I have written several articles on our Presidential candidate Biden and President Biden. A list of the links have been provided at the bottom of this article for your convenience. This article will, however address different aspects on Biden’s presidency.
FBI Possesses Significant, Impactful, Voluminous Evidence Of Potential Criminality In Biden Family Business Arrangements
Grassley seeks specific records from FBI related to Biden deals with foreign nationals and companies connected to the communist Chinese regime
WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Chuck Grassley is calling on the FBI to produce specific records in its possession indicating potential criminal activity in the Biden family’s foreign business deals. It remains unclear whether those FBI records, which have been reviewed by Grassley’s investigative staff, have been shared with the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office as part of its ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden.
Since first raising concern about bias by senior leadership and a double standard by the FBI in politically sensitive investigations, numerous whistleblowers have made legally protected disclosures substantiating these concerns.
“Notably, the Justice Department and FBI have not disputed the accuracy of the allegations that I have made public since May 31, 2022. The Justice Department’s and FBI’s continued silence on these matters is deafening and further erodes their credibility. Simply put, enough is enough – the Justice Department and FBI must come clean to Congress and the American people with respect to the steps they have taken, or failed to take, relating to the Hunter Biden investigation,” Grassley wrote in a letter to FBI and Justice Department leadership as well as the Delaware U.S. attorney.
In the letter, Grassley attached a contract, signed by Hunter and James Biden and three other business associates. The contract was part of an arrangement designed to funnel $5 million from the Chinese communist government-connected CEFC to Hunter and James Biden to compensate them for work done while Joe Biden was vice president, according to an FBI interview summary of Tony Bobulinski. But other records held by the FBI reveal frustration by the Bidens about CEFC’s payment being delayed. Records previously released by Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) show James and Hunter Biden ultimately profited from a $5 million payment from a company connected to CEFC via a separate arrangement.
Other records held by the FBI shed light on Hunter Biden’s business and financial relationship with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky. These documents include specific details about conversations by non-government individuals relevant to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden. These documents also indicate that Joe Biden was aware of Hunter Biden’s business arrangements and may have been involved in some of them. It remains unclear whether the FBI took appropriate steps to follow up on this information or passed it to the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office.
Whistleblowers
Grassley frequently hears from current and former government employees who come forward to shine a light on fraud, waste, abuse and gross mismanagement in government agencies or by government contractors. He protects the identities of these sources and frequently promotes policies that shield whistleblowers from retaliation. Individuals wishing to call attention to mismanagement or misconduct within the Justice Department and its component agencies, such as the FBI, about the aforementioned allegations or other misconduct should contact Sen. Grassley’s investigations unit at (202) 224-3738 or email wb_reports@judiciary-rep.senate.gov.
Director Wray has personally committed to Senator Grassley that whistleblowers who have come forward will not face retaliation.
Grassley’s letter follows.
October 13, 2022
VIA ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
The Honorable Merrick Garland
Attorney General
Department of Justice
The Honorable Christopher Wray
Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Honorable David Weiss
U.S. Attorney
District of Delaware
Dear Attorney General Garland, Director Wray and U.S. Attorney Weiss:
Since May 31, 2022, I’ve written three letters to the Justice Department and FBI based on protected whistleblower disclosures that indicate a pattern and practice of political decisions being made at the FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO) and FBI Headquarters.[1] In those letters, I’ve noted that Congress has a constitutional responsibility to ensure that the Executive Branch executes the law and uses taxpayer money appropriated to it in accordance with congressional intent. In furtherance of that constitutional responsibility, Congress has an obligation to investigate the Executive Branch for fraud, waste, abuse and gross mismanagement – acts which undermine faith in the American people’s governmental institutions. Those constitutional and legislative responsibilities apply to this letter to you. My previous letters also invited individuals, including current and former government employees, to contact me and my office to confidentially report allegations of fraud, waste, abuse and gross mismanagement by FBI and Justice Department officials. In response, my office has received a significant number of protected communications from highly credible whistleblowers which have increased since my initial outreach to your offices.
Based on recent protected disclosures to my office, the FBI has within its possession significant, impactful and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden and James Biden.[2]
The evidence within the FBI’s possession that I am referencing is included, in part, in a summary of Tony Bobulinski’s October 23, 2020, interview with FBI agents. In that interview, Mr. Bobulinski stated that the arrangement Hunter Biden and James Biden created with foreign nationals connected to the communist Chinese government included assisting them with potential business deals and investments while Joe Biden was Vice President; however, that work remained intentionally uncompensated while Joe Biden was Vice President. After Joe Biden left the Vice Presidency, the summary makes clear that Hunter Biden and James Biden worked with CEFC and affiliated individuals to compensate them for that past work and the benefits they procured for CEFC. According to the summary, Hunter Biden, James Biden and their business associates created a joint venture that would serve as a vehicle to accomplish that financial compensation, and that arrangement was made sometime after a meeting in Miami between Hunter Biden and CEFC officials in February 2017. According to the summary, that vehicle was called SinoHawk, which was owned 50 percent by Oneida Holdings LLC (Oneida) and 50 percent by Hudson West IV. According to the summary, Oneida was made of five evenly divided LLCs, one for each business associate – including Hunter Biden and James Biden. However, according to the summary, 10 percent of Hunter Biden’s interest was to be held for Joe Biden. Attached to this letter is the Oneida Operating Agreement which lists Hunter Biden, James Biden and their business associates and the percentage of interest for each individual.[3] Included below is a copy of the signature block for the Oneida Operating Agreement which was signed on May 22, 2017.
