OPINION:
The Justice Department has been stonewalling Republican senators who fear the Biden family financial scandals are being ignored because Joe Biden is president.
They have supplied Justice with new banking records that show President Biden should hire son Hunter to hunt up new fossil fuels for America. Hunter received millions of dollars from a Chinese intelligence-connected conglomerate to help it strike oil deals overseas for communist China consumers.
Republicans say, Mr. Biden, while vice president and while out of office, sat atop an influence-buying operation through which son Hunter Biden raked in millions of dollars from Chinese communists, Russian and Ukraine oligarchs, and other foreigners. In other words, Mr. Biden offered access to himself via his son, who says in emails that he shared his windfalls with the entire family.
The showcase event happened right out in the open. In 2014, when then Vice President Biden became U.S. overseer for Ukraine, almost immediately Hunter and his corrupt business partner were anointed board of director seats for Burisma, Ukraine’s energy corporation. A Burisma representative suddenly was granted access to Mr. Biden, according to an email from Hunter’s overflowing laptop he left at a Wilmington, Del., repair shop.
The U.S. attorney in Delaware, David C. Weiss, has been investigating Hunter Biden in a probe that seems limited to tax evasion. Overseeing all of this is Biden-compliant Attorney General Merrick Garland. His priorities right now are to sink former President Donald Trump over a classified documents dispute and use the FBI to censor conservatives, monitor parents, and raid the homes of pro-life families.
FBI whistleblowers have told House and Senate Republicans that FBI headquarters blocked, or attempted to block, any financial investigation by calling the laptop and its Biden goodies, “Russian disinformation.” We know it is not. How the premiere law enforcement agency could come to that conclusion is baffling or a clear sign the bureau is afflicted with left-wing pro-Biden bias.
Sens. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin previously exposed some of the wire transfers from China and Moscow that ended up in Hunter’s bank accounts. They say the Garland team of political appointees is ignoring them.
On Oct. 26, the two senators sent a new batch of documents to Delaware’s Weiss, a Trump-era holdover. He has bounced previous inquiries to Mr. Garland’s Justice Department which provided no answers. The Grassley-Johnson team has also publicly targeted James Biden, Joe’s brother, and his Lion Hall Group consulting firm.
“Since August 2019, we have been investigating Hunter Biden’s and James Biden’s financial connections to foreign governments and questionable foreign nationals,” the Grassley-Johnson letter said. “On September 23, 2020, and November 18, 2020, we publicly released our Biden Reports that showed potential criminal financial activity with respect to Hunter and James Biden.”
(As an aside, James Biden sold his expansive home and property in Merion Station, Pa., for $1.7 million in February 2020, county land records I reviewed show. The Lion Hall Group’s new address is a home in Maryland listed as a rental.)
Central to the two senators’ argument is Hunter Biden’s financial ties and friendship with Ye Jianming and his fossil fuel-hunting conglomerate CEFC China Energy. CEFC was technically a private firm amid the communist nation’s constellation of state-directed capitalism. CEFC maintained a working relationship with China’s intelligence services.
Ye and CEFC relied on Hunter to open doors in Washington and overseas. Its mission was to make deals to send oil and natural gas back to China. It and its string of affiliations collapsed in 2020 under the weight of widespread corruption. Two years earlier, Chairman Ye had disappeared amid allegations of bribery.
The senators told Mr. Weiss that in 2017 a company affiliated with CEFC sent $6 million to an LLC associated with Hunter Biden. The exact reason for the payments is unclear, the senators said, but Hunter received regular payments from the LLC including $511,000 to Hunter’s law firm, Owasco.
That same year, Hunter formed Hudson West III with Ye associate Gongwen Dong. Hudson West III was in line to receive $5 million from Hudson West V, Gongwen’s company, without any contribution from Hunter himself, according to a Gongwen/Hunter signed agreement.
The agreement called for Hunter to receive $100,000 per month, and James to collect $65,000.
In the Weiss letter, the senators enclosed “previously unreleased” bank records that show that at one point in 2017-18, Hunter’s Owasco firm and Jame’s Lion Hall Group received $4.8 million in wire transfers from Hudson West III. The money ultimately came from CEFC or an affiliate.
Hunter’s Owasco sent 20 wire transfers to Lion Hall Group totaling nearly $1.4 million.
(I previously reported that invoices inside Hunter Biden’s laptop hard drive revealed he was sending nearly $100,000 a month in consulting fees to uncle James.)
The Hudson West III’s creation brought in a new player: JiaQi Bao as Hunter’s secretary. She had worked for the communist party’s National Development and Reform Commission, and later a China investment firm.
Rep. James Comer, Kentucky Republican, wrote to FBI Director Christopher Wray, asking the bureau to share information on Ms. Bao who played a major role in Hudson West III deal-making.
“After infiltrating the Biden family, Ms. Bao urged Hunter to encourage Joe Biden to run for president months before he announced and then supplied the Biden family campaign advice related to China,” the Comer letter says.
After CEFC collapsed, Mr. Comer said, “Bao seemed determined to remain close to the Biden political orbit even after the initial relationship dissolved, a hallmark of foreign intelligence activity.”
By 2018, Hunter’s financial world started to crumble. He complained in an email that his best cash source, Chairman Ye, had vanished. Ms. Bao urged Hunter Biden to take all his money out of Hudson West III before it became “nobody’s money,” the Daily Mail reported.
Burisma cut his yearly salary in half from nearly $1 million, after his dad left the vice presidency in 2017, the New York Post reported. Hunter resigned from the board in 2019.
Sens. Grassley and Johnson had terse words for prosecutor Weiss as they try to figure out the Justice Department’s plans for Hunter Biden.
“We are providing these records because you have failed to answer our legitimate congressional oversight questions with respect to how you are conducting the Hunter Biden criminal case, whether you have been provided all necessary resources and support from the Justice Department and if you’ve acquired these bank records – as well as others – during the course of your review,” the two senators said.
I can’t help but think that President Biden’s full-court press to save the Democrat congressional majority is prompted in part by fear: What would majority Republicans turn up about him and Hunter’s money?
Mr. Comer told Fox News, “The big question is: was Joe involved? And more evidence shows he was involved.”
I would not expect Mr. Garland to approve any indictment of Joe’s son.
Mr. Biden has warned the Justice Department by stating several times publicly that Hunter is an innocent man. And, as he told a Florida guy while touring hurricane damage, in pure crime boss lingo,
“No one f—ks with a Biden.”
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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