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8 Unbelievable Claims From Hunter Biden’s Congressional Deposition


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MARCH 01, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/01/8-unbelievable-claims-from-hunter-bidens-congressional-deposition/

Hunter Biden in Congressional hearing

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“You have my answer under oath and under the penalty of perjury,” Hunter Biden declared a half-dozen times during closed-door questioning by the joint House Oversight and Judiciary Committees on Wednesday, a transcript of which was released Thursday. His protestations of truth-telling lacked conviction, though, because the facts and logic proclaimed a different reality. 

Here are the highlights of Hunter Biden’s most unbelievable testimony.

1. It’s All a MAGA-Orchestrated Conspiracy Theory

Hunter Biden opened by claiming the committees had “hunted” him as part of a “partisan political pursuit” of his father. 

“You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies,” he continued before claiming the only basis for the claims of Biden family corruption came from criminals, fugitives, or other liars.

But no matter how many times Hunter evoked the name of Alexander Smirnov — the recently indicted FBI confidential human source who allegedly lied about Burisma paying the Bidens bribes, as memorialized in the FD-1023 — bank records and the testimony of Biden-friendly witnesses negate Hunter’s claims of a conspiracy theory. 

There are only so many coincidences the American public will buy before realizing they’re being sold a bag of malarkey. Evidence of large deposits to Hunter Biden-connected businesses from foreigners in Joe Biden’s wake leaves Hunter’s claim of a conspiracy unbelievable.

2. I Called Upon the Wrong Guy

Probably the most incredible area of Hunter’s testimony was his explanation for a text he sent to Raymond Zhao, asking him to have the director of CEFC call him. “I’m sitting here with my father,” Hunter texted Zhao, “and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. I’m very concerned that the chairman has either changed his mind or broken our deal without telling me or that he’s unaware of the promises and assurances that have been made have not been kept.”

“Tell the director I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” Hunter continued, adding that “if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following direction. All too often people mistake kindness for weakness, and all too often I’m standing over the top of them saying, I warned you.” 

“I will call you on WhatsApp,” Zhao replied.

This text exchange was incredibly damning because the players involved were connected to the communist Chinese energy company CEFC, which later transferred $5 million in capital to a company Hunter Biden created only a few days after the above text exchange.

But don’t worry, Hunter assured the committee. His text went to the wrong guy because he was “so out of his mind” from his addiction, he had accidentally sent the threat to “Henry Zhao,” who was not connected to CEFC.

“And I, like an idiot, directed it towards Henry Zhao who had no involvement, who had no understanding or even remotely knew what the hell I was even Godd-mn talking about. Excuse my language,” Hunter told the committee.

First, given the quick response to Hunter’s text from CEFC, it is unbelievable that the text didn’t go to the CEFC-connected Zhao. Second, even if Hunter basically drunk-dialed the wrong mark, that doesn’t exonerate him or his father — the latter of whom, the evidence establishes, helped Hunter by showcasing his accessibility to his son’s business partners. 

In short, the text shows Hunter intended to shakedown CEFC, and the $5 million suggests he succeeded.

3. Burisma Wanted Me to Call My… Teen Daughters?

A close second for the most outrageous storyline concerned the call to D.C. that Hunter Biden’s business partner and friend Devon Archer claims Hunter made at the request of Burisma executives. 

Archer, a Biden-friendly witness, had previously testified to the House Judiciary Committee that in early December 2015, after a Burisma board meeting, the founder of the Ukrainian energy company had asked Hunter to call D.C. because of pressure being placed on the company. In a follow-up question, Archer confirmed the Burisma request was for “help from the United States Government to deal with the pressure they were under from their prosecutor, and that entailed the freezing of assets at the London bank and other things that were going on in Ukraine.”

According to Hunter’s friend and former business partner, Hunter stepped away with the Burisma executives to make the call to D.C. But when asked about the call on Wednesday, Hunter testified, “I never would have called, and never did my father on behalf of Burisma.” 

So, whom did he call? 

Hunter didn’t remember but suggested it was his wife or his high school-aged daughters.

Sure, Jan.

4. The Big Guy = The Big Lie?

Revisiting Archer’s testimony from last year added another improbability to Hunter Biden’s testimony — this one concerning “the big guy” moniker. 

When questioned about the reference to 10 percent being “held by H for the big guy,” Hunter claimed not to know what that meant. And when questioned by Democrats on the committee about Joe Biden’s nicknames, Hunter denied his family referred to Joe as “the big guy.” 

Tony Bobulinski, however, testified previously that “the big guy” was Joe Biden’s nickname. And while Hunter Biden claimed Bobulinski was a liar and not to be believed, Archer also used that nickname in an apparent reference to Joe Biden in his testimony, saying Burisma wasn’t “specific, you know, can the big guy help? It was — it’s always this amorphous, can we get help in D.C.?”

5. ‘My Chairman’ is Absolutely, Positively Not Daddy

Also ringing hollow was Hunter Biden’s assertion that “my chairman” was not his father. House investigators asked Hunter about a text he had sent to Bobulinski, in which he said, “In light of the fact that we are at an impasse of sorts, and both James’ lawyers and my chairman gave an emphatic no — I think we should all meet in Romania on Tuesday next week.” 

Hunter went on to say that “my chairman” was Chairman Ye of the Chinese company CEFC. Hunter then testified that he didn’t ever refer to his father as “my chairman,” calling the suggestion “laughable.” 

The Republican committee members confronted Hunter with a text his business partner Rob Walker had sent to Bobulinski that said, “When he said his chairman, he was talking about his dad.” 

Hunter sought to negate Walker’s testimony by claiming it was merely one “third party that was talking with another third party” who was “making a judgment about what I was talking about.” 

Hunter then reverted to, “[Y]ou have my answer under oath that I did not refer and never have referred to my father as chairman.”

His “under oath” guarantee isn’t very assuring, however, given that Hunter had earlier stressed his long-standing relationship with Rob Walker — the third party who identified “my chairman” as Joe Biden.” “Rob Walker has known me since 1998,” Hunter testified. In fact, Hunter claimed Walker would have told their other business partners they were “way out of bounds” if Walker knew they were suggesting getting Joe Biden involved in their business deals.

So it sure seems like Walker would know whether Hunter would refer to his father as “my chairman.” 

6. The Laptop Was a Plant

While many of Hunter’s explanations were unbelievable, his claims about the laptop the FBI seized from a Delaware repair shop were surreal.

When asked about his laptop from hell, Hunter claimed first not to remember dropping one off at a repair store in 2019. Then, when asked if he ever dropped off a laptop at a repair shop, Hunter spoke of dropping one off at a place three blocks from his D.C. office and at an Apple store in Georgetown. When pushed on whether he had ever left a laptop for repair in Delaware, Hunter replied that “the largest Apple store in America is at the Christiana Mall,” and that if he were “to drop off a laptop” — not that he “ever remember[ed] doing that, but if [he] was going to drop off a laptop” — he “would have gone to the Apple store, which was 7 minutes from [his] parents’ home there.” 

In other words, Hunter is claiming he wouldn’t have dropped his laptop off at Mac Isaac’s store to suggest he didn’t. This outrageous assertion is part of a conspiracy theory that suggests the laptop abandoned at the Delaware repair shop was a plant. 

Hunter also pushed another false narrative by suggesting much of the evidence recovered from the laptop was fake. 

“Many different things” on the laptop were “either fabricated, hacked, stolen, or manipulated.” “100 percent,” Hunter testified on Wednesday. 

Of course, when it came to identifying which ones, Hunter insisted, “I can’t go through them all right now.” 

7. My Resume Is Real — And It’s Spectacular

Throughout the transcribed interview, Hunter also attempted to deflect questions about his lucrative service on Burisma’s board of directors by touting his resume. But when pushed on what he actually did for Burisma for a million-dollar paycheck, Hunter’s explanation of attending board meetings and “providing the best advice that I could give” convinced no one. 

That was especially true given that the one thing Hunter should have been giving advice about — Burisma’s various legal problems — the president’s son claimed to know nothing about. Specifically, according to his Wednesday testimony, he did not know Burisma was under investigation in the U.K. for money laundering and had $23 million of assets frozen until “it became public.” 

One would think a board member bearing the impressive resume of Hunter Biden and charged with overseeing corporate governance would know about an investigation and frozen assets before “it became public.” 

8. That’s Not My Money… Until It Is My Money 

Another eyebrow-raising refrain from Hunter Biden concerned payments into accounts held in the name of Rosemont Seneca Bohai and Rosemont Seneca Thornton. Those entities were Devon Archer’s, and as such, the money deposited into those accounts from foreigners wasn’t Hunter’s, the president’s son suggested. 

“I have no authority over those accounts, and I have no view inside of it,” he testified.

Never mind that Archer transferred large sums from those accounts to Hunter Biden-connected accounts or, in one case, used the $142,300 a Kazakhstani oligarch deposited into the Rosemont Seneca Bohai account to pay for a car for Hunter Biden. While Hunter tried to downplay the shifting of funds from one business to another, at the end of the day, it was all unbelievable.

The totality of Hunter Biden’s testimony also rendered his opening line unbelievable. That line—“I did not involve my father in my business” — seems false at every angle. 

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Special Counsel Indictment Looks Just As Bad For David Weiss As The Charged FBI Informant


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | FEBRUARY 16, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/16/special-counsel-indictment-looks-just-as-bad-for-david-weiss-as-the-charged-fbi-informant/

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On Thursday, Special Counsel David Weiss unsealed an indictment charging a longtime confidential human source (CHS) with making false statements. But it wasn’t Christopher Steele, the CHS who threw the country into turmoil for four years by peddling the fraudulent Steele dossier. Former CHS Stefan Halper, who helped further the Russia-collusion hoax, also wasn’t the subject of the indictment. Nor was CHS Rodney Joffe, who sought to destroy the Trump presidency with the Alfa Bank hoax.

No, it was the CHS who, on June 26, 2020, told his handler that the owner of Burisma claimed he had paid Hunter and Joe Biden each $5 million in bribes in exchange for protection from being investigated by the Ukrainian prosecutor.

Thursday’s indictment revealed the name of that CHS for the first time — Alexander Smirnov — and alleged that Smirnov’s aforementioned statements, which were memorialized in an FD-1023 report, were false. 

False Statements Allegations

Since news first broke of the existence of that FD-1023 last summer, House Republicans championed the CHS’s reporting as further evidence of Biden family corruption, while Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley focused on the Department of Justice’s apparent failure to investigate the veracity of the FD-1023 as part of their probe into Hunter Biden’s business affairs.

Weiss’s indictment presents a powerful case that Smirnov lied on June 26, 2020, when the CHS told his handler he’d had conversations with Burisma executives in 2015 and 2016: An investigation by Weiss’s team concluded Smirnov did not meet the Burisma executives until March 1, 2017, meaning the earlier conversations could not have occurred. The indictment references introductory emails that established the alleged accurate timing of events, as well as travel records of other individuals, which contradict Smirnov’s claims. That evidence, the special counsel’s office concluded, was sufficient to charge Smirnov with making false statements and creating a false record.

If Smirnov lied to his handler in June 2020 about his conversations with Burisma executives, the indictment is well deserved. Not only did Smirnov’s alleged lies violate the federal criminal statute that prohibits false statements, but they also proved especially damaging to society as a whole by interfering in the House’s impeachment inquiry. 

The harm here is not merely that investigators wasted time chasing apparently false leads, or that Hunter and Joe Biden suffered from Smirnov’s allegedly false accusations, but also that Smirnov’s lies may overshadow the other unrelated — and substantial — evidence implicating the Bidens in a pay-to-play scandal, rendering it more difficult to obtain justice.

What About Other CHS Lies?

Smirnov, however, is but one CHS whose alleged lies have created havoc for our country. 

Consider the lies peddled in the Steele dossier to our FBI. CHS Christopher Steele represented his sourcing as trusted, reliable, and well-placed when it was none of those things. That dossier led to the DOJ obtaining four unconstitutional surveillance warrants against an innocent American, resulted in our government spending millions investigating a hoax, and impaired the functioning of the Trump administration. Yet even after Grassley and Sen. Lindsey Graham referred the matter to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation, Steele reaped no consequences for the lies he sowed. 

Then there was CHS Stefan Halper who, according to an electronic communication, told the FBI the Russian-born Svetlana Lokhova had “latched” onto Michael Flynn at a Cambridge academic gathering and then, after the dinner, “surprised everyone and got into [Flynn’s] cab and joined [Flynn] on the train ride to London.” Halper, however, never attended the dinner, so he could not have witnessed any of the happenings, and the supposed cab ride was completely fictional. 

The FBI’s summary of his debriefing also memorialized Halper claiming Trump volunteer Carter Page asked Halper during a July 18, 2016, meeting whether he “would want to join the Trump campaign as a foreign policy adviser.” In an exclusive interview with The Federalist in 2020, however, Page, “unequivocally denied asking Halper ‘to be a foreign policy advisor for the Trump campaign.’” 

Add to those two sources Rodney Joffe, the CHS who helped concoct the Alfa Bank hoax. That fairytale went that the Trump organization had a secret communication channel with Putin operating through the Russian-based Alfa Bank. Joffe peddled that tale to the FBI and, with the help of former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann, pushed the CIA to investigate this second Russia hoax just as the Trump presidency was beginning. 

As I wrote in 2022: “Justice Won’t Be Served In SpyGate Without John Durham Investigating More Confidential Human Sources.” But alas, Durham’s investigation ended without any reckoning for Steele, Halper, or Joffe. 

Weiss Must Go

While the double standard is infuriating, assuming the allegations against Smirnov are true, charges are eminently justified. Also justified? Impeaching David Weiss.

Thursday’s indictment established that no one in U.S. Attorney Weiss’s office investigated Smirnov’s serious claims against Hunter and Joe Biden until after Grassley released a copy of the FD-1023 on July 20, 2023. It would be over a month later before FBI investigators would speak with Smirnov’s handler about the FD-1023. And, according to the indictment, it was not until Sept. 27, 2023, that the FBI interviewed Smirnov. That timeline confirms the incompetence of Weiss in handling the investigation into Hunter Biden because in October 2020, Weiss’s Delaware office received “a substantive briefing” concerning the FD-1023 from the Pittsburgh U.S. attorney’s office. 

In the run-up to the 2020 election, then-Attorney General William Barr tasked then-Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Scott Brady with screening evidence related to Ukraine. Last year, Brady testified before the House Judiciary Committee about that screening process, including how his team handled the FD-1023.

Brady explained the Pittsburgh FBI office sought to corroborate anything they could from the FD-1023, but he noted that his office lacked the authority to use a grand jury for the screening process. Brady’s team nonetheless succeeded in obtaining travel records of the CHS and “interfaced with the CHS’s handler about certain statements relating to travel and meetings to see if they were consistent with his or her understanding.” 

What they were able to identify, Brady testified, was consistent with the CHS’s representations in the FD-1023. Additionally, the CHS was a longtime source for the FBI and considered “highly reliable” — something the indictment confirms given his length of service and the government authorizing Smirnov to commit crimes while operating as a CHS. 

Brady further testified that his office had vetted the FD-1023 and the CHS “against known sources of Russian disinformation.” To conduct that analysis, his team worked with the Eastern District of New York. “It was found that it was not sourced from Russian disinformation,” Brady told the House Judiciary Committee.

Then when his team finished screening the FD-1023 and other evidence related to Ukraine, a Pittsburgh assistant U.S. attorney briefed Weiss’s office on the evidence, explaining how they had screened it, and noting they concluded it had “some indicia of credibility” and should be investigated further.

Thursday’s indictment of Smirnov suggests the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office sat on the FD-1023 for nearly three years, until after Grassley released a copy to the public. Instead, Weiss’s office offered Hunter Biden a sweetheart plea agreement, which fell apart only because the federal judge assigned to the case inquired into the strange arrangement that appeared to give Hunter Biden blanket immunity in a pretrial diversion agreement — something she had never seen before.

Special Counsel Weiss clearly knows how bad this looks because, in the indictment, he tried to spin the assessment into the FD-1023 as being closed out by the Pittsburgh FBI office, implying that is why his office did not conduct any further investigative steps. 

“By August 2020, FBI Pittsburgh concluded that all reasonable steps had been completed regarding the Defendant’s allegations and that their assessment, 58A-PG-3250958, should be closed,” Weiss wrote. “On August 12, 2020, FBI Pittsburgh was informed that the then-FBI Deputy Director and then-Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States concurred that it should be closed.”

However, as former Attorney General Barr has made clear numerous times, the Pittsburgh office was merely charged with screening the evidence, and the investigation into the FD-1023 “wasn’t closed down.”

“On the contrary,” Barr stressed, “it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”

No further investigation occurred, however. That alone should justify Weiss’s removal — and not merely for what he failed to do, but also because the country can’t trust that his special counsel team will follow all the leads, including the ones we don’t know about. 

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Grassley’s Bombshells Show House Investigators Exactly Where to Aim Their Next Biden Subpoenas


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | NOVEMBER 09, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/11/09/grassleys-bombshells-show-house-investigators-exactly-where-to-aim-their-next-biden-subpoenas/

Chuck Grassley

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The chair of the House Oversight Committee issued a slew of subpoenas on Wednesday, including to Hunter Biden and James Biden. Additional subpoenas, as well as requests for transcribed interviews, were served on other Biden family members and business associates. These investigative steps are solid, but the House committees charged with the Joe Biden impeachment inquiry need to issue subpoenas for the witnesses and documents Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, not-so-subtly suggested late last month.

“I’ve obtained the names of 25 DOJ and FBI personnel to interview at a future date,” Grassley wrote in a late-October letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray concerning the latest details the Iowa senator uncovered related to obstruction of the Biden-family corruption investigation. While the House Oversight Committee is understandably focused on unraveling the extent of foreign influence-peddling, the House should not ignore the second half of the scandal: the DOJ, FBI, and now the Biden administration’s cover-up of the scandal and their cover-up of the cover-up.

Grassley has been focused on that aspect of the scandal for several years, raising concerns “about political considerations infecting the decision-making process at the Justice Department and FBI.” Having heard from several whistleblowers about the scope of the obstruction, Grassley has said that if their allegations are true, it would establish the DOJ and FBI have been “institutionally corrupted to their very core.”

The House has followed several leads Grassley developed. The most significant was related to the FD-1023 summary of a “highly credible” confidential human source’s (CHS) reporting that Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden each $5 million in bribes, which Grassley released earlier this year.

More recently, Grassley revealed that the Foreign Influence Task Force used an assessment opened by FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten to mine FBI field offices for derogatory information related to the Bidens. The FBI then falsely branded the derogatory information as Russian disinformation, closing out the sources. That revelation was but one of many contained in the seven-page letter the Iowa senator penned to the AG and FBI director on Oct. 24, noting he had a list of some 20-plus agents to interview.

The House committees charged with overseeing the impeachment inquiry need to dissect that letter for leads relevant to the investigation into Biden-family corruption and also to unravel the DOJ and FBI’s corruption. 

Foreign Influence Task Force

Among other things, that letter revealed the complicity of the Foreign Influence Task Force in falsely branding the reporting of confidential human sources from several different field offices as Russian disinformation. As Grassley noted, it was also the Foreign Influence Task Force that “improperly briefed” him and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., about their investigation into the Biden family. That briefing served solely as a precursor to a media leak to spin the Republican senators’ investigation as contaminated by foreign disinformation. 

Every member of the Foreign Influence Task Force should be questioned by the House, and every communication between the Foreign Influence Task Force, Brian Auten, and the various FBI offices involved in wrongly closing out sources should be subpoenaed. The House should likewise subpoena the materials made part of that assessment and especially any sources or reporting closed out as Russian disinformation.

FBI Field Offices

Here, Grassley helpfully highlighted in his letter several relevant field offices. In noting that the FBI tried to improperly shut down the FD-1023, Grassley emphasized that the claim that the CHS’s bribery report was Russian disinformation was “highly suspect and is contradicted by other documents my office has been told exist within the Foreign Influence Task Force, FBI Seattle Field Office, FBI Baltimore Field Office, and FBI HQ holdings.”

The House should focus its investigative efforts there first. The FBI Seattle field office is a new thread to pull, as it has not been previously raised as relevant to the Biden investigation. A review of the underlying FD-1023 also suggests the Cleveland FBI field office merits attention, as the CHS who reported on the alleged bribes to the Bidens noted that he was introduced to the Burisma executives by Alexander Ostapenko. And the FD-1023 included a notation that the CHS’s reporting on Ostapenko was maintained at the Cleveland field office.

In seeking materials from these field offices and the Foreign Influence Task Force, the House should ask for all records using the terms “Russian disinformation” or “foreign disinformation” from January 2019 to the present. Why? Because that is what Grassley asked the AG and FBI director to provide. And when the Iowa Republican asks for something, he usually knows precisely what the DOJ has secreted away.

DOJ and FBI Documents

Likewise, the House should seek the other documents Grassley identified in his October 2023 letter because the Republican-led House can follow up with subpoenas if the DOJ refuses to comply, whereas Grassley can’t. In total, the Iowa senator named 15 different categories of materials he sought from the DOJ and FBI, and the House should mirror those requests.

Of particular importance are the communications between the U.S. attorneys’ offices for the Western District of Pennsylvania and the Eastern District of New York relating to Hunter Biden, James Biden, Joe Biden, and the FD-1023, as the Eastern District of New York had apparently concluded the FD-1023 did not match any known Russian disinformation. Subpoenaing FBI reports dating to Jan. 1, 2014, and referencing Mykola Zlochevsky, Hunter Biden, James Biden, or Joe Biden will likely also turn up relevant information. 

Naming Names

In addition to subpoenaing these witnesses and the related documents, Grassley’s letter provides the names of several other individuals deserving of questioning. Significantly, the letter indicates that the individuals named had knowledge of Joe Biden’s potential complicity in his son’s money-laundering scheme. But Grassley also named individuals from FBI headquarters, the Washington field office, the Baltimore field office, Delaware FBI agents, and FBI management personnel. 

