elec­tion at the same time a spe­cial coun­sel was appoint­ed to inves­ti­gate the mat­ter.
...

At the same time, with the announce­ment of new­ly dis­cov­ered clas­si­fied doc­u­ments at for­mer vice pres­i­dent Mike Pence’s home in Indi­ana, it’s also obvi­ous that part of what we are look­ing at here is a gen­uine­ly bro­ken sys­tem for track­ing clas­si­fied doc­u­ments. It’s the kind of update to this sto­ry that should raise all sorts of ques­tions about how many oth­er clas­si­fied doc­u­ments are float­ing around:

...
The sen­a­tors argued that their com­mit­tee has over­sight respon­si­bil­i­ties for intel­li­gence mat­ters and that they need to be able to assess whether the dis­cov­ery of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments at Trump’s and Biden’s unse­cure homes and office pos­es a threat to nation­al secu­ri­ty. On Tues­day, news broke that a lawyer for for­mer Vice Pres­i­dent Mike Pence had dis­cov­ered about a dozen doc­u­ments at his home in Indi­ana and had turned them over to the FBI.

...

Law­mak­ers in both par­ties and in both cham­bers expressed wor­ry and exas­per­a­tion that the government’s sys­tem for label­ing and track­ing thou­sands of clas­si­fied doc­u­ments appears to be bro­ken.
...

US intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty won’t share intel­li­gence with the sen­a­tors tasked with over­see­ing the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty. At least not yet. Not until the inves­ti­ga­tion is com­plet­ed. It’s become quite the ‘inside the belt­way’ sto­ry. An ‘inside the belt­way’ sto­ry with poten­tial­ly apoc­a­lyp­tic impli­ca­tions should we be look­ing at a kind of intel­li­gence-com­mu­ni­ty shake­down of the Biden admin­is­tra­tion to get a more aggres­sive pol­i­cy on the war in Ukraine.

So it’s worth tak­ing a look at the fol­low­ing blog post from a very ‘out­side the belt­way’ indi­vid­ual: for­mer Indi­an diplo­mat M. K. Bhadraku­mar. Because as Bhadraku­mar reminds us, while Avril Haines may be refus­ing to share the con­tents of those clas­si­fied doc­u­ments with the sen­ate, that does­n’t mean we don’t have any clues at all about their con­tents. And it turns out that the con­tents include Iran, the UK, and Ukraine, as CNN report­ed two weeks ago.

It points towards one of the grim­ly fas­ci­nat­ing dynam­ic play­ing out here: If the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty has any sort of dirt on Biden over the clas­si­fied doc­u­ments that it can use as lever­age to push Biden towards a more aggres­sive for­eign pol­i­cy, it’s prob­a­bly dirt about dirty US intel­li­gence oper­a­tions in Ukraine.
Sure, such infor­ma­tion could be poten­tial­ly polit­i­cal­ly dam­ag­ing to Biden. There could be real lever­age. But it would be pro­found­ly iron­ic lever­age all things con­sid­ered:

Indi­an Punch­line

Two old men spill America’s secrets

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR
JANUARY 16, 2023

The prob­a­bil­i­ty of the scan­dal over Top Secret doc­u­ments dat­ing back to the Barack Oba­ma pres­i­den­cy blow­ing up on the face of the then vice-pres­i­dent — and incum­bent pres­i­dent — Joe Biden is rather low.

That is because Biden is a 900-pound guer­ril­la who spent 46 years in the cor­ri­dors of pow­er in Wash­ing­ton, DC, and is skilled enough to manip­u­late the Amer­i­can polit­i­cal sys­tem.

...

The Atlantic mag­a­zine, which is a flag car­ri­er of the present admin­is­tra­tion, has already con­clud­ed on the basis of the scanty details avail­able on the case that “only the most super­fi­cial par­al­lel can be drawn between Biden’s pos­ses­sion of these doc­u­ments and [Don­ald] Trump’s con­duct relat­ing to the doc­u­ments held at Mar-a-Lago.”

