From Whence a Special Counsel Came
From Whence a Special Counsel Came
Damar Hamlin, Lisa Marie Presley, iatrogenocide, Bitcoin, D&D, classified documents
My name is Liam Sturgess and I am your host for this weekly news roundup, presented by Rounding the Earth. Before we get started, I want to remind everyone that you can support the show by sending us a Rumble Rant, a tip on Rokfin, or LBRY tokens on Odysee. Even more importantly, I invite you to join us over on our Locals community, where I have posted the show notes for today's episode along with the links to watch the show live on Rumble, Rokfin and Odysee, as well as directly through the StreamYard platform.
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Without further ado, let’s get started!
Damar Hamlin discharged from Buffalo hospital
A week and a half after his dramatic collapse on live TV, Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin has officially been discharged from hospital.
As reported by the Associated Press:1
“We have completed a series of tests and evaluation and in consultation with the team physicians, we are confident that Damar can be safely discharged,” Dr. Jamie Nadler said in a news release issued by the team.
This marks the next major step in what doctors have called Hamlin’s remarkable recovery, which came two days after he was deemed healthy enough to be transferred from the University of Cincinnati Medical Center to the Buffalo General Medical Center. Nadler said the 24-year-old Hamlin will continue his rehabilitation with the Bills.
The Bills and Nadler did not disclose the results of the tests Hamlin had over the past two days in Buffalo to determine the reason his heart stopped after he struck squarely in the chest by Bengals receiver Tee Higgins while making what appeared to be a routine tackle.
Very few details are known about Hamlin’s condition at this point, with the media swiftly moving on from questioning the cause of his highly suspicious cardiac arrest.
Lisa Marie Presley dies following heart attack
In a rapid one-two punch of news, Lisa Marie Presley died after suffering a heart attack.
People magazine reported:2
On Thursday morning, Presley was rushed to the hospital for a possible cardiac arrest. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department confirmed to PEOPLE that paramedics responded to the 5900 block of Normandy drive in Calabasas to treat a woman in her 50s who was not breathing. When they arrived, the paramedics began CPR and, upon noting the patient had "signs of life," transferred the woman to a local hospital for "immediate medical care."
The 54-year-old daughter of Elvis Presley had reportedly collapsed at home, in a manner becoming normalized in the hearts and minds of anybody paying attention.3 She had attended the 2023 Golden Globes just two days prior, where no health abnormalities were reported. In years past, Presley seems to have suffered from "chronic back pain" and drug addiction, neither of which adequately explain her sudden and unexpected death.4
NBC News covers hospital-caused injuries/deaths
Thought COVID-19 caused severe outcomes in one quarter of people who catch it? Yeah, that didn’t wind up being true. Not even close. Even Our World in Data’s misleading case fatality rate (CFR) chart falls far short - and for those not yet aware, Our World in Data is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and hosted at the University of Oxford (both of which are organizations heavily invested in COVID-19 “vaccines”).5
On the other hand, going to the hospital has apparently been a rather dangerous activity for awhile now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying the healthcare system doesn’t do a lot of good! But good and bad are not mutually exclusive, and as with any medical procedure, the risks are just a vital to the decision making process as the benefits.
NBC News reports:6
Nearly 1 in 4 patients who are admitted to hospitals in the U.S. will experience harm, according to a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The stark findings underscore that, despite decades of effort, U.S. hospitals still have a long way to go to improve patient safety, experts say.
One in four?! Yikes. That’s horrendous. The full study can be found here.
If you’re ready to further explore the potential implications in regards to the so-called “COVID-19 pandemic”, then I highly recommend the work of both Julius Ruechel and Denis Rancourt. Both gentlemen have presented highly compelling cases for a substantial portion of deaths attributed to COVID-19 actually being caused by institutional actions - some called iatrogenocide.
Ruechel’s work is available in the form of his book, Autopsy of a Pandemic,7 while Rancourt has published numerous studies on his website.
