Tag: lev parnas

Background Briefing: February 10, 2020

 

Barr Gives Giuliani a Direct Pipeline to DOJ

We begin with Attorney General Barr acknowledging today he will evaluate material that Rudolph Giuliani has gathered in Ukraine about Joe and Hunter Biden which was first brought up by Senator Lindsey Graham on CBS on Sunday morning, alarming many. Elie Honig, who served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York for 18 years and is now a legal analyst at CNN where he has an article “Lindsey Graham’s disturbing comments about investigating Biden”, joins us to discuss his concerns that Barr has already sacrificed his integrity and, having bent the law to do the president’s bidding, now appears to be going much further. Since it now appears that Giuliani has a direct pipeline to the Justice Department to provide dirt on Trump’s political rivals, we will examine the extent to which federal law enforcement is being dragooned into doing campaigning and electioneering for the president. Meanwhile Giuliani himself is under investigation by the Justice Department with the Southern District of New York having charged two of his associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman with violations of election laws. They had helped Rudy Giuliani in Ukraine in his pursuit of dirt on the Bidens and in getting the American ambassador fired and also happened to be having breakfast with Rudy at Trump’s hotel in Washington D.C. the morning they were arrested at Dulles airport with one-way tickets out of the country.

Xi Jinping’s Heavy Hand Worsened Coronavirus Outbreak Which Could Get Out of Hand

Then we look into today’s announcement by Attorney General Barr of charges against four Chinese military hackers who are suspected of stealing trade secrets and personal data on 145 million Americans from the credit rating giant Equifax. An expert on the Chinese military and the Chinese government, June Dreyer, a Professor of Political Science at the University of Miami who was formerly Asia-Pacific Advisor to the Chief of Naval Operations, joins us to discuss the latest brazen hack following the Chinese cyberattack on the Office of Personnel Management and how Xi Jinping has bungled the response to the coronavirus outbreak causing it to worsen and perhaps get out of hand.

 

How to Protect the 2020 Election from Trump’s Expected Cheating

Then finally we speak with a nationally-recognized expert in election law, Richard Hasen, the Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine who joins us to discuss his new book, just out, Election Meltdown: Dirt Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy With warnings emerging from the Senate trial of Trump that he tried to cheat in the next election which led to his impeachment, and that he will do it again, we examine what can be done to protect the 2020 election short of a massive Democratic turnout to overwhelm cheating by the Republicans with help from the Russians.