This One Question at RFK Jr.’s Confirmation Hearing Is Everything Wrong with Our Congress
Truthstream Media | January 30, 2025
Our First Film: TheMindsofMen.net
Our First Series: Vimeo.com/ondemand/trustgame
Site: TruthstreamMedia.com
X: @TruthstreamNews
Backup Ch: Vimeo.com/truthstreammedia
DONATE: http://bit.ly/2aTBeeF
Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/bbxcWX
Why is the top US spy alliance afraid of Trump?
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 01.02.2025
America’s Five Eyes partners – Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand – fear that US President Donald Trump’s deep state crackdown and spy apparatus overhaul could destabilize their intelligence network, reports The Wall Street Journal.
What’s driving their concerns?
Free Riders
- Trump may see Five Eyes as a bloated racket exploiting US resources, per the WSJ. The US spends nearly $100 billion on intelligence – 10 times more than the other four combined.
Russia Collusion Hoax
- Five Eyes were entangled in the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, largely pushed by US intelligence.
- The FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe, later debunked, was triggered by an Australian tip in 2016.
- Britain’s GCHQ may have wiretapped Trump during his 2016 campaign, as the White House suggested in 2017.
- Trump hasn’t directly targeted Five Eyes lately, but their unease suggests they have plenty to hide.
What Triggered the Panic?
- The “world’s most powerful spy alliance” sounded the alarm as Trump’s intelligence picks, Kash Patel and Tulsi Gabbard, near confirmation in Congress.
- Gabbard, nominated for director of National Intelligence, vowed to fight weaponized intelligence, citing Iraq War lies and the Russia collusion hoax.
- Patel, set to lead the FBI, pledged to curb overseas operations and increase transparency.
Ukraine wants EU to replace lost US aid
RT | January 30, 2025
Ukrainian lawmakers have appealed to non-US donors to fund local media outlets and NGOs following the suspension of Washington’s foreign assistance programs that has reportedly drastically impacted the sector.
Last week, President Donald Trump halted cash flows from the US and ordered a 90-day review of aid schemes. Many affected programs were run by USAID, Washington’s soft power agency that distributes billions of dollars each year for projects that promote US interests around the world, under the premise of humanitarian development. It spent over $60 billion in 2023 alone.
Ukrainian recipients of American grants were hit “worse than it may seem,” a statement by the parliamentary committee on humanitarian affairs said on Wednesday. Lawmakers anticipate that it will take up to six months for US funding to fully resume, and have urged EU donors to step in.
“Given the constraints on public funding, grants remain virtually the only way for cultural and media projects to function,” the statement said.
Oksana Romanyuk, executive director of a Kiev-based media research non-profit, warned that 90% of news outlets in Ukraine rely heavily on foreign grants. With USAID operations frozen, many of them are now soliciting emergency donations.
The Ukrainian MPs described foreign assistance as “an important part of our path to democratic development and sustainability”. They empathized that USAID was funding projects for children, with thousands of minors attending schools that depend on American taxpayer dollars.
According to media reports, senior officials in the Department of State have lobbied Secretary Marco Rubio to make exemptions for their preferred aid programs, arguing that they are essential for US interests. Meanwhile, at least 60 senior USAID officials reportedly have been placed on paid administrative leave.
Architect of Russia sanctions sentenced to 11 years in prison
RT | January 29, 2025
Former US Senator Bob Menendez has been sentenced to 11 years in prison on bribery and corruption charges after being found guilty of accepting cash and gold bars and acting as an illegal agent for the Egyptian government.
The New Jersey Democrat was convicted last July and resigned from the Senate a month later rather than face expulsion. He previously chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where he was known for championing stringent sanctions on Russia, among other policies.
“The public cannot be led to the belief that you can get away with bribery, fraud, and betrayal,” US District Judge Sidney Stein said on Wednesday. “I don’t know what led you to this,” Stein added. “You’ll have to try to figure that out yourself over time.”
Prosecutors had sought at least 15 years in prison, along with millions of dollars in forfeitures and fines, arguing that such penalties were necessary “to provide just punishment for this extraordinary abuse of power and betrayal of public trust.”