Bitcoin crosses $20,000
After suffering a significant crash in November (thanks SBF) Bitcoin has officially crossed back above the $20,000 USD mark.8
Hasbro ignites their next dumpster fire
#OpenDnD: Open Letter
TechCrunch: Dungeons & Dragons content creators are fighting to protect their livelihoods
Biden classified documents
This week, the White House confirmed that not one, but two batches of documents described as “classified” were discovered in President Joe Biden’s custody.
The first set was discovered in a locker at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement on November 2, 2022, “days before the midterm elections.”9 Since then, it appears there's been a hunt on to identify any further documents that may be come under further scrutiny, resulting in the discovery of a second set located in Biden's garage and personal library in Delaware.10
Attorney General Merrick Garland responded Wednesday by appointing a special counsel to investigate “the possible unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or other records discovered” thus far.11
I wanted to take a different approach to covering this story than other outlets, namely by doing what I do best: zeroing in on this important new figure and identifying who may be part of his larger network. Who exactly is this special counsel, and do we have reason to believe he is credible and worthy of the American people’s trust?
Meet Robert Hur
The individual selected, Robert Hur, is a partner at a law firm called Gibson Dunn.12
Gibson Dunn, longer name Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, seems to have a long history in Washington, D.C. affairs. Current and former partners include:
Robert Bonner, former Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)13
William French Smith, former United States Attorney General under President Reagan14
Nicolas Baverez, former member of the Bilderberg Steering Committee1516
Ken Starr, independent counsel responsible for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton17
Preet Bharara, former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York that refused to resign when President Donald Trump entered the White House1819
Tom Cotton, Republican United States Senator from Arkansas20
Others on the long list continue this trend of going in and out of government positions, including people who have held office at the Internal Revenue Service, the White House, and various levels of the judicial system.
If you’re thinking, “wow, that sounds like the definition of a revolving door setup,” then you’re not alone. In May 2021, the Revolving Door Project and People's Parity Project jointly released a report titled “BigLaw Revolving Door Report: Gibson Dunn” detailing the firm’s “abuse of the revolving door, which has allowed them to benefit their clients from inside the government.”21 Importantly, these activities are shown to be ongoing throughout multiple Republican and Democratic administrations, undermining the notion that one party is necessarily more or less corrupt than the other.
According to the report, Cabinet nominees are frequently “plucked from huge corporate law firms that defend some of the nation’s most abusive corporations.” Gibson Dunn is case in point; Biden’s Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, Jose Fernandez, “worked for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and fossil fuel companies, including Chevron.”22 This is a clear conflict of interest, especially when you throw in the fact that Fernandez was a partner at Gibson Dunn at the time of his nomination.23
Speaking of Chevron, the report elaborates:
Fernandez’s former employer Gibson Dunn has recently gained notoriety for representing Chevron in a lawsuit alleging the oil giant contaminated the Lago Agrio region of Ecuador. Following the multi-billion dollar judgement against Chevron, Gibson Dunn sued one of the lawyers representing the Indigenous communities in the region, Steven Donzinger, for criminal contempt. Dozinger has been under house arrest ever since, causing law students to launch a campaign denouncing Gibson Dunn’s actions and the firm’s larger role defending fossil fuel giants and other corporations that exacerbate climate change.
While the invocation of “climate change” will automatically turn off some modern-day skeptics, it is the conflict of interest that is important here.And those conflicts of interest seem to be widespread and consistent throughout Gibson Dunn’s history.
