Jared Kushner Hacked Phone Reveals Secret Negotiations, Millions in Transactions
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I slightly know how this all works, and I still love HN. In any case, I hope everyone who flagged this [0] feels better now after squelching the discussion. It was already pushed far off the frontpage and it was only on /active. I guess that wasn't enough. The crazy thing is that I bet we would all get along over beers, vodka, or tea.
[0] доброе утро
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBG3Gdt5OGs
Please note that this anti-Putin/anit-imperialist Russian language music video has >185M views just on YouTube.
This Russian language 2-piece band has Mr. Beast level views while being banned in Putin's Russia. Don't believe their dictator's weak af propaganda. Russians also yearn to be free.
Russia's dictator is so weak that he just had to ask the USA for help, openly. The entire Russian imperialist mirage is crumbling.
If we can get our shit together in the EU, Russia will finally join us as a modern country. The biggest beneficiary of this will be the Russian people, well aside from all the Ukrainians their old system is currently murdering.
Only a couple generations ago, all of us in the EU were killing each other by the millions. We did better, and so can they.
More recently:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqohApD6Ng8 - 69M views, the prediction of the full scale invasion of Ukraine in hardcore music video form
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCljI3cIObU - 24M views, today in Ukraine :'(
Turn CC=on for all of these videos. The translation is perfect.
My entire point with this wall of text comment is that we need to stop buying imperialist Russia's extremely effective, yet paper-thin propaganda. If we stop buying this bullshit, it will free Russia and thereby stop their slaughter of Ukraine.
I call bullshit. Stop buying Putin's propaganda. Take away the fragile imperialist leadership, and Russians are just as normal as the rest of us. You probably work with some very nice and smart Russians. Take away RT, and they would be even nicer :)
Every single EU country was just as bad as today's imperialist Russia at one point. Then, each of us lost our final imperial war, we each sent our imperialist/authoritarian moron leaders off to the scrap heap of history... and we all became normal countries.
Russia losing their final imperial war, aka the insane invasion of Ukraine, is what they need to finally lose. The only way to make this happen is for the EU to support Ukraine more than ever. This is what will finally give not only Ukraine peace, but all of us peace: especially the Russian people. (see the first song above from 7yrs ago "Death no more", with >157M views!)
The reason that I am posting extremely popular Russian songs is that the second to last authoritarian leader in the EU to be deposed was in Portugal, via Fado songs being played on the radio. "The Carnation Revolution" - one of the most beautiful events in European history.
> "E Depois do Adeus" was aired by the Emissores Associados de Lisboa at 22:55, on 24 April 1974. "Grândola, Vila Morena" was afterwards aired by Rádio Renascença, at 00:20 on 25 April 1974. None of the radio hosts involved were aware that there was a plan for a coup d'état.
> After the broadcasts, strategic points in Portugal were occupied by the MFA troops. The military coup operation was successful and resulted in the Carnation Revolution, which overthrew the dictatorship of the Estado Novo regime and marked the beginning of the transition to democracy in Portugal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gr%C3%A2ndola,_Vila_Morena
Portugal deposing their dictator in 1974 heavily influenced the end of the final dictatorship in Europe, in Spain one year later. Ffs, Spain only ratified their democratic constitution in 1978! As the EU, we need to stop being all high and mighty about "Russians cannot learn democracy." We just barely learned it ourselves.
I'm not one of those, for the fact is that tech and politics has become more intertwined. It is becoming increasingly difficult to talk about the companies, founders, products of top tech companies without acknowledging that the very same things are entangled in the political landscape.
But, it is an explanation as to why people just flag these sort of posts. It's "too political" for their taste.
(But I never flag those posts.)
But frankly I’m calling bullshit on the “sensitive ears” explanation. There seems to be a focus on flagging articles that have discussions critical of the tech-billionaire/MAGA nexus. Also some of the loudest voices rallying to the defense of said nexus are accounts only a few months old with an unusually large amount of karma for the age of the account.
