Analysis by FPI / February 17, 2020
Will the Bidens walk?
Several observers and commentators are wondering this after seeing the two-tier D.C. swamp justice system at work as, one by one, deep staters, Democrats and members of the Trump “resistance” continue to get off scot-free while Trump loyalists have the book thrown at them.
If investigations by the Senate and President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Guiliani are to be believed, the scandal involving Joe Biden and his son Hunter is not going away.
The Washington Examiner reported that Senate investigators have requested documents known as "suspicious activity reports," or "banking alerts involving money laundering or fraud, related to (Hunter) Biden and his associates."
Senate investigators have also asked the Secret Service to turn over Hunter Biden's travel records, which Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said could be the beginning of a broader criminal probe.
"This would be the basic investigative work one would do if you were trying to figure out where Hunter Biden was and who he was traveling with during the Obama presidency," Fitton said.
Meanwhile, Giuliani continues to stocks a website with podcast updates and tweets about various allegations related to the Bidens. On Monday, he tweeted: “The Biden Family Enterprise has been selling his office for years. The corrupt media has been covering up. It was handed to me and I had the courage to reveal it knowing the Swamp would try to destroy me. I served my country. They are betraying it. I will not stop.”
Fitton also raised questions about Hunter Biden's role with Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings, where he served on the energy firm’s board of directors despite having no experience in the field. He landed the gig while his father was the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine.
"There's no evidence that it was a legitimate business relationship or that Biden had the background or capability to serve on the board," Fitton said.
Additionally, Fitton explained that payments to Biden “were out of the ordinary and extraordinary, suggesting some other improprieties. Now we have Rudy Giuliani with documents, some of them from court cases here in the United States, suggesting that money he was receiving was, in part, laundered."
Fitton recommended that federal investigators also look into Joe Biden's travels to China, another country where his son was working.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said the actions of the Bidens in Ukraine need scrutiny.
“I just think the media is so in the tank over this issue” Graham said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “It makes me sick to my stomach.”
Biden on Monday repeated that his son did nothing wrong and labeled Giuliani a “thug.”
Laura Ingraham, host of Fox News’s “The Ingraham Angle”, has touted one of Giuliani’s witnesses, Andrii Telizhenko, to talk about a Jan. 19, 2016, meeting at the Obama White House among National Security Council staffers and Ukrainian Embassy staff and prosecutors.
Telizhenko, then a member of the Ukrainian Embassy staff, is listed in the official visitors’ log. He says the Bidens’ names were brought up by NSC staff in discussing Burisma Holdings, which is owned by Mykola Zlochevsky.
A month before the White House-Ukraine meeting, Joe Biden had traveled to Ukraine and demanded the regime fire top prosecutor Viktor Shokin. Biden later bragged that he told Ukrainian officials either fire Shokin or lose $1 billion in U.S. aid.
Biden claims he made the demand as part of an overall anti-corruption campaign. Giuliani says Biden laid down the edict to protect his son, and he cites Shokin as his witness.
Telizhenko, now a political consultant, told Ingraham that the Jan. 19, 2016, White House meeting involved “people from Biden’s team.” He said he was told by embassy staff to cooperate with the Democratic National Committee to find dirt on the Trump campaign, which he says he refused.
Graham said he also spoke with Attorney General William Barr, who agreed that the Department of Justice would review Giuliani’s evidence.
“I think questions about the conflict of interest regarding Hunter Biden in the Ukraine need to be asked,” Graham said. “The State Department had warnings, and they ignored the conflict of interest. And we’re to make sure that Hunter Biden’s conflict of interest is explored, because it’s legitimate. How could Joe Biden really fight corruption when his son is sitting on the Burisma board?”
Graham also said there is no question Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election.
“There are people in the Ukraine that were pulling against Trump because they hated (Paul) Manafort,” he said. “To suggest there was no political interference coming out of the Ukraine directed toward the president, I think, would not withstand scrutiny.”
Biden insists his son did nothing wrong and that the two did not discuss Burisma business.
“I don’t think our sons are fair game at all,” Biden told CBS News. “No one has said he’s done anything wrong except a thug, Rudy Giuliani.”
Free Press International