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Joe Biden’s Classified Docs Provide More Evidence Hunter’s Pay-To-Play Was A Family Affair


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | FEBRUARY 12, 2024

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2024/02/12/joe-bidens-classified-docs-provide-more-evidence-hunters-pay-to-play-was-a-family-affair/

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The special counsel report on Joe Biden’s unauthorized removal and disclosure of classified documents exposed much more than our president’s mental deficits and the breadth of his irresponsible handling of top-secret and classified information. The report revealed a close nexus between Hunter Biden’s influence peddling and his father’s responsibilities and access to intel during the elder’s term as vice president.

On Thursday, Special Counsel Robert Hur released the results of his investigation into the president stemming from the discovery of top-secret and classified documents at Biden’s D.C.-based Penn Biden Center, his private Delaware home, and the University of Delaware. While the specific details in the recovered documents remain unknown, the nearly 400-page report provided an extensive enough summary of the materials to confirm an overlap in the timing and topics of Joe Biden’s vice presidency and Hunter Biden’s “business” enterprises.

Ukraine Overlap

Appendix A of the report provided a table summary of the documents recovered. Many of the top-secret and classified documents concerned Ukraine during the time frame when Hunter Biden acted as an intermediary between Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, and the vice president. Recall that Hunter’s business partner, Devon Archer, told the House Oversight Committee that in early March 2014, he met Zlochevsky while in Moscow. And soon after, he and Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board, receiving $83,000 per month.

The following month, Hunter Biden sent Archer an email dated April 13, 2014 — one week before Joe Biden would travel to Ukraine and meet then-Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. Referring to “my guys upcoming travels,” Hunter then elaborated on “22 points about Ukraine’s political situation, with detailed information about the upcoming election and predicting an escalation of Russia’s ‘destabilization campaign, which could lead to a full-scale takeover of the eastern region, most critically Donetsk,’” according to the New York Post.

Among the material recovered from President Biden’s unauthorized storage locales were several top-secret and otherwise classified or confidential documents discussing Ukraine. One undated document discussed issues related to Russian aggression toward Ukraine. Another, dated Sept. 17, 2014, consisted of a “Memorandum for the Vice President from staff members, with subject ‘U.S. Energy Assistance to Ukraine.’” Also dated Sept. 17, 2014, was an “event memo” from a vice-presidential national security staffer, titled, “Lunch with Ukrainian President Poroshenko,” which was scheduled for the following day.

The overlap between Joe Biden’s Ukraine-related work and Hunter Biden’s Burisma profiteering became more pronounced in 2015. On Dec. 2, 2015, the lobbying firm Blue Star Group, which Hunter Biden had arranged to work with Burisma, wrote to Burisma that it had “participated in a conference call today with senior Obama Administration officials ahead of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s trip to Ukraine next week.” The memorandum provided a summary of the conference call, telling Burisma that “Michael Carpenter, Vice President Biden’s Special Advisor for Europe and Russia, and Dr. Colin Kahl, the Vice President’s National Security Advisor, presented the agenda for the trip and answered questions about current U.S. policy toward Ukraine.” 

Two days after receiving this memorandum, Burisma executives Zlochevsky and Vadym Pozharskyi, on Dec. 4, 2015, pushed Hunter Biden to call his father. The Burisma executives, according to Archer, expressed concern over the pressure they were under from Ukrainian investigators.

Shokin’s Firing

During Biden’s visit to Ukraine the following week, the vice president threatened to withhold U.S. loan guarantees from the country unless the Ukrainian president fired the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin. Shokin was later fired, and Biden bragged about his role in the termination.

Last week, the special counsel reported recovering documents classified as “secret,” dated circa Dec. 12, 2015, “setting forth the purpose and talking points for a call with Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk.” A transcript of the call between Biden and Yatsenyuk was attached, with a handwritten post-it note showing the then-VP had directed his executive assistant: “Get copy of the conversation from Sit Rm for my Records please.” 

That transcript, labeled “CONFIDENTIAL” and “EYES ONLY DO NOT COPY,” according to the special counsel, included “pleasantries” exchanged between the two, “and the Prime Minister heaped praise upon Mr. Biden for his December 9, 2015 speech to Ukraine’s parliament.” 

In that speech, Biden told Ukrainian lawmakers, “[I]t’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.”

