Month: August 2023

You’re about to get hit with a barrage of propaganda from Fox News about Biden and Burisma (again.) In case you’re not sure of what this is all about, Media Matters offers a primer:

On August 25, Fox News previewed an interview of former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin by network host Brian Kilmeade that is set to air in full on August 26. In the preview segment, Shokin accused President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden of “corruption” and “being bribed” to push for the prosecutor’s removal from office in 2016. In fact, there was widespread agreement at the time across the political spectrum in the United States and the European Union that Shokin should be fired for being soft on corruption, including State Department allegations that Shokin himself was corrupt.

Additionally, at the time of his removal, Shokin wasn’t actively investigating Hunter Biden or Burisma, an energy company that had hired Hunter Biden to serve on its board of directors. Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer recently testified that it would have been better for Burisma if the Ukrainian government had kept Shokin because he was unlikely to move against the company.

Shokin’s claims are part of a longstanding smear campaign led by Rudy Giuliani on behalf of former President Donald Trump, which ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment. Fox News knew Shokin’s claims were baseless then and continues to know it now, but the network is airing Shokin’s baseless allegations regardless.

Pushing for Shokin to be fired was the policy of not only the United States, where it was supported by leading Republicans, but also the international community

European nations, the United States, and over 100 members of Ukrainian parliament had pressured the Ukrainian government for months to fire Shokin. The international community concluded that Shokin was “turning a blind eye to corrupt practices” and “defending the interests of a venal and entrenched elite.” [Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 2/11/16; The New York Times, 3/29/16]

In 2015, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt called Shokin “an obstacle” to anti-corruption efforts. Ukraine’s refusal to act on anti-corruption measures, including keeping Shokin, resulted in the International Monetary Fund threatening to withhold $40 billion in aid. The European Union applauded his removal. [The Wall Street Journal, 9/22/19]

Protests in Ukraine demanded Shokin’s removal after he launched an investigation into an anti-corruption watchdog group and had fired various anti-corruption prosecutors. The group, Anti-Corruption Action Center, had publicly criticized Shokin. [Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 3/28/16; Kyiv Post, 3/25/16]

In 2016, Republican Sens. Rob Portman, Mark Kirk and Ron Johnson and Democratic colleagues addressed a letter to then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, calling for him to “press ahead with urgent reforms to the Prosecutor General’s office and judiciary.” The bipartisan letter was also signed by five Senate Democrats, underlining that removing Shokin was the consensus view in Washington, D.C. — not a pet project of the Biden family. [CNN, 10/3/2019]

Johnson would later lead a committee that investigated Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma and failed to uncover any evidence of wrongdoing. The New York Times noted, “In fact, investigators heard witness testimony that rebutted those charges,” and Johnson acknowledged there were no “massive smoking guns” in the report. [The New York Times, 9/23/20]

George Kent, the State Department’s expert on Ukraine, testified during Trump’s first impeachment trial that Shokin’s corruption led to his removal. Shokin was fired over corruption allegations and was not actively investigating Burisma when he was removed. The Washington Post reported in 2019 that Kent confirmed that Joe Biden called for the removal of “a corrupt prosecutor general … who had undermined a system of criminal investigation” into Ukrainian corruption cases, and “destroyed the entire ecosystem that we were trying to create.” Kent, who was the No. 2 official in the embassy at the time, explained that Biden was following the official U.S. government position that Shokin must be removed because he was “an impediment to the reform of the prosecutorial system, and he had directly undermined in repeated fashion U.S. efforts and U. S. assistance programs.” In fact, Kent testified that the idea to fire Shokin originated in the State Department before being pitched to others, including then-Vice President Biden. [The Washington Post, 11/19/19; Media Matters, 11/12/19]

At the time of his removal, Shokin was not actively investigating Burisma, and Hunter Biden was never the subject of an investigation into the company

Former Deputy Prosecutor General Vitaliy Kasko said in May 2019 that the investigation into Burisma had been “shelved by Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015.” Shokin had stalled investigations into Burisma and its co-founder Mykola Zlochevsky. In 2014, he undermined an attempt by British authorities to freeze $23 million worth of Zlochevsky’s assets. [Bloomberg, 5/7/19]