Equal­ly, in an inge­nious com­men­tary, a Senior Fel­low in Gov­er­nance Stud­ies at the Brook­ings Insti­tu­tion (which is wired into the US estab­lish­ment), Ben­jamin Wittes has writ­ten in Law­fare that “Right now, all we real­ly know is that a rel­a­tive­ly small amount of clas­si­fied mate­r­i­al from the Oba­ma era has been found where it wasn’t sup­posed to be on three occa­sions and in three loca­tions asso­ci­at­ed with the peri­od between Biden’s vice pres­i­den­cy and his pres­i­den­cy… But that does not mean it is like­ly to blos­som as a crim­i­nal case. Indeed, it’s a most unpromis­ing crim­i­nal case…. And as to the sym­me­try with the Mar-a-Lago inves­ti­ga­tion? Some­times opti­cal illu­sions are just opti­cal illu­sions.”

Clear­ly, these spin doc­tors are know­ing­ly dis­tract­ing atten­tion from the obvi­ous — the gener­ic nature of the crime itself — with a view to absolve Biden, while at the same time press­ing ahead with the cru­ci­fix­ion of Trump, if pos­si­ble.

There is hard­ly any curios­i­ty as to what is actu­al­ly in those doc­u­ments. Ear­ly rev­e­la­tions — sources have told CNN and the New York Times — that the first set of 10 clas­si­fied doc­u­ments found in Novem­ber in a locked clos­et at the Penn Biden Cen­ter think tank in Wash­ing­ton includ­ed brief­ing mate­ri­als on Ukraine from Biden’s time as vice-pres­i­dent. It is indeed a top­ic of great con­tem­po­rane­ity.

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma was a novice in for­eign and secu­ri­ty poli­cies. Biden on the oth­er hand was a sen­a­tor for 36 years before Oba­ma was elect­ed as pres­i­dent, and much of that time on the For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee, either as chair­man or rank­ing minor­i­ty mem­ber. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, Oba­ma assigned to Biden a port­fo­lio that includ­ed Latin Amer­i­ca, Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine, which demand­ed polit­i­cal skul­dug­gery rather than diplo­mat­ic skill — some­thing Biden rev­elled in.

Much has been report­ed about the role of Vic­to­ria Nuland, Under­sec­re­tary of State in the present admin­is­tra­tion, in nav­i­gat­ing the coup and regime change in Ukraine in 2014, but her men­tor at that time was none oth­er than Biden who played a hands-on role in the tran­si­tion in Kiev to a new set-up incor­ri­gi­bly hos­tile toward Rus­sia.

Between 2014 and 2016, over there full years, Biden took to the sleaze and venal­i­ty in Ukrain­ian pol­i­tics like a fish to water. Alle­ga­tions have appeared from time to time — that he wield­ed immense clout with the new elite in Kiev, who of course heav­i­ly depend­ed on Amer­i­can patron­age, which enabled his fam­i­ly mem­bers to make mas­sive finan­cial gains.

An NBC report in May last year already not­ed, “should Repub­li­cans take con­trol of Con­gress, as seems like­ly, they will use their sub­poe­na pow­er to try to find and high­light any finan­cial con­nec­tions between father and son.”

One of the first things that the Repub­li­cans have done this month after seiz­ing con­trol of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has been to kick­start a for­mal inves­ti­ga­tion into the alle­ga­tions against Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

How­ev­er, the US polit­i­cal cul­ture reeks with cyn­i­cism, hypocrisy and dou­ble­s­peak and It can be safe­ly ruled out that either side of the Amer­i­can polit­i­cal divide — Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans — would real­ly care to hold a torch­light on the 2014 regime change in Ukraine, which has led to the sequence of events that has brought mat­ters to the brink of a world war.

