#WTH is Going On With Hunter Biden?
Spoiler: This is not a story of a father's unconditional love.
Three things from our pod this week with Peter Schweizer:
The Biden family received tens of millions of dollars from Chinese and other companies.
It is entirely unclear what that money was for.
If these stories were about a Republican, they would be front-page news, every single day.
There are a few notable points about the Hunter Biden scandal and the insights that IRS and FBI whistleblowers have brought to Congress. The top line issue is that this was a complex scam, and it’s not simple to understand. The bottom line issue is that the Biden family got more than $30 million and it’s not clear what that was for. It is clear that it was from Chinese Communist Party affiliated businesses and individuals, as well as pro-Russia Ukrainian actors.
You may not read it in the Washington Post, which, like the New York Times, is emphasizing the party line —“poor Hunter has made some mistakes, but he’s on the straight and narrow now and his dad loves him.” But this WhatsApp message from Hunter to Communist Party bigwig/businessman Henry Zhao— not disputed — is revelatory:
This comes from Hunter Biden’s laptop… you know, the same laptop that dozens of former senior intelligence officials said was Russian disinformation. It was genuine. There are other troubling revelations and WhatsApp messages. But here’s the question we don’t have the answer to: What were these companies expecting from Hunter, his dad and his uncles?
Donald Trump asserts that the Hunter Biden scams are proof positive the Biden administration is bought by China. That seems highly unlikely. But if Trump is wrong, what is right? A prostitute-loving, drug-addled grifter was paid millions. What the hell for? Well, Hunter Biden’s line is that the money was good faith seed money for a business deal. But everyone knows that business expenses are kept in above-board business accounts — this money was quickly dispersed among members of the family.
The right answer is not to start flinging accusations about who did what and why. The right answer is to investigate, inquire, indict if there is evidence, and let the justice system work. Unfortunately, what the whistleblowers are telling us is that when the Justice Department did work, political appointees made sure it could not proceed. More hearings need to happen, more investigations need to take place. Americans need to know the truth.
A final thought: What the hell is wrong with our political system that these grifters have risen to the highest ranks of power? Where is the accountability? Is it only the little people who have to follow the law? Apparently.
HIGHLIGHTS
What did the recent IRS and FBI whistleblowers tell Congress about Hunter Biden?
PS: This is a quintessentially American story. You have a couple of guys that are investigators for the IRS, decorated senior officials. You have some FBI whistleblowers out there. They all could have comfortably gone into the night, faced retirement, had a nice life. They saw what they saw was going on in terms of cover-up, and trying to limit the investigation into this corruption, and they've stepped forward.
And essentially what they've said is that there was ample evidence presented for felony charges for tax evasion involving Hunter Biden, for charges under the Foreign Agent's Registration Act for FARA, and a myriad of other things that the US attorney up in Delaware, who was appointed by Donald Trump, part of a grand jury launched in 2018 to look into Hunter Biden and the Biden family's financial dealings. That investigation was essentially limited by the Department of Justice. They were not allowed to bring charges in different venues outside of Delaware, according to the whistleblowers. And also, there were limitations on their ability to actually collect information. So it's pretty stunning, and I think it's now going to be incumbent upon Congress to call some of these people before the committee under oath to explain exactly what is going on.
There’s a devastating WhatsApp exchange between Hunter and a man named Henry Zhao. Who is Henry Zhao?
PS: Henry Zhao is a Communist Party member. He's an investment guy, but he's also, and this is really important I think, in all of these Hunter Biden deals in China, he also has very close ties to the highest levels of Chinese intelligence. So for example, in 2015, he transferred $5 million to Hunter Biden. So the WhatsApp message you're talking about is actually after he had already sent Hunter $5 million, and he pulled that out of an account, we know this based on the laptop, from a business that Zhao runs with the daughter of the former Minister of State Security who runs the entire spy apparatus of China. And that overlays everything here. So I always caution people, this is not just a corruption story, there's a very real concern we need to have about national security, possible espionage, possible spy recruiting attempts, all of those things.
What was Zhao ostensibly paying for?
PS: The cover story was this was supposed to be an investment for a company called Burnham Asset Management, which Hunter was running with his friends. But when you look through the emails, it's pretty clear this $5 million does not go to Burnham. It appears to go to Hunter Biden himself. And what we have seen in some of the revelations from the Congressional committee, the oversight committee, is money flows in. There was a million dollars they disclosed that went in, that was quickly dispersed among members of the family. Hunter, his Uncle James, some of his other family members; it was divvied up. Hunter Biden's explanation for that was that this was good faith seed money for a business deal, whatever that means. But good faith seed money, whatever that is, is not money that you dole out to your family.
You would keep that in a business account of some sort for a business venture. And that's what you find with all of this stuff. Money gets sent. If you look at the laptop, it's some $31 million that Hunter Biden collects from basically four Chinese businessmen. Every single one of them is good faith seed money, it's an investment, but it doesn't end up being invested in anything. It ends up circulating through the Biden family. And that's what I think we need to be focused on, because these individuals are not sending money with no expectations of something in return. They're clearly expecting, and I would argue, getting something, in exchange for this money.
