After Lying, Ambassador Yovanovitch has a Fat Job at Georgetown

Posted on December 17, 2020December 17, 2020 by Denise Simon

Ambassador (ret.) Marie L. Yovanovitch is a Senior Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, which is at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service.

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it received 210 pages of records from the State Department which show that former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie “Masha” Yovanovitch had specifically warned in 2017 about corruption allegations against Burisma Holdings. During her November 2019 testimony in the impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump, Yovanovitch told lawmakers that she knew little about Burisma.

The records were obtained by Judicial Watch in response to a FOIA lawsuit filed in January 2020 seeking records of communications from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv mentioning Burisma (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:20-cv-00229)).

On October 4, 2017, Michael Polt, a former ambassador to Estonia and Serbia and who until October 2020 was Senior Director at the McCain Institute, emailed Yovanovitch regarding the McCain Institute’s plan to conduct leadership development training for Ukrainian prosecutors that would be funded by Burisma. The idea was suggested to Polt by Sally Painter, Burisma’s lobbyist at Blue Star Strategies, and a Burisma executive. In the email, Polt notes that he was introduced to Painter by U.S. special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker. Volker was also a Trump impeachment witness.

Polt emails Yovanovitch on October 4, 2017:

Dear Masha: Greetings from the home front and all the best for your complex assignment in Kiev! I wonder if I could pick your brain on a leadership development we have been asked to run for Ukrainian public prosecutors here at the McCain Institute. Kurt cannot get involved with this, due to his other role as Special Envoy. Sally Painter of Blue Star Strategies, whom Kurt introduced to me and then stepped aside, together with Vadym Poharskyi of the Burisma Group have asked us whether we could provide a two-week Leadership Development and Professional Capacity Building program for Ukrainian public prosecutors proposed to us by the Ukrainian Chief Prosecutor. Burisma would fun this. We are prepared to do this, as we have done for similar groups from the DRC [Democratic Republic of the Congo] and from Pakistan. I would greatly appreciate your view if you know Burisma and/or Vadym or others.

Yovanovitch, in her response, warned Polt about Burisma, writing:

Mike: Sorry not to have responded more quickly. I will get back to you with a fuller response, but I would urge caution in dealing with the Burisma Group. It is widely believed that the owner was the beneficiary of the corrupt justice system here and I think –to the extent that anyone is aware that Burisma is funding the training –there would be raised eyebrows in Kyiv over the irony of Burisma training prosecutors and to what end.

I’d also note that the PGO [Prosecutor General’s Office] is one of the entities here that remains resolutely unreformed. After a year and a half of trying, we pulled out and reprogrammed our resources into other areas in the justice sector that were ready for change. Wish I had better news and will get back to you with more details.

In a November 7, 2017, email to Yovanovitch, Polt indicates that he is taking her “sage advice” and “not moving forward” with Burisma’s funding of the training.

During her November 15, 2019, testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in the impeachment proceedings, Yovanovitch said she didn’t have much knowledge about Burisma, and noted that she only learned of its connection to the Biden family through “press reports” she read while preparing for her Senate confirmation hearing.

The new production of records from the State Department also includes several emails regarding the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv’s response to John Solomon’s reporting for The Hill. The emails are almost entirely redacted, as are the names of the officials involved. In one email regarding this effort, an unidentified official cites a report by the George Soros-funded Anti-Corruption Action Center defending itself against the reporting as a “useful reference point.”

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv closely monitored media and social media reaction to many conservatives and journalists in potential violation of federal law.

“Marie Yovanovitch knew much more about Burisma than what she revealed in her testimony at the sham impeachment hearings,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Judicial Watch will continue its efforts to unearth the shady details in the Burisma-Biden scandal that is not going to go away.”

In an October production from the State Department, Judicial Watch received records which included a briefing checklist of a February 22, 2019, meeting in Kyiv between Yovanovitch and Painter. The briefing checklist noted that Painter also planned to meet with Foreign Commercial Service (FCS) Officer Martin Claessens “regarding the Burisma Group energy company.”

At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, was serving on the board of directors for Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy firm, despite having no previous experience in the energy industry. Biden served on the board of Burisma until his term expired in April 2019.

In September 2020, Judicial Watch made public records that show George Kent, the Obama administration’s deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of Ukraine policy, which was copied to Yovanovitch, highlighting Russia-linked media “trolling” Joe Biden over “his son’s business.”

