The Hunter Biden saga rages on.
Could the president’s son end up in jail?
What happens next?
Hunter Biden: The Saga Continues
The Hunter Biden story is a case of “classic corruption,” George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley wrote in The New York Post. He alleges that Hunter Biden became a sort of fall guy in the family’s influence-peddling schemes.
“Joe and Jim Biden were propping up a man who was barely able to function. However, Hunter was still the conduit for alleged millions in foreign money. He was the firebreak between the money and any scandal,” Turley wrote. “This was made evident in a recent and rare sit-down interview; MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle delicately broached the scandals involving Hunter by emphasizing that it is a ‘personal’ matter and assuring the president (and the viewers) that the still-unknown charges involve ‘no ties to you.’”
Turley continued: “Hunter increasingly looks like the designated defendant of the Bidens — the sin-eater who may have to take one for the team in the form of a couple of tax charges.”
GOP Details Web of Biden LLCs
The Republicans in the House Oversight and Accountability Committee released documents showing a tangled web of LLCs used by the Biden family to allegedly conceal millions of dollars in transactions coming from foreign interests.
Turley alleges that emails suggest that the president’s brother, Jim Biden, offered Hunter Biden a “safe harbor” amid his collapsing life and chronic drug abuse. Hunter Biden told his uncle that he could not afford food and gas because of the alimony payments to his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle.
The messages show that Hunter Biden was a mess at the time money was being funneled to him by foreign sources. In 2018, the Bidens had reportedly been receiving monies from Ukraine, China, Romania, Mexico, and other sources.
A 2018 New York Times story about the Biden family’s involvement in deals connected with Ye Jianming, the disappeared former head of CEFC China Energy, shook the Biden’s world.
“Nevertheless, Joe Biden repeatedly claimed as a presidential candidate and as president that he had no knowledge of any foreign dealings of his son. Those denials now appear patently false,” Turley wrote.
Joe Biden was caught in a voicemail message calling Hunter Biden and telling him that he was in the clear when it came to the story. Biden associates pressured the Times to alter unflattering aspects of the story.
Ye had reportedly been the source of millions to the Biden family through its web of LLCs. He also had been the deputy secretary general of the China Association for International Friendly Contact (CAIFC), an arm of Chinese military intelligence.
Democrats Assert No Criminality
Thus far, no hard evidence of criminality involving the president has emerged.
Democrats downplay the Hunter Biden probe and the web of LLCs. They say the recent House GOP report shows no evidence that President Biden was involved even though Hunter Biden associate Tony Bobulinski attested that he was “The Big Guy” mentioned in an email in May 2017 about a CEFC transaction in Louisiana.
“Republicans have no evidence that Joe Biden was involved in shady business dealings, and even Fox News knows it,” Tori Otten wrote in The New Republic earlier this month. “House Republicans accused the president and his family Wednesday of engaging in business with foreign entities, but they were unable to provide any actual evidence linking Biden to any wrongdoing”
Otten noted that even Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy had challenged Comer about how his committee’s report on the LLCs failed to establish criminality involving the president.
“Since taking control of the House of Representatives, Republicans have been obsessed with trying to dig up dirt on the Biden family, particularly Biden’s son Hunter. Even though the United States has just weeks before it could default on its debt, the GOP is apparently more interested in personal vendettas than leading the country,” Otten wrote.
Republicans Threaten Contempt Charges Against the FBI
Republicans hope to obtain an FD-1023 form that a whistleblower alleges proves that the president engaged in a $5 million bribery scheme while vice president.
“Information from confidential human sources is unverified and, by definition, incomplete,” wrote FBI acting assistant director for congressional affairs Christopher Dunham, who also argued that informant reports must also be kept private to protect sources, in May explaining why the document was being withheld from Congress.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., announced Tuesday that his committee would take steps to compel FBI Director Christopher Wray to comply with his committee’s subpoena for the document. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy threatened criminal contempt charges against Wray unless the document is handed over.
From 19FortyFive: Are We Watching the End of Donald Trump?
From 19FortyFive: Liz Cheney: Could She Join the Democratic Party?
From 19FortyFive: Liz Cheney: The Next President of the United States?
John Rossomando was a senior analyst for Defense Policy and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