Devon Archer testified that he was not aware of any Shokin-led investigation into Burisma. He also testified that he had no reason to believe that then-Vice President Biden called for Shokin’s removal “was driven by anything other than the U.S. Government’s anticorruption policy in Ukraine,” and confirmed that firing Shokin “was bad for Burisma because he was under control.” [Media Matters, 8/3/23]

Investigations involving Burisma targeted Zlochevsky, who had been accused of “abuse of power, illegal enrichment and money laundering,” rather than the company itself. Shokin had allegedly “dragged his feet” on these investigations, and Hunter Biden, as a board member, was not a target. [The Wall Street Journal, 9/22/19]

Fox News knew its sourcing on the Ukraine conspiracy theory was unreliable

Conservative writer John Solomon was a key distributor of Rudy Giuliani’s conspiracy theories regarding Shokin’s firing. From March 20, 2019 — when Solomon published his first story on the Ukraine conspiracy theory — through October 2, 2019, Solomon appeared on Fox News or Fox Business at least 72 times, including 51 appearances on Sean Hannity’s prime-time show [Media Matters, 10/17/19]

During that period, Fox News senior political affairs specialist Bryan S. Murphy produced an internal “research briefing book” that “openly question[ed] Fox News contributor John Solomon’s credibility, accusing him of playing an ‘indispensable role’ in a Ukrainian ‘disinformation campaign,’” according to The Daily Beast. Murphy’s research came from what was known as Fox’s “Brain Room,” which the network later disbanded, and described Solomon as having “played an indispensable role in the collection and domestic publication of elements of this disinformation campaign.” [The Daily Beast, 2/6/20]

Murphy’s research book also advised that Giuliani had a “high susceptibility to disinformation” that was being fed to him by unreliable Ukrainian sources. [The Daily Beast, 2/6/20]

Fox News continues to accuse Joe Biden of taking bribes regarding Shokin’s firing even when confronted with contradictory evidence. On August 9, a panel discussion on The Five descended into chaos after co-host Jessica Tarlov attempted to get her co-panelists to acknowledge recent testimony from Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer. Archer “was asked, if someone concluded … that Joe Biden was bribed, would you disagree with that? ‘Yeah, I would.’ Devon Archer said that,” Tarlov said to the panel. [Fox News, The Five, 8/9/23]

Giuliani, a Trump lawyer who would later be arrested for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, was the lynchpin to the entire scheme

Solomon’s reporting laid the groundwork for Giuliani’s investigations in Ukraine, which ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment. Some of Solomon’s key sources were “disgraced former Ukrainian prosecutor Yuriy Lutsenko and the allies of Dmytro Firtash, an indicted Ukrainian oligarch and accused high-level Russian mafia associate,” who “have been seen as forces driving Giuliani’s efforts in Ukraine to dig up dirt on Trump’s political enemies.” [Media Matters, 10/17/19; The Daily Beast, 2/6/20]

Giuliani ultimately sent his findings to then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, complete with “with unproven allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden” with the goal of undermining a future Biden presidential run. Giuliani used his documents “to bolster unproven allegations that Biden pressured Ukraine in order to protect his son, Hunter Biden, who has been involved with a business interest there, and that the Obama administration was using Ukraine to help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election.” [NBC News, 10/3/19]

After Trump’s phone call attempting to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was revealed, Giuliani engaged in a press strategy to redirect the focus back to the Bidens. Some mainstream outlets took the bait, with headlines like “Scrutiny over Trump’s Ukraine scandal may also complicate Biden’s campaign” and “Why Trump’s Ukraine scandal could backfire on Biden.” [Media Matters, 9/23/19]

This whole thing was the basis of trump’s first impeachment. They just won’t let go of their ridiculous smear campaign because they believe the American people must eventually believe that there’s something to it. It’s Whitewater, Benghazi all the rest, which just shows it isn’t Trump — it’s the GOP. They were at this particular form of conspiracy mongering long before he came along.

Watters: I say this with an unblemished record of heterosexuality. He looks good and he looks hard. pic.twitter.com/jlNQ2YyZXM

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 25, 2023

This thread by Ben Rhodes echoes my thoughts:

During my 20 years in politics, two destructive trends stand out: the steady radicalization of the Republican Party and the trivialization of politics, particularly the way it is covered by US media and how politicians respond to that dynamic.

