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The story of US President Joe Biden’s son is being actively suppressed and buried in a virtual information vacuum ahead of the 2020 election.
Now we’re all going to hear about it, with a new Republican congressional majority and plans to investigate.
A first hearing Wednesday starts with the 2020 election: Former Twitter executive upset over decision to delete post about Hunter Biden’s laptop. Several news organizations reported on abandoned laptops in 2020, a stark contrast from previous elections, which generated headlines about Democrats’ private emails, allegedly hacked by Russia.
One reason for the lack of attention: social media giants Facebook and Twitter removed reference to Hunter Biden story; national security experts, meanwhile, mounted a public campaign to paint as Russian misinformation.
Congressional Republicans are now looking into Hunter Biden’s angle of the story – from what he revealed on his laptop about the family business, to what the current president knows.
The first hearing alternated between probing questions and partisan spectacle. Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene blasted Twitter for suspending her account over COVID misinformation. He told four executives, since fired by new owner Elon Musk: “I’m very glad you lost your job.”
Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez felt what she considered a better waste of time on health care, drug prices, or abortion: “It’s a shame.”
Twitter executives made the admission: their actions were wrong. He said the post about Hunter Biden should not be deleted. He called it an honest mistake, not a politically motivated act to help Joe Biden get elected.
The Republicans’ real target: Joe Biden
Republicans are transparent about their primary targets. Not the middle-aged son who famously fought drug addiction.
“Let’s be clear: We are not investigating Hunter Biden,” James Comer, chairman of the Republican oversight committee, told NBC’s Meet The Press last month.
“We’re investigating Joe Biden.”
He said that the members of the Biden family received a decent salary from foreigners; those close to Joe Biden why they were paid; that the work infringes US interests; that Joe Biden also knows but lies; and this is the president’s compromise.
Accusations against Hunter Biden
Republicans suggest influence-peddling was a family business. The committee wants to investigate lucrative foreign payments from China and Ukraine to members of the president’s family, particularly his son, Hunter, and his brother, Jim.
Comer said the committee wants to hear whether, specifically, the Bidens are getting millions in consulting fees from 2014 for 2017. In the Senate last year, Republicans produced what they called evidence million in payment for the son of the president and brother of CEFC China Energy, a company with ties to Chinese officials.
CEFC had been a major private sector backer of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure projects around the world, before CEFC began to implode after 2017. The company’s downfall began when a former Hong Kong cabinet minister took over. convicted in the US for scheming to bribe officials in Uganda and Chad on behalf of the company.
After that, the chairman of the company mysteriously disappeared in China when accused of corrupting senior Communist Party officials.
This comes right after Hunter Biden reportedly tried to create a joint office for his company representative and his father, when he was vice president. Report from different the media who has reviewed Hunter Biden’s emails said he requested, in 2017, office keys for his father, mother, uncle and Gongwen Dong, an emissary of a Chinese energy company.
He also reportedly asked for new signs to be posted outside his office mentioning the Biden Foundation and China Energy’s CEFC. But CEFC fell on hard times; building management said Hunter Biden never followed through in the email, and never picked up the button, according to media reports.
Republicans want to see the score from Suspicious Activity Report where US banks reportedly flagged the Biden family’s transactions, which, according to CBS News, occurred more than 150 times. SAR is that it’s rare linked to crime, but requested to be submitted when financial institutions see transactions that are similar to tax evasion or money-laundering.
Republicans demanded that the Treasury Department release the report and, in a letter, accused the department of breaching protocol by hiding it.
Republicans also have questions about Hunter Biden’s artwork: him amazed why is the piece being priced as high as $500,000, according to what the art dealer told the art-market website, and they want the buyer’s name to be revealed.
Republican lawmakers grilled a former Twitter executive for allegedly suppressing negative content about US President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in an aggressive hearing that showed the GOP is making good on its promise to investigate Biden and his family.
As for Hunter Biden himself, he told me, two years ago, he was in prison investigated through income tax; CBS News also reported that he is also under investigation unregistered foreign lobbying.
FBI agents believe they have delivered federal prosecutors enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden with a crime, CBS reported said Last October.
