News of the World

[kyonides]

US NEWS

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Hunter Biden Seeks to Subpoena Donald Trump, Bill Barr, Claiming Bias in Gun Case

Hunter Biden’s lawyers asked the judge presiding over his criminal gun case on Wednesday to subpoena former President Donald Trump, former Attorney General Bill Barr, and two other Trump administration officials.

The request signals Hunter Biden’s legal strategy to accuse the Trump administration of political interference in his gun case, the same accusation IRS whistleblowers leveled against President Joe Biden’s Justice department in their probe of Hunter Biden for tax, gun, and potentially FARA violations.

Hunter Biden’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika to issue several subpoenas to:
Trump, Barr, Former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, Former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen

Mr. Biden seeks specific information from three former DOJ officials and the former President that goes to the heart of his defense that this is, possibly, a vindictive or selective prosecution arising from an unrelenting pressure campaign beginning in the last administration, in violation of Mr. Biden’s Fifth Amendment rights under the Constitution.

“In the leadup to the 2020 election, IRS case files show certain investigative decisions were made ‘as a result of guidance provided’ by, among others, ‘the Deputy Attorney General’s office,'” said the filing by attorney Abbe Lowell.

The filing also highlights Barr’s recent book, in which the former attorney general alleged that Trump asked him in October 2020 about the status of the probe into Hunter Biden.
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The request also alleges House Republicans pressured now-Special Counsel David Weiss to indict the president’s son. Hunter Biden and Weiss previously agreed to a “sweetheart” plea deal until it fell apart under judicial scrutiny.

Trump Moves for Mistrial in N.Y. Civil Fraud Case, Alleges Bias

Former President Donald Trump filed a motion Wednesday to have his civil fraud case in New York thrown out, alleging that the judge and his clerk are biased.

In a 30-page filing, Trump’s attorneys allege that Judge Arthur Engoron and clerk Allison Greenfield have “tainted” the proceedings, The Daily Beast reported. They said a mistrial is the only way to “salvage what is left of the rule of law.”

“This appearance of bias threatens both defendants’ rights and the integrity of the judiciary as an institution,” the filing said. “Greenfield’s unprecedented role in the trial and extensive, public partisan activities, would cause even a casual observer to question the court’s partiality.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the case against the Trump Organization, rebuked Trump’s effort to move for a mistrial. She said he is “trying to dismiss the truth and the facts.”
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Trump has often been at odds with Engoron and increasingly directed his ire toward Greenfield. Earlier this month, Engoron issued a gag order against Trump and his legal team, barring them from making comments about confidential communications between the judge and his staff. The gag order was later expanded to include Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr.

Engoron issued the order, citing threats that have flooded his office since the trial began. Trump has been fined more than once for violating the order.

House Passes Funding Plan with Overwhelming Democrat Support

The final tally was 336-95. A whopping 209 Democrats supported the measure, far more than the 127 Republicans in favor.

The two-tiered continuing resolution (CR), called a laddered CR, extends current spending levels for Agriculture, Energy and Water, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD spending bills through January 19, with the remaining eight bills extended through February 2.

Those spending levels and policies were set by Democrats in December 2022 during the lame duck session, after Republicans won a House majority but before new members officially took office in January.

The bill has the support of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and is expected to pass through the Senate on its way to President Biden’s desk by the Friday midnight deadline.

Other News

Loudoun County Voters Fire Soros Prosecutor Buta Biberaj, Elect Republican Bob Anderson

Almost 20 years ago [Soros] started his SOS Project, focusing on electing leftwing secretaries of state because they are chief elections officers of their respective states, resulting in major reinterpretations of elections laws. This accelerated a leftward shift in voting laws that would result in pushing ballot harvesting, automatic voter registration, same-day registration, forbidding voter ID and blocking other election integrity measures.

In the past few years, his network has shifted to county prosecutors, resulting in repeated outrages in leftwing enclaves like New York City (Alvin Bragg) and Los Angeles (George Gascon). They have also been a major focus in the Virginia counties surrounding Washington DC, like Arlington (Parisa Dehghanti-Tafti) and Fairfax (Steve Descano).