"The prophecies foretold!"
(Aside, I just finished reading the mistborn trilogy)
At the same time it's the left-wing population that is in under increasing pressure to arm themselves if they want to save the republic from a perceived right-wing tyrant.
I guess what was once a must to ban, will be once again a must to own - until the struggle is won and the need to secure the new government from the people's wrath overrules the need for the people to overthrow the unjust government.
Every opposition needs cannon fodder, which will fight and die for the opposition to become the new government.
Most of us are trying to make a better society for ourselves and our families, so there's a lot more that we unify over rather than disagree on.
The power structures don't want us to unify though, because that would be threatening.
That’s not to dispute nepotism, but he isn’t acting as a private citizen. As the article notes, being a government representative actually makes him formally subject to additional accountability rules.
No. Kushner in this second term, unlike in the first, isn't a government official of any sort. He is now purely a private citizen which the government itself has argued this month when a watchdog group sued Kushner exactly because he's exercising authority of diplomats and ambassadors, which requires approval by the U.S Senate which he hasn't got and which would indeed subject him to ethics rules.
https://apnews.com/article/jared-kushner-crew-lawsuit-trump-...
Ask HN: Weird archive.today behavior? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46624740 (9 months ago, 140 points, 71 comments)
Actually, I’m passing judgement right now, but not on this being some kind of partial expose.
[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/713933/record-high-say-governme...
If history is any example we already know congress won't do much unless it involves spending money. We saw that with the republicans expanding ICE funding instead of making careful country wide immigration reforms in collaboration with state governments who are needed for proper enforcement. Most likely if/when the democrats win we'll see them fund a new flashy anti-corruption agency, which gets added on top of the other 400+ federal agencies who already have multiple overlapping responsibilities.
And that doesn't work all that well if SCOTUS and POTUS work to just nullify said policy, as they did with things like the Voting Rights Act, the Clean Air Act, etc.
See, for example, Biden's attempt to forgive student loans (despite legislation permitting it) versus Trump's green light to try and wipe out the entire (Congressionally established) agency.
Best way to avoid this is having a competent congress, one that actually responds to public concerns so it's not forced upon the president. Which is always the root cause of all of this bad policy from the WH getting shut down by courts or risky incomplete policy being ignored by the courts for the greater good (like abortion rights never becoming a hard law through congress).
And to give equal time to the Dems: I believe that Dem leadership is fully corrupt as well, albeit in a more genteel fashion: they cater to the needs of the corporate elite, the moneyed class, etc and will never betray them by actively supporting worker's rights. I think most Dem pols are less corrupt, but the need for bribery, oops, I mean campaign financing, forces them into the difficult choice of staying in office or hewing to their values.
I am trying to remind myself of this, first and foremost.
Having grown up under Soviet occupation - where epistemic nihilism was weaponized - I was taught to try to do better since kindergarten, but this learning happened only at home. I recall my mom trying to deprogram me even back then.
For the moment, we have all of history at our finger tips. Can we just skip the generations of depression and suffering this time?
A lot of governments are designed to BE compromised. Not when someone leaks. Not when there's an infiltration. Just BE compromised. That's how Russia likes them. Like every middle eastern government, for example. In some cases that's actually a good thing, like Egypt for example.
The question is, what do you do as the new administration coming in? Presumably you assume every system and every person is compromised all the way down, like a compromised server - clean wipe and re-install.
One would assume that, like any good hacker, the current set would be heavily focused on ensuring they can survive a reboot / wipe. The question is, what would they be doing to achieve that?
It's not how we've treated pardons in the past but the US has abandoned that as a deciding factor everywhere else. Tell me why that's not a valid interpretation of the Constitution.
What?
Nixon was pardoned without any conviction, or even charges.
"As a result of certain acts or omissions occurring before his resignation from the Office of President, Richard Nixon has become liable to possible indictment and trial for offenses against the United States."
"Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974."
The relevant court precedent on this is over 150 years old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ex_parte_Garland
"The court also ruled that the president can exercise the pardon power at any time after the commission of the crime..."
