Dissecting GOP claims about Hunter Biden deals allegedly involving his father
"conix, You're nuts - Republican Inquiry Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Biden [...]In their own competing document .. https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/200923_FullReport_PetersHSGACWydenFinance.pdf .. challenging the report, Democrats accused Republicans of cherry-picking their findings. All 10 witnesses interviewed by investigators, they noted, had testified that neither Mr. Biden nor anyone else had altered American policy because of his son. P - “Every witness stated that Hunter Biden and his associates had no role in the formulation of U.S. policy, that Hunter Biden’s role did not influence U.S. foreign policy decisions, and that Vice President Biden carried out U.S. foreign policy in the interest of the United States,” the Democrats wrote."
Analysis by Glenn Kessler The Fact Checker November 23, 2022 at 3:00 a.m. EST
Hunter Biden (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
“To be clear, Joe Biden is the ‘big guy.’ This evidence raises troubling questions about whether President Biden is a national security risk and about whether he is compromised by foreign governments.”
— Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, at a news conference, Nov. 17
The laptop has been a source of significant reporting about Hunter Biden’s personal and business life, but many news organizations have treated its contents with trepidation because it emerged late in the 2020 presidential campaign and, at the time, they were unable to verify its authenticity.
Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani provided material from the laptop to the New York Post but refused to share a copy of the hard drive with The Washington Post and other news organizations. In 2021, The Washington Post received 217 gigabytes of data from a Republican activist, who said he had received it from Giuliani. The Washington Post asked two security experts to examine the data .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-laptop-data-examined/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9 , and they found nearly 22,000 emails among those files carrying cryptographic signatures that could be verified using technology that would be difficult for even the most sophisticated hackers to fake.
VIDEO - Understanding the charges in the Hunter Biden case 2:58 On Oct. 6, federal agents investigating Hunter Biden said they had gathered sufficient evidence to charge him with crimes related to taxes and a gun purchase. (Video: Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
The vast majority of the data — and most of the nearly 129,000 emails it contained — could not be verified, the security experts said. But The Washington Post also found financial documents on the hard-drive copy that matched documents and information found in other records. The New York Times separately said it had authenticated a cache of emails found on the laptop concerning Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Kazakhstan, Ukraine and with a Chinese company. CBS News, in a report that aired Monday .. https://twitter.com/CBSMornings/status/1594685510047641600 , said it obtained a copy of the hard drive directly from a lawyer for the repair shop and that its security experts found “no evidence it is fake or tampered with.”
Asked whether the GOP committee staff had verified the laptop hard drive itself, spokeswoman Jessica Collins said “the laptop’s authenticity has been confirmed by several forensic analysts,” noting specifically the CBS report.
At several points Comer referenced a deal Hunter Biden tried to strike with CEFC China Energy, an energy conglomerate. Many aspects of his financial arrangements have been examined by news organizations, including The Washington Post .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-china-laptop/?itid=lk_inline_manual_15 . But at a news conference, Comer made assertions that have not been proved, are in dispute or appear incorrect. Any potential connection between Joe Biden and his son’s business dealings, thus far, is especially strained.
Here’s a guide to some of the claims made in the news conference.
“One of these deals involves the sale of American natural gas to China. Evidence suggests Joe Biden had a 10 percent equity stake through his son.”
— Comer, at the news conference
The phrase “evidence suggests” is doing a lot of work here. Comer is referring to a single email — dated May 13, 2017 — whose meaning has been under dispute. In the hard-drive copy of the laptop obtained by The Washington Post, the email lacked digital information that allowed it to be verified.
The Washington Post, in its reporting, cites only materials from the laptop that the security experts were able to verify or can be confirmed elsewhere. Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger, in his 2021 book “The Bidens .. https://www.amazon.com/Bidens-Familys-Tragedy-Scandal-Triumph/dp/1538738007 .. ,” said the email had been verified as authentic by “a person with independent access to Hunter’s emails.”
The 2017 email described possible ownership stakes for five partners, including Hunter Biden and his uncle Jim Biden, in a planned venture with CEFC, the Chinese company. The entity was to be called Oneida Holdings LLC.
James Gilliar, a business associate summarizing the allocation of the equity in Oneida Holdings LLC., in the email, wrote how four partners would get 20 percent each, except for Jim Biden, who would get 10 percent. He added a question: “10 held by H for the big guy?” One of the recipients of the mail, Anthony Bobulinski, has said that the “big guy” referred to Joe Biden and that “H” referred to Hunter. Bobulinski was a guest of Trump at one of the 2020 presidential debates.
But Gilliar told the Wall Street Journal .. https://www.wsj.com/articles/hunter-bidens-ex-business-partner-alleges-father-knew-about-venture-11603421247 .. in 2020: “I would like to clear up any speculation that former Vice President Biden was involved with the 2017 discussions about our potential business structure. I am unaware of any involvement at anytime of the former vice president. The activity in question never delivered any project revenue.”
The Wall Street Journal said that it had reviewed corporate records and found no role for Joe Biden. The Washington Post, in an extensive report on the CEFC dealings .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-china-laptop/?itid=lk_inline_manual_31 , also did not find evidence that Joe Biden personally benefited from or knew details about the transactions with CEFC. The Biden campaign at the time denied he had any role.
Comer says that this deal involved natural gas, but he appears to be referring to a different transaction, described below. There is no evidence this particular deal concerned natural gas.
Collins said Comer had not made a mistake. “Committee Republicans have evidence the Bidens’ deal with CEFC — a company closely affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party — was changed when the Bidens cut out their Western partners of SinoHawk to keep the business in the family,” she said. Asked to provide the evidence, she would only say it was “based on whistleblower information provided to Committee Republicans.”
