OPINION:
You know something’s up when the media bury a story that would have been a no-brainer for Page One if the subject was a Republican.
A new Senate report exposes shocking corruption involving Hunter Biden, who made millions in Ukraine at the natural gas company Burisma Holdings when his father, Vice President Joe Biden, was President Obama’s Ukraine point man.
We’ve long known some of this, but the sheer scope of the influence peddling and sums involved are stunning. The 87-page document also exposes Hunter’s Russian connections, including a $3.5 million payment from the wife of a former Moscow mayor embroiled in scandal.
A section on China details a web of lucrative ties between Hunter Biden’s firms and companies controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. It also documents many trips he took to China with Secret Service protection and to dozens of other countries.
The deals involve millions of dollars and at least one contract involving China’s acquisition of an American firm that makes sensitive military technology.
Oh, almost forgot. There’s this, which apparently is not particularly newsworthy:
“Hunter Biden paid nonresident women who were nationals of Russia or other Eastern European countries and who appear to be linked to an ’Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring.’”
Nothing to see here, folks.
In a Democratic rebuttal, Sens. Gary Peters of Michigan and Ron Wyden of Oregon ignore the wealth of documentation and charge that the report is “based on conspiracy theories with roots in Russian disinformation.” Even before its release, the Democrats in July attacked the report as solely partisan.
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, and Charles Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, say that if the Democrats are going to point a finger, it should be at a mirror.
“The Democrats’ July 14 letter relied on foreign disinformation to create a false and harmful innuendo about the chairmen’s oversight work. Many of the allegations Democrats have made against Republicans … reflect the very patterns of behavior that Democrats themselves have engaged in.”
You know, like the fake Russian “collusion” charge while the Dems themselves paid for the phony Steele dossier full of Russian disinformation that led to the FBI spying on the Trump campaign.
In January and February 2017, the FBI was told that much of the dossier came from Russian sources, and yet the “collusion” narrative lost steam only after the Mueller report’s release in April 2019.
Democrats then ginned up hysteria over the phone call Mr. Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. They impeached Mr. Trump while ignoring the massive Biden/Ukraine corruption.
It’s clear this report terrifies them. The Washington Post, for instance, wrote very little, buried it inside and focused on Democrat talking points, not the findings.
The document unveils a 10-year record of corruption with possibly actionable criminality and a coverup at the highest levels. It’s stunning. Here are just a few findings:
Hunter Biden and his business partner, Devon Archer, joined the board of Burisma Holdings in 2014. Hunter was paid $50,000 a month, though he had no expertise in the field. He and Mr. Archer, who had met with Vice President Biden at the White House just before Mr. Biden went to Ukraine on a diplomatic mission, eventually made millions.
Hunter was on Burisma’s board when firm owner Mykola Zlochevsky allegedly paid a $7 million bribe to “shut” a corruption case against him. In 2016, Ukraine prosecutor Victor Shokin had another active investigation into Burisma and Mr. Zlochevsky.
“According to news reports, then-Vice President Biden ’threatened to withhold $1 billion in United States loan guarantees if Ukraine’s leaders did not dismiss [Shokin].’ After that threat, Ukraine’s Parliament fired Shokin.”
Indeed, in a video that every American deserves to see, Mr. Biden boasts at a Council on Foreign Relations gathering in 2018 that as vice president, he shook down Ukraine’s leaders:
“I said, you’re not getting the billion I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a b-tch. (Laughter.) He got fired.”
In China, “Hunter Biden had business associations with Ye Jianming, Gongwen Dong and other Chinese nationals linked to the Communist government and the People’s Liberation Army. Those associations resulted in millions of dollars in cash flow.”
Hunter opened a bank account with Gongwen Dong to “fund a $100,000 spending spree” with his uncle and aunt, James and Sara Biden, who also received $1.4 million from Hunter’s firm.
Henniges, an American maker of anti-vibration technologies with military applications, was turned over in 2015 to two Chinese companies with ties to the Communist government. One of the companies was a billion-dollar investment fund, Bohai Harvest (BHR), which was formed in 2013 by a merger of Bohai Capital and Rosemont Seneca Partners.
The latter firm was founded in 2009 by investors including Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz, stepson of then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
The conflicts of interest are so glaring they don’t require unpacking.
Any fair-minded person who reads the report might be asking, “And Trump got impeached for a phone call? Seriously?”
• Robert Knight is a contributor to The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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