A Republic Under Assault
Page 20
But those days of murky dealings most certainly pale in comparison to what was about to come. For in the summer of 2008, when Democratic nominee Barack Obama picked him to be his running mate, Biden stumbled his way into the epicenter of political and wealth-creating corruption.
Not only was Biden able to watch the Chicago machine behind Barack Obama in action, but he was given a free ringside seat to observe the decades-long, incredibly corrupt Clinton machine—via Hillary Clinton and her cast of cronies—wheeling, dealing, cashing in, and, most important of all, covering up.
If one was looking for ways to perfect the art of corruption, then Joe Biden—and certain members of his family—truly hit the jackpot when he became the vice president of the United States of America.
Beyond the former vice president, you have his son Hunter, who is becoming a rising star in the never-ending Corruption Chronicles. After Hunter, and trailing much further behind, comes the vice president’s brother, James.
But, in terms of outright slimy and highly questionable dealings and curious business partnerships, it is Hunter Biden who takes the cake. Be it in his home state of Delaware, in the Ukraine, in China, or during his very brief stint in the navy, Hunter Biden has raised eyebrows and suspicions wherever he has gone.
What follows is but a very brief recap:
In Delaware in the mid-to-late 1990s, Hunter Biden got a sweetheart job, and then consulting contract, with Delaware based financial services company MBNA. Not by coincidence, this came during the time his father represented the state of Delaware as its senior senator.
Also, not by coincidence, and for good reason, Senator Joe Biden’s nickname in his home state of Delaware was “Senator MBNA.”
This father-son, giant-bank, too-good-to-be-legitimate arrangement soon caught the attention of famous NBC News journalist Tom Brokaw. In 2008, Brokaw said to Senator, soon-to-be Vice President Joe Biden: “Wasn’t it inappropriate for someone like you in the middle of all this [the banking collapse of 2008] to have your son collecting money from this big credit card company while you were on the floor [of the Senate] protecting its interests?”
Next, we have Hunter Biden’s connection to Amtrak. Apparently, because he actually rode on Amtrak trains from time to time, he was appointed—and then confirmed by the Senate—for a very lucrative seat on the Amtrak board.
Come 2014, and we find that Hunter Biden was kicked out of the navy after less than a year from a part-time position as a public affairs officer. The reason given was that he tested positive for cocaine.
While still in 2014, we find that Hunter Biden has magically been appointed to the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings. This in spite of the fact that not only did Hunter Biden not speak Ukrainian, but he had no relevant natural gas experience.
As that was the case, why, oh, why would this Ukrainian gas company put Hunter Biden on its board? Could it be that Joe Biden was vice president of the United States at the time and that the Ukrainian gas company needed Hunter Biden so they could curry favor with his father?
The next question: How could Hunter Biden be getting $50,000 per month from this company? Could that have been his going price to sell access to his father? Curious minds most certainly want to know.
Next, we come to quite possibly the most troubling corruption connection involving Hunter Biden. That being his position as one of nine directors on the board of BHR—a private-equity company controlled by Chinese government–backed stakeholders.
Among many others who found this business connection with a Chinese-controlled company very disturbing were Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairman Ron Johnson (R-WS). Said Grassley and Johnson in part: “In December of 2013, one month after Rosemont Seneca’s joint venture with Bohai Capital to form BHR, Hunter Biden reportedly flew aboard Air Force Two with then Vice President Biden to China.…”
Hello.
Does anyone plan to connect those dots?
Aside from some in the Senate, you can bet Judicial Watch has been working overtime to connect those dots and many others. In fact, we just uncovered Secret Service records showing that Hunter Biden was quite the world traveler while his father was serving as vice president. During the first five and a half years of the Obama administration, Hunter Biden traveled extensively while receiving a Secret Service protective detail. During the time period of the records provided, Hunter took 411 separate domestic and international flights, including to 29 different foreign countries.25 He visited China five times!
Judicial Watch’s February 7, 2020, Freedom of Information Act request sought:
Records reflecting the dates and locations of travel, international and domestic, for Hunter Biden while he received a U.S. Secret Service protective detail; please note whether his travel was on Air Force One or Two, or other government aircraft, as applicable and whether additional family members were present for each trip; time frame is 2001 to present.
The Secret Service did not indicate, as was requested, whether Biden’s travel was on Air Force One, Air Force Two, or other government aircraft, or whether additional family members were present.