A Change in U.S. Policy

Biden continues to maintain that his demands to Ukraine to fire the prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, represented U.S. policy. But that policy seemed to have made a sharp turn from just months earlier. For instance, according to the House Oversight Committee, in “June 11, 2015, then-Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland wrote Prosecutor General Shokin, applauding his office’s progress in anti-corruption efforts.”

Then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt would likewise publicly state in September 2015, “[W]e want to work with Prosecutor General Shokin so the [Prosecutor General Office] is leading the fight against corruption.” That same month, “the Interagency Policy Committee asserted Prosecutor General Shokin had made sufficient progress in combating corruption to warrant a third guarantee of a $1 billion loan,” according to House Oversight Chair James Comer.

As part of its impeachment inquiry, the House Oversight Committee has been seeking records to establish how American policy shifted from supporting Shokin to demanding his firing. And now that Special Counsel Hur’s investigation into Biden has ended, Comer is demanding “unfettered access to these documents to determine if President Biden’s retention of sensitive materials were used to help the Bidens’ influence peddling.” As Comer stressed, in addition to the Ukraine-related documents, top-secret and classified documents connected to China — another key source of Hunter Biden’s millions — were recovered.

Comer had previously asked Hur whether any of the classified records “were related to the countries that his family conducted business with,” but the special counsel’s office refused to provide details on the seized material. Comer told The Federalist that “[w]hile the Justice Department has closed its investigation, the Oversight Committee’s investigation continues.”

More to Probe 

“Important questions remain about the extent of Joe Biden retaining sensitive materials related to specific countries involving his family’s influence peddling schemes that brought in millions for the Bidens,” Comer told The Federalist. “We will continue to provide the transparency and accountability owed to the American people.”

The key here, however, is not whether Joe Biden retained the documents to further Hunter Biden’s selling of access, but whether he shared details he had learned from his position as vice president with Hunter. Given the thousands of emails VP Biden exchanged using pseudonyms, the fact that he had no problem sharing classified information with his ghost writer, and that he has lied repeatedly about his involvement with Hunter Biden’s business affairs, it isn’t a stretch to believe he shared confidential information with his son to advance Hunter’s pay-to-play scheme.

But the special counsel’s report makes one more thing clear: Joe Biden will never face a jury — not because he is innocent, but because he lacks the mental competence. Attorney General Merrick Garland apparently concurred in that assessment, as he approved Hur’s report. So surely then, Garland, as a member of the Cabinet, is discussing with his fellow cabinet members, the need to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment… Right?

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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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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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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Alleged ‘Whistleblower’ Eric Ciaramella Worked Closely with Anti-Trump Dossier Hoaxer


Reported by Aaron Klein | 

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/06/alleged-whistleblower-eric-ciaramella-worked-closely-with-anti-trump-dossier-hoaxers/

WASHINGTON, DC – JUNE 20: Former Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland testifies during a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee June 20, 2018 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The committee held a hearing on “Policy Response to Russian Interference in the 2016 U.S. … Alex Wong/Getty Images

Eric Ciaramella, whom Real Clear Investigations suggests is the likely so-called whistleblower, was part of an Obama administration email chain celebrating the eventual signing of a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee to Ukraine.

That and other emails show Ciaramella interfaced about Ukraine with individuals who played key roles in facilitating the infamous anti-Trump dossier produced by Fusion GPS and reportedly financed by Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. One of those individuals, then-Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland (pictured), received updates on Ukraine issues from dossier author Christopher Steele in addition to Nuland’s direct role in the dossier controversy.

Also part of the email chains was Christopher J. Anderson, who was a special adviser to former special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker. Anderson testified to the Democrat-led House committees running the impeachment inquiry.

Ciaramella’s name comes up in six Obama-era government emails that were released by the State Department as part of two previous Freedom of Information Act requests.  At the time of the exchanges, Ciaramella served as the Director for Baltic and Eastern European Affairs for the Obama-era National Security Council, where he worked on Ukraine policy.  He is now an analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency.

One email, titled, “Loan Guarantee,” involved Nuland, who was reportedly a key champion of the Ukraine loan guarantee policy.

“Hurray,” a celebratory Nuland wrote in response to a translated Ukrainian government announcement about the signing of the $1 billion loan guarantee.  The announcement singles out Joe Biden as being present for the conclusion of an agreement leading to the loan guarantee.

