The Frightened Left [Archive] - Debate Policy

Kathianne

09-11-2023, 11:55 AM

Victor Davis Hanson
https://amgreatness.com/2023/09/11/the-frightened-left/

As everyone here knows, no Trump fan here. Still recognized that the impeachments were going to be a case of serial impeachments via be careful what you wish for...

OTOH, as more and more comes out as 'known', I mean beyond the laptop from hell, the wonder is what the h is taking so long?

https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/blind-eye-feds-received-waves-warnings-about-hunter-biden-delivered

Blind eye? Feds received waves of warnings about Hunter Biden but delivered no consequencesTimeline shows allegations began flowing in since 2015. “The cover-up continues to grow,” Rep. James Comer says.

By Steven Richards and John Solomon
Updated: September 11, 2023 - 4:32am
Article
Dig In
From 2015 until present, several federal agencies were alerted to suspicious activity and potential criminal activities by Hunter Biden, President Joe Biden’s son. Each time, the allegations did not result in any consequences for the first son.

The pattern – over eight years and three separate presidential administrations – has some in Congress now seeing a protection racket.

“Every time some agency -- whether it be the IRS, whether it be the FBI -- whomever started to investigate. I don't know if it's for fear of embarrassing Joe Biden or for fear that it would eventually lead to Joe Biden. But for whatever reason, some deep state actor steps in and says, ‘Stand down, call it off,’” House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer told Just the News last week.

“Well, there's two things we're investigating; the Biden crime, and the Biden crime cover-up. And the cover-up continues to grow and expand,” he added during an interview with the Just the News, No Noise television show. “..This cover-up has been going on for a long time.”

Here is a summary of the dates, players and agencies in that timeline:

May 2015: Morgan Stanley bankers flag transactions, reports concerns to regulators

Just the News revealed last week that two whistleblowers from Morgan Stanley flagged suspicious transactions involving Devon Archer and Rosemont Seneca—of which Hunter Biden was a partner—and brought their concerns to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Their presentation included photos and a dossier on Hunter Biden.

The internal report and subsequent report to the SEC is one of the earliest official warnings inside the banking industry and U.S. government

Morgan Stanley crafted a bank compliance presentation in the spring of 2015 after becoming aware of the suspicious activities surrounding Rosemont Seneca. Morgan Stanley sought to flag suspicious activity in a scheme that involved fraudulent Native American tribal bonds. The transaction structure described by Morgan Stanley contained numerous entities and individuals with ties to Hunter Biden, including Devon Archer, Rosemont Seneca, and Burnham Financial Group.

The presentation said the structure created by these individuals and groups “offered no clear economics, or purpose.” Additionally, “Due diligence on involved parties reveals less than clean records,” the presentation added.

You can view the presentation here.

[ MorganStanleyWBFile.pdf]

The presentation addressed elements of Hunter Biden’s background, some of which was a cause for concern, including his expulsion from the Navy for drug use, his work with Devon Archer on the board of Burisma, and a past lawsuit from 2008 in which Hunter Biden and his uncle James Biden were accused of defrauding a former business partner.

Morgan Stanley eventually referred the matter to the SEC, which opened a probe with the FBI and IRS that led to the arrest and conviction of Archer and other Hunter Biden associates for securities fraud. But Hunter Biden – though he was subpoenaed – was hardly mentioned in the case and never charged.

Evidence in the case would portend of future political controversy, including the Biden family’s multimillion dollar relationship with executives in communist China.

For instance, Hunter Biden was crucial in securing a $5 million investment from a Chinese entity for a firm called Burnham Asset Management, which involved John and Jason Galanis—key associate charged alongside Archer in the tribal bonds scheme. In an affidavit written for the trial, John Galanis told the court that “To induce Chinese, [Hunter] Biden sends email to Henry Zhao,” owner of the Chinese entity and says the “investment would be important to his family.”

Nov. 1, 2016: Morgan Stanley vice president filed whistleblower complaint with SEC

A week before Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, a vice president at Morgan Stanley who helped prepare the 2015 presentation filed a formal whistleblower complaint with the SEC. He attached the earlier presentation plus new information he had uncovered since that concerned him.

