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Silence of the Year: What did Hunter Biden do for Burisma? What was Hunter Biden doing on the board of a Ukrainian energy company?
Tampa Bay Times ^ | 1 day ago | By Angie Drobnic Holan

Posted on 12/19/2019 12:05:13 PM PST by powermill

There is this basic question: What was Hunter Biden doing on the board of a Ukrainian energy company?

Biden had no particular expertise in energy or Ukraine. He did, however, join the board of Burisma when his father Vice President Joe Biden was publicly representing U.S. policy on the country, which had become the center of a tug-of-war between Russia and the West.

Did the older Biden do anything wrong? Nothing has been proven. But what the adult son was up to remains mysterious, as are the details of what he was paid.

Hunter Biden’s work attracted attention at the time. The oligarch behind the firm, Mykola Zlochevsky, faced investigations for money laundering and tax evasion. (Zlochevsky and the company have denied the allegations.)

Staff at the State Department said they expressed concerns in 2015 when Hunter Biden started serving on the board of Burisma.

George Kent, the senior anticorruption coordinator in the State Department's European Bureau, recently testified in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump. Kent said he raised the issue with the vice president’s staff, but was told that the vice president's son Beau was dying of cancer and that "there was no further bandwidth to deal with family-related issues at that time."

Reporting from The New Yorker published in April 2019 suggests that Hunter Biden was suffering from alcoholism and drug addiction while looking for work to support a high-end professional lifestyle.

Some of the most detailed reporting on his Burisma work comes from Reuters but relies on unnamed sources. Reuters reported that Hunter Biden weighed in during scheduled meetings but did little of specific substance. There’s no evidence that he ever went to Ukraine or was in the country. The report suggests he was compensated for contributing his high-profile name.

What has Hunter Biden said himself?

In an October interview with ABC News, Biden said he and his father never discussed specifics of his work with Ukraine. He also said he earned his seat because of his previous work as an attorney and experience on the board of Amtrak and the United Nations World Food Program.

"I had as much knowledge as anybody else that was on that board, if not more," he said.

When asked if he would have been invited onto the Burisma board if he’d had a different last name, he said, “I don’t know. Probably not.”


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: biden; bidenfamily; hunterbiden; trumpukraine
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1 posted on 12/19/2019 12:05:13 PM PST by powermill
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To: powermill

grease meets skids

That’s about it.


2 posted on 12/19/2019 12:18:04 PM PST by DoughtyOne (Pledge: "...and to the Democracy for which it stands..." I give up. Use the democRat meme...)
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To: powermill

Questions for the Bidens under oath (and they should have to cough up related documents):

How and when exactly was Hunter Biden “invited” to be on the Burisma board? Describe all negotiations took place regarding his qualifications, duties, compensation, etc.?

Did Hunter have any sort of legal agreement or Memorandum of Understanding, or at least a letter regarding his Board service? Produce any and all of it, with related correspondence.

Did either Joe or Hunter Biden, or their surrogates, approach Burisma first?

Was either Biden approached by a US based representative or lobbyist for Burisma?

Did Joe Biden know anything about his son working for Burisma before Hunter was given a seat on the Board?

When did Joe Biden first become aware of Hunter’s new position, and what did he do about it?

Beau Biden had a long struggle with cancer (year and a half) before he died. Was Joe too preoccupied to perform his job properly during the whole period? If so, why didn’t he resign? What else did he screw up?


3 posted on 12/19/2019 12:24:04 PM PST by Chewbarkah
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To: Chewbarkah

Biden’s father was VP. When the law was closing in on Burisma they used his potential involvement to make the prosecutor and tie Burisma cases go away. Why is this so hard to get? Joe Biden admitted what he did.


4 posted on 12/19/2019 12:37:20 PM PST by Dave Wright
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To: powermill

NO investigation on that!

Nor his fathers crap.

Nor Hillary’s crap...

Why is it that only DEMOCRATS have any power to investigate and prosecute?!?!?

