Friday, Mar 29, 2024

Evolving Corruption Scandal Engulfs Biden White House

In a May 10 press conference, U.S. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, laid out new findings pertaining to alleged influence-peddling schemes and other unethical conduct involving President Joe Biden, several Biden family members, and foreign nations.

The bombshell report is yet another indication that the Biden family, while Joe Biden was Vice President and before he was the 2020 Democratic nominee, leveraged his political office for financial gain that often involved foreign nationals and businesses.

Comer and a panel of other members said they believe President Biden “has been involved” in his family’s foreign business dealings “from the very beginning.” They told reporters that lawmakers are only “in the beginning stages” of their investigation, a Fox News report said.

“The Bidens’ foreign entanglements are breathtaking and raise serious questions about why foreign actors targeted the Biden family, what they expected in return, and whether our national security is threatened,” Comer said in a press statement.

During the press conference, Rep. Comer unveiled the Oversight Committee’s recent discoveries that the Biden family and associates created a complex network of over 20 apparent shell companies, most of which were established while Joe Biden was serving as Vice President.

Following the subpoena of financial records from multiple banks tied to these companies, the Committee reported that the Biden family had received over $10 million from foreign entities. Bank records show the wire transfers stopped when Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president ended.

Biden Denounced Romanian  Corruption While Money Flowed From Romanian Tycoon

Among sources of funds received by Biden family members through a circuitous route were Chinese nationals “with significant ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” investigators charge.

In addition, the Bidens received about $3 million from Gabriel Popoviciu, a Romanian real estate tycoon convicted on corruption charges.

16 out of 17 wire transfers from Popoviciu were funneled to the Bidens while Joe Biden was vice president. Here, too, the money transfers stopped when Joe Biden left office.

One can’t fail to appreciate the irony that around the same time his son received a massive transfer of money from one of the most corrupt figures in Romania, Biden explained to that country why corruption must remain everyone’s focus.

“Corruption is a cancer, a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy,” he said. “Corruption is just another form of tyranny.”

Vice President Joe Biden was denouncing corruption in Romania and Ukraine and promising action by the United States while massive payments were flowing to his family members.

Large financial payments are normally acquired in exchange for a service or product but nowhere are there any indication of services or merchandise provided.

“The Bidens, Republicans allege, didn’t appear to have any kind of business. They never lifted a finger except, perhaps, to point wealthy foreigners toward their powerful patriarch,” wrote the Washington Times.

“What did they do to warrant receipt of all this money? That is the fundamental question and no one seems to have an answer to that question,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

Former U.S. Attorney Brett Tolman, in an appearance on Fox News’ Trey Gowdy show, expressed his concern over the alleged transactions, saying, “If you can’t identify what the business of those 25 LLCs are, then what you have is a shell game to move money.”

DOJ’s Fraud and Corruption Unit Stumbling

Tolman voiced his disappointment at the growing scandal engulfing the Biden White House. He stressed that such cases involving shell LLCs and the movement of money were once the “bread and butter of the fraud and corruption unit at DOJ.”

The former U.S. Attorney emphasized the DOJ’s seeming reluctance to prosecute specific cases that have potential to impact the political fortunes of certain individuals in high office and the party they represent. “We’re looking at a DOJ who now refuses to prosecute certain cases that have a political angle to them,” he said.

He noted the irony of the department re-prosecuting cases involving individuals granted clemency by former President Donald Trump, while not pursuing potential criminal activity within the Biden family.

“They’ll re-prosecute, you know, Philip Esformes who was given clemency by President Trump, but they won’t go after a Joe Biden family member who appears to be in a crime syndicate,” Tolman said. “The only explanation is that at the executive level of the FBI and the executive level at DOJ, there are political decisions being made.”

He described this as a “tragic” new chapter for those who serve in the DOJ, where impartiality was once a sine qua non but apparently no longer a defining hallmark.

Concealing Large Wire Transfers

Ahead of the press conference, the House Oversight Committee released a 36-page memo detailing a network of secretive bank accounts connected with Hunter and other Bidens, all of whom allegedly used Joe Biden’s position to curry favor with foreign governments and peddle influence on U.S. foreign policy.

Among their findings was evidence of apparently deliberate efforts to conceal large wire transfers to assorted Biden family members. Biden’s children, his brothers Frank and James Biden, the spouses of Joe Biden’s children, Hunter’s former wife and a Joe Biden grandchild were among the recipients of these wire transfers.