(We really should require pardons to pass a bipartisan Senate committee where there is no odd-numbered tiebreaker vote and require one defection across the aisle to approve--or something like that)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_trial_of_Donald_Trump... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_impeachment_of_Donald_Tr...
Toward the end of his first term the question was raised whether he could pardon himself.
Most of the "loopholes" and gaps that the current administration takes advantage of are due to the thinking along the lines of "no one would stoop so low as to operate any other way." There's no way to close all the gaps, but you can certainly make an effort to narrow the number of gaps.
“The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”
- Article II, Section 2, Clause 1That would require a Constitutional amendment, and that won't happen. It would require too many states to be willing to give up what amounts to absolute power to nullify their own crimes should their party win the White House, or defend themselves from political retribution by the other party. Remember that was the whole justification for SCOTUS granting the President immunity from all criminal acts while in office - the threat that Biden prosecuting Trump would just lead to an endless cycle of recriminations and prosecutions of the Executive by the other party.
A Constitutional amendment also opens up the possibility of litigating any part of the Constitution, including the Second Amendment. For that reason alone every red state would oppose it on principle.
>This is all very clearly outside the bounds of the intent of the pardon power.
All that matters is the text of the Constitution and intent means whatever the Supreme Court says it means, and they don't seem to have a problem with it.
But yes, preemptive pardons shouldn't be possible, but we'll need an amendment to reform the power at all.
Congress has the authority to end any war or military action. If by 2028, with Dems-controlled congress and possibly Senat, they won't force US withdrawal, it will then count as a "want to continue it", no matter the justification.
Not quite the same thing.
The internal dismantling of the US Government, and 'the identity of the US' in general, that this administration has performed must be beyond the wildest dreams of those who were on the other side of the Cold War.
Despite 'losing' the Cold War, Putin appears to have managed to arrange for the US to also lose, somehow, after the war was over.
It's fascinating.
Third world banana republics commonly prosecute ex-leaders for two reasons:
1. The new leader is a criminal thug, and needs to eliminate any threat posed by the previous leader or his supporters.
2. The old leader was a criminal thug who did illegal things.
You don't need both of these to be true to put a former leader behind bars. Either one is sufficient.
I'm a Canadian. Even though the U.S. is busy meddling in our provincial elections, referendums, etc. while waging a trade war on us and threatening to make us the 51st state, we're being set up as scapegoats for the midterms. Yes, your ambassador is currently alleging that Canadian cabinet ministers are interfering in the midterms[1]. This is just one of many indicators suggesting that, should the Republicans lose control of both houses in the midterms, they're going to cry foul and likely refuse to obey the law.
Anyone talking about prosecuting Kushner or the rest of the Trump administration has put the cart before the horse. You have to make sure the midterms are not interfered with by the Trump administration, win the mid-terms, and then win the struggle to enforce that election result on an administration that does not obey the law. You have a mountain of obstacles to climb before you can even think about doing what the Biden administration chose not to do. At the very start of that climb may be the question of whether or not the opposition to Trump is actually comitted to that hard, grueling climb, or would they welcome defeat because it's so much easier?
____________
[1]https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/hoekstra-watching-canada-el...
... completely and totally owned by private interests, some of which are foreign.
I'm not assuming that there will be another administration, everything points to the US continuing down the road it's on.
That has purged the military of any women, any diversity, likely anyone now cowtowing the war crimes happy "department of war" (and clearly given all our blown up bases and very very expensive radars etc has not even basic competence at defense). Has purged diplomatic core of none-regime forces. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6166456-state-de...
These facsist anti-state actors are not going to leave the most unimaginable shitfests. They're going to backdoor everything they can. They're going to leave their foreign hostile friends with full access as much as they can.