Just past Fairfax to the north and west is Loudoun County. More than a decade ago it was ruby red (as was Fairfax not many years prior to that), but now it is clearly purple – and gets outsized media attention, as it appears to be both a microcosm of the fight for Virginia but also a flashpoint for battling over parental rights and schools...

...The sheriff is Mike Chapman, a 46-year law enforcement professional who is a conservative Republican, managing a department with over 800 officers. But the district attorney – called the “commonwealth attorney” in Virginia – is Biberaj, a leftwing fanatic with a list of crimes she refused to prosecute, who had received almost $1 million in campaign cash from Soros’s network.

The ties to the militantly ultra-left billionaire were so clear that Jason Miyares – Virginia’s dynamic Republican attorney general – challenged Soros to meet with the victims of crime in Virginia left unprotected by the prosecutors that Soros was installing...

But it was not enough to save Biberaj from the wrath of voters in this D.C .exurb, even though Biberaj had a total of $1.1 million this year and her Republican challenger, Bob Anderson, had only $70,000. Despite a 15:1 cash advantage and all the benefits of incumbency, Anderson edged out the radical Biberaj, 68,068 to 67,768 – a margin of 300 votes.

Pentagon Confirms Almost 60 Troops Injured by Iran-Proxy Forces in Iraq and Syria

“Since October 17th through today, we are tracking that there have been 55 attacks on U.S. forces. There have been 27 attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and 28 attacks in Syria,” said Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh during a Pentagon briefing.

“We are also tracking 59 U.S. personnel who have received injuries in the [traumatic brain injury] or non-serious categories since these attacks began. Approximately 27 personnel have been evaluated for TBI and 32 for other non-serious injuries. As of today, all 59 have returned to duty,” she said.

In response, the U.S. has struck weapons and ammunition storage facilities in Syria allegedly linked to the attacks, but have not confirmed any casualties in those strikes.

The Pentagon insists the strikes against U.S. troops are “separate” from the war between Israel and Hamas, despite Hamas also being backed and funded by Iran and despite the Pentagon previously acknowledging that Iran-backed groups had threatened to escalate attack U.S. troops if Israel conducted a ground offensive into Gaza.

Singh said U.S. troops were being attacked because Iran did not want them in the region, and not because the Israel-Hamas war has spilled over into other countries.
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However, Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder had previously said on October 23:

I think we are concerned about escalation based on, you know, you’ve seen several groups throughout the region publicly say, ‘Hey, you know, if there is a ground incursion, we are going to scale up our attacks.’

On whether Iran was getting the message to stop using proxy-forces to attack U.S. troops, Singh said, “I think we are being very deliberate on how we — and when we conduct our — our strikes against these groups. And I think that Iran is certainly seeing that message.”

If they got the memo as Singh claims here, why are Iran's proxies still attacking US troops on a daily basis?

Voter Fraud: Massachusetts Officials Investigating Woman Allegedly Stealing Ballots

The footage, obtained by NBC10 Boston, came from a local man who told the outlet that when he went to vote in person on Election Day on November 7, he was told that he had already voted.

The man, who was not publicly identified, checked his security camera footage and contacted the police when he saw a video of a suspicious woman taking ballots from his mailbox.

The Essex County District Attorney’s Office and Secretary of State William Galvin are now looking into potential voter fraud, the outlet reported.

Galvin said:

We’re going to get all the ballots out of Lawrence, we’re going to get all the mail-in ballots, and we’re going to review everything and all the provisionals and reconcile the list, and if further investigation contacting some of the people who allegedly voted by mail needs to be done, we will do it.

By Tuesday, there were two reports of potential voter fraud in Lawrence.

“There may be more. It’s premature to say how many,” Galvin said.

The second allegation came from a woman who is currently waiting for election officials to decide whether her in-person vote will count after they already received her mail-in vote, which she claims was forged.