Finally, the House should take note of Grassley’s repeated references to Assistant Special Agent in Charge Timothy Thibault and the various documents he requested that connect to Thibault. Those references should give House investigators pause because Grassley’s apparent focus on Thibault strikes an odd note given the tune Thibault played in his transcribed interview: that he was new to the job and was only on the periphery of decisions to close out sources. 

Why then, would Grassley seek “[a]ll records derived from reporting on derogatory information linked to Hunter Biden, James Biden, Joe Biden, and their foreign business relationships that was overseen under the approval, guidance, and purview of ASAC Thibault from January 1, 2020, to his last day at the FBI”? And why would Grassley ask for a copy of “[a]ll opened and closed cases initiated by the Washington Field Office under the purview of ASAC Thibault that were ordered closed by ASAC Thibault and/or denied for opening by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, and/or the United States Attorney Offices in the District of Columbia and Eastern District of Virginia”?

Grassley may not be able to force the DOJ and FBI to provide answers or those documents, but the House can — and it should, stat.

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Hunter Biden Email Discussing $5 Million Payment From Burisma Corroborates FD-1023


BY: ELLE PURNELL | SEPTEMBER 27, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/27/hunter-biden-email-discussing-5-million-payment-from-burisma-corroborates-fd-1023/

screenshot of exhibit from affidavit of Joseph Ziegler

An email apparently sent by Hunter Biden to longtime business associate Devon Archer discusses a $5 million payment from Ukrainian energy company Burisma — appearing to corroborate the FBI FD-1023 form in which a confidential human source recorded testimony from Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky that “It costs 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.”

“Need to determine what we consider expenses to be deducted from potential Burisma ‘pay’ before we determine true split # with Alex. (i.e. 5-.75/3= 1.42M apiece),” read an email that IRS investigators believed to be from the younger Biden, which was part of a batch of records released Wednesday by the House Ways and Means Committee. According to a slide that investigators presented to Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, the “5” is a reference to $5 million that would be paid out by Burisma. Of that money, $750,000 would be subtracted — the email asked if Archer thought “750K [was] a reasonable expense # btw Wash and DC offices?”

Of the remaining $4.25 million, splitting the money between Hunter, Archer, and “Alex” (whose last name is redacted) would leave each man with $1.42 million.

IMAGE CREDITEXHIBIT FROM AFFIDAVIT OF JOSEPH ZIEGLER / WAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE

According to an affidavit from IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler, who worked the Hunter Biden tax case, the discussion “was believed to be [Hunter Biden’s] laying out of the plan related to the Burisma board income he and Archer were about to receive.”

The emails were obtained “by the investigative team via an Electronic Search Warrant served on Google related to RHB’s [Hunter Biden’s] Apple email account,” Ziegler noted.

“RHB references $5 million in total from Burisma (which was referenced in the beginning of the board agreement), which I believe coincides with information on the FBI Form FD1023,” he added.

The FD-1023 was an FBI form completed in June 2020, in which a highly credible confidential human source (CHS) reported having a conversation with Mykola Zlochevsky in which the Burisma founder complained about having to pay $5 million to both Hunter and Joe Biden. Zlochevsky claimed “he didn’t want to pay the Bidens, and he was ‘pushed to pay’ them” and told the CHS he had “recordings” of Hunter and Joe to prove it.

“Zlochevsky [said] he did not send any funds directly to the ‘Big Guy’ (which CHS understood was a reference to Joe Biden),” the FD-1023 notes. When the CHS asked about Zlochevsky’s bank accounts, “Zlochevsky responded it would take them (Investigators) 10 years to find the records (i.e., illicit payments to Joe Biden).”

The CHS also reported on the FD-1023 that another Burisma executive told him Hunter Biden was hired to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”

[READ NEXT: Here’s Everything In The Damning FD-1023 Document That Implicates Biden In An International Bribery Scheme]

Despite the explosive allegations contained in the form, Weiss’s team withheld the FD-1023 from IRS investigators, according to Ziegler. Weiss has since been appointed special counsel by Joe Biden’s attorney general.

Elle Purnell is an assistant editor at The Federalist, and received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her work on Twitter @_etreynolds.

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EXCLUSIVE: FBI Lies About ‘Highly Credible’ Source Claims Were Leaked to NYT And Spoon-fed to Weiss


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | SEPTEMBER 05, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/09/05/exclusive-fbi-lies-about-highly-credible-source-claims-were-leaked-to-nyt-and-spoonfed-to-weiss/

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Emails obtained by the Heritage Foundation following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, and shared exclusively with The Federalist, reveal that lies leaked to The New York Times about the origins of damning evidence implicating Hunter and Joe Biden in a bribery scandal were fed to Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss. 

As I previously detailed, The New York Times reported those lies in its Dec. 11, 2020, article, “Material from Giuliani Spurred a Separate Justice Depart. Pursuit of Hunter Biden” — just a week after Americans first learned of the investigation of the now-president’s son. The Times’ reporting was “replete with falsehoods and deceptive narratives,” but “Americans just didn’t know it at the time.” 

However, earlier this year, thanks to “whistleblower revelations and statements by former Attorney General William Barr,” the country learned that the Times’ claims — that evidence implicating the Bidens was derived from Giuliani — were false. Rather, a separate investigation had uncovered reporting from a “highly credible” FBI confidential human source (CHS) implicating Hunter and Joe Biden in a bribery scandal.

Now the FOIA-produced emails reveal even more: The FBI lies, laundered through The New York Times, were fed directly to Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss.

The Emails

The never-before-seen emails provided late last week by the Department of Justice to the Heritage Foundation and its Oversight Project director, Mike Howell, in response to a court order, included an email thread revealing how the Times story landed in Weiss’s lap.

“Ladies, here you have attached the NYT’s story ‘Material from Giuliani Spurred a Separate Justice Depart. Pursuit of Hunter Biden’ which posted a bit ago. Link here,” a Dec. 11, 2020, 6:44 p.m. email from the FBI Office of Public Affairs’ National Press Office read. 

The names of the two email recipients were redacted. But the “(PG) (FBI)” and “(BA) (FBI)” coding suggests the National Press Office had forwarded the Times’ article, which spun evidence obtained by the Pittsburgh office as originating from Giuliani disinformation, to the Pittsburgh FBI office and the Baltimore FBI office — which provided support for the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office.

Within two hours of the FBI’s National Press Office sharing the false narrative about evidence of Biden family corruption, the link had been forwarded to a variety of Baltimore FBI agents, from there to Weiss’s top deputies Lesley Wolf and Shawn Weede, and further on by Weede to fellow Assistant U.S. Attorney Shannon Hanson and Weiss. Weiss himself then forwarded the Times article to another member of the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office, whose name was redacted in the FOIA-provided documents. 

Given the sweetheart deal Weiss’s top Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf later tried to gift to Hunter Biden, this latest revelation raises the question of whether (and, if so, when) Weiss’s staff informed him of the CHS’s reporting that Burisma paid $5 million each in bribes to both Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.

These questions are now more important than ever because the just-released emails show Weiss’s staff sharing with him The New York Times’ false reporting that portrayed evidence coming from the Pittsburgh FBI office as sourced solely to Rudy Giuliani. But that’s not true — not by a long shot. At a minimum, Wolf and others in the Delaware office knew that — but Weiss might not have.

The Background

As The Federalist previously reported, contrary to the Times’ reporting, in the run-up to the 2020 election, then-Attorney General William Barr directed the Western District of Pennsylvania to serve as an intake office for any evidence related to Ukraine. U.S. Attorney Scott Brady was then charged with screening the evidence to ensure disinformation did not reach the other offices handling investigations related to Hunter Biden or Ukraine. 

While some of the evidence Brady’s team screened came from Giuliani, agents also independently discovered a separate line of intel originating from a “highly credible” CHS who had worked under the Obama administration. Agents interviewed that CHS in late June 2020 and memorialized the CHS’s reporting in an FD-1023 form. 

Americans would later learn the contents of that FD-1023 when a whistleblower informed Sen. Chuck Grassley’s office of its existence. Then, after FBI Director Christopher Wray dragged his feet in responding to congressional inquiries, Grassley released a minimally redacted copy of the unclassified document to the public.

The unredacted portions of the FD-1023 confirmed Giuliani had nothing to do with the sourcing of the intel. On the contrary, according to the form, the longtime CHS had personally conversed with Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and the company’s CFO Vadim Pojarskii.

The FD-1023 memorialized explosive reporting from the CHS, including the following:

  • Pojarskii claimed Hunter Biden was paid to serve on Burisma’s board of directors to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
  • Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was investigating Burisma, but Zlochevsky told the CHS that “Hunter will take care of all of those issues through his dad.”
  • Zlochevsky told the CHS he had been coerced to pay bribes of $5 million each to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden.
  • After Trump’s election in 2016, Zlochevsky expressed dissatisfaction with Trump’s victory, but then told the CHS that “Shokin had already been fired, and no investigation was currently going on.”
  • Zlochevsky told the CHS he had 17 recordings of the Bidens but had never paid Joe Biden directly.
  • The “Big Guy” moniker was used to refer to Joe Biden — a significant detail because the CHS interview predated the public release of material contained on Hunter Biden’s laptop, including information that established the “Big Guy” was one of Joe Biden’s nicknames.
  • Burisma discussed purchasing a U.S.-based oil and gas company for approximately $20-$30 million.

When news first broke of the FD-1023 and its damning indictment of the Bidens, Democrats and their paramours in the press tried to bury the story with a one-two punch. First, they framed the evidence as originating from Giuliani and part of a foreign disinformation operation. Grassley’s release of the actual FD-1023 destroyed that narrative. 

Second, they falsely represented to the American public that Brady had already investigated the FD-1023 and closed the investigation as meritless. But as The Federalist first reported, that claim was blatantly false. 

“It’s not true. It wasn’t closed down,” Barr told The Federalist after Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin falsely claimed that “the former attorney general and his ‘handpicked prosecutor’ had ended an investigation into a confidential human source’s allegation that Joe Biden had agreed to a $5 million bribe.”

“On the contrary,” Barr told The Federalist, “it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”

More Questions

Now we reach the crux of the matter: Who in Delaware knew of the FD-1023’s existence, its sourcing to a “highly credible confidential human source,” and that, as The Federalist previously reported, several details contained in the FD-1023 had already been corroborated prior to the handoff to Delaware? The Pittsburgh office had briefed the Delaware office on the document and its conclusion that it “bore indicia of credibility.” 

A source familiar with the Pittsburgh brief of the Delaware office confirmed to The Federalist that in addition to agents from the Pittsburgh and Baltimore FBI field offices, Lesley Wolf attended the briefing on the FD-1023 and was informed of those details. Weiss, however, was not present for the briefing. Nor, as we previously learned, were the IRS agents-turned-whistleblowers included in the briefing. 

The Federalist has also learned from a source with knowledge of the matter that the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office kept the Hunter Biden laptop secret from the Pennsylvania-based U.S. attorney’s office, which surely limited the investigators’ ability to assess the credibility of the evidence it was screening for disinformation.

Nonetheless, through its independent investigation of the CHS’s reporting, Pittsburgh corroborated several details of the FD-1023 and briefed Wolf on those details, telling her they believed the CHS’s information warranted further investigation.

But did Wolf tell that to Weiss? Did anyone tell that to Weiss? Or did Weiss’s team, after sharing The New York Times’ false narrative that Brady was on a political witch hunt of the Bidens and demanding an investigation into Giuliani disinformation, remain mum? Or did Weiss know about the FD-1023 and do nothing?

The emails don’t answer those questions, but they do confirm that Weiss and his top deputies were fed the Times story. Which leads to a final question: Which FBI agent(s) fed the Times the lies? 

Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion (forthcoming), National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prive—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Viktor Shokin Interview Shows No Amount Of Biden Corruption Evidence Will Make Corporate Media Tell the Truth


BY: JORDAN BOYD | AUGUST 29, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/29/viktor-shokin-interview-shows-no-amount-of-biden-corruption-evidence-will-make-corporate-media-tell-the-truth/

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The corporate media’s reaction, or lack thereof, to ex-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin’s Fox News interview this weekend is the latest proof that no amount of Biden corruption evidence or corroboration will deter the propaganda press from protecting their preferred political candidate.

Shokin, the man tasked with investigating Ukrainian energy company Burisma, admitted that he believes then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son, who was paid tens of thousands of dollars every month to sit on the company’s board, were bribed in exchange for his firing.

“Do you believe that Joe Biden or Hunter Biden got bribes?” asked “One Nation” host Brian Kilmeade.

“I do not want to deal in unproven facts, but my personal conviction is that yes, this was the case,” Shokin said, through a translator. “They were being bribed. The fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in U.S. money in exchange for my dismissal, my firing, isn’t that alone a case of corruption?”

Shokin maintains that if his team was allowed to finish out the Burisma probe, “we would have found the facts about the corrupt activities that they were engaging in, that included both Hunter Biden and Devon Archer and others.”

“The founder and CEO of Burisma started bringing in people who could provide protection for him. Hunter Biden was among them and the corruption network expanded as a result,” Shokin explained. “So yes, to answer your question, there was no doubt in my mind that Burisma was engaged in illegal activities.”

Shokin concluded the interview by mentioning that several attempts on his life have already been made.

A cursory internet search shows corporate media largely ignored Shokin’s further confirmation of the Bidens’ Burisma corruption. The handful of outlets that did mention the interview focused more on discrediting Shokin than heeding his testimony.

“The fired Ukrainian prosecutor is not a reliable narrator,” The Washington Post alleged.

Anyone who suggests otherwise, the author notes, is siding with Republicans who “have spent years suggesting that Biden’s motives were actually the opposite — that this was an effort to insulate Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm that his son Hunter Biden worked for, from an investigation by Shokin.”

The article claimed that evidence that the elder Biden fired Shokin to protect Burisma “remains meager.” That is a lie.

Contrary to years of denials and lies from the propaganda press, there is “overwhelming evidence” — even without Shokin’s corroboration — that Biden leveraged his authority in the Obama administration to orchestrate Shokin’s removal to benefit the company his son was being paid by.

Biden business associate Devon Archer told Congress earlier this month that Burisma heads expressed their desire for Shokin to be fired.

The FD-1023 form that the FBI desperately tried to conceal from Republican investigators also contained testimony suggesting the Burisma chief coordinated with the Bidens to kill Shokin’s investigation. The “highly credible” confidential human source who gathered the information for the form reported that Burisma chief Mykola Zlochevsky claimed to have 17 recordings, including two of Joe Biden, that prove he “was somehow coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.”

Biden himself even bragged in 2018 about threatening to withhold a billion dollars in U.S. loans from Petro Poroshenko, the then-president of Ukraine, unless Shokin was canned. That pressure came shortly after Biden gave a speech to the Ukrainian Rada explicitly calling for the end of corruption, the excuse he and American corporate media would use for urging Shokin’s firing.

When his interview with Shokin aired, Kilmeade said “that Viktor Shokin told him in the interview that no one had asked him for an interview despite his central role in the alleged Biden corruption scandal.” Corporate media outlets aren’t interested in hearing Shokin’s testimony because his claims run counter to the Biden coverup they’re spinning.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Devon Archer says Hunter used Joe Biden as ‘defensive leverage’ for foreign biz partners, transcript shows


Fox News Digital obtained a transcript of Archer’s testimony before the House Oversight panel

Brooke Singman

By Brooke Singman | Fox News | Published August 3, 2023 9:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/devon-archer-hunter-used-joe-biden-as-defensive-leverage-to-send-right-signals-to-foreign-biz-partners

FIRST ON FOX: Devon Archer told congressional investigators that Hunter Biden used then-Vice President Joe Biden as “defensive leverage” to send “the right signals” to his foreign business partners, while selling him as “the brand” that offered “capabilities and reach,” as well as a “unique understanding of D.C.”

Archer’s comments came during a transcribed interview before the House Oversight Committee on Monday. Fox News Digital obtained the more than 140-page transcript of Archer’s interview, which took place behind closed doors.

DEVON ARCHER CONFIRMS JOE BIDEN ‘LIED’ ABOUT KNOWLEDGE OF HUNTER’S BUSINESS DEALINGS, COMER SAYS

Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner
Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, arrives at the O’Neill House Office Building before testifying to the House Oversight Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Monday. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Archer told investigators that Hunter Biden used his “very powerful name” to “add value” in pitching and securing foreign business ventures.

Archer said Hunter Biden “would not be so overt,” or “overtly” say “we’re going to use my dad for this,” but instead, Archer said that he would use the name to “get leverage.”

“Defensive leverage that the value is there in his work,” Archer said.

“The value that Hunter Biden brought to it was having — you know, there was — the theoretical was corporate governance, but obviously, given the brand, that was a large part of the value,” he continued. “I don’t think it was the sole value, but I do think that was a key component of the value.”

Archer and the Bidens
Devon Archer golfing with Joe Biden and Hunter Biden in 2014. (Fox News)

Archer told investigators that Hunter put his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, on speakerphone while meeting with business partners at least 20 times. Archer described how Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.”

“You aren’t talking about Dr. Jill or anybody else. You’re talking about Joe Biden. Is that fair to say?” Archer was asked.

Archer replied: “Yeah, that’s fair to say… Obviously, that brought the most value to the brand… It was Hunter Biden and him,” Archer said. “We would discuss having, you know, an understanding of D.C. and that was a differentiating component of us being able to raise capital.”

Devon Archer, a former longtime business associate of Hunter Biden, is set to testify before Congress.

He added, “It wasn’t as specific as, you know… the vice president’s son, but obviously, the brand carried.”

When asked if Archer and Hunter Biden would tell business partners they had “unique access” because of Vice President Biden, Archer said: “Yes, we would say we had unique understanding of D.C. and how it operates and how that, you know, could positively reflect on the terms of our business.”

Archer served on the board of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings alongside Hunter Biden beginning in 2014 and received $83,000 a month for his work.

Referring to Burisma, Archer told investigators that Hunter Biden used the “brand” of Joe Biden for having “doors opened,” which “sent the right signals” for Burisma to “carry on its business and be successful.” 

DEVON ARCHER: HUNTER BIDEN, BURISMA EXECS ‘CALLED DC’ TO GET UKRAINIAN PROSECUTOR FIRED

“My only thought is that I think Burisma would have gone out of business if it didn’t have the brand attached to it,” Archer said.

When pressed, Archer clarified that he believed Burisma was “able to survive” for as long as it did “just because of the brand.”

“Because people would be intimidated to mess with them,” Archer explained.

“In what way?” Archer was asked.

“Legally.”

Joe, Hunter and Archer split image
From left: President Biden, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer. (Fox News)

President Biden and the White House have repeatedly denied ever being in business with his son, and have repeatedly said Joe Biden never discussed the businesses and never had any knowledge about his son’s business dealings.

But Archer testified that then-Vice President Biden attended dinners with Hunter’s foreign business associates — including with an executive of Burisma Holdings.

One dinner, Archer recalled, took place in the spring of 2014 at Cafe Milano in Washington, D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood. Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Archer, Eric Schwerin, the mayor of Moscow’s wife Yelena Baturina and other business partners attended.

https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2023/08/67b5b2e7-Devon-Archer-Transcript.pdf

That dinner took place just weeks after Baturina wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, an LLC linked to Hunter Biden and his associates.

Archer also recalled a dinner in the spring of 2015, again at Cafe Milano. This time, Archer said Vadym Pozharskyi — an executive at Burisma — attended the dinner.

EXCLUSIVE: JOE BIDEN ALLEGEDLY PAID $5M BY BURISMA EXECUTIVE AS PART OF A BRIBERY SCHEME, ACCORDING TO FBI DOCUMENT

Meanwhile, as for Burisma, Archer testified that he and Hunter Biden attended a board of directors meeting in Dubai on Dec. 4, 2015.

On the sidelines of that meeting, Archer testified that Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky and Vadym Pozharskyi asked Hunter to make a phone call to “D.C” to address “pressure” the company was facing.”

Archer said Burisma had “several pressure issues,” saying that was “kind of a theme” of the company, noting the issues involved 23 million pounds of “capital tied up in London,” U.S. visa issues and the Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the firm.

“They requested Hunter, you know, help them with some of that pressure,” Archer said. “You know, government pressure from Ukrainian government investigations into Mykola, et cetera.”

Biden and Zlochevski
Hunter Biden, left, and Mykola Zlochevsky. (Getty Images)

Fox News Digital previously reported that on Nov. 2, 2015, just weeks before the board meeting in Dubai, Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden, emphasizing that the “ultimate purpose” of the agreement to have Hunter on the board was to shut down “any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,” referring to Zlochevsky, who also went by Nikolay.

“The request is like, can D.C. help?” Archer said, adding, however, that the request was not specific to “can the big guy help.”

“It was always this amorphous, can we get help in D.C.?”

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, pressed Archer, saying: “The request was help from the United States Government to deal with the pressure they were under from their prosecutor, and that entailed the freezing of assets at the London bank and other things that were going on in Ukraine?”

“Correct,” Archer said.

When asked why Burisma would ask Hunter for help, Archer said he was “a lobbyist and an expert and obviously he carried, you know, a very powerful name.”

HUNTER DEMANDED $10M FROM CHINESE ENERGY FIRM BECAUSE ‘BIDENS ARE THE BEST,’ HAVE ‘CONNECTIONS’

“That’s what they were asking for,” he said.

After the Burisma executives asked for help, Hunter “called his dad,” Archer said, adding that he “did not hear this phone call.”

When asked if Hunter Biden calling the vice president of the United States to “do something” about the pressure Burisma was facing would “cause off some serious alarm bells for influence peddling, conflicts of interest,” Archer testified: “Right.”

Archer testified that he was “left out” of “black box D.C. types of conversations.”

But just five days after Hunter Biden called then-Vice President Joe Biden from Dubai, Joe Biden took a trip to Ukraine.

