Why Did Hunter Finally Appear?

 Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden finally appeared today before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, the Judiciary Committee, and the Ways and Means Committee for a closed-door deposition that last seven hours. Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal reported that Hunter was a belligerent witness, but he never took the Fifth Amendment. He showed scorn for the House impeachment inquiry by saying that it has been “MAGA-Motivated.” 

The reason that Hunter Biden was testifying under oath before the congressional committees is that he is a “key witness in our investigation of President Joe Biden,” according to James Comer (R-Ky), Chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. Comer added that evidence found so far shows “Public Corruption 101.”

According to Lucas, Hunter Biden, his lawyer Abbe Lowell, and Democrats on the committees claim that the investigation has not found any evidence to support the idea that Hunter had business transactions with his father. Lucas continued his article as follows.

The three House committees deposed James Biden last week. Key Biden family business associates also have been deposed, including Devon Archer. 

Several Biden family business associates have told congressional investigators that Joe Biden—while serving for eight years as vice president and during his four years between offices—made personal appearances and called in by speakerphone to various business contacts. Biden himself has contended for years that he had no involvement in family business matters. 

The House’s impeachment investigation was dealt at least a public relations blow earlier this month, when special counsel David Weiss secured a federal grand jury indictment against veteran FBI informant Alexander Smirnov for lying to the FBI when he claimed to have information about a $5 million bribe to Joe Biden in 2016. 

The president and other Democrats pounced, saying the entire impeachment inquiry should be shut down as a result. 

It certainly is interesting how the same Democrats who were so eager to impeach Donald Trump – twice- without evidence are now unwilling to see evidence about the Biden family corruption that is right before their faces. If the information found by the House committees is true, then the truth will soon be evident to all.

What Did the Whistleblowers Say?

The promised testimony from two veteran IRS whistleblowers was heard today by members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. They gave details about how officials in the Justice Department slowed or impeded an investigation of Hunter Biden unpaid taxes. Republicans tried to obtain as many details as possible from the whistleblowers, while Democrats tried multiple times to bring Donald Trump into the discussion and to disparage the whistleblowers.

IRS supervisor Gary Shapley went public several weeks ago, but IRS agent Joseph Ziegler, from Shapley’s office, identified himself publicly for the first time today. Among other things, Ziegler, a Democrat, called for a special counsel to look at the plea deal made between the DOJ and Hunter Biden. The agreement says that Hunter Biden will avoid prison by pleading guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failure to file income taxes. The deal was reached even though there is evidence that Hunter Biden used his father’s name to make millions of dollars dealing with China, Ukraine, Russia, and other nations. Fred Lucas at The Daily Signal found the following highlights in the hearing today. 

1. ‘Investigative Steps That Involved President Biden.’

Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., brought up an FBI form in which a confidential informant says an executive of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid a $5 million bribe to Joe Biden while he was vice president and made a separate $5 million payment to Hunter Biden….

Shapley replied that knows only what has been reported about that.

“I can say there were investigative steps that involved President Biden that were not allowed to be taken,” Shapley told the committee. “Information like this would have been really helpful to have for investigators when we received any pushback….”

Palmer sked whether IRS investigators weren’t allowed to see other evidence. In answering, Shapley referred to Assistant U.S. Attorney for Delaware Lesley Wolf, who works for the official who is supposed to be in charge of the investigation: U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss.

“One piece was the Hunter Biden laptop,” Shapley told Palmer, then referred to previous sworn testimony in which he mentioned his own memo that “documented contemporaneously” what Wolf told IRS and Justice Department investigators Sept. 3, 2020.

Wolf said that “they had information from the laptop that they were not providing to the investigators,” Shapley told Palmer….

2. $17 Million From Foreign Interests.

House Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., asked Ziegler about the amount of money that Hunter Biden and his business associates collected from foreign companies over the years.

“How much money did Hunter Biden and his associates receive from the Romanian company you identified?” Comer asked.

Ziegler responded: “The approximate total transfer from the Romanian company would have been $3.1 million to everyone.”

[Comer asked Ziegler about other companies: State Energy HK Ltd. Through the Robinson Walker LLC - $3 million; Burisma - $7.3 million]

 

 

3. ‘Who Are You Going to Believe?’

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a member of the Oversight Committee who also chairs the House Judiciary Committee, noted multiple contradictions from the Justice Department.

Jordan kept asking, “Who are you going to believe?” in comparing the Justice Department with the IRS whistleblowers who said the Justice Department slow-walked and impeded the investigation of Hunter Biden….