According to the interview summary, the money transferred to Oneida as part of the venture to compensate the Bidens was supposed to consist of an unsecured $5 million loan, intended to be forgivable, from CEFC in 2017. Similarly, the FBI has within its possession a different document, dated in October 2020, but referencing events that occurred years before. That document indicates that in May 2017 – approximately three months after the joint venture was hatched in Miami and the same month it was officially formed – Hunter Biden yelled at CEFC officials at a meeting for failing to fund the joint venture. That same document notes that as of July 2017 the money still had not been transferred and James Biden considered calling CEFC officials and threatening to withdraw Biden family support from future deals. Notably, my September 2020 report with Senator Johnson and our floor speeches from this year made public bank records and financial data that showed that Hunter Biden and James Biden profited from a $5 million wire from a company connected to CEFC in August of 2017, indicating that it could have been the money originally intended for SinoHawk. However, based on records, that money was not transmitted to the SinoHawk joint venture, rather it was transmitted to Hudson West III which could partially explain SinoHawk’s eventual failure.[4] As noted in our report and our floor speeches, the money from the wire was transferred from Hudson West III to Hunter Biden’s firm, Owasco, and James Biden’s firm, Lion Hall Group, apparently circumventing SinoHawk.[5]
Based on allegations provided to my office, the information provided by Mr. Bobulinski formed a sufficient basis to open a full field investigation on pay-to-play grounds; however, it is unclear whether the FBI did so and whether the information is part of the ongoing criminal investigation by U.S. Attorney Weiss.
The FBI also has a document within its possession that notes that then former Vice President Joe Biden met with Hunter Biden and his business associates at a conference in Los Angeles on May 2, 2017, and May 3, 2017. The meetings have been publicly disclosed; however, the fact that the FBI maintains documents referencing these data points has not been made public before.
Lastly, the FBI has within its possession a series of documents relating to information on Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, and his business and financial associations with Hunter Biden. The documents in the FBI’s possession include specific details with respect to conversations by non-government individuals relevant to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden. These documents also indicate that Joe Biden was aware of Hunter Biden’s business arrangements and may have been involved in some of them. Based on allegations, it is unclear whether the FBI followed normal investigative procedure to determine the truth and accuracy of the information or shut down investigative activity based on improper disinformation claims in advance of the 2020 election, just as it did with Hunter Biden information that I wrote to you about on July 25, 2022.[6] It is also unclear whether U.S. Attorney Weiss has performed his own due diligence on these and related allegations.
These new whistleblower disclosures beg the question: in light of the allegations that I have brought to your attention, what have the FBI and Justice Department, to include U.S. Attorney Weiss, done to investigate?
Notably, the Justice Department and FBI have not disputed the accuracy of the allegations that I have made public since May 31, 2022. The Justice Department’s and FBI’s continued silence on these matters is deafening and further erodes their credibility. Simply put, enough is enough – the Justice Department and FBI must come clean to Congress and the American people with respect to the steps they have taken, or failed to take, relating to the Hunter Biden investigation. With respect to the new – and numerous – legally protected disclosures that have been made to my office, please provide the following no later than October 27, 2022, so that Congress can perform an independent and objective review:
1. The full and unredacted FBI summary of Tony Bobulinski’s October 23, 2020, interview.
2. Was Tony Bobulinski’s interview summary placed within Guardian? Was it placed within an investigative case file?
3. The full and unredacted October 2020 document that lists a timeline of events associated with Hunter Biden’s business associates, foreign and domestic.
4. All records relating to the May 2, 2017, and May 3, 2017, meetings between Tony Bobulinski and Joe Biden.
5. All records,[7] including FD-71, FD-209a, FD-302, FD-794b, FD-1023, FD-1040a, FD-1057 and Guardian leads, from January 1, 2014 to the date of this letter that reference Mykola Zlochevsky, Hunter Biden, James Biden and Joe Biden.
Thank you for your attention to this important matter.
Sincerely,
Charles E. Grassley
[1] Letter from Senator Grassley to Attorney General Garland and Director Wray (May 31, 2022) https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/CEG%20to%20DOJ%20FBI%20(WFO).pdf; Press Release, Senator Grassley, Whistleblowers’ Report Reveal Double Standard in Pursuit of Politically Charged Investigations by Senior FBI, DOJ Officials (July 25, 2022) https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/whistleblowers-reports-reveal-double-standard-in-pursuit-of-politically-charged-investigations-by-senior-fbi-doj-officials
[2] At my direction, my staff have reviewed the unclassified records.
[3] Attachment at p. 8.
[4] Chairman Charles Grassley, S. Comm. on Fin., and Chairman Ron Johnson, S. Comm. on Homeland Sec. and Governmental Aff. Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Corruption: The Impact on U.S. Government Policy and Related Concerns 78 (Sept. 23, 2020) https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC%20-%20Finance%20Joint%20Report%202020.09.23.pdf; Floor Speech, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Sen. Ron Johnson Discuss Investigation into Biden Family Foreign Financial Entanglements – Part 1 (Mar. 28, 2022) https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/grassley-johnson-discuss-investigation-into-biden-family-foreign-financial-entanglements_-part-1; see also Floor Speech, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Sen. Ron Johnson Release Bank Records Tying Biden Family to CCP-Linked Individuals & Companies (Mar. 29, 2022), https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/grassley-johnson-release-bank-records-tying-biden-family-to-ccp-linked-individuals-and-companies; Floor Speech, Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Sen. Ron Johnson, The Biden Family Investigation – Part III: James Biden (Apr. 5, 2022) https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/the-biden-family-investigation_part-iii-james-biden.