James Comer
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

During that trip, the former vice president made a statement: “It’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption. The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform.”

Archer testified on other details related to joint ventures with Hunter Biden.

Meanwhile, Archer was pressed on an FBI FD-1023 form, which contained allegations that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden “coerced” Zlochevsky to pay them millions of dollars in exchange for their help in getting Shokin fired.

Biden has acknowledged that when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire prosecutor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, and at the time, Hunter had a highly lucrative role on the board receiving thousands of dollars per month.

BIDENS ALLEGEDLY ‘COERCED’ BURISMA CEO TO PAY THEM MILLIONS TO HELP GET UKRAINE PROSECUTOR FIRED: FBI FORM

The then-vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired.

Biden allies maintain the then-vice president pushed for Shokin’s firing due to concerns the Ukrainian prosecutor went easy on corruption and say that his firing was the policy position of the U.S. and international community.

The FBI form said Pozharskyi said the reason Hunter Biden was hired was “to protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”

Archer was not familiar with that arrangement and suggested Zlochevsky could have been referring to payments he made to Archer and Hunter Biden.

Joe and Hunter Biden at Fort McNair
President Biden and his son, Hunter. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Archer said he was not aware of a $5 million payment to Joe Biden from Zlochevsky and said the Burisma CEO could have been boasting or exaggerating to give “the impression of access.”

Archer’s testimony comes as part of the House Oversight Committee’s months-long investigation, which Republicans say has yielded evidence related to the Biden family’s alleged foreign business schemes — including that the Biden family and its business associates created more than 20 companies and received more than $10 million from foreign nationals while Joe Biden served as vice president.

BIDEN WROTE COLLEGE RECOMMENDATION LETTER FOR SON OF HUNTER’S CHINESE BUSINESS PARTNER, EMAILS REVEAL

Meanwhile, the White House released a statement following Archer’s testimony Monday:

“It appears that the House Republicans’ own much-hyped witness today testified that he never heard of President Biden discussing business with his son or his son’s associates, or doing anything wrong,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams told Fox News Digital. “House Republicans keep promising bombshell evidence to support their ridiculous attacks against the President, but time after time, they keep failing to produce any.” 

In February 2022, Archer was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for defrauding a Native American tribal entity and various investment advisory clients of tens of millions of dollars in connection with the issuance of bonds by the tribal entity and the subsequent sale of those bonds through “fraudulent and deceptive means,” according to the Department of Justice.

The Justice Department, over the weekend, sought to set a date for Archer’s sentence to begin.

Brooke Singman is a Fox News Digital politics reporter. You can reach her at Brooke.Singman@Fox.com or @BrookeSingman on Twitter.

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Evidence Of Biden Burisma Corruption Is Overwhelming


BY: MOLLIE HEMINGWAY | AUGUST 01, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/01/evidence-of-biden-burisma-corruption-is-overwhelming/

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A key associate of Hunter Biden reluctantly admitted details about how the Biden family business was run — and those details are shocking.

Devon Archer, a longtime business partner and close friend of Hunter Biden’s, told congressional investigators Monday that at a meeting in Dubai on Dec. 4, 2015, top executives of Ukrainian energy concern Burisma asked Hunter Biden and himself for help from D.C. At the time of the meeting, Hunter Biden’s dad, Joe Biden, was serving as Barack Obama’s vice president as well as his point person on Ukraine. Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of Burisma, and Vadym Pozharski, a Burisma executive, wanted to get Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired as he was investigating the company for corruption, Archer told members of Congress.

Hunter Biden put Zlochevsky and Pozharski on a call with “D.C.,” Archer said, noting he was not part of the phone call so couldn’t possibly know who exactly was on the other end of the line. Joe Biden did meet and speak more than 20 times with various business associates who were paying for access to the Biden family, Archer admitted.

In this case, Burisma was paying Archer and Hunter Biden as much as $83,000 a month to serve on the Ukrainian energy concern’s board, despite the fact that neither man had relevant experience or expertise for the job outside of their frequent meetings and contact with the then-vice president. The two were hired the same month that the U.K. had opened an investigation into company officials. The money was well spent.

A mere five days after the Dubai meeting and phone call, Vice President Joe Biden gave a speech to the Ukrainian Rada, its parliament in Kyiv, attempting to lay the groundwork for firing Shokin.

It took just a few short months before Shokin was fired. Joe Biden bragged in a public speech in January 2018 that he was personally responsible for getting that firing accomplished so quickly. In fact, he claimed he had bullied the Ukrainian government into firing the investigator by threatening to withhold a billion-dollar loan guarantee unless he got what he wanted. Seriously:

And I was supposed to announce that there was another billion-dollar loan guarantee. And I had gotten a commitment from Poroshenko and from Yatsenyuk that they would take action against the state prosecutor. And they didn’t. So they said they had — they were walking out to a press conference. I said, nah, I’m not going to — or, we’re not going to give you the billion dollars. They said, you have no authority. You’re not the president. The president said — I said, call him. (Laughter.) I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired.

What an amazing series of events that led to Joe Biden personally fulfilling what Burisma was paying Hunter Biden to accomplish. What are the odds?

Not the Weather

After Archer’s transcribed interview, Rep. Dan Goldman, a Democrat from New York who previously ran some of the Russia-collusion hoax as a congressional staffer, ran to the cameras to cushion the blow of the explosive new information.

For years, the corporate press and other Democrats had uncritically accepted Biden’s preposterous claim that he had never spoken with his son or his son’s business partners about the Biden family business. Even when Biden business associate Tony Bobulinski described — in detail, on the record, and with supporting evidence — how Joe Biden served as the “chairman” of the family business, the media largely ignored the explosive claims. With Archer echoing Bobulinski’s claims, and further noting that the business wouldn’t have worked without Joe Biden’s “brand,” Goldman and others like him had to concede that Biden did in fact speak with Hunter’s business associates. In fact, they had to admit he spoke with them frequently. However, Goldman claimed, they were only talking about the weather.

While no one actually thinks Joe Biden has a secret interest in meteorology that he only shares with corrupt foreign oligarchs who happen to be in business with his son, the claim is ridiculous for another reason.

As conservative broadcaster Larry O’Connor wrote, “Understand this: Hunter getting Joe on speakerphone WAS THE DELIVERABLE. It literally doesn’t matter what was discussed. Showing that he could get the Vice President of the United States on the phone was all Hunter had to show his clients to seal the deal. He was selling ACCESS not policy. Getting The Big Guy to pick up the phone demonstrated his ability to deliver that access. Case closed. Impeach.”

Otherwise, why would Joe Biden get on the phone with his business associates at all? Why would Barack Obama’s point man in Ukraine be talking to Ukrainian officials under suspicion of massive corruption who were paying large sums of money to his son? What was the point, exactly, if not as chairman of the family business?

We know Burisma was paying Biden family members for help getting powerful people in D.C. to get investigators off its back. We know Biden was the top official in D.C. related to Ukraine. Five days after Burisma made the request, Biden was laying the groundwork for the firing. And he has publicly bragged about getting the prosecutor fired.

n 2019, President Donald Trump was impeached for raising the issue of a potential corruption scandal involving Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Burisma. At that time, scores of corporate media and other Democrat activists asserted without evidence that Shokin was not investigating Burisma and that it was a lie to suggest otherwise. For instance, Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post wrote in 2019, “Trump has falsely claimed that Biden in 2015 pressured the Ukrainian government to fire Viktor Shokin, the top Ukrainian prosecutor, because he was investigating Ukraine’s largest private gas company, Burisma, which had added Biden’s son, Hunter, to its board in 2014. There are two big problems with this claim: One, Shokin was not investigating Burisma or Hunter Biden, and two, Shokin’s ouster was considered a diplomatic victory.”

Since that false “fact” “check,” investigators in the House and Senate have shown that the Biden family business involves oligarchs and other powerful figures from Russia, Romania, China, and even France and other countries. Joe Biden reportedly met and spoke with his son’s employers from across the globe. The corporate press and other Democrats will fight disclosure about the Biden family business every step of the way, but Archer’s transcribed interview shows how important it is to reveal the truth of that business to the American people.

Mollie Ziegler Hemingway is the Editor-in-Chief of The Federalist. She is Senior Journalism Fellow at Hillsdale College and a Fox News contributor. She is the co-author of Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. She is the author of “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections.” Reach her at mzhemingway@thefederalist.com

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Rasmussen Poll: Most Suspect Biden Covered for Son


By Peter Malbin    |   Tuesday, 01 August 2023 12:43 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/rasmussen-hunter-biden-joe-biden/2023/08/01/id/1129241/

Devon Archer testified to Congress on Monday that he was on a speakerphone multiple times with Hunter Biden and President Joe Biden when the latter was vice president. But Archer, Hunter Biden’s former business partner, said they only discussed pleasantries, not business dealings involving Ukraine and China. Archer testified that Joe Biden was put on the phone to help Hunter Biden sell what he called “the brand,” according to Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability.

According to reports, Hunter Biden was paid millions of dollars as a consultant to Ukraine gas company Burisma and other entities overseas, allegedly to gain access to the vice president.

According to the latest Rasmussen Reports poll taken just before Archer’s closed-door testimony to the House Oversight Committe, 60% of likely voters say Joe Biden has been part of an illegal cover-up to hide his involvement in his son’s foreign business deals; 45% think such a cover-up is very likely; 34% say it’s not likely Biden has illegally covered up his role in his son’s foreign business, including 18% who believe it is not at all likely.

Joe Biden has said he never discussed Hunter’s business affairs with him.

Archer’s testimony “confirms Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his son’s business dealings and was not involved,” said Comer, the The Wall Street Journal reported.

In the Rasmussen poll, 61% of voters think this is a serious scandal, including 44% who say it’s very serious. But 29% don’t believe Biden’s involvement in Hunter’s foreign business is a serious scandal, including 13% who believe it is not at all serious.

Last week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Biden had done “something we have not seen since Richard Nixon: Use the weaponization of government to benefit his family and deny Congress the ability to have the oversight.” 

Over half — 58% — of voters agree with McCarthy’s statement, including 43% who strongly agree; 35% disagree, including 26% who strongly disagree.

Democrats are far less likely than other voters to view the president’s purposted involvement in his son’s foreign business deals as scandalous. Just 20% of Democrats believe that this is a very serious scandal, compared to 66% of Republicans and 49% of voters not affiliated with either major party.

Similarly, only 18% of Democrats say they strongly agree with McCarthy comparing Biden to Nixon, whereas 69% of Republicans and 46% of unaffiliated voters strongly agree.

While 69% of Republicans and 48% of unaffiliated think it’s very likely that the president has been part of an illegal cover-up to hide his involvement in his son’s foreign business deals, just 20% of Democrats believe such a cover-up is very likely.

By race, 63% of white people, 56% of Black people, and 62% of other minorities think Biden’s reported involvement in his son’s foreign business deals is at least a somewhat serious scandal. Fewer black voters (27%) than white (49%) or other minorities (42%) believe it’s very likely that the president has been part of an illegal cover-up.

More men (67%) than women voters (57%) say Biden’s involvement in Hunter’s business deals is at least a somewhat serious scandal.

Older voters are much more likely than those under 40 to deem the Biden scandal very serious, and to strongly agree with McCarthy comparing Biden to Nixon.

Only 30% of self-identified liberal voters think Biden’s reported involvement in his son’s foreign business deal is at least a somewhat serious scandal, compared to 54% of moderates and 87% of conservatives.

In terms of income categories, voters earning between $30,000 and $50,000 a year are most likely to say Biden is facing a very serious scandal.

The survey of 1,027 U.S. likely voters was conducted on July 26-27 and July 30 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is plus/minus percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.

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Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal Wasn’t Supposed to Protect Him, It Was Supposed to Protect Joe


BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | JULY 27, 2023

Rad more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/27/hunter-bidens-plea-deal-wasnt-supposed-to-protect-him-it-was-supposed-to-protect-joe/

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The twists and turns of Hunter Biden’s sweetheart plea deal have been hard to follow, but it’s been clear from the outset that, like his business ventures in Ukraine, the deal was thoroughly corrupt. It’s now clear that the agreement was never meant primarily to shield Hunter from future prosecution, but to protect President Joe Biden.

In a Delaware federal court on Wednesday, Hunter’s lawyers ended up rejecting a plea deal once it became clear the deal would not confer broad immunity on the president’s son. Although the language of the plea deal has not been released, it was supposed to have Hunter plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, as well as enter a pretrial diversion agreement for illegal possession of a firearm. The deal fell apart, however, once the federal judge overseeing the case, Maryellen Noreika, started asking questions. Here’s how The New York Times reported it:

The hearing appeared to be going smoothly before Judge Noreika questioned whether the agreement meant that Mr. Biden would be immune from prosecution for other possible crimes — including violations related to representing foreign governments — in perpetuity. When a top prosecutor in the case said it would not, Chris Clark, Mr. Biden’s lead lawyer, initially hesitated and then said the government’s position would make the agreement “null and void.”

After a recess during which the lawyers for both sides scrambled to hash out an agreement, Judge Noreika, who earlier had said she felt she was being asked to “rubber stamp” the agreement, said she could not accept the plea deal. Hunter Biden then pled not guilty to the tax charges and the hearing was over. 

What to make of this? The most obvious explanation is that Hunter’s lawyers know what most Americans know: He was involved in complex foreign bribery schemes that implicate his father, President Biden. They were hoping to strike a plea agreement with the Justice Department that would protect him from future prosecution related to corrupt foreign business deals in Ukraine and China that involved trading on his family name, but once it became clear that the judge was not going to sign off on such an agreement, they backed out of the deal.

Why would they want such a deal in the first place? Maybe because they know the Republicans in Congress continue to amass evidence that Joe Biden and his son took millions in bribe money from Ukrainian oligarchs for protection against prosecution. Hunter’s plea deal, in other words, wasn’t meant to shield Hunter from future prosecution, it was meant to protect Joe. A plea agreement granting Hunter broad immunity would make it harder to dig into his murky overseas business deals — deals which increasingly appear to have involved his father. 

As we have detailed here in recent days, the Biden bribery scheme in Ukraine is shaping up to be the great political scandal in American history. If it’s true, it would mean the end of Biden’s presidency, either by impeachment and conviction or by abandonment by the Democrat Party establishment ahead of the 2024 election. 

Consider what’s come out just recently. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, last week released an unclassified FBI document detailing reports from a “highly credible” informant who says the founder and CEO of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, bragged about paying the Bidens $10 million to make the oil and gas company’s legal problems disappear. Specifically, Zlochevsky wanted Ukrainian authorities to fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma.

And of course, that’s just what happened — after then-Vice President Joe Biden, by his own admission, threatened to withhold aid to Ukraine unless Shokin was fired.

This same informant says top Burisma executives admitted that the only reason they hired Hunter to sit on their board (for a jaw-dropping $83,000 a month) was “to protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”

The FBI, for its part, tried to hide this document from IRS investigators and Congress, and the corporate media have done their best to ignore the story altogether. But ignoring it won’t make it go away. Indeed, the story keeps growing. As Margot Cleveland reported in these pages earlier this week, the Pittsburgh FBI office told the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office it had corroborated multiple aspects of the informant’s claims, including travel records confirming the informant had indeed traveled to the locales detailed in the document during the relevant time period.

We also know the FBI and Justice Department not only prevented a pair of IRS whistleblowers from learning of the document but also kept hidden portions of the materials found on Hunter’s laptop. That’s no small thing. One of those whistleblowers suggested the FBI informant’s claims could corroborate other evidence the IRS special agents had gathered during their investigation.

As this story develops, it’s becoming obvious that the point of the FBI and DOJ’s obstruction is to protect the president and suppress further evidence of the Biden bribery scheme. That’s why a special counsel won’t cut it. The deep state isn’t going to get to the bottom of this, and the corporate press is going to keep aggressively ignoring it. If the federal courtroom circus on Wednesday demonstrated anything, it’s that we’re going to need an impeachment inquiry to find out the truth about President Biden’s corruption.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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Biden Family Scandals Are So Much Bigger Than Hunter’s Hookers And Burisma Bribery


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JULY 26, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/26/biden-family-scandals-are-so-much-bigger-than-hunters-hookers-and-burisma-bribery/

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When the New York Post broke the news that documents recovered from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop implicated Joe Biden in a pay-to-play scandal, the corporate media — to the extent they didn’t frame the story as Russian disinformation — pretended the reporting solely concerned Hunter Biden’s personal life. The scandal, however, was never about Hunter’s sordid sex life and history of drug abuse. Rather, it concerned Joe Biden’s abuse of power as vice president for financial gain. But now it reaches much further — including 10 distinct scandals.

Saturated in Scandal

1. The Many (Uncharged) Crimes of Hunter Biden

While the current scandals swirling around the laptop are unrelated to Hunter Biden’s sex life or drug abuse, the president’s son features in the first scandal: Evidence indicates Hunter Biden committed numerous crimes, including felonies. Evidence suggests Hunter Biden acted as an unregistered foreign agent for, at a minimum, Ukraine and China in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. The confidential human source’s (CHS) reporting suggests Hunter also accepted bribes from Burisma or alternatively helped extort $10 million from the Ukrainian oil and gas company for himself and his father. 

IRS whistleblowers and federal prosecutors also believed the evidence supported multiple felony tax counts. Lying on a federal firearm application is a serious felony as well.

The evidence that the president’s son likely engaged in extensive criminal conduct for over a decade is a huge scandal, but it also bred a separate scandal: the DOJ and FBI’s efforts to protect him, No. 7 below. 

2. Joe Biden’s Business Lie

Hunter Biden’s laptop also exposed the reality that Joe Biden lied to the American public, dating back to September 2019. During a campaign stop, the then-Democrat presidential candidate snapped at Fox News’ Peter Doocy, claiming: “I’ve never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”  

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1175486006348460032?s=20

More than two years later, after The Washington Post and New York Times belatedly confirmed the authenticity of the emails recovered from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, Doocy asked then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki whether “President Biden still maintains he never discussed overseas business deals with his son Hunter,” to which Psaki replied, “Yes.”

While Biden and his team stuck with that lie for two-plus years, his current press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is attempting to snuff out that scandal by reframing Biden’s denial. “I’ve been asked this question a million times. The answer is not going to change. The answer remains the same: The president was never in business with his son,” Jean-Pierre said on Monday.

Moving the goalposts won’t erase the lie. 

3. Joe Biden’s Corruption

The much more serious scandal, however, concerns extensive evidence of Joe Biden’s widespread corruption. Bank and corporate records, suspicious activity reports, emails and text messages recovered from Hunter Biden’s laptop, travel records, reporting from a “highly credible” CHS, and testimony and expected testimony from Hunter Biden’s business partners indicate that Joe Biden, while vice president, exchanged political favors for payments to his family members — with a cut of the cash coming to the “Big Guy.” 

People and/or organizations from Romania, Ukraine, Russia, and China, among others, all paid Biden-related business entities millions of dollars, with evidence indicating the now-president received a cut of the bribes. The evidence indicates that in exchange, the individuals received access to the then-vice president. In the case of Ukraine, Biden forced the firing of the prosecutor general who was investigating Burisma, the company where Hunter held a board seat and which allegedly paid Joe and Hunter Biden each $5 million in bribes.

The evidence of Joe Biden’s corruption is bad enough, but the scandal deepens when one considers the president has supplied Ukraine with cluster bombs and billions in American tax dollars.

Cover-Ups

While the first three scandals involve misconduct and likely criminality by Hunter and Joe Biden, there are at least twice as many distinct scandals that flow from cover-up efforts to protect the Bidens.

4. FBI’s Interference in the 2020 Election

By December 2019, the FBI had authenticated the laptop Hunter Biden abandoned at a computer repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware. Yet, knowing the laptop was real and contained spectacularly damaging details implicating Joe Biden in corruption, the FBI spent the months leading up to the November 2020 election grooming tech giants to believe a “hack-and-leak operation” was imminent. The FBI also pushed social media companies to change their terms of service to prohibit the posting of so-called hacked materials.

These combined efforts prompted social media companies to censor the New York Post’s Oct. 14, 2020 blockbuster article, “Smoking-Gun Email Reveals How Hunter Biden Introduced Ukrainian Businessman to VP Dad.” After the story broke and after initially confirming its authenticity to Twitter, the FBI refused to comment on whether the material had been hacked or was Russian disinformation, leading to its continued widespread censorship. Not only did the FBI improperly protect Joe Biden and prompt the censorship of true political speech, it interfered in the 2020 election and likely handed Biden the White House. 

5. Intelligence Agencies’ Interference in the 2020 Election

Former and current members of intelligence agencies soon joined the FBI in interfering in the 2020 election. The House Intelligence and Weaponization Committees previously detailed evidence of that interference in their report titled, “How Senior Intelligence Community Officials and the Biden Campaign Worked to Mislead American Voters.” 

That report established that the infamous October 2020 letter, which was signed by 51 former intelligence officials and falsely framed the Hunter Biden laptop as Russian disinformation, was concocted by Biden-campaign officials, including now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who served as a senior adviser to the Biden campaign. Then-candidate Joe Biden would cite that letter in his final debate with Donald Trump to lie to the American people (again), telling the country the laptop was Russian disinformation.

It is scandalous that scores of former intelligence officials would use their prior positions and reputations to deceive Americans in a way that likely affected the 2020 election. That any of those individuals retained security clearances adds to the scandal, as does the role of the Biden campaign and the involvement of at least one CIA employee in soliciting signatories for the statement. 

6. Intel Agencies’ Failure to Protect America Against Foreign Influence

Not only did intelligence agencies interfere in the 2020 election, but in their efforts to protect Joe Biden, they likely also failed to provide necessary defensive briefings, putting Americans at risk.

To protect our country, intelligence officials must have frank discussions with leaders (and candidates) about the risks of foreign malign influence. Given how hard the FBI and intelligence agencies tried to bury the news of the laptop, it seems likely they omitted any reference to the laptop and details contained on it in briefings to then-President Trump, then-candidate Biden, and the Biden campaign. 

