Viktor Shokin: Joe and Hunter Biden Were Being Bribed

August 28, 2023 By Jeff Poor 2 Comments

On Saturday’s broadcast of FNC’s “One Nation,” former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin said he believed that both President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden were bribed.

According to the former prosecutor general, he said his firing by then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was done at the behest of then-Vice President Biden, who once boasted about it in a discussion with the Council on Foreign Relations.

“I have said repeatedly in my previous interviews that Poroshenko fired me at the insistence of the then-Vice President Biden because I was investigating Burisma,” Shokin said through a translator.

“You understood me correctly. This is how it was,” he added. “There were no complaints whatsoever and no problems with how I was performing at my job. But because pressure was repeatedly put on Poroshenko, that is what ended up in him firing me.”

Later, during the interview, Shokin said he believed the Bidens had received bribes.

“Do you believe that Joe Biden or Hunter Biden got bribes?

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The Miraculously Changing Narrative Around Biden’s Involvement in Hunter Inc.

August 7, 2023 By Becket Adams 2 Comments

The media are committed to defending the first family, no matter what facts emerge.

Rarely have newsrooms committed so much effort to protecting men of such little character.

As recently as just four years ago, the New York Times and other news outlets would have jumped at the chance to investigate allegations that the president and his son operated an influence-peddling operation involving foreign nationals. Every editor at every major newsroom would be barking at his staff right now, demanding that they look into whether the president’s son had, in fact, leveraged the family name in return for huge sums of cash, whether the president got a cut of the action, and whether the president himself coordinated quid pro quos with well-heeled foreign interests.

But that was then. Now, there’s a Democrat in the Oval Office. For major media, most especially the New York Times, there’s not much value to the Biden family corruption story, which alleges President Joe Biden conspired with his son, Hunter, to rake in mountains of cash from foreign entities in return for certain preferred policies toward their countries. After all, according to the Times, the story is old news. It’s also none of your damn business.

Last week, after yet another fact emerged suggesting that Joe Biden had indeed been involved to some degree with his son’s overseas business dealings, contrary to what he himself stated unequivocally during the 2020 presidential election, the New York Times ran to the president’s aid with the classic “old news!” defense.

“It has long been known that the elder Mr. Biden at times interacted with his son’s business partners,” the paper of record declared on Monday.

Is that so? This thing Joe Biden vigorously denied in the 2020 election has “long been known”?

Recall that Biden declared in the 2020 election, “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period.”

“And what I will do is the same thing we did in our administration,” he added. “There will be an absolute wall between personal and private [business interests] and the government. There wasn’t any hint of scandal at all when we were there. And I’m going to propose the same kind of strict, strict rules. That’s why I never talked with my son or my brother or anyone else — even distant family — about their business interests. Period.”

That same year, during a campaign event in Iowa, Biden insisted again that he had never, ever spoken to his son about his business interests.

“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden said. “I know Trump deserves to be investigated. He is violating every basic norm of a president. You should be looking at Trump. . . . Everybody looked at [allegations that I spoke with Hunter about his overseas business activities] and everybody looked at it and said there is nothing there. Ask the right questions.”

Later, after it became increasingly likely that Joe Biden had, in fact, interacted with his son’s business partners, the White House amended, ever so slightly, the president’s earlier assurances.

“The answer remains the same,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in July. “The president was never in business with his son. I just don’t have anything else to add.”

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FBI Told Twitter Hunter Biden Laptop Was Real on Day It Was Censored

July 22, 2023 By Jeff Zymeri 1 Comment

House Judiciary committee Republicans revealed Thursday that a senior FBI official told Twitter that Hunter Biden’s laptop was real and not Russian disinformation on the day the social-media company censored a New York Post story relying on emails from that laptop.

Laura Dehmlow, the now-section chief of the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), confirmed in a closed-door deposition that when Twitter asked whether the laptop was real, an official said: “Yes, it was.” An FBI lawyer on the call then promptly jumped in and said: “No further comment.” According to Dehmlow, internal deliberations were held after that call in which the decision was made that FITF would say “no comment” going forward. Later on the same day, there was a call between the FBI and social-media company Meta in which the agency declined comment when asked if the laptop was real.

