Tag Archives: Hunter Biden

Hunter takes a plea to end a long running investigation by the DOJ

Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the extortion[a] of the poor, or the perversion[b] of justice and fairness in the government, [c] do not be astonished by the matter. For the high official is watched by a higher official, [d] and there are higher ones over them! [e]

Important Takeaways:

  • Hunter Biden Agrees to Plead Guilty to Federal Charges
  • President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been charged with failing to pay federal income tax and illegally possessing a weapon and has reached an agreement with the Justice Department, according to a letter filed in U.S. District Court in Delaware.
  • As part of the agreement, made public Tuesday, Hunter Biden will plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses and is expected to reach an agreement with prosecutors on the felony charge of illegally possessing a firearm as a drug user. It is somewhat unusual to resolve a federal criminal case at the same time the charges are filed in court, though it is not totally unheard of.
  • The deal ends a long-running Justice Department investigation into Biden’s second son, who has acknowledged struggling with addiction following the 2015 death of his brother Beau Biden. It also averts a trial that would have generated days or weeks of distracting headlines for a White House that has strenuously sought to keep its distance from the Justice Department.
  • Christopher Clark, a lawyer for the younger Biden, said in a statement it was his understanding the five-year investigation had now been resolved.
  • The news comes as congressional Republicans pursue their own investigations into nearly every facet of Hunter Biden’s business dealings, including examining foreign payments and other aspects of his finances. It also comes days after a 37-count indictment came down against former President Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents on his Florida estate, another case with even more dramatic political implications.

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Hunter Biden Whistleblowers are being targeted; Time to clean House at the DOJ

IRS Building

Ecclesiastes 5:8 If you see the extortion[a] of the poor, or the perversion[b] of justice and fairness in the government,[c] do not be astonished by the matter. For the high official is watched by a higher official,[d] and there are higher ones over them![e]

Important Takeaways:

  • IRS Chief: I Didn’t Retaliate Against Hunter Biden Probe Whistleblowers—It Was the DOJ
  • In response to the whistleblowers who alleged that the IRS gave preferential treatment to first son Hunter Biden being abruptly taken off the case last week in what appeared to be an obvious retaliatory move, Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Daniel Werfel said that it wasn’t his call.
  • Instead, it was the Department of Justice.
  • No surprise there, considering we’re living under probably the most politicized DOJ in our history, one that routinely applies two different standards depending on which side of the political aisle someone stands on.
  • As RedState’s Bonchie reported last week, a whistleblower claimed that the entire IRS team working on the Hunter Biden probe was removed from the case. The whistleblower’s attorneys formally alleged that the move was “clearly retaliatory” in a letter to Congress soon after.
  • In an April 27 appearance before the committee, the commissioner said “I can say without any hesitation there will be no retaliation for anyone making an allegation or a call to a whistleblower hotline.”
  • That didn’t age well.
  • As I reported in April, an IRS watchdog turned whistleblower alleged that federal prosecutors engaged in “preferential treatment and politics” in their treatment of President Joe Biden’s son Hunter—and even tried to block criminal tax charges against him. On Monday, a second whistleblower was revealed who worked under the original informant and who backed his claims. He was immediately threatened with prosecution from IRS brass. Meanwhile, there are multiple whistleblowers over at the FBI alleging corruption within its ranks.
  • It’s apparent that Attorney General Merrick Garland and the DOJ aren’t even bothering to pretend anymore that their raison d’être is to pursue equal justice for all. They—the very people in charge of upholding the law—think they’re above it.

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1,000 page report on FBI and DOJ being Weaponized against opponents

Important Takeaways:

  • Republicans release 1,000-page report on whistleblower claims of politicization at FBI and DOJ
  • The report also accuses the bureau of “weaponizing” the federal government against its political opponents and aims to show how FBI leadership is biased against conservatives, particularly senior officials pressuring agents to reclassify cases as domestic violent extremism.
  • Other findings included in the report are:
    • The FBI downplayed and reduced the spread of the serious allegations of wrongdoing leveled against President Biden’s son Hunter.
    • The Justice Department and FBI used counterterrorism resources to target parents protesting local school boards.
    • The FBI abused its foreign surveillance authorities.
    • The Justice Department and FBI conducted the unprecedented raid on the home of a former president.
    • The Justice Department and the FBI have allowed attacks on pro-life facilities and churches to continue while pushing a pro-choice agenda.
    • The FBI has helped Big Tech to censor Americans’ political speech.

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U.S. investigators raid Giuliani apartment in New York

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Federal investigators on Wednesday executed a search warrant at the Manhattan apartment of Rudolph Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and personal lawyer to former U.S. President Donald Trump, as they probe his business dealings with Ukraine.

A lawyer for Giuliani, Bob Costello, confirmed that a search warrant had been executed. Electronic devices were among the items seized, according to The New York Times. Giuliani did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have been investigating Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine.

While the search warrant does not mean Giuliani committed a crime, it signals that investigators persuaded a judge they believed criminal conduct occurred and that executing the warrant might uncover relevant evidence.

“This is a seismic moment in the investigation,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

“It’s a big deal to execute a search warrant concerning an attorney because of issues of attorney-client privilege,” she said. “It’s a bigger deal to execute a search warrant of an attorney who worked for the former president.”

Giuliani, 76, began representing Trump, a fellow Republican, in April 2018 in connection with former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Giuliani’s role in Washington was complex, with the former mayor frequently proclaiming himself a business consultant and lawyer in the private sector even as he enjoyed extraordinary access to the halls of power.

