OPINION:
House Democrats threw out some public relations clunkers in 2023 to keep President Biden from being impeached and his son safe.
Meant to shift targets from Mr. Biden and his son Hunter to House Republicans or former President Donald Trump and others, the “scoops” fell flat.
Clunker No. 1
Let’s start with the most damaging text by Hunter Biden among this trove of exposed texts and emails.
The July 2017 WhatsApp text did not come from the voluminous laptop he abandoned at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware. IRS criminal investigator Gary Shapley acquired the message through a subpoena to Apple for the contents of Hunter’s iCloud account.
Among the collection was the WhatsApp instant message, which can be described only as a shakedown. Hunter browbeat a Chinese oil executive into sending him millions of dollars. Not only that, Hunter invoked his father’s name as an enforcer who would make the guy’s life miserable if he did not reply that night.
“I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father,” Hunter wrote.
The threat showed that Hunter was not afraid to throw his dad’s name around to acquire foreign cash. And Chinese rulers must have eventually learned of this extraordinary action by the former vice president’s son and concluded that the elder Biden must be in on the family cash hunt.
Hunter Biden’s team needed to blunt Mr. Shapley’s blockbuster find.
In June, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, Missouri Republican, gave them something to distort. Mr. Smith tweeted a mock-up that illustrated the July 2017 WhatsApp message. He added Hunter’s text to a Hunter photo that did not match any 2017 or pre-2017 photos.
Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell pounced. He sent a letter to Mr. Smith asserting that the tweet was fabricated and not real.
“In short, the images you circulated online are complete fakes,” he wrote.
An NBC News headline blared, “Hunter Biden attorney says WhatsApp message cited by Republicans is fake.”
When you clear away the smoke, though, what remains is Hunter’s actual text as obtained by the IRS and given to the committee.
Unimpressed by Mr. Lowell’s attack, the House Oversight Committee in November released an extensive timeline of the Bidens’ contacts with foreign money sources. The report repeated the WhatsApp text as authentic. Mr. Smith has left his post on X.
Clunker No. 2
Also in June, Rep. Jamie Raskin, the House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat, released and touted excerpts from interviews with Burisma Holdings chief Mykola Zlochevsky in 2019 and 2020. (The irony here is Mr. Raskin is relying on the accuracy of interviews conducted by Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani, a Trump ally and “Stop the Steal” conspirator.)
Mr. Raskin said in a letter to Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer: “Specifically, Mr. Zlochevsky denied (1) that anyone at Burisma had ‘any contacts’ with then former Vice President Biden or his representatives while Hunter Biden served on the Burisma board” and “that former Vice President Biden or his staff ‘in any way’ assisted Mr. Zlochevsky or Burisma.”
This we know, compliments of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, revealed by the New York Post in October 2020, is not true.
For one thing, in April 2015, Mr. Zlochevsky’s emissary, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharsky, came to Washington and dined with Vice President Biden. There was contact. They talked.
What’s more, in 2014, as Hunter assumed his $1 million-a-year seat on the Burisma board, Mr. Pozharsky emailed him his marching orders. The elder Biden had just been appointed U.S. point man in Ukraine, and Hunter followed him there.
Mr. Pozharsky told Hunter that Ukraine government agencies were investigating Mr. Zlochevsky. “We urgently need your advice on how you could use your influence to convey a message/signal to stop what we consider to be politically motivated actions,” he told Hunter.
There you have it: a direct request from a Zlochevsky aide to intervene. Whom do you think they counted on? Vice President Biden, of course. Hunter’s business partner Devon Archer has testified that Hunter made a call to Washington during a board meeting in Dubai.
In November 2015, Hunter received another email from Mr. Pozharsky urging him to launch an information campaign in which officials would express a “positive opinion” of “Nikolay/Burisma.” (Mr. Zlochevsky also went by the name Nikolay.)
Shortly after the dinner with Mr. Pozharsky, Mr. Biden in 2016 orchestrated the firing of the Burisma prosecutor by threatening Ukraine leaders he would withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid.
Clunker No. 3
Donald Trump took money from China just like Hunter Biden.
Mr. Trump is a lifelong real estate developer and hotelier, in contrast to Hunter’s father, a career politician.
Mr. Trump built and owned hotels and resorts around the world. Of course foreigners paid the Trump Organization for rooms and services. The Trump family said that once profits from foreign customers had been determined, they sent the money to the U.S. Treasury.
Can you legally ban foreign guests from staying in a Trump hotel?
Who knows for sure how many millions Hunter took from Chinese tycoons and how much reached Mr. Biden or his Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania?
Here’s a big difference. President Trump cracked down on China, its unfair trading and its influence operations on college campuses.
President Biden reversed this and has been the great giver of favors to Beijing.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.