The Republican debate stands out for how unsurprising it was that a stage full of people acted like a bunch of kids trying to get admitted to some fascist costume party. Kill people at the border! Prohibit women from any agency over their bodies! Side with Putin! Etc. Etc.

The bridge between radicalization and trivialization (as always) is Trump. Last night, a group of accomplished adults refused to condemn someone who has broken laws related to overthrowing the U.S. government, stealing classified information, violating campaign finance laws, etc

If I told you 20 years ago that a guy who was facing 91 felony charges, including trying to overthrow the U.S. government, would be the overwhelming favorite for the Republican nomination and none of his opponents would dare to criticize him, well…

There’s a lot to say about the radicalization of the Republicans. I’ve written two books that were largely about that. Frankly, there’s nothing more to say. We have a radical right-wing party. It is what it is now.

But the trivialization of politics demands as much attention and is just as important. Because without it, the radicalization would be impossible.

Last night, for instance, the GOP frontrunner talked at length on this platform about vicious mosquitos, conspiracy theories, and general nonsense. A man who said those things in a job interview for just about any other position in the world wouldn’t get hired.

Trump’s hack of political media has always been that he mirrors their complete lack of interest in any substance, in favor of political optics, news cycle stupidity, and performative bullshit. He is both a creation – and conductor – of the stupidity of political coverage.

It is jarring to consider how impossible Trump would have been 20 years ago. He is only possible because of a Republican party that descended into grievance based insanity after the Obama election, and too much (not all) political media that cares only about performative nonsense

Consider the fact that Vivek Ramaswamy, a man who has precisely zero interest in performing any functions of the U.S. presidency, is heralded for a performance in which he mainly demonstrated his complete lack of fitness to run for any office, nevermind the most powerful one.

Meanwhile, what’s at stake? The livelihoods of Americans. A world in which there is the biggest European war since World War II and the potential for a war between nuclear-armed superpowers in East Asia. The survivability of the planet.

Until we see that these things are not trivial or entertaining; that they are serious challenges to the underpinnings of our Republic and global stability, then the radicalization will continue.

A common thread to these two trends is money – the enormous amount of money poured into corrupting our politics since Citizens United has served to fuel both radicalization and nonsense in order to serve very specific ends. That, too, is hiding in plain sight.

Meanwhile, many Americans suffer a crisis of belonging, a vulnerability to conspiracy theory, an understandable inability to make sense of it all. Because the blending of radicalization (Us v Them) and trivialization (nothing matters) leads to the destruction of objective truth.

To defeat both radicalization and trivialization, we need to get back to a democracy in which debate, disagreement, and even division can be based upon an objective reality that recognizes the stakes involved. Because all of this DOES matter. A lot.

I couldn’t agree more. But I have no idea how that might happen. I guess I just keep hoping that a series of defeats will force a majority of Republicans to realize they have to change and will take up the project of deprogramming the far right. I wish I felt more confident that this will happen.

Shocker:

Donald Trump was wounded, and Ron DeSantis was building a juggernaut.

When POLITICO launched its 2024 Republican presidential candidate tracker in March, the GOP was still smarting over a weaker-than-expected midterm election thanks to Trump’s influence. DeSantis had emerged as Trump’s top challenger and was marshaling his resources to launch a giant-killing campaign.

But five months later — a span that’s seen four indictments, three DeSantis layoff sprees and one Trump-less debate — it’s Trump unambiguously on top.

And everyone else, DeSantis included, way behind.

That’s why we’re reshuffling the candidates on the tracker. The biggest move: DeSantis drops down a tier, leaving Trump as the sole candidate in the “Frontrunners” category.

I am really starting to think he won’t make it to Iowa. I guess he’s got a ton of money so maybe he’ll just brazen it out until he is forced out. But really, why bother?

