– Examining the Hur Report

We met at nine, we met at eight, I was on time, no, you were late Ah, yes, I remember it well…Maurice Chavalier, Hermione Gingold, I Remember It Well

The classic duet quoted above is charming, as a woman continually corrects the faulty memory of her lover with tenderness and affection. But less than charming is the declining mental health of President Joe Biden, which is obvious to anyone with eyes to see him fall, and ears to hear him shout in anger and forget what he was saying. Obvious, that is – unless you’re a Democrat.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (called) Biden “sharp”, according to NBC News. “’The most difficult part about a meeting with President Biden is preparing for it because he is sharp, intensely probing and detail-oriented and focused,’ Mayorkas told Meet the Press.” The Hill reports these comments from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; “I’ve worked with the president for a long time…and he knows … I mean, he’s always on the ball…[a]nyone who would think that they’re at some advantage because of his age thinks that at their peril, because he’s very sharp.”

Then there are the assessments of Biden’s allies in Congress; “Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, told DailyMail.com that Biden ‘is as sharp as ever.’ ‘The president is doing an incredible job, and I look forward to making sure he gets re-elected in 2024,’ Sen. RaphaelWarnock, D-Ga., added. Another Democrat ElizabethWarren agreed, saying said. ‘I know his ability to do the job because he is doing the job. He is delivering every single day for the American people.’ ”

While Warnock and Warren do not directly address Biden’s mental abilities in their comments, the implication is the same as the more direct statements of Mayorkas, Pelosi and Blumenthal – don’t believe your lying eyes!

Meanwhile, the American public displays increasing recognition that the Emperor has no clothes. “Three-quarters of voters, including half of Democrats, say they have concerns about President Joe Biden’s mental and physical health, according to the latest national NBC News poll... [i]n the new poll, a combined 76% of voters say they have major concerns (62%) or moderate concerns (14%) about Biden’s not having the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term…[b]y party, 95% of Republican voters, 81% of independents and 54% of Democrats say they have major or moderate concerns about Biden’s fitness for a second term.”

As if these poll results were not bad enough news for Biden, along comes the long-anticipated report from Special Prosecutor Robert Hur to throw gasoline on the fire.

You may recall from our article published at usagovpolicy.com in January of 2023, Biden’s Garage of Secrets, not long after the raid on Mar a Lago and the FBI’s seizure of classified documents from the home of former President Donald Trump, current President Biden’s attorney’s revealed that classified documents were also recovered from Joe Biden’s Wilmington, DE home and the Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania. These documents dated back to the time before Biden was President, some dating back to his time as a Senator.

As we describe in Chapter 4 of my new book, The Making of a Martyr: An Analysis of the Indictments of Donald Trump, “On January 12, 2023, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Special Counsel Robert Hur, to investigate ‘the possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records discovered at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement and the Wilmington, Delaware, private residence of President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’ Hur is the former US Attorney for Maryland, and according to the Associated Press, ‘Hur was principal associate attorney general under (Rod) Rosenstein at the Justice Department. Hur is also a former partner at the Washington law firm King & Spalding, where FBI Director Christopher Wray was once also a partner.’

We also noted that “[i]t wasn’t until October of 2023 that Hur interviewed the current President in person, a move which PBS believes ‘could signal that the special counsel investigation is nearing its conclusion.’In fact, according to former federal prosecutor Jonathan Turley, ‘[u]nlike his counterpart, Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has been aggressively prosecuting former president Donald Trump, Hur has virtually disappeared since his appointment to investigate President Joe Biden.'”

Judge Wilson’s (ret.) Report concludes tomorrow

Quick Analysis

Putin’s Saber Rattling

Earlier this week, President Biden reversed his 2022 decision, authorizing the provision of antipersonnel land mines to the Ukrainian government. It follows an earlier Administration authorization to allow the use of an advanced American missile system capable of striking as deep as 100 miles inside Russian territory. The US election season may be ending, but both Russia and the West show no indication of stepping down the conflict. Russian propaganda continues to swell as the Kremlin increases its threats to use nuclear weapons against the West. Last week Andrey Sushentsov, program director of the pro-Kremlin think tank Valdai Discussion Club (VDC), published an article on growing nuclear tensions in the region. Official Russian language in the last few years has been threatening. Since the US election, rhetoric like that in the Sushentsov article, has approached the level of nuclear blackmail. The VDC article’s main theme centers on Russia’s intent to directly confront the West militarily if the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) becomes involved in Russia’s conflict with Ukraine. “On the one hand, these threats are intended to frighten the West, but on the other, Russian propagandists themselves are starting to believe in the inevitability of escalation,” according to Ksenia Kirillova of the Jamestown Foundation. On November 11, Sushentsov wrote that “The conflict will reach a completely new level, with unpredictable consequences for Europe and the entire world.” Kirillova points out that Putin’s distorted image of the world is divorced from reality and is causing the Kremlin to issue demands that are impossible to fulfill. Financial and other Russian resources needed to support Putin’s war are growing scarcer at the same time. This week the Kremlin announced a reduction of payments to its soldiers. Recently North Korea acknowledged it was sending soldiers to fight in Ukraine as Putin is running out of bodies to use as cannon fire. The war is not going well for Russia. One question floating around the Washington intelligence community is whether Putin will act out of desperation before President-elect Trump assumes office. In recent months the Russian propaganda machine is spewing out materials from fairly reputable analytical platforms inside the country. Kirillova says that “Kremlin ‘experts’ do not conceal that such threats are only intended to break the West psychologically, as they themselves are not prepared for full-scale nuclear war.” Despite Russia’s lack of preparation for an all-out war with the West, the expanding nuclear rhetoric carries with it an increase in the threat of a full-scale war in multiple theaters of operation. In June 2023 a founder of the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Sergey Karaganov, called for “delivering a pre-emptive strike of retaliation” on Poland to force the West to surrender. In the previous month, Dmitry Suslov, a direct of research programs at the policy center proposed organizing “a demonstration nuclear explosion” aimed at intimidating the West. In September, President Putin announced a reappraisal of Russian nuclear doctrine after speaking earlier in the year at the plenary session of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum and jokingly calling Suslov a “scary person.” Pavel Baev, writing in the European Daily Monitor, says “Putin intends his announcement to mark an escalation of nuclear brinkmanship and influence the proceedings of future Ukrainian peace efforts.” Putin is expanding the list of environmental conditions that are acceptable for using a nuclear weapon and incorporating it into Russian military doctrine. Baev adds that “The ups and downs of Russian brinkmanship are disconnected from the kinetic battles of the war, correlating instead with Ukrainian peace offensives, such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s first peace summit in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.” Despite the increase in vitriolic language, in a You Tube video published a week before the US presidential election, Karaganov openly assured the West the primary goal of the escalation is to break the American spirit and that of the West, not outright nuclear war. By Election Day in the US, with political prognosticators predicting a win for former president Trump, Karaganov changed his tune and called for an increased role in nuclear deterrence. Kirillova points out that Western concessions to Russia are unlikely to reduce the risk of nuclear escalation. The distorted reality inside the Kremlin continues to push that President-elect Trump is an adherent of “world government,” that Ukraine will create a nuclear weapon, and Russia must prepare for a nuclear conflagration to achieve its ambitions for a new world order. President-elect Trump has indicated he will not agree to concessions that destabilize Europe, the Middle East or other regions. Going forward a strong US foreign policy may be the most stabilizing course the West can count on to restrain Putin and his intent to rebuild the Russian empire. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept. Illustration: Pixabay

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