In a related case Judicial Watch uncovered records showing the U.S. embassy in Ukraine monitoring, in potential violation of law, Donald Trump, Jr. Rudy Giuliani, and major journalists on Twitter on their commentary on Ukraine, “Biden-Burisma 2020,” and George Soros. The search terms that were flagged to be monitored by State Department officials on social media included Yovanovitch, Ukraine Ambassador, Ukrainian Ambassador, Ukraine Soros, Clinton campaign, and Biden-Burisma.

China Forces International Criminal court to be Useless

Posted on December 17, 2020December 17, 2020 by Denise Simon

With Beijing not a signatory to the ICC, those bringing the claim of genocide have pointed to the alleged forcing of Uighur people from Tajikistan and Cambodia into China as evidence. Both countries are signatories to the Rome statute setting up the ICC.

“The US government has reason to doubt the honesty of the ICC. The Department of Justice has received substantial credible information that raises serious concerns about a long history of financial corruption and malfeasance at the highest levels of the office of the prosecutor,” Barr said.

He referred to the ICC as “little more than a political tool employed by unaccountable international elites”.

***

Apart from genocide, China has reservations over the definitions of all the other core crimes, namely, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crime of aggression. Throughout the negotiation process, one of the major guiding principles in defining the crimes under consideration was that these definitions should be reflective of customary international law. China opposed the ICC’s jurisdiction over crimes against humanity committed during peacetime, because, it argued that customary international law required a nexus to armed conflict, and without such nexus, the major attributes of the crimes would be changed. China’s objection towards the ICC’s jurisdiction over war crimes committed in non-international armed conflict was similarly raised in the context of customary international law. Moreover, China resisted the inclusion of the crime of aggression under the ICC’s jurisdiction due to the lack of a precise definition on state act of aggression underlying the crime.

So, while world leaders have confirmed Covid-19 came from Wuhan, China, it is unlikely the ICC will ever bring a case against China for the nefarious actions of the pandemic. Meanwhile, there is the matter of the human rights violations by China against the Uighurs.

Uighur model sends rare video from Chinese detention | Fox News

NYT’s: The International Criminal Court has decided not to pursue an investigation into China’s mass detention of Muslims, a setback for activists eager to hold Beijing accountable for persecution of ethnic and religious minorities.

Prosecutors in The Hague said on Monday that they would not, for the moment, investigate allegations that China had committed genocide and crimes against humanity regarding the Uighurs, a predominantly Muslim ethnic group, because the alleged crimes took place in China, which is not a party to the court.

The abuses described “have been committed solely by nationals of China within the territory of China,” said a report by the court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda of Gambia.

For months, Uighurs in exile had urged the court to investigate China’s repressive policies against Muslim minorities, the first attempt by activists to use the force of international law to hold Chinese officials accountable for the crackdown. They accused the Chinese government of carrying out a campaign of torture, forced sterilization and mass surveillance against Muslims, among other abuses.

China has faced growing international condemnation for its harsh treatment of Muslims, including the construction of vast indoctrination camps in the western region of Xinjiang. President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign described China’s actions in Xinjiang as genocide, a position also taken by other Western leaders.

China has denied that the camps are abusive, describing them instead as job training centers aimed at countering religious extremism and terrorism, despite a preponderance of contradictory evidence.

Many Uighurs said on Tuesday that they were disappointed in the court’s decision not to investigate. They vowed to continue to lobby global leaders to punish China for the abuses.

“The I.C.C. was formed for one and only one reason: to confront the most horrific international crimes,” said Fatimah Abdulghafur, a Uighur poet and activist who lives in Australia. “The atrocities of the Chinese regime toward Uighurs are countless.”

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The complaint against China was filed by two Uighur exile groups, the East Turkistan Government in Exile and the East Turkistan National Awakening Movement.

In addition to abuses against Muslims inside China’s borders, the Uighur groups had also lobbied the court to investigate Beijing for pursuing the repatriation of thousands of Uighurs through unlawful arrests in or deportation from other countries, including Cambodia and Tajikistan.

In its report on Monday, the prosecutor’s office said there was “no basis to proceed at this time” because there did not appear to be enough evidence to show that Chinese officials had committed crimes over which the court had jurisdiction.

“Not all conduct which involves the forcible removal of persons from a location necessarily constitutes the crime of forcible transfer or deportation,” the report said.

Lawyers representing the Uighur groups said they were still hopeful that the court would open an investigation after considering new evidence.

“We have explained we’ve been hampered by Covid restrictions,’’ said Rodney Dixon, who is the lead lawyer in the case. “The prosecutor needs further and concrete evidence from Cambodia and Tajikistan to establish jurisdiction, and we will be providing that early in the year.”

