Hunter Biden stands above prior controversial presidential relatives in terms of how close his problems have come to the sitting president of the United States. Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy Carter, embarrassed his brother Jimmy Carter, over his dealings with Libya in contravention of U.S. government policy.
Roger Clinton embarrassed Bill Clinton to the point the Secret Service gave him the codename “Headache” due to his chaotic criminal behavior. Jared Kushner received billions from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund after Donald Trump left office.
Circumstantial Evidence Ties Joe Biden to Son’s Deals
Hunter Biden and Joe Biden stand alone in this ignominious grouping because there is circumstantial evidence that the president was directly involved in the relative’s scheme.
A May 2017 email from Hunter Biden’s business partner James Gilliar referred to Joe Biden as “the Big Guy” and said 10% of a business deal involving CEFC China Energy in Louisiana would go to him.
The FBI FD-1023 form offers circumstantial evidence that the president may have received a $5 million bribe from Burisma chief Viktor Shokin to pressure Ukraine’s government to fire its Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Hunter Biden’s business partner Devon Archer attested that Joe Biden was the “brand” of their operation and that they were selling access to the then vice-president during closed-door testimony on Monday.
Archer noted that Joe Biden participated in at least 20 phone calls with potential business clients. Democrats were quick to point out that Archer did not corroborate the FD-1023 and had no knowledge of any bribery scheme.
“Let’s remember, he was on the Burisma board with Hunter Biden. So he ― as a board member, he would have known if Burisma was paying a bribe to any of the Bidens,” Rep Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., said.
Goldman continued: “The witness repeated over and over and over again, that the President Biden never discussed any business dealings of Hunter’s with Hunter or anyone else.”
The FD-1023 claimed that Burisma chief Volodymyr Zlochevksy put Hunter Biden on his board even though he disrespected him because he believed that Joe Biden would protect his company.
“Joe Biden was ‘the brand’ that his son sold around the world to enrich the Biden family,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer alleged that Archer had said. “When Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States, he joined Hunter Biden’s dinners with his foreign business associates in person or by speakerphone over 20 times. When Burisma’s owner faced pressure from the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating the company for corruption, Archer testified that Burisma executives asked Hunter to ‘call D.C.’ after a Burisma board meeting in Dubai.”
The transcript of the testimony has not been released.
Lack of Corroboration Raises Doubts
Until someone like Oleksandr Ostapenko, who allegedly was a witness to Zlochevsky’s claim that he bribed Joe Biden, or Zlochevsky himself comes forward there will continue to be skeptics. The FBI informant responsible for the FD-1023 could not corroborate Zlochevsky’s claim to having bribed the Bidens.
“Until it is proved otherwise, I will find it extremely hard to believe that the president was a party to his son’s nefarious schemes,” Washington Post columnist Joe Klein writes. “But he enabled them. What on earth was Hunter Biden doing on that 2013 plane to China with his father, then the vice president? Why, after all of Hunter Biden’s dealings with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, did Joe Biden countenance hundreds of thousands of dollars in “art sales” by his son in recent years, art — to my untrained eye — best displayed on the walls of budget motels?
Klein continued: “Who bought the stuff and why? Why was Joe Biden — one of the most empathic pols I’ve met; at least, he played one on TV — so slow to embrace the grandchild that Hunter Biden had fathered? Why, after the younger Biden tried to cop to a plea deal on tax and gun charges, did the elder Biden invite him to, of all places, a White House state dinner?”
Archer alleged that Joe Biden had coffee with Jonathan Li, who is tied to the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC), which a July 2022 report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), described as “’the coordinating force behind China’s most prominent mechanisms of state and local influence’ in the United States” during that 2013 meeting.
Joe Biden allegedly wrote a letter helping Li’s daughter get into college in response to the meeting, according to Archer. Li formed a business partnership with the Bidens called Bohai Harvest (BHR).
Democrats prefer to see the issue as a family issue of a compassionate father who loves his errant son instead of taking the allegations seriously. Klein exemplifies this.
“I have been mystified by Democrats’ — and Republicans’ — inability to address an issue that has afflicted so many families, red and blue. Joe Biden could put his personal suffering to great public use and help rectify that,” Klein writes.
Still, the Hunter Biden problem is one that could sink Joe Biden’s presidency.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst 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.
From 19FortyFive
