OPINION:
If special counsel Robert Hur’s report on mishandled boxes of classified documents embarrassed President Biden, whistleblower Tony Bobulinski’s congressional testimony must have mortified him.
Mr. Bobulinski, who served as an officer in the U.S. Naval Nuclear Power Training Command, claimed in an opening statement before a joint House hearing Tuesday that “Joe Biden was ‘the brand’ being sold by the Biden family. His family’s foreign influence-peddling operation — from China to Ukraine and elsewhere — sold out to foreign actors who were seeking to gain influence and access to Joe Biden and the United States government.”
A former Hunter Biden business partner, Mr. Bobulinski said Chinese energy firm CEFC infiltrated the Obama White House in 2015 and compromised then-Vice President Biden. Son Hunter was instrumental as “the Biden family’s weakest link,” he said, drawn in “with the promise of tens of millions of dollars, initially.”
Present at several business meetings with the elder Biden in 2017, Mr. Bobulinski asserted that Mr. Biden wasn’t simply “a participant” in the influence-peddling scheme, “he was an enabler,” and his denials of involvement are lies. As an ongoing congressional impeachment inquiry uncovers the facts, the president enjoys the presumption of innocence.
Meanwhile, the White House is still reeling from Mr. Hur’s characterization last week of Mr. Biden as “an elderly man with a poor memory” in explaining his handling of documents — even while the special counsel’s conclusion spared the president from prosecution.
Subsequently, Republican lawmakers, led by Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer, sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday requesting access to documents special counsel investigators found in cardboard boxes scattered among the detritus in Mr. Biden’s Delaware garage.
Therein, lawmakers suspect, lies validation that the Bidens profited from their patriarch’s proximity to the levers of power. The committee members also requested a transcript of the special counsel’s interview with Mr. Biden, seeking to ascertain whether uncomfortable questions were disallowed.
Among the recovered records is a four-page document dated March 2013 and addressed to Mr. Biden titled, “China Engagement in the Second Term.” It was in December 2013, during President Barack Obama’s tenure, that Hunter accompanied his father on Air Force Two to Beijing. Days later, he was awarded a director’s role in an investment firm funded with Chinese government money, The Wall Street Journal has reported.
Also among the shoddily stored Biden records is a five-page memo titled “U.S. Energy Assistance to Ukraine” from September 2014. The date coincides with Hunter’s tenure on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company that reportedly paid him $1 million a year. It also coincides with actions the elder Biden took to halt an investigation into allegations of corruption at Burisma. According to House investigators, Hunter raked in as much as $20 million from China, Ukraine and elsewhere, with few credentials beyond his Biden name.
Embarrassment for President Biden notwithstanding, allegations raised in Mr. Bobulinski’s testimony and Mr. Hur’s investigation must be resolved for the good of the nation.
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