Do Democratic Reps. Dan Goldman of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland know what the “Streisand effect” is?
As the BBC notes, in 2003, singer Barbra Streisand sued an aerial photographer who had taken pictures of her house in Malibu, California and posted them online. Up to that point, almost no one had viewed the said photos. By the time her lawsuit was dismissed, the site the photos were on was averaging 420,000 views a month — hardly an inconsequential number in the pre-Facebook dial-up capital-I internet days.
Granted, Gal Luft already has an audience on the right side of the political aisle because the Israeli-American dual citizen is now turning whistleblower on the Biden family, alleging he met with the FBI in 2019 to discuss corruption allegations involving Hunter and Jim Biden’s ties with Chinese energy firm CEFC. Luft is described by the New York Post as “well connected in intelligence circles in Washington, D.C., where he ran a think tank, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, with former CIA Director James Woolsey and former national security adviser Robert McFarlane as advisers.”
It’s also true that just before he was supposed to testify to the House Oversight Committee, he was arrested in Cyprus in Feb. on an Interpol arrest warrant involving claims of weapons trafficking. He skipped bail and went into hiding, and was described by House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer as a “missing” witness.
He resurfaced last week in a 14-minute recording published by the Post, alleging Hunter Biden was getting $100,000 a month from CEFC and his uncle Jim was getting $65,000 — and not only that, Hunter had a mole inside the FBI which allowed him to tip off CEFC officials that they were under investigation.
That was published on July 5. Coincidentally, five days later, the Department of Justice unveiled new charges against Luft, claiming he violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act by not registering as an agent of the Chinese communist regime. Then, just to emphasize the point that one does not ask questions about the Bidens and their curious business relationships with foreign companies and powers, Reps. Goldman and Raskin authored a letter to Comer accusing him of amplifying Mr. Luft’s accusations.
Barbra would be proud.
“We are concerned that an official committee of the House of Representatives has been manipulated by an apparent con man who, while a fugitive from justice, attempted to fortify his defense by laundering unfounded and potentially false allegations through Congress,” the representatives wrote in the letter
“We urge you to immediately initiate an investigation into whether the Committee may have been unwittingly duped by Mr. Luft in furtherance of the [Chinese Communist Party’s] interests as well as any potentially false statements made by Mr. Luft,” the letter continued.
“It appears as if Mr. Luft sought ‘whistleblower’ status from you in an effort to defend himself while a fugitive from justice. Worse yet, this latest episode also raises concerns that Mr. Luft may be manipulating your investigation not only for his own self-interest but perhaps also in furtherance of the [Chinese Communist Party’s] efforts to undermine U.S. security interests and the President of the United States.”
In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Rep. Goldman went further in trashing Luft’s reputation before he even faces trial in the United States. (It’s worth noting one of the reasons Mr. Luft says he’s in hiding is because he can’t get a fair trial — or will even be able to raise the Biden name at trial, the same way CEFC official Patrick Ho was barred from uttering it at his New York trial despite the fact the first person he tried to call from jail when he was arrested in 2017 was Hunter Biden.
Goldman said Luft is “certainly not a legitimate whistleblower. And what he is is an alleged con man, as we said in the letter, who brokered a weapons for oil deal between China and Iran multiple times, who was an unregistered agent advancing the interests of the CCP in the United States — and who very importantly, is indicted on making false statements to the FBI including in the very meeting that he provided information about Hunter Biden to the FBI.”
“So the remarkable situation that we’re in now is that the key whistleblower informant-slash-witness in Chairman Comer’s Oversight investigation into the bogus allegations of the ‘Biden crime family’ and all that, is actually someone who has represented the interest of the CCP, has lied to the FBI and is a fugitive from justice, who is literally running away from accountability from the United States court system,” Goldman said.