The firm’s clients are well worth exploring further. Its corporate clients are many of the usual suspects:
“Big tech” companies including Amazon, Apple, Facebook (along with its founder, Mark Zuckerberg),24 Intel25 and Uber
“Big oil” companies including Chevron
Telecommunications companies including AT&T and Comcast
For-profit academia including the Association of Private Sector Colleges and Universities (also known as Career Education Colleges and Universities)
Retail giants including the Retail Industry Leaders Association (see image below for a snapshot of the association’s members) and Walmart
But even more intriguing is the Presidents the firm has represented. According to a February 1984 article published in Hustler magazine, “President Ronald Reagan [was] a client of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher for all personal matters.”26 The firm also represented President George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore, the litigation contesting certification of Florida's results in the 2000 United States presidential election.27 Needless to say, the lawyer leading the case went on to work as Solicitor General in the Bush administration.28
Finally, in what may be the most direct conflict of interest, Gibson Dunn formerly represented CNN and its reporter Jim Acosta in its lawsuit against former President Donald Trump.29
Considering all of the above, Gibson Dunn does not strike me as a firm without bias.
But what about the special counsel himself? How will Robert Hur approach handling the investigation into Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents?
Well, he’s no amateur. Hur served as the United States attorney for the District of Maryland from 2018 to 2021, and was reportedly selected due to his having been appointed by the Trump administration - therefore balancing out potential conflicts of interest. He previously served in positions under Christopher Way in the Department of Justice (prior to Wray’s appointment to lead the FBI) and Rod Rosenstein when he was Deputy Attorney General.30
In the end, Hur’s actions will speak for themselves. Gibson Dunn is not the only place where Hur has worked, and this is by no means intended to be a complete overview of Hur’s network. Rather, I hope this mini-investigation provides some context as to the larger world of corporate-political law from which Hur has emerged, which may or may not wind up being consequential to the actions he takes as special counsel in the coming days, weeks and months.
That’s all for today, folks. Thank you so much for tuning in to Rounding the News, and I hope you learned as much as I did.
If you’ve enjoyed the show, please drop us a Rumble Rant or a tip on Rokfin, and before you leave, go sign up as a member of our Locals community at www.RoundingtheEarth.locals.com. You can even snag yourself a free month of premium support using the promo code included on the pinned comment, after which you can keep us going and gain access to behind-the-main-scenes discussions that we’re keeping within our more intimate community.
I have been Liam Sturgess, and you can find me at www.LiamSturgess.com, or on Twitter @TheLiamSturgess. See you next week!
Wawrow, J. (2023, January 11). Going home: Bills’ Hamlin released from Buffalo hospital. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/sports-health-damar-hamlin-buffalo-2a2003b201800d81fedec0d65415190b
Irvin, J., & McNeil, L. (2023, January 12). Lisa Marie Presley, Daughter of Elvis and Priscilla, Dead at 54: “The Most Strong and Loving Woman.” People Magazine. https://archive.ph/BcXR3
Avila, D., & McNeil, L. (2023, January 12). Priscilla Presley Says Daughter Lisa Marie Is Receiving the “Best Care” After Hospitalization. People Magazine. https://archive.ph/bMqvH
Nambiar, P. (2023, January 12). Lisa Marie Presley had health struggles years before suffering cardiac arrest. HITC. https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2023/01/12/lisa-marie-presley-had-health-struggles-years-before-suffering-cardiac-arrest/
Home. Global Change Data Lab. Retrieved January 13, 2023, from https://global-change-data-lab.org
Sullivan, K. (2023, January 11). Nearly 1 in 4 U.S. hospitalized patients experience a harmful event, study finds. NBC News. https://archive.ph/CeF8D
This is an Amazon Affiliate link. Purchasing the book this way will generate a small amount of revenue for Rounding the Earth.