"This will create a constitutional issue that the country has never seen and that's exactly what Donald wants. He's pushing the line every single day… He knows what he's doing."@MichaelCohen212 speaks to @AliVelshi about how Trump plans to avoid legal accountability. pic.twitter.com/nX7wAFF9qH

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 26, 2023

Cohen points out the obvious problem with this idea that Trump is still liable for state charges even if he becomes president again. He asks, “how are they going to get him?Are they going to send local authorities to arrest him?” which is a good point. As he says it would cause a constitutional crisis — a local authority coming to arrest the president of the United States? Cohen believes that Trump is well aware of this — “he knows what he’s doing” — and fully recognizes that his only way out of this mess is to win the presidency.

The Republican Party refuses to stop him, thinking the Democrats will get them out of this mess and they can preserve all the benefits of what Trump brings them without all the mucky muck. He’s not going anywhere. And if he is defeated once more, you can bet that he will attempt to raise his mob again as a last ditch effort to stay out of jail. If that happens our only hope is that they are tired of all this and don’t answer the call.

Think how much time you could save if Trump was always covered so succinctly: https://t.co/pVmj2nnQGi

— Jane Mayer (@JaneMayerNYer) August 26, 2023

It was actually much creepier than that. Here’s an excerpt from David Corn’s newsletter on that interview:

[N]o one is more cynical than Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News golden boy.

As you know, Trump eschewed the debate and instead sat down for an interview with Carlson that was posted on the Social Media Site Formerly Known as Twitter. It was tough to watch. Such profound toadyism is unnerving, even when coming from a champion charlatan, such as Carlson. As Donald Trump reiterated the same ol’ false complaint—“The election was rigged. It was a rigged election…. They used Covid to cheat…. We have so much on it. It’s like so easy”—Carlson gazed at him adoringly. There was no retort from the interviewer.

But we know, thanks to the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit against Fox, that Carlson didn’t buy Trump’s bunk. In private messages revealed during that case, Carlson indicated he didn’t accept the Trump team’s claims that the 2020 election was marred by rampant fraud. He also repeatedly expressed his disdain for Trump. In one text message, he said, “I hate him passionately.” In another, written on January 4, 2021, he wrote, “We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights” and that “I truly can’t wait.” He called Trump’s four years as president a “disaster.”

Carlson shared none of his anti-Trump sentiments at the time with his Fox viewers. On air, he hailed Trump as a “great” president. For obvious reasons. One message he sent in the post-2020 election period shows that he feared speaking the truth about Trump. Trump’s talent, he wrote, is to “destroy things. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.” That is, sucking up to Trump—and his devoted following—was the business plan for Carlson and Fox. If Fox had acknowledged that Trump lost and was lying, it would have pissed off its audience, and viewers would have fled. So screw the truth. It’s all just propaganda for profit.

Now Carlson is pretending that he was not exposed as a total fraud. And he’s back to serving King Con.

This is hardly surprising, given Carlson’s record as a white supremacy-pushing, Putin-supporting disinformationalist. But an episode like this shows us just how debased the political culture of the right has become. Carlson, whose misogyny apparently triggered his firing, pays no price within the conservative cosmos for his rampant phoniness. He remains in good standing, as long as he keeps slinging the Trumpish swill. Especially when the Trump rubes—trubes?—want to keep being rubed.

Actually, allowing Trump to spread the Big Lie once more was hardly the worst of Carlson’s transgressions during his sit-down with the most indicted ex-president in US history. (Yes, the only indicted ex-president.) Early in the chat, Carlson asked Trump a dangerous question:

I’m looking at the trajectory since 2015 when you got into politics for real and then won. It started with protests against you…by the left, and then it moved to impeachment twice, and now indictment. The next stage is violence. Are you worried they’re going to try to kill you? Why wouldn’t they try to kill you?

Here Carlson was suggesting that Trump’s political foes are conspiring to kill Trump. In a divided country at a divisive moment, this is reckless and irresponsible. He was fueling hatred and paranoia. Imagine the actions that Trump devotees might consider if they were convinced Democrats, liberals, prosecutors, the media, and others were bent on killing Trump?

Trump, of course, played along with this nonsense and referred to his opponents as “savage animals. They are people who are sick, really sick.” Carlson, who seemingly detests Trump when off-camera, was hailing him as a grand martyr for America and pushing a false storyline with potentially horrendous consequences.