Menendez is the first US senator convicted of acting as an agent of a foreign government.
“For someone who spent his entire life in public service, every day I’m awake is a punishment,” the former lawmaker told the court.
Menendez began his political career in 1974 when he was elected to the Union City Board of Education. He later served as the city’s mayor from 1986 to 1992, then moved to the state legislature in 1988 and the state senate in 1991. He represented New Jersey’s 13th district in the US House of Representatives from 1993 to 2006, when he was appointed to the Senate.
Menendez stepped down from his position as head of the Senate’s influential Foreign Relations Committee after the initial charges were filed in September 2023, where he had played a key role in drawing up Washington’s sanctions on Moscow even before the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022.
His attorney, Adam Fee, argued that the former senator’s nearly 50 years of public service should not be overshadowed by his conviction, dismissing the public’s characterization of him as “Gold Bar Bob.” The defense team also requested that Menendez remain out of prison while they appeal his conviction.
Ukrainian media in funding crisis after US cash cut
RT | January 29, 2025
Multiple Ukrainian media outlets have issued appeals for emergency cash donations after US President Donald Trump suspended Washington’s foreign aid programs. USAID, the organization that funnels billions of dollars to international causes deemed worthy by Washington has been put on hold, pending reviews, and up to 60 senior staff have reportedly been suspended on full pay.
Nine out of every ten media outlets in Ukraine have been impacted by Washington’s decision, Oksana Romanyuk, executive director of the Institute of Mass Information in Kiev has claimed.
”Unfortunately, almost 90% of Ukrainian media outlets were surviving on grants,” the head of the media-focused NGO told Hromadske Radio. Romanyuk described Trump’s decision as a threat to democracy in Ukraine, claiming that “oligarchs” may seize control of a media landscape “weakened” by the halt in American funding.
Hromadske is among the outlets soliciting private donations in the wake of aid freeze. Established in November 2013, just before the Maidan protests started, Hromadske received its seed funding directly from the US embassy in Kiev and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. The broadcaster played a pivotal role in criticizing the government during the violent coup that overthrew a democratically elected president and put Ukraine on course for division and conflict.
In a statement announcing the suspension of some of its projects, Hromadske praised the US Agency for International Development (USAID) as one of the most generous donors of “independent media” and NGOs in Ukraine. The investigative journalism organization Bihus.info also acknowledged that much of its work has been funded by the US.
The campaign for emergency funding also extends beyond traditional news outlets. Detector Media, a self-styled watchdog ‘combating online disinformation,’ has warned that hundreds of organizations are facing shutdown without USAID support, and urged private citizens and business owners to donate.
Irina Vereshchuk, the deputy chief of staff to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, has called the suspension of US non-military assistance “unexpected and unpleasant”. Kiev will hold “consultations with our American partners” to resume the flow of money while implementing measures to “stabilize the situation” in the interim, she promised on Tuesday.
Did Trump Halt Aid to Ukraine?
By Larry C. Johnson | SONAR 21 | January 24, 2025
Yesterday, there were a number of “headlines” in the US media claiming all foreign aid was stopped—except for Israel and Egypt. But the Pentagon weighed in today denying that it affects Ukraine:
“A Pentagon official confirmed that Trump’s executive order freezing foreign aid applies only to development programs, not security assistance to Ukraine.” -VOA
When I spoke with Judge Napolitano and Nima today, I had not seen these reports. However, while Trump’s order does not curtail security assistance (i.e., weapons, vehicles and ammunition) already in the pipeline, it does freeze the assistance funds that flow through State Department channels:
The Trump administration has reportedly frozen USAID projects as part of its foreign assistance audit
The Trump administration has frozen projects in Ukraine that were funded through the US Agency for International Development, Reuter reported on Friday, citing a USAID official.
The official told the news agency that USAID officers responsible for projects in Ukraine were told to stop all work. The projects that were frozen reportedly include support for schools and healthcare, including maternal care and the vaccination of children.
So part of the Ukrainian grift machine is shut down for the next three months. That is a start in the right direction.