Comer said the panel will continue to investigate and has only subpoenaed four banks at this point in the probe, but said lawmakers have identified 12 more they will seek records from.

“Right now, you could say that we’re in the beginning stages of this investigation,” said Comer, who called the press conference “Judgment Day for the White House.”

“Ultimately, we believe the Biden family and their associates courted business in countries that correlated directly with Joe Biden’s work as Vice President,” the Committee said in its press release. “This is not normal. It is not ethical. And this is why we are working towards legislative solutions.”

While the White House attempted to downplay the memo’s release as a political stunt, Comer said there was enough for the committee, members of the press and even the Department of Justice to apply greater scrutiny to events surrounding the transactions.

“This committee will not pursue witch hunts, or string the American people along for years with false promises of evidence that is beyond circumstantial evidence,” Comer vowed.

House Judiciary: The Federal Government Has Been Weaponized

The Department of Justice has spent years investigating allegations of financial wrongdoing on the part of the Biden family, with little to show for the effort. “It is clear the U.S. justice system has hardly scratched the surface of criminal claims against the Bidens,” wrote the Washington Times.

Congress appears to be undertaking the investigative duties that the DOJ could not or would not do. Evidence of stonewalling and outright refusals to comply with requests for information as per public-records laws have characterized the FBI, CIA and the Secret Service.

On May 10, FBI Director Christopher Wray refused to comply with a subpoena sent by Comer in order to obtain an FBI document alleged by a whistleblower to contain evidence of a criminal scheme between a foreign national and then-VP Biden.

The FBI cited “confidentiality interests” in their refusal to send the document to the House Oversight Committee, as well as wishing to “avoid the polarization of disputes.”

This put the FBI in good company with the CIA, which was revealed last week to have played a leading role in a now-discredited letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials, calling the damaging news about Hunter Biden “Russian disinformation.”

These revelations surfaced in a report released by a House Judiciary subcommittee on the “Weaponization of the Federal Government.”

The report, entitled “The Hunter Biden Statement: How Senior Intelligence Community Officials and the Biden Campaign Worked to Mislead American Voters,” described a shocking collaborative effort in the intelligence community to shut down an explosive story that experts say might well have swayed the 2020 election.

Many may remember that before the 2020 presidential election, the New York Post wrote their first expose on Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop.

Just five days following the publication of this story, a statement was issued by 51 former intelligence community officials, indicating that the story exhibited “all the classic earmarks” of Russian disinformation.

Who coordinated this letter and made sure it was published in most mainstream media, so that a surefire scandal that would have damaged Biden’s chances of election was snuffed out before it could ignite?

Shocking Backstory

The shocking backstory, discovered by investigators in the House Judiciary Committee, reads like something out of a novel.

The Committee’s report found that the public statement by 51 former intelligence officials was a well-disguised political operation to help elect Vice President Biden in the 2020 presidential election, writes the Washington Times.

According to the report, shortly after the New York Post story broke, Biden campaign advisor who is now Secretary of State Antony Blinken contacted former CIA Director Michael Morell and encouraged him to draft that “intelligence community” statement.

Morell testified to the Oversight Committee that he began drafting the statement following the directive coming from the Biden campaign, and that it “would not have happened but for Blinken’s communication.”

The operation relied on the national security credentials of the 51 signatories to the letter to bury the Hunter Biden laptop story. That letter led subsequently to the censoring of the New York Post’s report by large social media corporations, including Facebook and Twitter, attests the Washington Times.

Major news outlet followed suit, agreeing not to cover true information about Hunter Biden.

Media Continues to Ignore Compelling Evidence

It took two years for most major media outlets to admit that the laptop was authentic. But even after the admission, the media proceeded to ignore or downplay what was on that authentic laptop.

“Hundreds of emails detailed potentially criminal conduct and influence peddling in foreign countries,” wrote The Hill in an editorial.

“When media outlets such as the New York Post confirmed the emails, the media then insisted there was no corroboration of the influence-peddling payments and no clear proof of criminal conduct. It entirely ignored the obvious corruption itself.”

Now that the House has released corroboration in actual money transfers, the media insists this does not constitute a smoking gun because direct proof of payments to Joe Biden is lacking, the article noted.

“The media’s demand of a direct payment to President Biden is laughably absurd. The whole purpose of influence peddling is to use family members as shields for corrupt officials. Instead of making a direct payment to a politician, which could be seen as a bribe, you can give millions to his or her spouse or children,” the editorial argued.