The Trump-Carlson lovefest was full of inanities. As Carlson beamed at his pal, Trump, who spent a gazillion hours on golf courses while he was president, derided President Joe Biden for taking a trip to the beach and called him a “Manchurian candidate” controlled by China. For his part, Carlson said of Vice President Kamala Harris, “she seems pretty senile.” (What?) At one point, Trump did speak a truth: “We have a country that’s very fragile now.” Indeed. And both Trump and Carlson are brazenly exploiting that fragility for their own benefit, with no regard for the perils they provoke. Two peas in a rotten pod.

Alleged co-conspirators find out

Alleged coup plotters, election subverters, and concealers of classified documents now find themselves under state and federal indictment. After doing the bidding of former president Donald Trump they risk not just jail for themselves and ruined reputations, but also financial ruin for their families.

Axios:

Over a dozen of former President Trump’s close allies face growing legal bills when he’s least able to help — and they’re turning to desperate measures to raise money for their fights.

Why it matters: Trump’s co-defendants in the Fulton County case each need legal teams that could cost well into the six figures.

• “Even if you do some back-of-the envelope accounting, I’d think each motion filed is going to cost a defendant in the five figures minimum,” Caren Morrison, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of New York and an associate professor of law at Georgia State University, wrote in an email to Axios.
• “I don’t see anyone’s fee less than $250,000-500,000” unless they strike a plea deal with prosecutors, Cornell Law School adjunct professor Randy Zelin told Axios.

Trump co-defendants Jenna Ellis (former Trump lawyer), Cathy Latham (former Republican Party chair of Coffee County, Georgia), John Eastman (former Trump lawyer), and Jeffrey Clark (former Department of Justice official) have all launched crowd-funding appeals to pay for their defense. Their piles are less than yooge.

Former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani is so short on cash for his defense that his son is organizing fundraiser dinners:

Andrew Giuliani, a former New York Republican gubernatorial candidate, told CNBC in a statement: “It is helpful that President Trump has agreed to headline two events, one on September 7 at Bedminster and another this winter at Mar-a-Lago, where we are getting strong donor interest.” He declined to comment further.

Co-defendant Harrison Floyd remains behind bars after a judge denied bail, Reuters reports:

Harrison Floyd said at his first court appearance that he could not afford a private lawyer and had been denied representation by a public defender because he did not qualify.

Floyd, who appeared virtually, said that it typically cost between $40,000 to $100,000 just to retain a private lawyer to fly to Georgia.

“I cannot afford an attorney for something like this,” he said, telling Fulton County Superior Court Judge Emily Richardson that he did not want to put his family in debt.

Richardson told Floyd that he could either hire a lawyer or represent himself.

Richardson denied Floyd bail because he is accused in a separate case in Maryland of assaulting an FBI agent who tried to serve him with a subpoena. She considers him a flight risk.

Trump should consider them all a risk to his staying out of jail. Those who cannot afford to pay for a vigorous serious defense will cut deals Trump does not want to be on the losing side of.

Former attorney Michael Cohen, himself convicted and jailed over his service to Trump, called Trump “an idiot” Monday for not paying his co-defendants’ legal fees:

“He has not learned yet that … three people you don’t want to throw into the bus like that: your lawyer, your doctor and your mechanic. Because one way or the other, you’re gonna go down the hill and there’ll be no brakes.”

Insufficient funds still

Thousands gather today at the Lincoln Memorial for the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. There in 1963 Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech to more than 200,000 there to demand America make good on its promise. Today, King’s granite statue stands nearby as another memorial to consequential figures in American history.

The civil rights movement, its speeches and marches, the white violence against protesters’ demands for Black equality, led after the assasination of President Kennedy later that year to passage of the transformational Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts under his successor, Lyndon Johnson. Decades of backlash to that cultural transformation today threaten that still-unfulfilled dream (Washington Post):

In the wake of court rulings, legislation and political extremism that organizers say has undone or stymied crucial racial and social progress, the rally’s leaders say they plan not a commemoration, but a reassertion of the demands made at the Memorial in 1963.

“It feels like we’ve gone backwards,” King’s eldest son, Martin Luther King III, said before the rally.

“Dad talked about eradicating the triple evils of poverty, racism and violence. … Just about any problem that we are faced with in our nation falls under one of those categories,” he said.