[5] Id.
[6] Press Release, Ranking Member Grassley, Whistleblowers’ Reports Reveal Double Standard in Pursuit of Politically Charged Investigations by Senior FBI, DOJ Officials (July 25, 2022) https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/whistleblowers-reports-reveal-double-standard-in-pursuit-of-politically-charged-investigations-by-senior-fbi-doj-officials
[7] “Records” include any written, recorded, or graphic material of any kind, including letters, memoranda, reports,
notes, electronic data (e-mails, email attachments, and any other electronically-created or stored information),
calendar entries, inter-office communications, meeting minutes, phone/voice mail or recordings/records of verbal
communications, and drafts (whether or not they resulted in final documents). This definition applies to all requests for records in the questions for the record.
‘Hiding the Ball’: Hunter Biden Complicates White House Anti-Corruption Push
Questions about the First Son could detract from the president’s efforts to position himself as a global good-government crusader.
During the presidential campaign, liberals had plenty of reason to tune out the Hunter Biden story.
For one, it was being pushed by Donald Trump, whose administration was awash in ethics scandals of its own, and who failed to make a convincing case that Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian energy company influenced his father’s actions as vice president. And it was unclear what to make of the alleged leak of material from Hunter Biden’s laptop, especially after social media companies moved to restrict access to the story and a bevy of former U.S. intelligence officials dismissed it as likely “Russian disinformation.”
Following the election, it seemed the whole Hunter Biden saga might fade away amid Trump’s efforts to overturn the result, the storming of the Capitol and an ongoing pandemic. Instead, he has remained in the headlines.
Most recently, news broke this summer that Hunter Biden would begin selling paintings, with initial prices as high as $500,000. It was an extraordinary sum for a debut artist, and immediately invited concerns that people who wanted to ingratiate themselves with the president would overpay for his son’s art.
The White House responded that the identities of the buyers would be kept secret, both from the painter and the public, while leaving it to the art dealer to weed out any suspicious patrons.
Many ethics experts expressed sharp disapproval of the arrangement, including a former head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, who described the sums of money involved as “absolutely appalling.”
So far, right-leaning outlets that devoted less attention to the ethical issues raised by the activities of Trump’s relatives have had a field day with the Hunter Biden story. Interest in his activities, meanwhile, has been relatively muted on the left.
That may be changing. Along with new evidence that at least some of the alleged laptop material is genuine — as well as other emerging evidence about the deals family members have sought or received from people with an interest in influencing Biden — the bipartisan outcry over the painting venture suggests that the Hunter Biden issue is not going away, and that liberals may increasingly tune in.
After all, concerns about money influencing politics have traditionally animated liberals more than conservatives. In fact, one of the most scathing critiques of Biden came during the Democratic primary, from the progressive reformer and Bernie Sanders surrogate Zephyr Teachout, who authored an op-ed for the Guardian accusing Biden of having a “corruption problem” (the column prompted Sanders to apologize to his former Senate colleague).
And with his father in office, Hunter Biden’s activities no longer bear on an electoral choice between Biden and Trump. Instead, they threaten to complicate the White House’s efforts to position Biden as a global anti-corruption crusader, along with its contention that “we have the highest ethical standards of any administration in history.”
It is impossible for the public to know everything that goes on inside a government office, let alone inside a family, especially one as tight knit as the Bidens. Ethics experts generally maintain that officials should avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, a standard that becomes especially stringent at the highest levels of government.
Yet there is evidence that the Biden family’s activities over the years have regularly presented such an appearance. Far from ethical concerns about Hunter Biden being debunked, the case for close scrutiny only grows stronger when viewed in the full context of the family’s story and in light of events that have unfolded since Election Day.
Biden’s relatives have denied allegations of wrongdoing, and none have been accused of criminal misdeeds related to their business dealings. The president has said that he does not discuss his relatives’ dealings with them, and no proof has emerged that he has taken official actions on account of their business interests.
But in recent decades, members of the First Family, including Hunter Biden, have repeatedly entered into financial relationships with people who have an interest in influencing their powerful relative — including taking loans from lobbyists; seeking business from labor groups; taking a job with a bank that relied on Biden’s support to pass a personal bankruptcy law loathed by progressives; and, of course, taking a seat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, that faced allegations of corruption, even as Biden headed up U.S. anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine.
Several former business contacts have also accused Biden relatives of explicitly invoking their political clout to advance their business interests, charges that members of the family have denied. And since 2007, several of their business associates have been convicted of federal fraud or corruption charges, though no members of the First Family have been implicated in those crimes.
Meanwhile, since the election, Hunter Biden’s business dealings, along with those of other relatives, have remained in the news.
In December, Hunter Biden acknowledged the existence of a federal criminal investigation of his tax affairs, which has focused on his dealings overseas, including in China. POLITICO also reported on the FBI’s interest in one of Biden’s brothers, James Biden, as part of an ongoing investigation of a hospital operator to which he was tied. That investigation, which remained active as of late last year, focused in part on alleged representations James Biden made in investment pitches about the value of his last name and influence, according to a former official with firsthand knowledge of it.
