James Comer’s Imaginary Whistleblower Friend, Gal Luft, Was Charged Last November for Lying in that March 2019 Meeting
I wrote last week that James Comer and Jim Jordan and Jason Smith have been immunizing misconduct and crime in an effort to gin up a conspiracy theory against Joe Biden and his family.
Last night, that effort was demonstrated in spectacular fashion. For months, Comer has been squealing about a secret informant he had who had proof that Joe Biden engaged in graft with CEFC. But then his imaginary whistleblower friend disappeared.
In recent weeks, Comer’s imaginary whistleblower friend was identified as Gal Luft. He disappeared because he skipped bail in Cyprus on an arrest warrant from the US.
Here’s how NYPost’s Hunter propagandist described it:
Gal Luft, the “missing” witness in the House Oversight Committee’s Biden family corruption investigation, has told The Post he is alive and living as a fugitive in an undisclosed location.
The former Israeli Defense Force colonel vanished from Cyprus last month while on bail awaiting extradition to the US on seven charges.
He denies the allegations, which include five charges relating to the Arms Export Control Act of conspiring to sell Chinese products to the United Arab Emirates, Kenya and Libya, as well as a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and of making a false statement.
Luft claims he was forced to skip bail because he is the victim of a political persecution by the US to protect Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and brother Jim.
A few days ago, Luft did a video, naming the prosecutors he met with at that meeting and daring DOJ to unseal his indictment. So they did. The November 1, 2022 indictment, by the same two prosecutors, charges Luft with a range of sanctions violations and serving as a Foreign Agent of China. The FARA violation alleges he insinuated someone who looks a lot like James Woolsey into the Trump Administration on the payroll of CEFC.
The date is important: He was charged before he started regaling dim-witted Chairmen about dirt on Hunter Biden. This prosecution can’t be about retaliation for the conspiracy theories he told Comer — the indictment precedes it all by months.
In any case, the indictment also lays out the false charges count against him.
He was charged with lying at that March 2019 meeting about his own ties to CEFC.
84. On or about March 29, 2019, in the Southern District of New York, Belgium, and elsewhere outside of the jurisdiction of any particular State or district of the United States, GAL LUFT, defendant, who is expected to be first brought to and arrested in the Southern District of New York, in a matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch the Government of the United States, knowingly and willfully made a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and representation, to wit, LUFT falsely stated during an interview at the United States Embassy in Brussels, Belgium with federal law enforcement officers and prosecutors, in connection with an investigation being conducted in the Southern District of New York, that LUFT had tried to prevent CEFC China from doing an oil deal with Iran, that LUFT had been excluded from CEFC China meetings with Iranians, and that LUFT did not know of any CEFC China dealings with Iran while he was affiliated with the company–when in fact, including as described above in paragraphs Sixty-Six through Eighty, LUFT personally attended at least one meeting between CEFC China and Iranians and assisted in setting up additional such meetings for the purpose of arranging deals for Iranian oil, and also worked to find a buyer of Iranian oil while concealing its origin.
In other words, well before Luft told Comer anything, he had been charged for lying at the very meeting he’s now claiming he was retaliated for. Comer was duped.
Again.
Given the precedent of Eric Swalwell, who was removed from the House Intelligence Committee after having been cultivated by a Chinese agent, Comer should be stripped of his gavel and referred to the ethics committee.
Instead, Speaker McCarthy is going to let him continue to make a mockery of himself offering to immunize all range of grifters in hopes of finding dirt.
It did not take long for Nancy Mace (who positioned herself as a ‘reasonable’ Republican) to scream that the charges are based on fake evidence and to demand protection of the so-called ‘whistleblower’.
That must be the caucus-approved response since really there is no where else for the GOP to go with this news. That, and more Swalwell and Hunter froth.
Even if you’re desperate to pin a scandal on the Bidens, how the fuck do you not vet your “whistleblowers”? How stupid are Comer and his staff?
Ask Gym Jordan how relevant facts are to a hearing. It’s the cabaret, the bread and circuses, that count. That’s a form of corruption, but it’s what the Republican Party has become. Except for meeting the demands of various patrons, governance is old-fashioned, too hard, and gets in the way.
Perhaps they got Rudy Giuliani to do the vetting.
Maybe they did and didn’t care. When they’re drowning in a sea of lies, they’ll grasp at anything to stay afloat.
You don’t have to vet your “whistle blowers” if the audience you’re playing to is predisposed to believing. The rightwing echo chamber will say, “See? DOJ is weaponized!”. And the MSM will present it as “Republicans Allege DOJ Vengeance. Democrats Caught Off Guard, Struggle to Respond.”
If they vet the whistleblowers, they don’t get anyone to blow the whistles.
“How stupid are Comer and his staff?”