THEY are the MINORITY!

I think we’re being played - by both sides.


5 posted on 12/19/2019 12:39:23 PM PST by joethedrummer
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To: powermill

when his father confessed on video in 2018, it should have triggered an investigation which would be over by now.


6 posted on 12/19/2019 12:40:23 PM PST by olesigh
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To: powermill
"What was Hunter Biden doing on the board of a Ukrainian energy company?"

Lines.

7 posted on 12/19/2019 12:48:54 PM PST by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: powermill
What did Hunter Biden do for Burisma?

He didn't have to do much. In a previous job I had abroad, I saw such arrangements, usually with the children or relatives of Chinese politicians or Russian oligarchs.

The smart ones keep a very low profile, and disappear at the first sign of trouble. Their job is simply as a conduit for access and information. For especially someone as flawed and stupid as Hunter Biden, the brains at Burisma would likely make their requests for information or favors clear and concise - and not too frequent. Hunter Biden would otherwise have no responsibilities in the company whatsoever.

8 posted on 12/19/2019 12:54:50 PM PST by PGR88
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To: powermill; Fred Nerks

What did Hunter Biden do for Burisma? What was Hunter Biden doing on the board of a Ukrainian energy company?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Posit this.

1) Aid $ from Obama admin OBM is deposited in Soros banks in Ukraine.

2) Ukraine takes a portion of the aid and the rest of the money is laundered into Barisma Bank Account.

3) Hunter Biden is hired to be one of many bag men who receives $ from Barisma as a “Director” He does nothing to earn the money, he doesn’t have to.

4) Biden and others take their bag money and divide it among recipients as ordered by Joe Biden.

5) Ukrainian Prosecutor gets wind of the scam and wants to be paid off, but they refuse and he investigates Baraisma.

6) Joe Biden says to Ukraine end the investigation, fire the prosecutor or I will withhold US aide. Prosecutor is fired.

7) Rudi Giulliani goes to Ukraine and discovers that certain employees of the State Department are complicit in the scam, and the Ambassador is also complicit. He recommends to PDJT that the Ambassador be transferred out.

8) Phone call happened.

9) Desperate Dems who do not want their scam revealed to the public initiate bogus impeachment proceeding against the President while conducting a defamation campaign against Giulliani, all of which is designed to cow Ukraine from aiding in the investigation of the Dem bagman scam and Soros.

10) The President is impeached and Pelosi holds back articles of impeachment as a hanging sword over the President to assure no further investigation happens
of the Dem Soros bagman operation.

What happens next?

11) Lindsey Graham SHOULD call rudi into the Senate Intel Committee to testify and submit documents from Ukraine.

12) DOJ begins investigation into the Dem SOROS bagman operation in Ukraine.

13) Impeachment cancelled by Senate.


9 posted on 12/19/2019 1:00:11 PM PST by Candor7 ((Obama Fascism)http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2009/05/barack_obam_the_quintessentia_1.html))
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To: powermill

There is a Pulitzer Prize just sitting there waiting for a major newspaper or magazine to investigate and report on this massive story, but the entire profession of journalism is so ideologically bound to the left that they dare not touch it. There is obviously so much more underneath the thin shell of this story, that they dare not risk damaging it.


10 posted on 12/19/2019 1:01:54 PM PST by ETCM
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To: powermill
What was Hunter Biden doing on the board of a Ukrainian energy company?

Partying like a rock star~!

Of course he hadda give daddy most of the money.

11 posted on 12/19/2019 1:03:19 PM PST by rawcatslyentist (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfuAJcWl6DE Kill a Commie for Mommie)
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To: rawcatslyentist

Getting money for doing nothing....he never went to the Ukraine..


12 posted on 12/19/2019 1:07:17 PM PST by Hojczyk
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To: powermill

This is the scum media in non-action when it comes to anything damaging for any Dimm. It's a national disgrace.