On his first day in office, Biden named a law partner of his son’s defense attorney as interim head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, an arrangement that risked running afoul of the department’s conflict-of-interest rules. On the same day, Biden’s brother Frank highlighted his relationship to the president in a newspaper ad for a Florida law firm. Since then, Biden’s other brother, James, bowed out of an energy venture in the U.K. following a White House ethics review, according to the Financial Times.
Meanwhile, reporting I’ve done for my book, The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s 50-Year Rise to Power, as well as information that has emerged publicly, supports the conclusion that a purported leak of Hunter Biden’s computer files contains genuine material. Hunter himself has told CBS News that the laptop “certainly” could be his.
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There may be fake material mixed in with the real, and the significance even of the material for which there is corroboration remains unclear.
But the case that Hunter Biden arranged an April 2015 encounter between his father and a Burisma representative in Washington has only gotten stronger since that allegation was first aired last October, as has the case that Hunter Biden discussed giving the future president a piece of a planned venture with a Chinese energy mogul. The mogul has been linked by the Financial Times to China’s military intelligence community and has been detained in China, where prosecutors have reportedly alleged that he bribed a Communist Party official.
Rather than air out these episodes fully, Biden’s camp responded with carefully worded statements saying that its “official schedules” showed no meeting with the Burisma representative and that Biden has never discussed going into business with his relatives. For its part, the Justice Department has declined to address whether Nicholas McQuaid, the lawyer tapped by Biden as interim head of its criminal division, recused himself from Hunter Biden’s case or received a waiver to participate in it, as department rules would require, during his time atop the criminal division. (In July, the Senate confirmed a permanent head of the criminal division.)
The White House declined to comment. The evidence suggests that questions about the activities of Hunter Biden, and other members of the first family, are not going away. Left unaddressed, they threaten to complicate Biden’s declared intention to restore public confidence in the executive branch, even — perhaps especially — in the eyes of Trump’s harshest critics.
“Even though this administration isn’t corrupt on the same level as the previous administration, which seemed to embrace the corruption,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor and government ethics expert at Washington University in St. Louis, “the public has reason to be concerned.”
Most recently, those concerns have centered around Hunter Biden’s art.
“Little will guard against the possibility that the buyers may be interested in something beyond Hunter’s paintings,” journalist Casey Michel wrote of the arrangement in the Atlantic, “and that they may be willing to pay however much they need for access to the man whose father sits in the Oval Office.”
Clark, meanwhile, described the plan to keep the identities of the buyers secret as “whacko.”
“It leaves, frankly, the Biden administration wide open to concerns that people are going to buy influence by buying Hunter Biden’s paintings at what might be inflated prices,” she said. “The idea of keeping the identity of the buyers secret or the price secret is no way to protect the public interest or ensure public confidence that there isn’t corruption going on. It’s bizarre that that’s the solution that they came upon.”
Fresh concerns about the arrangement arose in late July when CBS News reported that Hunter Biden would, in fact, meet face to face with people interested in purchasing his art, thereby undermining the anonymity of the process.
That development left Jessica Tillipman, a dean at George Washington University’s law school and an anti-corruption expert, incredulous. “Now, he’s privately meeting with potential buyers and quote unquote he’s never going to know [if they then made a purchase] because he’s just outsourced the ethics function to this art dealer, and we’re supposed to just rely on that?” she said.
Psaki spars with reporter over Hunter Biden: ‘There’s no reason to yell’Share
https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.555.1_en.html#goog_1934565012Play Video
Tillipman described the White House handling of the matter as “botched.”
(White House spokesperson Jen Psaki has said that conversations between Hunter Biden and potential buyers will not be “related to the selling of art,” and has distanced the White House from the arrangement, saying it was drawn up by Hunter Biden’s representatives.)
The venture into painting is not an isolated incident, but part of a larger pattern in which the finances of Hunter and other Biden relatives have raised ethics questions or overlapped with the president’s political alliances and public duties. Among the alleged conflicts of interest are:
• Hunter Biden’s work for MBNA, a Delaware-based bank whose employees were at one time among his father’s top campaign donors. After leaving the bank and becoming a federal lobbyist, Hunter Biden received outside consulting fees from the bank.
While MBNA was paying Hunter Biden, Joe Biden championed a bill sought by the bank that made it more difficult for people to shed credit card debt through personal bankruptcy. Progressives, especially then-law professor Elizabeth Warren, opposed the bill, but Biden was able to help secure its 2005 passage.
A spokesperson told CBS News in 2008 that Hunter Biden was paid to consult on issues related to e-commerce and online privacy, and that his work did not relate to the bankruptcy bill. The spokesperson told the New York Times that Joe Biden never performed any legislative favors for the bank.
• Hunter and James Biden’s receipt of more than a million dollars worth of loans from WashingtonFirst Bank, which came in 2006 when the two Biden relatives were looking for means to repay a debt related to their acquisition of a troubled hedge fund firm, Paradigm Global Advisors. The bank was co-founded by a federal lobbyist who had been Hunter Biden’s lobbying partner and maintained longstanding ties to Joe Biden.
The loans were later repaid, according to a former executive at the bank.