Dehmlow added in the deposition that she’s “pretty certain” then-FITF section chief Brad Benavides and the chief of the Russian unit were aware of the laptop’s authenticity.

The Post‘s story alleging an influence peddling scheme involving the president and his family ran early in the morning on October 14, 2020, weeks before the general election. The calls the FBI had with Twitter and Meta occurred later that day.

In the hours following the publication of the story, Twitter blocked the story from being shared and Meta, which owns Facebook, suppressed the story.

According to a letter from chairman Jim Jordan to FBI director Christopher Wray, the FBI had constant information-sharing up to that point with social-media companies. It then made the institutional decision to refuse to answer direct questions about the laptop’s authenticity.

“Put simply, after the FBI conditioned social media companies to believe that the laptop was the product of a hack-and-dump operation, the Bureau stopped its information sharing, allowing social media companies to conclude that the New York Post story was Russian disinformation,” read the letter.

The news comes after a federal judge banned officials from coordinating with social-media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content. The injunction from Judge Terry Doughty of the Western District of Louisiana applied to officials from the DOJ and FBI as well as other agencies, but was lifted by the Fifth Circuit as it considers an appeal to the order.

The judges of the Fifth Circuit did not elaborate on their reasoning for the stay.

According to Doughty, “the FBI’s failure to alert social-media companies that the Hunter Biden laptop was real, and not mere Russian disinformation, is particularly troubling. The FBI had the laptop in their possession since December 2019 and had warned social-media companies to look for a ‘hack and dump’ operation by the Russians prior to the 2020 election.”

“Even after Facebook specifically asked whether the Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation, Dehmlow of the FBI refused to comment, resulting in the social-media companies’ suppression of the story. As a result, millions of U.S. citizens did not hear the story prior to the November 3, 2020 election,” Doughty continued.

According to Jordan, had the Hunter Biden story been a product of an actual Russian disinformation campaign, FITF would have been fully authorized to warn the companies of such a campaign. Dehmlow explained: “If there is a foreign malign influence operation and we’ve got specific details about how those actors are propagating information operations, influence operations on platforms, that’s something we could share the specific details of.”

Click here to read the full article in the National Review

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IRS Whistleblower In Hunter Biden Case Says He “Felt Handcuffed” During 5-year Investigation

July 21, 2023 By Catherine Herridge Leave a Comment

The Internal Revenue Service case agent who handled “95%” of the tax evidence in the Hunter Biden investigation told CBS News that he “felt handcuffed” during the five-year probe and blocked from pursuing leads that he thought might implicate Hunter Biden’s father, President Joe Biden.

Second IRS whistleblower in Hunter Biden investigation — “Whistleblower X”

Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, a 13-year veteran of the IRS, is the second IRS employee to come forward to claim the federal tax investigation into the president’s son supported criminal charges more serious than the misdemeanor tax charges he is scheduled to plead guilty to next week as part of a plea bargain. 

“When you’re prevented from going down certain roads, I guess I don’t know what could have been found if we were not hamstrung or not handcuffed,” Ziegler told CBS News.

Ziegler, who has been known only as “Whistleblower X,” revealed his identity Wednesday at the insistence of lawmakers, who called him before a House committee to describe his role in the federal investigation into Hunter Biden. As the main IRS case agent, he worked with his supervisor Gary Shapley and says the evidence they uncovered “supported felony and misdemeanor tax charges.”

Ziegler’s investigation spanned both the Trump and Biden administrations.

“I’m a Democrat. In the last presidential election, I actually did not vote,” Ziegler said. “I thought it would be irresponsible of me to do so because I didn’t wanna show bias one way or the other.”

Democrats’ reaction

An attorney for Hunter Biden, Christopher Clark, has said previously that suggestions the investigation was not thorough are “preposterous and deeply irresponsible.”