Giuliani eventually became a key figure into whether Trump abused his office for personal political gain in his dealings with Ukraine.

His work included an investigation before the 2020 election into now-President Joe Biden and his son Hunter’s dealings in Ukraine. The Bidens have denied wrongdoing.

Two former Giuliani associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, have been charged with campaign finance violations and other crimes.

Parnas’ and Fruman’s work included efforts to help Giuliani dig up damaging information about the Bidens, and what prosecutors called an effort to remove then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

Giuliani gained early renown in the 1980’s as the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, where he put leaders of five New York Mafia families in prison and successfully prosecuted Wall Street’s “junk bond king,” Michael Milken.

He later won wide acclaim as “America’s Mayor” for his efforts in helping New York City recover from the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Giuliani ran unsuccessfully for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York, and Jan Wolfe and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Jonathan Oatis)

Trump says he is not involved in potential prosecution of Biden’s son Hunter

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump said on Thursday that he had nothing to do with any potential prosecution of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, who has disclosed that his taxes are being investigated by a federal prosecutor in Delaware.

“I have NOTHING to do with the potential prosecution of Hunter Biden, or the Biden family. It is just more Fake News. Actually, I find it very sad to watch!” the Republican president wrote on Twitter.

His Twitter post came a day after Jeffrey Rosen, the incoming acting attorney general, declined to say in an interview with Reuters whether or not he would appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden and his foreign business dealings.

Hunter Biden on Dec. 9 disclosed that his tax affairs were under investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware, part of the Justice Department.

A person familiar with the matter told Reuters that the investigation has been ongoing for at least two years, but Attorney General William Barr managed to keep it under wraps ahead of the 2020 election.

An attorney for Hunter Biden could not immediately be reached for comment.

Trump and his allies have raised questions about potential conflicts of interest from Hunter Biden’s position on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma at the time his father was vice president under Democratic President Barack Obama. Trump and his allies also have called for investigations into Hunter Biden’s efforts to raise capital for a Chinese fund.

Among the most active in urging a criminal investigation into the Biden family has been Rudolph Giuliani. Barr set up a special intake process at the Justice Department to vet and investigate tips related to Ukraine, including evidence that Giuliani had gathered.

Giuliani and his attorney Robert Costello were invited on Jan. 29 to the FBI field office in Pittsburgh to meet with Scott Brady, the region’s U.S. attorney, and several other prosecutors and FBI agents to present evidence they had collected concerning Hunter Biden, Costello told Reuters in an interview this month.

“They had two FBI agents taking notes on their laptops,” Costello said, noting that Giuliani “did the vast majority of the speaking.”

Costello added that since that meeting, the top assistant in Brady’s office and he had followed up somewhere between six and 10 times.

It is unclear exactly what became of the information once it was handed to Brady’s office, and whether it was forwarded to the prosecutors in Delaware who are handling the Hunter Biden investigation.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Additional reporting by Pete Schroeder and Steve Holland; Editing by Will Dunham)

U.S. Republican senators ask Treasury for suspicious activity reports on Hunter Biden

By Richard Cowan and Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Republican chairmen of two U.S. Senate committees have asked the Treasury Department to provide any reports of money laundering or fraud related to former Vice President Joe Biden’s son’s business dealings with a Ukraine energy firm, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Friday.

The letter seeks “suspicious activity reports,” which are documents that financial institutions file with the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network whenever there is a suspected case of money laundering or fraud. It was unclear whether any such reports exist related to Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son.

The request comes as Republicans seek to defend President Donald Trump against a Democrat-led impeachment probe into whether the president improperly pressured Ukraine to investigate the Bidens to improve his reelection chances.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson sent the request in a letter dated Nov. 15 to Treasury Department Director of Financial Crimes Enforcement Network Ken Blanco.

The chairmen said they want information by Dec. 5 related to Hunter Biden, who was on the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, which had been under investigation in Ukraine.

In their letter the senators noted Burisma was paying Hunter Biden as much as $50,000 a month and that their panels are investigating “potentially improper actions by the Obama administration with respect to Burisma Holdings and Ukraine.”

Grassley and Johnson, citing a story by a reporter with conservative ties, said Burisma’s consulting firm Blue Star Strategies used Biden’s board membership to gain access to Obama administration officials at the State Department.

The Bidens have denied any wrongdoing.

The elder Biden is a leading Democratic candidate for president in next year’s U.S. elections in which Trump is seeking a second four-year term.

Grassley and Johnson also said on Friday that they have asked the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration for records of 2016 White House meetings between Obama administration officials, Ukrainian government representatives and officials of the Democratic National Committee.

Trump and Republicans in Congress have been ramping up their rhetoric on the Bidens as the November 2020 U.S. elections near and as Democrats in the House of Representatives intensify their impeachment investigation of Trump.

Democrats are looking into whether Trump used the withholding of U.S. aid to Ukraine as leverage to press Kiev to launch investigations into the Bidens and allegations Ukraine meddled in the 2016 U.S. elections to hurt the Trump campaign. U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded it was Russia that tried to influence the 2016 election in favor of Trump.

On Thursday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, an ally of Trump’s, wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo requesting documents related to 2016 contacts between the Bidens, other Obama administration officials and former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.

Trump has denied doing anything improper in Ukraine and has called the impeachment inquiry a witch hunt.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici and Richard Cowan; editing by Richard Valdmanis and Cynthia Osterman)