I just spoke with John Paul Isaac, the Wilmington computer repair store owner who ended up with Hunter Biden's laptop and gave it to the FBI and Giuliani. He would not explain how a copy of the hard drive was passed to Rudy Giuliani. "No comment," he said.
Isaac said he first went to the FBI and there were "many, many steps" between the laptop going to the bureau and the copy of the hard drive being sent to Giuliani: "I don't feel like talking about it now."
Did he want to see this become a big story? "The outcome I wanted was the FBI doing the right thing. Confiscating the equipment—that was the right thing to do….I gave it to them and expected them to do something. They sounded like they wanted it for an investigation...."
"They [the FBI] came in with a subpoena and took it. I wanted that. I wanted it out of my sight. And to have nothing to do with it." So, I asked, you were hoping for an FBI probe and then took other action when you didn't see that happening? "No comment."
"I don’t feel comfortable talking," Isaac said. "It’s not a game I’m comfortable playing. I probably will lose my business. I probably will lose my friends. Who knows what will happen when the sun goes down?"
So does Isaac feel at risk now? "I was putting up plywood boards not too long ago....I imagine a lot of people are unhappy about this. I wasn’t expected to be completely outed....This is never how I wanted this to go. I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut for a year and a half."
Did Isaac know the NY Post was going to do this story?" Possibly….I understood something was going to happen. I was trying to be out of the loop. I haven’t read the article fully….I wish he [Hunter] had paid his bill."
Isaac says he has no opinion about Giuliani and has never interacted with him. I asked Isaac if he had a political agenda. He said no. "I'm not a political person." Did he have any opinion about Joe Biden. "No," he said.
Isaac refused to provide a clear chronology of what happened with the hard drive and how it reached Giuliani. Reporters, I said, are curious about this key point. He replied, "I was curious, too, and look where it got me."
Guess what. Karfunkel, it turns out, is the *president* and *CFO* of this low-profile synagogue. So he got a mega-tax deduction by transferring his Kodak shares--when the value was pumped up--to a new charity that he runs. See the UPDATE based on WSJ reporting.
From the Congregation Chemdas Yisroel charity registration filing. This billionaire "donated" stock worth up to $180m to the low-profile synagogue he runs, which doesn't seem to do all that much. He and the two other officers refused to answer my questions about it. I wonder why.
By the way, as I reported, Karfunkel has at least two long-standing foundations that support synagogues. They file IRS 990 tax returns. Why didn't he donate this stock to one of those? Congregation Chemdas Yisroel, per all religious charities, does not have to file a 990.
You want to get into this? Did the FBI say anything publicly about the Trump-Russia investigation during the 2016 campaign? What did it do re the HRC investigation? Even when Comey was asked by House Dems in late Sept., he refused to say whether or not there was a Russia probe.
When the NY Times asked the FBI about the investigation in October, the bureau downplayed the probe. When I asked the FBI, it did not comment. It took no steps to use this investigation against Trump during the campaign.
Meanwhile, the last four weeks of the campaign were dominated by anti-Clinton leaks orchestrated by Putin's operation (which was mounted in part to benefit Trump).
In his May 10, 2019, letter to President-elect Zelensky, @RudyGiuliani asked for a meeting as "personal counsel" representing Trump "as a private citizen." So his efforts to get dirt on Biden had NOTHING to do with US policy.
This is all the evidence needed to see Rudy's pressure campaign on Zelensky and his aides was a PRIVATE endeavor waged for Trump's PERSONAL benefit.
But it was a private endeavor that leveraged public assets: a White House meeting and, then nearly $400 million in US assistance to Ukraine. That is arguably not legal.
1. Minutes before Mick Mulvaney was to appear for a deposition, his outside counsel told the House committees he had been directed by the White House not to appear and assert “absolute immunity.” (Not sure "absolute immunity" is a thing.)
2. A source involved with the inquiry says, "Here’s what we know: Mr. Mulvaney admitted from the White House briefing room that the President withheld vital military aid in order to pressure Ukraine to conduct investigations that would benefit..."
3. "...the President’s personal and political interests, not the national interest. Other witness testimony during this inquiry also has indicated that Mr. Mulvaney could shed additional light on the President’s abuse of the power of his office for his personal gain...."
Deepest condolences to Valerie Plame & her two children on the death of former Amb. Joe Wilson. Joe was heroic--one of the *very* few voices advocating caution & more deliberation in the run-up to the misguided & disastrous Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq. nytimes.com/2019/09/27/us/…
I spent many hours in green rooms in that period with Joe, as he crusaded, practically on his own, to prevent the war that would lead to the deaths of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.
He had been a tough foe of Saddam when stationed in Baghdad, but he knew this war would cause trouble and misery for the United States and the Middle East. Joe spoke out when so many others just went along for the ride after 9/11. That took a load of courage. It was not easy.
Since @mschlapp liked this tweet to support his allegation Obama surveilled Trump, I will point out that the GOP senator who released this text message couldn't say definitively what it referred to but suggested it concerned the FBI investigation of HRC's email controversy....
So @mschlapp, you one stab at relying on evidence falls flat. Sorry. Moreover, it could well be that the text refers to the FBI's investigation of the Russian attack on the election then underway, since....
Obama was on his way to a meeting in China where he would confront Putin about this intervention (which Donald Trump was falsely denying was happening). After all, wouldn't a POTUS want to know about a Russian attack? Well, at least a POTUS who gave a damn about nat. security.