EUROPEAN NEWS

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UK NEWS

BBC Apologises After Reporting Israeli Soldiers Were Targeting ‘Medical Teams and Arab Speakers’

The UK state broadcaster issued an apology on Wednesday after incorrectly reporting Israeli soldiers were targeting “medical teams as well as Arab speakers” while clearing Hamas terrorists out of a Gaza hospital.

The BBC said its report on the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) taking on Hamas terrorists inside a hospital “fell below our usual editorial standards” after the newsreader stated attacks were targeting medics and Arabic speakers.

The live televised report, which caused outrage and a complaint by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, saw BBC newsreader Monica Miller state to the audience that:

…at this moment we are hearing from Reuters that is reporting Israel says its forces are carrying out an operation against Hamas at Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital and they are targeting people including medical teams as well as Arab speakers. They are also saying that Israel is calling on all Hamas operatives inside the hospital to surrender at this point.

The Board of Deputies said they were “absolutely appalled” that the BBC had misreported that the IDF was taking medical teams and Arabic speakers into the hospital to help patients there so catastrophically. “At best”, they said, the misreading of the situation showed a “staggering lack of care” which made a mockery of the BBC’s “oft-stated dedication to professionalism and impartiality”, behind which the Corporation has hidden in the past month to justify not calling the Hamas attack on Israel a terrorist act. The BBC was also criticised for the error by the Israeli Embassy in London.

Sunak Stumbles Again: Top Court Blocks Rwanda Migrant Resettlement Plan

The UK Supreme Court ruled on the so-called Rwanda policy on Wednesday morning, finding it unlawful on the grounds that once migrants deported from the United Kingdom to a ‘safe third country’ — in this case Rwanda — arrived, there was a risk they could then be deported again at a later date by Rwanda to their home nations, where they could face mistreatment. In the language of the judgement, this removal to their home countries is defined as “refoulement” and on the basis of the possibility of this happening, Rwanda was ruled to not be a safe country until that issue was resolved, and the policy therefore illegal.

The court acknowledged that this could change as Rwanda developed “structural changes and capacity-building” in the future, but as for the judgement “they were not shown to be in place at the time when the lawfulness of the policy had to be considered in these proceedings.”

As before, the Rwandan government itself has taken exception at the rhetoric in the British media and political circles which portrays it as a place totally unfit for people to live in. The Sun quotes a Rwandan spokesman who said of the decision that while the legality of the policy was a matter for the British courts, they objected to the rhetoric. He said: “we do take issue with the ruling that Rwanda is not a safe third country for asylum seekers and refugees, in terms of refoulment.

PM Sunak Vows ‘Emergency Legislation’ to Enable Deporations

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak makes a bid to overcome the Supreme Court blocking his migrant deportation plan, vowing a fresh treaty with Rwanda to overcome objections in the ruling, and vowing to go against the European Court on Human Rights on the matter if challenged.

“I will not allow a foreign court to block these flights. If the Strasbourg Court chooses to intervene against the express wishes of Parliament, I am willing to do what is necessary to get flights off”, Rishi Sunak told voters on Wednesday afternoon. Giving a press conference on his new plan to deliver on his so-far unrealised promise to “stop the boats” the Prime Minister outlined a series of measures he vowed to take to discourage illegal migration to the United Kingdom.

Chief among them, he said, was to rapidly deploy a new treaty with Rwanda intended to overcome the objections of the UK’s Supreme Court to the so-called Rwanda plan as it is.

FRENCH NEWS

French Government Freezes Assets of Top Hamas Terrorist Commanders

Starting on Monday, the assets of Mohammed Deïf and Marwan Issa have been frozen by France for a period of at least six months. The men are considered the two main commanders of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamist Hamas terror organisation that has controlled the Gaza Strip since taking over in a 2007 coup.

The proclamations to freeze their assets, made by the French Minister of the Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty and the Minister of the Interior and Overseas Territories, were announced in the Official Journal of the French Republic on Tuesday.

