{"id":583529,"date":"2023-07-19T13:30:41","date_gmt":"2023-07-19T10:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/democrats-question-hunter-biden-whistleblowers-claim-of-nonpartisanship\/"},"modified":"2023-07-19T13:30:41","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T10:30:41","slug":"democrats-question-hunter-biden-whistleblowers-claim-of-nonpartisanship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/democrats-question-hunter-biden-whistleblowers-claim-of-nonpartisanship\/","title":{"rendered":"#Democrats question Hunter Biden whistleblower\u2019s claim of nonpartisanship"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Foster and Leavitt say they are not political activists, but supporters of anyone who blows the whistle on government misconduct.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Leavitt notes that he was app<\/a>ointed by President Biden to a seat on the Merit Systems Protection Board, which adjudicates federal workplace disputes.\u00a0Both men say they have spent a career working with nonpartisan good government groups, and they have\u00a0received\u00a0praise in that community.<\/p>\n

Foster and Leavitt point out that other Washington groups that support whistleblowers include former Democratic legislative staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing wrong with working for Republicans or Democrats on the Hill and then working in the nonprofit, nonpartisan sector,\u201d they said. \u201cThere are any number of people from both sides of the aisle who do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leavitt, a former staffer for the Republican majority on the House Oversight Committee from 2015 to 2017, also worked for Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa on the Judiciary Committee from 2011 to 2015, and for Bill Sali, a\u00a0far-right Republican lawmaker<\/a>\u00a0from Idaho from 2007 to 2008.<\/p>\n

Foster spent two decades working for congressional Republicans, rising to chief counsel under Grassley on the Senate Judiciary Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As ProPublica reported, he\u00a0once published an anonymous blog<\/a>\u00a0under the handle \u201cextremist\u201d that equated homosexuality to incest and questioned whether waterboarding really amounted to torture. (He later apologized for the posts.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response to a question about the blog, Foster said ProPublica\u2019s descriptions were \u201cnot accurate, fair, or representative summaries of the posts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the handle was an ironic, tongue-in-cheek reaction to hysterical labeling of mainstream right-of-center\u00a0figures (particularly Chief Justice Roberts in the instance that led to using the handle for a time) as extremists when they clearly were not,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

More recently, Foster has\u00a0suggested<\/a>\u00a0that Hunter Biden should be prosecuted for his\u00a0work as a high-paid board member of\u00a0a Ukrainian energy firm.<\/p>\n

Both Leavitt and Foster have forged careers often investigating Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In his Empower Oversight\u00a0bio<\/a>, Foster cites his work on the \u201cFast and Furious\u201d gun scandal in the Obama administration and on exposing flaws in the Trump-Russia probe.\u00a0On his\u00a0LinkedIn page<\/a>, Leavitt says he that investigated \u201cHillary Clinton\u2019s use of a private email server while Secretary of State and the FBI\u2019s failure to recommend charges,\u201d and \u201cled investigation into conflicts of interest caused by Hillary Clinton fundraising for the political campaign of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe\u2019s wife.\u201d<\/p>\n

In supporting the FBI whistleblowers, Leavitt and Foster have found an ally in former Trump aide Kash Patel, who according to congressional\u00a0testimony<\/a>\u00a0has donated to at least one of the FBI agents and to Kyle Serafin, another former FBI agent-turned-critic who posted on Twitter<\/a> pictures of checks for $255,000 made out to two of the men. Serafin raised\u00a0the money\u00a0through a\u00a0campaign on GiveSendGo<\/a>, a\u00a0conservative\u00a0version of GoFundMe. One of the agents, suspended but still employed by the FBI, has said he is consulting lawyers about whether he can accept the money.<\/p>\n

One of the FBI whistleblowers, Stephen Friend, has taken a job with the Center for Renewing America, a conservative think tank founded by former Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to federal 990 tax forms, it shares a registration address, and has received $500,000 from, the\u00a0Conservative Partnership Institute<\/a>, a right-wing advocacy group led by Meadows and former Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.\u00a0The institute\u00a0also employs Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who has supported Trump\u2019s\u00a0false claims of\u00a0widespread\u00a0fraud in the 2020 election.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In February, the\u00a0institute\u00a0hosted<\/a>\u00a0a \u201cCongressional Oversight Boot Camp\u201d for Republican Hill staffers.\u00a0Leavitt, while still a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board, spoke at a panel entitled \u201cWorking With Outside Investigative Organizations,\u201d according to\u00a0records<\/a>\u00a0filed with the House clerk.<\/p>\n

Two weeks later, Leavitt left the board to become president of Empower Oversight.<\/p>\n

Dent says questions about\u00a0the extent to which\u00a0Hunter Biden profited from sweetheart deals \u2014 NBC News<\/a> has\u00a0reported\u00a0that he was paid $11 million over five years by a Ukrainian energy firm and a Chinese businessman \u2014 are legitimate.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, he said, \u201cthe more ideological zealous members of the (GOP) caucus tend to overreach.\u00a0They will always grab more than they can chew, and I suspect that\u2019s what may be happening here, too.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n