At Wednesday’s hearing, Rep. Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, said he has not seen evidence that Hunter Biden “received any kind of official favoritism in this prosecution for being Joe Biden’s son.”

“The key point, Mr. Chairman that America needs to understand is that the only political interference at play here is coming from Donald Trump and my Republican colleagues,” Raskin said.

During an executive session in June, the Ways and Means committee voted to publicly release the transcripts from Shapley and Ziegler’s whistleblower testimony, keeping Ziegler’s identity hidden. The top minority member on the committee, Democratic Rep. Richard Neal of Massachusetts, said during that closed door meeting that Republican efforts to publicize the tax records of a private citizen was an example of “naked partisanship, and stoops below the stature of this Committee.” 

Democrats have also focused on Shapley’s and Ziegler’s choice of legal representation; their attorneys have had connections to Republican Party politics. Those attorneys counter that they have worked with both Republican and Democratic whistleblowers and organizations. Democrats also questioned whether the two agents lacked visibility into the factors prosecutors faced when making decisions about what charges to bring. And they noted that Hunter Biden has repaid the taxes he owed.

Questions about deductions

Ziegler alleges that evidence he collected showed how Hunter Biden improperly claimed business deductions for a range of personal expenses, such as college tuition for his children, bills for stays at a posh Hollywood hotel, payments to escorts, and no-show employees. In 2021, Ziegler says he drafted a memorandum recommending prosecutors charge Hunter Biden with multiple felonies and misdemeanors. 

“In August of 2022, we had a phone call with all of the assigned prosecutors and they had said that all four of them were recommending the approval of felony and misdemeanor tax charges,” Ziegler said. 

Hunter Biden’s legal team did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Ziegler said Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, told him he agreed with certain felony charges, but there was resistance from other officials inside the Department of Justice who thought a jury may be sympathetic to Hunter Biden’s drug addiction and the death of his brother, Beau Biden. 

“David said to us…’I’m getting some concern from the Department of Justice Tax Division, the evidence that might come in related to his substance abuse and the death of his brother, Beau Biden, those might affect the jury’s opinion’,” Ziegler said.

Court filings unsealed last month showed that the U.S. attorney’s office ultimately agreed to a deal that would charge Hunter Biden with two misdemeanor tax counts — to which the president’s son agreed to plead guilty — and a felony gun charge for which Biden agreed to enter into a diversion program. Biden will not plead guilty to the gun charge, which will be dismissed if he meets certain conditions. That deal will have to be approved by a federal judge, who has scheduled a hearing on the matter for next week in Delaware.

“At the end of the day, it’s a matter of are we treating everyone the same? Are we treating all taxpayers the same?” Zielger said. “And in this case, no, I don’t think so.”

IRS whistleblowers confused about Hunter Biden charging decision

The decision not to charge the president’s son with tax felonies remains a source of concern and confusion for both of the IRS agents who have now spoken out about the matter. Both men have raised concerns about the possibility that the Biden Justice Department in some way impeded the case.

Weiss pushed back in a letter last month saying he had ultimate authority on these matters and was “never denied the authority to bring charges in any jurisdiction.” 

The U.S. attorney’s office for Delaware declined to comment on this story. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland — who kept Weiss on the job to complete the Biden probe — previously said in response to the allegations that Weiss was “permitted to continue his investigation and to make a decision to prosecute any way in which he wanted to and in any district in which he wanted to.” 

Both Ziegler and Shapely have told congressional investigators and CBS News they were told that prosecutors in Delaware were prevented from bringing charges in other jurisdictions — including California and Washington, D.C. — and Shapley said Weiss told him he was denied special counsel status by the Justice Department. 

“D.C. said, ‘No, we are not gonna assist you with bringing charges in our district. And we don’t think you should bring these charges forward in our district,'” Ziegler explained to CBS News.

Whistleblower “felt handcuffed” during probe

During the investigation, Ziegler said he “felt handcuffed.” For example, he says he wanted prosecutors to obtain a search warrant to access a Virginia storage unit to search for potential business records but they declined to do so. He said requests to interview Hunter Biden’s adult children about the tax payments were frustrated by prosecutors, whom he claims said the requests could “get us into hot water.”