To date, this scandal has been overlooked and merits further inquiry to determine whether the intelligence apparatus fulfilled its duty to the country or omitted inconvenient facts in briefings to protect Joe Biden. Of particular concern is whether intelligence agencies assessed and warned about the risk that the Russians had stolen a second Hunter Biden laptop that contain materials the Biden son believed rendered him susceptible to blackmail.

7. DOJ and FBI’s Handling of Biden Investigations

When it comes to how the DOJ and FBI handled investigations into Biden family corruption, the evidence of potential misconduct is overwhelming.

Broadly, this scandal includes conflicts of interest between Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys — including the Pennsylvania U.S. attorney handling an investigation into the Jim Biden-connected company Americorp, and the California and D.C. U.S. attorneys who reportedly refused to bring felony charges against Hunter Biden. Likewise, Attorney General Merrick Garland’s conflict of interest proves scandalous given the numerous efforts by the DOJ and FBI headquarters to interfere in the investigations.

Beyond conflicts of interest, the IRS whistleblowers and another whistleblower who’s provided information to Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, have revealed numerous instances of DOJ and FBI procedural violations, the burying of evidence such as the FD-1023, the false labeling of derogatory evidence as disinformation, and limits on the investigative steps agents could take. Consequently, the DOJ charged Hunter Biden only with misdemeanors and one firearm felony that could be dropped, and to date it appears no investigation has occurred into Joe Biden or his brother, Jim Biden, on allegations of bribery and money laundering.

While Democrats counter the growing evidence of corruption by wrongly claiming it has not been corroborated, that fact does not vindicate the Bidens: It implicates the DOJ and FBI in a separate scandal. 

Cover-Ups of the Cover-Ups

8. DOJ and FBI’s Cover-Up of Failure to Investigate Bidens

Once whistleblowers began exposing the Biden administration’s interference in the family’s pay-to-play investigation, the DOJ and FBI began to cover-up the cover-up. We saw this most clearly when Garland professed that there was no political interference in U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s investigation into Hunter Biden. Garland stressed that, as a Trump holdover, Americans could trust Weiss’s independence.

Garland’s testimony cannot be squared with the extensive interference coming from FBI headquarters and the limitations the DOJ placed on investigative techniques. When Grassley pushed on the point, Garland maintained that Weiss had ultimate charging authority. According to an IRS whistleblower, however, Weiss said otherwise, claiming he wasn’t the ultimate decision-maker. 

Here, the cover-up of the cover-up began in earnest, with Garland and Weiss writing a series of letters and making public statements that attempted to obscure the ultimate question of whether Weiss had ultimate authority to charge Hunter Biden and whether DOJ or FBI headquarters interfered in the investigation. This scandal has yet to be unraveled. But on Monday, the DOJ sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee offering up Weiss to testify — indicating Biden’s Justice Department might be preparing to throw Weiss under the bus.

9. Democrats Lying to Protect Joe Biden 

Many Democrats are also wrapped up in lying to protect Joe Biden. Some of these lies predate the election when they spun the laptop as Russian disinformation. But more recently, we saw Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin lying to the American public about the FD-1023 form. Had former Attorney General William Barr not gone on the record to correct Raskin’s falsehood, the public would have been none the wiser.

Seeking to protect Joe Biden from damning bribery claims, Raskin falsely claimed that Trump appointees Barr and U.S. Attorney Scott Brady had reviewed the CHS’s reporting contained in a June 2020 FD-1023 form and closed out the investigation. Raskin also portrayed the CHS’s reporting as connected to Rudy Giuliani.

But as The Federalist first reported, Barr unequivocally said that Raskin’s claim was “not true.” The investigation into the FD-1023 “wasn’t closed down.” “On the contrary,” Barr stressed, “it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.” Likewise, Barr explained the CHS’s reporting was unrelated to Giuliani.

10. Press Acting as Biden-Run Media

When the Post broke the laptop story, the legacy media either silenced it or framed it as Russian disinformation. Even two years later, after belatedly authenticating the material recovered from Hunter Biden’s computer, the corporate media refused to cover the implications — that the emails, documents, and texts indicated Joe Biden was involved in a massive corruption scandal. The corrupt press still refuses to cover the news fairly, opting instead to brand the evidence as a conspiracy theory. 

The media’s refusal to seek and report the truth proves the most dire of all the scandals because without a free press checking government corruption, the corruption will only grow.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Mounting Evidence Doesn’t Matter, Corporate Media Will Never Cover the Biden Corruption Scandal


BY: JOHN DANIEL DAVIDSON | JULY 25, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/25/mounting-evidence-doesnt-matter-corporate-media-will-never-cover-the-biden-corruption-scandal/

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As evidence mounts that President Joe Biden took millions in bribe money from Ukrainian oligarchs when he was vice president as part of an elaborate influence-peddling scheme headed up by his son, Hunter Biden, let’s check in on how the corporate press is handling what looks like the biggest political scandal in American history.

Nothing to see here, apparently. The New York Times has carried no coverage of the shocking allegations contained in an unclassified FBI document Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released last week. The document, called an FD-1023, details the reporting of a highly credible FBI informant who says the top executive of Ukrainian oil and gas firm Burisma told him he paid Joe and Hunter Biden $5 million each to protect the company from a corruption investigation (that’s in addition to the millions it paid Hunter to sit on its board).

Instead, the “paper of record” ran an article attacking a group called Empower Oversight for helping a pair of IRS whistleblowers at the heart of the Hunter Biden tax fraud investigation who say the FBI and Justice Department hid the informant’s reporting from them, as well as relevant material on Hunter’s laptop. The Times wasn’t interested in the substance of what these whistleblowers had to say, but rather focused on the fact that Empower Oversight helped them follow the proper procedures and whistleblower statutes for bringing their claims to Congress. 

Over at The Washington Post, there was likewise zero coverage of the FBI informant’s reporting, even after portions of it were corroborated this week as reported by Margot Cleveland in these pages. Nor was there any mention of Tuesday’s news that Hunter’s former business partner and fellow Burisma board member, Devon Archer, will testify before Congress that Hunter would regularly call his father and put him on speakerphone with overseas business associates when Joe Biden was vice president.

 None of that seems to interest the editors at the Post. The only mention of any of this comes from media columnist Philip Bump, who devoted an entire column Monday to a tortured explanation of why we should ignore it all. Just because a trusted FBI informant is credible, writes Bump, doesn’t mean that what the informant was told is true: “I trust my wife, but if she tells me that our 6-year-old claims to have seen a dragon on the roof, I don’t suddenly believe that there was a dragon on the roof.”

Indeed not. But what Bump seems to be suggesting is that if his wife ran up to him terrified that there’s a dragon on the roof because his 6-year-old claims to have seen one, he would just shrug it off until further evidence emerged. And maybe he actually would. After all, this is the same guy who once seemed terribly confused about where babies come from. 

But of course Bump, like the rest of the corporate press, is faking it. A normal person, confronted by his hysterical wife claiming the boy saw a dragon on the roof, would take a second to step outside and look at the roof. Bump and his colleagues refuse to do even this, insisting rather that this is all just political theater, the GOP desperately grasping at straws to damage Biden.

In a healthy society with a functioning free press, the Biden corruption scandal — and the rank obstruction of the DOJ and FBI on Biden’s behalf — would dominate the headlines. Instead of merely reporting that the Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy yesterday floated the prospect of impeachment proceedings against Biden, the press would be reporting on the mounting evidence underlying the drive for impeachment.

But no. Instead, the corporate media are twisting themselves into pretzels to explain away every new development in this story. As David Marcus noted on Twitter, “We are precipitously close to, ‘Maybe Joe Biden did take money from Burisma, but here’s why that’s actually a good thing.’”

Or as one Twitter account put it:

We can see the goalposts shifting in real time. Asked Monday about the corruption allegations and the claims that Hunter put his father on speakerphone with foreign business associates when Biden was vice president, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden “was never in business with his son.”

That’s a far cry from Biden’s past statements that he has “never spoken” to Hunter about his overseas business dealings. (Never mind the hundreds of meetings Biden has reportedly had with Hunter’s business partners.) But at this rate the laughable White House line will become the media’s fallback position: Biden wasn’t in business with his son! He was just collecting “dividends,” not bribe money! 

The upshot of all this is simple: no matter what evidence emerges, no matter how damning, the corporate media will not cover it. To the extent they mention the story at all, it will be in the context of bashing Republican lawmakers for trying to “dig up dirt” on Biden. If the GOP-controlled House opens an impeachment proceeding, which is the only way we’re ever going to get to the bottom of the Biden corruption scheme, the coverage will be about how Republican lawmakers are conducting a “witch hunt” to get back at Democrats for impeaching Trump.

Everywhere, we’ll hear the same line that CBS’s “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan tossed to Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie recently, in reference to the outrageous plea deal offered to Hunter Biden for a couple of tax charges: “I wonder after this plea happens if you would advise your party to move on?”

Of course, the whole point of the plea deal was to give the corporate media this line in hopes that the American people would “move on” and forget about the scandal. But no one, it seems, is “moving on” except Democrats and their courtesans in the press. The rest of us are going to take a second to step outside and see if there’s really a dragon on the roof. We’ll make sure to let Philip Bump know.

John Daniel Davidson is a senior editor at The Federalist. His writing has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Claremont Review of Books, The New York Post, and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter, @johnddavidson.

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FBI Told Delaware U.S. Attorney It Had Already Partially Corroborated Biden Bribery Claims, Source Says


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JULY 24, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/24/fbi-told-delaware-u-s-attorney-it-had-already-partially-corroborated-biden-bribery-claims-source-says/

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When the Pittsburgh FBI office briefed the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office on evidence implicating Hunter and Joe Biden in a bribery scheme, the agents also told the Delaware team they had already corroborated several aspects of the confidential human source’s claims, an individual familiar with the briefing told The Federalist. 

On Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released the FD-1023 summary of a confidential human source’s reporting that the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden each $5 million in bribes so the then-Vice President would “protect” Burisma “from all kinds of problems.” Those bribes were in addition to the more than $4 million in total paid to Hunter Biden and his business partner Devon Archer for sitting on Burisma’s board of directors. 

The Federalist has now learned that the Pittsburgh FBI office had corroborated several details contained in the FD-1023 as part of the intake process that former Attorney General William Barr established before the election under the leadership of the Western District of Pennsylvania’s then-U.S. Attorney Scott Brady. Significantly, in briefing the Delaware U.S. attorney on the results of their office’s screening of evidence related to Ukraine, the Pittsburgh FBI agents told the Delaware office they had corroborated multiple facts included in the FD-1023, an individual with knowledge of the briefing told The Federalist.

Following the late June 2020 interview with the CHS, the Pittsburgh FBI office obtained travel records for the CHS, and those records confirmed the CHS had traveled to the locales detailed in the FD-1023 during the relevant time period. The trips included a late 2015 or early 2016 visit to Kiev, Ukraine; a trip a couple of months later to Vienna, Austria; and travel to London in 2019. 

As The Federalist previously reported, during their briefing of the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office, the Pittsburgh FBI agents said the FD-1023 bore indicia of credibility and that it merited further investigation. The person familiar with that briefing now confirms the agents also informed the Delaware office that the Pittsburgh FBI had corroborated the CHS’s presence in the various cities at the times claimed.

The Federalist has also learned that the CHS’s handler corroborated the CHS’s claim that he had met with Oleksandr Ostapenko. According to the source with knowledge of the matter, the CHS’s handler told Pittsburgh’s FBI agents that the CHS told his handler he had an upcoming meeting with Ostapenko. The CHS’s contemporaneous claim of the planned rendezvous with Ostapenko tracked the timing of one of the visits the CHS claimed in the FD-1023 to have had with Ostapenko. Significantly, the Pittsburgh office briefed the Delaware office on that piece of corroborating evidence that came from the CHS’s handler.

Open-source reporting of Burisma’s purchase of an interest in a North American oil and gas company likewise lined up with the discussions the CHS relayed to the FBI, as summarized in the FD-1023, the individual familiar with the briefing told The Federalist. That the Pittsburgh FBI office not only provided the Delaware office with a summary of the damning FD-1023 and its conclusion that it bore indicia of credibility but also identified several pieces of corroborating evidence is huge because, to date, it appears the Delaware office did nothing to investigate the allegations contained in the FD-1023. 

As Barr previously made clear, the role of the Pittsburgh office was limited to providing a “clearing-house function” for information related to Ukraine to weed out “any potential disinformation.” The purpose of the intake process, Barr stressed, was to “check[] out the source and credibility of evidence before assigning it to one of the ongoing investigations already pending in the Department,” such as the Delaware investigation into Hunter Biden. As such, the Pittsburgh office lacked the authority to subpoena witnesses or records or to use grand jury proceedings to further corroborate the FD-1023. That responsibility fell with the Delaware office.

But not only did the Delaware office apparently ignore the allegations contained in the FD-1023, as well as the corroborating evidence already allegedly accumulated by the Pittsburgh FBI office, but U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s office allegedly secreted the very existence of the FD-1023 from the whistleblowers. Both IRS whistleblowers testified last week that they did not even learn of the existence of the FD-1023 until Barr publicly confirmed he had sent the information to Delaware for further investigation. 

Delaware Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf also excluded the IRS agents working the Hunter Biden investigation from the meeting at which the Pittsburgh FBI agents briefed the office on the FD-1023 and the corroborating evidence they had already uncovered. The IRS whistleblowers further testified that portions of Hunter Biden’s laptop were withheld from them and they were explicitly prohibited from taking any investigative steps connected to Joe Biden — or questioning anyone by using Joe Biden’s name, “Dad,” or “the Big Guy.”

Under these circumstances, even if the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office comes forward now to say it did investigate the FD-1023, its belated claim would be meaningless because the individuals with the knowledge and skill necessary to investigate a complex, international money laundering, bribery, and tax fraud scheme were cut out of the process and barred from interviewing the necessary witnesses. 

The Delaware office remains mum, however, not even pretending to have investigated the FD-1023’s allegations. That failure is even more scandalous now that we know Pittsburgh had already corroborated several aspects of the CHS’s reporting and briefed Weiss’s office on the corroborating evidence. 

Yet the Biden White House continues to falsely claim the FD-1023 charges “have been debunked for years.” On the contrary, the only thing debunked to date has been the lies of Biden’s Democrat apologists, such as Ranking Member of the House Oversight Committee Jamie Raskin, who doubled down on his claim that Barr had found the FD-1023 not credible and not meriting further investigation.

Americans now know not only that Raskin and his Democrat colleagues lied, but that President Joe Biden lied — both when he said he knew nothing of his son’s business ventures and in claiming now that the FD-1023 has been debunked.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Explosive FD-1023 Exposes More Biden Bribery Dirt — And Teases Damning Evidence to Come


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JULY 20, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/20/explosive-fd-1023-exposes-more-biden-bribery-dirt-and-teases-damning-evidence-to-come/

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Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, just released a minimally redacted copy of the FBI’s FD-1023 detailing a confidential human source’s reporting of a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and the Ukrainian business Burisma. According to the FD-1023 summary, Burisma’s owner specifically referenced the firing of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin — the same man Biden bragged about Ukraine firing after his threat to withhold aid from the country while he was vice president.

After months of pushing the Justice Department and FBI to explain what investigative procedures they had undertaken in response to evidence implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme, Grassley released the unclassified copy of the FD-1023, which documented claims made by the “highly credible” confidential human source (CHS). Grassley had acquired the FD-1023 via legally protected disclosures by Justice Department whistleblowers.

While some of the information included in the FD-1023 has already been revealed by members of the House who previously reviewed the summary of the CHS’s reporting, the public release provides new explosive details related to the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Shokin. 

Among the CHS’s conversations with Burisma’s owner Mykola Zlochevsky, one took place shortly after Joe Biden made his first public statement about Shokin “being corrupt.” At the time, according to the CHS, Shokin was investigating Burisma, and Zlochevsky told the CHS that “Hunter will take care of all of those issues through his dad.” 

Then, following Trump’s election in 2016, the CHS spoke again with Zlochevsky, who expressed dissatisfaction with Trump’s victory but noted that “Shokin had already been fired, and no investigation was currently going on…” Zlochevsky’s statement proves significant because Joe Biden had long claimed he pushed for Shokin’s firing because Shokin was not investigating Burisma — which is the exact opposite of the details summarized in the FD-1023.

Beyond putting the already known details in black-and-white for the public to read, such as Zlochevsky’s representation that he had 17 recordings of the Bidens and had never paid the “Big Guy” directly, the release of the FD-1023 is significant for another reason: The American public now knows the many details the FBI could have and should have investigated.

For instance, did Burisma or any other related entity purchase a Texas-based oil and gas company for approximately $20-$30 million during the relevant time period? Were the CHS and his business partner in Kiev in the 2015 and 2016 time period? Did the CHS’s U.S. business partner confirm the details of the meeting? Was the CHS in London during the relevant time in 2019? And did the FBI ever ask the CHS to record his conversations with Zlochevsky or attempt to turn Zlochevsky into an asset? 

According to the FD-1023 report, in 2019, the CHS had offered to assist Zlochevsky if he wanted to speak to the U.S. government about the Bidens and what Zlochevsky claimed was their coercion of Burisma to pay the bribes. Did anyone ever ask the CHS to contact Zlochevsky? If not, why not?

The public release of the FD-1023 is significant now for a third reason: It comes on the heels of the IRS whistleblowers’ testimony Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee that suggested the CHS’s reporting corroborates other evidence. 

During Wednesday’s hours-long hearing, IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler both told lawmakers they had never seen the FD-1023. Significantly, Ziegler then stated: “There’s things that are contained on that document that could further corroborate other information that we might be having an issue corroborating because it could be regarding a foreign official. So, if we have information regarding that in a document or a witness, we can further corroborate later evidence.”

But because federal law prohibits the discussion of confidential taxpayers’ information, other than through specific procedures, Ziegler did not detail what, if any, information they may have discovered during their investigation into Hunter Biden. Instead, Ziegler said, “if that’s something that we have, we can turn that over to the House Ways and Means Committee.”

This testimony suggests that the IRS’s investigation likely uncovered evidence the FD-1023 corroborated. With that form now public, both Ziegler and Shapley can study it and assess what documentary material, such as wire transfer reports, they uncovered that is now corroborated. However, that evidence will have to go to the House Ways and Means Committee before it is made public.

So much for Democrats’ claim that there is no evidence of Joe Biden’s complicity and corruption.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Republicans erupt over 2015 email exposing ‘ultimate purpose’ of Hunter’s involvement with Burisma


By Jessica Chasmar , Brooke Singman , Cameron Cawthorne | Fox News | Published July 12, 2023 12:07pm EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/republicans-erupt-2015-email-exposing-ultimate-purpose-hunters-involvement-burisma

FIRST ON FOX: Republican lawmakers erupted Tuesday after learning about a 2015 email chain that predated President Biden’s infamous 2015 trip to Ukraine, when a Burisma Holdings executive revealed the “ultimate purpose” of Hunter Biden’s involvement with the Ukrainian energy company.

One month before then-Vice President Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine, where he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if Ukrainian leaders did not fire their top prosecutor, Hunter Biden and Burisma executives were discussing executing a contract for counter-messaging against any federal investigations into Burisma’s founder and then-president, Mykola Zlochevsky.

“The sequence of events that led to the firing of Viktor Shokin, and the subsequent comments by then-Vice President Biden, raise serious concerns as to what machinations were really at play — and were purposefully concealed from the American people,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., who sits on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, told Fox News Digital. “No matter how you slice Hunter Biden’s involvement, it screams public corruption at the highest levels and must be fully investigated.”

“The calm, judicious, steady reveal of incredibly condemning evidence that clearly incriminates the Biden crime family will eventually alarm even the most ardent supporters of this WH occupier,” said Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., also a committee member. “Our President is compromised, he should resign and be forever condemned, and the Democrat Party should begin rebuilding itself.” 

Armstrong, Joe and Hunter Biden and Comer split image

From left to right, Rep. Kelly Armstrong, President Biden and his son Hunter Biden, and Rep. James Comer, R-Ky. (Fox News)

On Nov. 2, 2015, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden, who was serving as a Burisma board member, his associates Devon Archer, a fellow board member, and Rosemont Seneca Partners president Eric Schwerin about a “revised proposal, contract and initial invoice for Burisma Holdings,” from lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies, according to emails from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, which have been verified by Fox News Digital. Pozharskyi emphasized in his email that the “ultimate purpose” of the agreement with Blue Star Strategies was to shut down “any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,” referring to Zlochevsky, who also went by Nikolay.

OBAMA-ERA EMAILS REVEAL HUNTER’S EXTENSIVE TIES TO NEARLY A DOZEN SENIOR-LEVEL BIDEN ADMIN AIDES

Pozharskyi emails Blue Star Strategies proposal

On Nov. 2, 2015, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden, Devon Archer and Eric Schwerin about a “revised proposal, contract and initial invoice for Burisma Holdings.” (Fox News)

“My only concern is for us to be on the same page re our final goals,” Pozharskyi wrote. “With this in mind, I would like us to formulate a list of deliverables, including, but not limited to: a concrete course of actions, incl. meetings/communications resulting in high-ranking US officials in Ukraine (US Ambassador) and in US publicly or in private communication/comment expressing their ‘positive opinion’ and support of Nikolay/Burisma to the highest level of decision makers here in Ukraine :President of Ukraine, president Chief of staff, Prosecutor General, etc.”

“The scope of work should also include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current and/or former US policy-makers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay’s issue to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay in Ukraine,” Pozharskyi continued.

HUNTER BIDEN GUSHED OVER ‘EXTRAVAGANT’ GIFTS FROM BURISMA EXEC WHO WAS FOCUS OF CORRUPTION PROBE

Upon joining Burisma, Hunter Biden reportedly connected the company with Blue Star Strategies to help the firm fight corruption charges levied against Zlochevsky. The firm reportedly came under federal investigation from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware in 2021 for its lobbying practices. The same office, led by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, is leading the federal investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings.