The Secret Service records show that countries and territories visited by Hunter Biden, between June 2009 and May 2014, included:
Ethiopia and India on June 14–22, 2009
Argentina on September 14–17, 2009
France and Spain on November 9–13, 2009
Canada on February 12–15, 2010
Dominican Republic on February 18–22, 2010
Puerto Rico on March 20–27, 2010
China on April 6–9, 2010
Belgium, Spain, and the United Kingdom on May 5–8, 2010
UK, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Ascension Island, U.S. Virgin Islands on June 6–13, 2010
Denmark and South Africa on August 9–24, 2010
Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China on April 16–22, 2011
Mexico on May 15–17, 2011
Colombia, France, United Arab Emirates, and France again on November 1–11, 2011
UK and Russia on February 15–18, 2012
Germany, France, and UK on February 1–5, 2013
UK and Ireland on March 20–22, 2013
China on June 13–15, 2013
Switzerland and Italy on July 26–August 7, 2013
Japan, China, South Korea, and the Philippines on December 2–9, 2013
China and Qatar on May 7–14, 2014
The records were also provided, but were not made public, to Senate Finance Committee chairman Chuck Grassley and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee chairman Ron Johnson in a request the senators sent to Secret Service director James Murray on February 5, 2020.
In its cover letter to Grassley and Johnson, which was included in the records produced to Judicial Watch, the Secret Service said that the senators’ request was time- and labor-intensive, and they could only provide a limited amount of information by the senators’ imposed turnaround time of February 19.
(This is an example of Congress getting and then sitting on records of intense public interest. If we hadn’t released them, who knows when the Senate would have publicized them!)
Again, we know that Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden flew on Air Force Two for the official trip to Beijing in December 2013. The records obtained by Judicial Watch from the Secret Service show Hunter Biden arrived in Tokyo on December 2, 2013, and departed for Beijing two days later. While it is typical for the families of the president and vice president to travel with them, questions have been raised about whether Hunter Biden used the government trip to further his business interests.
NBC reporter Josh Lederman, who was one of four reporters on the December 2013 trip, noted in an October 2, 2019, report,26 “What wasn’t known then was that as he accompanied his father to China, Hunter Biden was forming a Chinese private equity fund that associates said at the time was planning to raise big
money, including from China.”
But even more important than any possible corruption involving the Biden family is the role Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter played in changing American history… for the worse.
For, as discussed earlier, the impeachment of President Donald J. Trump in the House of Representatives—which quickly led to a landslide acquittal in the United States Senate—came about because President Trump legally and quite naturally asked Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to look into the investigation regarding then Vice President Joe Biden’s admitted role on videotape in ousting a Ukrainian prosecutor who also had been investigating the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings, where Hunter Biden held a very lucrative board position.
The Democrats were so unnerved by President Trump’s focus they conspired to undo our republic by trying to drive him out of office for daring to ask a question about Biden’s very real corruption issue.
Once again, it has been left to Judicial Watch to do the basic investigative work that the Department of Justice should also be doing as well, given the strong evidence of criminal misconduct by at least Hunter Biden.
With regard to Hunter Biden, there is no evidence it was a legitimate business relationship with Burisma—the background or capability to serve on the board… The payments were out of the ordinary and extraordinary suggesting some other improprieties.
Judicial Watch will continue to press for information to get to the bottom of this influence-peddling scandal involving Joe Biden and his son.
What follows is a quick rundown on some of that work:
THE BIDEN-UKRAINE WHISTLEBLOWER CONNECTION
Somebody has to try to categorize the various Biden misdeeds. We are happy to assume that role.
With that goal in mind, Judicial Watch filed two FOIA lawsuits against the United States Department of State relating to Burisma Holdings. The first lawsuit seeks records of communications from the U.S. embassy in Kyiv related to Burisma. The second lawsuit seeks records related to a January 19, 2016, meeting at the White House that included Ukrainian prosecutors, embassy officials, and CIA employee Eric Ciaramella, who reportedly worked on Ukraine issues while on detail to both the Obama and Trump White Houses (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State [No. 1:20-cv-000229]) and (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State [No. 1:20-cv-000239]). Again, Ciaramella is widely reported as the person who filed the whistleblower complaint that triggered the impeachment proceedings. His name reportedly was “raised privately in impeachment depositions, according to officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings, as well as in at least one open hearing held by a House committee not involved in the impeachment inquiry.”
The lawsuits were filed after the State Department failed to respond to separate FOIA requests for:
All cables/teletypes or emails sent or addressed to any official, employee, or representative of the Department of State stationed at the U.S. embassy in Kyiv containing the term “Burisma.”
All records regarding the January 19, 2016, meeting at the White House that included State Department Ukrainian resident legal advisor Jeff Cole and U.S. Embassy Kyiv employee Svitlana Pardus.
All records of communication between State Department resident legal advisor Jeff Cole and National Security Council staffer Eric Ciaramella.
All records of communication between U.S. embassy Kyiv employee Svitlana Pardus and National Security Council staffer Eric Ciaramella.
All emails sent by or addressed to State Department resident legal advisor Jeff Cole and/or U.S. embassy Kyiv employee Svitlana Pardus between January 10, 2016, and January 30, 2016.