“Over the past two years when we are literally witnessing oppression being legislated, when we have witnessed the physical attack on democracy with an insurrection, I believe it is more critical than ever to have some type of optimism,” said his wife Arndrea Waters King. “We all have a role in realizing the dream.”

Overhead photograph of March on Washington as Martin Luther King, Jr., speaks at Lincoln Memorial, sixty years ago next week: #AP pic.twitter.com/dpDwToO70w

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) August 26, 2023

Associated Press:

Organizers of this year’s commemoration hope to recapture the energy of the original March on Washington – especially in the face of eroded voting rights nationwide, after the recent striking down of affirmative action in college admissions and abortion rights by the Supreme Court, and amid growing threats of political violence and hatred against people of color, Jews and the LGBTQ community.

Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor and civil rights leader, tells AP, “We take two steps forward, and they make us take one step back.”

King said during his famous speech:

In a sense we have come to our Nation’s Capital to cash a check. When the architects of our great republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given its colored people a bad check, a check that has come back marked “insufficient funds.”

King’s promised land remains an unfulfilled promise. And it will so long as some believe, as Heather McGhee said, “that progress for people of color has to come at white people’s expense.”

A rare patternless giraffe was born last month at a family-owned zoo in Tennessee—and experts say she may be the only completely brown giraffe alive on the planet, report Emily Hibbitts and Clarice Scheele for WJHL.

Bright's Zoo in Tennessee is looking to name a one-of-its-kind female giraffe born without spots. pic.twitter.com/8SGotDKfeh

— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) August 22, 2023

Though her appearance is unusual, the six-foot-tall calf appears healthy and is thriving under her mother’s care, Brights Zoo officials tell the publication. 

“She is very inquisitive,” David Bright, the zoo’s director, tells Insider’s Fern McErlane and Grace Eliza Goodwin. “She stays very tight with her mom, doesn’t wander off too far, but she’s very curious what’s going on around her. She has a very positive personality when it comes to giraffes.”

The calf is a reticulated giraffe (Giraffa reticulata), one of four giraffe species—until 2016, scientists recognized only one species of giraffe. The last known spotless reticulated giraffe was likely Toshiko, a calf born in 1972 in Tokyo, writes Caitlin O’Kane for CBS News. Only two others have ever been recorded—the older sibling of Toshiko and an individual in Uganda, per Insider.

“From day one, we’ve been in contact with zoo professionals all over the country,” Bright tells WJHL. “And especially the old timers, that have been around for a long time: ‘Hey, have you seen this? What’s your thoughts?’ And nobody’s seen it.”

Fred Bercovitch, a wildlife conservation biologist at Kyoto University and executive director of the nonprofit Save the Giraffes, tells Insider the animal’s color is likely due to a specific genetic mutation. Though many questions have yet to be answered about giraffes and their spots, a calf’s pattern is probably at least partly inherited from its mother, he tells the publication. 

“What the birth does show is, in some ways, how little we know about animals,” Bercovitch says to Insider. “There are exceptions to almost every rule in biology.”

Reticulated giraffes use their spotted coats to help with camouflage in the East African savannahs where they live. Each individual’s coloration pattern is unique, like a human fingerprint.

But all-brown giraffes aren’t the only differently colored individuals that have earned special attention—in recent years, three all-white giraffes with a genetic condition called leucism were recorded in the wild, but two were killed by poachers in 2020. Later that year, the last remaining white giraffe was fitted with a GPS tracker that alerts rangers of its location every hour.

The new calf’s birth has cast a “much-needed spotlight” on giraffe conservation, as the zoo’s founder, Tony Bright, tells CNN’s Scottie Andrew. Only about 16,000 reticulated giraffes remain in the wild, a decline of more than 50 percent from 35 years ago, per the Giraffe Conservation Foundation. Habitat loss, fragmentation and hunting have all contributed to this decline. And as humans expand agriculture and developed areas, they cut down acacia trees, which are the animals’ preferred food source.

Now, the reticulated giraffe is classified as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

An important Fact Check

🚨BREAKING🚨

Today, we are releasing a timeline of the Biden family’s influence peddling schemes.

President Biden has repeatedly denied knowing anything about his family’s business dealings despite evidence to the contrary.