The para­dox is that if at all there is crime in these acts on the part of Trump and Biden, that is not in com­pro­mis­ing state secrets but in the very con­tent of these doc­u­ments. For, the real vic­tims of the crime are the pop­u­la­tion of Ukraine who have gone through immense suf­fer­ing and the Amer­i­can peo­ple who are in the dark that the US for­eign poli­cies have played such hav­oc to yet anoth­er hap­less nation.

While the secrets that lie buried in these doc­u­ments are prob­a­bly well-known to the world com­mu­ni­ty, espe­cial­ly Euro­peans who were actu­al­ly com­plic­it in the crime — and Rus­sians of course who were a mute wit­ness– it is the Amer­i­can peo­ple who were kept in the dark about what the polit­i­cal class was upto, who planned wars as pol­i­cy, the mil­i­tary-indus­tri­al com­plex, etc.

There­fore, the con­tents of these doc­u­ments do not seem to mat­ter. At any rate, the US’ proxy war against Rus­sia enjoys bipar­ti­san con­sen­sus and will con­tin­ue regard­less of this hic­cup. And he will con­tin­ue to frog-march the Euro­peans in the killing fields of Ukraine, till his agen­da is ful­filled. The sym­bi­ot­ic rela­tion­ship between Biden and Zelen­sky is self-evi­dent, too.

...

———–

“Two old men spill America’s secrets” BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR; Indi­an Punch­line; 01/16/2023

“There is hard­ly any curios­i­ty as to what is actu­al­ly in those doc­u­ments. Ear­ly rev­e­la­tions — sources have told CNN and the New York Times — that the first set of 10 clas­si­fied doc­u­ments found in Novem­ber in a locked clos­et at the Penn Biden Cen­ter think tank in Wash­ing­ton includ­ed brief­ing mate­ri­als on Ukraine from Biden’s time as vice-pres­i­dent. It is indeed a top­ic of great con­tem­po­rane­ity.”

Yes, as CNN report­ed, the clas­si­fied doc­u­ments found in Biden’s pri­vate office cov­ered top­ics that includ­ed Iran, the UK, and Ukraine. And that’s all we know about these doc­u­ments, and all the Sen­ate intel­li­gence com­mit­tee mem­bers appar­ent­ly know too at this point.
So we have to ask: with Ukraine and Iran as the appar­ent top­ic of the dis­cov­ered doc­u­ments — two coun­tries that were key tar­gets of the US intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing this peri­od — what kind of US for­eign pol­i­cy scan­dals might there be evi­dence of sit­ting in those doc­u­ments? Biden was play­ing a lead role on a range of the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion’s top for­eign pol­i­cy objec­tives, most notably in Ukraine, which became the epi­cen­ter of a US-backed regime change oper­a­tion in late-2013-ear­ly 2014 that cul­mi­nat­ed in the Maid­an rev­o­lu­tion. What might the clas­si­fied doc­u­ments say about the role the US played in those now-noto­ri­ous events?

...
Pres­i­dent Oba­ma was a novice in for­eign and secu­ri­ty poli­cies. Biden on the oth­er hand was a sen­a­tor for 36 years before Oba­ma was elect­ed as pres­i­dent, and much of that time on the For­eign Rela­tions Com­mit­tee, either as chair­man or rank­ing minor­i­ty mem­ber. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, Oba­ma assigned to Biden a port­fo­lio that includ­ed Latin Amer­i­ca, Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine, which demand­ed polit­i­cal skul­dug­gery rather than diplo­mat­ic skill — some­thing Biden rev­elled in.

Much has been report­ed about the role of Vic­to­ria Nuland, Under­sec­re­tary of State in the present admin­is­tra­tion, in nav­i­gat­ing the coup and regime change in Ukraine in 2014, but her men­tor at that time was none oth­er than Biden who played a hands-on role in the tran­si­tion in Kiev to a new set-up incor­ri­gi­bly hos­tile toward Rus­sia.