What are the Chinese getting?
PS: I think they're getting a couple of things. People want to know what is the quid pro quo, and corruption works that way, of course. I give you money, and in return you give me something else. But honestly, corruption can also work on what you would call a retainer agreement, where it's not a specific ask, but you have established a financial sign of relationship with the expectation of beneficial treatment. And I would argue, if you look at when Joe Biden and the family's deals started with China, going back to 2013, the posture that Joe Biden has assumed towards China has softened remarkably during that time period. And what China really is looking for in these kinds of commercial ties they establish with leaders and their families around the world, they're not expecting them to be robots that echo the line of the CCP.
They have a phrase for it. The phrase is they're looking for big help with a little bad mouth. So in other words, if you help them on the things that matter to them, which is generally giving them good access to technology, good access to capital markets, you don't do a lot in the tariff space. If you want to ding them for the Uyghurs, if you want to, as Joe Biden did recently, call them a dictator, they'll pretend to be upset and offended, but you're giving them the main things that they want. And I would argue that that's essentially what Joe Biden has done.
But this didn’t start recently, did it?
PS: Joe Biden became Vice President of the United States in January of 2009. He was sworn in. Within four months, Hunter Biden sets up this "international financial business", something that he has had no experience with. His brother James, that would be Joe Biden's brother, James, establishes various financial entities. His other brother Frank, establishes entities and starts doing deals in places like Costa Rica where he's meeting with the Costa Rican president for solar energy projects, an area which he has no experience. I have never seen a family operate in such a systematic fashion. That's the first thing that I would say. The second thing I would-
Even the Clintons?
PS: Even the Clintons. Even the Clintons, great question. But I would say even the Clintons, because the Clintons at least tried to mask it through speaking fees and through the foundation. In this particular case, it's running through a collection of LLCs. This is the other thing that makes it I think very interesting too, is the efforts that the family is going through to conceal the receipt of this money. Part of it, of course, is as I said, they wrap it up as good faith seed money, or investment in the joint venture that never happens. But the family collects dozens of LLCs, and runs the money through a series of those LLCs, which in common parlance is effectively trying to launder money. You're trying to hide the source of the fund. Billy Carter never did anything like that.
What’s the bottom line on the money?
PS: You look at the three people in China that steer basically $31 million to the Biden family, each and every one of them has links to the highest levels of Chinese intelligence. This would be the equivalent, Marc, during the Cold War, of Ronald Reagan's family, or Jimmy Carter's family, taking $31 million from Russian businessmen who are tied to the KGB. There would be eruptions on Pennsylvania Avenue if that happened. That's what's going on here, so you have that financial investment firm set up by the Chinese government. Hunter Biden's given a $20 million ownership stake, it's called BHR. Who made that deal happen? Well, we know based on the laptop that it came from a guy named Chai Fang. Chai Fang, at the same time he's setting up Hunter Biden, is business partners with Ma Jian, who is the Vice Minister for State Security in China.
His responsibility is the recruitment of foreign nationals to spy on behalf of China. Or you look at the CFC Energy deal, the chairman of that firm, Chairman Ye, as Hunter calls him, he funneled some $6 million to Hunter Biden. Ye, before he took this job to run this energy concern, which by the way, grew out of military officers with the general staff, his job right before this was running an organization that is widely recognized by Western governments as a front for Chinese military intelligence. So these are not random, these are not Chinese businessmen running potato chip factories. These are guys that are wedded to the Chinese intelligence espionage complex, and the Bidens are taking money from them.
Is this just Hunter and Joe’s brothers? Or is the President implicated?
PS: So we know, despite Joe Biden's initial claims, when the story came out, he said, "I've never met with any of his business partners." He continues to insist on that. We know that's categorically not true. We know, for example, I talk about this in Red Handed, that in 2011 when Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States, there was a group of Chinese businessmen, CCP members, who went to the White House and met privately with Joe Biden. And again, they tried to mask and conceal this. So for example, we know that according to the White House visitors log that this delegation did in fact go into the White House. But the official schedule did not talk about any meeting with Joe Biden, the Vice President. If you look at the laptop, there are emails where they're discussing trying to set up a meeting. And then if you look at Chinese social media accounts of people that are part of that delegation, you find out that lo and behold, they did in fact meet with the Vice President of the United States.
And these were people that Hunter Biden either wanted to do business with, and/or ended up doing business with. We know that Joe Biden met with Burisma officials. That's confirmed in the laptop. You have, of course, lurking this FBI document, allegations that Joe Biden talked to Burisma executives about a $5 million payment. I don't know a lot about that, but the point is, unequivocally, the evidence is clear that while he was Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden was meeting with Hunter Biden's business partners and/or prospective business partners, and that was part of the deal, and has always been part of the deal. We also know that in a lot of the correspondence that he has with foreign officials in China and in Ukraine, he repeatedly emphasizes in those emails, "These deals are important to me and my family." He's clearly, I think, sending, tipping his hat, to the fact that his father wants this deal to happen.
What about the Burisma story that so interested Donald Trump?
