[JustTheNews] The email records, released by the National Archives after a Freedom of Information lawsuit, show that then-Vice President Biden regularly conducted foreign policy business on his pseudonymous email account, hidden from public scrutiny.
It wasn’t just Hillary Clinton — clearly they all did it.
New email records released by the National Archives show then-Vice President Joe Biden was briefed about sensitive foreign policy matters by then-advisor Antony Blinken on his private email account, including details about a failed North Korean missile launch.
Joe Biden, now president, first faced scrutiny about potential private accounts after emails contained on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop showed the then-vice president in the Obama administration was using an email address with a pseudonym to communicate about business and official matters with his son, other family members, and senior staff.
One new email, part of several batches released by the National Archives pursuant to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit shows that in the hours following a North Korean missile launch in April 2012, Blinken—who was then Biden’s national security advisor—sent a message to the vice president’s private email account "robinware456@gmail.com" with details about the sensitive national security matter.
“Just in case you missed it, the North Korean rocket failed somewhere between the first and second stages,” Blinken wrote. “Will take some time to determine why.” The future Secretary of State signed the email message, “tony.”
You can read the email below:
The launch marked a provocative escalation during a time of leadership transition in the communist dictatorship as Kim Jong Un was assuming powers from his father, who had died the preceding December. One day after the email, North Korea confirmed that the rocket launch had indeed failed.
Blinken followed up on his first email two days later, presumably with more updates, but the contents of that communication were redacted by the National Archives under the “P5” exemption, which excludes information from FOIA requests that “would disclose confidential advice between the President and his advisors, or between such advisors,” under the Presidential Records Act.
The memos reviewed by Just the News are part of the several batches of communications released by the National Archives under pressure from a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the Southeastern Legal Foundation prompted by Just the News' reporting three years ago that revealed Biden used at least three different pseudonym private email accounts when he was Barack Obama’s vice president.
In a court filing last October, NARA disclosed that it had located 82,000 pages of emails Biden sent or received on three email accounts using fake names, dwarfing the number involved in the Hillary Clinton email scandal. The existence of the records suggests, however, that even though Biden was using private email addresses to conduct business, that they were preserved according to the mandates of federal law.
Yet, the sensitive nature of some of the contents, which included briefings on foreign policy issues by three consecutive national security advisors, raise concerns about the use of the more insecure private accounts.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
These series of emails was not the first time that Blinken contacted the then-vice president on his private account. In December 2011, the advisor reached out to Biden to inform him of a Principals Committee meeting about Iraq.
“Main purpose is to discuss OSC way forward. Also update on political situation,” Blinken wrote, in an apparent reference to the Office of Security Cooperation-Iraq, which was formed earlier that month.
“Pls let me know whether you want to attend. I will be there regardless,” he continued.
“I’ll be there,” Biden replied.
Just the News previously identified another email from the release which Blinken sent to Biden about the geopolitical dynamics of Iraq.
“Mosul -- is due west of Erbil BUT in Iraq proper, NOT in the KRG. It's just west of the green line on the Iraq side,” Blinken wrote offering the vice president some geographic context.
A short while later, Blinken added some sensitive observations about possible violence.
“Further to this – there are parts of Nineveh Province that are disputed and a very small piece of Mosul itself, but the Kurds make no claim to the city as an entity. Lots of oil though, so could become a flash point,” Blinken wrote. After Blinken left Biden’s office and moved to the State Department in early 2013, his successor Jake Sullivan continued to use the private email account to brief the vice president, the records show.
For example, in one June 2013 email Sullivan appears to have briefed Biden on a situation regarding India, however, the contents of the communication were fully redacted by the Archives under the same P5 exemption.
The following month, Biden’s assistant Fran Person forwarded draft remarks from Sullivan that the vice president was set to deliver at the opening session of the US-China Strategic & Economic Dialogue, which took place in Washington, D.C., on July 10, 2013.
You can read those emails below:
The emails also show that Biden frequently used the email to communicate with his family members, sometimes about business. On some occasions, Joe Biden would send information to the government emails of his White House staff from his private email account and include his sons Hunter and Beau and his brother James Biden, Just the News previously reported. For his part, Biden has consistently denied having any knowledge or involvement with Hunter's business dealings.
For instance, on Oct. 19, 2010, the then-vice president sent an article from The New York Times about planned House GOP budget cuts to a half dozen of his top staff, including then-Chief of Staff Ron Klain and spokesman Jay Carney. He included both of his sons, Hunter Biden and the late Beau Biden, as well as his younger brother James. Neither his sons or his brother had any official capacity to act or advise upon those proposed budget cuts.
Any use of private email for official business by government officials is discouraged under the law and the Federal Records Act requires them to preserve all government-related communications conducted on private accounts.