Between 2014 and 2016, over there full years, Biden took to the sleaze and venal­i­ty in Ukrain­ian pol­i­tics like a fish to water. Alle­ga­tions have appeared from time to time — that he wield­ed immense clout with the new elite in Kiev, who of course heav­i­ly depend­ed on Amer­i­can patron­age, which enabled his fam­i­ly mem­bers to make mas­sive finan­cial gains.
...

But, of course, the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion for­eign poli­cies that Biden was car­ry­ing on at the time was­n’t sim­ply the pol­i­cy of the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion. US pres­i­dents still have one area were bipar­ti­san tra­di­tions reign supreme: for­eign pol­i­cy. And that was true too in 2014 when the US pol­i­cy on Ukraine was done with the bipar­ti­san back­ing of the US con­gress and the nation­al secu­ri­ty state. In oth­er words, any for­eign pol­i­cy scan­dals that Biden may have been involved with were implic­it­ly bipar­ti­san scan­dals car­ried out on behalf of that shared US for­eign pol­i­cy agen­da. An agen­da deeply shaped by the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty and nation­al secu­ri­ty state.

And that brings us back to the bizarre scene that just unfold­ed as angry US sen­a­tors issued a bipar­ti­san con­dem­na­tion of the intel­li­gence com­mu­ni­ty’s refusal to share any infor­ma­tion at all about the con­tents of these doc­u­ments with the even the Sen­ate Intel­li­gence Com­mit­tee mem­ber­ship. We know Repub­li­cans are keen­ly inter­est­ed in any­thing involv­ing Hunter Biden. But just how much inter­est is there real­ly among these Repub­li­can sen­a­tors in uncov­er­ing the full scope of US for­eign pol­i­cy scan­dals that could be hid­ing away in those doc­u­ments?

...
An NBC report in May last year already not­ed, “should Repub­li­cans take con­trol of Con­gress, as seems like­ly, they will use their sub­poe­na pow­er to try to find and high­light any finan­cial con­nec­tions between father and son.”

One of the first things that the Repub­li­cans have done this month after seiz­ing con­trol of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives has been to kick­start a for­mal inves­ti­ga­tion into the alle­ga­tions against Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

How­ev­er, the US polit­i­cal cul­ture reeks with cyn­i­cism, hypocrisy and dou­ble­s­peak and It can be safe­ly ruled out that either side of the Amer­i­can polit­i­cal divide — Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans — would real­ly care to hold a torch­light on the 2014 regime change in Ukraine, which has led to the sequence of events that has brought mat­ters to the brink of a world war.

The para­dox is that if at all there is crime in these acts on the part of Trump and Biden, that is not in com­pro­mis­ing state secrets but in the very con­tent of these doc­u­ments. For, the real vic­tims of the crime are the pop­u­la­tion of Ukraine who have gone through immense suf­fer­ing and the Amer­i­can peo­ple who are in the dark that the US for­eign poli­cies have played such hav­oc to yet anoth­er hap­less nation.
...

Try not to be super shocked if Biden ends up ‘loos­en­ing’ the US’s pol­i­cy towards Ukraine as both par­ties large­ly kind of stay mum on the con­tents of those doc­u­ments. It’s going to be one of the grim­ly fas­ci­nat­ing things to watch: what do the Repub­li­cans focus on the what do they gloss over entire­ly? It’s one of the big ques­tion loom­ing over this sto­ry. Just how bipar­ti­san are the for­eign pol­i­cy scan­dals hid­ing in those doc­u­ments? We’ll find out. Or maybe not. It’s the bipar­ti­san scan­dals that we’re prob­a­bly the least like­ly to ulti­mate­ly learn about after all.

In oth­er words, also try not to be be super shocked if we some­how end up get­ting exposed to more Hunter Biden d!ck picks by the end of all this. But also don’t be sur­prised if that’s all we learn.