Supply Chain Crisis and Where is the Defense Production Act?

Posted on October 18, 2021October 18, 2021 by Denise Simon

What is the Defense Production Act?

The Defense Production Act is the primary source of presidential authorities to expedite and expand the supply of materials and services from the U.S. industrial base needed to promote the national defense. DPA authorities are available to support: emergency preparedness activities conducted pursuant to title VI of the Stafford Act; protection or restoration of critical infrastructure; and efforts to prevent, reduce vulnerability to, minimize damage from, and recover from acts of terrorism within the United States. DPA authorities may be used to:

Require acceptance and preferential performance of contracts and orders under DPA Title I. (See Federal Priorities and Allocations System (FPAS).)

Provide financial incentives and assistance (under DPA Title III) for U.S. industry to expand productive capacity and supply needed for national defense purposes;

Provide antitrust protection (through DPA voluntary agreements in DPA Title VII) for businesses to cooperate in planning and operations for national defense purposes, including homeland security.

But national security? Yes. We remain the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic and those affected could and often are our protectors, not only medically but when it comes to legally or militarily.

While we are fretting over shortages and necessities in our daily lives there are two real areas of major concern, they are medicines and micro-chips (semiconductors) used for advanced technology of many varieties.

China Is Getting Ready to Take On the World's Biggest ...

Basic medicines in use either by prescription or over the counter are manufactured in Asia, mostly China that is. It is a fact we learned in the early days of the pandemic. Imagine now that we are faced with a shortage of antibiotics, insulin, aspirin or Lasix and Dyazide. Could we once again face personal protection equipment shortages?

DOD Announces $74.9 Million in Defense Production Act ...

When it comes to semiconductors, the following is important to know:

In part from a senate committee: To mitigate supply chain risks and ensure that semiconductors used in sensitive military systems do not have malware embedded in them, in 2004 the Department of Defense established the “Trusted Foundry Program.” Under this program the government identifies companies deemed secure and trustworthy enough to produce chips exclusively for the military. Two facilities currently operate under this program, one in Vermont and one in New York.

The program only produces a small percentage of the nearly 2 billion semiconductors DOD acquires each year. Some observers have expressed concern that the trusted foundries are falling behind technologically compared to commercial fabrication facilities in East Asia. This could leave the U.S. military at a technological disadvantage to China and other countries that buy superior chips.

In 2017, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency launched the Electronics Resurgence Initiative, which seeks to address market and technological trends and challenges in the microelectronics sector.

Sounds shaky right? It is as we need results and we need them now. So where is that order by the Biden administration for the Defense Production Act which would jump start real action in all the various reasons for the log jam at ports around the United States? There is no one single reason for the cargo ships being stacked up in Long Beach, Los Angeles, Port Houston, Savannah to name a few.

The United States can relieve the cargo pressures immediately by deploying the National Guard, signing waivers on regulations and by stopping all the financial payments that encourage people to simply not go to work.

The BBC reports in part:

The shortages hitting countries around the world

A “perfect storm” in China is hitting shoppers and businesses at home and overseas.

It is affecting everything from paper, food, textiles and toys to iPhone chips, says Dr Michal Meidan from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies.

She says these items “may end up being in short supply this Christmas”.

Then there is the Department of Transportation and the Secretary has been absent….his involvement in this?

Maritime administration –>

U.S. maritime ports are critical links in the U.S. domestic and international trade supply-chain. Ports serve as centers of commerce where freight and commodities are transferred between cargo ships, barges, trucks, trains, and pipelines.

The Port Infrastructure Development Program supports the efficient movement of commerce upon which our economy relies through discretionary grant funding that helps strengthen, modernize, and improve our country’s maritime systems and gateway ports. Grants are awarded on a competitive basis and support the Nation’s long-term economic vitality.

Port Infrastructure Development grants provide planning, operational and capital financing, and project management assistance to improve port capacity and operations.

Authorization History

The Port Infrastructure and Development Program was authorized by Congress as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 (Public Law 111-84). The legislation states that “The Secretary of Transportation, through the Maritime Administrator, shall establish a port infrastructure development program for the improvement of port facilities.”

