Part 1: The New Era Of McCarthyism – Smearing Joe Biden With Unsubstantiated Innuendo And Lies

While most Americans came to their senses and eventually rejected the “red scare” tactics of Sen Joseph McCarthy and his sidekick lawyer Roy Cohn, many Republicans to this day still embrace Joseph McCarthy as a hero and a role model.

Smearing people with unsubstantiated innuendo and lies has remained a Republican tactic ever since the McCarthyism era.

A new era of McCarthyism has taken root in the GQP (no doubt because of Donald Trump’s affinity for Roy Cohn, who was also his lawyer and fixer – before he was disbarred). The new era of McCarthyism has to do with smearing President Joe Biden with an old allegation of Joe Biden taking bribes from Burisma in Ukraine to protect his ne’er-do-well son, Hunter Biden.

This is an unsubstantiated “tip” previously investigated by Donald Trump’s Department of Justice and Senate Republicans in 2020. Despite their best efforts these investigations turned up bupkis.

The Missing Informant

But wait! There is a new (old) “informant” with an unsubstantiated “tip” about tapes of Joe Biden taking bribes from Burisma.

Back in May, Republican Admits Key ‘Informant’ Against Joe Biden Now Missing:

Representative James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, admitted on Sunday that his fellow Republicans lost track of a key witness in an investigation about the Biden family being involved in an alleged bribery scheme.

On Wednesday, House Oversight Committee Republicans released a 36-page memo accusing members of the Biden family of earning millions of dollars during Joe Biden‘s term as vice president under former President Barack Obama from a number of Chinese and Romanian companies they claim posed “potential threats” to the United States.

The memo, a copy of which was obtained by Newsweek, includes redacted images of transactions involving a number of bank accounts purportedly belonging to members of the Biden family. It outlines a network of secretive bank accounts connected not only to Biden’s son, Hunter, but to a number of other family members, all of whom Comer, the committee’s chairman, accused of using Biden’s position to curry favor with foreign governments and peddle influence on U.S. foreign policy.

The documents released Wednesday provide no evidence that President Biden was ever directly involved in the alleged schemes—or even if the payments in question resulted in tangible impact on U.S. policy.

[T]he Kentucky Republican and Senator Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, wrote in a letter sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland earlier this month that they received [unsubstantiated] “legally protected and ‘highly credible’ unclassified” information from the whistleblower. They also wrote that the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI would have enough information to determine the accuracy and the credibility of the information in the document.

Meanwhile, Fox News host Maria Bartiromo asked Comer during an interview on Sunday Morning Futures about the current whereabouts of the informant.

“Well, unfortunately, we can’t track down the informant,” Comer responded on Sunday. “We’re hopeful that the informant is still there. The whistleblower knows the informant. The whistleblower is very credible.”

He continued: “The nine of the 10 people that we’ve identified have very good knowledge with respect to the Bidens. They’re one of three things, Maria, they’re either currently in court, they’re currently in jail, or they’re currently missing. [So not credible.] So it’s of the utmost importance that the FBI work with us to be able to try to identify what research they’ve done, what investigations they’ve done, because we have people that want to come forward, but honestly, they fear for their lives.” [Hype.]

And this:

Hannity: Have you had any contact with him? 

Comer: Unfortunately, nobody's had any contact with him for the last three years. pic.twitter.com/m1TmpgCvhK

— Acyn (@Acyn) June 16, 2023

After Comer’s clown show performances on FOX, a Bipartisan group calls for investigation into Comer’s remarks about missing whistleblower:

A bipartisan organization is calling for an investigation into Rep. James Comer’s (R-Ky.) comments about a missing whistleblower connected to the House GOP’s ongoing investigation of President Biden and his family.

“The House Republican Conference is on notice that a key member of their slim majority has likely engaged in criminal activity and may well soon be a convicted felon,” the group wrote in the letter. “Not only has the Republican leadership failed to oust known fabulist George Santos, it appears that they are now mimicking his behavior. We write to you regarding that conduct.”

The organization, Facts First USA, sent a letter to U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves asking him to investigate Comer, who the group says is likely lying about having an informant related to the GOP investigation into the Biden family. The group said that if he is lying, he could be in violation of federal law.

“Representative James Comer recently revealed that the ‘informant’ he is relying on for his unsubstantiated allegations against President Biden cannot be located,” the group wrote. “In truth, there is a strong possibility that the ‘informant’ that Representative Comer has been speaking about does not exist. This would explain why Representative Comer never produces the evidence he says demonstrates criminal conduct on the part of the Biden family.”

The same Chuck Grassley who says he hadn’t read the Trump indictment because he’s ‘not a legal analyst.’ https://t.co/1QjSQilehj

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) June 13, 2023

Tapes? What Tapes

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the oldest member of the Senate, and one of its long-time partisan hack clowns, now admits that he does not know if any tapes actually exist, “but I’m going to continue to smear Joe Biden with unsubstantiated innuendo anyway, because that’s just the kind of asshole I am.”