The project of doing a full from scratch clean reboot of just the systems is going to be unimaginably slow and terrible. Years of reformatting and careful monitoring. These people hate America, hate democracy, they hate any accountability, they hate democracy, they hate reality. Because reality is against low life lying sacks of no good shit like them. That can't do anything but low despicable low effort actions, and cheat. These people are all Jared. They are all vicious bitter foes to society, dealing readily all the time with the most vile monsters, begging for the destruction of our nation. The great reboot, trying to unwind their corruption, is going to be like trying to fight Vinge's Blight. A never quite dead monsters that is everywhere. Because these are the worst people.
it is staggering
and they are destroying records in violation of law
because "pardons for everyone" on the way out
To prosecute people guilty of state-level violations (which are not covered by Presidential federal-level pardons). To find 'collaborators' (and perhaps prosecute them, as it may difficult to pardon 'everyone'). To know what happened to perhaps help prevent it happening again in the future.
Nothing new and there will be no justice. Look up the guy in charge of MKUltra. He destroyed evidence and got a nice retirement.
Much more equivalent to phenomenon surrounding the collapse of the Soviet Union: liquidation of an entire state's infrastructure via foreign exchange controlled exclusively by the security state . . with plenty of братва duocracy of course.
We've already seen equivalents, even before the 2008 Econopalypse, but activities like those of the Trump-affiliated circle is the terminal end: where USD-denominated assets are exchanged for pure state power. It's just that this is a particularly pure form of it.
There will be no unravelling of this, not until the system of USD seigniorage itself unravels.
Or, in this specific case under discussion, exchanging dollars for raw slices of the state's monopoly of force.
Unfortunately, like the RU oligarchs before them, they will find all these trinkets hold value rather poorly when the state apparatus entirely disintegrates.
And those that flee with their capital to other more stable powers will find themselves . . probably less than pleased with the, ah, the level of service that Jiang has in his pleasure bucket. But we're ALL in for it, in a Han-dominant globe. You thought Southerners were racist? Oh, oh goodness . .
Thank the American Rural Voter. This is what they wanted, I am going to watch them eat the whole damn cake.
edit after reply:
> What was odd, the source said, was that the money in the account—hundreds of millions of dollars—had come from a bank in Azerbaijan.
Ahh, now the arrest of the former chief of Germany's BND, related to what seemed like a random country "Azerbaijan" is making a bit more sense?
A lot of the corruption just happens right out in the open here these days, doesn't even need to be surfaced.
Seems these days after the likes of Jan 6th rather than get mad the dems ignore it for 3 years and the voters reelect.
cinema that can do that is powerful.
Of course another famous monologue would be Warren Beatty's to Finch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuBe93FMiJc
It's worth pointing out this quote: "One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused"
I'm not sure about the last part of people being happy, but what he's really talking about in hindsight is the index fund. Vanguard started the first SP500 index fund on December 31, 1975. Network came out in 1976.
Also worth noting that GK Chesterton also talked about something similar to an index fund, but it was an idea called distributism and was a direct challenge to socialism
Did you know Hunter at the time he joined Burisma had an 18-year career as a Yale-educated corporate lawyer, PE and VC investor, and lobbyist?
Obviously he's a nepobaby but nothing on his resume is atypical of the types of people who serve on boards for companies like Burisma.
Top law school, cushy investor and advisory gigs, serving on boards, etc.
https://proof.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2019/0930/Joe-and-H...
Here's the profile of someone who served alongside Hunter. Pretty similar: https://www.sofocleous.com.cy/en/people/christina-sofocleous...
The chairman of the board was a Columbia-educated lawyer from Sullivan and Cromwell (similar to Hunter's Boies Schiller role) who went into investment banking at Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.
By what metric is $65,000 per month "pretty high?" Compared to other Burisma board members? Board members are typically paid the same base salary.
Directors at Exxon get about a sixth of what Hunter made: https://contracts.justia.com/companies/exxon-mobil-500/contr... So yes, it's pretty high.
I’m not sure what evidence of impropriety one is supposed to derive from a publicly traded American company having a different board compensation scheme than a privately held Ukrainian company… perhaps you could connect the dots more explicitly?