• James Biden’s sale of land in the Virgin Islands to Scott Green, a former Biden Senate staffer working as a federal lobbyist and government contractor. James Biden also received a loan from the lobbyist, who later indicated it had been repaid. Green and some of his clients benefited from Joe Biden’s actions in the Senate and the Obama administration. That included Biden’s work securing funding for the non-profit Drug Abuse Resistance Education program and for a Department of Homeland Security program meant to improve communications systems for first responders.
• James Biden’s receipt of an executive role at construction firm HillStone International during his brother’s vice presidency, despite a lack of previous experience in the industry. Following James Biden’s arrival, the firm and its parent company landed contracts worth an estimated $1.5 billion to build housing in Iraq. The deal came via a South Korean firm that had received a contract from Iraq’s U.S.-supported government. At the time, Joe Biden oversaw the Obama administration’s Iraq policy.
The company has said that James Biden played no role in helping it land the contract, which was ultimately canceled.
• Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board in 2014, despite a lack of prior experience in the energy sector, which came while then-vice president Joe Biden oversaw U.S. policy in Ukraine.
Burisma was awarded valuable licenses for natural gas production while its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, served as Ukraine’s minister of ecology and natural resources under the Russia-aligned administration of Viktor Yanukovych. Both Zlochevsky and Burisma were under suspicion of corruption while Hunter Biden sat on the board.
While serving as Obama’s ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, a career State Department official, singled out Zlochevsky in public remarks about corruption, saying millions of dollars of the mogul’s “illicit assets” rightfully “belonged to the Ukrainian people.”
Another career State Department official, George Kent, has described Zlochevsky as an “odious oligarch.” He testified that a top Ukrainian official told him of a $7 million bribe Zlochevsky allegedly paid to other Ukrainian officials in 2014 to end a corruption inquiry, according to a report by Senate Republicans.
But Kent testified to congressional investigators during the Democratic-led 2019 impeachment inquiry that he was rebuffed by the vice president’s office when he tried to raise concerns that Hunter Biden’s hiring could be seen as influence-buying.
Joe Biden has said he did not discuss Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings with him. Hunter Biden has said that his last name likely played a role in his hiring at Burisma and that taking the position showed “poor judgment,” while maintaining he did not engage in wrongdoing. In his memoir, he praised Zlochevsky, describing the businessman as an “energy wonk” and “a listener” who “doesn’t suffer fools lightly.”
Episodes such as these complicate Biden’s efforts to position himself as an anti-corruption crusader. In an essay last year for Foreign Affairs, he pledged to “take steps to tackle the self-dealing, conflicts of interest, dark money, and rank corruption that are serving narrow, private, or foreign agendas and undermining our democracy.” In the essay, Biden also promised to hold during his first year in office a “global Summit for Democracy,” at which he would secure anti-corruption commitments from countries around the world.
Biden has instituted strict ethics rules for executive branch personnel, a move praised by watchdog groups, even as some have called for him to do more to push for the legislative reforms he promised on the campaign trail.
In June, he issued a presidential “Memorandum on Establishing the Fight Against Corruption as a Core United States National Security Interest,” which ordered the formulation of a sweeping new anti-corruption strategy. The push to make corruption a marquee U.S. issue on the world stage is complicated by the role of money and the influence industry in domestic politics, as well as questions about whether Trump and his relatives improperly profited off of his presidency.
Further complicating such efforts are several cases in which former business contacts have alleged that Hunter or James Biden explicitly invoked their political clout in their business endeavors.
While Joe Biden served as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Hunter and James Biden acquired the hedge fund firm Paradigm. The former chief compliance officer of the firm has said that James Biden spoke to him of plans to solicit investments from foreign entities who wanted to be supportive of Joe Biden but were legally barred from donating to American political campaigns.
A representative for James Biden has said no such conversation took place, and there is no evidence that Paradigm landed investments from foreign interests.
Three former Paradigm executives have also said that James and Hunter hoped to capitalize on their family’s political alliance with organized labor to land investments from union groups for Paradigm. There is no evidence they succeeded in landing such investments for Paradigm.
A recent foray by James Biden into the health care sector generated similar allegations. In sworn declarations made in 2019, executives for health care firms suing James Biden in Tennessee alleged that as he sought to broker investment deals with their firms, he said his powerful brother could help their businesses grow— including by incorporating one firm’s model of care into his 2020 presidential campaign.
James and Hunter Biden denied the allegations in those suits, which both were settled.
Joe Biden has maintained he does not discuss his relatives’ business dealings with them, but there is evidence that family members do have his ear on policy. For example, in videotaped remarks from 2014, the president’s other brother, Frank Biden, and a federal lobbyist discussed their successful bid to enlist Joe Biden’s help in passing an animal welfare measure through Congress. As part of the effort, the then-vice president advocated for the measure in a meeting with Mitch McConnell, according to the oil company executive who sponsored the lobbying push.
While Biden’s relatives have not been implicated in any of the crimes, several of their business associates have been convicted on federal corruption or fraud charges over the past decade and a half.
Most recently, in late 2020, a federal appeals court reinstated the conviction of Devon Archer — the former Hunter Biden business partner who facilitated his Burisma work — on fraud charges related to a bond issuance scheme.
In 2017, Hunter and James Biden began seriously pursuing a business partnership with Ye Jianming, founder of the Chinese energy company CEFC. Ye enlisted Hunter Biden to provide legal representation to one of his lieutenants, Patrick Ho, who was facing legal problems in the U.S. Ho was subsequently convicted in federal court of bribing government officials in Africa.