“I would tell Vadym that this is definitely done deliberately to the be on the safe and cautious side and that Sally and company understand the scope and deliverables,” Schwerin wrote to Hunter Biden and Archer the same day, forwarding Pozharskyi’s message. “And that we will be having regular (daily, weekly, monthly) opportunities be in through conference calls or memos to be continually refining and updating the scope.”

Schwerin emails Rosemont Seneca Partners

Eric Schwerin said the contract was deliberately vague “to the be on the safe and cautious side.” (Fox News)

Hunter Biden responded to Pozharskyi, saying he wanted to “have one last conversation” with Blue Star, but later said he was “comfortable” with Blue Star. “You should go ahead and sign,” he wrote on Nov. 5, 2015.

“Looking forward to getting started on this,” Hunter Biden added.

Biden emails Pozharskyi

Hunter Biden emailed Vadym Pozharskyi in November 2015. (Fox News)

The email exchange came one month before then Vice President Biden traveled to Ukraine’s capital of Kiev, where he gave a speech about rooting out corruption in politics. 

Ahead of the trip, an associate at Blue Star Strategies emailed Blue Star executives, Hunter Biden, Archer and Pozharskyi about a White House conference call that “outlined the trip’s agenda and addressed several questions regarding U.S. policy toward Ukraine.”

Biden addresses the Ukrainian Parliament

Vice President Joe Biden gestures next to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, right, after addressing the Ukrainian Parliament in Kiev on Dec. 8, 2015. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

During the trip, Biden pressured Ukrainian officials to fire Viktor Shokin, the prosecutor investigating Zlochevsky at the time. Shokin was fired less than four months later in March 2016. 

In February 2016, roughly two months after Biden’s trip and two months before Shokin’s firing, Hunter Biden thanked Zlochevsky in an email for “the beautiful birthday gifts,” which he described as “far too extravagant.” It is unclear what he received from the Ukrainian tycoon.

Petro Poroshenko (R) and Joe Biden

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Vice President Joe Biden arrive to deliver a statement on the results of talks in Kyev on Dec. 7, 2015. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden would later boast on camera in 2018 that when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire Shokin. The White House has repeatedly said Biden put pressure on Ukraine to fire Shokin because he was too lax on prosecuting corruption. However, Oversight Committee Republicans told Fox News Digital the timing of events is more than just a coincidence.

“I don’t think Biden had Shokin fired because he was too lax on corruption,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. “I think Biden had him fired to cover his own tail when it comes to the Biden family’s shady business dealings in Ukraine and because Shokin was looking into Zlochevsky very seriously. It’s not a coincidence that this email came a month before his visit to Kyiv. Our work on the Oversight Committee isn’t finished.”

Hunter Biden, son of Joe Biden

Hunter Biden arrives at Fort Lesley J. McNair in Washington, D.C., on July 4, 2023. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Evidence makes it clear that Hunter Biden was only appointed to Burisma’s board of directors because of his last name and family’s network,” said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the committee’s chairman. “Additionally, the FBI’s Biden bribery record detailing an alleged extortion and bribery scheme between then-Vice President Biden and a Burisma executive in exchange for certain actions mirrors the purpose of Hunter Biden’s appointment. The Department of Justice has been sitting on a mountain of evidence pointing to the Bidens’ corruption for years but has been engaged in a coverup. We need to root out this politicization and misconduct at the Department of Justice and deliver answers, transparency, and accountability to the American people.”

“The timeline in these emails further supports the conclusion that Burisma hired Hunter Biden to gain access to his father,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong, R-N.D. “They wanted a U.S. policymaker to take their side, and they got Vice President Joe Biden, who was in charge of Ukraine policy for the Obama administration. These emails raise even more questions that need answers.”

“Additional emails heighten concerns about the question of whether then-Vice President Biden was aware of his son Hunter’s engagements,” added Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wisc. “Whether in Ukraine or China, it’s difficult for Congress to rely on information from the Executive Branch with so many questions about whether our President and his family are compromised by foreign entities. The House Oversight Committee will continue conducting thorough investigations into the Biden family to determine the degree to which the Biden administration may be making decisions for reasons other than to best serve the American public.”

Joe Biden departs Dublin Airport

President Biden departs Dublin Airport on Air Force One with his sister Valerie and son Hunter on April 14, 2023. (Julien Behal/Irish Government via Getty Images)

“It seems like every day there is a new headline on another revelation of the corruption within the Biden Crime Syndicate,” said Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. “The emails further establish bribery and corruption between Ukraine officials and the Bidens. In short, they are evidence of potential criminal activity by Joe, the Big Man, Biden and his son, Hunter.”

“Putting personal interests ahead of American interests is not just a dishonor of the office, but treasonous,” he continued. “It is a major scandal unprecedented in the annals of our history and the House Oversight and Accountability Committee will investigate and expose as much of the ugly truth as possible.”

“Yet again, it seems all roads lead to Hunter Biden’s ‘business deals’ being directly tied to his father’s position of power and influence,” said Rep. Russell Fry, R-S.C. “This adds to the long list of red flags surrounding Hunter and the Biden family that the Oversight Committee has been working to uncover for the past six months.”

“Everything we are uncovering points to Hunter Biden using his name and his father’s position to get rich,” said Rep. William Timmons, R-S.C. “It’s bribery – and it is both wrong and illegal. House Democrats, the legacy media, and even top brass at the FBI and DOJ failed to do their job and investigate all the literal and figurative smoke that clouds Hunter Biden. House Republicans will do our job and uncover the truth.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley speaks into mircrophone during hearing

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley told Fox News Digital that “there can be no doubt about Burisma’s motives for paying Hunter Biden millions despite his lack of industry expertise.” (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who both sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital that the uncovered emails further point to the Bidens being tied to a foreign bribery scheme.

“There can be no doubt about Burisma’s motives for paying Hunter Biden millions despite his lack of industry expertise, it’s right there in black and white,” Grassley said. “This was always about enlisting the Biden name to influence U.S. policy and public perception of a Ukrainian company mired in corruption investigations. The Justice Department forced Burisma’s lobbying firm to register as foreign agents. Why wasn’t Hunter Biden?”

Sen. Josh Hawley speaks from the podium in a Senate hearing.

Sen. Josh Hawley slammed President Biden in a quote to Fox News Digital, saying he “should cooperate fully with investigators and stop stonewalling.” (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

“Practically every day brings new revelations that appear to tie Joe Biden to foreign bribery schemes,” said Hawley. “If Biden has nothing to hide, he should cooperate fully with investigators and stop stonewalling.”

The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.

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Grassley Probes Weiss Deputy’s Role In Obstructing Biden Investigation


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JULY 10, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/07/10/grassley-probes-weiss-deputys-role-in-obstructing-biden-investigation/

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A Delaware assistant U.S. attorney was briefed in October 2020 that a confidential human source (CHS) had reported Hunter and Joe Biden each received $5 million in bribes, Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed Sunday in a letter to Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss. A source familiar with that briefing has now confirmed to The Federalist that the Pittsburgh office told the Delaware office the CHS’s reporting appeared credible and merited further investigation. That added detail increases the significance of Grassley’s Sunday letter and his question to Weiss about whether his deputy thwarted the investigation.

“On October 23, 2020, Justice Department and FBI Special Agents from the Pittsburgh Field Office briefed Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf, one of your top prosecutors, and FBI Special Agents from the Baltimore Field Office with respect to the contents of the FBI-generated FD-1023 alleging a criminal bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden,” Grassley’s letter said. “What steps have the Justice Department and FBI taken to investigate the allegations?” the Iowa senator asked before noting his concerns about Wolf’s involvement.

Grassley then highlighted the numerous ways Wolf appeared to have obstructed the investigation into Hunter Biden’s potentially criminal business activities. “IRS whistleblowers have affirmed that AUSA Wolf prevented investigators from seeking information about Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s criminal business arrangements,” Grassley said, adding that she also “frustrated investigative efforts” by the IRS agents to question Hunter Biden’s business partner, Rob Walker, about Joe Biden.

Wolf also refused to allow agents to search Joe Biden’s guest house, even though there was “more than enough probable cause,” and she prevented investigators from searching a storage unit used by the now-president’s son, the letter said. In fact, Grassley stressed, Wolf alerted Hunter Biden’s lawyers to the investigators’ interest in the storage unit.

Given what Grassley called Wolf’s “questionable and obstructive conduct,” he asked Weiss whether Wolf had taken “similar proactive measures to frustrate any investigation into the FD-1023.” Grassley also probed Weiss’s knowledge of the accusations leveled against Wolf and how he has handled them. From Grassley’s questions, he seems to believe Wolf knows whether the DOJ buried evidence that Joe and Hunter Biden received bribes from the Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma. 

Former Attorney General William Barr had previously confirmed that the FD-1023 summary of the CHS’s intel had been sent to the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office for further investigation, following then-Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Scott Brady’s conclusion that the reporting was not Russian disinformation. Barr later also said the Delaware office had been briefed on the FD-1023 material. Until now, however, it was unclear who had received that information. 

Knowing that Wolf and FBI special agents from the Baltimore field office received a briefing on the contents of the FD-1023 allows congressional oversight committees to probe precisely who investigated the CHS’s allegations and how — or if not, why. Did Wolf direct agents to disregard the FD-1023? Did anyone else? If so, why? Who was involved in the decision? Who knew of the decision?

While we do not know the answers to those questions yet, we do know from the Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers that they were not informed of the FD-1023. As Grassley noted in his letter, the IRS agents were excluded from the meeting with the Pittsburgh field office. We also know from the IRS whistleblowers’ congressional testimony and supplemental statements that they first learned of the FD-1023 when Barr publicly stated the information had been sent to Delaware for further investigation. 

Who decided to exclude the IRS agents from the meeting? Who decided to keep them in the dark about the FD-1023 and the information contained in it? Was anyone from the Baltimore field office adequately skilled to investigate the CHS’s reporting? As members of the IRS’s International Tax and Financial Crimes group, both the IRS whistleblowers working with the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office were. So why were they cut out of the case? 

Following the release of Grassley’s letter, a source familiar with the Delaware briefing told The Federalist that in addition to summarizing the contents of the FD-1023, the Pittsburgh office requested the FBI provide FD-1023 access to the Delaware U.S. attorney’s office and the agents out of the Baltimore field office working on the case. The Pittsburgh office also told Wolf and the FBI agents present during the briefing that the information contained in the FD-1023 bore indicia of credibility and they recommended it be further investigated.

But was it investigated? Grassley asked precisely that question to Weiss. 

The Iowa senator also asked Weiss when he became aware of the October 2020 briefing and why the IRS agents were excluded from that meeting. Grassley further inquired of the Delaware U.S. attorney whether the scope of the “alleged ‘ongoing investigation’ include[s] criminal bribery with respect to the alleged criminal scheme between a foreign national and then-Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden?”

In posing these questions, Grassley noted that from information provided to his office, “potentially hundreds of Justice Department and FBI officials have had access to the FD-1023 at issue.” This comment proves intriguing because in an earlier letter, Grassley had noted that in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten had opened an assessment that FBI headquarters used in September 2020 to falsely label derogatory information about Hunter Biden as disinformation. According to Grassley’s letter, the FBI HQ team then “placed their findings with respect to whether reporting was disinformation in a restricted access sub-file reviewable only by the particular agents responsible for uncovering the specific information.”

Grassley’s recent comment suggests that contrary to the earlier assumption, it may have been other derogatory information labeled misinformation and not the FD-1023. Or possibly the FD-1023 had been at one time restricted and then made more broadly available. But if it wasn’t the FD-1023 that Auten buried, that means there was even more derogatory information about Hunter Biden that the FBI failed to investigate. What was that information?

Grassley’s letter may raise more questions than it answers, but it also establishes the senator is nearing the end of the trail that leads to the individuals responsible for deciding to — or not to — investigate the FD-1023 and the allegations that the now-president of the United States accepted a $5 million bribe from a corrupt Ukrainian. 

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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More on the Hunter Biden Cover-up Deal


Sen. Ron Johnson to Newsmax: Hunter Plea Deal Attempt to Keep Truth From Public

By Brian Freeman    |   Tuesday, 20 June 2023 02:46 PM EDT

The Hunter Biden plea deal for failing to pay federal income tax and illegally possessing a weapon is highly suspicious and appears to be an attempt to keep the truth from the American public, Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Newsmax on Tuesday.

“The timing is more than interesting — just as we find out about a credible source claiming a $5 million to $10 million bribery scheme and [Hunter’s business associate] Devon Archer poised to testify before the House committee,” Johnson told “National Report.”

“Is this the Justice Department’s attempt to try and seal this all up and keep the truth from the American public? This is what I fear.”……………..

For the rest of the article go to https://www.newsmax.com/us/donald-trump-classified-documents-trial-date/2023/06/20/id/1124171/

Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal Is A Coverup Disguised As Justice

BY: CHRISTOPHER BEDFORD | JUNE 20, 2023

Hunter Biden

To hear President Joe Biden’s supporters tell it, Hunter Biden was finally held accountable Tuesday, and the long national nightmare of him facing any scrutiny at all can finally end.

This accountability for the president’s son, however, was little more than a chiding for offenses that have virtually nothing to do with the serious allegations the Department of Justice should actually be pursuing — like giving a speeding ticket to “the getaway driver after a bank robbery,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley remarked.

Over the past two weeks alone, congressional Republicans have revealed a paid, “highly credible” FBI informant’s report that $10 million was paid in bribes to Hunter and his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, by Ukrainian oligarch and Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky.

Zlochevsky called the then-vice president “the big guy,” a nickname also used in the Biden family’s allegedly corrupt China dealings. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed the existence of two audio recordings Zlochevsky reportedly made of Joe Biden (and another 15 he made of Hunter) discussing their dealings, which Zlochevsky reportedly kept as a sort of “insurance policy” that he’d get what he was paying for.

What was he paying for? Emails from the chairman of Burisma (revealed three years ago) show “the ultimate purpose” of “the deliverables” was “to close down for any cases/pursuits against [Burisma’s president] in Ukraine.” That case was indeed closed down, when Vice President Biden pressured Ukraine to fire the prosecutor pursuing Burisma.

Congressional investigators also revealed that Hunter helped Burisma executives open an account for their transactions at Satabank,……….

For the rest of the article go to https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/20/hunter-bidens-plea-deal-is-a-coverup-disguised-as-justice/

Hunter Biden’s Wrist Slap On Gun, Tax Crimes Is A Complete Smokescreen

BY: JORDAN BOYD | JUNE 20, 2023

Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Hunter Biden at inauguration in 2021

President Joe Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice is so desperate to distract from Republicans’ exposé of the Biden family bribery scandal that it finally brought a handful of weak charges against Hunter Biden for his tax and gun crimes.

Under the guise of serving equal justice, the DOJ announced on Tuesday that it would charge the president’s youngest son with two federal misdemeanor counts for failing to pay his taxes and one federal felony charge for possessing a gun while being an illegal drug user and addict.

Hunter’s lawyers are scrambling to declare “the five-year investigation” into their client as “resolved.” Corporate media like NBC News, similarly, claimed the DOJ’s “resolution suggests that prosecutors did not find cause to file charges related to Hunter Biden’s dealings with foreign entities or other wrongdoing.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. Just like when it strategically timed its political arrest of a Republican congressman to coincide with a GOP press conference detailing evidence of Biden corruption, the DOJ is working overtime to ensure that Hunter serves as a distraction from the bigger Biden problem.

Since at least 2021 when Politico exposed records and receipts, the public has known that Hunter, who has an extensive and public history of illicit drug use, appeared to lie about this drug use on the Firearms Transaction Record he filled out during a revolver purchase in 2018.

Government officials such as local police, the Secret Service, FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, likely knew about the lie earlier than 2021 since the .38 revolver soon became the center of a missing gun investigation, in which the Secret Service reportedly tried to interfere on behalf of the Biden family.

Similarly, most of the preliminary federal investigation into Hunter’s 2017 and 2018 financial wrongdoings was completed by 2020.

Yet, U.S. Attorney David Weiss delayed bringing charges against Hunter because, as Politico described, “the investigation would become a months-long campaign issue” that would hurt Biden’s presidential chances. It wasn’t until Republicans’ increasingly evidenced probe into the Biden bribery scheme, which the Biden administration continues to hamper, that Weiss finally decided to target the president’s son.

That timing is not a coincidence………….

For the rest of the article go to https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/20/hunter-bidens-wrist-slap-on-gun-tax-crimes-is-a-complete-smokescreen/

Hunter Biden’s Charges Are Nothing But A Diversion

BY: BRETT TOLMAN | JUNE 20, 2023

Hunter Biden

What a breathtaking and damaging act of misdirection. After five years of investigation into a host of criminal acts by Hunter Biden, the Department of Justice (DOJ) finally brought charges against the president’s wayward son. But while the DOJ hopes the public focuses on words like “charges” and “guilty” to form an image of accountability for all, it’s letting Hunter walk away with the kind of slap on the wrist most defendants can only dream about from inside a prison cell.

In the same breath in which DOJ announced it was filing charges against Hunter Biden, it also stated that the case had already been resolved. Hunter will plead guilty to and serve probation for two tax fraud misdemeanors while a felony firearm possession charge will disappear after he completes pretrial diversion. It’s a resolution that if the defendant’s last name weren’t Biden would sound almost too good to be true.

The feds are notoriously tough on firearms. Nationally, for example, 94.2 percent of federal firearms convictions in 2022 involved some prison time, and the median sentence was 39 months.

Of course, Hunter won’t even have to end up with a conviction. This is an even rarer event. In 2021, fewer than 1 percent of cases filed by U.S. attorneys in federal court resulted in the kind of pretrial diversion offered to Hunter.

It’s that disparity between Hunter’s case and everybody else’s that’s the true problem, not necessarily the sentence itself. After all, the law in question, which prohibits individuals suffering from an illegal drug addiction from possessing a firearm, likely violates the Second Amendment. Plus, diversion programs across the country have improved public safety at lower cost to taxpayers than prison alternatives. 

But that’s clearly not how things are shaking out in practice at DOJ, and President Biden has expressed an ongoing willingness to harshly punish firearms offenses. His DOJ is defending this law in court, and he signed a law in 2021 to increase maximum penalties from 10 years to 15 years in prison. Apparently, President Biden does not believe offenders should be treated with kid gloves — at least when it’s not his kid.

Indeed, if Hunter’s were a typical case, ………….

For the rest of the article go to https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/20/hunter-bidens-charges-are-nothing-but-a-diversion/

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The Bidens ‘Coerced’ Burisma To Pay $10 Million In Bribes, Says Credible FBI Source


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JUNE 15, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/15/the-bidens-coerced-burisma-to-pay-10-million-in-bribes-says-credible-fbi-source/

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The Bidens allegedly “coerced” a foreign national to pay them $10 million in bribes, according to individuals familiar with the investigation into the FBI’s handling of the FD-1023 confidential human source report. What, if anything, agents did to investigate these explosive claims remains unknown, however, with sources telling The Federalist the FBI continues to stonewall.

On Monday, Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed a foreign national — identified by individuals with knowledge of the matter as Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky — allegedly possessed 17 recordings implicating the Bidens in a pay-to-play scandal. While 15 of the audio recordings consisted of phone calls between Zlochevsky and Hunter Biden, two were of calls the Ukrainian had with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to the FD-1023.

The Federalist has now learned the FD-1023 reported the CHS saying the Bidens “coerced” Zlochevsky to pay the bribes. Sources familiar with the investigation also explained the context of Zlochevsky’s statements, and that context further bolsters the CHS’s reporting.

In the FD-1023 from June 30, 2020, the confidential human source summarized earlier meetings he had with Zlochevsky. According to the CHS, in the 2015-2016 timeframe, the CHS, who was providing advice to Zlochevsky, told the Burisma owner to stay away from the Bidens. Then, after Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential contest, the CHS asked Zlochevsky if he was upset Trump won. 

Zlochevsky allegedly told the CHS he was dismayed by Trump’s victory, fearing an investigation would reveal his payments to the Biden family, which included a $5 million payment to Hunter Biden and a $5 million payment to Joe Biden. According to the CHS, the Burisma executive bemoaned the situation, claiming the Bidens had “coerced” him into paying the bribes. 

The CHS responded that he hoped Zlochevsky had taken precautions to protect himself. Zlochevsky then allegedly detailed the steps he had taken to avoid detection, stressing he had never paid the “Big Guy” directly and that it would take some 10 years to unravel the various money trails. It was only then that Zlochevsky mentioned the audio recordings he had made of the conversations he had with Hunter and Joe Biden, according to the CHS.

The broader context of this conversation adds to the plausibility of Zlochevsky’s claims that he possessed recordings implicating the Bidens. And we already know from Grassley and House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer that the FBI considered the CHS, who relayed Zlochevsky’s claims to the FBI, a “highly credible” source.

Further, according to individuals familiar with the investigation, the FBI admitted the CHS’s intel was unrelated to the information Rudy Giuliani had provided the Western District of Pennsylvania’s U.S. attorney’s office — the office then-Attorney General William Barr had tasked with reviewing any new information related to Ukraine. 

Sources told The Federalist that investigators out of the Pittsburgh office, in addition to reviewing Giuliani’s information, searched internal FBI databases and came across an earlier FD-1023 related to the CHS. That earlier FD-1023 then led to agents questioning the CHS on June 30, 2020, uncovering the details concerning Burisma’s alleged bribery of the Bidens. 

What the FBI did to investigate the allegations is unknown, with sources telling The Federalist the bureau refused to either confirm or deny that the DOJ under Barr sent the FD-1023 to Delaware for further investigation. On the contrary, the FBI allowed Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, to falsely represent to Americans that Barr and Pittsburgh U.S. Attorney Scott Brady had closed the investigation. Raskin’s deceit, tolerated by the FBI, forced Barr to publicly correct the record. 