Lawyers following the court said that the prosecutor, whose mandate is coming to an end, had been under time pressure to present her final report to the annual assembly of court members now meeting in The Hague. A new prosecutor will be elected in the coming weeks.

US Companies Riddled with Members of Chinese Communist Party

Posted on December 17, 2020December 17, 2020 by Denise Simon

Latest CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY | The Straits Times

Primer:

In his speech just a few days ago at Georgia Tech University: Pompeo called China’s Communist Party “the central threat of our time” and highlighted efforts by Chinese security services to pressure and recruit Chinese academics and students as spies.

“Americans must know how the Chinese Communist Party is poisoning the well of our higher education institutions for its own ends and how those actions degrade our freedoms and American national security,” Pompeo said.

“If we don’t educate ourselves, if we’re not honest about what’s taking place, we’ll get schooled by Beijing.”

NYP: As we try to come to terms with the extent of Chinese influence over the Biden family, a leaked database of registered members of the Chinese Communist Party has exposed a mass infiltration of American companies — with serious national security implications.

Boeing, Qualcomm and Pfizer are just three US companies that have employed dozens of CCP members in their Chinese facilities, the database reveals.

As well, three female employees of the US consulate in Shanghai have been identified in the list of 1.95 million party members that was leaked to an international group of legislators, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which includes Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ).

All CCP members swear an oath to “fight for communism throughout my life, be ready at all times to sacrifice my all for the party and the people, and never betray the party [and] guard party secrets, be loyal to the party.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said yesterday: “CCP agents have no place in US government facilities, and this report should serve as a much-needed wake-up call to Washington, DC, and corporate executives, who continue to welcome the Chinese government with open arms.

“[It] is just more evidence of the extent to which the CCP has successfully infiltrated American companies and government.”

While none of the people listed in the database have been identified as spies, mounting concerns in the State Department about the CCP have resulted in tightened visa rules for its members earlier this month. CCP members and their immediate families now are limited to one-month, single-entry US permits.

The database was verified by international cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0, which found it was originally leaked on encrypted messaging app Telegram in 2016. It was passed on to IPAC six weeks ago by a third party.

“We have high confidence this list is authentic,” Internet 2.0 co-founder David Robinson, a former Australian army intelligence officer, told me Sunday.

“Someone — an insider, a dissident — managed to get physical access to the server [in Shanghai] from outside the building. They didn’t have to hack it over the internet.”

Each data entry contains the CCP member’s name, ethnicity, place of birth, education level, identification number and, in some cases, a phone number and address.

Robinson has verified the identity of three women who work at the US consulate in Shanghai.

The three, all listed as ethnic Han college graduates, are registered in a 31-strong Communist Party branch listed as Shanghai Foreign Institutional Service Co., which is a state-owned employment agency, which provides local staff for foreign consulates, schools and news media.

A department spokesperson yesterday had no comment about “an allegedly leaked database of Communist Party members” and said “the department does not discuss security protocols or personnel matters.”

However, she said: “Influence and interference operations are fundamental to how the Chinese Communist Party engages with the world.

“China’s role in the world today cannot be understood without reference to the wide array of malign activities that the [CCP] undertakes to influence our societies in ways that are covert, coercive and corrupting.”

The CCP database is split into 79,000 branches.

For example, Boeing has 17 branches, totaling 252 CCP members. Sixteen members are part of Boeing’s Hongqiao Maintenance Base Boeing Line Maintenance Division . . . First Workshop Party Branch; 22 are in the Second Workshop Party Branch; 13 are in the Third Workshop Party Branch, 14 in the Fourth Workshop Party Branch.

There are four subdivisions of the Pudong Maintenance Base Boeing Line Maintenance Branch, totaling 49 members.

Two branches of the Pudong Maintenance Base Boeing Line Maintenance Branch Cargo Aircraft Line Maintenance total 33 members.

Also listed are 27 members of the Party Branch of Boeing Fourth Branch of the Flight Department of Eastern Airlines Yunnan Co. and 23 members of the China Eastern Airlines Beijing Maintenance Department Party Committee Boeing Maintenance Workshop Party Branch.

Boeing spokesman Bradley Akubuiro said last night the company was satisfied with its security.

“As a global company, we enforce strict security protocols and maintain secure firewalls to protect both our customer and company proprietary data in all countries we operate in.”

According to the database, 96 members in the Qualcomm Wireless Communication Technology (China) Co. Ltd. Party Branch, and 133 additional members spread over six party branches of Qualcomm Enterprise Management (Shanghai) work for semiconductor manufacturer and 5G wireless technology company Qualcomm, a US-based multinational.

