The Romanian Connection
The bizarre Hunter saga we never hear about
The hardest part of the the Hunter Biden saga is keeping it all straight. The man seems to have been involved in so much skullduggery…. He was like a coked-up Ernst Blofeld.
But one of the story lines you don’t hear much about is the “Romanian Connection.” It’s one The Ops Desk has raised before.
The short version: A Romanian scammer named Gabriel Popoviciu faced bribery charges in Romania. Popoviciu then contacted Hunter — at the time, the Vice President’s son — to attempt to influence the case.
So Hunter brought in former FBI head Louis Freeh — an old Biden family friend — in order for Freeh to use his law enforcement contacts on Popoviciu’s behalf.
The former head of the FBI. To influence a bribery prosecution. On behalf of the Vice-President’s son. In Romania.
(former FBI Director and close Biden family associate, Louis Freeh) (via wikipedia)
Using the newly named American ambassador to Romania, the Hunter/ Freeh team attempted to reach out to the Romanian prosecutors — who (wisely) rebuffed them.
At which point Louis Freeh wrote an email in which he laid out plans to 'intervene with the special Romanian anti-corruption prosecutor' and to launch a propaganda campaign in the U.S, using The Wall Street Journal.
To that end, Freeh then involved the then-current FBI leadership in this caper (how involved FBI personnel became is unclear — but is certainly something rife for investigation).
In the end, none of this worked — Popoviciu was convicted in Romania (when officials turned up to arrest him, he’d fled, only to be captured later in London).
Freeh’s group was reportedly paid $3 million by Popoviciu for these capers.
And as a "referral fee,” Freeh sent $100,000 to a private trust for Joe's grandchildren.
A hundred grand, from the former head of the FBI, to a trust fund for Joe Biden’s grandchildren.
Sounds legit to me!
Now comes word that one of the attorneys who signed off on Hunter’s sweetheart plea deal had worked for none other than… Louis Freeh.
Which to my mind, makes Louis Freeh the Tom Hagen of this wonderful family.
Isn’t it time Mr. Freeh had a date with Congress?
Buh-Bye, NYPD
Now comes word that the geniuses in New York’s City Council will pass another round of “sweeping measures” — read “anti-cop” — to reform NYPD’s procedures for interacting with the public. Let’s just deal with the most ludicrous:
In sum: ANY self-initiated conversations between cops and members of the public must now be memorialized with paperwork.
You read that right.
Under New York’s highly regimented procedures for talking to the public — which come out of a case known as People v. DeBour — there are four scenarios under which police are empowered to talk to fellow citizens.
The lowest level scenario is known simply as, “Objective Credible Reason to Approach.”
Again — you read that right. Not to detain. Not to arrest. Not even to interrogate.
To approach.
So now, at a crime scene, patrol officers who simply wish to ask a neighbor, “Did you see what happened?” will be required to fill out new paperwork.
A cop who wishes to ask a store owner, “How’s it going? The shoplifters been hitting you lately?” — the same.
And so on.
If the utterly oblivious members of the City Council think the cops are going to spend all day typing paperwork for every conversation they have….
Really, this is just a measure to hang the cops when “the system” wants to. Once in-place, a review of bodycam footage will allow all the police oversight entities (there are at least a half-dozen) to exclaim, “Ah-hah! You didn’t memorialize your (perfectly inconsequential) conversation with witness number six!”
What happened to “community policing”? To “getting to know the public you serve”?
If this boondoggle passes (it needs to be signed by Mayor Adams now), New York is probably about two years away from becoming Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Chicago.
And yes — San Francisco.
It’s Just Part Of The Trend.…
In addition to the above, let’s just list what the good-hearted within the criminal justice system now face in NewYork when trying to do their jobs:
Bail Reform: Which essentially mandates that nobody beyond violent felons ever sees any jail time.
Discovery Reform: Which undermines the ability of prosecutors and detectives to prosecute a case, due to impossible time constraints to provide evidence.
Raise the Age: Which raised New York’s age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18.
The Less Is More Act: Which eliminated any punishment for parolees who simply ignore mandated parole meetings.
The Clean Slate Act: Not yet signed into law, but certainly headed that way, this bill wipes clean the criminal history of convicts three years after misdemeanors, eight years after felonies. As most felony arrests get pled down to misdemeanors… you get the picture.
The “Diaphragm” Law: Another de Blasio/City Council debacle, this created a misdemeanor charge for a cop who restricts an arrestee’s breathing “in any way.”
And with the closing of the Rikers Island jail on the way — after which New York will have to go down 40% in detainees from where we are now — well, the future here ain’t what it used to be.
So Is It Buh-Bye, New York?
There is a breed of journalist — likely, one that owns an apartment here — who disputes the suggestion of New York’s deterioration.
Here, novelist Kevin Baker writes for the far-left Guardian how the “Murdoch press and sensationalist TV news programmes have trumpeted any uptick in crime or social disorder….”
It’s a piece rife with interpretive and factual errors (the “police’s wildly unconstitutional “stop and frisk” programme” was never, actually, found to be unconstitutional — the de Blasio administration dropped the case after the city’s appeal had in fact succeeded. Do your research, pal).
From the other end of the spectrum, NY Post curmudgeon Steve Cuozzo takes issue with some of the “urban doom loop” prognostications coming out of the real estate industry. He also makes adept use of NYPD Compstat numbers.
Cuozzo’s take is also too optimistic, but is way more accurate — in essence, he writes that while crime is rising relative to recent years, the real problem is “an ever-increasing street disorder that might not kill but threatens us in other ways — lawless cyclists, open-air drug use, unchecked shoplifting, and raving maniacs who might or might not come at us with knives.”
Cuozzo gets that right — and shows the difference between a real New Yorker and a Massachusetts dilettante.
Alec Baldwin and Hunter — Guilty Until Proven Wealthy
If there has been a bigger recent miscarriage of justice than the pending Hunter plea deal, it may be that Alec Baldwin completely walked.
Now comes news that the husband of victim Halyna Hutchins has been added as Executive Producer on the very show the victim was working on when Baldwin shot her.
Sounds perfectly legit!
Alec is not totally out of the woods, however. The rest of Hutchins family — her parents and sister — has filed a separate suit against him.
Interestingly, Halyna was Ukrainian, and her parents and sister are still in Ukraine — where her mother works as a nurse treating war wounded, and her sister’s husband fights with the Ukrainian army.
Gloria Allred has the case for the plaintiffs… not good news for Alec.
The case was terribly botched from the get-go, with the lead investigator quitting due to the incompetence of the investigation. The lead prosecutor also quit.
Meanwhile, news comes now that the on-set weapons supervisor may have been hungover or on drugs — she’s just been hit with a narcotics charge.
This, on a set for which Alec was Executive Producer (and which he therefore bears legal responsibility for).
Maybe this guy should just stay in the house with his fake mamacita and change diapers.
And finally….
“[He is] a courageous man who has become a symbol of a struggle for principles, for spiritual and moral foundations of today’s Russia.” Hmm. For a minute I thought this was an American media outlet commenting on Hunter.