“The House has shown millions of dollars going to at least nine Bidens, like dividends from a family business. Moreover, these emails include references to Joe Biden getting a 10 percent cut of one Chinese deal. It also shows Biden associates warning not to use Joe Biden’s name but to employ code names like “the Big Guy.”

Perhaps the crowning incriminatory statement is from Hunter who complains in an email that his father is taking half of everything that he is raking in, the article noted.

Secret Service Refuses to Turn Over Docs

In addition to refusals by the FBI and the CIA to turn over documents requisitioned by Congress, the Secret Service, a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, is refusing to hand over emails that identify visitors to President Biden’s homes in Delaware, according to the NY Post.

“The information could bear on allegations involving the Biden family’s business dealings and the president’s mishandled classified records,” the Post article said. Yet “the Secret Service flatly refused to supply records after months of delay.”

In what appears to be a long runaround, the Secret Service first told the NY Post, in response to a FOIA request submitted in September 2022, that it would expedite the matter. “Please be advised, we are currently reviewing thousands of records in an effort to locate any documents responsive to your request,” a Secret Service spokesman wrote.

Months passed with no further word from the Agency.

In the wake of further requests from the NY Post, a FOIA officer at the Agency wrote in March that “no responsive records” were found after an “additional search of relevant program offices.”

The NY Post then filed an appeal. Finally, after more than a seven-month delay, the Agency
responded with a very different answer. No longer did it deny the existence of relevant records but instead claimed that they could not be released because it was “illegal to do so.”

“Please be advised that emails reflecting visitors to President Biden’s residences in Wilmington, Delaware and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware are not agency records subject to the FOIA,” an official of the department said in a letter.

The official cited a federal appeals court ruling in New York that in 2020 turned down a request for visitor information for former President Donald Trump’s residences, even though that ruling doesn’t bind the actions of officials in Delaware or in DC.

“President Biden continues to hide information at every turn,” said Rep. James Comer on the Sean Hannity show. Given the Bidens’ influence-peddling schemes and Joe Biden stashing classified documents for years, Americans need to know who has visited President Biden’s homes and properties.”

The Oversight Committee also has requested the records. Rep. Comer initially sought Delaware visitor logs in January as the classified documents scandal grew — with the president admitting that he kept records next to his Corvette.

Biden’s routine of traveling to one of his Delaware homes on weekends prompted interest in who the visitors to these residences were, especially after evidence emerged from Hunter Biden’s laptop that Hunter took business associates to these residences while Joe Biden was VP.

He also reportedly introduced his father to partners from two separate Chinese businesses.

The Oversight Committee is still awaiting a response to its requests for the visitor logs.

“If these allegations—any of these allegations—are proven true, someone with the last name Biden needs to be charged and prosecuted,” South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace said following the press conference.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, is reportedly close to a decision on charging Hunter Biden with crimes including tax fraud, money laundering and unregistered foreign lobbying. Whether anything substantial will finally materialize from its two-year investigation only time will tell.

 

*****

Masters of the Spin

Despite being shown evidence that nine Biden family members allegedly received funds from corrupt figures in Romania, China and other countries, most mainstream media have either ignored the story or circulated false messaging that spins the facts to suit their agenda.

The New York Times proclaimed, “House Republican Report Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by President Biden.”  Its sub-headline announced: “After months of investigation and many public accusations of corruption against Mr. Biden and his family, the first report of the premier House GOP inquiry showed no proof of such misconduct.”

The New Republic ran a story headlined, “Republicans Finally Admit They Have No Incriminating Evidence on Joe Biden.”

These headlines imply that despite evidence of money laundering and financial dealings with hostile foreign governments tied to all Biden family members, the consensus is that there are no grounds to suspect Joe Biden was implicated. And even if he was, no reason to investigate whether national security was compromised.

This of course is pure spin. The House Judiciary report is about as damning as an interim report can be, notes the Washington Times editorial.

The headlines are highly misleading in another way. “They ignore that evidence clearly shows President Biden “lied about his family not receiving Chinese funds, or that he never had any knowledge of his son’s business dealings,” the editorial points out.

“My son has not made money in terms of this thing about China. The only guy who made money is this guy [Donald Trump]. He’s the only one. Nobody else has made money from China,” insisted Biden in the Oct. 2020 presidential debate, when asked if his son Hunter had ever received any money from China.

“There may not be a smoking gun, but there’s plenty of suspicious smoke worth investigating,” editorialized the Wall Street Journal in its report on the findings of the House Oversight Committee.

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