Qualcomm was awarded a contract by the Defense Department in 2018 to develop multifactor authentication security systems for US military computers.

Another US company crucial to national security is pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which began rolling out COVID-19 vaccines Sunday.

The database lists 69 CCP members in four Pfizer branches in Shanghai.

Neither Qualcomm nor Pfizer responded to inquiries yesterday.

New York University also appears with 71 members attached to a branch named East China Normal University Shanghai New York University Faculty and Labor Party Branch.

The database leak comes just days after a number of disturbing revelations involving CCP infiltration of American institutions:

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe warned that China has targeted members of Congress and poses “the greatest threat to democracy and freedom” since World War II.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned of China’s infiltration of US universities, which are “hooked on Communist cash” and stifle criticism of Beijing.
Media reports identified Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of House Intelligence Committee, as one of several San Francisco politicians courted by Chinese spy Christine Fang.

It was confirmed last week that Joe Biden’s son Hunter is under federal investigation over tax fraud and potential money-laundering over his foreign business dealings, including in China.

“Communist China has been allowed to infiltrate our universities and corporations with people loyal to only the Communist Party,” former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell said Sunday.

“Our beloved Chinese American community has been warning us about these tactics for many years, and the political class has ignored those warnings.”

*** Communist party is 'leader of all religions' in China - world news - Hindustan Times

Sensitive data of around two million members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) have been leaked, highlighting their positions in major organizations, including government agencies, throughout the world.

According to reports from The Australian newspaper, featured in the Economic Times, the information includes official records such as party position, birthdate, national ID number and ethnicity. It revealed that members of China’s ruling party hold prominent positions in some of the world’s biggest companies, including in pharmaceutical giants involved in the development of COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer and financial institutions such as HSBC.

The investigation by The Australian centred around the data leak, which was extracted from a Shanghai server in 2016 by Chinese dissidents.

It noted that CPC members are employed as senior political and government affairs specialists in at least 10 consulates, including the US, UK and Australia, in the eastern Chinese metropolis Shanghai. The paper added that many other members hold positions inside universities and government agencies.

The report emphasized there is no evidence that spying for the Chinese government or other forms of cyber-espionage have taken place.

In her report, The Australian journalist and Sky News host Sharri Markson commented: “What’s amazing about this database is not just that it exposes people who are members of the Communist Party, and who are now living and working all over the world, from Australia to the US to the UK, but it’s amazing because it lifts the lid on how the party operates under President and Chairman Xi Jinping.

“It is also going to embarrass some global companies who appear to have no plan in place to protect their intellectual property from theft, from economic espionage.”

In September, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the US Department of Justice issued a joint advisory warning US government agencies and private sector companies to be on high alert for cyber-attacks by threat actors affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS).

Cuba and China: ‘Havana Syndrome’ was Caused by Directed Microwave Radiation

Posted on December 8, 2020December 8, 2020 by Denise Simon

3 -4 years?

Source: A NEW REPORT BY the United States National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, has found that the so-called ‘Havana Syndrome’, which afflicted American and Canadian diplomats in Cuba and China in 2016 and 2017, was likely caused by directed microwave radiation. The study, which was commissioned by the US Department of State, is the latest in a long list of scientific assessments of the mysterious syndrome. The case remains a source of debate in the scientific, diplomatic and intelligence communities.

In 2017 Washington recalled the majority of its personnel from the US embassy in Havana, and at least two more diplomats from the US consulate in the Chinese city of Guangzhou. The evacuees reported experiencing “unusual acute auditory or sensory phenomena” and hearing “unusual sounds or piercing noises”. Subsequent tests showed that they suffered from sudden and unexplained loss of hearing, and possibly from various forms of brain injuries. In April of 2019 the Canadian embassy evacuated all family members of its personnel stationed in the Cuban capital over similar health concerns.

Unsolved 'sonic attacks' mystery sours U.S.-Cuba relations | America Magazine

The latest study by the National Academies of Sciences resulted from the coordination of leading toxicologists, epidemiologists, electrical engineers and neurologists. The resulting 66-page report describes in detail the symptoms experienced by nearly 40 US government employees, who were examined for the purposes of the study. Its authors said they examined numerous potential causes, including psychological factors, infectious diseases, directed radio frequency energy, and even exposure to insecticides. Ultimately, the authors concluded that “many of the distinctive and acute signs, symptoms and observations reported by [US government] employees are consistent with the effects of directed, pulsed radio frequency (RF) energy”, according to their report.