The law specifically authorizes the Administrator to:

Receive funds provided for the project from Federal, non-Federal, and private entities that have a specific agreement or contract with the Administrator to further the purposes of this subsection;
Coordinate with other Federal agencies to expedite the process established under the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (42 U.S.C. 4321 et seq.) for the improvement of port facilities to improve the efficiency of the transportation system, to increase port security, or to provide greater access to port facilities;
Seek to coordinate all reviews or requirements with appropriate local, State, and Federal agencies; and
Provide such technical assistance and financial assistance, including grants, to port authorities or commissions or their subdivisions and agents as needed for project planning, design, and construction.

The authorizing legislation also established a Port Infrastructure Development Fund for use by the Administrator in carrying out projects under the program. The fund is available for the Administrator to:

Administer and carry out projects under the program;
Receive Federal, non-Federal, and private funds from entities which have specific agreements or contracts with the Administrator; and
Make refunds for projects that will not be completed.

There are also additional legislative provisions for the crediting and transfer of monies into the fund.

Mexico Cartels Use Video Games to Recruit Children

Posted on October 18, 2021October 18, 2021 by Denise Simon

Beyond the constant threat of Tik Tok, Facebook and Instagram there are at least 2 video games, World of Warcraft and Second Life. Parents, are you managing this or paying attention…globally?

World of Warcraft: Cataclysm | RPG Site . Second Life Review | Game Rankings & Reviews

Beyond parents…what about State Attorneys General or the Department of Justice? crickets….

In full:

Mexican criminal groups have hit on a new way to recruit vulnerable young people into their ranks: reaching out to them while they play video games.

On October 11, authorities in the southern state of Oaxaca announced they had rescued three children, between the ages of 11 and 14, who had reportedly been convinced to run away from home by a human trafficking ring after being contacted through a video game named Free Fire.

The three were found at a home in the town of Santa Lucia de Camino, where they were being held and were set to be sent to Monterrey in the northern state of Nuevo León. They had left their homes a couple of days earlier after receiving messages from a trafficker, posing as a 13-year-old boy in the game.

Earlier in October, a young girl was also rescued after having been lured by a human trafficking group in the western state of Jalisco.

This was far from the most sophisticated such scheme to be discovered in Mexico this year. In September, Mexican investigative journalist Óscar Balderas revealed how one of the country’s foremost criminal actors is trying to recruit children through the most popular video games in the world.

On September 18, a teenage boy playing Grand Theft Auto V online at 3 a.m. received a message from a gamer purporting to be a young man, wearing a bulletproof vest and a military-style helmet in his profile picture. The boy was invited to an in-game event named “RECLUTAMIENTO ABIERTO CDN-ZETAZ VIEJA ESCUELA-35 BATALLON.” The Northeast Cartel (Cartel del Noreste – CDN) and the Old School Zetas (Zetas Vieja Escuela) are both splinter groups of the Zetas, which have been involved in some of Mexico’s worst violence in recent years.

SEE ALSO: Colombia’s Ongoing Child Recruitment Crisis

This fits a pattern reported by numerous young gamers in Mexico in recent months. According to Balderas, messages are sent in the early hours of the morning, when parents are unlikely to be supervising their children’s online activity, openly inviting young gamers to join criminal groups and selling this as a glamorous lifestyle. Some messages alleged that they were being sent by the Sinaloa Cartel or the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG).

In an interview with InSight Crime, Balderas stated that after contacting young people online, the representatives of criminal groups invite them to in-person meetings where they are abducted and forced to join.

And it seems this tactic is more widespread. Since this story broke in September, around ten families have come forward to tell the journalist about similar experiences with online recruitment.

Criminal groups in Mexico routinely abuse numerous children and teenagers and force them to serve in a range of roles, including as hitmen, drug runners or to work in drug manufacturing facilities.

InSight Crime Analysis

Reaching out to impressionable teenagers through video games is fitting for the times.

“It could seem like a pretty inefficient way of getting one or two more sicarios (hitmen) but it’s a silent way of recruiting. If they go ahead and kidnap kids or teenagers in person, this will draw attention. But this is a way of inviting teenagers of their own free will, of getting their loyalty,” Balderas explained to InSight Crime.

