by Steven Richards
Rob Walker told agents a $3 million payment from China to Hunter Biden “was more of a thank you” and also that Hunter never repaid his $90,000 "loan".
For months, congressional Republicans have suggested that when Hunter Biden received millions of dollars from places like Ukraine and Romania, an $80,000 diamond from China and a luxury car underwritten from Kazakhstan he was simply trading on his powerful family name and not really conducting meaningful business. But Democrats have scoffed, painting these facts as part of a conspiracy theory.
But now GOP House investigators have found a powerful ally for their narrative: former Hunter Biden pal and business partner Rob Walker, who told the FBI in a newly released interview report that Hunter Biden often got something for essentially nothing.
In an FBI FD-302 interview report dated Nov. 23, 2021, Walker recounted to agents how Hunter Biden borrowed $90,000 from him and never repaid it and detailed another instance in 2017 in which one of their joint business ventures got a whopping $3 million payment from the Chinese energy firm CEFC essentially as a gift.
“The $3 million amount was more of a “thank you” from CEFC. They talked of putting together a larger group and discussed acquiring office space,” Walker is quoted as telling agents in the report.
You can read the FD-302 report below:
This report was released as part of the trove of evidence that IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler provided to the House Ways and Means Committee when they alleged that the investigation into Hunter Biden was being treated differently than others they worked on.
Walker’s account to the FBI adds to a mountain of evidence that Hunter Biden was often given loans that he never repaid or gifts from foreign interests (even a Democrat donor) simply because of his last name when his father was vice president and while contemplating a run for the presidency.
The list includes a 3-carat diamond from CEFC’s founder, $142,300 from a Kazakhstan businessman to buy a luxury Porsche, the $3 million Chinese payment and more than $2 million in payments later converted to loans that came from a Democratic-donating lawyer from Hollywood who helped Hunter Biden pay off many of his delinquent IRS tax debts.
Even salary payments from Burisma Holdings in Ukraine were structured to look like loans for Hunter Biden, which IRS agents believed were designed to evade tax payments.
“[Hunter Biden] directed to have a portion of his Burisma income paid back to himself personally as ‘loans’, even though Devon Archer had deducted these payments on the Rosemont Seneca Bohai tax return,” former IRS Agent-turned-whistleblower Ziegler wrote in his first affidavit to House Ways and Means. “[Hunter] had essentially loaned himself his own income from Burisma, failing to report this income from Burisma on his 2014 tax returns and failing to pay the taxes on this income.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show that there is a clear pattern in the evidence his investigators have gathered: a loan to Hunter Biden really meant it was a gift.
“You know, there's a term called a forgivable loan. And that is more than likely what these things were,” Comer said. “You know, you give stuff as a gift or a loan so you don't have to report it on your taxes. This is another example of the Biden family and their organized criminal activity trying to avoid paying taxes. The Biden's are tax cheats.
“When Joe Biden talks about wanting to increase the size of the IRS to go after tax cheats. He needs to look no further than his Christmas dinner table. I mean, they're full of tax cheats. So yes, a loan is a way that Biden's and other criminals take money in from people for no apparent good or service that they provided. And it's a way they can receive money without paying taxes on it,” he added.
In the FD-302 interview, Rob Walker reinforced an idea that he first provided almost a year earlier in an interview with IRS and FBI agents working the Biden case, that Hunter Biden was not giving much in exchange for loans and payments from his business partners. Walker told the agents that Hunter Biden was paid a “finder’s fee” for helping to connect CEFC with potential projects around the world.
Biden responded by suing the Internal Revenue Service for the alleged "unlawful disclosure" of his private tax information.
“What was the work done for that finder’s fee?” an agent asked. “Yeah, we were.., we were really... drumming up projects, um, that ah.., we thought that ah.., ah.., they would find worthwhile,” Walker said. “Hunter was more of the.., the.., the ‘door opener…’ even though I wouldn’t say he was quite successful at it…” Walker continued.
“He got you the meetings…” the agent said. “Not… really,” Walker responded. Both of the agents are recorded as having laughed, likely in surprise at Hunter Biden’s seemingly insignificant role in securing energy deals for CEFC yet raking in millions in payments.
The testimony of one of Hunter Biden’s other former business partners, Devon Archer, to the House Oversight Committee confirmed this pattern. In August, he told the committee that part of the value Hunter Biden brought to the Burisma board was “the brand.”
“The value was -- the value that Hunter Biden brought to it was having -- you know, there was -- the theoretical was corporate governance, but obviously, given the brand, that was a large part of the value. I don't think it was the sole value, but I do think that was a key component of the value,” Archer told the committee. He testified that the brand means the Biden family name. In other words, a large part of why Hunter Biden was being paid to sit on the board was simply his last name.
Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell did not respond to Just the News’ request for comment at the time of publication. Lowell has previously pushed for the prosecution of the IRS whistleblowers who shared these documents with the Ways and Means Committee. Lowell contends that Shapley and Ziegler broke the law when they made protected disclosures to Congress and has reportedly urged the Justice Department to pursue legal action against them.
Steven Richards
Source: https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/gifted-first-son-business-partner-implies-monies-loans-hunter-biden
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