Even if the US under the Trump administration continues to funnel weapons to Ukraine, this does not solve Ukraine’s fundamental weakness — i.e., the lack of trained soldiers. The New York Times published a bizarre piece of illogical nonsense today under the title, Ukraine Is Losing Fewer Soldiers Than Russia — but It’s Still Losing the War. This is simply a pile of fetid horse manure. I am not even going to waste time deconstructing the lies the permeate this piece of propaganda. Let’s deal with facts:
- Russia has at least an 8:1 advantage in artillery shells since 2022.
- Russia has air supremacy and is able to drop massive glide bombs on Ukrainian positions, while Ukraine has not comparable capability.
- Russia has more drones and has deployed drones guided by fiber optic cable and artificial intelligence. Ukraine has no such capability.
- Russia has more tanks and armored personnel carriers.
But we also have hard numbers from Ukrainian sources about a Ukrainian / Russian exchange of dead soldiers. Check out this graphic:
Yes, you are reading that correctly. Russia received the bodies of 49 soldiers and, in turn, delivered the remains of 757 Ukrainian troops. In other words, for every dead Russian soldier there were 15 dead Ukrainians. That data tells you everything you need to know about the true extent of Ukrainian losses and exposes the prevarication of the New York Times reporters.
However, the Times makes one damning admission:
Western intelligence agencies have been reluctant to disclose their internal calculations of Ukrainian casualties for fear of undermining an ally. American officials have previously said that Kyiv withholds this information from even the closest allies.
Yes, the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency are not reporting the real Ukrainian losses because of politics. Just one more example of the politicization of intelligence. … Full article
US suspends aid to Ukraine – Politico
RT | January 24, 2025
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has frozen nearly all new aid grants to Ukraine for 90 days, Politico reported on Friday. The move comes after President Donald Trump ordered a full review of all foreign assistance.
Rubio instructed diplomatic and consular posts to issue “stop-work orders” on nearly all “existing foreign assistance awards,” Politico said, citing an internal document.
According to Politico, the order “shocked” State Department officials and appears to apply to funding for military assistance to Ukraine.
The magazine cited three current and two former officials familiar with the matter as saying Rubio’s guidance means that “no further actions will be taken to disperse aid funding to programs already approved by the US government.”
The BBC, which also reviewed the State Department memo, reported that it appears to “affect everything from development assistance to military aid.”
Although the Pentagon previously told Voice of America that the aid freeze would not affect “security assistance to Ukraine,” Rubio’s memo reportedly only granted exceptions for military aid to Israel and Egypt, without mentioning any other country.
Journalist Ken Klippenstein posted what he said was a copy of Rubio’s guidance, which “pauses all new obligations of funding, pending a review, for foreign assistance programs” funded through the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Trump, who took office on Monday, has ordered a 90-day suspension of all “foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”
A USAID official told Reuters that among the programs that were frozen are assistance to schools and healthcare, including emergency maternal care and the vaccination of children.
Since February 2022, USAID has provided $2.6 billion in humanitarian aid, $5 billion in development assistance, and more than $30 billion in “direct budget support,” according to its website.
The US has provided nearly $66 billion in military aid to Ukraine since February 2022, according to the Pentagon.
Trump has repeatedly criticized his predecessor, Joe Biden, for approving unconditional aid to Ukraine and has vowed to implement cost-cutting measures. He also promised to quickly negotiate a peace deal between Moscow and Kiev.
Biden Family Corruption Laid Bare
By Brad Pearce | The Libertarian Institute | January 23, 2025
For many years, Joe Biden’s corruption has been as well known as his dementia to anyone remotely out of the Democrat Party and MSNBC messaging zone. Throughout his half-century career as an unimpressive politician, his family has accumulated enormous wealth through influence peddling.
This, of course, came to the fore with his son Hunter’s laptop whose authenticity was denied by “51 former intelligence agents,” claiming it was a Russian operation. The truth is Hunter Biden’s corruption is fairly routine. It’s just that other family members of politicians aren’t whoremongering crackheads and are thus able to avoid notice. Despite this, we were constantly demanded to believe that Joe Biden was a portrait of public service who believed deeply in the rule of law. This was also supposed to present a contrast between the entire Democrat and Republican machines, including Donald Trump.
