sounds like bidens doj wanted to cut down on conservative influencers while the dnc paid actual money to liberal influencers to promote them. So they cooked up a case that was so flimsy it couldn't go to court but they spread it to the news to smear them
Granted, the only evidence we have is the document from Biden's DOJ. So take that for what it's worth.
But I don't think Chen & her husband have completely clean hands here. Both Chen & Donovan, along with the 6 influencers, got blinded by greed because the financial terms offered were so good that they didn't bother to ask any questions where the source of it was.
I think it's still up for debate whether Chen & Donovan knew that they were getting involved & accepting Russian money from the start. The paperthin Belgian rogue billionaire financier shtick was laughable. Chen & Donovan got greedy that they were offered something like 800k/annually themselves to simply be the go-between the RW talent & the European financiers.
The DOJ documents though suggest that at least midway through Chen & Donovan knew the true identity of what they'd gotten themselves into. The DOJ has correspondence from Chen & Donovan callling their contacts "the Russians" when they were supposed to be corresponding with representatives of a Hungarian shell company.
The DOJ also had correspondence where their Russian contact specifically asked Chen/Donovan to cover a Moscow terrorist incident in a certain light, which they passed it along to Benny Johnson to cover the story. So they also did have some direct editorial input.
The legal case against them arises from all the stupid sanctions resulting from the 2022 Ukraine war. I'm not terribly bothered by breaking new globohomo warmongering edicts. And you are likely correct that there's not enough of a case to actually prosecute them, as it would've happened already before Trump took office.
But Chen & Donovan are at least guilty of greed and accepting questionable financing without disclosing that fact to their RW audience.
The civil forfeiture of their lifetime assets is complete BS though no matter your opinion on how guilty or foolish they were.
Unless there's evidence to the contrary, you 100% should assume that this was an entrapment operation. They are willing to kill people, so fabricating some Russian connection and funneling too-good-to-be-true funds to YouTubers for making videos they were making anyway is expected
Especially considering that different lawyers were involved by several parties before anything was signed to make sure everything appeared on the up and up.
Not to mention the named "Russians" have no contact information or verification as to their identities, making them unavailable for comment or deposition. Legally speaking, we don't even know if they are even REAL.
It's been a while, but IIRC the talk about "the Russians" was in respect to a couple of editors who were Russian but had nothing to do with the financing of Tenet.
sounds like bidens doj wanted to cut down on conservative influencers while the dnc paid actual money to liberal influencers to promote them. So they cooked up a case that was so flimsy it couldn't go to court but they spread it to the news to smear them
Granted, the only evidence we have is the document from Biden's DOJ. So take that for what it's worth.
But I don't think Chen & her husband have completely clean hands here. Both Chen & Donovan, along with the 6 influencers, got blinded by greed because the financial terms offered were so good that they didn't bother to ask any questions where the source of it was.
I think it's still up for debate whether Chen & Donovan knew that they were getting involved & accepting Russian money from the start. The paperthin Belgian rogue billionaire financier shtick was laughable. Chen & Donovan got greedy that they were offered something like 800k/annually themselves to simply be the go-between the RW talent & the European financiers.
The DOJ documents though suggest that at least midway through Chen & Donovan knew the true identity of what they'd gotten themselves into. The DOJ has correspondence from Chen & Donovan callling their contacts "the Russians" when they were supposed to be corresponding with representatives of a Hungarian shell company.
The DOJ also had correspondence where their Russian contact specifically asked Chen/Donovan to cover a Moscow terrorist incident in a certain light, which they passed it along to Benny Johnson to cover the story. So they also did have some direct editorial input.
The legal case against them arises from all the stupid sanctions resulting from the 2022 Ukraine war. I'm not terribly bothered by breaking new globohomo warmongering edicts. And you are likely correct that there's not enough of a case to actually prosecute them, as it would've happened already before Trump took office.
But Chen & Donovan are at least guilty of greed and accepting questionable financing without disclosing that fact to their RW audience.
The civil forfeiture of their lifetime assets is complete BS though no matter your opinion on how guilty or foolish they were.
The problem is how much can you trust Biden doj and what they say. At this point, for all we know it was an op
Unless there's evidence to the contrary, you 100% should assume that this was an entrapment operation. They are willing to kill people, so fabricating some Russian connection and funneling too-good-to-be-true funds to YouTubers for making videos they were making anyway is expected
Especially considering that different lawyers were involved by several parties before anything was signed to make sure everything appeared on the up and up.
Not to mention the named "Russians" have no contact information or verification as to their identities, making them unavailable for comment or deposition. Legally speaking, we don't even know if they are even REAL.
It's been a while, but IIRC the talk about "the Russians" was in respect to a couple of editors who were Russian but had nothing to do with the financing of Tenet.