It’s also a very low-risk way of proceeding. It appears the recruiters create profiles located in Mexican cities and then send out invitations to all players currently online in a certain radius. The vast majority will probably ignore such messages as spam but a few curious players will accept and get in touch.

Those contacted in this way state that the recruiters appeal to their sense of adventure, promising them excitement, action, money and possessions.

SEE ALSO: Going Door to Door: Mexico City’s Response To Child Recruitment

Islamic terror groups have used this technique for years, with leaks from former National Security Agency (NSA) operative in 2013 revealing how extremists had turned to video games such as World of Warcraft and Second Life.

And the COVID-19 pandemic has only made this strategy more attractive. With schools closed, children have been forced to study online but access to learning platforms and monitoring of their activities by parents and teachers has ranged widely.

Also in September, a Wall Street Journal investigation unveiled how Facebook leadership knew the CJNG was recruiting “aspiring cartel hitmen” via the social network. Despite warnings from a specialized team, pages advertising the CJNG on Facebook and Instagram remained up for up to five months. When they were taken down, new ones soon popped up.

It hasn’t helped. A search on Instagram, the day before this article was published, immediately turned up multiple accounts showing young children carrying weapons, wearing military-style gear or singing the praises of criminal groups in Mexico.

Rigged: The Other Facts About the 2020 Election

Posted on October 18, 2021October 18, 2021 by Denise Simon

Two of the most dangerous people of the 2020 election were Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Elias. We all know Zuckerberg but many need to be reminded who Marc Elias really is.

Marc Elias the Democratic National Committee’s election lawyer and legal adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, filed more than 50 lawsuits around the country challenging state election laws in advance of the 2020 presidential election.

In a 2018 Tweet, President Donald Trump referred to Elias as the Democrats’ “best Election stealing lawyer.”

Though most of the state laws he challenged have been on the books for years, Elias went full steam ahead asking courts to overrule state election laws, force states to count ballots that came in after Election Day, or force states to have unattended ballot collection boxes.

Elias chairs the political law group for the progressive, Seattle-based firm Perkins Coie, “which has had a stranglehold on Democratic legal work for years,” National Review noted in a Nov. 3 analysis.

Since 2019, Perkins Coie has been paid at least $41 million for its political work by Democratic-affiliated organizations, according to Federal Election Commission records. Republican lawyers say that is likely just a fraction of what Perkins Coie has received, because it doesn’t include legal work for many left-wing nonprofits.

Elias was also a key player in the Russia collusion hoax. As the attorney for both the DNC and Clinton campaign, he helped bankroll research by Fusion GPS that created the bogus “Steele dossier” used by the FBI to obtain FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign during the 2016 race. source

***

In “Rigged,” author Mollie Hemingway lays out what amounts to a fascinating alternative to the “stolen” charge. She presents a strong case that the $419 million that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg ostensibly spent to get out the vote was actually used by Democrat activists to infiltrate local election operations and take over jobs government workers were supposed to do.

Hemingway, a senior editor at The Federalist and a Fox commentator, shows how two Zuckerberg nonprofits used their unprecedented deep pockets to line up left-wing groups in key cities that in turn hired poll workers, collected absentee ballots and cured those with errors.

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Democratic mayor outsourced the planning and managing of the election to these activists. Hemingway cites an e-mail from the mayor’s chief of staff saying, “I am taking all of my cues” from one of the Zuckerberg groups.

The city clerk, nominally in charge of the election, was reportedly unhappy with the changes, went on leave shortly before election day and soon resigned.

As Hemingway puts it in excerpts published by The Post, “It was a genius plan. And because no one ever imagined that a coordinated operation could pull off the privatization of the election system, no laws were built to combat it.”

Texas researcher William Doyle crunched the numbers showing how the nonprofits concentrated in areas Biden won, often spending three or four times as much money per voter as they spent in districts Trump won.

“The 2020 election wasn’t stolen,” Doyle concluded. “It was likely bought by one of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful men pouring his money through legal loopholes.”

*** Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized ...

Back in December of 2020, this site published two items exposing these operations.