Apparently, they are quite stupid. With a capital ‘S’.
“Just announce that there’s an investigation. The Rs and I will take care of the rest.”
Every time a Republican politician is proven to be a liar, the Republican base seize upon a conspiracy theory to explain away the problem. And the Republican politicians know and see this and are just doubling down everyday. And why not? The Republican base will believe *anything* negative said about a democrat, every time. They’re all over Twitter demanding the Republican house impeach all of government. And for what? Swiss cheese allegations.
It’s enough to make me sick to be an American — that I can share a country and nationality with such incredibly fucked up people as the common Republican is, it’s embarrassing,
Worst insane clown posse ever.
Is there no bottom?
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It’s at least 35K feet below sea level – Marianas Trench bottom.
If only the GOP loses its majority in 2024, the US House of Representatives has at least a better chance than a snowball in hell of becoming functional. Otherwise, not.
While watching that video clip of Gal Luft, I kept thinking ‘who does he remind me of?’ Then I remembered. He reminds me of Meyer Offerman, the man that Al Pacino plays in the TV series, Hunters (created by David Weil.)
Someone should put together a video of some side by side clips of Pacino vs Luft. I won’t spoil the series for you, if you haven’t seen it. But if you’re looking for something to binge and have some video capture skills, I’m sure you’ll find something there to compare the creepiness factor.
I also would not be surprised to find out a GOP operative planted the cocaine in the WH so they could flog Hunter and Joe Biden over it. Remember it was found in a high traffic tor area. The tell for me is Defendant-1 saying he has a plan to address the ‘cocaine dilemma’. Projection? You make the call.
Well, they cannot let Don Jr. in then, right?
He’d have to stop frothing first, that modern medical marvel giving Keith Richards a run for his chemical ‘talents’.
That was my first thought. How conveeeeeeeeeient.
Anyone seen Madison Cawthorn lately?
Clint and Meryl Streep have another movie to make: “The Bridges Of Madison Cawthorn”.
“The Brassieres of Madison Cawthorn”
Does the ‘cocaine dilemma’ lead to cocaine decisions?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eyeP-TJlGs
Sen Ron Johnson trusts spies working for Russia and China more than he trusts our president and our FBI. First it was Andrii Telizhenko, now it is Luft. How does it look to the world when one of America’s highest elected representatives so willingly sells out his country for political advantage?
It’s not the Biden family that needs investigating. It’s Johnson, Comer, Grassley, and Giuliani who should be made to answer questions about their loyalties.
RoJo also went to Moscow a few years back with several other GOP senators and one rep to celebrate the 4th of July.
The Moscow Seven:
Richard Shelby, Ron Johnson, Steve Daines, John Thune, John Kennedy, Jerry Moran, John Hoeven, Rep Kay Granger
This Luft thing, I think, is a really big deal. If he was palling around with Woolsey and was his handler for China/Israel, that makes me suspicious that Luft might have actually been instrumental in getting Trump elected. If you recall, Woolsey was at the meeting with Bijan Kian, Mike Flynn(s) and Turkish officials regarding Flynn’s plant to kidnap Fetullah Gulen and black site him to Turkey.
Later, due in part to some info that Flynn gave Mueller’s team, they indicted Kian and Alptekin on FARA charges and false statements to the FBI as well as conspiracy, for the contract Alptekin had with Flynn.
And CEFC, that Chinese company that supposedly had shady deals with President Biden? Yeah, they laundered Chinese money to bust Iranian sanctions. Oh, and they also were going to buy the infamous 14.2% Rosneft stake back from the QIA and Glencore, who purchased it in December 2016, right after Trump was elected.
Oh, and QIA was an investor in Brookfield Asset Managment, the company that bought Westinghouse’s nuclear portfolio, and then went on to bail out Kushner from 666 Fifth Ave.
Not to put a too fine point on it, but “they’ve been laundering money, dude”.
Gal Luft headed an israeli think tank after being a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces.
James Woolsey ran the CIA.
Vuk Jeremić, who recommened CEFC to James Gilliar, served in the Yugoslavian Ministry of Defense and went on to become president of the UN General Assembly.
James Gilliar, who connected Hunter Biden with CEFC, served with British special forces and UK intelligence services.
Tony Bobulinski held a high level security clearance in the US Navy.
Hunter Biden was a drug addict looking to get rich.
Does anyone think Hunter Biden maybe was being used as a patsy?
Tony Bobulinski had a security clearance because he worked as a nuclear engineer in the Navy. There’s no evidence that Bobulinski worked in intelligence matters. No one has explained how he got connected to Gilliar or anyone else.
It depends on how long he was working for ‘Gray Hull Cruise Lines’ but intel is not normally part of the duties for a snipe in the engineering aspect, and usually you’re too busy otherwise.
