Disturbing questions about Hunter Biden are getting worse

FPI / September 25, 2020

The disturbing findings of an investigation by two Senate committees show Hunter Biden, son of Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, received a windfall of foreign cash which amounted to potential "criminal activity" and made multiple payments to Eastern European prostitutes.

According to the joint report released Wednesday by the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee with the Senate Treasury Committee, Hunter Biden made a number of payments to foreign nationals with “questionable backgrounds” consistent with “organized prostitution and/or human trafficking.”

According to the report, records on file with the committee “confirm that Hunter Biden sent thousands of dollars to individuals who have either: 1) been involved in transactions consistent with possible human trafficking; 2) an association with the adult entertainment industry; or 3) potential association with prostitution.”

The report said some of the transactions were Russian- and Ukrainian-linked to what “appears to be an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring.”

Additionally, banks raised alarms that foreign money flowing to Hunter Biden was potential "criminal activity," according to an investigation by two Senate committees which was released on Wednesday.

The committees, which looked into Hunter Biden’s foreign dealings during and following the time his father Joe Biden was vice president, cited at least four large transactions that banks flagged in suspicious activity reports (SARS) to the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.

“The Treasury records acquired by the Chairmen show potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals,” the report stated.

“In particular, these documents show that Hunter Biden received millions of dollars from foreign sources as a result of business relationships that he built during the period when his father was vice president of the United States and after.”

President Donald Trump on Thursday said Joe Biden “should leave the campaign” in the wake of the Senate committees' findings.

“I look at Hunter Biden today, where he stole millions of dollars, stole millions,” Trump said in an interview on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox News Radio. “His father should leave the campaign because his father was in on it.”

Trump added: “His father knew everything.”

The president slammed his Democrat opponent as “corrupt,” and again claimed that “he knew his son was getting all this money from China, from Ukraine and other places.”

The Senate report shows that Joe Biden has "not spoken accurately about his knowledge of his son's involvement in Burisma" or the problem it caused for the Obama administration, The Federalist senior editor Molly Hemingway said Wednesday on Fox News.

Joe Biden "said he didn’t know about it when the report shows that in fact, some bureaucrats were so concerned about Hunter Biden’s role that they had briefed him, that they had alerted the FBI," Hemingway said.

But the 87-page report states, "in October 2015, senior State Department official Amos Hochstein raised concerns with Vice President Biden, as well as with Hunter Biden, that Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board enabled Russian disinformation efforts and risked undermining U.S. policy in Ukraine."

At least two transactions flagged for “potential criminal financial activity” involved Hunter Biden and Chinese nationals, according to the Senate committees' report.

In August 2017, a subsidiary of CEFC China Energy, which was owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Jianming at the time, sent Hunter Biden’s law firm, Owasco, a $100,000 payment that “was identified for potential criminal financial activity,” according to the report.

Another transaction was flagged a month later, when a Chinese national linked to Ye opened a line of credit with Hunter Biden, which multiple members of the Biden family used for lavish purchases, the report said.

The line of credit was opened the same day that CEFC signed a much-heralded deal with Russian oil giant Rosneft in September 2017, the report noted.

“On the same day that the impending Rosneft deal was announced, Hunter Biden and Gongwen Dong, a Chinese national who has reportedly executed transactions for limited liability companies controlled by Ye Jianming, applied to a bank and opened a line of credit under the business name Hudson West III LLC,” the report stated.

Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s brother James and James’s wife Sara “were all authorized users of credit cards associated with the account. The Bidens subsequently used the credit cards they opened to purchase $101,291.46 worth of extravagant items, including airline tickets and multiple items at Apple Inc. stores, pharmacies, hotels and restaurants,” the report said.

“The cards were collateralized by transferring $99,000 from a Hudson West III account to a separate account, where the funds were held until the cards were closed. The transaction was identified for potential financial criminal activity.”

James and Sara Biden were also involved in another one of Hunter Biden’s transactions that was flagged for potential criminal activity, according to the Senate committees.

The report noted that “starting on Aug. 8, the same day the $5 million was received, and continuing through Sept. 25, 2018, Hudson West III sent frequent payments to Owasco, Hunter Biden’s firm. These payments, which were described as consulting fees, reached $4,790,375.25 in just over a year.”

Less than a week later, Owasco started moving money to James Biden’s consulting firm, Lion Hall Group, according to the report.

“Between Aug. 14, 2017 and Aug. 3, 2018, Owasco sent 20 wires totaling $1,398,999 to the Lion Hall Group, a consulting firm that lists James Biden and his wife, Sara Biden, on the bank account. This transaction was identified for potential criminal financial activity,” the report stated.

The report noted that Sara Biden was largely uncooperative when the bank investigated the transactions. Sara said the payments were related to a join project but “told the bank that she would not provide any supporting documentation, and she also refused to provide additional information to more clearly explain the activity,” the report stated.

Investigators flagged other transactions:

• Hunter Biden's business partner Devon Archer received $142,000 from Kenges Rakishev of Kazakhstan, supposedly for a car, the same day then-Vice President Joe Biden appeared with Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to address Russia’s actions in Crimea.
• Hunter Biden received a wire transfer of $3.5 million from Elena Baturina, wife of former mayor of Moscow and Russia’s only female oligarch.

The report noted that the transactions cited “do not illustrate the full extent of the material” obtained by the committees, but “are designed to illustrate the depth and extent of some questionable financial transactions” and “illustrate serious counterintelligence and extortion concerns relating to Hunter Biden and his family.”

The report does not indicate whether federal authorities ever investigated Hunter Biden’s transactions mentioned in the report.

Not surprisingly, the major media either downplayed or ignored the Senate report.

A New York Times article, headlined "Republican inquiry finds no evidence of wrongdoing by Biden", said the report "delivered on Wednesday appeared to be little more than a rehash of unproven allegations that echoed a Russian disinformation campaign."

Hemingway rejected the claims that there was no evidence of wrongdoing by Hunter Biden, "who has no known skill set that would put him in a position to be doing business with foreign leaders," in dealings with Russia and China.

"We saw a lot of people in the media claim that this is old news which was an interesting approach to take, given that they hadn’t reported any of this news beforehand and some of it was truly breaking news such as the wire transfer between the Russian oligarch who was married to the former mayor of Moscow, $3.5 million to Hunter Biden," Hemingway said.

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