“In addition to seeking recovery in connection with his prior reporting [the whistleblower name redacted] makes this submission offering new information concerning additional securities frauds being perpetrated,” the complaint said.

You can read that complaint here:

File
SEC-WB Complaint 11-1-2016_Redacted.pdf
There is no indication of how the SEC handled the whistleblower complaints. The SEC, Morgan Stanley and Abbe Lowell all declined comment.

October 2018: Delaware State Police investigate possible gun crime but bring no charges.

In late October of 2018, Hunter Biden purchased a firearm while he was struggling with addiction. The younger Biden lied on the background-check questionnaire, answering “no” to the question: “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?” Hunter Biden later admitted that he lied on the form.

In what Politico described as “a bizarre incident,” Hallie Biden—Hunter’s significant other and widow of his brother Beau Biden—took the gun from him and threw it away outside a local store. Delaware Police began investigating the incident, since the firearm was found near a school. Texts from the Hunter Biden laptop, reported by the New York Post, show that Hallie was afraid Hunter Biden would “use” the gun and told him "I just want[ed] you safe. That was not safe.”

But the story became even more bizarre. According to Politico, sources told the outlet that “Secret Service agents approached the owner of the store where Hunter bought the gun and asked to take the paperwork involving the sale.” The gun owner refused to turn the paperwork over to the Secret Service, suspecting a coverup and afraid the weapon had been used in a crime. Instead, the owner later turned the paperwork over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF).

The Secret Service claimed that it has no record of any of its agents being involved. As a former Vice President, Joe Biden was not entitled to protection at the time and the Secret Service no longer protected his family.

The Delaware State Police investigated the incident, obtaining footage from the store where Hallie had dropped the gun. The agency questioned both Hallie and Hunter Biden about the incident and the FBI showed up on the scene, according to Politico.

Yet, the Delaware State Police declined to charge Hunter Biden with a crime, despite evidence that Hunter Biden possessed the firearm illegally. Years later, the gun charges would become part of a now-defunct plea deal between Hunter Biden and the Department of Justice. The DOJ now says that it plans to indict Biden on the charge later this month.

Fall 2018: Ex-federal prosecutor approaches New York U.S. Attorney with information about Hunter Biden from Ukraine prosecutor.

About the same time as the gun incident, a respected former federal prosecutor approached the U.S. Justice Department in fall 2018 on behalf of a foreign witness who claimed to have evidence that Joe Biden had "exercised influence to protect" his son's employer in Ukraine in return for money to his family, according to interviews and documents obtained by Just the News.

The agency didn't take up the ex-prosecutor on his offer but instead secretly obtained his phone records a year later in an apparent effort to identify his contacts.

Retired Little Rock, Ark., U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins wrote then-New York U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman on Oct. 4, 2018 that then-Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko was willing to travel to the United States to present evidence about the Bidens and Burisma Holdings.

Lutsenko believes "VP Biden (and Sec State Kerry) exercised influence to protect Burisma Holdings in exchange for payments to Hunter Biden, (business partner) Devon Archer, and Joe Biden," Cummins emailed Berman.

Hunter Biden and his business partner Devon Archer were both hired to the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas firm, in spring 2014 while Joe Biden was vice president and in charge of U.S.-Ukraine policy.

The hiring raised eyebrows since the gas company was considered corrupt by the U.S. State Department and State officials have testified they believed the hiring of the VP's son created the appearance of a conflict of interest.

In a series of emails, Cummins said Lutsenko could produce two "John Doe" witnesses who could corroborate the claims, including that some of the money Burisma paid to Hunter Biden as a board member for Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky's firm benefited Joe Biden.

"There is a claim they have proof of a wire of significant funds from Zlochevsky to Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC which they claim directly went to the benefit of Joe Biden," Cummins wrote. "I have never understood why they think they know it went to him. I think the entity was associated with Hunter Biden and Archer.

"All I have been told is that the person who made the transfers was told that 'one goes to Joe Biden.' A little thin," Cummins wrote in one of several emails trying to prod Berman to set up a meeting.