“Who are you going to believe?” he asked. “The Justice Department that can’t get their story straight, change three times in 33 days, or these two guys, the go-to guys in international tax evasion cases, the A-team when it comes to these kind[s] of investigations, all over the world they’ve done this, and have been consistent throughout?”

4. ‘Afraid to Ask Questions’

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Ziegler said, the Justice Department used that as grounds not to follow certain leads because of a policy against election interference. But, he said, after Biden was elected, the investigation of his son was “hamstrung.”

“When it came to questions as a part of the investigation, we interviewed a lot of people,” Ziegler said. “As a part of that investigation, you want to feel free to ask questions. It should be an open environment. [But] there was an environment when we were interviewing witnesses when you were afraid to ask questions that could lead to the presidential campaign. And this is after the campaign is over, it was restricted.” ….

[Shapely was asked about who POTUS in the fall of 2020 was.] “Joe Biden at the time was a nominee for president of the United States. Therefore, the election clause with DOJ policy was in effect. It wasn’t until Sept. 4, 2020, that the Department of Justice Public Integrity [Section] said we could no longer take any action on that case. As early as April to June of 2020, the Department of Justice, Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, was already involving the election as a reason not to perform those search warrants.”

What Took So Long for News about Hunter Biden to Come Out?

             Hunter Biden, son of presidential candidate Joe Biden, revealed that federal prosecutors in Delaware contacted him about an investigation into his “tax affairs.” Since the Department of Justice (DOJ) never comments on ongoing investigations, what does Hunter Biden gain by making the investigation public? Another question must be, what will be included in the investigation?

            According to CNN, the investigation is “examining multiple financial issues, including whether Hunter Biden and associates violated tax and money laundering laws in business dealings in foreign countries, principally China.” CNN also reported that the investigation had been “largely dormant in recent months” due to Justice Department rules that bar taking legal actions in cases that could affect an election.

This begs another question: would public knowledge of the investigation have changed minds about voting for Biden? It probably would have changed some minds. However, I doubt that it would have changed the minds of many of the Trump-haters. Dan Mangan reported the following information.

Publicly available documents show Hunter and his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle had an Internal Revenue Service lien against them for taxes not paid, possibly including interest and penalties, totaling $112,805.09, until this past March. The documents, filed by the IRS, show the lien was placed in November 2019. It is not immediately clear if the lien has anything to do with the investigation.

Separately, Hunter Biden had individual income tax liens of almost $453,890 placed on him by the District of Columbia on July 9, related to taxes owed for 2017 and 2018, according to a document on file in D.C. Recorder of Deeds Office. Those liens were cancelled six days later, records show.

The District of Columbia’s income tax rate is 8.95 percent for income above $1 million annually, plus about $85,000.

            A second matter of interest is the laptop and hard drive that were seized by the FBI in October after the federal authorities were notified by the owner of a computer repair shop in Wilmington. A copy of the hard drive was given to a lawyer for Rudy Giuliani, who gave a copy of the hard drive to The New York Post. The laptop allegedly belonged to Hunter Biden before he forfeited by not paying the bill. Supposedly the laptop contains emails allegedly connecting Joe Biden to Hunter Biden’s business deals with China.

This information did not receive much notice by the mainstream media at the time and has been buried by the circus that was once called an election. Joe Biden is calling the dissemination of information about his son “vicious personal attacks,” but they are nothing compared to what the Trump children have endured for the past four years. Is the DOJ interested in the laptop and the information contained on it?

A third matter is public interview of Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden. In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Bobulinski confirmed “details regarding his overseas business dealings, including that a reference to a ‘Big Guy’ in a May 13, 2017 email did, in fact, refer to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.” 

In a lengthy statement, Bobulinski identified himself as the CEO of Sinohawk Holdings, a firm he described as “a partnership between the Chinese operating through CEFC/Chairman Ye and the Biden family.” He added that Hunter Biden ad James Gilliar, another business associate, brought him on as CEO of the venture.

“Hunter Biden called his dad ‘the Big Guy’ or ‘my Chairman,’ and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential details that we were discussing,” Bobulinski said. “I’ve seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about his business. I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not true, because it wasn’t just Hunter’s business, they said they were putting the Biden family name and its legacy on the line.” …

“I don’t have a political ax to grind; I just saw behind the Biden curtain and I grew concerned with what I saw,” Bobulinski said. “The Biden family aggressively leveraged the Biden family name to make millions of dollars form foreign entities even though some were from communist controlled China.”

            In Bobulinski’s words, Joe Biden is “compromised” as far as China is concerned. Will the DOJ probe cover the interview between Tucker Carlson and Bobulinski? What will happen to media-proclaimed “president elect” Joe Biden if evidence shows that he sold the United States out to China?