The announcement prohibited the “direct or indirect, or use of funds or economic resources for the benefit” of the two men as well as “legal entities or any other entities” under their control or “knowingly act” on their behalf until at least May 13th of next year.

Mohammed Deïf has led the armed wing of Hamas since 2002, taking over for the Salah Shehadeh after his assassination by Israel. Deïf, who first joined the terror group in 1987, is currently the most wanted Hamas figure by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), according to Le Figaro.

The IDF has claimed that Deif “played a pivotal role in conceiving, planning and executing the barbaric October 7th massacre.”

Meanwhile, Marwan Issa, who was officially designated as a terrorist by the United States in 2019, is believed to serve as deputy commander of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades under Deïf.

France Issues Arrest Warrant for Syria’s Bashar al-Assad

France has issued an international arrest warrant for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, accused of complicity in crimes against humanity over chemical attacks in 2013, a judicial source and plaintiffs in the case said Wednesday.

The judicial source told AFP Assad was also suspected of complicity in war crimes for the attacks, blamed by the opposition on the regime, that killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus in August 2013.

International warrants were also issued for the arrests of Assad’s brother Maher, the de-facto chief of a Syrian elite military unit, and two armed forces generals.

The Paris court’s unit concerned with crimes against humanity has been investigating the chemical attacks since 2021.

France claims worldwide jurisdiction for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The probe followed a legal complaint filed by the Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) NGO, lawyers’ association Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) and the Syrian Archive, a body documenting human rights violations in Syria.

GERMAN NEWS

Germany to Double Ukraine Military Aid Next Year, Announces Defence Minister

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius announced on Monday that Berlin will double its military aid to Ukraine in 2024 to €8 billion ($8.5 billion), public broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports.

Pistorius said that while international attention has largely shifted to the conflict between Israel and Hamas terrorists in Gaza, Germany’s increased aid to Kyiv will send a “strong signal to Ukraine, showing we are not giving up on it”.

Besides the United States, Germany is now one of the largest financial backers of Ukraine since Russia launched an invasion of the former Soviet State, having sent 22 billion euros ($23.5 billion) in humanitarian, financial and military aid since last February. The increased funding will reportedly count towards Germany’s national defence spending, thereby enabling Berlin to claim that it has finally fulfilled its NATO spending requirements, which it has seriously neglected for years.

The move comes as the West is appears to be increasingly coming to terms with the extremely slow rate of progress of Ukraine retaking the large swaths of territory seized by Russia, the return of which President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded as a prerequisite to any peace talks with Moscow.

Last week, a report from NBC News claimed that officials in the United States have quietly begun pressuring Kyiv to begin peace negotiations with the Kremlin amid growing concerns of Ukraine’s dwindling number of soldiers and Russia’s much larger population to draft replacements.

Majority of Germans Fear Gaza Conflict to Result in Terror Attack in Their Country

Germans fear there are terrorist attacks in their future, a survey of attitudes towards the Israel-Hamas war has revealed. A significant majority at 59 per cent say a terror attack “as a result of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war” was “very or highly likely”, while just 27 per cent said they thought they would be “very or somewhat unlikely”.

While these figures are striking, a terror attack isn’t even the long-term consequence Germans most expect to experience from the enormous Hamas terror attack against Israel last month. While 25 per cent of those asked said terrorism was their main worry, a fraction more at 26 per cent said the war leading to another “refugee” surge to Europe was first on their mind, reports Deutsche Welle.

Other concerns named in descending order were growing antisemitism, souring relations with Muslim nations, energy prices, and lastly “growing hostility towards Muslims” at just six per cent. More Germans favoured their government’s policy of backing Israel than opposed it.

Germany has been one of the more obviously pro-Israel countries in Europe in the wake of the Hamas attack, acknowledging its own history during the 1930s and 1940s as they did so. This has been in marked contrast to some European nations, like Spain or Belgium, which have called for an immediate ceasefire.