The FBI is also refusing to provide any information on what, if any, steps it took to investigate the detailed claims contained in the FD-1023. But sources familiar with investigative procedures maintain there was insufficient time between the June 30, 2020, interview of the CHS and the FBI headquarters’ closing of an assessment related to the FD-1023 in August 2020 to properly probe the matter. “They couldn’t have done much,” one source said.

There is also no independent confirmation from Delaware indicating any investigative steps were taken regarding the FD-1023. Agents in Delaware “could have sat on it,” according to one individual familiar with the investigation. 

While the FBI’s efforts to unwind the pay-to-play scheme seem to have been nonexistent, banking records released in May by the House Oversight Committee show congressional investigators are unraveling the complex web behind the Biden family business. Those records provide concrete evidence of a pattern of public corruption involving foreign nationals, with Joe Biden at the helm. There are still more banking records to review, along with the many details recently discovered when the whistleblower came forward with the FD-1023. 

Apparently, Zlochevsky wasn’t far from the mark when he said it would take 10 years to unravel the complex payment path that led to Joe Biden.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Burisma audio tapes could be ‘cataclysmic event’ for President Biden, Matt Whitaker says


By Fox News Staff | Fox News | Published June 13, 2023 11:00am EDT

Read more at https://www.foxnews.com/media/burisma-audio-tapes-cataclysmic-event-president-biden-matt-whitaker-says

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, made a stunning claim Monday that a Burisma executive who allegedly paid $5 million in a Biden bribery scheme maintained audio recordings of calls with the family as an “insurance policy.” On “Fox & Friends First” Tuesday, former acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker discussed the “explosive” developments days after the FBI turned over a document to Congress that allegedly detailed a criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Biden.

GRASSLEY: BURISMA EXECUTIVE WHO ALLEGEDLY PAID BIDEN HAS AUDIO RECORDINGS OF CONVERSATIONS WITH JOE, HUNTER

MATT WHITAKER: This is explosive. There’s so many issues surrounding this, but remember what my home state senator, Chuck Grassley, said. This was redacted from the document they looked at, the 1023 that Chris Wray finally provided to the House and the Senate. This information, that there were recordings of the president of United States talking to a foreign national about bribes, was redacted from that 1023. That’s extraordinary in and of itself. Now, the contents, if true, I mean, obviously this is a cataclysmic event because you just don’t have these types of recordings usually available. And… it will prove essentially what Joe Biden knew and what his scheme was to abuse his power as vice president.

Sen. Chuck Grassley speaks into mircrophone during hearing
Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IO).  (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said Monday that the Burisma executive who allegedly paid Joe Biden and Hunter Biden kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them, citing the FBI FD-1023 form that the bureau briefed congressional lawmakers on. 

Grassley revealed from the Senate floor Monday what was said to be a redacted reference in the FBI-generated FD-1023 form alleging a criminal bribery scheme between then-Vice President Biden and a foreign national that involved influence over U.S. policy decisions.

Fox News Digital exclusively reported on the contents of the form last week. The FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020, is the FBI’s interview with a “highly credible” confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, starting in 2015. Fox News Digital has not seen the form, which is redacted, but it was described by several sources who are aware of its contents.

Fox News’ Brooke Singman contributed to this report. 

Video

This article was written by Fox News staff.

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Breaking: Ukrainian energy company executive involved in alleged Biden bribery scheme has secret recordings of Hunter and Joe, Sen. Grassley says


By: CARLOS GARCIA | June 12, 2023

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/news/grassley-biden-corruption-recordings-ukraine/

Photo by Teresa Kroeger/Getty Images for World Food Program USA

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said that a Ukrainian energy company executive involved in the alleged Biden bribery scheme had secret audio recordings of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. Grassley, who is the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Monday that the Burisma executive had a total of 17 secret recordings, and two of them are with Joe Biden, who was vice president under former President Barack Obama at the time. The other 15 recordings were of conversations with Hunter Biden.

Grassley made the claims in a speech on the floor of the Senate.

Republicans have been trying to build a case to prove that the Biden family has sold political favors as part of a criminal corruption scheme. He also said that the Burisma executive made the recordings as a kind of “insurance policy” in case the official got into a “tight spot.”

Grassley highlighted the apparent double standard between treatment of the Biden family by the Justice Department and that of former President Donald Trump.

“Based on the facts known to the Congress and the public, it’s clear that the Justice Department, the FBI, haven’t nearly had the same laser-focus on the Biden family,” said Grassley on the Senate floor.

“Special counsel Jack Smith has used a recording against former President Trump,” he added. “Well, what is U.S. Attorney Weiss doing with respect to these alleged Joe and Hunter Biden recordings that are apparently relevant to the high stakes bribery scheme?”

Trump has been indicted for charges related to his withholding of documents at Mar-a-Lago from his time as president.

Here’s more on the Biden corruption allegations:

James Comer: The Biden family had 20 shell companies www.youtube.com

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Breadcrumbs From a Buried FBI Source May Lead to a Bigger Biden Scandal


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MAY 31, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/31/breadcrumbs-from-a-buried-fbi-source-may-lead-to-a-bigger-biden-scandal/

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ALL EMPHASIS ARE BY ME – Jerry Broussard WDYS

After a confidential human source claimed then-Vice President Joe Biden agreed to accept money from a foreign national to affect policy decisions, FBI agents used what’s called an FD-1023 form to record the allegation. Now FBI Director Christopher Wray is defying a May 3 congressional subpoena to provide this form. On Tuesday, in response to Wray’s refusal to hand over the documents, Oversight and Accountability Committee Chair James Comer announced the House will move to hold the FBI director in contempt of Congress. 

It isn’t that announcement — or even the other explosive ones released over the past year by Comer’s Senate colleague, Chuck Grassley — that prove the most telling, however. Rather, it is the combination of all the details, big and small, that suggests the scandal set to unfold over the coming weeks will be bigger than anyone imagined.

The Dirt Is in the Details

Take recent big news from whistleblower disclosures revealing that the Justice Department and the FBI have the unclassified FD-1023 form spelling out Biden’s alleged criminal behavior. Then combine that with other known information to discover the bigger picture.

For instance, in response to Wray’s failure to comply with the subpoena, Grassley, who had previously noted the FD-1023 form was five or six pages long, indicated that the confidential human source (CHS) was “an apparent trusted FBI source.” This is huge because Grassley wouldn’t make that claim unless the whistleblower had. That means the source is not some random guy walking in off the street, but rather an existing “trusted” CHS, which is why the FBI used the FD-1023 form.

In response to Wray’s stonewalling, Comer likewise revealed some significant details, clarifying late last week that the CHS reporting document was dated June 30, 2020, and referenced “the amount of money the foreign national allegedly paid to receive the desired policy outcome” as “five million.” These details could only have come from a whistleblower with deep knowledge of the investigation, meaning the whistleblower’s characterization of the CHS as “trusted” carries more weight. Likewise, the whistleblower’s claim that the FD-1023 “includes a precise description of how the alleged criminal scheme was employed as well as its purpose,” is more credible given the whistleblower’s knowledge of other details.

Comer’s reference to “five million” is also intriguing. In a letter to Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss, Grassley had previously revealed a promise by a Chinese communist government-connected enterprise to funnel $5 million to “Hunter and James Biden to compensate them for work done while Joe Biden was vice president.” Records released by Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., also confirmed a $5 million payment to James and Hunter Biden from another Chinese-connected business. 

The date of the FD-1023 form, June 30, 2020, also proves significant when read in conjunction with Grassley’s letter to Wray in July 2022. In that letter, Grassley said the whistleblower had claimed that “the FBI developed information in 2020 about Hunter Biden’s criminal financial and related activity,” but “that in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters (‘FBI HQ’) team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease.” 

The whistleblower further alleged that in September 2020, the FBI HQ team that handled the Auten assessment, after concluding the reporting was disinformation, placed the information in a restricted access sub-file that only the particular agents who uncovered the CHS’s information could access. 

Several points merit mention here: First, Auten is the same agent responsible for some of the shenanigans in Crossfire Hurricane. Second, Grassley’s letter indicates Auten did not open the “assessment” on Hunter Biden or other members of the Biden family. The senator’s correspondence actually suggests the assessment may have been opened on the CHS.

Here’s the relevant language:

The basis for how the FBI HQ team selected the specific information for inclusion in Auten’s assessment is unknown, but in more than one instance the focus of the FBI HQ team’s attention involved derogatory information about Hunter Biden.

The whistleblower also reportedly told Grassley that FBI HQ later closed sources after branding their info as disinformation. Given the timing of the assessment (August 2020) and the date of the CHS report (June 2020), it seems likely the FBI used the CHS report as part of the “assessment” and that the “assessment” was of the CHS.

This leads to the next significant point: According to the whistleblower, Auten’s assessment led to the “improper discrediting” of the verified and verifiable derogatory information about Hunter Biden. Worse, based on several hints dropped by Grassley over the last year, FBI headquarters conducted little to no investigation on the CHS and other derogatory info before labeling it “disinformation.”

The timing of the CHS report in June 2020 also proves conveniently coincidental to the decision by Democrat Sens. Chuck Schumer and Mark Warner, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Rep. Adam Schiff to send a letter just two weeks later, on July 13, 2020, to the FBI claiming Congress was being subjected to a foreign disinformation campaign. On July 16, 2020, the then-ranking members of two congressional committees asked the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force — the same one that handled the “assessment” that branded the Hunter Biden intel as disinformation — to give the committees a defensive briefing. News of that “Russian disinformation” briefing soon leaked to the press. 

What About a Recording?

Grassley’s correspondence and statements over the last year hint at one more possibility: The FBI had at least one recording that implicated members of the Biden family in a criminal enterprise and buried that evidence. Specifically, in one letter to the bureau, Grassley said other FBI records “shed light on Hunter Biden’s business and financial relationship with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky,” and those “documents include specific details about conversations by non-government individuals relevant to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden.” Grassley had previously requested interview summary forms that referenced Zlochevsky, and in seeking FBI records, the senator’s letter made clear that “records” included “recorded or graphic material,” including “recordings of verbal communications.” This possibility fits with the whistleblower’s description of “an avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting” that FBI HQ shut down in October 2020 “in furtherance of Mr. Auten’s assessment,” even though, according to the whistleblower, the intel could have been verified by use of search warrants. 

A follow-up question Grassley asked Wray further suggests the possibility of recorded conversations implicating the Bidens: “Does the Justice Department have a specific policy regarding the use of materials and information related to U.S. citizens who reside in the United States provided by foreign governments, including the fruits of surveillance carried out by a foreign state’s intelligence service?”

Whether these possibilities pan out remains to be seen, but what should be clear to all now is that the whistleblower knows where the evidence is buried — and Grassley and Comer have brought their shovels.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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All Biden Has To Do Is Explain Why Foreign Governments Paid His Family $10 Million — But He Can’t


BY: SAMUEL MANGOLD-LENETT | MAY 17, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/17/all-biden-has-to-do-is-explain-why-foreign-governments-paid-his-family-10-million-but-he-cant/

Joe Biden and Xi Jinping

If Republicans had a spine or a brain — only one is required for this task — they would relentlessly pursue President Joe Biden for his long-standing cash-for-influence scheme, both during and beyond the 2024 presidential election.

During a May 10 press conference, the House Oversight Committee confirmed that since at least 2009, Joe Biden and his family received a minimum of $10 million from foreign entities. As The Federalist reported, this money entered the Bidens’ coffers through a complicated scheme of layered transactions deposited into multiple bank accounts.

Biden could make this entire story go away if he had a good reason for why his family received $10 million from foreign entities. Surely, if they weren’t corrupt, if this money came from non-sketchy and actually legitimate means, he could explain where this money came from and what services or goods his family exchanged to attain it. But this isn’t the case, as we continue to learn, so he cannot explain away the money.

Why did the Bidens receive this comically large sum of money? Well, no one really knows. But it probably has something to do with the fact that their last names are “Biden” and their family patriarch, the incumbent president, is one of the longest-serving federal officials in American history and has been able to avoid any meaningful public scrutiny for much of his career. As such, it increasingly appears the Bidens used their family’s political and corporate connections to engage in an elaborate foreign influence peddling scheme.

But as was the case with Hunter Biden’s role on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, where he was handsomely paid despite having zero energy sector experience, the corporate media continues to downplay the first family’s blatantly corrupt business dealings. “House Republicans ramp up claims Biden family received money from foreign contacts,” reads one headline from NPR. “Comer releases Biden family probe update without showing link to president,” declares one from Politico. CNN whitewashed the Biden family’s corruption by writing, “The latest report does not show any payments made directly to Joe Biden, either as vice president or after leaving office.”

And regardless of whether or not “the big guy” who benefited from the foreign business ventures of Biden family members is the current president, there remain glaring ethical and political issues about influence peddling — which House Republicans are continuing to pursue as they prepare to introduce legislation banning influence peddling — and a slew of potential legal issues arising from tax negligence.

Considering the federal government, for at least the short and medium terms, simply will not touch the Biden family, this rules out most legitimate risks of prosecution they might face, even if House Republicans federally criminalize influence peddling. This means that, realistically, the only way to hold them accountable is through utilizing political mechanisms. As such, the GOP should make the Bidens’ foreign benefactors central to their 2024 campaign messaging.

It’s obvious to everyone with functioning eyes and ears that Joe Biden is neurologically compromised, and it’s obvious to everyone paying attention that he and his family are financially compromised, as well.

Until there is a prosecutorial path forward, the GOP must proceed with political means and fill the airwaves in 2024 battleground states with messages amplifying how Joe Biden and his family sold out the country to enrich themselves.

Samuel Mangold-Lenett is a staff editor at The Federalist. His writing has been featured in the Daily Wire, Townhall, The American Spectator, and other outlets. He is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. Follow him on Twitter @smlenett.

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Despite Biden’s Explicit Denials, New York Times Confirms POTUS Involvement in Family Business


BY: JORDAN BOYD | JANUARY 12, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/01/12/despite-bidens-explicit-denials-new-york-times-confirms-potus-involvement-in-family-business/

Biden family during inauguration
The New York Times’ ‘nothing to see here’ approach to the Biden family business is crumbling in the publication’s own pages.

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To this day, President Joe Biden denies his long history of involvement in the lucrative Biden family business, but the corrupt corporate media are finally admitting the president’s participation in the financial dealings spearheaded by his son Hunter Biden.

The New York Times published an article this week claiming, “a close look at [Hunter’s] story shows that it differs in important ways from the narrative promoted by Republicans,” who, with their newfound majority in the House, are investigating the Biden family’s “deliberate, repeated deception of the American people, abuse of the executive branch for personal gain, [and] use of government power to obstruct the investigation.”

The article merely acknowledges what conservative media outlets have reported for years about Biden’s involvement in Hunter’s overseas business dealings. Yes, then-Vice President Biden, who was tasked with “overseeing U.S. policy in Ukraine,” met with Hunter’s “main point of contact” at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma at a charity dinner event, the NYT confessed, but waved off Biden’s visit with Pozharskyi as the U.S. leader’s attempt “to spend time” with his addict son.

Followers of the unraveling Biden family corruption story have already known for over a year and a half that Pozharskyi confirmed this interaction in an email thanking Hunter for “giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent some time together.”

Biden, The New York Times conceded in a paragraph buried deep in the article, also met with Hunter’s Chinese business partners. He even authored an optimistic note to Devon Archer, arguably Hunter’s closest associate, on White House letterhead to congratulate him on snuggling up to China’s then-head Hu Jintao.

The Times also reported that Biden “met regularly with Eric Schwerin, his son’s business manager,” and even handed over management of the then-VP’s personal finances. Schwerin, the Times admitted, would occasionally “pay a bill for Vice President Biden out of one of his son’s accounts and then assure that he was repaid.” Biden’s ties to Schwerin are no surprise considering that he reportedly rubbed shoulders with more than a dozen of Hunter’s business associates, sometimes in the West Wing of the White House. Yet The New York Times argues that the 2010 emails evidencing the existence of these shared accounts and entanglement of finances shouldn’t matter because anonymous sources reportedly close to the Biden family said Hunter and his dad never “had joint bank accounts or direct access to each others’ money.”

Over and over and over and over and over, Biden and his White House denied not just wrongdoing, but an association of any kind with Hunter’s money-making schemes. Apparently at the behest of the FBI, the regime’s allies in the corporate media have long accepted and helped amplify Biden’s lies, forming a bogus “fact-checking” and election-meddling apparatus for tech giants to censor anyone who exposed Biden family corruption.

Now, as mountains of evidence point to Biden’s deep ties to activity that’s at best unethical and possibly illegal, the Times, even in admitting Biden’s involvement, is once more writing off Hunter as “a man battling with personal demons against the background of family tragedy,” with his dad merely getting caught in the crossfire. In predictable spin, the NYT instead tries to make the story about Republicans, whom it says merely “intend to intensify their scrutiny of Hunter Biden in a bid to inflict damage on his father as he prepares for his likely 2024 re-election bid.”

An inquiry into the Bidens, however, is long overdue and an unsurprising development given the GOP’s newly acquired majority in the lower chamber. House Republicans’ investigation seeks to finally expose how the president’s proximity to his son’s twisted and likely illicit bargaining may have compromised the security of the United States. After all, Hunter didn’t just exchange access to his father, the then-second-highest executive officer in the United States, for cash to fund the family’s lavish lifestyle. He was paid off by oligarchs and businessmen in countries with a vested interest in meddling with U.S. affairs.

The New York Times’ attempt to write that off as “complex” is just further evidence of its allegiance to the Biden administration instead of the truth.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire and Fox News. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.

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Daniel Horowitz Op-ed: Hunter Biden’s role in Ukrainian biolabs raises serious questions about gain of function and Ukraine policy


Commentary by DANIEL HOROWITZ | March 30, 2022

Read more at https://www.theblaze.com/op-ed/horowitz-hunter-bidens-role-in-ukrainian-biolabs-raises-serious-questions-about-gain-of-function-and-ukraine-policy

Recent emails unearthed by the U.K. Daily Mail and the National Pulse reveal that during the last decade, Hunter Biden seemed to have a keen interest in pathogen research in Ukraine and using it as a tool for geopolitical affairs in that country. It just so happens to be that a pathogen connected to gain-of-function research destroyed the world, and then the next “big current thing” on the geopolitical stage was none other than Ukraine. Shouldn’t the American people get some answers as to why our government was so heavily involved – via the vice president’s son – in both pathogen research and Ukraine and to make sure Ukraine is not Wuhan 2.0?

Earlier this month, I detailed the known connections between biotech firm Metabiota Inc., responsible for the pathogen research in Ukraine, the DOD, and EcoHealth Alliance, along with the Wuhan lab most likely responsible for the leak of SARS-CoV-2. I also noted that Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP), a subsidiary of the Hunter Biden and Christopher Heinz-founded Rosemont Capital, gave Metabiota, a company accused of dangerous lab protocols during the African Ebola pandemic, its first infusion of cash a decade ago. Now, new emails from Hunter’s laptop demonstrate that his involvement in Metabiota and pathogen research in Ukraine was much deeper than just an initial investment.

On April 4, 2014, Metabiota vice president Mary Guttieri wrote an email to the younger Biden outlining how they could “assert Ukraine’s cultural and economic independence from Russia’” with their joint venture, according to an email from Hunter’s laptop obtained by the U.K. Daily Mail. That is quite a curious goal for a company that supposedly does scientific research and analysis about emerging pandemics.

The outlet also posted another email dated April 8, 2014, from Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi referring to a “science project” Hunter had pitched to him involving Burisma and Metabiota in Ukraine. “Please find few initial points to be discussed for the purposes of analyzing the potential of this as you called, ‘Science Ukraine’ project,” Pozharskyi wrote. Hunter sits on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company owned by corrupt billionaire Mikolay Zlochevsky, who fled to Monaco after he was put under investigation.

Hunter’s dad, as vice president, was in charge of our foreign policy with Ukraine in 2014 when all of this was occurring and when the U.S. government was backing the color revolution that led to the ouster of the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych. It was at this time that the Defense Department began funding the Metabiota operations in Ukraine.

After receiving 18.4 million from the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) between February 2014 and November 2016, with $307,091 earmarked for “Ukraine research projects,” “Metabiota has worked in Ukraine for Black & Veatch, a US defense contractor with deep ties to military intelligence agencies, which built secure labs in Ukraine that analyzed killer diseases and bioweapons,” according to the Daily Mail.

“It raises the question, what is the real purpose of this venture? It’s very odd,” said former senior CIA officer Sam Faddis in an interview with the Daily Mail. “His father was the Vice President of the United States and in charge of relations with Ukraine. So why was Hunter not only on the board of a suspect Ukrainian gas firm, but also hooked them up with a company working on bioweapons research?”

Biden was so involved in Metabiota that one email written that same month in 2014 reveals that he and his business partner Eric Schwerin discussed subletting their office space to the San-Francisco-based biotech firm.

So, what exactly were they working on? Last week, the National Pulse reported that a feature in the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine’s 2016 Annual Report recounts an October 2016 meeting involving U.S. military officials and their Ukrainian counterparts together with Black & Veatch and Metabiota staff to discuss the lab work. The discussion centered around “existing frameworks, regulatory coordination, and ongoing cooperative projects in research, surveillance and diagnostics of a number of dangerous zoonotic diseases, such as avian influenza, leptospirosis, Crimea Congo hemorrhagic fever, and brucellosis.”

The National Pulse cites a 2019 paper authored by researchers from Metabiota and three Ukraine-based institutes and funded by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency sharing how they isolated a form of African swine flu using a pig from Ukraine in 2016. They also detail their research on Anthrax in animals in Ukraine.