Georgia/The Fulton County Board of Commissioners voted to accept a $6.3 million grant from the Mark-Zuckerberg funded Center for Technology and Civic Life “Safe Elections” project at a September 2, 2020 board meeting. It proceeded without asking a single question about the name of the group providing the funding, the origin of the funding, or the details of what the funding would be used for.

Here is the report on the clawback provisions Zuclerberg demanded if his money was not used as he required.

It begins with the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), which received nearly $400 million from Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg began the sizeable donations is September boost resources for local election officials, such as additional polling places and ballot drop boxes. Four federal lawsuits were filed in late September by Michigan’s Election Integrity Fund, by the Wisconsin Voters’ Alliance, by the Minnesota Voters’ Alliance, and by two Pennsylvania congressional candidates and several state house members. The lawsuits contend federal law prohibits local governments from accepting private federal election grants. Zuckerberg won the lawsuits in each case, so far.

The lawsuits focus on the Center for Tech and Civic Life spending about $26 million in grants across 12 cities in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin, which combined cast over 75% off their two million votes in favor of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, according to the plaintiffs. source

Then in June of 2021, is the other item:

In exchange for the money, elections divisions agreed to conduct their elections according to conditions set out by the CTCL, which is led by former members of the New Organizing Institute, a training center for progressive groups and Democratic campaigns.

A CTCL partner, the Center for Civic Design, helped design absentee ballot forms and instructions, crafted voter registration letters for felons and tested automatic voter registration systems in several states, working alongside progressive activist groups in Michigan and directly with elections offices in Georgia and Utah.

Still other groups with a progressive leaning, including the Main Street Alliance, The Elections Group and the National Vote at Home Institute, provided support for some elections offices.

“COVID-19 response” grants of varying amounts to 2,500 municipalities in 49 states.

Center for Tech and Civic Life

Facebook, with the CTCL, was also part of the effort, providing a guide and webinar for election officials on how to engage voters. Included were directions to report “voter interference” to Facebook authorities. The company also provided designated employees in six regions of the U.S. to handle questions. Together, the groups strategically targeted voters and waged a voter assistance campaign aimed at low-income and minority residents who typically shun election participation, helping Democratic candidates win key spots all over the U.S.

The little-explored roles of CTCL and other such groups emerged in emails and other records obtained by RealClearInvestigations and public documents secured by conservative litigants and groups, including the Foundation for Government Accountability, which has filed more than 800 public records requests with elections offices accepting the grants.

Previously, the Zuckerberg-funded effort has been described in generally positive terms, notably when NPR reported in December on “How Private Money From Facebook’s CEO Saved The 2020 Election” — in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump’s doubts about the legitimacy of the process and “Congress’ neglect.”

In 2018, RCI reported that a New York University School of Law program funded by billionaire Michael Bloomberg had placed environmentally minded lawyers in the offices of Democratic state attorneys general to challenge Trump administration policies. And examples of private efforts to steer cash-strapped public education are numerous, from the Koch charities on the right to more recent race-conscious programs on the left emphasizing the legacy and centrality of white racism in society.

Zuckerberg did not respond to an emailed request from RCI for comment. In a post-election interview, he praised Facebook’s security work during the election and singled out its policing of “misinformation.” He noted working with polling officials to watch for information that might lead to “voter suppression” and said Facebook had strengthened its enforcement “against militias and conspiracy networks like Q-Anon.”

Biden and the DOJ Gave a Lucrative Settlement to Fired FBI McCabe

Posted on October 14, 2021October 14, 2021 by Denise Simon

It is an outrage for several reasons and here goes.

Andrew McCabe at the center of the FBI scandalous operation against President Trump settled his counter lawsuit and he should be delighted. McCabe is to receive pension payments going back to the date of his firing. His termination will read he is longer with the Bureau and left in good standing. Any negative items on his record is to be fully expunged. All of his attorney’s fees have been fully reimbursed totaling $540,000.00.

Most crazy in this settlement is the retention of his FBI service cufflinks….yup…cufflinks.

Another items is noted as this :

Additional Provisions
11. This Settlement Agreement is not and shall not be construed as an admission by
any Defendant of the truth of any allegation or the validity of any claim asserted in this lawsuit, or of any Defendant’s liability therein. Furthermore, none of the terms of the Settlement Agreement
may be offered in evidence by any of the Parties in any civil or administrative action or proceeding against another of the Parties, other than as necessary to consummate, implement, or enforce this Settlement Agreement. The terms of this Settlement Agreement shall not be construed as an admission by any Defendant that the consideration to be provided hereunder represents the relief, if any, that could be recovered after trial.