The Daily Beast reports, Republicans Admit They ‘Don’t Know’ if Biden Bribery Tapes ‘Really Exist’:

In recent weeks, and especially since former President Donald Trump was arraigned on federal charges of willfully mishandling classified documents, Republicans and right-wing media have been running wild with unsubstantiated claims about a foreign bribery scheme involving President Joe Biden.

The story really grew legs in the conservative media ecosphere this week when Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) hyped up the potential existence of “audio tapes” proving Biden accepted a $5 million bribe from a Ukrainian energy company while he was vice president. Citing an FD-1023, an FBI document memorializing a tip from a confidential source, Grassley noted that a source told the feds in 2020 that a Burisma executive claimed to be in possession of 17 recordings of Biden and his son Hunter discussing the criminal scheme.

“According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden,” Grassley said from the Senate floor on Monday. “These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden.”

He added: “So, as I’ve repeatedly asked since going public with the existence of the 1023, what, if anything, has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?”

Yet, while top GOP lawmakers have breathlessly promoted these purported tapes as an absolute bombshell proving the corruption of the president and his family, they’ve simultaneously acknowledged that these recordings may not exist at all and could be “just a bluff.” [You mean “a lie”.]

At the same time, despite his colleagues being forced to admit there may not be any recordings, Grassley has expressed hope that Trump is proud of him for pushing so hard for a Biden probe. “Well I hope he thinks I’m doing good work,” Grassley said on a conservative podcast on Wednesday. “I’d like to have him think that of my oversight work.” [Chuck Grassley has always ben a piece of shit, a disgrace and an embarrassment to the Senate.]

However, Grassley also told Fox News earlier this month that “it’s not for me to make a judgment about whether these accusations are accurate or not,” adding that it’s his “job to make sure the FBI is doing their job.”

Meanwhile, during an appearance on the right-wing talk radio show Conservative Circus, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) was asked by the host whether or not the FBI ever “bothered to listen to the tapes,” prompting Johnson to point out that this was secondhand information given to the bureau.

“Well again, we don’t know really if the tapes exist, we just don’t know that, whether this was just a bluff on the part of whoever the executive was,” the Wisconsin lawmaker said on Wednesday.

This followed up a Tuesday interview on the Vicki McKenna Show in which Johnson simultaneously claimed, “We know the Biden family is corrupt” and that there may not be any tapes at all.

“Well, first of all, we don’t know it exists. I don’t know the FBI has that,” Johnson said after host Vicki McKenna asked, “When are we going to hear” the tapes? “All we know is what’s on that 1023 [an unsubstantiated tip sheet]. This is a confidential human source who told them that his source, we believe it’s [Mykola] Zlochevsky, the CEO of Burisma who is trying to rehabilitate himself, we believe he is the guy who is claimed to have made recordings. Again it’s a claim. It’s an allegation. We don’t know if they really exist or not.”

Some Republicans have suggested that Zlochevsky is the foreign national who spoke with the FBI source about the bribery claims and supposed audio tapes.

Rudy Giuliani Still Pursuing His Ukraine Scandal Mongering

Notably, the FD-1023 at the center of these latest allegations appeared to be an attempt by ex-Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to rehash the wild Ukrainian goose chase that led to Trump’s first impeachment. Additionally, while Giuliani tried to get Zlochevsky to assist in his dirt-digging operation against the Bidens in 2019, the Burisma founder only affirmed to the former New York City mayor that he never had any conversations with Joe Biden. [So there could not be any taped conversations].

“No one from Burisma ever had any contacts with VP Biden or people working for him during Hunter Biden’s engagement,” Zlochevsky reportedly said at the time, ultimately leaving Giuliani unsatisfied.

Other top Republicans have also followed Johnson’s lead in acknowledging that there could be no recordings while speaking to credulous right-wing media figures hoping this is the smoking gun leading to Biden’s impeachment.

“We don’t know for sure if these tapes exist,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman “Gym” Jordan (R-OH) told radio host Chris Salcedo on Tuesday.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY), who has been the driving force behind the Biden investigations, also admitted on Tuesday that “we don’t know if they are legit or not.”

Comer, of course, threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress if he didn’t make the FD-1023 available to the public. In the end, Comer withdrew his complaint after the FBI allowed members of Congress to securely view the document.

Ultimately, despite the over-the-top claims made by Republicans about the FBI source’s 2020 tip, multiple mainstream media outlets [the Reality-Based Community] have reported that the allegations were initially investigated and Trump’s own DOJ was unable to substantiate the accusations.

“The Trump Justice Department investigated the allegation, which involved his son Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine, in 2020, but prosecutors could not substantiate the claims, according to two people familiar with the matter,” TheNew York Times reported this month.

And as others have rightly noted, GOP lawmakers are engaging in the same behavior that they criticized Democrats and liberals of allegedly doing with the Steele dossier, which is credulously elevating sketchy claims made by foreign nationals through paid FBI informants.

Part 2: Fact Checking the GQP’s McCarthyism smear of Joe Biden.