(Ye has since dropped from public view amid reports that he has been detained in China, where, according to state broadcaster CCTV, he has been implicated in bribery at the corruption trial of a senior Chinese official.)
Biden Inc.: Over his decades in office, ‘Middle-Class Joe’s’ family fortunes have closely tracked his political career.
Years earlier, around the time of Biden’s second presidential campaign in 2007, James Biden planned to launch an international law and lobbying shop to be called Patterson, Balducci and Biden.
The plan was cut short when his partners, Timothy Balducci and Steve Patterson, were arrested by the FBI,and later convicted, over their unrelated efforts to bribe a Mississippi judge.
Meanwhile, an associate of Patterson’s and Balducci’s, Joey Langston, pleaded guilty in federal court to his own role in a scheme to illicitly influence another judge.
Several years later, Langston and James Biden went into business together, according to corporate records and an investigation by ProPublica.
The pair worked with a company called Trina Health, which offered a controversial diabetes treatment. But the company’s founder, G. Ford Gilbert, pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges in 2019 following a corruption scandal in Alabama.
Neither Langston nor James Biden have responded to questions seeking more detail about the nature of their involvement with Trina.
As the 2020 election kicked into gear, Trump, Giuliani and their associates launched their failed attempt to paint the Bidens as corrupt. They tried to spin a narrative in which Joe Biden’s successful efforts to force the ouster of Ukraine’s top prosecutor were undertaken in order to derail investigations that could be harmful to Burisma or Zlochevsky.
There were key holes in their case: For one thing, U.S. allies, including the World Bank and the European Union, supported the prosecutor’s dismissal. In fact, one complaint from the Western powers was that the prosecutor had not been pursuing Zlochevsky aggressively enough. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators had also been calling for reform of the prosecutor’s office.
In the end, Trump’s efforts backfired. He was caught pressuring Ukraine’s president to investigate the Bidens while his administration withheld military aid from the country. That gambit provoked Trump’s impeachment, rather than Biden’s downfall.
But the Burisma issue reared its head again in the closing weeks of the campaign, when the New York Post reported on a cache of files that had purportedly leaked from Hunter Biden’s laptop. The report included a purported April 2015 email from a Burisma adviser, Vadym Pozharskyi, thanking Hunter Biden for inviting him to Washington and allowing Pozharskyi to meet the then-vice president.
The report was immediately controversial. The New York Times reported that many in the New York Post’s own newsroom were not confident in the story. For a time, Twitter restricted sharing of the initial Post article, going so far as to prevent users from sending it to each other in private messages. Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, has since described that decision as a “total mistake.”
A follow-up report from the Post included a purported email sent by one of Hunter and James Biden’s business partners in their planned venture with Ye, the Chinese energy mogul. The email, from James Gilliar, references a tentative agreement for distributing equity in the venture. That breakdown includes “10 held by H for the big guy?”
Then, Tony Bobulinski, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, came forward to say that the email was genuine, and that it referred to plans for Hunter Biden to hold equity in the venture on behalf of his father. There is no indication that the proposed equity structure came to pass. Bobulinski — who was working with Trump-aligned operatives to publicize his allegations — also said that he discussed the planned venture with Joe Biden in general terms during a 2017 meeting in Los Angeles.
Bobulinski’s claims contradicted a 2019 campaign trail statement by Biden that “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period.”
In response to a question about whether Joe Biden had ever met with Bobulinski and shown a familiarity with the CEFC-related venture, a White House spokesperson, Andrew Bates, pointed to the campaign’s original statement that Biden has never considered going into business with family or had relatives hold stock on his behalf. Bates also pointed to a statement from Gilliar that he was “unaware of any involvement” by Joe Biden in the planned venture.
Gilliar did not respond to requests for comment for the book. Neither did lawyers for James and Hunter Biden. The White House has not disputed Bobulinski’s claim that he discussed the planned venture with Joe Biden.
Since the election, questions and confusion about the alleged emails have lingered.
In March, U.S. intelligence agencies issued a report concluding that Russian intelligence proxies worked to push anti-Biden narratives during the campaign that included “misleading or unsubstantiated allegations.” In some quarters, this created the impression that the intelligence agencies have concluded that the laptop is a fake, but the report does not state such a conclusion.
In researching the book, I spoke to a person who had had independent access to Hunter Biden’s emails. This person was not in a position to compare the leaked emails word-for-word with the originals, but they said Hunter Biden had in fact received an email containing the “10 held by H for the big guy?” language and another from a Burisma representative thanking him for the opportunity to meet Joe Biden.
I also obtained a cache of the purported laptop files from people working with the right-wing operative Steve Bannon, one of the people behind the original leak. I was able to confirm that some other parts of the material are genuine. Two people who corresponded with Hunter Biden in the months leading up to his father’s 2019 campaign launch confirmed to me the authenticity of emails in the cache. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing fears of being embroiled in a global controversy.
Finally, emails in the cache matched emails released to me by the National Property Board of Sweden, a Swedish government agency, under the country’s freedom of information law. (For a time, Hunter Biden had an office inside the complex that houses the Swedish embassy.)
While at least some of the laptop material is genuine, it remains possible that fake material is mixed in.
Asked whether Joe Biden had an April 2015 encounter with Pozharskyi at a dinner at the Georgetown restaurant Cafe Milano, as purported emails from the leak suggest, Bates pointed to part of an April Washington Post article that states, “The Biden campaign, after a comprehensive review, had said a meeting never took place between Joe Biden and Pozharskyi.”