The full text of the settlement is found here.

Remember this in part?

Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe apologized for lying to agents who spent weeks investigating the source of a leak to the Wall Street Journal that actually came from him, new documents reveal.

Shortly before the 2016 election, The Journal reported that an FBI investigation was underway involving then-candidate Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.

McCabe in May 2017 denied that he was the source of the leak — but later fessed up, angering bureau investigators who had been spinning their wheels trying to identify the source of the leak.

The documents, which the FBI released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, include transcripts of McCabe’s conversations with investigators, who were frustrated after wasting their time on the probe.

On Aug. 18, 2017, FBI officials grilled McCabe again to try to unravel what they said was “conflicting information” they had gathered about the possible leak to the Journal, The Daily Beast reported.

Remember this part?

McCabe authorized the FBI to begin investigating Trump personally for possible obstruction of justice in connection with the probe of whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election.

Or remember this part?

McCabe authorized two FBI officials to speak for a Wall Street Journal report detailing tension inside the FBI and Justice Department over the Clinton email case and a separate investigation of the Clinton family foundation. But he initially denied having done so when FBI officials — and, later, the inspector general’s office — tried to determine who might have spoken to the media.

The inspector general accused McCabe of lying at least four times, three of them under oath, and even misleading Comey, his boss at the time.

Of course there is more including the activities of his wife. But yes, there are 2 justice systems for sure….the elites get all the breaks.

If you’re outraged…good the rest of the good people of America are outraged too.

Will Joe Be Included in the Hunter IRA Money Laundering Investigation?

Posted on October 13, 2021October 13, 2021 by Denise Simon

Another IRS – White House collusion story in the making?

EXCLUSIVE: Joe Biden could become embroiled in the FBI’s probe into Hunter’s finances, experts say: Emails reveal they SHARED bank accounts, paid each other’s bills and the president may have even have funded his son’s 2018 drug and prostitution binge

Emails from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, obtained by DailyMail.com, reveal Joe and Hunter shared bank accounts and paid each other’s bills
The president have may have inadvertently funded his son’s 2018 drug and prostitution binge
Emails between Hunter and Eric Schwerin, his business partner at consultancy Rosemont Seneca, show Schwerin was working on Joe’s taxes
The claim raises serious questions about whether funds from the joint accounts were used for Hunter’s May 2018 week-long bender with a prostitute
Last December, Hunter admitted in a public statement that he was under federal investigation over his tax affairs
A former federal prosecutor tells DailyMail.com that if money was flowing between Hunter and his father, that could make Joe a target of the probe
The FBI and IRS probe is reportedly also looking into Hunter’s foreign business relationships and the potential for money laundering charges

Hunter’s claim that he and his father shared a bank account also raises serious questions whether funds from the alleged joint account were used for Hunter’s May 2018 week-long bender with a prostitute in a Hollywood hotel.

Emails between Hunter and Eric Schwerin, his business partner at consultancy Rosemont Seneca, show Schwerin was working on Joe's taxes

The FBI and IRS probe is reportedly also looking into his foreign business relationships and the potential for money laundering charges.

The Senate security committee issued a report last year raising fears that the Chinese government was attempting to influence the White House through a billion-dollar business deal between Hunter’s company he co-founded with Schwerin, Rosemont Seneca, and Chinese oil giant CEFC.

John Cassara, a former U.S. Intelligence Officer and Treasury Special Agent who is an expert in money laundering investigations, said that were Joe not president, he would probably be in prosecutors’ crosshairs by now along with his son.

‘The information available publicly is very worrisome, particularly in the areas of corruption,’ Cassara told DailyMail.com.

‘They could go at this from all different avenues. Follow the corruption trail and then charge money laundering.

‘Corruption is a predicate offense for money laundering. And besides corruption, it’s the perception of corruption. This kind of thing should not be happening. It undermines full faith in the US government. It undermines trust and our international reputation. It’s an embarrassment.’