Then, shortly before leaving office, following his legally dubious blanket amnesty granted to Hunter in December, Biden granted amnesty to Dr. Anthony Fauci, General Mark Milley, the January 6 Committee, and worst of all, the rest of his own family. All of this was done with a professed beleif in a fair justice system, claiming none of them had done anything wrong. As I like to say, we live in unsubtle times.
The history of heads of state holding the power of pardon is ancient. The most famous example in Western culture is of course Pontius Pilate—as Augustus Caesar’s representative—freeing Barabbas while condemning Jesus (notably, after getting feedback from the people).
While the public generally loves to see justice, they also like to see mercy from their leaders. It’s something which makes a king beloved. In the United States, it is technically the people who have the power to convict and execute while the executive, both federally and in states, has the power to overturn these convictions for any reason. This is also a “check” on corruption within the judiciary, and the risk that this may itself be used corruptly to assist family members or other cronies was well known. However, the concept of amnesty is also ancient, and if the president had the power to grant amnesty, as opposed to pardons for convictions, this would have been made clear in the Constitution.
It was expected, among those not brain-broken by the Democrats, that Joe Biden would pardon his son. On a human level, one can’t fault him. While I wouldn’t destroy my son’s character by making him earn corrupt profits for my family, had it come to that point and had I the power, I would pardon my son without hesitation. As president, Biden’s power to pardon Hunter’s convictions was absolute; whether or not he should do it was simply a moral and political question. However, his grant of amnesty had no legal justification. But, it being his son people were willing to let it lie. The only prior modern example was President Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, which was controversial at the time but had a much stronger justification as a necessity to move forward with the nation’s political life.
Though modern Democrats are a profoundly shameless political faction, I did not imagine that Biden would take his amnesties as far as he did, and thought the whole thing was idle speculation. Biden only acknowledged that his son had problems with drugs and generally irresponsible behavior, not that he was engaging in corrupt political activities. It should be noted that while Biden’s brother James was deeply involved in the corruption business, the other Biden family members he felt compelled to grant amnesty were not even known to be “in the mix.” We are left wondering what guilt Biden is admitting with these pardons, and it is imperative to find out.
More concerning than the dangerous corruption of what can fairly be called the “Biden Crime Family,” are the pardons of those engaged in official government work. With people like Anthony Fauci and Mark Milley, we are supposed to believe these selfless public servants have done no wrong. This is also true of the January 6 Committee, who were ostensibly only taking part in legally protected political activities within Congress.
I may hate Liz Cheney, but it’s not clear what prosecutable activities she would have taken part in. The choice of a retroactive ten year amnesty for all of these people probably has less to do with any specific activities they were engaging in, and more to do with that being the maximum statute of limitations for almost all non-violent crimes. That said, it sure seems convenient that it covers anything any of them would have done since the beginning of Donald Trump’s rise to power, and also the beginning of Hunter Biden’s work in Ukraine. This covers, of course, not only any laws Fauci broke during COVID, but the entire process of funding labs doing dangerous research. Granting amnesty to the January 6 Committee is meant to prevent uncovering any anti-democratic conspiracies to keep Trump from returning to power.
January 20, 2025 was an incredible day in American political life in that the January 6 Committee was granted amnesty while the January 6 protesters were mass pardoned. It is inspiring because it shows elections do matter. But at the same time, this is all very “Banana Republic” and not the way things would ideally work in a mature, free country. Eight years of using every anti-democratic means to remove Trump and keep him out of power seem to be over, but in attempting to amnesty all of the worst participants—as well as his own family—Joe Biden has has set an insane precedent for protecting every type of corruption. These amnesties must be challenged in the courts and by Congress, because this is completely unacceptable and it’s likely this precedent will haunt our country for decades or even centuries.