In an Oct. 13 letter .. https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/grassley_to_doj_fbi_weiss_political_bias_part_iii.pdf .. to FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said that an FBI summary of an interview with Bobulinski revealed that the deal was intended to pay the partners for deals that had “remained intentionally uncompensated while Joe Biden was Vice President.” The venture failed but, in a separate arrangement, Hunter and Jim Biden received nearly $5 million from CEFC, Grassley noted.
“At a time when Americans are suffering from high energy prices because of this administration’s terrible energy policy, we found evidence that Hunter Biden and Joe Biden were involved in a scheme to try to get China to buy liquefied natural gas.”
In any case, the natural gas deal appears separate from Oneida; it involved a Hunter Biden company known as Hudson West III LLC. Joe Biden’s alleged involvement has never been proved.
“Hunter brought in millions of dollars from this deal from entities tied to the Chinese government. In emails obtained by committee Republicans, Hunter wanted keys made for Joe Biden and Jill Biden, his office mate. He provided Joe Biden’s personal cell number and called him his partner.”
— Comer, at the news conference
Comer mixes documented facts with innuendo here. The Washington Post, via government records, court documents and bank statements, found that CEFC and its executives paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter and Jim Biden. But the alleged connection of these deals to Joe Biden remains tenuous. It again hinges on a single email — also describing something that did not happen.
In the fall of 2017, Hunter Biden wrote to a building manager of the House of Sweden, where he was renting office space. “Please have keys made for new office mates,” he wrote, listing Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Jim Biden and Gongwen Dong, whom he called “emissary” of CEFC. He also asked the signage updated to say the “Biden Foundation” and “Hudson West (CEFC U.S.).”
But a representative of the Biden Foundation told The Washington Post the House of Sweden was never under consideration as a location. A spokeswoman for the Swedish authority that oversees the property said that the four keys were made available, as requested, but that Hunter Biden never picked them up. The signboard on the door wasn’t changed, she said.
Send us facts to check by filling out this form Sign up for The Fact Checker weekly newsletter
The Fact Checker is a verified signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network code of principles
By Glenn Kessler Glenn Kessler has reported on domestic and foreign policy for more than three decades. Send him statements to fact check by emailing him or sending a DM on Twitter
Judge Maryellen Noreika, who is presiding over the case in Delaware federal court, deferred the plea deal after an hourslong, contentious hearing. She expressed concerns with the structure of the agreement and requested additional briefings from both parties in the coming weeks before determining the next steps.
"I'm not going to say I'm going to accept the agreement, I'm not going to say I'll deny it," she said, acknowledging that her probing threw "a little bit of a curveball" into the proceeding.
Noreika was confirmed as a district judge in the District of Delaware in August 2018, following a nomination by former President Donald Trump in December 2017 to fill a seat vacated by Gregory Sleet upon his pending retirement.
She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in 1993. She also holds a graduate degree from Columbia University and a bachelor of science from Lehigh University.
Judge Maryellen Noreika United States District Court, District of Delaware
The initial plea deal came following a five-year Justice Department probe.
Federal authorities with the U.S. attorney's office in Delaware, led by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump-era appointee, had been investigating Hunter Biden since 2018.
Prosecutors have examined whether he paid adequate taxes on millions of dollars of his income, including money he made from multiple overseas business ventures. They also explored allegations that Hunter Biden lied about his drug use on a gun application form in 2018, despite later acknowledging that he was addicted to drugs around that time.
----- [INSERT: The testimony from the two individuals — Greg Shapley and an unidentified IRS agent — detailed what they called a pattern of “slow-walking investigative steps” and delaying enforcement actions months before elections. But it’s unclear whether the conflict they describe amounts to internal disagreement about how to pursue the wide-ranging probe or a pattern of interference and preferential treatment. Department policy has long warned prosecutors to take care in charging cases with potential political overtones around the time of an election, to avoid any possible influence on the outcome. GOP releases testimony of whistleblowers claiming interference in Hunter Biden case https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172217681
There you go. And according to what Zeigler said you have the above situation:
IRS whistleblowers lash out at federal officials in fiery Hunter Biden hearing: 5 takeaways Phillip M. Bailey USA TODAYJuly 19, 2023 [...] Whistleblowers target Hunter Biden's tax delinquency
Ziegler alleged David Weiss, the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, who was appointed by former President Donald Trump, previously agreed certain felony charges against Hunter Biden were warranted.
But he said other Justice Department officials believed no jury would convict him given given his drug addiction and the death of his brother, Beau Biden.
Hunter Biden improperly claimed business deductions for a range of personal expenses, Zeigler said, from his children's college tuition to stays for his drug dealer at a Hollywood hotel. In written testimony, he said he was denied a request to interview Hunter Biden’s adult children, alleging prosecutors said that would "get us into hot water."
Repeat: But it’s unclear whether the conflict they describe amounts to internal disagreement about how to pursue the wide-ranging probeor a pattern of interference and preferential treatment. Department policy has long warned prosecutors to take care in charging cases with potential political overtones around the time of an election, to avoid any possible influence on the outcome. GOP releases testimony of whistleblowers claiming interference in Hunter Biden case https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172217681
Now go home and create a conspiracy around the news that the FBI resisted investigating Trump for over a year ..
According to an attorney for the GOP-led House Ways and Means Committee in court documents filed Tuesday, the two whistleblowers have said the younger Biden "appears to have benefitted from political interference which calls into question the propriety of the investigation."
The White House has repeatedly sought to distance the president from the probe. President Joe Biden has said he and his son never discussed his foreign business dealings and there are no indications that the federal investigation has involved the president in any way.
ABC News' Lucien Bruggeman contributed to this report.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
