by Steven Richards
Hunter Biden's indictment vindicated the IRS whistleblowers and described the first son's business dealings from 2016 to 2019 while glossing over Joe Biden's role.
The sweeping tax evasion indictment brought by federal prosecutors against Hunter Biden in California vindicates the testimony of two IRS whistleblowers while leaving one tantalizing question unanswered: how did the first's son transfers of funds and profligate spending intersect with Joe Biden, if at all?
IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler say they weren't allowed to pursue evidence that might answer that question. But lawmakers pursuing an impeachment inquiry in Congress might just get the chance.
House investigators led by Oversight Chairman James Comer, Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith have connected some key dots already.
Joe Biden let his son use his Delaware home address to conduct business, received some payments from his son, met some of his son's foreign business partners and received at least one check from funds that originated in China, according to evidence the congressional investigators have already made public.
The same day that of the groundbreaking indictment against the younger Biden was announced, the House Ways and Means Committee released excerpts from Shapley’s and Ziegler’s testimony that explain why bigger questions about the president -- codenamed "the Big Guy" in some of Hunter Biden's business correspondence -- remain unanswered.
The two whistleblowers testified that pursing evidence related to Joe Biden was “off the table” and that they were prevented from investigating any financial transactions between father and son that would normally be investigated in a standard case.
“Did your gut tell you that Joe Biden was benefiting in any way from any of Hunter’s criminal proceeds?” Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Penn., asked Shapley.
“We were interested in following leads that went to Joe Biden – President Biden – not because he was Vice President, but because in any normal investigation, if you see financial transactions between son and father, and email correspondence going back and forth, text messages, and WhatsApp messages, in every investigation we have ever worked, we would follow those leads to the father,” Shapley explained.
“We’ll never know because we weren’t allowed to investigate…For example, we wanted to go and say, 'location data – we want to look into that.' And you know, it just wasn’t supported, and things just fell off the priority list,” he continued.
The committee was specifically interested in what the IRS investigators thought they may find if they were allowed to proceed. “[Were you] stopped because of who it was? Could you even offer a hunch about what you would have found?” Fitzpatrick asked the IRS agents.
“When you see 10 held by H for the 'big guy' and we have other correspondence where they are saying, don’t call dad – you know, call dad something else, call him – because we are trying to confuse or conceal who it is, that is issue for concern,” Shapley explained. “And was there 10 percent that went to the big guy? We will never know because we weren’t allowed to investigate that.”
Clearly the investigators were concerned with much of the same direct and circumstantial evidence suggesting Hunter and Joe Biden’s finances were commingled at times, as Just the News reported this week. This evidence includes a new bank record obtained by the House Oversight Committee that showed Hunter Biden set up a recurring $1,380 payment to his father in 2018, ostensibly to cover a car payment.
Circumstantial evidence through Hunter Biden’s emails also indicates that the first son's business partner facilitated that transfer of Joe Biden’s tax refund to the younger Biden’s accounts and that Hunter Biden paid for contracting work on a property owned by his father. Hunter Biden’s text messages also include one complaint from the younger Biden alleging his father took half of his salary.
“I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years,” Hunter Biden complained to his daughter in January 2019. “It’s really hard. But don’t worry, unlike pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary,” he continued, according to the text obtained by the New York Post.
There is more evidence of a Joe Biden connection to his son’s business transactions millions of dollars in business transactions with foreign entities. As Just the News reported Friday, at least six reports flagging suspicious activity in Hunter Biden’s money transfers, the younger Biden listed Joe Biden’s home address in Delaware. The reports raised concerns about possible criminal activities, including money laundering or human trafficking, according to Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who reviewed the bank records.
David X. Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor in Connecticut with extensive experience on money laundering cases, told Just the News that suchevidence should encourage further inquiry.
“I mean, each US Attorney's Office has what they would call a SARs review team…always looking at the information provided by FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network,” Sullivan told the Just the News, No Noise television show Friday night.
“Right, and the fact that there are SARs that are, you know, coming up at the the residence of the President, I think, you know, it’s very fair inquiry, and I think that the American people are entitled to a very thorough explanation,” he added.
Sullivan said questions about money laundering are clearly warranted based on the documents released by the IRS whistleblowers, the House Committees, and other sources.
“[It’s] so telling that, you know, we we've heard about all of these emails, we've heard about 23 countries and over $20 million of financial transactions and, you know, nine different members of of the Biden family receiving money and what exactly is the Biden brand? I mean, there's so many questions, and I really do think that there's enough information out there to make an argument that there's a very strong money laundering case,” Sullivan said.
“And, you know, as somebody who was engaged in money laundering investigations and has taught money laundering classes, both at Quantico and to the International Law Enforcement Academy, it’s a case that totally intrigues me,” Sullivan continued.
Johnson told Just the News that the SARs he collected during his committee’s investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings covered about $12 million in transactions over the years, and some of those transactions passed through the Wilmington, Del. home of the 46th president.
Johnson said Joe Biden would almost certainly have known that his son was using this address from both business and banking. “There'd be so much activity coming into his address, in this case, Hunter Biden's businesses, that he obviously would have to be aware," Johnson said of the president. "So, again, I just use the word obvious, It has been so obvious for so long, that Biden Inc. is a corrupt enterprise. And that this president is corrupt, that he is compromised.”
Hunter Biden lived at his father’s Wilmington home after his divorce from his ex-wife Kathleen Buhle in 2017. The younger Biden also listed this home as his address for a credit card and Apple account in 2018 and 2019, respectively, according to Fox News Digital.
The years that Hunter Biden appears to have lived in his father’s house are central in the California indictment against the first son for various tax crimes, which covers the years from 2016 to 2019. Taking just the years that Hunter is said to have lived in the home or listing the address—likely 2017 to 2019—the younger Biden was still receiving a substantial income form foreign sources, spending wildly, and failing to pay his taxes, according to the indictment.
You can read the indictment below:
His stay at the address coincides with the SARs which raised concerns about money laundering and human trafficking, Johnson said. The latter is potentially related to Hunter Biden’s profligate spending on “various women” and “adult entertainment,” nearly $680,000 and $185,000, respectively.
In fact, the IRS first began looking into Hunter Biden “as an offshoot of an investigation the IRS was conducting into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform,” Shapley told Congress.
An infamous text that Hunter Biden sent to one of his Chinese business partners threatening him if he did not live up to his commitments, is another example of Joe Biden’s proximity to his son’s actions in the period covered by the indictment.
In the late July 2017 text, Hunter Biden invokes his father to ensure that the Chinese businessmen, connected to CEFC China Energy and executive Ye Jianming, uphold their end of the deal to provide a $5 million loan to the Biden family to facilitate a joint partnership.
“Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” Hunter told Zhao, according to the texts released by Congress.
“And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction,” Hunter threatened, invoking his father. According to the Post, photos on Hunter Biden’s laptop show that he was at Joe Biden’s Wilmington home on the day these texts were sent.
The new indictment shows this transaction, a $5 million capital contribution to Hudson West III, a joint venture between Hunter Biden’s Owasco PC firm and Ye Jianming’s Chinese network in early August 2017 came within weeks of the threatening text messages and while Hunter Biden was likely living at Joe Biden’s Delaware home.
President Biden claimed that he had no involvement in this text exchange, despite his son staying in the house at the time. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer released a statement following the indictment, saying that “Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought.”
Steven Richards
Source: https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/hunter-biden-indictment-vindicates-investigators-joe-bidens-role
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