Saturday, January 14, 2023

What the Classified Scandal Shows About Biden’s Foreign Connections - Daniel Greenfield

 

by Daniel Greenfield

Is it a coincidence that Biden profited and kept classified documents from Ukraine and Iran?

 


Biden’s misappropriated classified documents problem keeps getting worse with a second tranche of documents being discovered at another location. It is now clear that the first set of classified documents found at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement was not an isolated incident. Despite that, the FBI and National Archives are continuing to take a casual approach to the case. There have been no raids of Biden facilities. And won’t be.

But beyond the misappropriation of classified documents, a violation of the Espionage Act, the discovery renews old questions about the foreign connections of Joe Biden and his family.

While details about the classified documents remain scant, we know that they included briefing materials related to three countries: Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom.

It may be a coincidence that Biden has corrupt ties to two of the countries on the list, but it’s more likely that there was something in these briefing materials that specifically interested him.

The most prominent of the Trump documents at the heart of the illegal Mar-a-Lago raid by the Biden administration focused on his peace efforts with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un. Trump personally staked a great deal on trying to forge a personal connection with Kim and it is not surprising that he would have wanted to retain access to some of the correspondence.

There’s no apparent reason why Biden, on leaving office as vice president, should have kept memos and intelligence materials about Iran, the UK and Ukraine. And yet he had strong official and unofficial relationships with Iran and Ukraine that crossed the streams of government policy and personal gain.

That may explain why Biden, as a private citizen, felt the need to retain classified documents.

The Penn Biden Center, the location where the first set of documents was found, was not just an academic project, it was a humbler version of the Clinton Foundation. Like it, the Penn Biden Center was a prepping stage for the Biden administration financed by foreign donors. Such organizations often focus on ‘global engagement’ or ‘international humanitarian projects’, but, as a practical matter, provide jobs for past and future administration officials using foreign money.

Foreign donors get access to future administration officials who will be in a position to set foreign policy. Ten Biden administration officials were employed at the Penn Biden Center. Secretary of State Blinken served as a managing director of a center that at various points took in $30 million from Chinese donors. Most of that money was provided “anonymously”.

Beyond Biden’s known ties to China, he had deep ties to Ukraine and Iran.

Biden’s level of involvement in Ukraine during the Obama administration was strange because it was an unlikely backwater for an ambitious veep who dreamed of replacing his boss to focus on. Few Americans paid attention to it, even during the original Russian invasion, unlike Trump’s focus on North Korea, and Ukraine could not be expected to pay political dividends.

However, while Biden became Obama’s point man on Ukraine, his son, Hunter Biden, was serving as a director on the board of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. In the process, the ‘Big Guy’ appears to have met with a Burisma adviser. While Hunter sat on the board, his father was pressuring the government to “reform” its energy industry.

While the nature of the classified documents on Ukraine are unknown, such materials would be potentially very valuable to investors looking to gauge where they should put their money. Briefing materials could indicate anything from information about Ukraine’s industry, behind-the-scenes dealings and the foreign policy of other countries toward it.

Even if Penn Biden Center officials did not provide direct access to such documents, having them would be a significant asset and a reference point for outside donors or for themselves.

Iran, the other country at the center of the classified documents scandal, is also an energy state and one that has extensive connections to Joe Biden.

Biden’s relationship with the Islamic terror state began early on when he had celebrated the Islamic takeover of Iran and opposed the rescue of American hostages.

After 9/11, Biden proposed, “this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran.”

In 2002, he addressed the American Iranian Council whose founder had run for the presidency of Iran. Later that year, Biden was raising big money from Iran supporters and urging that Iran be allowed to join the WTO. In 2007, Biden warned that if Bush bombed Iran, he would impeach him. A year later, he told Israelis that they would have to accept Iran’s nuclear program.

A spokesman for the Student Movement Coordination Committee for Democracy in Iran warned that Biden’s campaigns “have been financed by Islamic charities of the Iranian regime based in California.”

“Biden’s political games have made him Tehran’s favorite senator,” an opinion piece in the Washington Post noted.

The Biden-Iran relationship appears to have continued not only during the Obama administration, when the terror state’s nuclear weapons program was legalized, but now.

As the Freedom Center revealed last year, one of Biden’s bundlers during his presidential campaign was the executive director of NIAC Action and the former policy director of the National Iranian American Council: often referred to as the Iran Lobby.

We also exposed the fact that the Iranian hackers who appear to have run a false flag operation for Biden in the 2020 election were linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. In 2007, Biden was one of only 22 senators to vote against designating the IRGC as a terror group.

Once in office, Biden has offered Iran covert sanctions relief and attempted to restart the legitimation of Iran’s nuclear weapons program that had begun under his former boss.

Is it a coincidence that Biden profited and kept classified documents from Ukraine and Iran?

Biden’s ties to Ukraine and Iran have previously spurred suspicions of corruption and calls for investigations. The revelation that his people had taken and kept classified documents involving both countries should be a significant red flag. And another example of Biden mixing the personal and the political, national policy and economic interest in these two major flashpoints.

There are still many unanswered questions about the classified documents.

Why would the Penn Biden Center have needed classified briefing materials? And why did it take so long to disclose their presence? The timing of the discovery in November, right before the midterm elections, is interesting. Until the midterms, it appeared unlikely that Biden would be able to run for another term. The Democrat showing in the midterms however has all but locked in the nomination for Biden. At least the way things stand now. Had Biden been forced to step down after one term, it’s likely that the Penn Biden Center might have been a hub for him again.

The lawyers who found the documents were possibly exploring the possibility or closing the door on it depending on which way Biden’s people thought the midterms would shake out.

Disclosing the classified materials suggested that no one expects Biden to return to Penn Biden. Instead a ‘house cleaning operation’ was underway with the aim of defusing scandals and minimizing legal risks ahead of the 2024 election.

Whatever damage was done with these classified documents has been done. Much as with the Clinton Foundation, all that remains is the cover-up.


Daniel Greenfield

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/what-the-classified-scandal-shows-about-bidens-foreign-connections/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

No comments:

Post a Comment