The Justice Department has ignored House investigators who want to ensure federal aid is provided to possible victims of a sex trafficking ring involving President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Members of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee said an IRS whistleblower provided evidence that the president’s son paid women who belonged to a suspected prostitution ring and even designated some of them as his employees. Mr. Biden was a former vice president at the time.
Hunter Biden is also suspected of paying airfare to facilitate meetings with prostitutes in violation of the Mann Act. IRS officials investigating him on tax fraud allegations flagged that finding.
Tax investigators found at least nine instances in which Hunter Biden communicated with sex traffickers and seven instances in which “likely” prostitutes flew across the U.S. to see him or where he crossed state lines to engage with a prostitute. In several instances, he either paid or offered to pay for the women’s travel.
The evidence, newly released by the House Ways and Means Committee, adds to a Suspicious Activity Report generated for the Treasury Department by JPMorgan Chase & Co. that shows Hunter Biden made thousands of dollars in payments from the bank account of his law firm, Owasco PC, to prostitutes in 2017 and 2018. The payments were flagged as “consistent with possible human trafficking.”
House investigators say Justice Department officials, despite public commitments to help victims of sexual trafficking, will not respond to requests about whether they identified or offered help to the women whom Hunter Biden may have exploited. The women may be eligible for federal aid under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act, lawmakers said.
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“The Department of Justice’s actions reveal they care more about protecting the Bidens than victims,” House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, told The Washington Times. “To date, the department appears to have disregarded the victims who were sexually exploited by Hunter Biden and ignored our questions about who at the Justice Department knew of these allegations, what they did with the information, and what steps, if any, they have taken to uphold the victims’ rights under the law.”
House investigators first sought information about the women in a letter to the Justice Department on July 25. The Justice Department ignored that letter, lawmakers said. The department has not responded to a follow-up request sent on Sept. 8, committee aides told The Times.
Hunter Biden was indicted last month on three criminal charges related to owning a gun while addicted to crack cocaine. He could face additional charges of tax fraud and foreign lobbying, but House investigators say he should also be investigated on suspicion of violating the Mann Act, which prohibits the interstate transport of a person to engage in prostitution.
Notable names convicted of violating the Mann Act include Ghislaine Maxwell, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein was sentenced to 20 years for sex trafficking minors and died in jail in what authorities ruled a suicide.
In newly released documents from the House Ways and Means Committee, which heard testimony from two IRS whistleblowers claiming political interference in Hunter Biden’s tax fraud case, communications between Hunter Biden and “Trafficker #1” and “Trafficker #2” show efforts to connect the president’s son with suspected escorts, a self-identified “hooker” and other women, including one who denies she is “some hooker or escort.”
The women traveled to various places to see Hunter Biden on flights from Los Angeles to Boston, New York City to Boston and to Delaware from an unknown location. One communication with a trafficker identified by the IRS investigator indicates that Hunter Biden drove from Massachusetts to New York City to see one woman, but it was “unclear” whether she was a paid escort.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican, is leading the congressional investigation into Hunter Biden’s suspected sex trafficking crimes.
She co-signed the Sept. 8 letter with Mr. Comer that was sent to Hilary Axam, the Justice Department’s national human trafficking coordinator, and Kristina Rose, who leads the department’s office for victims of crime. The letter asks whether they received the list of women “allegedly sexually exploited by Hunter Biden” or notified the women of “statuary rights” related to Hunter Biden’s behavior.
The Justice Department officials have not responded to Ms. Greene and did not respond to an inquiry from The Times.
Hunter Biden’s exploits with prostitutes were first exposed when the hard drive from his discarded laptop computer was made public by news media. The hard drive included photos of Hunter Biden doing drugs and engaging in sex acts with different women, many of them suspected prostitutes.
Ms. Greene displayed some of the photos at a public oversight committee hearing, eliciting gasps from the room and protests from Democrats.
Ms. Greene said Hunter Biden used his law firm to pay the women, which was confirmed in the Treasury Department’s Suspicious Activity Report.
IRS whistleblowers said Hunter Biden attempted to write off some of the payments on his tax forms.
The payments he attempted to claim as business expenses included $2,700 and $1,500 to an escort identified as “Gulnora.” Messages on Hunter Biden’s discarded laptop show he set up a Zelle link that would allow him to transfer money from his bank account to a “Gulnora Djamalitdinova.”
In a transcript of an interview that IRS whistleblowers provided to House lawmakers, Gulnora, who is not identified with a last name, told federal investigators that she was booked for an escort job with Hunter Biden, who told her “that his father was the vice president and asked [her] to Google search his name.” He showed her a photo of his father with President Obama, which she said scared her.
“[She] stated she told Biden she was not interested in Google searching his name, and just wanted to be paid,” according to the transcript.
Gulnora told investigators that she charged $800 an hour and had two “appointments” with Hunter Biden.
IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler, a lead investigator in the Hunter Biden tax fraud case, pursued the prostitutes to understand why the president’s son paid them thousands of dollars and wrote off the payments as business expenses or employee salaries.
“We found multiple people that he called his employees that were also prostitutes and that he would have them clean his hotel room,” Mr. Ziegler told investigators in June.
He said Justice Department prosecutors discouraged IRS investigators from tracking down the women by telling them it was a waste of time.
Mr. Ziegler didn’t listen, he told House lawmakers.
“Literally, I would surprise them every time and find every one.”
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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