Regarding compensation for the position, you had said "of course he was compensated, board members are often compensated". I am pointing out that it is very unusual for them to get that much compensation, to the point where you should be suspicious.
That would imply there are many similar nepobabies serving in such roles. "Nepobaby" does not necessarily mean someone is not qualified for a given role. It means they utilize their parents' status to grow their own. Obviously a Senator's child has massive advantages throughout their life. As described above... those advantages often produce exactly the life path he had (just like his Burisma board colleagues, and just like many board members of many corporate boards).
Perhaps you should say explicitly what you mean by "you should be careful about..." What specifically constitutes "being careful" about such a thing? And what exactly are they being careful of? The possibility of an appearance of impropriety?
Getting sweet gigs because your dad is a Senator and then a VP because people love hiring cushy connected people to cushy connected jobs is not, in and of itself improper. It's absolutely a reason to pay close attention to all such family members of all such politicians, but if the "paying close attention" doesn't yield actual evidence of actual wrongdoing, you can't just assume otherwise.
P.S. Don't put in quotes things that people didn't actually say. That was quite clearly not my line of questioning.
If you are working for the government on relations with a particular country, and your son gets a job paying $750,000 a year working at the biggest company in that country, then you need to resign or get your son to resign.
Please let me know if you want further clarifications.
Does this also invoke appearance of impropriety to you?
It is true that there were conflicts of interest for other work that Hunter did, though, such as when his father was visiting China on a diplomatic trip.
> he was paid $65,000 per month, which is pretty high.
I doubt it's high for a petrochemical conglomerate.
Kushner's phone data was in the possession of Dutch intelligence who didn't want the public to know they had it -- and as far as I know, this was not public knowledge until today.
Because i distinctly recall the head of what to that point I though was a credible journalistic organization saying she didnt want to "waste people's time" with that.
Performatively pretending the above didn't happen is intellectually dishonest.
Your hyperbolic and partisan language makes it obvious you aren't simply a neutral observer, and implies that you had a horse in that race, and you're still mad that he lost.
Or else you aren't American, in which case your investment in the Trumpist narrative is just kind of pathetic. Like Americans giving a shit about the British royal family.
There literally is a NYT article alluding the whole store is fake and should be dismissed, and (post election ) NYT article admitting it is not. Your prefered the definition of "bury" must exclusively involve shovels and earthwork.
Also this, verbatim: https://x.com/NPRpubliceditor/status/1319281101223940096?
Not quite sure what de
Archer was quite explicit in his testimony that if anything, Hunter was basically scamming them with the illusion of access.
Which, well, is bad, but if anything, the situation reflects that Joe never let his son influence him to do anything corrupt, which turns it entirely into a bunch of TMZ level drama about Hunter's drug and prostitution habits.
And I still heard about the laptop plenty before the election. If that is a buried story, then plenty of widely published and discussed stories would be buried by your definition.
The amount of attention it has received has always been silly.
Kushner is a boring nerd and Biden is a Chad with a huge dong.
This is misleading since the article doesn't elaborate on such transactions, it talks about money allegedly coming from MBZ and MBS to Kushner. Still an interesting article though.
> Some malware allows a hacker to turn a victim’s phone into a microphone and video camera, turn the phone on or off, and pull and add files. The Dutch solution did not provide that level of access. Instead, when Kushner used the phone, they could see his screen.
As the saying goes: if you can read it, so can they.
With enough signatures, anyone can be brought to trial. The jury is asked to vote to determine if a person or entity is too powerful or too well known. Also, there should be a wealth limit so if wealth is above a certain high limit (like $100 million; set by a special panel), they are offered to either donate everything above the limit to a UBI fund or they go to a special jail until the amount falls below the limit (evaluated by a special, large, randomly-selected parole board).
I think such system would out-compete centralized systems which do not have such limits as it would be more efficient economically.
It has been on since 2000 Algore vs Bush...
