176 points ck2 2 hours ago 64 comments

ck2 2 hours ago | parent

it's going to take decades to unravel all the corruption by this administration

it is staggering

and they are destroying records in violation of law

because "pardons for everyone" on the way out

jimt1234 1 hour ago | parent

My understanding is that they don't need to destroy records related to Kushner because he's not a government employee, his records aren't required to be retained. And that is, no doubt, by design.

dmix 1 hour ago | parent

This article is about a phone hacking in 2017 when he was still a federal employee. Russia hacked his iPhone X around then.

dylan604 1 hour ago | parent

why would you need to destroy anything if there's pardons involved. Even if they have the proof you committed wrongdoing, the pardon means you suffer no consequences.

neaden 41 minutes ago | parent

They still probably are violating plenty of state and local laws that the pardon won't do anything about.

DASD 36 minutes ago | parent

That and there is an idea that the strength of pardons will be tested by the House Oversight Committee(assuming take back by Democrats).

estearum 17 minutes ago | parent

IMO the pardon power was an absolute mistake and I’m totally fine with us just burning this bridge for good.

dylan604 13 minutes ago | parent

what happens if you are convicted in federal court before receiving the pardon. does double jeopardy come into play?

throw0101a 37 minutes ago | parent

> why would you need to destroy anything if there's pardons involved.

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.

dylan604 20 minutes ago | parent

Well, that's why you commit your crimes in DC!

red_candle_wax 1 hour ago | parent

> and they are destroying records in violation of law

Nothing new and there will be no justice. Look up the guy in charge of MKUltra. He destroyed evidence and got a nice retirement.

jldugger 56 minutes ago | parent

Seems like the best case scenario is prosecution under state laws, which the presidential pardon cannot stop.

ceejayoz 51 minutes ago | parent

The best case scenario is probably drone strikes as "official acts" under Presidential immunity.

lopsotronic 55 minutes ago | parent

"Corruption" isn't quite the right scale to use for this. Far deeper, more systemic. This is the disassembly of a state.

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.

pimlottc 26 minutes ago | parent

Kleptocracy

maypeacepreva1l 13 minutes ago | parent

This is the right answer to this. This is the beginning of dismantling of USD based system, US might suffer because of that but other countries now have no choice at all but to decouple the system relying in USD.

consumer451 1 hour ago | parent

I am pretty darn jaded these days, but I find myself staggered.

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?

eddyfromtheblok 1 hour ago | parent

the corruption or that other countries are able to surface the corruption faster than we can?

georgemcbay 38 minutes ago | parent

> or that other countries are able to surface the corruption faster than we can?

A lot of the corruption just happens right out in the open here these days, doesn't even need to be surfaced.

tiahura 58 minutes ago | parent

I wouldn't read a connection between the two other than a lot of corruption flows through Azerbaijan.

blipvert 43 minutes ago | parent

I think that you’ll find that it’s pronounced “Aber-baijan”.

TFNA 38 minutes ago | parent

Azerbaijan isn't a random country in corruption contexts. It is a petro-state and run by a single family for their own enrichment. It's pretty expected to come up occasionally in these kind of stories.

enjoyyourlife 1 hour ago | parent

I'm more interested to see if it revealed he is using it on Saturdays

kstrauser 1 hour ago | parent

Why would that be?

sailfast 56 minutes ago | parent

Shabbat.

pas 56 minutes ago | parent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabbat -> he's in bed with Israel -> someone mixing up Israel with Judaism?

delecti 47 minutes ago | parent

Not that I particularly care about his religious practices, but Jared Kushner is also definitely Jewish.

pxmpxm 34 minutes ago | parent

I didn't think he's observant in any way?

cf100clunk 1 hour ago | parent

hmartin 47 minutes ago | parent

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ThrowawayTestr 26 minutes ago | parent

Works on my machine

ghm2180 22 minutes ago | parent

Russian network ingress/egress?

red_candle_wax 1 hour ago | parent

Its just good business.