Well, where else have we heard of Metabiota partners working on gain-of-function research of pathogens that typically are in animals? Oh yes, EcoHealth Alliance in Wuhan. In the past, Metabiota has worked with EcoHealth and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The zoonotic projects being described in Ukraine sound awfully similar to the gain-of-function work EcoHealth was involved with in Wuhan. In Feb. 2016, EcoHealth’s founder, Peter Daszak, explained the company’s zoonotic pathogen work as follows:

So as an example, first of all, we are only looking at viral families that include those that have gone into people from animals. So, we narrow it down straight away. Then when you get a sequence of a virus and it looks like a relative of a known nasty pathogen, just like we did with SARS, we found other Corona viruses in bats, a whole host of them, some of them looked very similar to SARS. So, we sequenced the spike protein, the protein that attaches to cells. Then we, well, I didn’t do this work, but my colleagues in China did the work, you create the pseudo-particles, you insert the spike proteins from those viruses [to see if they] bind to human cells. And each step you move closer and closer to this virus could really become pathogenic in people. So, you narrow down the field, you reduce the cost and you end up with a small number of viruses that really do look like killers. (C-Span, 1:16:22.)

Sure sounds a lot like the coronavirus that actually broke out several years ago and destroyed the world as we know it. Less than a month later, Ralph Baric, the UNC Chapel Hill biologist who spearheaded the gain-of-function projects for Daszak, co-authored a paper warning with certitude of the emergence of this disease. “The results indicate that viruses using WIV1-CoV spike are poised to emerge in human populations due to efficient replication in primary human airway epithelial cell cultures,” concluded the authors.

How did they know? And doesn’t anyone have a concern that the same players were up to no good in Ukraine, especially given Hunter Biden’s ethical problems and the fact that his dad, the vice president and now the president, was overseeing Ukrainian affairs during that time?

Recently, the National Pulse found, based on EcoHealth’s 990 filings and analysis by ProPublica, that the company’s investment income surged by 342% in the year of the pandemic. EcoHealth received millions of dollars from Fauci’s NIAD to work on “killer” viruses with the Wuhan Institute, creating “chimeric” viruses that spread in humans at rates “equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV.”

Now consider the fact that Metabiota’s CEO, Nathan Wolfe, penned an article in Time on Aug. 1, 2014, detailing his opinion on the Ebola outbreak in Africa and then literally predicted coronavirus as the next outbreak:

While Ebola virus won’t be the next global Andromeda strain, there are viruses out there that could be. Coronaviruses (like SARS) and influenza viruses (like the H1N1 virus of 1918) for example, show that some viruses truly can spread around the world in ways that will blindside and impact our entire planet. It is notable that a novel coronavirus, the Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and a novel influenzavirus, the H7N9 virus, receive very little attention from the international media. Perhaps as importantly, there are millions of still unidentified viruses in animal reservoirs, among which, almost certainly is a virus that we’d have no capacity to understand, or stop were it to suddenly emerge today.

If we didn’t have a pandemic likely created by similar research – possibly by the same players – killing millions globally and injuring tens of millions of others, I wouldn’t be too concerned with these research projects in Ukraine. But given what has occurred, why is there zero concern from the media or the politicians about what we have been doing in Ukraine and elsewhere? And how does it shape our entire geopolitical worldview on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict? Inquiring minds would like to know.

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Leaked Email: Hunter Biden Didn’t Disclose $400,000 in Burisma Income on 2014 Tax Return


Reported by   | 

An email obtained by NBC News reveals that Hunter Biden declined to report $400,000 in income he received from Ukrainian gas company Burisma on his 2014 tax return. Biden raked in a cozy salary from the oligarch-owned company of up to $50,000 a month despite lacking experience in the energy industry, with many pointing to his association with then-Vice President Joe Biden as the purpose of his employment.

The email from Eric Schwerin, the president of an investment company founded by the younger and troubled Biden in 2009, succinctly reveals that Hunter did not report a whopping $400,000 from Burisma in his 2014 tax return.

“In 2014 you joined the Burisma board and we still need to amend your 2014 returns to reflect the unreported Burisma income,” says the email dated Jan. 16, 2017. Schwerin goes on to reveal Biden had an income of more than $1.2 million in 2014. NBC News claimed that it was unable to “verify” the email, but a Hunter Biden spokesperson declined to dispute its veracity.

Biden’s suspicious dealings with Burisma were largely ignored by the mainstream media, even after files were published from the troubled drug user’s laptop detailing corrupt foreign business dealings. The Biden campaign admitted this week that the Department of Justice is actively investigating Hunter Biden for tax compliance, with federal sources going on to reveal after the admission that Biden is being probed for potential money laundering and corrupt business deals.

It’s very possible that the US Attorney for Delaware is investigating the younger Biden for trying to hide his suspicious Burisma income in 2014, which would’ve proved an embarrassment at the least for the Biden family if it were revealed while Biden was Vice President. The ongoing investigation stands to linger on as a shadow covering the Biden family, if Joe Biden is inaugurated as President.

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Nolte: ‘Smoking Gun Email’ Shows Joe Biden Did Meet with Son Hunter’s Ukraine Partners


Reported by JOHN NOLTE | 

Read more at https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/14/nolte-smoking-gun-email-shows-joe-biden-did-meet-with-son-hunters-ukraine-partners/

(INSET: Hunter Biden) BURLINGTON, IA – AUGUST 07: Democratic presidential candidate and former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden delivers remarks about White Nationalism during a campaign press conference on August 7, 2019 in Burlington, Iowa. (Photo by Tom Brenner/Getty Images) / Tom Brenner/Getty, Moses Robinson/Getty Images for Usher’s New Look Foundation

A “smoking gun email” obtained by the New York Post shows Joe Biden lied when he said he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”

According to an email dated April 17, 2015, Biden, who was then the sitting vice president, met in person with Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma. Bursima is the sketchy Ukrainian energy company that put Hunter Biden on its board and paid him a reported $50,000 a month — a month! — even though Hunter has no known energy sector experience and doesn’t speak any of the languages spoken in that country.

The date of the email is important. The meeting between Pozharskyi and the then-vice president would have taken place eight months before Biden threatened to withhold U.S. aid from Ukraine unless the country agreed to fire a prosecutor who was looking into Burisma. The prosecutor was fired. In 2018, Biden bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about how he got the prosecutor fired.

“I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”

And the investigation into Burisma was shut down.

“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the smoking gun e-mail from Pozharskyi reads.

This isn’t the first piece of evidence that proves Joe Biden lied when he claimed “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”

 

Later last year a photograph was released of Joe Biden on the golf course with Hunter Biden and Devon Archer, who sat on Burisma’s board. The photo was taken in April of 2014 when Joe Biden was vice president, and just two years before Joe Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid unless Ukraine fired the prosecutor looking into a company paying his son $50,000 a month. Pretty obvious how this works.

Burisma puts Hunter on its board. Pays him $50,000 a month, even though he has no experience in the energy sector, even though he doesn’t speak the language. That money sure paid off. Oh, boy, did it ever. Direct access to the vice president of the United States. The very man with the juice to threaten Ukraine if they don’t fire the guy looking into the company. And according to Biden himself, that’s exactly what he did. He threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid unless the prosecutor looking into his own son’s company was fired.

According to the Post, the emails were obtained after someone left a water-damaged MacBook Pro laptop at a computer repair shop. Whoever left it, never paid for the repair or came back to get it.

“The computer was dropped off at a repair shop in Biden’s home state of Delaware in April 2019, according to the store’s owner,” the Post reports.

Also on the laptop  is a “raunchy, 12-minute video that appears to show Hunter, who’s admitted struggling with addiction problems, smoking crack while engaged in a sex act with an unidentified woman, as well as numerous other sexually explicit images.”

The repair shop owner could not confirm the laptop owner was Hunter Biden, but there was a sticker on the laptop from the Beau Biden Foundation. Along with he video are documents and photos that sure make it look like this was Hunter’s laptop. The FBI seized the laptop in December, but not before the repair shop owner made a copy of the hard drive. He then gave the copy to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello.

Just this week we learned that Joe Biden’s son-in-law Howard Krein is chief medical officer for a firm called StartUp Health, an investment firm looking to invest in products to deal with the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, Krein is advising the Biden campaign on the coronavirus, a stunning conflict of interest, so stunning the far-left Politico reported on it.

 Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.

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Report: State Memos Confirm Obama-Biden Admin Knew Burisma Was Corrupt While Hunter Served on Board


Reported by EDWIN MORA | 

URL of the originating web site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/09/14/report-state-memos-confirm-obama-biden-admin-knew-burisma-was-corrupt-while-hunter-served-on-board/

hunter-biden-abc-interview-wide / ABC News

The Obama administration allowed then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter to continue working at Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, even after U.S. officials established “strong” evidence suggesting that the company had engaged in corrupt activities in 2014, Just the News reported Monday, citing State Department memos and interviews.

Hunter, the son of now-Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, served on Burisma Holding’s board of directors from April 2014 to April 2019, getting paid tens of thousands of dollars each month, more than the average executives with similar positions. The U.S. investigators reportedly believed Burisma paid a $7 million bribe to local prosecutors between May and December 2014. According to the State memos, U.S. officials’ concerns about the bribe came to light in January 2015, only months after Burisma hired Hunter and following the opening of two significant corruption probes against the gas firm by investigators in Ukraine and Britain, respectively.

At the time of Hunter’s hiring by Burisma, then-VP Joe Biden was in charge of U.S. policy towards Ukraine, prompting allegations of corruption. Joe has acknowledged that it “looked bad” that Hunter held a lucrative seat on Burisma’s board while he was in charge of Ukraine policy. Still, the former vice president denied any ethical lapse in judgment by him or his son.

Officials from Obama’s Department of State and Justice (DOJ) reportedly told the FBI about Burisma paying the bribe, but it is unclear if the agency even bothered to investigate the allegation, Just the News learned from current and former American and Ukrainian government officials.

On Monday, Just the News reported:

Just eight months after Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter joined the board of Burisma Holdings [in April 2014], U.S. officials in Kiev developed evidence that the Ukrainian gas company may have paid a $7 million bribe to the local prosecutors investigating the firm for corruption, according to interviews and State Department memos.

…

The [bribe] anecdote, buried in five-year-old diplomatic files, provides a fresh illustration of the awkward, uncomfortable conflict of interest State officials perceived as they tried to fight pervasive corruption in Ukraine under Joe Biden’s leadership while the vice president’s son collected large payments as a board member for an energy firm widely viewed as corrupt.

Ukrainian officials reportedly denied receiving any bribe.

Echoing some State officials, Senate GOP investigators have expressed concern that Hunter’s ties to Burisma posed a conflict of interest for the Obama administration while his father directed America’s Ukraine policy.

Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) are reportedly getting ready to wrap up their investigations into Hunter’s lucrative dealings with Burisma. Although the State Department memos failed to mention Hunter and his role at Burisma, a top State official testified before House impeachment investigators in October 2019 that the Obama administration was aware that the former VP’s son was working at a company believed to be corrupt.

In his deposition, George Kent, a top State official mentioned in the memos unveiled Monday, reportedly said that U.S. officials warned the Obama administration that Burisma “was corrupt” while Hunter worked there, but the former VP’s office dismissed his concerns. Kent also warned that Hunter’s position at a Ukrainian company that the American government believed to be corrupt at a time when his father led U.S. policy on Ukraine posed a “conflict of interest.”

In early 2018, the former VP boasted about threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine as VP in 2016 if the Eastern European country did not fire its top prosecutor, who wanted to investigate the owner of Burisma for corruption.

Until April 2019, Hunter served on the board of Burisma for up to $83,000 per month despite having no background in energy, prompting allegations of corruption. Hunter admitted to ABC News that his father’s political position helped him secure the lucrative appointment to Burisma’s board of directors.

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BREAKING: FBI Raids US Company with Ties to Ukrainian Bank — Tied to Hunter Biden’s Burisma, Lost Billions in IMF and US Funds


Reported By Joe Hoft | Published August 5, 2020 at 7:52am

On October 1, 2019, we posted the following article:

In our article we discussed Burisma, Ukraine’s largest oil and gas provider, and its scandalous close-knit ties with President Obama’s Vice President Biden and Secretary of State Kerry. (Yes, Kerry is involved here too!)

In October we noted that a controlling shareholder of Burisma is believed to be  an entity called Privat Group:

The Privat Group, or PrivatBank Group (Ukrainian: Група “Приват”, Grupa “Privat”) is a global business group, based in Ukraine. Privat Group controls thousands of companies of virtually every industry in Ukraine, the European Union, Georgia, Ghana, Russia, the United States and other countries. Steel, oil & gas, chemical and energy are sectors of the group’s prime influence and expertise. None of the group’s capital is publicly traded on any stock exchange.

Privat Group is controlled by Ukraine’s largest commercial bank, PrivatBank, whose owner was Igor Kolomoisky. PrivatBank was later nationalized by the Ukraine in December 2016, taking 100% control of the PrivatBank entity, a month after the 2016 US election:

According to reports:

Ihor Valeriyovych Kolomoyskyi is a Ukrainian Jewish billionaire business oligarch and the former Governor of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Kolomoyskyi is rated as the second or third richest person in Ukraine since 2006. and 377th richest person in the world according to the Forbes magazine list of billionaires.” “The transliteration of Ihor Kolomoyskyi’s name into English has numerous variants including Igor, or Ihor for his first name, and Kolomoyskyi, Kolomoysky, Kolomoisky, Kolomoiskiy, or Kolomoyskiy for his surname.” “Kolomoyskyi is rated as the second or third richest person in Ukraine (after Rinat Akhmetov and/or Viktor Pinchuk) since 2006.” [source]

Before the Orange Revolution, Privat Group had been widely regarded as relatively uninvolved in politics, but loyal to the Leonid Kuchma regime. After the government change, the group’s owners, according to media, became close allies of Yulia Tymoshenko (although she publicly denies this). Analysts agree that some of Tymoshenko’s decisions as the Prime Minister of Ukraine supported Privat side in conflicts. Some sources state that Privat Group provided significant financial support for Viktor Yuschenko during his presidential campaign and subsequent Orange Revolution.” [source]

As noted in prior posts, Kolomoisky purchased a private military consisting of mainly military and police forces who were also employed by the Ukrainian Government. Kolomoisky is credited with stopping the forward progression of Russian separatists via the use of his private military.

The international financial agency had rushed the money to Ukraine in April, in response to what IMF managing director Christine Lagarde called a “major crisis.” She went on to hail the government’s “unprecedented resolve” in developing a “bold economic program to secure macroeconomic and financial stability.” Over the next five months the international agency poured the equivalent of $4.51 billion ($2.97 billion in “Special Drawing Rights”—the IMF’s own currency) into the National Bank of Ukraine— the country’s central bank. Much of this money was urgently needed to prop up the local commercial banks. In theory, the IMF appeared to require direct supervision of how the Ukrainian banks used the aid. In fact, it appears the banks got to select their own auditors.” [source]

Kolomoisky’s bank, PrivatBank, is later revealed to be a recipient of billions of dollars of IMF funds. Kolomoisky is believed to have looted those funds:

At one point in time, Kolomoisky was placed on a US Government Visa ban list due to his questionable business practices; however, shortly after Archer Devon and Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma, that ban was mysteriously lifted, and there has been no investigation into these missing funds.

Yesterday, August 4, 2020, a firm with US ties linked to Kolomoisky was raided by the FBI in Cleveland and Miami!

Cleveland.com reported yesterday:

FBI and IRS agents Tuesday seized boxloads of evidence that could determine whether the Ukrainian oligarch, Igor Kolomoisky, laundered millions of dollars through Cleveland real estate.

A long-running investigation into Kolomoisky went public for the first time when agents searched the offices of Optima Management Group in One Cleveland Center at East 9th Street and St. Clair Avenue. Agents in Miami also searched a business there involving the company.

The Cleveland publisher continued:

The lawsuit in Delaware alleges that Kolomoisky and others formed PrivatBank in the early 1990s. The government took control of it in 2016 after authorities suspected large-scale fraud, according to the lawsuit and published reports.

From 2006 through 2016, Kolomoisky and others “used PrivatBank as their own personal piggy bank – ultimately stealing billions of dollars from PrivatBank and using United States entities to launder hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of PrivatBank’s misappropriated loan proceeds,” according to the lawsuit.

At this time we don’t know what will become of this.  We know for example that the Atlantic Council is critical of PrivatBank, as noted in the Cleveland article, but the Atlantic Council has ties to Adam Schiff’s corrupt impeachment and George Soros.  We also know that Burisma has paid Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, thousands each month, while Joe Biden was VP under Obama.

We asked last year where are the billions of dollars that went missing in the Ukraine? What do Obama, Biden and Kerry and their children know about where the money is and are they connected?  Maybe we’re a step closer to finding out.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Joe Hoft
Joe Hoft is the twin brother of TGP’s founder, Jim Hoft. His posts have been retweeted by President Trump and have made the headlines at the Drudge Report. Joe worked as a corporate executive in Hong Kong and traveled the world for his work, which gives him a unique perspective of US and global current events. He has ten degrees or designations and is the author of three books. His new book: ‘In God We Trust: Not in Lying Liberal Lunatics’ is out now – please take a look and buy a copy.

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Biden May Not Want To Go To Ukraine Anytime Soon, He Could Be Arrested Due To New Court Ruling


The now infamous story of former Vice President Joe Biden forcing the firing of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor has taken on a new twist. In Kiev last month, District Court Judge S.V Vovk ordered that Ukraine’s law enforcement services to formally list the fired prosecutor, Victor Shokin, as the victim of an alleged crime by Joe Bien.

The court had previously ordered that the Prosecutor General’s Office and the State Bureau of investigation investigate Shokin’s claim that he was fired in the spring of 2016 because of pressure from Biden in 2016. At the time Shokin was investigating Burisma Holding a natural gas company where Biden’s son Hunter was on the board. The court ruled that there was enough evidence to investigate Shokin claims that Biden’s pressure on then-President Pedro Poroshenko, including a threat to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees, amounted to unlawful interference in Shokin’s work as Ukraine’s top prosecutor.

Just The News reports:

When law enforcement agencies opened the probe they refused to name Biden as the alleged perpetrator of the crime, instead listing the potential defendant as an unnamed American. Vovk ruled that anonymous listing was improper and ordered the law enforcement agencies to formally name Biden as the accused perpetrator.

The ruling orders “a competent person of the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine who conducts procedural management in criminal proceedings No. 62020000000000236 dated February 24, 2020 to enter information into the Unified register of pre-trial investigations … a summary of facts that may indicate the commission of a criminal offense under Paragraph 2 of Article 343 of the Criminal procedure code of Ukraine on criminal proceedings No. 62020000000000236 dated February 24, 2020, namely: information on interference in the activities of the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine Shokin, Viktor Mykolaiovych performed by citizen of the United States of America Joseph Biden, former U.S. Vice President.”

The judge added, “the order of the court may not be appealed.”

You can read the order here. 

Biden has bragged on videotape that he forced Poroshenko to fire Shokin however, he denied it was because Shokin was investigating Burisma.

Shokin has alleged under oath that he was told he was fired because he refused to stand down in his investigation of alleged corruption by Burisma. Before he was fired Shokin had planned to call Hunter Biden in as a witness and wanted to question him.

Joe might want to be careful setting foot in Ukraine or he may attend a bail hearing.

Just The News

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Confirmed: Top Democrat Impeachment Witness Lied Repeatedly Under Oath, Ambassador Yovanovitch Caught Lying on Burisma, LOCK HER UP (Video)


Reported By Jim Hoft | Published May 14, 2020 at 7:00am

Fired anti-Trump Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch spoke in front of the Schiff impeachment show trial in November. Yovanovitch was fired before President Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Zelensky but she performed well in her basement star chamber audition so she made it to the main stage in November.

During her opening statement under oath before Congress Yovanovitch said the Obama administration never raised the issue of Burisma or Hunter Biden with her.

But then during her testimony Yovanovitch admitted that during her confirmation hearing she was warned about Hunter Biden and Burisma.

Then President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani revealed in December that there is documents showing Schiff’s star witness, fired US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch perjured herself at least twice during her impeachment testimony.

Documents prove Yovanovitch was personally involved in the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s investigations and denied visas to witnesses who could prove Biden, Dem corruption, Giuliani said. And now there is more information that former Ambassador Yovanovitch lied under oath about Burisma Holdings and Hunter Biden.

New documents show Ambassador Yovanovitch perjured herself in her impeachment testimony. The fired ambassador left out mention of Burisma meetings, numerous letters on Burisma. Fox News contributor John Solomon and Rep. Lee Zeldin joined Laura Ingraham for the discussion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:  
Jim Hoft
Jim Hoft is the founder of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.

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Russia’s Novaya Gazeta Drops Documents That Show Ukrainians Transferred $3.4 Million in Criminally Obtained Money to Hunter Biden


Posted by Daniel Fleming

URL of the original posting site: https://steadfastloyalty.com/politics/russias-novaya-gazeta-drops-documents-that-show-ukrainians-transferred-3-4-million-in-criminally-obtained-money-to-hunter-biden/

Russia’s independent Novaya Gazeta , an independent newspaper published a story about Hunter Biden and the 3.4 million dollars he got from Burisma and how the money was laundered to make it look clean. The entire deal looks shady as the inside of the Amazon forest. Hunter Biden had no experience in the energy field and had just been kicked out of the military just 2 months before for rampant drug use. What company would see someone like that as an asset?

No one but Hunter Biden did have one thing going for him, Joe Biden. And that was worth 3.4 million dollars to them.

From The Gateway Pundit

Russia’s independent Novaya Gazeta published a devastating piece Tuesday on corrupt the Ukrainian oligarchs who are involved with the Burisma Holdings company in Ukraine. According to Novaya Gazeta corrupt Ukrainians transferred criminally obtained money to Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca accounts.

Novaya Gazeta even produced a document that shows $3.4 million was paid out to Hunter Biden… $3.4 million!

Two months after he was fired from the US Navy for drug use Hunter Biden was placed on the Burisma board and soon was making $50,000 per month.