In an interview with Just the News and The New York Post, Cummins said he was surprised DOJ didn't engage and try to determine if what Ukrainian officials were alleging was true,

"I can't really imagine a legitimate reason for the DOJ not to follow up on an offer like that," he said. "I felt like it was stonewalled."

November 2018: Feds opened probe codenamed Sportsman, triggered by evidence of prostitution.

In November 2018, while investigating a “foreign-based amateur online pornography platform,” the IRS uncovered payments that Hunter Biden made to prostitutes, according to records released by Congress earlier this year.

According to IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, the IRS spun off a separate investigation into the younger Biden—codename Sportsman—after discovering the payments in the bank reports it was analyzing for the main case. Ziegler testified that Hunter Biden frequently deducted expenses for prostitutes and potentially violated the Mann Act by paying for their travel across state lines.

“I started this investigation in November of 2018 after reviewing bank reports related to another case I was working on a social media company,” Ziegler told the House Ways and Means Committee. “Those bank reports identified Hunter Biden as paying prostitutes related to a potential prostitution ring."

Ziegler told investigators that Hunter Biden also paid for prostitutes to travel across state lines, opening him up to Mann Act violations. The Mann Act prohibits the transportation of “any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any sexual activity for which any person can be charged with a criminal offense.”

“There were some flying people across State lines, paying for their travel, paying for their hotels,” Ziegler testified.

When investigators asked if the Mann Act violations were referred to the DOJ, Ziegler told them “I know that they were compiling them together. I don't know what they ended up doing with them. I know there was an effort at some point to compile them, but I don't know what ultimately happened with them.”

The DOJ has not charged Hunter Biden for violating the Mann Act or with any crimes involving prostitution.

December 2019: FBI seizes possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop, triggering tax probe

The FBI used a subpoena to obtain Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop in December 2019 and subsequently verified it. The laptop contained evidence of alleged crimes. Yet, the officials at the Department of Justice and at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Delaware worked to hinder the investigation into its contents, according to the IRS whistleblowers.

“In October 2019, the FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime,” Shapley told congressional investigators. “The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden's Apple iCloud ID," he continued, confirming that the FBI believed the contents of the laptop were legitimate.

“When the FBI took possession of the device in December 2019, they notified the IRS that it likely contained evidence of tax crimes,” Shapley testified. The findings on the laptop spurred the IRS investigative team’s yearslong investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes.

From the years 2014 through 2019, Hunter Biden took in millions from foreign sources and various business ventures, but he failed to pay taxes that he owed, failed to submit numerous tax return forms, and continued to spend his income in an irresponsible manner, according to the testimonies from the whistleblower and a court document contained in Hunter Biden’s now-abandoned plea deal with federal prosecutors.

File
BidenPleaDeal.pdf
As the IRS investigative team built its case through 2020, DOJ officials worked to hinder the unit’s investigation into the younger Biden’s alleged tax crimes, the whistleblowers alleged to Congress. They were turned down for search warrants and the Biden team was tipped off about a plan to interview Hunter Biden, thwarting agents chance to talk with the future first son in December 2020.

The IRS investigative team was also kept from reviewing all the relevant information contained on the laptop. “Investigators assigned to this investigation were obstructed from seeing all the available evidence,” Shapley told Congress. “It is unknown if all the evidence in the laptop was reviewed by agents or by prosecutors.”

In October 2020, Shapley wrote a document entitled “Laptop and Hard Drive Timeline,” which he provided to congressional investigators. He wrote the document to memorialize a meeting with prosecutors about the Hunter Biden laptop.

In the document Shapley detailed how relevant information was kept from his team. “AUSA [Assistant U.S. Attorney] Lesley Wolf says, well, you haven't seen it because, for a variety of reasons, they kept it from the agents,” Shapley relayed to Congress. “And she said that at some point they were going to give a redacted version, but we don't even think we got a full -- even a redacted version. We only got piecemeal items."

When congressional investigators asked Shapley if it was the U.S. Attorney’s office that was withholding the documents from the investigative team, he said: “AUSA Wolf was the one who communicated it. I don't know if they confer with DOJ Tax or not, but AUSA Wolf's the one that made the statement."

