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The entire world knew Joe Biden was corrupt and conflicted. Now, finally, those in the know are beginning to speak out.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev told reporters former US President Joe Biden "provoked the war in Ukraine to cover up his family's corruption."

Kirill added, "The truth is coming out and justice must follow."

Kirill Dmitriev is the chief of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, the Russian Direct Investment Fund since 2011, was appointed in February as Putin's special envoy on international economic and investment cooperation.

Kirill Dmitriev posted several tweets on his X account following the news on Monday that Joe Biden intervened to suppress a CIA report from being disseminated that exposed alleged corruption by the Biden clan in Ukraine. They also reportedly pressured to remove the Ukrainian official who had uncovered the wrongdoing!

Look what was posted exactly five years ago today on Twitter. Kirill reposted it.

The Russians knew all about Joe Biden and his corruption.

Trump: ["W]e can do things during the shutdown that are irreversible, that are bad for them and irreversible by them, like cutting vast numbers of people out, cutting things that they like, cutting programs that they like," he continued.

A shutdown does not hand a president new powers, but instead concentrates discretion to the White House and Office of Management and Budget over what the executive branch continues operating or ending.

Under the Antideficiency Act, a federal law that guides the government through shutdowns, federal agencies are not permitted to spend funds, the Government Accountability Office outlines, except for a limited set of missions, such as performing constitutional duties. The executive branch is charged with interpreting those exceptions.

Office of Management and Budget Director "Russell Vought become very popular recently because he can trim the budget to a level that you couldn't do any other way," Trump continued Tuesday. "So they're taking a risk by having a shutdown because, because of the shutdown, we can do things medically and other ways, including benefits. We can cut large numbers of people."

Later that day, Trump again said that he did not want a shutdown to unfold, but that "a lot of good" could come from it in order to weed out government overspending, noting "we'd be laying off a lot of people that are going to be very affected."

"A lot of good can come down from shutdowns," he said. "We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn't want, and they'd be Democrat things. But they want open borders. They want men playing in women's sports. They want transgender for everybody. They never stop. They don't learn. We won an election in a landslide."

Vought declared an imminent government shutdown Tuesday evening ahead of the deadline, pinning blame on "Democrats' insane policy demands, which include $1 trillion in new spending."

"It is unclear how long Democrats will maintain their untenable posture, making the duration of the shutdown difficult to predict," he wrote in a memo Tuesday. "Regardless, employees should report to work for their next regularly scheduled tour of duty to undertake orderly shutdown activities."

Vice President JD Vance joined the White House press briefing Wednesday and predicted that it wasn't "going to be that long of a shutdown," but that people will need to be laid off.

"We're going to have to make things work," he said. "And that means that we're going to have to triage some certain things, that means certain people are going to have to get laid off. And we're going to try to make sure that the American people suffer as little as possible from the shutdown."

Vance added that the administration was "not targeting federal agencies based on politics" for layoffs.

"We're in a shutdown, that causes some problems," he said. "The troops aren't getting paid. There's nothing that we can do about that while the government is shut down. But there are essential services that we want to make sure as, as much as possible, they still continue to function. That is the principle that's driving us forward during the shutdown."

DOGE and vows to slim government

Anticipated layoffs and program cuts amid the shutdown follow Trump's ongoing mission to gut the federal government of fraud, corruption and overspending, which first hit the nation's radar in the early days of the administration when Trump launched the Department of Government Efficiency, as well as previous mass layoffs initiatives.

Back in January, the administration offered federal employees voluntary buyouts to leave their posts before rolling out reduction in force initiatives across various agencies to slim down the government.

"We have hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have not been showing up to work," Trump said during his joint address to Congress in March. "My administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy, and we will restore true democracy to America again."

"And any federal bureaucrat who resists this change will be removed from office immediately, because we are draining the swamp," he added. "It's very simple. And the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over."

Simultaneous to reduction in force efforts and buyouts, tech billionaire Elon Musk was charged with leading DOGE as investigators scrutinized federal agencies in an effort to curb government overspending and stamp out fraud. DOGE's work became a lightning rod for criticism among Democratic lawmakers and government employees, who filed a number of lawsuits attempting to end the investigations and audits.

Trump repeatedly has celebrated DOGE's work during his first few months in office, including frequently listing off the various "flagrant scams" that the government was funding before DOGE's investigations.

"Twenty-five million dollars to promote biodiversity conservation and socially responsible behavior in Colombia. This is Colombia, South America, not Columbia University. Of course, that might be worse," Trump said in February during CPAC, rattling off different examples. "Forty million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants."

"Forty-two million for social and behavior change in Uganda," Trump continued. "Ten million for Mozambique medical male circumcisions. Why are we going to Mozambique to do circumcisions?"