The nine-count tax fraud indictment against Hunter Biden delves into sex workers and drugs but overlooks unpaid taxes from his million-dollar salary at Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company that new whistleblower emails suggest received a helping hand from then-Vice President Biden.
The president’s son faces up to 17 years in prison for evading $1.4 million in taxes.
“Between 2016 and October 15, 2020, the Defendant spent this money on drugs, escorts and girlfriends, luxury hotels and rental properties, exotic cars, clothing, and other items of a personal nature, in short, everything but his taxes,” the Dec. 7 indictment states.
The federal charges leave out a key period of tax evasion: Hunter Biden’s first year serving on the board of Burisma Holdings, where he was hired, according to witnesses, to help the company evade a corruption probe through the help of his powerful father.
The indictment also excludes charges for failing to register as a foreign lobbyist, despite Hunter Biden’s efforts to sell the “Biden brand” to foreign business partners.
The charges follow a years-long investigation by special counsel David Weiss, who has been criticized for slow-walking the probe and working to protect both Hunter Biden and his father.
“These criminal charges shield Joe Biden,” said Mike Davis, a former counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee and president of the Article III Project, which advocates for constitutionalist judges and the rule of law.
The Ways and Means Committee has released new information from a pair of IRS whistleblowers that suggests Mr. Biden was involved in his son’s business deals and in securing his lucrative position on Burisma’s board.
Whistleblowers provided the committee with a document showing 54 emails between Mr. Biden and Eric Schwerin, one of Hunter Biden’s closest business associates and the Biden family bookkeeper.
Mr. Biden followed his practice of using email aliases to disguise his name in the exchanges with Mr. Schwerin, and the contents of the emails are redacted.
The pattern of correspondence raises questions, said House investigators.
Mr. Biden’s email exchanges with Mr. Schwerin “increased dramatically” when the then-vice president traveled to Ukraine, said investigators.
SEE ALSO: Biden denies meeting with Hunter’s business partners: ‘A bunch of lies’
According to information released by the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Biden and Mr. Schwerin exchanged five emails before Mr. Biden’s June 2014 trip to Ukraine, where he attended the inauguration of newly elected President Petro Poroshenko.
After that trip and before Mr. Biden’s November 2014 trip to Ukraine, the vice president exchanged emails with Mr. Schwerin 27 times.
The IRS whistleblowers, supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and criminal investigator Joseph Ziegler, who uncovered the emails, were blocked by higher-ups at the Justice Department from pursuing them to determine the extent of Mr. Biden’s involvement in his son’s business deals.
Tristan Levitt, president of the watchdog group Empower Oversight, which is representing Mr. Shapley, said the public may never know the extent of Mr. Biden’s correspondence with Hunter Biden’s business associates because some emails may have been destroyed if Mr. Biden did not provide them to the National Archives and Records Administration when his term as vice president ended.
“Then-Vice President Joe Biden emailed dozens of times in 2014 directly with Eric Schwerin, Hunter Biden’s business partner,” Mr. Leavitt told The Washington Times. “But the IRS investigators were not allowed to look at any issues related to Joe Biden and any money that may have been paid to him. And by allowing the 2014 charges related to Hunter Biden’s unreported Burisma income to expire, David Weiss ensured no jury will ever look at it either.”
Hunter Biden’s other business partners were also in contact with Mr. Biden as the vice president’s Ukraine involvement increased on behalf of the Obama administration.
Ex-business partner Devon Archer met with the vice president in the White House on April 16, 2014, just days before Mr. Biden flew to Ukraine and one day after Burisma wired $112,758 to Rosemont Seneca Bohai, a venture co-founded by Hunter Biden and Archer.
Mr. Biden appeared in Kyiv on April 22 with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and delivered a speech to lawmakers regarding Russia’s aggression in Crimea and touting U.S. solidarity with Ukraine.
Within a day of Mr. Biden’s speech, Archer joined the board of Burisma. Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board a month later, on May 12, according to a company announcement.
According to the criminal indictment, Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board in the spring of 2014 at an annual salary of $1 million but “did not report his income from Burisma on his 2014 1040” tax form.
He’s not being charged for the unpaid taxes on the Burisma income because Mr. Weiss allowed the statute of limitations to expire.
House investigators say the decision to drop the 2014 charges is part of an effort by the Justice Department to protect the elder Mr. Biden, who is now the subject of an impeachment inquiry into whether he used the office of the vice president to help his family secure lucrative business deals.
The House is scheduled to vote later this week to formally endorse an impeachment probe, but investigators have been gathering evidence for months that they say links Joseph R. Biden to business deals that helped the Biden family and associates rake in millions of dollars.
Testimony provided to House lawmakers by Archer, who is facing prison over a separate fraud conviction, indicated that Burisma executives hired the president’s son for the “Biden brand,” or specifically, access to his powerful father.
They pressured Hunter Biden to seek Mr. Biden’s help in shaking off a corruption investigation by the Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
Hunter Biden and the Burisma executives called Mr. Biden from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, according to Archer, to seek his help in thwarting the probe.
Three days later, Vice President Biden told Mr. Poroshenko that he must fire Mr. Shokin, who was investigating Burisma, or risk losing $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees.
The emails discovered between Mr. Schwerin and Mr. Biden “show right around the time of international trips like those to Ukraine, Joe Biden was emailing his son and his son’s business partner from private email accounts using aliases while Vice President,” said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, Missouri Republican.
Republicans say the indictment of Hunter Biden was crafted to shield Mr. Biden by ignoring unpaid taxes on his Burisma income and excluding charges for foreign lobbying, which would have also brought the prosecution closer to Mr. Biden’s involvement in his son’s business deals.
Hunter Biden could have faced federal charges related to his failure to register as a foreign agent when he cut deals with Ukraine, China and other countries where his politically powerful father held sway.
But the indictment makes no mention of the Foreign Agents Registration Act or FARA, which has been used in recent years to prosecute several Trump associates.
Republicans believe the timing of the indictment is also aimed at protecting Mr. Biden.
Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear Wednesday for a deposition before House investigators. The president’s son has been summoned under a subpoena but has not agreed to answer questions behind closed doors about his business deals and his father’s involvement.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said GOP investigators have turned up nothing in their quest to implicate Mr. Biden have “manipulated Hunter’s legitimate business dealings and his times of terrible addiction into a politically motivated basis for hearings to accuse his father of some wrongdoing.”
As of Monday, Hunter Biden has not indicated he will show up on Wednesday. He could use the new indictment as a reason to refuse to testify and invoke his Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination.
Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan say they are not going to let the president’s son simply dodge House scrutiny.
“Chairmen Comer and Jordan have been clear: he must come in for his deposition or the committee will begin contempt of Congress proceedings,” an Oversight spokeswoman said.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.