It is not clear whether that language rules out any sort of encounter whatsoever, or only a formal meeting.
Was there an informal encounter at this dinner? The Washington Post article confirms that Biden stopped by the dinner in question, but casts doubt on the idea that Pozharskyi was present, despite an alleged email listing a “Vadym” on the guest list. In the article, dinner attendee Rick Leach, then-president of the non-profit World Food Program USA, is quoted at length but does not actually address whether Pozharskyi attended.
Leach told POLITICO he is unsure whether Pozharskyi was at the dinner, but that he considers it unlikely. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I don’t remember that name. I don’t remember that person at all.”
Leach said that other than the two Bidens and a Greek Orthodox Church official, he could not recall the identities of any of the dozen or so people present during the dinner. He declined to say whether he has any emails from the time that might shed light on the identities of the other attendees.
Pozharskyi did not respond to requests for comment for the book. Neither Joe Biden nor Hunter Biden have addressed on the record whether Joe Biden has ever met the Burisma representative.
An encounter would not be the only one Pozharskyi ever had with a top U.S. official. In 2017 and 2018, Trump’s then-special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, met with Pozharskyi at events sponsored by the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, according to the Associated Press.
But confirmation of such an encounter could renew uncomfortable scrutiny of Hunter Biden’s Burisma work and the role his connections to his powerful father have played in his business ventures.
Even as attention has shifted to Hunter Biden’s painting, these earlier episodes remain murky. Until they are fully aired out, they threaten to undermine the White House push to take on global corruption and restore public faith in the executive branch.
“Hiding the ball,” as Clark said of the White House approach to the painting venture, “is not the way to protect the public trust.”
Adapted and expanded from The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s Fifty-Year Rise to Power, by Ben Schreckinger.
H.Res.57 – Impeaching Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States, for abuse of power by enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
H. RES. 57
Impeaching Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States, for abuse of power by enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 21, 2021
Mrs. Greene of Georgia submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
RESOLUTION
Impeaching Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States, for abuse of power by enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Resolved, That Joseph Robinette Biden, President of the United States, is impeached for abuse of power by enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following article of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:
Article of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Joseph Robinette Biden, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for abuse of power by enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors.
The Constitution provides that the House of Representatives “shall have the sole Power of Impeachment” and that the President “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”.
In his conduct as the former Vice President and current President of the United States, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the offices of the Vice Presidency and President of the United States, and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, defend, the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed—Joseph Robinette Biden abused the power of the Office of the Vice President, enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors, by allowing his son to influence the domestic policy of a foreign nation and accept various benefits—including financial compensation—from foreign nationals in exchange for certain favors.
As Vice President, Joseph Biden was the senior Obama Administration official overseeing anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine. Hence, any illegal activity involving corruption conducted by Hunter Biden within or in relation to Ukraine would fall under the purview of the Office of Vice President Biden and the Obama State Department’s anti-corruption efforts. In fact, many State Department officials within the Obama Administration repeatedly registered reservations about Hunter Biden’s role on the board of a corrupt company. Thus, any instances of corruption on behalf of Hunter Biden via his role as a board member of the Ukrainian-operated Burisma energy firm were either not investigated or covered up. The evidence of widespread knowledge, corruption, and collusion on behalf of the Biden family with foreign nationals is clear and compelling.
Among other examples, it has been materially demonstrated that:
(1) According to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance, the Vice President’s office and State Department officials were aware but ignored concerns relating to Hunter Biden’s role on the board of a Ukrainian-based natural gas company (hereafter, “Burisma”).
(2) According to the same sources, Hunter Biden’s and his family’s financial transactions with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh, and Chinese nationals raise criminal concerns and extortion threats.
(3) In early 2015 the former Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, George Kent, raised concerns to officials in Vice President Joe Biden’s office about the perception of a conflict of interest with respect to Hunter Biden’s role on Burisma’s board. Kent’s concerns went unaddressed, and in September 2016, he emphasized in an email to his colleagues, “Furthermore, the presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine.”.
(4) In October 2015, senior State Department official Amos Hochstein raised concerns with Vice President Biden, as well as with Hunter Biden, that Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board enabled Russian disinformation efforts and risked undermining U.S. policy in Ukraine. Vice President Biden did not resolve this conflict of interest. Instead, he enabled it.
(5) In addition to the over $4 million paid by Burisma for Hunter Biden’s board membership, Hunter Biden, and his family received millions of dollars from foreign nationals with questionable backgrounds. Specifically, the ongoing FBI investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop revealed that Hunter received a 2.8 carat diamond gift from a high-ranking Chinese official in 2017. Hunter Biden told the New Yorker Magazine that he “felt uncomfortable receiving the diamond and gave it to other associates”.
(6) Hunter Biden had business associations with Ye Jianming, founder of the CEFC China Energy Company, Ltd., Gongwen Dong, and other Chinese nationals linked to the Communist government and the People’s Liberation Army. Those associations resulted in millions of dollars in cash flow. There exists a vast web of corporate connections and financial transactions between and among the Biden family and Chinese nationals.
(7) Hunter Biden paid nonresident women who were nationals of Russia or other Eastern European countries and who appear to be linked to an “Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring”.
