Tip Of The Iceberg

I'm headinbg into a period over coming weeks where, due to personal issues, posting will have to be sporadic, which is just as well, since all we can say about current developments over Hunter and Joe is that much more is likely to come out. Jonathan Turley is one of the few asking the right questions:

The steps taken by Hunter to evade taxes are impressive, but not nearly as impressive as the efforts of the Justice Department to evade any direct implications for his father, President Biden.

In that sense, the indictment itself is a marvel of evasion.

. . . [T]his recent indictment keeps the focus squarely on taxes not paid, not how the money was “earned” in the first place.

Also missing in the indictment is any charge against Hunter Biden as an unregistered foreign agent.

. . . The problem with charging Hunter with FARA is obvious.

It opens up questions about the millions of dollars going to the Biden family from foreign sources, a topic that Attorney General Merrick Garland has spent years avoiding.

In the second indictment, Weiss spends more time detailing the salacious use of this money rather than how and why it was given to the Bidens.

He just matter-of-factly describes millions flowing through these accounts from China, Romania, Ukraine, Russia and other countries.

. . . Weiss indicts the failure to pay taxes on the proceeds of these dealings without addressing that underlying corruption.

It is akin to arresting a bank robber for speeding away from the crime scene without mentioning the reason for his flight.

In a scandal with dozens of references to the presidents [sic] and millions sent for influence and access, it took a steady hand for Weiss to avoid ever touching on President Biden’s role.

Chairman Comer said the same thing last night:

Comer said, “What he got charged with, with that indictment last night, that had nothing to do with all of the so-called loans that the Bidens have taken. We’ve identified, it appears, with the president’s son and brother, over $14 million in loans where it doesn’t look like they made any payments on, principal or interest. And what point do those loans, if you’re not going to pay ’em back, become income?

Comer added, “So, we think this is just the tip of the iceberg. We think there’s many more crimes. and my concern is that Weiss may have indicted Hunter Biden to protect him from having to be deposed in the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday.”

This takes me back to the 1970s yet again -- I can only think of the Nixon White House term modified limited hangout:

What do you do when you get caught in a lie or trying to cover up something? Like the kid who gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar? You offer a little bit of the truth. Yes, my hand was in the cookie jar, but I wasn’t looking for cookies, just checking to see if it was clean so I could put some more cookies in the jar.

That’s called a limited hangout. It’s a phrase coined by the spy trade to refer to a strategy for when a veil of secrecy or a phony cover story to misinform the public is no longer reliable. In that case, they resort to admitting some of the truth while still managing to withhold the damaging facts in the case. When used successfully, the public can be so intrigued by the new information that it is distracted from pursuing the matter further.

There are too many open questions at this point for the whole matter to go away, and what makes this delicious is that the leaks and revelations about how, for instance, the Justice Department totally reversed course on the potential charges against Hunter are only going to start now. I suspect we'll be learning a great deal more in coming weeks, so it's just as well I'm in a position where I can't comment day to day.