The fact that NARA has such a large collection of Biden’s emails suggests the vice president complied. However, the scathing 2019 State Department review of Hillary Clinton's misuse of personal email found highlighted other security vulnerabilities in using a private account.
"The use of a private email system to conduct official business added an increased degree of risk of compromise as a private system lacks the network monitoring and intrusion detection capabilities of State Department networks," the final report noted.
[FoxBusiness] American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce says California has set up 'cartel' to push electric trucks.
A conservative pro-business group and Midwest trucking operators say California regulators have illegally sidestepped federal law to force a transition to electric trucks.
The American Free Enterprise Chamber of Commerce (AmFree) and trucking operators allege in a new lawsuit that California has created a cartel arrangement with the nation's largest heavy-duty truck companies to phase out internal-combustion engines by 2036. The alleged scheme involves the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and all major manufacturers of gas-powered heavy-duty trucks that entered into an agreement called the Clean Truck Partnership last year.
"The agreement bakes into it a number of rules that California has been trying to get in place that will mandate the complete electrification of the trucking sector in just over a decade," said Michael Buschbacher, lead attorney for AmFee.
While most states are prohibited from setting their own motor vehicle emissions standards, California has exclusive permission to do so under the Clean Air Act of 1967, so long as their rules are approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. But AmFree alleges California has unlawfully attempted to enforce emissions standards without a green light from the EPA.
"If you don't have permission from EPA, you can't even attempt to enforce those [kinds] of standards. These are standards for emissions for new motor vehicles. And that's what this agreement is about. And our argument is that that's illegal, and it has to stop," said Buschbacher.
CARB did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The complaint states that climate regulators in California have produced "a typhoon of coercive and disruptive regulations" intended to meet Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom's goal of having all heavy-duty vehicles in the Golden State be "zero-emission" by 2045.
But in July 2023, California offered major truck manufacturers temporary regulatory relief in exchange for commitments to adopt vehicle standards "that will require the sale and adoption of zero-emissions technology in the state, regardless of whether any other entity challenges California's authority to set more stringent emissions standards under the federal Clean Air Act," according to CARB.
This agreement, which gave truck manufacturers "reasonable lead time" to comply with California emissions standards, is known as the Clean Truck Partnership. Manufacturers that were party to the agreement and are named in the lawsuit include Cummins Inc., Daimler Truck North America, Ford, General Motors, Hino Motors Limited Inc., Isuzu Technical Center of America Inc., Navistar, Paccar, Stellantis N.V., Volvo Group North America and the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association, an industry trade group.
"In return for recognizing CARB’s suzerainty, however, manufacturers have obtained a cozy cartel arrangement that ensures them a steady stream of supra-competitive profits, subsidies, and tax credits," the lawsuit alleges.
"By acting in lockstep as an industry, this arrangement ensures that the costs will not be borne by the manufacturers but will be passed downstream to their customers and then to the rest of the country."
Two trucking companies, Meiborg Brothers Inc. and TanTara Transportation Corp., provided declarations for AmFree's lawsuit, claiming harm from California's actions.
The companies say some manufacturers are now requiring them to purchase one electric truck for every seven to eight diesel trucks they purchase or face higher prices. In court documents, the operators allege they will lose access to nearly a quarter of U.S. truck dealers once California and other states that adopt California standards phase out diesel trucks.
They also argue that electric trucks cost more upfront and have higher maintenance and resale costs, which cannot be fully passed on to consumers.
"The consequences here are they're going to drive up costs and reduce consumer choice," Buschbacher said.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
12/17/2024 8:34 Comments ||
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#2
California DOT has been really hard on OTR truckers historically, so I'm wondering if CARB and the DOT even spoke to each other about this little gem.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
12/17/2024 9:45 Comments ||
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#3
Here’s a crazy idea: what if the truck mfgrs just said no? Is CA that big of market? And owner operators should just keep their current rigs running, long enough to move out of state.
Already truckers are picking and choosing which runs to make; rejecting those which involve states they deem hostile.
[FoxNews] Judge Juan Merchan on Monday rejected Trump attorneys' request to dismiss charges brought against him by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on the basis of presidential immunity.
The ruling comes after President-elect Trump and his team in July requested Merchan overturn his guilty verdict in New York v. Trump, citing the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that presidents have immunity for official acts.
Merchan ruled that the evidence presented in the trial was related "entirely to unofficial conduct and thus, receive no immunity protections."
"Further, even if this Court were to deem all of the contested evidence, both preserved and unpreserved, as official conduct falling within the outer perimeter of Defendant’s Presidential authority, it would still find that the People’s use of these acts as evidence of the decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the Executive Branch, a conclusion amply supported by non-motive-related evidence," Merchan writes.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