IRS whistleblowers also detailed how their team was misled into believing charges were forthcoming in Washington, D.C., the venue of the most serious tax crimes in 2014 and 2015, yet the DOJ allowed the statute of limitations to expire.

“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,” Shapley said in his testimony. “However, I would later be told by United States Attorney (David) Weiss that the D.C. U.S. Attorney would not allow U.S. Attorney Weiss to charge those years in his district,” he continued.

After this, Shapley told investigators that Weiss—whose office was handling the Hunter Biden investigation—sought special counsel status from the DOJ but was denied.

This 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,” according to Shapley.

“The years in question included foreign income from Burisma and a scheme to evade his income taxes through a partnership with a convicted felon,” Shapley explained. “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.”

June 2020: FBI receive allegations from trusted informant alleging Biden bribery scheme in Ukraine

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley earlier this summer published an unclassified FBI FD-1023 document containing confidential human source information related to an alleged bribery scheme involving Joe and Hunter Biden in which a Ukrainian gas company hired Hunter Biden to secure access to his father to help the firm stifle an investigation into its dealings. The informant said the Biden family was paid $10 million to help.

The House Oversight Committee previously issued a subpoena to obtain the document, with which FBI Director Christopher Wray did not comply. Though he ultimately permitted the committee members to view the FD-1023 in a secure location, the contents remained unpublished until Grassley's Thursday release.

The document shows that the bureau had a trusted source privy to Burisma's efforts to quash a probe from then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and its plans to expand to the U.S. and secure a company for IPO purposes.

File
fd_1023_obtained_by_senator_grassley_-_biden.pdf
During the informant's first meeting with Burisma leaders, senior official Vadim Pojarskii reportedly stated that Burisma had hired Hunter Biden to "protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems," though Pojarskii declined to elaborate.

In another meeting, the CHS conversed with CEO Mykola Zlochevsky about President Joe Biden's recent declaration that Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma at the time, was corrupt and ought to be removed from office.

Zlochevsky, in that instance, told the CHS not to fret about the adverse impact such a declaration may have on Burisma's prospects, saying "[d]on't worry Hunter will take care of all of those issues through his dad."

Biden ultimately succeeded in getting Shokin fired after threatening Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that he would withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if he did not remove him.

Biden and his defenders have acknowledged, leveraging the billion dollars to fire Shokin, but said it had nothing to do with Burisma.

The energy company sought to purchase an existing U.S. firm for IPO purposes. An initial public offering refers to the original sale of stock in a company when it first becomes a publicly traded company. Firms often opt to make such a move as a means of raising capital to finance expansion.

The CHS debated the sense of CEO Mykola Zlochevsky's plan to by a U.S. company rather than forming a new U.S. entity or to purchase an already listed corporate shell company to which the CEO retorted that Hunter Biden had advised that such a plan would result in raising more money.

The CHS was concerned about the prospect of raising capital through an IPO in America given the ongoing corruption probe from Shokin and advised Zlochevksy to settle the case in Ukraine, though the Burisma executive dismissed the idea because he was not convinced Burisma would win the case.

Zlochevsky told the CHS that he need to retain Hunter Biden "so everything will be okay" and that the Shokin case "will go away anyway."

During a phone call after the 2016 presidential election, Zlochevksy expressed disappointment in former President Donald Trump's victory, prompting the CHS to press the Burisma CEO on whether he was worried about the company's connection with the Bidens.

Zlochevsky retorted that he had not wanted to pay the Bidens and that he was "pushed to pay" them. The term Zlochevsky used, according to the CHS, was Russian slang for a coerced payment.

During that conversation, Zlochevsky indicated he had recordings and messages related to being forced to pay the Bidens and asked the CHS whether it would make a legal difference if he had been forced to make the payments or did so voluntarily.

The document shows the Burisma CEO questioned the CHS during the 2019 phone call as to whether CHS was an "oracle" in light of CHS's prior advice not to pay the Bidens and reports of investigations into their links with the company.

It was during this exchange that Zlochevsky confirmed he had not made any payments directly to the "Big Guy" and bragged that "it would take them (Investigators) 10 years to find the records (i.e. illicit payments to Joe Biden)," the FD-1023 stated.