News of the World

[kyonides]

Democrats Vow to Audit Durham Probe
Based on New York Times’ Anonymous Sources

A Democrat-led U.S. Senate committee is alleging that President Donald Trump weaponized the Department of Justice—based on a New York Times report citing anonymous sources—and is vowing to examine former special counsel John Durham’s inquiry for misconduct.

Durham had been evaluating the alleged mismanagement by law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the Trump–Russia investigation after being appointed by former Attorney General Bill Barr.

“These reports about abuses in Special Counsel Durham’s investigation—so outrageous that even his longtime colleagues quit in protest—are but one of many instances where former President Trump and his allies weaponized the Justice Department,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) alleged in an online statement.

Durbin was reacting to a Jan. 26 New York Times report that accused Durham of failing to bring charges against Trump based on information from Italian officers that alleged suspicious financial dealings.

However, The New York Times admits that allegations in the report lack sources who are willing to talk on the record.

“The current and former officials who discussed the investigation all spoke on the condition of anonymity,” the report reads.

The report was released after the U.S. House of Representatives approved the formation of the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, from which Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has already launched an investigation into the use of federal law enforcement and national security agencies against conservatives.

The New York Times report also accused Durham of using Russian intelligence documents to delve into the emails of a George Soros assistant and alleges that Durham’s aide, Nora Dannehy, resigned in 2020 over questions about prosecutorial ethics concerning Michael Sussmann, who was the lawyer representing Democrats during the probe into Trump’s alleged link to Russia.

So that's the actual reason why they want to chase Durham down. 


But let us make a recap of what actually happened last year...

A large portion of the funds allocated to Durham went to personnel compensation and benefits, while the rest dealt with rent, travel, utilities, and related expenditures. About a third went to “contractual services,” including IT services and “litigative support,” according to the report.

So they simply want to deny what has already been determined by the same DOJ as normal expenditures for a special counsel working on such a convoluted case.  Wonderful work, Durbin, just wonderful...

Top Lawmaker Responds to General’s Memo on
2025 War With China: ‘I Think He’s Right’

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said that he believes a prediction made by four-star Air Force Gen. Mike Minihan that the United States will go to war with China in 2025 is correct.

A memo issued by the general, according to NBC News, said that “I hope I am wrong .. my gut tells me we will fight in 2025″ about the potential conflict. He added that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will be looking closely at Taiwan’s 2024 presidential election that might prompt leader Xi Jinping to escalate military aggression against the region.

“Xi secured his third term [as CCP general secretary] and set his war council in October 2022. Taiwan’s presidential elections are in 2024 and will offer Xi a reason,” Minihan wrote. The 2024 U.S. presidential elections would also create a “distracted America” that could benefit the Chinese regime, he said.
...
On Sunday, McCaul, the head of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told Fox News that he believes the general’s prediction is accurate. “I hope he’s wrong,” McCaul told “Fox News Sunday.” “I think he’s right though, unfortunately.”
...
He claimed that the current administration is “projecting weakness” that will create an avenue for the CCP to take military action.
...
“I want to be completely clear. It’s not only not inevitable, it’s highly unlikely,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) told Fox News on Sunday, noting that “anything is possible” and that “generals should be cautious.”

A weakness like sending too much weaponry to Ukraine when they don't know how or when they would get their own stocks back to normal levels.  I mean, US still has a chance for it never send its F35s to that nation until now. In doing so, that would soon become the final nail in the coffin before getting attacked preemptively by the CCP. Thus Taiwan, and probably even Japan, could fall in a matter of weeks or months.

  Talking about aircraft...

US Will Not Supply F-16 Fighter Jets to Ukraine

President Joe Biden has seemingly ruled out that the United States will be providing Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets. In a short exchange with reporters on Jan. 30, Biden was asked if the United States would be providing F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, to which he simply replied, “No.”

Biden’s comments follow a similar announcement from Germany’s chancellor, who also declined to send such fighter jets. Ukraine has been pushing its allies for advanced warplanes to help Kyiv take control of its airspace, but the United States and its partners fear that this could lead to further escalation with Russia.

The Kremlin could argue that the F-16s could be used to hit targets inside Russia, which Moscow could interpret as a significant escalation in the war. Despite Moscow’s accusations of NATO aggression, member countries like the United States and Germany have been hesitant to provide military aid that might escalate the conflict.

The F-16 is widely considered one of the world’s most reliable fighter jets, armed with precision-guided missiles. The United States Air Force states that the F-16 fighter jet has the ability to carry precision-guided bombs and missiles and can reach speeds of 1,500 mph.

China’s Recent $540 Million Oil Deal With Taliban
Reveals Its Broader Agenda in Afghanistan

Experts say the Chinese regime wants to take advantage of the vacuum created by the American exit, eyeing more than $1 trillion worth of Afghanistan’s minerals including rare earth elements, while outwitting other regional competitors.

Taliban recently signed a 25-year contract with China’s Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Co (CAPEIC) to extract oil from an area of 4,500 square kilometers of Amu Dariya basin in Afghanistan’s three northern provinces of Sarpol, Jawzjan, and Faryab, according to a statement on Twitter by Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesperson for the Taliban-run administration.

“The company (CAPEIC) will invest $150 million in one year and $540 million in the next three years. In this contract, the [Taliban administration] will be a 20% partner, and this share will increase to 75%,” said Mujahid. “About 3,000 Afghans will be employed in this project.”
...
The erstwhile U.S.-backed Afghan regime signed a similar deal with the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) to develop oil blocks in the Amu Darya basin in December 2011. Work on this project was halted in 2013 and the Chinese staff left the country after disagreements emerged about the transportation route of oil from Afghanistan to China. It was also under threat by the Taliban insurgency.

The Xinjiang branch of PetroChina was a subsidiary of CNPC and the CAPEIC was restructured from it in June 2000, according to the China Project.
...
According to official figures (pdf), Afghanistan has 300 documented copper deposits with 30 million metric tons (MTs) of copper, 2.3 billion MTs of iron ore deposits in western Afghanistan along the Herat fault system through central Afghanistan and north of the Panjshir valley and possibly into Badakhshan, and 1.4 million MTs of rare earth materials.

Obviously, the  Chinese government and military branches love the idea of making tones of money  even from the very few years of the explotation of those mines.

UK Conservative MP Calls Belgian Offer
to Swap Iranian Terrorist ‘Shocking Development’

A British MP who escaped death when an Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi, was intercepted before he could bomb a rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Paris in 2018 has described it as “worrying” that Belgium was considering swapping Assadi for a Belgian citizen in an Iranian jail.

Earlier this month Olivier Vandecasteele, a humanitarian worker, was jailed for at least 12 years and given 74 lashes after being convicted of espionage following a secret trial in Iran.

Bob Blackman, a Conservative MP, told a conference at the Houses of Parliament in London on Monday it was a “shocking development” for Belgium to consider swapping Vandecasteele for Assadi, who was jailed for 20 years in Antwerp in February 2021 for plotting a bomb attack against the rally, which was attended by several British MPs as well as U.S. and European politicians.

Blackman said the bomb had been smuggled into Belgium in an Iranian diplomatic pouch and he said that if Assadi was sent back to Iran he would be “treated as a hero” by the regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
...
Among the British MPs who spoke at the rally was David Amess, a British Conservative MP who was later murdered by an Islamist terrorist at his political surgery in Essex.

Blackman said Britain and the European Union should have taken much tougher action after Assadi’s conviction and he said of the regime in Tehran: “They suppress their people and they execute their enemies. We must treat them accordingly.”

Blackman then quoted Winston Churchill, who once said, “An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”