However, the study does not attempt to answer the burning question of whether the symptoms experienced by the sufferers resulted from deliberate attacks, and if so, who may have been behind them. Some have accused the governments of Cuba and/or Russia of being responsible for the syndrome. However, the Cuban and Russian governments have strongly denied the accusations. The National Academies of Sciences report does state that the systematic study of pulsed radio frequency energy has a history of over half a century in Russia and the Soviet Union.

***

Description

In late 2016, U.S. Embassy personnel in Havana, Cuba, began to report the development of an unusual set of symptoms and clinical signs. For some of these patients, their case began with the sudden onset of a loud noise, perceived to have directional features, and accompanied by pain in one or both ears or across a broad region of the head, and in some cases, a sensation of head pressure or vibration, dizziness, followed in some cases by tinnitus, visual problems, vertigo, and cognitive difficulties. Other personnel attached to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China, reported similar symptoms and signs to varying degrees, beginning in the following year. As of June 2020, many of these personnel continue to suffer from these and/or other health problems. Multiple hypotheses and mechanisms have been proposed to explain these clinical cases, but evidence has been lacking, no hypothesis has been proven, and the circumstances remain unclear.

The Department of State asked the National Academies to review the cases, their clinical features and management, epidemiologic investigations, and scientific evidence in support of possible causes, and advise on approaches for the investigation of potential future cases. In An Assessment of Illness in U.S. Government Employees and Their Families at Overseas Embassies, the committee identifies distinctive clinical features, considers possible causes, evaluates plausible mechanisms and rehabilitation efforts, and offers recommendations for future planning and responses.

Obama’s normalizing relations did not work out so well. The big question now is whether there is a human rights violation and diplomatic consequence.

About that Laptop and Failing to Register as a Foreign Agent

Posted on November 30, 2020November 30, 2020 by Denise Simon

Poor Mr. John Paul Issac, terrified by death threats has closed his business permanently and left town to an undisclosed location. No one in the Biden operation has said a word or has offered any remorse for the fellow.

Mac Isaac’s lawyer, Brian Della Rocca, confirmed to the Delaware News Journal that Mac Isaac had closed the shop, but did not say whether his client had left town. He did claim that his client had received death threats. Della Rocca told the Journal that his office had communicated with Wilmington FBI agents and Delaware’s Assistant United States Attorney Leslie Wolf about the situation, saying, “I’ve been in touch with federal law enforcement, yes.” More here.

National Legal and Policy Center filed a 12-page complaint with the Department of Justice demanding an investigation of Hunter Biden, the Truman National Security Project, and the University of Pennsylvania and its Penn Biden Center, to determine whether they are in compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act for engaging in political activities on behalf of Burisma and Chinese interests.

NLPC’s complaint draws upon recent press reports that disclose incriminating emails and text messages on Hunter Biden’s laptop computer which is in the hands of the FBI and statements against Hunter and his father by Tony Bobulinski, Hunter’s partner on Burisma, the Ukrainian oil company. Bobulinski was recently interviewed by the FBI in a criminal investigation into activities that most likely involve money laundering, tax evasion, wire fraud, and other crimes, and implicates his uncle James Biden, and his father, Joe Biden.

The complaint cites one such text message on May 1, 2017 by Hunter to Bobulinski regarding their Chinese energy client, CEFC, “We don’t want to have to register as foreign agents. . . which is much more expansive than people who should know choose not to know.” In another email, April 17, 2015 Burisma’s Vadym Pozharski thanks Hunter for arranging a meeting with his father, who was then Vice President.

Hunter served as a board member until 2019 on the liberal Truman National Security Project along with the Sally Painter, COO of Blue Star Strategies, a lobby firm retained by Burisma to promote its interests before the State Department. The Truman Project, which endorsed Kamala Harris in 2016 for her Senate race, failed to note on its 2017 tax filing that Hunter and Painter had a business relationship with each other through Burisma.

Finally, NLPC demands that DOJ investigate the source of over $22 million in anonymous donations from China to the University of Pennsylvania and its Penn Biden Center that may have been earmarked to promote Chinese interests and thus trigger registration as foreign agent.

“The evidence uncovered so far is only the tip of the iceberg and more is coming out every day,” said NLPC Chairman Peter Flaherty. “The Justice Department and the FBI must conduct a prompt investigation of NLPC’s complaint and bring appropriate enforcement actions, whether for FARA violations or other illegal conduct,” said Paul Kamenar, NLPC’s counsel who drafted the complaint.