On the bright side, with the ultimate, “respectable” Democrat establishmentarian behaving this way, the mask has been pulled back for all to see. Further, we can and should tell the people who write op-eds about “democratic norms” to shut up.
The Practicing Physician’s Case for Kennedy
By Clayton J. Baker, MD | Brownstone Institute | January 20, 2025
I am a practicing physician. I see patients, and I diagnose and treat their illnesses. I have been doing so for more than a quarter of a century. It is how I earn my living.
I heartily endorse Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The fact that I take care of patients distinguishes me from the overwhelming majority of the captured politicians, legacy media pundits, and Pharma lobbyists who are trying to torpedo Mr. Kennedy’s nomination.
The uproar surrounding this nomination is telling in itself. Since when has there been such crying and gnashing of teeth over a nomination for the Secretary of Health and Human Services? How many Americans can even name the last three HHS Secretaries? I’m a physician who follows these things, and off the top of my head, I could only recall the last two – former Congressman Xavier Becerra and former Pharma executive and lobbyist Alex Azar.
When a public figure is being viciously attacked from all sides, as Mr. Kennedy is at present, we should consider the attackers. Depending on who they are, such extreme disapproval may in fact represent the strongest possible endorsement.
Consider Mr. Kennedy’s Attackers
On the Democrat side, Kennedy has been attacked by the likes of Massachusetts Congressman Jake Auchincloss. On CNN, he said that if Kennedy were named HHS Secretary, with respect to American children, Kennedy would “give them polio.”
Auchincloss is a lawyer, so his total ignorance of pathophysiology might be forgivable. However, his father is Dr. Hugh Auchincloss, who served as none other than Anthony Fauci’s right-hand man at NIAID, the NIH agency over which Fauci wielded immense and almost complete power for decades, and through which he funded Ralph Baric and the Wuhan Institute’s genetic manipulations of the SARS CoV-2 virus that caused Covid, using our tax dollars. If there is one HHS department that best exemplifies the capture, corruption, and unaccountability of the present medical-industrial complex, it is NIAID. Hugh Auchincloss left NIAID in 2024.
But wait, there’s more. Auchincloss’s mother is Dr. Laurie Glimcher, former president and CEO of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. In 2021, the Boston Globe exposed her simultaneously serving on the boards of multiple Big Pharma companies, including Bristol Myers Squibb and GlaxoSmithKline, while in charge of Dana-Farber. Furthermore, in 2024, multiple research papers Glimcher had authored were exposed for falsification of data, and at least 6 of the papers were retracted. Laurie Glimcher resigned as head of Dana-Farber in 2024.
On the Republican side, there is Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who stated on television that a Kennedy HHS “will cost lives in this country.”
Many may recall Gottlieb as the FDA commissioner during much of the first Trump administration. Gottlieb left the FDA in 2019, shortly before the pandemic, and quickly joined the Board of Directors at Pfizer, where he remained throughout the pandemic and still is today. A more thorough review of his history shows multiple prior stints at the FDA. Over the years, he has bounced back and forth between that key HHS regulatory agency and Big Pharma and healthcare venture capital firms – the exact industries the FDA should be overseeing.
These are the kinds of people who want to stop Mr. Kennedy from leading HHS. Their prime motivation, it seems, may not be positive reform of medicine or the well-being of patients.
If prominent figures such as these revile Mr. Kennedy, why do I endorse him?
Because medicine desperately needs reform. Mr. Kennedy has been nominated to be a quintessential reformer. He has deep knowledge of the problem, and he has a proven track record of success in reforming corrupt systems. He is being viciously attacked because the last thing that those currently in control of medicine want is meaningful reform.
Medicine Is a Mess, and Desperately Needs Reform
I can tell you from nearly three decades of first-hand clinical experience what the state of medicine is right now.
It’s a mess.
Medicine has been in decline for decades. Autonomy has been gradually stripped away from physicians and patients, as protocols and guidelines have replaced clinical decision-making. Doctors have become employees rather than independent professionals. The doctor-patient relationship has been eroded as care has been fragmented and as the Electronic Medical Record has intruded. Most importantly, control of the entire medical industry has been seized by Big Pharma, captured and corrupt government agencies, and the insurance industry.