In yet more evidence of the deep commercial relationship between Hunter’s firm and the VP’s office during Joe’s tenure, Rosemont Seneca received special favors from the White House while Joe was in office, including dozens of tickets to exclusive 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue events and private tours for Rosemont Seneca clients or associates.

And when an aide to Senator Robert Menendez requested VP Biden host the U.S.-Spain Council’s 2010 annual meeting at his official Naval Observatory residence in Washington DC, they contacted Schwerin rather than Joe’s White House office.

Hunter and Schwerin then privately discussed the potential to ingratiate themselves with ‘CEOs of the major banks’ if they helped arrange the request.

+13

In 2010, Danny O’Brien, then chief of staff to U.S.-Spain Council chair Senator Menendez, contacted Schwerin asking if VP Biden could host the group’s annual meeting at his naval observatory official residence

+13

Schwerin was also involved in the process of gifting Joe’s senate papers to the University of Delaware. A member of the VP’s office, Katherina Oyama, wrote to Schwerin in March 2010 detailing the restrictions Joe’s White House attorney was recommending over the public release of the papers

Hunter complained that ‘half’ of his salary went to paying his father’s bills while he was VP, casting doubt on Joe’s previous claims that he’s never benefited from his son’s business dealings.

In a 2019 text to his daughter Naomi, he wrote: ‘I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years.

‘It’s really hard. But don’t worry, unlike Pop [Joe], I won’t make you give me half your salary.’

Bills Hunter paid for Joe included a $190-a-month AT&T phone bill and thousands in repairs on the president’s lakeside home in Wilmington.

In a 2018 email to one of his own assistants, Hunter complained that he had been shut out of his own bank account and that his father had been using it.

‘Too many cooks in the kitchen. Too many profile changes and such. Happened 10 days ago too…

‘My dad has been using most lines on this account which I’ve through the gracious offerings of Eric have paid for past 11 years,’ he said.

Schwerin made repeated references to Joe and Hunter paying each other’s bills, in emails on Hunter’s laptop.

*** Hunter Biden blew tens of thousands on prostitutes, drugs ... source

Joe is proud of his son…

Then there is the China Connection….AGAIN

Source: Hunter Biden said his business relationship with a mysterious Chinese tycoon later arrested on money laundering charges had “everything to do with my last name,” previously unreported emails show.

Biden and his associates met in April 2010 with businessman Che Fung to lay the groundwork for a partnership to invest in companies in China and the United States, according to emails from Biden’s abandoned laptop. Other emails show the Biden consortium discussing a deal with Che’s company, Ever Union Capital, to invest up to $150 million in partnership with China’s sovereign wealth fund. In a Sept. 23, 2011, email to his partner Devon Archer, Biden admitted Che wanted to work with him because of his father, then-vice president Joe Biden.

The emails provide another example of the younger Biden using his family name to further his foreign business interests, undercutting Joe Biden’s claims to the contrary. Hunter Biden landed a high-paying position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings in 2014, just as his father was taking over the Obama administration’s Ukraine portfolio. Some of Biden’s associates recognized the importance of his family ties to their business deals. One Biden partner touted the “political and strategic value of the Biden family” during 2017 negotiations with a Chinese energy conglomerate.

Che’s fate raises the likelihood that Chinese authorities knew of Biden’s business dealings. Che, who is reported to be the son-in-law of a former chief of China’s central bank, was arrested on Feb. 2, 2015, on charges that he laundered $15 billion. According to one report, Che provided investigators with details of his business activity. It is unclear if he discussed his links to Biden, though the Chinese government would likely have been interested in details of his interactions with the son of an American vice president.

Republicans have asserted that Biden’s foreign business dealings created blackmail opportunities against the Biden family. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) said in a report last year that Biden’s partnerships presented “serious counterintelligence and extortion concerns.”

The Biden emails portray an air of mystery surrounding Che, who has been described in press reports as “shadowy and discreet.” Biden and his business partners referred to Che cryptically as “Super Chairman” and “Mr. Che.” His full name is mentioned in just one email from April 2010 that sets up an introductory lunch meeting in Washington, D.C., between the mogul and the Biden consortium. More here.