Calavar 1 hour ago | parent

So Kushner's phone was hacked around the same time as Hunter Biden's laptop? Why has the latter captured the media so much more then the former?

rootsudo 1 hour ago | parent

crowd control on 4chan?

consumer451 1 hour ago | parent

This question and the potential answers are honestly the most interesting thing in this thread, so far.

pupppet 51 minutes ago | parent

I think it's becoming clear that although the media just happily accepts the left-wing bias accusations, they are by no means left-wing. They shouted every random Biden mistake from the rooftops while this administration mostly gets a free pass.

jazzyjackson 48 minutes ago | parent

Because the latter included clips of the presidents son smoking crack and hanging out with prostitutes? lol

estearum 21 minutes ago | parent

The President’s son being a private citizen versus the President’s son in law being some pseudo-secretary of state?

jonas21 45 minutes ago | parent

Biden's laptop was in the possession of a computer shop in the US, and the owner leaked its contents to the media.

Kushner's phone data was in the possession of Dutch intelligence who didn't want anyone to know that they had hacked the phone, and this was not public knowledge until today.

estearum 19 minutes ago | parent

Biden’s laptop was in the possession of “someone” who brought it to a blind computer repair person (seriously!), who then got in touch with Rudy Giuliani, who then leaked the contents to the media… and so we can’t really know who actually gained possession of it. The repair man was blind lol.

jimt1234 43 minutes ago | parent

WillPostForFood 43 minutes ago | parent

Media had access to the laptop, and we only have second hand claims about the phone.

pxmpxm 37 minutes ago | parent

Is there an alternate reality where the dem aligned mass media didn't completely bury the ridiculously salacious laptop story (drugs, money for access aaaand onlyfans level nudity!!) to steer the election?

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.

jetpks 33 minutes ago | parent

The alternate reality is the one where "dem aligned mass media _did_ completely bury" -- because it's all I heard about for months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months, and months.

bayarearefugee 32 minutes ago | parent

> Why has the latter captured the media so much more then the former?

Kushner is a boring nerd and Biden is a Chad with a huge dong.

partiallypro 32 minutes ago | parent

I am very jaded about the current administration and also the previous...few...or several? That being said, similar to the Hunter Biden laptop situation, I think you do have to be careful. Sure they -could- have the device or it -could- have been hacked, but what is the proof that the hacked or on-device information wasn't planted among real items to make it appear legitimate? That was always the big if for me with the Hunter stuff, so I will extend the same skepticism here, knowing full well it could definitely be true in either case.

jongjong 31 minutes ago | parent

This kind of stuff gives an insight into how horrible centralized governance is. All these manipulations happening behind the scenes constantly which people are affected by but can't make sense of. It's not really surprising though, it's just part of the system. The system is designed in a way to attract certain people and make them behave a certain way. Power should be much more decentralized so that this doesn't happen.

estearum 22 minutes ago | parent

The reason that power centralizes is that decentralized powers tend to get outcompeted (in the short run) by centralized powers.

tyrabound 30 minutes ago | parent

Not to make this political, but if the democrats gain control they better at least actually try to prosecute these criminals and not just make it yet another circle jerk asking for donations and never actually accomplishing anything. At some point the ruling class is going to mess around and everyone’s head ends up on a pile regardless. This is the time to demonstrate your head doesn’t deserve on the pile too. Time is running out. Just saying. Things happen fast when they finally cross that threshold that always comes as a surprise.

ThrowawayTestr 26 minutes ago | parent

Spoiler: They won't.

markdown 12 minutes ago | parent

They'll put another limp dick like Merrick Garland in charge

losvedir 23 minutes ago | parent

Echoes of "Lock her up! Lock her up!"

heylook 6 minutes ago | parent

Are you:

A) a troll

B) truly unable to tell the difference

Barrin92 21 minutes ago | parent

I also feel people are missing the forest for the trees in that discussion in that Jared Kushner is a private citizen and the son in law of the president who somehow is negotiating with foreign heads of states despite having no mandate from the American people to do so. Forget a hacked phone, why is a nepo baby running around negotiating on behalf of a country without holding any office

surfingdino 12 minutes ago | parent

Because the most powerful nation on Earth turned out to be powerless against a carefully planned and executed Dismantling of Democracy attack.

robotresearcher 4 minutes ago | parent

Because the President asked him to. It’s not complicated. There’s an elected official responsible.

Havoc 16 minutes ago | parent

Why bother with hacks when it's an open secret that the US gov is compromised?

zmmmmm 15 minutes ago | parent

You have to think the current administration is completely and totally owned by foreign interests at this point.

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?

overtone1000 9 minutes ago | parent

Cash out, destroy evidence, and feign innocence and ignorance.