Yang, J. (2023, January 14). Bitcoin Retakes $20K, Leading as Broad Crypto Rally Continues. CoinDesk. https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/01/14/bitcoin-taps-20k-leading-as-broad-crypto-market-rally-continues/
Memoli, M., Delanian, K., Richards, Z., & Nobles, R. (2023, January 10). Justice Department is examining a “small number” of classified documents found at Biden think tank. NBC News. https://archive.ph/up5u7
Earle, G. (2023, January 12). Biden drives Corvette into garage where documents were found. Mail Online. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11628125/Second-batch-Biden-classified-documents-garage-storage-Wilmington.html
AG Garland Appoints Special Prosecutor To Probe Biden’s Classified Docs Mishandling. (2023, January 12). ZeroHedge. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/bidens-classified-records-headache-garlands-special-counsel-nightmare
Hur, Robert K. Gibson Dunn. Retrieved January 12, 2023, from https://archive.ph/vHWDY
Bonner, Robert. Gibson Dunn. Retrieved October 21, 2006, from https://web.archive.org/web/20061021030648/http://www.gibsondunn.com/insidegdc/whoswho/bio/?contactId=b97f85845ca1282c
Attorney General: William French Smith | United States Department of Justice. (2014, October 23). Office of the Attorney General. https://web.archive.org/web/20230113202458/https://www.justice.gov/ag/bio/smith-william-french
Former Steering Committee Members. Bilderberg Meetings. Retrieved January 13, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230113203727/https://www.bilderbergmeetings.org/background/steering-committee/former-steering-committee-members
Nicolas Baverez - Paris, France - Lawyer. Best Lawyers. Retrieved January 13, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230113204009/https://www.bestlawyers.com/lawyers/nicolas-baverez/119031
BACKGROUND: KENNETH W. STARR. (2010, February 16). Dallas News. https://web.archive.org/web/20220924142516/https://www.dallasnews.com/news/texas/2010/02/16/background-kenneth-w-starr/
Preet Bharara - Biography. NYU School of Law. Retrieved January 13, 2023, from https://archive.ph/ihl7s
Somashekhar, S., & Johnson, J. (2017, June 11). Bharara says Trump phone calls made him uncomfortable. Washington Post. https://web.archive.org/web/20170702180356/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/bharara-says-trump-phone-calls-made-him-uncomfortable/2017/06/11/53d4b090-4ebe-11e7-91eb-9611861a988f_story.html
Chen, V. (2021, November 23). Gibson Dunn Pro Bono Case Draws Ire of Some Native Americans. Bloomberg Law. https://archive.ph/V1cSl
Beaty, A., Fanger, E., & Wolf, Z. (2021). BigLaw Revolving Door Report: Gibson Dunn. The Revolving Door Project; People’s Parity Project. https://web.archive.org/web/20220630100450/https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Gibson-Dunn-Final.pdf
Chávez, A. (2021, May 5). The Biden State Department Nominee Who Worked for Saudi Arabia and Big Oil. The Nation. https://archive.ph/AkSuq
President Biden Announces his Intent to Nominate Jose W. Fernandez as Under Secretary of State (Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment). (2021, March 17). The White House. https://archive.ph/9pU3e
Hill, K. (2011, May 27). Gibson Dunn Goes Medieval on Facebook Plaintiff. Above the Law. https://archive.ph/U35U
Nocera, J. (2008, June 21). A.M.D. and Its War With Intel. The New York Times. https://web.archive.org/web/20220421200613/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/21/business/21nocera.html
Brussell, M. (1984, February). Who Killed Larry McDonald? Hustler. https://archive.ph/va6SD
Manfredi, R. (2021, March 18). The Two Teds - Episode 2 - Bush v Gore and Election Litigation. Gibson Dunn. https://web.archive.org/web/20220904070403/https://www.gibsondunn.com/the-two-teds-episode-2-bush-v-gore/
Olson, Theodore B. Gibson Dunn. Retrieved January 13, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230114003235/https://www.gibsondunn.com/lawyer/olson-theodore-b/
Stelter, B. (2018, November 13). CNN sues President Trump and top White House aides for barring Jim Acosta. CNN Business. https://archive.ph/UltFH
Cabral, S. (2023, January 12). Robert Hur: Who is the special counsel in the Biden documents case? BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64257107