Ziegler’s requests to pursue a number of investigative avenues came when Trump was still in office and Attorney General William Barr had instituted a policy requiring he personally approve any investigation of a president or presidential candidate. Ziegler told CBS that he was not “aware” of any approvals sought from Barr at that time.

On Monday, after the Committee on Oversight and Accountability interviewed an FBI agent from the Wilmington Field Office, the leading Democrat on the committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, accused Republicans of “distort[ing]” evidence in order “to advance Republicans’ false narrative about political interference in the Hunter Biden investigation.”

Hunter Biden’s claim about his father in WhatsApp message

In another instance, Ziegler said he tried to get location data to determine whether Joe Biden was in the room, as his son had boasted in a 2017 WhatsApp message where he appeared to pressure a Chinese businessman to make good on an outstanding payment by mentioning his father.

“I am sitting here with my father..we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden allegedly texted to the businessman, according to the transcript. He added, “I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand” and “now means tonight.”

Ziegler said the WhatsApp message was found on Hunter Biden’s iCloud account that was obtained through a search warrant. He says he was unable to determine whether Hunter Biden and his father were together when the WhatsApp message was sent. President Biden has said he was never present when any such message was sent and denied any knowledge of this message.

“Anytime we potentially wanted to go down the road of asking questions related to the president, it was ‘That’s gonna take too much approvals. We can’t ask those questions.”

Ziegler said he expected extra approvals when investigating the son of a president, but he said the requests went unmet. 

There would be a point to where it would be like, ‘Well, let’s think about it. Let’s put that on the back burner.’ And it would now move down to item number 50,” Ziegler said.

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Hunter Biden Whistleblower’s Legal Team Releases Names of Other Alleged Witnesses

June 28, 2023 By Kristina Wong 2 Comments

Hunter Biden probe whistleblower Gary Shapley’s legal team released a letter over the weekend revealing the names of six witnesses who allegedly also heard U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss say he did not have authority to charge in other districts and had requested special counsel status.

The IRS supervisory special agent’s team wrote in a June 24, 2023, letter:

In an October 7, 2022, meeting at the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, U.S. Attorney David Weiss told six witnesses he did not have authority to charge in other districts and had thus requested special counsel status. Those six witnesses include Baltimore FBI Special Agent in Charge Tom Sobocinski and Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ryeshia Holley, IRS Assistant Special Agent in Charge Gary Shapley and Special Agent in Charge Darrell Waldon, who also independently and contemporaneously corroborated Mr. Shapley’s account in an email, now public as Exhibit 10, following p. 148 of his testimony transcript. Mr. Shapley would have no insight into why Mr. Weiss’s would make these statements at the October 7, 2022 meeting if they were false. That Mr. Weiss made these statements is easily corroborated, and it is up to him and the Justice Department to reconcile the evidence of his October 7, 2022 statements with contrary statements by Mr. Weiss and the Attorney General to Congress.

The letter was signed by Mark D. Lytle with Nixon Peabody LLP, and Jason Foster and Tristan Leavitt with Empower Oversight.

The letter came after the House Ways and Means Committee last week released transcripts of IRS whistleblower interviews, which included shocking allegations from Shapley.

Shapley told congressional investigators, according to the transcript;

From March 2022 through October 7th, 2022, I was under the impression that, based on AG Garland’s testimony before Congress and statements by U.S. Attorney Weiss and prosecutors, that they were still deciding whether to charge 2014 and 2015 tax violations.

However, I would later be told by United States Attorney Weiss that the D.C. U.S. Attorney would not allow U.S. Attorney Weiss to charge those years in his district. This resulted in United States Attorney Weiss requesting special counsel authority from Main DOJ to charge in the District of Columbia. I don’t know if he asked before or after the Attorney General’s April 26th, 2022, statement, but Weiss said his request for that authority was denied and that he was told to follow DOJ’s process.