Our timeline contains important dates as to when… pic.twitter.com/Xu7CeHzgqV

— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) July 18, 2023

The timeline is riddled with errors. The excellent Torri Otten at TNR fact checked it:

Out of the 106 dates listed in the timeline, only four are instances when Biden met someone related to Hunter’s business dealings. The timeline says that on December 4, 2013, Biden traveled to China with his son and met with Jonathan Li, the CEO of Chinese company Bohai Harvest, or BHR. Hunter later joined the BHR board.

While the timeline makes it sound like Biden went to China specifically to meet his son’s potential colleague, in reality, the then vice president went to Beijing on an official trip on behalf of the White House. He brought his son and one of his grandchildren along, as well as several reporters who noted it was common for Biden to bring family members in tow. While Hunter had business meetings with Li, Biden only met Li once. Hunter arranged for them to shake hands, but the two men did not interact further on the trip.

The timeline also says that Biden met Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, at a dinner Hunter hosted in Washington, D.C., on March 20, 2015. The dinner actually took place nearly a month later, on April 16, 2015. Pozharskyi emailed Hunter after the meal to thank him for “giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent some time together.”

But Biden only spoke to one person, a recently retired leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, the whole evening. One dinner attendee, then-president of the World Food Program USA Rich Leach, told The Washington Post that Biden “didn’t even sit down,” but only spoke to Father Alex Karloutsos. Karloutsos confirmed Leach’s account.

Republicans also allege Biden attended a meeting for Chinese energy company CEFC in Washington on May 1, 2017. This information comes from Republicans’ star whistleblower, Gal Luft, who has been charged with acting as a foreign agent for China and of arms trafficking. It is unclear if Biden attended the meeting—texts from Hunter never confirm whether his father put in an appearance, and Biden himself has denied being there—that actually took place on May 3, 2017, in Los Angeles.

Finally, the timeline states that on July 30, 2017, Hunter sent a WhatsApp message to an unspecified Chinese company that he was “sitting here with my father.” Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell, however, has slammed the message and others as “complete fakes.”

Biden’s utter lack of involvement matches testimony from multiple supposed whistleblowers. Republicans have heard testimony from IRS agents, Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer, and former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas. None of them was able to provide concrete evidence that Biden was involved in his son’s business. In fact, both Archer and Parnas said nothing could be further from the truth.

Beyond the tenuous evidence connecting Biden to his son’s work, the rest of the timeline contains sloppy mistakes, including on details mentioned in previous Republican reports about the Bidens’ wrongdoing.

In one instance, the timeline says BHR joined with a Chinese Communist Party–affiliated company on September 1, 2015, to buy the U.S.-based automotive producer Henniges Automotive. The deal actually took place on September 15, 2015, according to a 2019 report by the Senate Finance Committee.

The timeline says Hunter met with the U.S. ambassador to Romania in that country on November 13, 2015. Hunter actually met the ambassador in Washington, D.C. He didn’t travel to Romania until the following year.

Republicans have repeatedly accused Hunter of receiving illicit payments. According to the timeline, he received a payment from his associate Rob Walker on November 11, 2015. It says that Robinson Walker, a company associated with Walker, also made payments to Hunter’s company Owasco P.C. on February 12, 2016, and May 23, 2016.

The reasons for the payments are unspecified, and all three dates are wrong. As the House Oversight Committee already stated in a report from May this year, the payments actually took place on November 9, 2015, February 24, 2016, and August 15, 2016.

Hunter Biden is currently under investigation for tax evasion, and he will likely go to trial. But proof of his guilt or innocence will not be found in the Oversight Committee’s timeline.

The timeline is sloppy work done by a party on a political vendetta. Republicans have already admitted multiple times that they have no proof of wrongdoing by the president. They have said they don’t know whether the information on which their accusations are based is even legitimate.

They have also admitted they don’t really care.

That last sentence is the most important. They are blowing a lot of smoke in order to create the false narrative that they have tons and tons of evidence proving that Joe Biden is a worse criminal than Donald Trump. If you watch Fix 24/7, you’d believe it must be true. And this will be the basis for their bogus impeachment. In that event, one hopes that the Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are figuring out a way to unravel this load of bullshit in a way that people can easily understand it.

Says it all.