(8) In 2016, Ukraine’s top anti-corruption prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, had an active and ongoing investigation into Burisma and its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky. At the time, Hunter Biden continued to serve on Burisma’s board of directors. According to news reports, then Vice-President Biden “threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine’s leaders did not dismiss [Shokin]”. After that, Ukraine’s Parliament fired Shokin.
(9) Hunter Biden received millions of dollars from foreign sources as a result of business relationships that he built during the period when his father was Vice President of the United States and after. The financial transactions which Hunter engaged in illustrate serious counterintelligence and extortion concerns relating to Hunter Biden and his family.
(10) Hunter Biden’s work with Chinese nationals connected to the Communist regime illustrate the deep financial connections that accelerated while his father was Vice President and continued after he left office.
(11) On June 23, 2011, Sean Conlon, a business associate of Hunter Biden, suggested that a $10 billion deal could be struck in exchange for certain persons meeting Vice President Biden. This shows deliberate “pay-for-play” and “quid-pro-quo”. The email, in full, to Robert Biden, from Sean Conlon, is as follows:
(A) “So we have engagement letter if they get other 10 bonds they have a face value of 10b. While it is far fetched Devon [Archer] said he talked to his professor and these get traded. We get 10% in fees. We need to get these guys to an event or something where they get to just formally meet your Dad. For follow on they can talk to Chief of Staff. Let me know how soon we can do that. V brief. If Nagi get that done we get more bonds to move. Regards your hard working partner in Positano! Sean” (emphasis added).
(12) Emails between Hunter Biden and his cousin reveal that the President of Hunter’s Chinese Communist Party-linked firm, Eric Schwerin, repeatedly asked Hunter for an appointment to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad—a position he ultimately received. The email from Hunter to his cousin, Missy, regarding the request for the appointment to the Commission is as follows:
(A) “Eric asked for one of these [an appointment] the day after the election in 2008. You know better than me what are real and interesting appointments. Let’s go through the list with Steve and see what makes sense. I don’t know how much 2016 and nepotism plays into it.”.
In all of this, President Biden gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government. Through blatant nepotism, he enabled his son to influence foreign policy and financially benefit as a result of his role as Vice President. He supported his son engaging in collusion with Chinese Communist Party-linked officials. He allowed his son to trade appointments with his father and other high-ranking administration officials in exchange for financial compensation. He permitted his son to take money from Russian oligarchs, including Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow.
In so doing, Joseph R. Biden threatened the integrity of the democratic system, interfered with the peaceful transition of power, and imperiled a coordinate branch of government. He thereby betrayed his trust as former Vice President and current President, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.
Wherefore President Biden, by such conduct, has demonstrated that he will remain a threat to national security, democracy, and the Constitution if allowed to remain in office, and has acted in a manner grossly incompatible with self-governance and the rule of law. President Biden thus warrants impeachment and trial, removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States.
Conclusion
This resolution about sums it up. Biden deserves to be impeached and him, his brother and his surviving son Hunter should all serve jail time for their illegal activities. Joe Biden through his actions has jeopardized the ecurity of this nation, and has cause untold hardship to millions of Americans. His negligence has also casued the lives of countless individuals not soley limited to those brave thirteen military personnel serving in Afghanistan during the withdrawwal of forces in the summer of 2021.
Resources
0versight.house.gov, “A President Compromised: The Biden Family Ivestigation.” By committee on oversight and reform; grassley.senate.gov, “FBI Possesses Significant, Impactful, Voluminous Evidence Of Potential Criminality In Biden Family Business Arrangements: Grassley seeks specific records from FBI related to Biden deals with foreign nationals and companies connected to the communist Chinese regime.”; politico.com, “‘Hiding the Ball’: Hunter Biden Complicates White House Anti-Corruption Push: Questions about the First Son could detract from the president’s efforts to position himself as a global good-government crusader.” By Ben Schreckkinger; congress.gov, “H.Res.57 – Impeaching Joseph R. Biden, President of the United States, for abuse of power by enabling bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors.”;
Biden Postings
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/11/07/how-does-the-biden-sanders-platform-compare-to-the-1936-ussr-constitution/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/09/11/has-china-enriched-the-biden-family-monetarily/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/09/10/is-china-helping-biden-become-president/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/07/21/biden-and-his-mask-does-it-give-him-super-powers/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/07/10/if-you-are-voting-for-biden-consider-psychiatric-help/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/07/01/twelve-mainstream-politicians-6-of-12-joe-biden/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/06/13/is-joe-biden-competent-to-be-president-under-the-25th-amendment/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/11/14/what-will-happen-if-biden-reverses-trumps-accomplishments/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/11/16/hunter-biden-and-his-kingdom-of-corruption/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/12/01/is-biden-a-trojan-horse/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2020/11/07/how-does-the-biden-sanders-platform-compare-to-the-1936-ussr-constitution/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2021/02/11/bidens-first-two-weeks-as-president/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2021/05/09/who-is-pulling-the-strings-in-the-biden-administration/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2021/05/21/is-the-biden-administration-responsible-for-an-uptick-in-human-trafficking/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2021/08/24/is-biden-incompetent-or-indifferent/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2022/01/01/our-country-one-year-in-the-biden-presidency/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2022/10/28/should-biden-throw-in-the-towel/
https://common-sense-in-america.com/2023/05/26/what-effect-has-the-biden-familys-activities-had-on-the-u-s/