Then Covid happened, with two results – one intentional, the other accidental. First, the entire medical system was intentionally hijacked by what was really a military operation. The pretense of a medical emergency was used to shut down both society as a whole, and the routine practice of medicine in particular. Second, this takeover accidentally revealed who actually controls the medical industry – and it sure isn’t doctors and patients.
Patients have caught on. For patients, trust in physicians and hospitals and acceptance of vaccines have both cratered. This is not due to “anti-science” stupidity or “misinformation.” It is due to the fact that patients have simply been lied to too many times. It doesn’t matter how much money and power you have – you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
Patients know – some explicitly, others intuitively – that the official narrative of Covid was riddled with lies. They know that they were deliberately made to live in fear. They have friends and family who suffered and even died from the excesses of the lockdown policies, and others who were injured or even killed by the hospital protocols and the mandated shots. They know that Big Pharma and their Government were behind it. They know that their own local hospitals and even their own healthcare providers were complicit to some extent.
Patients also know that health care is captured. Patients know that Big Pharma and other corporate and ideological forces drive health care policy and messaging – all they have to do is turn on their TVs to see the endless barrage of idiotic commercials for drugs.
Patients know the NIH, CDC, and FDA are corrupt, and captured by Big Pharma. Patients have wearied of the constant fear-mongering about “pandemics” that they now know are almost always man-made. Most importantly, patients realize that none of this is intended to improve their health.
How do I know that patients know all this? They tell me every day.
What about rank-and-file doctors? Most clinical physicians I speak with privately acknowledge the excesses of the Covid era. I’m not aware of a single practicing doctor who has taken all the CDC-recommended Covid boosters. I have copious evidence, both from my patients and from communications with other doctors, that the extreme virophobia and vaccine fervor of 2021 and 2022 has faded among my colleagues just as it has in the rest of the population.
Most doctors have heard the news that public trust in them and their profession has nosedived. Most realize that the system is in chaos in many respects – all one has to do is stop by any emergency room to see that. Many acknowledge that the profession of medicine and the healthcare industry have been hijacked by Pig Pharma and other malign forces. Many who can are leaving the profession altogether.
However, beyond those already speaking out, I see few new colleagues calling out for reform. Like many other people, it seems that most rank-and-file doctors just want the nightmare to end. A great many don’t really know how things got so bad. To paraphrase Bob Dylan, they know something has happened, but they don’t know what it is.
For these reasons, meaningful reform of medicine will not come from a groundswell from the rank and file. They saw what happened to those who spoke out during Covid and want no part of that. They wouldn’t know where to begin to fix a system in which they have very little agency. However, I truly believe the great majority of physicians, nurses, and other healthcare professionals would welcome and support meaningful reform.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is the very best choice to lead medical reform. If you doubt his expertise on the subjects of the corruption and capture of medicine, and the regulatory capture of agencies like the CDC, NIH, and FDA, I recommend his books The Real Anthony Fauci and The Wuhan Cover-Up. Not only do these books demonstrate his encyclopedic knowledge of the problem, but as Joe Rogan and others have pointed out, they have never been directly challenged by the medical establishment – because they are factually accurate.
Furthermore, given his experience and successes as an environmental lawyer, including against large corporations such as Monsanto, DuPont, and Ford, Mr. Kennedy has the know-how to affect meaningful reform.
Rest assured that under a Kennedy-run HHS, medicine will not revert to the time of Galen. Polio will not run rampant, although vaccines may finally be held to the same standards as other drugs – which of course should have always been the case. Even a partial reversal of the nearly total capture that Big Pharma and its allies have over medical research, academia, education, medical licensing, and certification will only benefit doctors and patients.
Medicine is in desperate need of thorough reform. It must be decoupled from the control of Big Pharma, captured governmental agencies, and other rich and powerful forces that currently dominate the industry. Patient autonomy and the doctor-patient relationship must be restored as central to the practice of medicine. Informed consent must be re-established as the inalienable and fundamental value of the profession as encoded at Nuremberg.