PS: So we know that a source that is highly respected by the FBI, the FBI had paid this source, I think it was $200,000 over the last decade for various tips, in 2020, came in and said that they had had a conversation with the former head of Burisma, a gentleman who I now believe is probably living in Monaco. And it's interesting, by the way, this is an executive who is pro-Russian, he's not a pro-Western Ukrainian, he's pro-Russian. And in this document, this FBI source says that the head of the company, Burisma, told him that he had conversations with Hunter and with Joe Biden. Two of them were Joe Biden, in which they asked for and received $10 million, $5 million for Joe, $5 million for Hunter, for the purposes of being helpful to Burisma. Now, there are a couple things that are interesting about this.
Number one, we know from the laptop that Joe Biden, as Vice President of the United States during this time, was carrying around a phone that was paid by Hunter Biden's business, and it was an AT&T phone. We have the phone number. I have reason to believe the House Oversight Committee is going to subpoena those phone records. But he was carrying around this phone and it served as a back channel means of communication for Joe Biden to talk to people without it being a personal private phone, and without it certainly being a government phone. That's the first thing. The second thing we know is that Joe Biden, when he allegedly had this conversation with the head of Burisma, was in a position to do lots of favors for Burisma.
One of those, of course, centers around this issue of firing this prosecutor, or forcing the firing of this prosecutor, that was investigating Burisma at the time. But let's also remember that Joe Biden was the point person on US policy towards Ukraine. He was appointed to that position by President Obama, and in that position he had some $500 million in USAID money that was going to go towards infrastructure projects for Ukrainian energy production. Burisma was a beneficiary of some of those funds. So all of this I think is quite interesting, deserved further investigation, and if the early indications from Grassley are correct, that the FBI did not do anything with this information, they didn't talk to anybody, they didn't try to pursue it,
Talk about the FBI and Justice Department role?
PS: A couple of really, I think, shocking things come through. Number one, that there were efforts to simply obtain information as part of a criminal investigation. You issue subpoenas, you issue search warrants. These experienced investigators with the IRS suggested, "Look, he's got this storage facility, he's probably got records there. We need to get it." A Justice Department official said, "Yeah, you probably have grounds, but there's no way that's ever going to be issued." In another case, they pressed the possibility of a search warrant for something on Joe Biden's personal home, which is where Hunter Biden spent a lot of time. It came back, again, "That's not likely to be something that's going to happen." The IRS agents pressed the matter, and at that point, the Justice Department official called Hunter Biden's lawyer and said, "We may be issuing a search warrant." In other words, tipping off the subject of the search warrant through their lawyer that this was going to happen.
This is stunning stuff. According to the whistleblowers, the US attorney out of Delaware wanted to charge Hunter Biden with FARA violations, the Foreign Agents Registration Act. And in my mind, if you look at the people that have been prosecuted with that, Republicans and Democrats, and by the way I'm supportive of that, Hunter Biden clearly was engaged in the same behavior. In fact, on the laptop, at one point Hunter Biden's trying to set up a meeting for foreign nationals with government officials, and one of his partners says, 'We probably ought to register under FARA for this, right?" And of course they never did, and it was ignored. Well, the US attorney in Delaware looking into this wanted to charge Hunter Biden in Washington DC on this, and he was rebuked and they said, "No, we're not going to do that." So it's a series of things that clearly seem to be designed to protect Hunter Biden.
Bottom line?
PS: For me, it is a big question that should be asked at every White House Press Conference, every time Joe Biden appears, which is, "Your family received this money. It's clear. You might dispute it, but the facts are clear. What did they get that money for? What did they get that money for?" And have him answer that question. And I think the bottom line is there is no honest answer to that question. And that's the problem and that's the concern. And I think we need to, as we raise this issue, get out of the framework of the quid pro quo of the corruption. As I said, it's not always a quid pro quo. Sometimes it's a retainer, sometimes it's a gift, I'll put that in quotation marks, with the expectation of favorable treatment, all of which is highly damaging and dangerous.
Full transcript here.
SHOWNOTES
Testimony of IRS Employees - House Ways and Means Committee (June 22, 2023)
Biden phone records could indicate how ‘tight’ communication was with foreign executives: Peter Schweizer (Fox News, June 26, 2023)
IRS Whistleblowers allege sweeping political interference in Hunter Biden case (Politico, June 22, 2023)
Hunter Biden reaches plea deal with feds to resolve tax issues, gun charge (Politico, June 20, 2023)
Opinion: Throw Hunter Biden’s Plea Deal in the Trash (Wall Street Journal, June 27, 2023)
Who are the House GOP’s ‘whistleblowers’ about Biden and the FBI? (Washington Post, June 23, 2023)
Whistleblower claims administration is mishandling probe of Biden’s son (Washington Post, April 19, 2023)
McCarthy threatens Garland with impeachment inquiry (Axios, June 26, 2023)
Hunter Biden Isn’t Hiding. Even Some Democrats Are Uncomfortable. (New York Times, June 27, 2023)
Will New Hunter Biden Claims Lead to Impeachments? (The Dispatch, June 27, 2023)