Attorneys for Hunter Biden responded by accusing the FBI of illegally leaking details from the grand jury investigation.
Is there evidence of Joe Biden’s involvement?
Joe Biden was asked about the upcoming investigation, after the Republican Party won the House of Representatives last fall.
“It’s just almost a comedy,” Biden said. Another time in November, Biden taunted his opponent: “Good luck in your senior year, like my coach said.”
Biden repeatedly said never spoke to his son about business. But Biden saw many of his son’s business partners during his time as vice president; one is associated with visiting the White House 19 times, according to visitor logand the news meet with Biden.
There are also passing comments in 2018 voice message to Hunter Biden, where Joe Biden reportedly shared a newspaper story about his son’s business.
Republicans say the president lied, and in fact talked about business with his son, he recklessly left himself vulnerable to blackmail.
There is little evidence that Joe Biden ever made a profit. Some of the stories that say he was involved in his son’s finances have eroded under scrutiny; others remain unproven.
In the former example, some stores wrong speculation that Hunter Biden paid his father exorbitant house rent – based on a misinterpretation of his financial disclosure form. The rest ended in 2010 email father and son share a bank account: this is based on an email from the family association that states that Joe Biden owes his son and will pay after receiving state tax payments.
In the category of accusations that cannot be proven, the British counterpart Hunter Biden allegedly wrote, in 2017. emailthat a 10 percent stake would be set aside for the “big guys” in Hunter’s joint venture with the Chinese company, CEFC.
Another business associate, Tony Bobulinski, appeared at a Trump 2020 campaign event to declare Joe Biden a so-called great man. But the partner who sent the email, James Gilliar, later said it was Joe Biden never participated; in subsequent drafts agreementno one mentioned the 10 percent stake, or Joe Biden.
Another allegation that drew attention was text messaging it is said from Hunter to his daughter in 2019: she complained that Hunter had been in debt to the family for years and had to give half of her father’s salary.
But evidence that shared income, so far, is lacking: news report about Hunter handling relatively minor expenses in his father’s house like cable bills and landscaping.
Canada’s corner: Critical minerals
The New York Times reported In 2021, a company headed by Hunter Biden brokered the transfer of critical minerals to a Chinese state-backed company. The Times said the Chinese state-controlled company financed Hunter Biden’s company by paying $1.14 billion in 2016 to buy Canada’s Lundin Mining’s minority stake in cobalt deposits in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Lundin Mining did not respond to CBC News’ request for comment.
A former associate of Hunter Biden denied the importance of the transaction: he told The Times Biden did not play a role, his company received a fee that he could not do, and the result was the profit of the company, not him.
Republicans want to see government documents from that 2016 transaction. Last year, he cited it as a clear example of the president’s family putting personal profit over the national interest.
In a preliminary hearing on Wednesday, members of Congress lamented that the story of the Bidens’ foreign business ties was being hidden from voters in 2020.
“Do you think the American people deserve to know? I do,” said Republican William Timmons.
On the legitimacy of the probe
Is this probe legit? Potentially yes, said Tim Stretton, who trains congressional staffers on investigations for the Washington-based Project On Government Oversight.
“Good monitoring,” he told CBC News. “It is truly one of the most important constitutional responsibilities of Congress.”
He said it’s reasonable to ask whether the country needs new conflict-of-interest laws and, when enacting new laws, Congress has a duty to study the issue.
But add a caveat: Not if it’s a partisan affair. If only one party attacks the other, Stretton says, this leads to worse hearings, worse recommendations, and lower chances of reform.
“It begs the question: ‘What’s the point?'” he said.
It would be more productive to expand the probe, he said, including business entanglements the Trump familyand see if there are systemic issues that need to be addressed.
The chairman of the committee from Kentucky insisted that he wanted the investigation to lead to new conflict of interest laws. But he emphasized that the case of the Trump and Biden families is different: “I know what business it is [Jared] Kushner is in,” Comer said recently at the National Press Club.
“He’s in the real-estate business. Hunter Biden is in what business? I’d argue it’s influence-peddling. I have a problem with that.”
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