We’d see it for the bridge/combat watches for the SWO / dolphin pins when we would be involved in some of the tactical decisions, but even that is rare.
Yeah, Hunter hoped to launch an investment advisory business funded by CEFC, but the one he tried to launch with Bobulinski in 2017 was never funded. The other one he tried to start never closed on any deals before CEFC collapsed like a Chinese Enron. The beginning middle and end of his effort was 2017-early 2018, when Joe was presumed to be retired. In retrospect, Hunter dodged a bullet.
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Since you mention Rosneft, I’ll note that Marcy asked* in March 2017 if the dates of the individual reports in the Steele dossier were reliable or if they were “stuck on afterwards so that occurrences such as the Rosneft deal appear prefigured in the dossier”. Was that ever confirmed one way or the other? Because if the dates of Steele’s reports are accurate, or at least the date of report #134, nominally dated Oct. 18, 2016, then that would be one of the few things that Steele got at least partly right in advance: he said that Carter Page was told in July 2016 that “Page / Trump’s associates” would get the brokerage fee on the sale of a 19% stake in Rosneft if sanctions on the company and its president were lifted. And then lo! on Dec. 7, 2016, a 19.5% stake in Rosneft was sold to Glencore and the wealth fund of Qatar. That’s a pretty interesting coincidence.
That said, a couple weeks later, Marcy also pointed out** that coincidence aside, as of the date of the sale in December 2016, Trump had yet to deliver the alleged quid — the lifting of U.S. sanctions — for the quo — the brokerage fee on the 19% sale. Trump as president would indeed make efforts to lift sanctions in the following months, but Congress blocked him.
Maybe the Rosneft sale was in the works and, as per Marcy’s other writings on Christopher Steele, a distorted version of the truth was fed to him by sources working for Oleg Deripaska to further muddy the waters?
(Scrolling through those old posts, I find myself confused about a comment Marcy herself made on the second one, in which she refers to “the October [2016] fake news from a Hillary supporter claiming to ‘prove’ that WL/RU had doctored emails on October 6”, which was “magnified by Malcolm Nance and Joy Reid”, and “the release of the IC report on October 7”, as important pieces of the puzzle to understanding the public’s understanding of Donald Trump’s relationship with Russia. I know about the intelligence community report about Russian interference released on the same day as the release of the Access Hollywood tape and the beginning of the October Wikileaks releases — and wasn’t the Trump campaign simultaneously trying to tamp down an earlier tale about a Moscow videotape? — but what was the story about doctored emails being shared by Nance and Reid?)
* https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/03/06/the-feedback-loop-in-christopher-steeles-dossier/
** https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/03/22/the-temporal-feint-in-adam-schiffs-neat-narrative/
If you listen to Luft’s crazy 14-minute video, he accuses the Trump DOJ of covering up Hunter Biden’s sale of classified secrets obtained through a one-eyed FBI mole. Yet the people touting his story edit out anything that implicates Trump.
That seems to have been a two-day meeting,
and LUFT was charged with false statements for EACH day.
3/28/19 [US Embassy, Brussels, Belgium] LUFT lies to DoJ/FBI about his arms dealing [pdf 45/58; Par.64] [COUNT SIX (Making False Statements to Federal Agents Regarding Arms Traffiking)]
3/29/19 [US Embassy, Brussels, Belgium] LUFT lies to DoJ/FBI about his Iranian oil dealing [pdf 54/58; Par.84] [COUNT EIGHT (Making False Statements to Federal Agents Regarding Iranian Oil Deals)]
And COMER still calls LUFT a “credible witness”.
https://twitter.com/RepJamesComer/status/1677414170411560962
4:27 PM · Jul 7, 2023
Huh! Marcy connects this with Patrick HO case, here:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/07/12/andrew-defilippis-had-a-role-in-the-prosecution-of-gal-lufts-co-conspirator-1/
The New York Times manages to write this up without ever mentioning the date of the indictment. I have to wonder if that’s a deliberate omission.
Agree with deliberate omission. The date is the key information that exposes Comer et al’s lies. If the lies are revealed, the Biden corruption narrative collapses. And that would make both-siding everything so much harder.
FWIW: I wrote to the article’s author asking why the timeline was not made clear. If I hear back – admittedly unlikely – I’ll let you know. Offhand, though, I’d lean toward carelessness rather than going straight to a conspiracy theory, unless there are other reasons to flag the reporter as dishonest.
It’s the Times, which is known for this kind of ‘reporting’. Also remember that the reporter has to get the story past the editor who will enforce the bothsides bias the NYT practices.
The current title is “The G.O.P. Backed Him on Hunter Biden Claims. Now He Has Been Indicted.” Now? Omission is underselling it, that’s just flat wrong.
Oops. The Ninja-timeline-warrior strikes again!!!