As Speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi was incensed that Trump had asked his newly elected counterpart to look into whether then vice-president Joe Biden in 2016 had pressured Ukraine to sack its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who had been nosing around Burisma, a shady Ukrainian gas company whose board Hunter Biden joined in May 2014.
“I will say that we do a lot for Ukraine. We spend a lot of effort and a lot of time,” Trump told Zelensky, a remark that formed the basis of Democrat bribery allegation against Trump, who had put $US400m in aid to Ukraine on hold only a week or two earlier.
“There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do … would be great,” he added.
There’s even more talk about it four years later, after a welter of new evidence, including Hunter Biden’s laptop, bank records, FBI documents and congressional testimony, emerged that suggest not only had Biden corruptly leaned on Ukraine, but that he had for years been the golden goose atop an unseemly operation of peddling family influence.
In March, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee, after poring over hundreds of documents subpoenaed from US banks, found that Hunter Biden, James Biden (the President’s brother), Hallie Biden (his daughter-in-law) and an unknown “Biden” were paid $US1.1m between 2015 and 2017 from funds ultimately coming from State Energy HK, a Chinese company.
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In April, the committee said six more family members had received such payments. In May, it revealed the Bidens and family associates had created about 20 shell companies to receive more than $US10m from foreign national companies, including in China.
In June, two Internal Revenue Service whistleblowers produced WhatsApp messages under oath allegedly from Hunter Biden to Chinese businessman and Communist Party official Henry Zhao in 2017. “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter allegedly wrote.
In July, Republican senator Chuck Grassley released an FBI document the agency had been fighting to keep under wraps that described how a long-time “highly credible” although unverified source told the agency in 2020 that Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky had reportedly said he had paid $US5m each to Joe and Hunter Biden for their help in removing Shokin.
By August, the House committee had found more than $US20m in payments, including from China, Romania, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine to Biden family and related accounts, including one for $US3.5m from Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina in February 2014. A few months later Baturina dined with Joe and Hunter Biden in Washington.
Interestingly, she was among a small group of Russian oligarchs not sanctioned last year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Also in August, Devon Archer, a former close friend and business partner of Hunter, who was similarly paid millions of dollars for his role on the board of Burisma, told the committee without “the Biden brand” Burisma “would have gone out of business”, and that Joe Biden had dined with Burisma executives in 2015 in Washington.
Hunter had put his dad on speaker phone about 20 times in front of his foreign business associates, Devon added in congressional testimony, stressing that the conversations, although “about the geography, about the weather”, were “a signal that they respected and thought was of value”.
A 2011 letter from Joe Biden to Devon Archer has since emerged too, in which the then vice-president said he was “happy you guys are together”, a seeming reference to their budding business relationships. “I hope I get a chance to see you again soon with Hunter,” he added.
Joe Biden’s repeated claims of never talking about business with his son, or having any knowledge of it, have been obliterated.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/weight-of-evidence-against-joe-biden-a... Dear Frank - You have posted many pages of BS. I managed to browse enough bits and pieces to see this is the case. Much of it is disproven and other bits are dishonest.
Hunter had put his dad on speaker phone about 20 times in front of his foreign business associates
This is basically true, it just does not mention that they talked about the weather and other small talk and never anything to do with business. It also fails to mention this was in the period where Hunters brother was dying and he had been speaking to his father daily.
“I hope I get a chance to see you again soon with Hunter,” he added.
Wow incriminating - no - Imagine how serious it would be for Joe to meed a friend of his son - Lock them all up now. Idiots.