Here is the document of payment published by Novaya Gazeta.

Novaya Gazeta reported:

The Ukrainian company Burisma, owned by a colleague of Yanukovych, invited Biden’s son to the board of directors immediately after the fall of Yanukovych. Hunter Biden received 50 thousand dollars a month. After the Ukrainian prosecutor general Shokin opened a criminal case against Burizma, Biden Sr. insisted on dismissing Shokin, threatening to stop a $ 1 billion loan to Ukraine. Voluntarily or involuntarily, the US vice president acted as the “roof” of Burisma…

…The position of the investigation is that this purchase was paid with money obtained by criminal means, and it was precisely this money, “acquired by a malicious hat in especially large proportions”, that Nikolai Zlochevsky was allowed to pay to the members of the Board of Directors of Burisma. In particular, 1 million euros was transferred to the account of the ex-president of Poland, Alexander Kwasniewski, and 3,404,712.82 dollars was transferred to the account of Rosemont Seneca, which represented Hunter Biden.

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Joe Biden Ducks Questions About Conflict of Interest in Ukraine


Written by Joel B. Pollak | 

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/01/26/joe-biden-ducks-questions-about-conflict-of-interest-in-ukraine/

Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden speaks after exiting the stage at the Iowa Federation Labor Convention on August 21, 2019 in Altoona, Iowa. Candidates had 10 minutes each to address union members during the convention. The 2020 Democratic presidential Iowa caucuses will take place on Monday, February … Joshua Lott/Getty Images

Former Vice President Joe Biden claimed in an interview set to air Sunday morning that no one had been able to point to anything he had done wrong in Ukraine.

Biden told Manchester, New Hampshire’s WMUR-9:

My case has already been made. There’s not a single solitary person in this administration who said I did anything other than my job. Not anybody in the United States of America that has been involved at all. Not anybody abroad … I did my job, and I did it really well. The problem is here, this is all about Trump’s ability to take the focus off.

Biden’s claim contradicts the testimony of several of the witnesses Democrats themselves called in the House impeachment inquiry.

George Kent, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the European and Eurasian Bureau at the State Department, told the House Intelligence Committee that Biden had an apparent conflict of interest because his son, Hunter Biden, had been appointed to a well-compensated position on the board of a Ukrainian gas company, Burisma, that was widely perceived to be corrupt.

Kent said that he brought the issue up in 2015: “I raised my concerns [with the vice president’s staff] that I had heard that Hunter Biden was on the board of a company owned by somebody that the U.S. Government had spent money trying to get tens of millions of dollars back and that could create the perception of a conflict of interest.”

He added that the vice president’s office had said that Biden was too busy dealing with the tragic death of his other son, Beau. But nothing was done afterwards, either.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch told the committee that she had been specifically briefed by the Obama administration before her confirmation hearing not to answer questions about Biden’s conflict of interest, but to direct all questions to the vice president’s office, instead.

Reporters had first raised the question of Biden’s apparent conflict of interest in 2014, after Hunter Biden’s appointment, but nothing was apparently done about it.

Biden himself admitted last week that the arrangement “looked bad.”

The full interview airs Sunday morning at 10:00 a.m. on WMUR-9.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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Second Adam Schiff Staffer Linked to Burisma-Backed Think Tank, ‘Close Friends’ with Alleged ‘Whistleblower’


Written by Aaron Klein | 

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/26/second-adam-schiff-staffer-linked-to-burisma-backed-think-tank-close-friends-with-alleged-whistleblower/

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) / Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images

Yet another staffer for Rep. Adam Schiff served as a fellow for the Atlantic Council, a think tank that is funded by and works in partnership with Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Sean Misko has been described as “close friends” with Eric Ciaramella, whom Real Clear Investigations suggests is the likely so-called whistleblower.  Misko reportedly joined Schiff’s staff at the House Intelligence Committee in August – the same month the so-called whistleblower’s complaint was filed after first reportedly interfacing with a staffer for Schiff’s office.

Misko in 2015 was a yearlong “Millennium Fellow” at the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council, which has been under the microscope for its ties to other individuals associated with the Trump impeachment inquiry. Misko’s former position marks the second Schiff staffer who worked or currently works with the Atlantic Council.

Thomas Eager, a staffer on Schiff’s House Intelligence Committee, is currently a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Congressional Fellowship, a bipartisan program that says it “educates congressional staff on current events in the Eurasia region.”

Burisma in January 2017 signed a “cooperative agreement” with the Council to specifically sponsor the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center, where Eager serves as a fellow.

As Breitbart News reported, itinerary for a trip to Ukraine in August organized by the Atlantic Council reveals that Eager held a meeting during the trip with Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, now a key witness for Democrats pursuing impeachment.

Breitbart News reported that Taylor himself has evidenced a close relationship with the Atlantic Council think tank, writing Ukraine policy pieces with the organization’s director and analysis articles published by the Council.

Eager’s August trip to Ukraine was billed as a bipartisan “Ukraine Study Trip” in which ten Congressional staffers participated. A closer look at the itinerary for the August 24 to August 31 trip shows that the delegation’s first meeting upon arrival in Ukraine was with Taylor.

Spokespeople for Schiff’s office did not reply to multiple Breitbart News requests  for comment about Eager’s meeting with Taylor.

The dates of the pre-planned trip are instructive. Eager’s visit to Ukraine sponsored by the Burisma-funded Atlantic Council began 12 days after the so-called “whistleblower” officially filed his August 12 complaint.

Schiff and his office have offered seemingly conflicting statements on the timeline of the contact between the so-called whistleblower and the California Congressman’s office. Speaking on September 17, Schiff told MSNBC, “We have not spoken directly with the whistleblower. We would like to.”

Schiff’s spokesperson, Patrick Boland, was quoted on October 2 saying, “At no point did the committee review or receive the complaint in advance.” Boland said Schiff’s committee received the complaint the night before it publicly released the document.

On Oct 2, however, the New York Times reported that Schiff received some of the contents of the complaint through an unnamed House Intelligence Committee aide initially contacted by the so-called “whistleblower,” described as a CIA officer. The Times reported the aide “shared some of what the officer conveyed to Mr. Schiff.”  The referenced officer refers to the so-called “whistleblower.”

The newspaper also reported:

By the time the whistle-blower filed his complaint, Mr. Schiff and his staff knew at least vaguely what it contained

Schiff conceded that he was not clear enough about his contact with the so-called “whistleblower.” “I should have been much more clear,” Schiff said.

Misko and Ciaramella 

Meanwhile, besides serving as a fellow at the Atlantic Council in 2015, Misko is also listed as providing a small donation of up to $999 to the think tank in 2016. Other major donors that year include regular Atlantic Council donors Burisma, Google, and billionaire activist George Soros’s Open Society network.

Another donor that year was Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and also reportedly helped draft the Google-tied CrowdStrike firm to aid with the DNC’s allegedly hacked server.  Google’s parent company led a funding drive to provide seed capital to CrowdStrike.

On behalf of the DNC and Clinton’s campaign, Perkins Coie also paid the controversial Fusion GPS firm to produce the infamous, largely-discredited anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.

Prior to working for Schiff, Misko was director for the Gulf States at the National Security Council from 2015 until mid-2018. Before that, Misko worked in the Obama-era State Department under Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Jake Sullivan.

The Washington Examiner previously described Misko as evidencing a “bro-like” friendship with alleged whistleblower Ciaramella, calling the duo “close friends.” The newspaper reported the two “had similarly antagonistic attitudes toward the Trump administration and were witnessed by a former National Security Council official, like Ciaramella, a nonpolitical appointee, to frequently be around one another.”

“My understanding was that they were friendly with one another,” said the former NSC official, who was described as senior to Ciaramella. “They would walk around the halls. Get lunch together and stuff like that.” He described them as “very much cut from the same cloth,” and their friendship as “bro-like.”

The Washington Examiner report continued:

The former official described Ciaramella as “very hostile” toward him when they first met, and he asked the CIA officer about the type of competitive strategies he had put in place to compete with the Russians. “And he looked at me like, ‘What are you talking about? We don’t do that stuff here. We don’t take on our adversaries here. We invite think tanks here to talk about issues.’”

According to the former official, Trump’s first national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn, who was fired by Trump after 24 days, wanted to “actually take the fight to our enemies and have real strategies, and it was such a contrast because whatever the hell the Obama NSC was doing, they were not taking on our adversaries.”

He said, “There was this weird cultural hostility to me asking him, ‘You know, are you guys doing your job here?’ He had a lot of arrogance about him,” adding that Ciaramella behaved like he had protection at the NSC, so he could be insubordinate to a more senior official.

Likely ‘whistleblower’

A RealClearInvestigations report by investigative journalist and author Paul Sperry named Ciaramella as best fitting the description of the so-called whistleblower. Officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings say Ciaramella’s name has been raised in private in impeachment depositions and during at least one House open hearing that was not part of the formal impeachment proceedings. Federal documents show Ciaramella also worked closely with Joe Biden and worked under Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser. He also worked with former CIA Director John Brennan, an anti-Trump advocate who has faced controversy for his role in fueling the questionable Russia collusion investigation.  Rice participated in Russia collusion probe meetings and reportedly unmasked senior members of Trump’s presidential campaign.

Sperry cites former White House officials saying Ciaramella worked for Biden on Ukrainian policy issues in 2015 and 2016, encompassing the time period for which Biden has been facing possible conflict questions for leading Ukraine policy in light of Hunter Biden’s work for Burisma.

Mark Zaid and Andrew Bakaj, the activist attorneys representing the so-called whistleblower, refused to confirm on deny that their secretive client is indeed Ciaramella.

“We neither confirm nor deny the identity of the Intelligence Community Whistleblower,” the lawyers told the Washington Examiner in response to an inquiry about Ciaramella.

Zaid and Bakaj added, “Our client is legally entitled to anonymity. Disclosure of the name of any person who may be suspected to be the whistleblower places that individual and their family in great physical danger. Any physical harm the individual and/or their family suffers as a result of disclosure means that the individuals and publications reporting such names will be personally liable for that harm. Such behavior is at the pinnacle of irresponsibility and is intentionally reckless.”

Soros funding and ‘whistleblower’ complaint

Besides Burisma funding, the Atlantic Council is also financed by Soros’s Open Society Foundations, Google, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc., and the U.S. State Department.

Google, Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund, and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower’s complaint alleging Trump was “using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country” in the 2020 presidential race.

The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the so-called whistleblower’s document and released by the Google and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public precursors for a lot of the so-called whistleblower’s own claims, as Breitbart News documented.

One key section of the so-called whistleblower’s document claims that “multiple U.S. officials told me that Mr. Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov.”

This was allegedly to follow up on Trump’s call with Zelensky in order to discuss the “cases” mentioned in that call, according to the so-called whistleblower’s narrative. The complainer was clearly referencing Trump’s request for Ukraine to investigate the Biden corruption allegations.

Even though the statement was written in first person – “multiple U.S. officials told me” – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

That footnote reads:

In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on 22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.

The so-called whistleblower’s account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three more occasions. It does so to:

  • Write that Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko “also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these matters.”
  • Document that Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani “had spoken in late 2018 to former Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani.”
  • Bolster the charge that, “I also learned from a U.S. official that ‘associates’ of Mr. Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team.” The so-called whistleblower then relates in another footnote, “I do not know whether these associates of Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced above.”

The OCCRP report repeatedly referenced is actually a “joint investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and business records in the United States and Ukraine.”

BuzzFeed infamously also first published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt outfit.

The OCCRP and BuzzFeed “joint investigation” resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed publishing similar lengthy pieces on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump’s political rivals.

The so-called whistleblower’s document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP and does not reference BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia collusion claims.

Additional research by Joshua Klein

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

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Fact Check: No, Gordon Sondland Did Not Prove Ukraine ‘Quid pro Quo’


Reported by Joel B. Pollak | 

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/05/fact-check-no-gordon-sondland-did-not-prove-ukraine-quid-pro-quo/

Gordon Sondland, the United States Ambassador to the European Union, adresses the media during a press conference at the US Embassy to Romania in Bucharest September 5, 2019. (Photo by Daniel MIHAILESCU / AFP) (Photo credit should read DANIEL MIHAILESCU/AFP/Getty Images)

CLAIM: Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland confirmed, contrary to earlier testimony, that there had been a “quid pro quo” between President Donald Trump and the Ukrainian government: military aid for “dirt.”

VERDICT: FALSE. Sondland said that he “presumed” there was a “quid pro quo.” But he did not have any first-hand knowledge of one, and other witnesses have testified that there was no such “quid pro quo” at all.

The House Intelligence Committee began releasing transcripts this week of its behind-closed-doors interviews with witnesses in the “impeachment inquiry.” On Tuesday, it released the transcripts of the appearances of Sondland and former Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker.

Volker testified that there had never been a “quid pro quo” — that he had never heard one discussed, and that Ukrainian officials seemed unaware of any such arrangement at all.

But Sondland, who had also testified earlier that there was no “quid pro quo,” had to amend that testimony after he was apparently contradicted by U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor, who testified last month that he believed there was a “quid pro quo,” under which the Trump administration was withholding key military aid to Ukraine unless it investigated alleged corruption related to former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

In a supplemental declaration filed with the committee, Sondland said that “by the beginning of September 2019, and in the absence of any credible explanation for the suspension of aid,” he “presumed that the [Ukraine] aid suspension had become linked to the proposed anti-corruption statement” and the investigation of the Bidens. That led him to tell the Ukrainian government that “resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur” until it complied.

But there are two big logical leaps in Sondland’s statement.

The first is that he only “presumed” there was a “quid pro quo” — that is, he did not have direct knowledge of one.

The second is that he told the Ukrainians that a “quid pro quo” was “likely” — that is, he did not know with certainty.

In their rush to accuse the Trump administration of wrongdoing, Democrats and the media have overlooked one other key fact: the crucial August 2019 Politico article.

The article, “Trump holds up Ukraine military aid meant to confront Russia,” dated August 28, was the first that the Ukrainians ever knew about any withholding of aid — five weeks after the phone call between Trump and Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky which supposedly prompted the so-called “whistleblower” to approach Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee. Sondland refers specifically to September.

Therefore what changed his — and others’ — impression was not anything the administration (or its representatives) did or said. Rather, it was the media.

Since Sondland consumes the same media that everyone else does — indeed, it is part of a diplomat’s job to know what is being said — he drew his own conclusions. But when he asked President Trump directly, Trump told him there was no “quid pro quo”: he just wanted Zelensky to do “the right thing.”

All of this presumes there is something wrong with a “quid pro quo.” But even that seems untrue. In fact, “quid pro quo” arrangements are normal in diplomacy. A House bill passed recently by Democrats would establish a “quid pro quo” that bars Russia from access even to private U.S. funds until it can be shown not to have interfered in U.S. elections. Trump, Democrats say, sought his personal or political interest; it also happened to be a national interest.

For years, Democrats defended the investigations of President Barack Obama’s administration into then-candidate Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign by arguing that the country had to know if a major candidate was corrupt or compromised by a foreign power.

That investigation may have been conducted in an unlawful manner — and a grand jury is now on the case — but the logic they used then is even more appropriate to Ukraine and the Bidens.

Hunter Biden’s role as a go-between for Burisma — a Ukrainian gas company suspected of corruption — and his father’s administration has never been fully investigated. The so-called “whistleblower” worked for Biden at the time; that conflict of interest, too, has never been explored.

If Trump had demanded a “quid pro quo,” he would have been doing his job. As it is, there is no evidence of a “quid pro quo” — certainly not from Gordon Sondland.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

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Ukrainian MP: Burisma Paid Joe Biden $900,000 for Lobbying Work


Posted by Steven Ahle

URL of the original posting site: https://steadfastandloyal.com/politics/ukrainian-mp-burisma-paid-joe-biden-900000-for-lobbying-work/

Ukrainian MP Andriy Derkach allegedly provided documents at a press conference that shows that Burisma paid Joe Biden $900,000 for his work as a lobbyist.

If this is true, Biden is finished and Elizabeth Warren will be the Democratic candidate for president, assuring President Trump of a second term. Far-left loonies do not fare well in a general election. Look no further than McGovern, Dukakis and Mondale.

Derkach also provided a trove of other documents showing payoffs from Burisma. The Biden camp has not commented yet and as far as we know, there has been no confirmation of the payment, but there is also no repudiation.

From The Gateway Pundit

Former Vice President Joe Biden was personally paid $900,000 for lobbying activities from Burisma Holdings, according to Ukrainian MP Andriy Derkach.
Derkach publicized the documents at a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency Wednesday as he said the records, “describe the mechanism of getting money by Biden Sr.”
“This was the transfer of Burisma Group’s funds for lobbying activities, as investigators believe, personally to Joe Biden through a lobbying company. Funds in the amount of $900,000 were transferred to the U.S.-based company Rosemont Seneca Partners, which according to open sources, in particular, the New York Times, is affiliated with Biden. The payment reference was payment for consultative services,” Derkach said.

Via Interfax:

At a press conference at the Interfax-Ukraine agency on Wednesday, he made public the documents received from investigative journalists, including correspondence between NABU officers and representatives of diplomatic missions of foreign states in the framework of criminal proceedings opened under Article 111 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (High Treason). In particular, the documents that the deputy possesses indicate that Uglava, through his assistant Polina Chyzh, gave information to the U.S. Embassy, which, he said, is an important part of the “puzzle” of interference in U.S. elections and international corruption.
Joe Biden’s drug addict son Hunter was sitting on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company and being paid by some accounts over $200,000 a month even though he had zero experience in the field.

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Russia’s Novaya Gazeta Drops Documents That Show Ukrainians Transferred $3.4 Million in Criminally Obtained Money to Hunter Biden


Posted by Steven Ahle | 

URL of the original posting site: https://steadfastandloyal.com/politics/russias-novaya-gazeta-drops-documents-that-show-ukrainians-transferred-3-4-million-in-criminally-obtained-money-to-hunter-biden/

Russia’s independent Novaya Gazeta , an independent newspaper published a story about Hunter Biden and the 3.4 million dollars he got from Burisma and how the money was laundered to make it look clean.

The entire deal looks shady as the inside of the Amazon forest. Hunter Biden had no experience in the energy field and had just been kicked out of the military just 2 months before for rampant drug use. What company would see someone like that as an asset?

No one but Hunter Biden did have one thing going for him, Joe Biden. And that was worth 3.4 million dollars to them.

From The Gateway Pundit

Russia’s independent Novaya Gazeta published a devastating piece Tuesday on corrupt the Ukrainian oligarchs who are involved with the Burisma Holdings company in Ukraine.

According to Novaya Gazeta corrupt Ukrainians transferred criminally obtained money to Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca accounts.

Novaya Gazeta even produced a document that shows $3.4 million was paid out to Hunter Biden… $3.4 million!

Two months after he was fired from the US Navy for drug use Hunter Biden was placed on the Burisma board and soon was making $50,000 per month.

Here is the document of payment published by Novaya Gazeta.

Novaya Gazeta reported:

The Ukrainian company Burisma, owned by a colleague of Yanukovych, invited Biden’s son to the board of directors immediately after the fall of Yanukovych. Hunter Biden received 50 thousand dollars a month. After the Ukrainian prosecutor general Shokin opened a criminal case against Burizma, Biden Sr. insisted on dismissing Shokin, threatening to stop a $ 1 billion loan to Ukraine. Voluntarily or involuntarily, the US vice president acted as the “roof” of Burisma…

…The position of the investigation is that this purchase was paid with money obtained by criminal means, and it was precisely this money, “acquired by a malicious hat in especially large proportions”, that Nikolai Zlochevsky was allowed to pay to the members of the Board of Directors of Burisma. In particular, 1 million euros was transferred to the account of the ex-president of Poland, Alexander Kwasniewski, and 3,404,712.82 dollars was transferred to the account of Rosemont Seneca, which represented Hunter Biden.

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BOOM!… Breaking Report: VP Joe Biden Specifically Set Up Scenario for Meeting Between Top Ukrainian Officials and His Son [VIDEO]


Posted by Steven Ahle |

URL of the original posting site: https://steadfastandloyal.com/politics/boom-breaking-report-vp-joe-biden-specifically-set-up-scenario-for-meeting-between-top-ukrainian-officials-and-his-son-video/

This is huge.

The newest revelation from investigative journalist John Solomon that Joe Biden actually set up the meeting between his son Hunter and people associated with Burisma.

Biden claimed he knew nothing about Hunter and his business with Ukraine but now, we find out that he actually set the whole thing up. That changes everything. Biden lied and now everyone should know he lied.

And what about China?

Did he also conspire with China?

Let’s face it, companies do not hire you and throw tons of money at you when you have zero experience and you were just thrown out of the service for doing drugs.

From The Gateway Pundit

John Solomon: Let me add a new fact that I just learned tonight. While talking to US diplomats today overseas in Europe I learned that on April 22, 2014 less than three weeks before the Burisma Holdings announced that Hunter Biden was joining their board, Vice President Joe Biden met with the Prime Minister of Ukraine and in that meeting, according to a transcript that I obtained tonight, Joe Biden specifically encouraged the Ukrainians to expand natural gas production with the help of Americans coming to the country. He set up the exact scenario that Hunter Biden just a few weeks later cashed in on.

Sean Hannity: Whoa! This now takes it to a whole new level. Because now he’s basically doing the bidding for his own son’s wealth creation. Maybe even his son would share with his father?

John Solomon: Those were the questions Ukrainians were trying to answer back in 2016 before the prosecutor was fired Sean… I do think that the evidence that the Ukrainians possess and would like to give to the US Department of Justice it is sitting there to be handed over.

And after that meeting U.S. banking records show Hunter Biden’s American-based firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, received regular transfers into one of its accounts — usually more than $166,000 a month — from Burisma from spring 2014 through fall 2015, during a period when Vice President Biden was the main U.S. official dealing with Ukraine and its tense relations with Russia.

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