>The election was plagued with allegations of voter fraud and disenfranchisement. Rumors of illegal road blocks, unclear ballots, and uncounted votes, particularly in swing states like Missouri and Florida, were rampant
A) a troll
B) truly unable to tell the difference
Loudly making unfounded or exaggerated claims of corruption is a pretty effective tool for muddying the waters and making it less clear where the smoke is coming from.
Meanwhile Trump and plenty of others have also practiced extremely poor email hygiene using non-official emails for all sorts of stuff. You don't hear about that from the Left because, well, there's all sorts of far more concerning shit happening.
Then, on the other hand, there's staggeringly large and previously unprecedented levels of corruption with this administration. We've never seen anything remotely like it, unless your argument is just that the Democrats are just vastly more competent at hiding it, despite constantly having all sorts of shit leak and just generally being totally incompetent at managing the party itself.
But if you don't understand the difference between the Hillary email situation and the staggering amount of blatantly illegal and massively corrupt things coming out of the Trump administration basically every single day, I don't know that there's any level of proof or any argument that could be made to change your mind.
However, even if the system is as very rotten as it is, just alone demonstrating and shining a light on it can not only overcome the blatant, rotten corruption of the fake justice system, but it could also force the system to further damage and pollute its legitimacy and...more importantly...get people to see the corruption. That alone could cause exponentially more damage to the fake legitimacy of the system, if people are actually paying attention and not doing whatever meaningless things most people do like watch the telescreen for their daily programming or obsessing about men playing with balls in various forms.
The only things his cronies can be prosecuted for after that, would be state crimes.
The problem is and long has been that they are all implicated and criminal and traitors to different degrees and using different ways and means; the cat burglar accusing the smash-and-grab burglar of being a criminal beyond the pale.
Until people realized that all the fake "left" and "right", and the "Democrat" and "Republican" is just the two levers of the same ratchet, nothing will change. Unfortunately for us all, the trend and characteristics projected forward seem to indicate that nothing will change until everything breaks and the enemies of the Constitution and its rights everyone takes for granted all around the globe are finally overcome again after 250+ years of suffering with peasants having rights.
If the Dutch showed the screenshots and stated they were genuine this information would matter.
Maybe they're just locking in to the "We are currently clean on OPSEC" vibe ¯\(ツ)/¯
“The GRU hacked into Jared Kushner's iPhone. Dutch military intelligence (MIVD) then recruited a GRU spy who gave them access to the hacked phone”
https://www.vanityfair.com/story/jared-kushner-hacked-phone-...
Unfortunately the days of the US being an ally of the Netherlands is over.
See: reasons for Ukraine war and immigration gaslighting, Paris.
>Matthew Cole is an investigative journalist and the author of Code Over Country: The Tragedy and Corruption of SEAL Team Six. He has covered national security for more than two decades, much of it focused on America’s clandestine wars and covert programs. He was previously an investigative producer for ABC and NBC News, and a longtime national security reporter for The Intercept. His other work has appeared in The New York Times, GQ, New York magazine, Salon, and ESPN. He has reported from more than twenty countries, across five continents.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Princes-and-Thieves/M...
the sexual abuse of the catholic church was first exposed in a local paper for Lafayette Louisianna.
the My Lai massacre was first uncovered by a small alternative group called Dispatch News Service.
the CIA cocaine stuff of the 90s was first discussed in a local San Jose paper.
Larry Nassar was outted as a predator by a local Indianapolis paper , a local DC paper uncovered the Tuskegee Experiments, the Seattle Times uncovered the 737 MAX safety certification skips..
I dunno, I don't think i'd be that surprised to first read about the upcoming impending meteor in the latest issue of Teen Vogue.
It also seems like it has less to do with Kushner himself being enriched and more about Arab Gilfstates trying to clandestinely normalize relations with Israel without letting their populace know. I'm not saying this isn't bad or he didn't break laws or anything just everything associated with this seems to be more in line with international realpolitik, spy and espionage rather than Kurshner taking stacks of cash to make himself rich.