Humans are autonomous individuals with rights. Patients must not be “managed” like herd animals, as the current population-based public health approach to medicine insists. Covid proved this approach to be a disaster, and it must end.
This is why I, a practicing physician, heartily endorse Robert F. Kennedy as the next Secretary of Health and Human Services.
C.J. Baker, M.D. is an internal medicine physician with a quarter century in clinical practice. He has held numerous academic medical appointments, and his work has appeared in many journals, including the Journal of the American Medical Association and the New England Journal of Medicine. From 2012 to 2018 he was Clinical Associate Professor of Medical Humanities and Bioethics at the University of Rochester.
Joe Biden issues last minute family pardon
RT | January 20, 2025
Outgoing US President Joe Biden used his last moments in office to roll out a blanket pardon for members of his family, effectively shielding them from potential repercussions they could face under Donald Trump.
Biden claimed on Monday that his family has long been targeted in a concerted effort to harm him politically.
“My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me – the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end,” Biden said in a statement.
The pardon concerns “any nonviolent offences against the United States” five of Biden’s family members might have committed starting from January 1, 2014 to the end of his term as president.
“I am exercising my power under the Constitution to pardon James B. Biden, [his wife] Sara Jones Biden, [first sister] Valerie Biden Owens, [her husband] John T. Owens, and [first brother] Francis W. Biden,” the outgoing president said, adding that the “pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing.”
The pardon effectively buries the years-long James Biden influence peddling affair, being probed by Congressional Republicans and journalists. While he did not face any criminal charges, Biden’s brother James, a former nightclub owner, broker and political consultant, has been accused by Republicans of lying to Congress, as well as acting as an unregistered foreign agent.
James and the president’s son, Hunter, were subpoenaed over the alleged involvement of President Biden in their business dealings in the US and abroad, namely in China and Ukraine. Hunter Biden was pardoned by his father late last year, months after his conviction on gun and tax charges and as he faced sentencing in a separate case.
The controversial pardon came despite Joe Biden’s repeated promises not to intervene in his son’s criminal cases.
Trump can use corruption scandals to get out of Ukraine conflict and blame Democrats
By Ahmed Adel | January 20, 2025
Since entering the electoral campaign, Donald Trump has criticised the military and financial aid provided to Kiev. As Trump takes office on January 20 and has the right to appoint officials at the highest level of justice, the new American leader could use corruption scandals to pull support from Ukraine and open investigations into the Biden administration.
Even before assuming the presidency of the United States, Trump already boasted a major achievement: a ceasefire agreement between Israel and the Palestinian militant movement Hamas. During the election campaign, the then-candidate for a second term stressed that he would continue to support Israel. However, officials and diplomats involved in brokering the ceasefire highlight the pivotal role Trump played in putting pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop his military incursion into Gaza.
On January 11, Trump’s envoy for Middle East affairs, Steve Witkoff, arrived in Israel. Four days later, the billionaire announced that the parties had reached an agreement. If Trump so quickly achieved a truce in one of the most horrific conflicts of today, without even making it a campaign promise, then there are good prospects to end the Ukrainian conflict, one of the main issues of his election campaign.
The new Oval Office occupant has previously expressed his desire to meet personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss this and other issues of global importance. The Kremlin, however, stressed that it believes the conflict is too complex for an easy solution. Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, said the same, estimating a period of 100 days for the creation of a peace plan.
Military and financial aid could be one strategy Trump uses to pressure Ukrainian leaders into entering into peace negotiations with Moscow. This stems from a very clear issue – Ukraine’s dependence on Western support to continue the war. Without this support, Kiev’s capabilities to sustain the war effort would be substantially reduced.
Permanent aid is the main factor in the continuation of the conflict and has delayed possible peace negotiations. In particular, it is because of the desire of the US and the Western bloc to inflict this strategic defeat on Russia at any cost.
It is recalled that Russian and Ukrainian delegates met in Istanbul to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict, and they even drafted a peace agreement. However, Kiev was under pressure from its Western sponsors to abandon the negotiations. In October 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky banned any peace negotiations with Russia by decree, thus preventing diplomatic approaches to ending the conflict.