That process meant no charges would ever be brought in the District of Columbia, where the statute of limitations on the 2014 and ’15 charges would eventually expire. The years in question included foreign income from Burisma and a scheme to evade his income taxes through a partnership with a convicted felon. There were also potential FARA issues relating to 2014 and 2015. The purposeful exclusion of the 2014 and 2015 years sanitized the most substantive criminal conduct and concealed material facts.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (CA) tweeted after the letter was released that if Shapley’s allegations are true, they would be a “significant part” of a larger impeachment inquiry into Garland. McCarthy tweeted:

We need to get to the facts, and that includes reconciling these clear disparities. U.S. Attorney David Weiss must provide answers to the House Judiciary Committee. If the whistleblowers’ allegations are true, this will be a significant part of a larger impeachment inquiry into Merrick Garland’s weaponization of DOJ.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday denied that Weiss, who was investigating Hunter Biden, had ever asked for special counsel authority to investigate Hunter Biden.

“He was never told no. I’m saying, he was given complete authority to make all decisions on his own,” Garland said.

“I don’t know how it would be possible for anybody to block him from bringing a prosecution given that he has this authority. He was never told no. I’m saying he was given complete authority to make all decisions on his own,” he continued.

“The only person with authority to make somebody a special counsel or refuse to make somebody a special counsel is the Attorney General. Mr. Weiss never made that request to me.”

Asked by a reporter why he did not appoint a special counsel, Garland did not directly answer the question.

“Weiss had, in fact, more authority than a special counsel would have had — he had and he has complete authority as I said, to bring a case anywhere he wants in his discretion,” he said.

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Jonathan Turley Slams Chuck Todd Over ‘Angry’ Hunter Biden Interview with Sen. Ron Johnson

January 16, 2023 By Mark Moore 5 Comments

Chuck Todd and Sen. Ron Johnson got into a heated conversation on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” over whether Hunter Biden committed any crimes through his overseas business dealings — sparking a fierce rebuttal from legal scholar Jonathan Turley eviscerating the NBC News anchor.

The fiery exchange started after Johnson, who with Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), led a Senate investigation into Hunter Biden’s business relationships in Ukraine and China, was pressed by Todd on what actual laws President Biden’s son may have violated.

“Senator, do you have a crime that you think Hunter Biden committed because I’ve yet to see anybody explain? It is not a crime to make money off of your last name,” Todd said to the Wisconsin Republican.

Turley, a professor at George Washington University, provided his own answer to Todd’s question in a lengthy Twitter thread — while also pointing out an apparent double standard on the part of the anchor.

“While Todd just heaps insults upon those who have called for investigations, he previously gave entirely non-confrontational and supportive interviews for investigating the possible ‘compromising’ of Trump or his family through foreign deals,” Turley said.

“There are of course a host of crimes, including some which may be charged. However, on the influence peddling scandal, there are foreign transfers, gifts, and other matters that could prove criminal,” he wrote. “The point is not that there are proven crimes but the need to have a special counsel to look into these offenses, including some that involve emails referencing the President.”

Johnson, in his response on the Sunday morning program, referenced allegations made in a report released last month by Garrett Ziegler, 26, a former Trump White House adviser who founded the conservative nonprofit group “Marco Polo.”

“Chuck, you ought to read the Marco Polo report, where they detail all kinds of potential crimes. You know, Senator Grassley has certainly covered …” Johnson said as Todd interrupted. 

“Hold on, let me stop you there. Potential. This is potential. Potential is innuendo,” Todd said. 

Johnson raised accusations in his Senate report, released in September 2020, that Hunter Biden paid about $30,000 to prostitutes caught up in European sex trafficking operations.

“Is that a crime?” Johnson asked Todd. “It sounds sleazy as you know what.”

‘ll take you at your word that you’re ethically bothered by Hunter Biden. I’m curious though, you seem to have a pattern,” Todd said.

“Are you not? Are you not?,” Johnson broke in. 