Ciaramella was one of several people CC’d in the email, which was sent from the U.S. ambassador at the time, Geoffrey Pyatt, who was another key champion of the loan guarantee to Ukraine along with Nuland.

The email is one of several that shows Ciaramella in the loop with top officials such as Nuland working on Ukraine policy under the Obama administration.

The loan guarantee was pushed through after Ukraine agreed to several reforms, especially the firing of the nation’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. This at a time that Shokin was reportedly investigating Burisma, the Ukranian natural gas company paying Hunter Biden.  Joe Biden infamously boasted on video about personally threatening to withhold loan guarantees from Ukraine unless Shokin was removed.

Another released email shows Ciaramella himself sending a message to Nuland and others. Most of the contents are blocked out, including the email’s subject line. One non-classified section of that email shows a reply stating, “Embassy Kyiv — coordinated with our USAID mission folks — will have detailed input tomorrow.”

One email involving Nuland was sent two days before the loan guarantee was signed on June 3, 2016. “Can you confirm who will be doing the actual signing for each side?” the exchange asked.

Nuland has come under repeated fire for her various roles in the anti-Trump dossier controversy.

FBI notes also cite career Justice Department official Bruce Ohr as saying that Nuland was in touch with Fusion GPS co-founder and dossier producer Glenn Simpson.

Sen. John McCain, who infamously delivered the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey, reportedly first dispatched an aide, David J. Kramer, to inquire with Nuland about the dossier claims.

In their book, Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump, authors and reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn write that Nuland gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with Steele regarding his dossier’s claims. It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.

Meanwhile, looped into email chains with Ciaramella was then-Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff at the State Department, John Finer.

An extensive New Yorker profile of Steele named Finer as obtaining the contents of a two-page summary of the dossier and eventually deciding to share the questionable document with Kerry.

Finer reportedly received the dossier summary from Jonathan M. Winer, the Obama State Department official who acknowledged regularly interfacing and exchanging information with Steele, according to the report. Winer previously conceded that he shared the dossier summary with Nuland.

After his name surfaced in news media reports related to probes by House Republicans into the dossier, Winer authored a Washington Post oped in which he conceded that while he was working at the State Department he exchanged documents and information with Steele.

Winer further acknowledged that while at the State Department, he shared anti-Trump material with Steele passed to him by longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal, whom Winer described as an “old friend.” Winer wrote that the material from Blumenthal – which Winer in turn gave to Steele – originated with Cody Shearer, who is a controversial figure long tied to various Clinton scandals.

In testimony last year, Nuland made statements about a meeting at the State Department in October 2016 between State officials and Steele, but said that she didn’t participate.

At a June 2018 hearing, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) revealed contents of the State Department’s visitor logs while he was grilling Nuland.

At the hearing, Burr asked: “I know you talked extensively with our staff relative to Mr. Steele. Based upon our review of the visitor logs of the State Department, Mr. Steele visited the State Department briefing officials on the dossier in October of 2016. Did you have any role in that briefing?”

“I did not,” Nuland replied. “I actively chose not to be part of that briefing.”

“But were you aware of that briefing?” Burr asked.

“I was not aware of it until afterwards,” Nuland retorted.

Nuland did not explain how she can actively chose not to be part of Steele’s briefing, as she claimed, yet say she was unaware of the briefing until after it occurred. Nuland was not asked about the discrepancy during the public section of the testimony, which was reviewed in full by Breitbart News.

Nuland previously served as chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott under Bill Clinton’s administration, and then served as deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs.

Nuland faced confirmation questions prior to her most recent appointment as assistant secretary of state over her reported role in revising controversial Obama administration talking points about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks. Her reported changes sought to protect Hillary Clinton’s State Department from accusations that it failed to adequately secure the woefully unprotected U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi.

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.”

On Sunday, Trump responded to press reports naming Ciaramella, calling him a “radical” known for his close ties to Brennan and Rice.

“Well, I’ll tell you what. There have been stories written about a certain individual, a male, and they say he’s the whistleblower,” Trump told reporters. “If he’s the whistleblower, he has no credibility because he’s a Brennan guy, he’s a Susan Rice guy, he’s an Obama guy.”

Trump added, “And he hates Trump. And he’s a radical. Now, maybe it’s not him. But if it’s him, you guys ought to release the information.”

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.

Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.

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