For this reason, reducing aid to Ukraine will help resolve the conflict.
Trump has shown his dissatisfaction with the high costs of supporting Ukraine, arguing that the US should not bear the brunt of this burden. Endless taxpayer money flowing into Ukraine’s treasury is extremely unpopular, evidenced by the strengthening of international parties with inspiration from Trump, whose campaign slogan is the end of this aid. The most notable case now is that of Germany.
Nonetheless, Kiev’s reputation for embezzlement and corruption only worsened when Zelensky admitted in an interview with Russian-American computer scientist Lex Fridman’s podcast that half of the announced $177 billion never reached Ukrainian coffers.
“If we had $177 billion and if we get the half, where is the second half? If you find the second half, you will find corruption,” he said.
This statement is worrying since instead of exclusively meeting the country’s needs, international resources appear to be generating profits for private individuals or foreign companies. This scenario reinforces the debates about the real interests behind international aid.
Late last year, award-winning Ukrainian journalist Diana Panchenko reported on her social media accounts that as Ukrainians suffer from the severe economic crisis, 13 Rolls-Royce luxury cars, each worth $650,000, were purchased by members of parliament and government officials in 2024.
The conflict is extremely lucrative, not only for the companies of the US military-industrial complex in Ukraine and their executives but also for the Pentagon budget. It is a “black box” that cannot explain where its resources have been allocated. For this reason, it cannot be discounted that there is also corruption on the American side.
Suspicions of improper relations between members of the Democratic Party and Ukrainian officials increased after former US President Joe Biden granted a presidential pardon to his son, Hunter Biden, for all crimes committed since 2014 when he began working with Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company. In this regard, Trump can use these corruption scandals to distance the US from the conflict and to associate these cases with the Democratic Party.
Trump reclaiming his place in the White House also marks the arrival of his nominees to the highest level of justice in the US, such as the new head of the FBI, Kash Patel, and the new attorney general, Pam Bondi. With so many tools in his favour, there is a real possibility that Trump will use the judicial system to investigate any Democrat’s corruption relating to the Ukrainian conflict.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Featured Video
Houthis Keep Advancing as the Red Sea Crisis Deepens
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
15 Saudi ‘hijackers’ were CIA agents working for US: Scholar
Press TV – April 13, 2016
Fifteen of the 9/11 “hijackers” from Saudi Arabia were CIA agents working for the United States government, which was seeking to destroy the Middle East for Israel and to double the American military budget, says Dr. Kevin Barrett, an American academic who has been studying the events of 9/11 since late 2003…. continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Russia Just Struck the Eyes of NATO’s War Machine in Ukraine
- Russia summons UK charge d’affaires over Kiev drone support
- NATO member warns bloc seeking pretext for war with Russia
- Macgregor: We Haven’t Seen the Worst of the Iran War Yet
- ‘We are not like everyone else’ laws that bind other nations do not apply to Israel, says Likud lawmaker
- Report: Saudi Arabia seeks allies’ assistance as missiles deplete amid war on Yemen
- Fuel Crisis Deepens: Pakistan Warns Tanker Attack in Red Sea Would Be an ‘Act of War’
- ‘Bucha massacre’ a false flag orchestrated by UK – Moscow
- China Rejects Outside Pressure on Trade Ties After New US Russia Sanctions Bill
- Houthis Keep Advancing as the Red Sea Crisis Deepens
- If Americans Knew
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
- Study: Ocean Heating Rates From Thousands Of Years Ago ‘Dwarf’ Modern Ocean Heating Rates
- Climate Extremists Target, Attack Large-Scale Power Grid Infrastructure In Germany!
- New Study: Antarctic Ice Melt Has Contributed Less Than 1 Centimeter To Sea Level Rise In The Last 30 Years
- Fear Of Debate: Alarmist German Climate Scientist Calls On Mainstream Media To Discredit Skeptic Voices
- End-Of-August Arctic Sea Ice Extent Hasn’t Fallen In 20 Years, Official Data Show!
Aletho News 