Todd replied that he deals in “facts” and is skeptical of claims made by both political parties. 

“I’m curious, were you at all concerned? Your Senate Democrats want to investigate Jared Kushner’s loan from the Qatari government when he was working in the government negotiating many things in the Middle East. Are you not as concerned about that? Are you not concerned about that? And I say that because it seems to me if you’re concerned about what Hunter Biden did, you should be equally outraged about what Jared Kushner did,” Todd said to Johnson. 

The senator said he wanted to get to the “truth,” adding, “I don’t target individuals.”

Todd said Johnson was “targeting” Hunter Biden. 

“Chuck, you know, part of the problem, and this is pretty obvious to anybody watching this, is you don’t invite me on to interview me. You invite me on to argue with me. You know, I’m just trying to lay out the facts that certainly Senator Grassley and I uncovered,” he said. 

“They were suppressed. They were censored. They interfered in the 2020 election. Conservatives understand that. Unfortunately, liberals and the media don’t. And part of the reason our politics are inflamed is we do not have an unbiased media. We don’t. It’s unfortunate. I’m all for a free press,” Johnson said. 

After some back-and-forth and talking over each other, Todd told Johnson: “Look, you can go back on your partisan cable cocoon and talk about media bias all you want. I understand it’s part of your identity” before switching topics. 

Click here to read the full article in the NY Post

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Secret Service Paying Over $30K Per Month For Malibu Mansion To Protect Hunter Biden

April 5, 2022 By Josh Margolin,John Santucci, and Soo Rin Kim 1 Comment

Hunter Biden is apparently spending his father’s presidency living in luxury in Malibu — and so is his taxpayer-funded security detail.

The Secret Service detail protecting the president’s controversial son has been paying more than $30,000 a month to rent out a swanky Malibu, California, mansion for nearly a year, sources familiar with the matter tell ABC News.

The agency responsible for protecting the president and his family — among other ranking government officials — selected the property in order to be located as close as possible to Biden’s own rented mansion where he is paying about $20,000 a month according to property listings, sources told ABC News.

Retired senior Secret Service agent Don Mihalek, now an ABC News contributor, said the arrangement is “the cost of doing business for the Secret Service,” adding that under the federal law, the agency has a mandated protective responsibility for the president, the first family, and anybody else the president designates for protection.MORE: Federal probe into Hunter Biden’s taxes intensifies, sources say

“Typically, wherever a protectee sets up their residence, the Secret Service is forced to find someplace to rent nearby at market value,” Mihalek said, noting that the agency is also renting out properties to protect President Joe Biden’s residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

“This isn’t new,” Mihalek said. “The Service has had to do this in past administrations, and unfortunately, the housing market right now has driven the prices up substantially.”

A White House official referred ABC News to the Secret Service for comment. Asked about the cost of the protection, a representative for the Secret Service said only: “Due to the need to maintain operational security, the U.S. Secret Service does not comment on the means, methods, or resources used to conduct our protective operations.”

A representative for Hunter Biden did not respond to requests for comment from ABC News.

Hunter Biden’s California lifestyle is coming into focus just as the federal probe into his tax affairs has intensified, as sources familiar with the matter recently told ABC News.

An increasing number of witnesses have appeared before a grand jury impaneled in Wilmington, Delaware, in recent months, the sources said, and have been asked about payments Hunter Biden received while serving on the board of directors of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, in addition to other questions about how Biden paid off tax obligations in recent years.

“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part,” Hunter Biden told ABC News anchor Amy Robach in October 2019, regarding serving on the board of Burisma and the impact of his foreign business dealings on his father’s political career. “Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don’t believe now, when I look back on it — I know that there was — did nothing wrong at all. However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is … a swamp in — in — in many ways? Yeah.”

The younger Biden, along with other members of the Biden family, began to receive around-the-clock protection from the Secret Service when Joe Biden became the Democratic presidential nominee in June 2020. The family was provided a more robust security detail once the elder Biden won the presidency, which is customary for all immediate members of a president’s family.

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