In April 2014, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies. Hunter was reportedly paid $50,000 a month to, in the words of a Burisma news release, “provide support for the Company among international organizations.” Biden has denied that was his role. Biden had no previous energy experience.
In 2015, Viktor Shokin, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, launched an investigation into allegedly corrupt practices by Burisma. Shokin was ousted in 2016. And in a widely distributed 2018 video from a Council on Foreign Relations meeting, Joe Biden confirmed that he had successfully pressured the Ukrainian government, under threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. government aid, to fire Shokin. Said Biden in part: “I said, I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars. I said, you’re not getting the billion. 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.”
On January 22, 2020, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham reported that New York Times journalist Ken Vogel was investigating the January 19, 2016, meeting at the White House. Vogel had contacted the State Department via email for comment, specifically mentioning concerns about Hunter Biden’s position with Burisma:
We are going to report that [State Department official] Elizabeth Zentos attended a meeting at the White House on 1/19/2016 with Ukrainian prosecutors and embassy officials as well as… [redacted] from the NSC.… The subjects discussed included efforts within the United States government to support prosecutions, in Ukraine and the United Kingdom, of Burisma Holdings… and concerns that Hunter Biden’s position with the company could complicate such efforts.
These lawsuits could confirm that President Trump had every right to be concerned about Ukraine and Biden corruption—and that the impeachment against him was a shameful attempt to cover up these scandals. The anti-Trump bureaucracy knows this. So, sure enough, the Deep State Department has stalled the release of any documents, most recently using the coronavirus as an excuse to completely halt producing of any information.
BIDEN’S CHINAGATE SCANDAL
President Trump was well within his rights to be curious about the dealings of Hunter Biden, period.
We say that because Hunter Biden cast a very wide net in some shady places, looking to haul in some cash.
Knowing that, Judicial Watch filed Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the State and Treasury Departments seeking documents related to consideration by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) of investments in the United States by two companies tied to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden—Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings and China’s Bohai Harvest RST (BHR).
The Judicial Watch lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the State and Treasury Departments failed to respond to June 24, 2019, FOIA requests for CFIUS records related to investments by the Ukrainian company Burisma Holdings Ltd. or any of its affiliated entities and records related to investments by the Chinese company Bohai Harvest RST or any of its affiliated entities (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State [No. 1:19-cv-02960]), (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Treasury [No. 1:19-cv-02961]).
CFIUS is supposed to review “transactions involving foreign investment in the U.S. in order to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.” This is the same entity on which Hillary Clinton served that blessed the controversial Uranium One deal. A deal seemingly greased with millions of foreign funds to Clinton Inc.
Hunter Biden is reported to be one of nine directors of BHR Partners, which was registered twelve days after the vice president’s son, in December 2013, flew to Beijing aboard Air Force Two, while his father made an official visit as vice president. Hunter Biden, then chairman of the private equity firm Rosemont Seneca, reportedly signed a deal with the Chinese government-owned Bank of China to set up the BHR $1 billion joint venture investment fund.
In 2015, BHR Partners participated in a $60 million buyout of Michigan automotive suspension systems maker Henniges Automotive. Henniges produces anti-vibration technologies that have important military uses, particularly in military aircraft.
The Commerce Department recently barred more than two dozen Chinese companies from doing business in the United States, one of which is reported to be Megvi
i Technology, an artificial intelligence company focused on developing facial recognition technology. BHR Partners owns a stake in Megvii.
Even though we had an impeachment that had at its center questions about the misconduct of Biden, that has gone down the DC memory hole.
Hillary Clinton, by comparison, was treated like Nixon by her party’s own Justice Department. She must be shaking her head to see this Justice Department, Congress, and the legacy media virtually ignore these Biden scandals. At least Hillary Clinton faced an investigation and questioning, however rigged. Biden? Nothing, but for Judicial Watch.
As we did with Clinton, it will be up to Judicial Watch to do the heavy lifting on these Biden scandals—no matter what happens on Election Day. In fact, we just sued the University of Delaware on our behalf and for the Daily Caller News Foundation for both his Senate document collection housed there and documents about the university’s machinations to keep them secret.27 Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the university denied its April 30, 2020, FOIA request for:
All records regarding the proposed release of the records pertaining to former vice president Joe Biden’s tenure as a senator that have been housed at the University of Delaware Library since 2012. This request includes all related records of communication between the University of Delaware and any other records created pertaining to any meeting of the board of trustees during which the proposed release of the records was discussed.
All records of communication between any representative of the University of Delaware and former vice president Biden or any other individual acting on his behalf between January 1, 2018, and the present.
On April 30, 2020, the Daily Caller News Foundation submitted its FOIA request to the university for:
All agreements concerning the storage of more than 1,850 boxes of archival records and 415 gigabytes of electronic records from Joe Biden’s Senate career from 1973 through 2009.