13 posted on 12/19/2019 1:13:35 PM PST by NohSpinZone (First thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers)
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To: All

The Bidens are such damned frickin’ liars.....”forgot” to mention this:

Revealed: Joe Biden twice used his position as senator to intervene to boost son Hunter’s lobbying
Joe Biden lobbied Department of Justice Congress and Homeland Security for Hunter’s lobbying clients
BY Alana Goodman, Washington Examiner| October 24, 2019 07:37 PM

Joe Biden privately contacted the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice when he was a senior and influential U.S. senator to discuss issues that his son Hunter’s firm was being paid to lobby on, according to government records.

On at least two occasions, Biden contacted federal departments to discuss issues related to Hunter’s firm’s lobbying clients, according to records reviewed by the Washington Examiner.

Biden’s behind-the-scenes outreach illustrates how his Senate work overlapped with his son’s business interests. Biden has faced scrutiny for taking actions that were perceived to benefit his son’s work, including calling for the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor and backing policies that helped the Delaware-based credit card industry while Hunter was working for MBNA, which is headquartered in the state.

Government records show that Biden, who has always insisted he knows nothing about his son’s business activities, helped Hunter’s work with strategic and highly specific interventions that could have benefited his son to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

On Feb. 28, 2007, Biden contacted DHS to express that he was “concerned about the Department’s proposed chemical security regulations authorized by Section 550 of DHS Appropriations Act of 2007,” according to the department’s log of its contacts with members of Congress.

Section 550, which was passed in 2006 as part of the DHS appropriations bill, requires high-risk chemical plants to submit site safety plans to DHS for approval, including security credentialing and training for employees.

Eight weeks earlier, the Industrial Safety Training Council had hired Hunter Biden’s firm to lobby DHS on the issue. The trade group, which represents companies that provide safety training for chemical facility employees, was mounting a heavy lobbying campaign over section 550, submitting congressional testimony about the need to expand background checks for chemical plant employees.

The Industrial Safety Training Council was seeking to expand the “language in DHS legislation regarding security clearance and credentialing for chemical facility employees and employers” in January 2007, according to lobbying disclosure records.

While Hunter Biden did not register as an individual lobbyist for the trade association, he was one of three senior partners in his firm at the time. The Industrial Safety Training Council paid Oldaker, Biden & Belair a total of $200,000 between early 2007 and the end of 2008.

The Biden campaign did not respond to request for comment. The National Legal and Policy Center, a government watchdog group, said Biden should have avoided involvement with issues that his son’s firm was also lobbying on because of the appearance of conflict.

“It’s implausible Sen. Biden did not know his son’s firm was lobbying on this arcane issue,” said Tom Anderson, the director of NLPC’s Government Integrity Project.
“Sometimes appearances are exactly what they are,” he said. “This is a recurring problem we’ve seen on the Hill, where family members are enriched because of their relationship with a member.”

Biden also sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on Jan. 31, 2007 requesting a meeting with the Department of Justice to discuss expanding the federal fingerprint background check system.

“I write to request your assistance in implementing an expanded background check system for our nation’s volunteer organizations,” wrote Biden. “If we can work together to expand the number of volunteer organizations that have access to fast, accurate, and inexpensive fingerprint background checks, we will make significant and important strides in our ongoing effort to protect kids across our country.”

Biden added, “I would like to convene a small meeting with key representatives” from DOJ, the FBI, members of Congress and volunteer groups.

One of Hunter’s firm’s lobbying clients at the time, a coalition of state-level criminal justice advocates called SEARCH, was also lobbying the federal government for a broader fingerprint screening system at the time.

The same day as Biden’s letter, SEARCH adopted a resolution calling on Congress to consider “any effort to improve the quality, completeness and accessibility of criminal history records” and expand the current system to “allow the return of all criminal history record information maintained by the States on the search subject through a single fingerprint check.”

The group initially hired Oldaker, Biden & Belair in 2006 to lobby for federal funding for state-level criminal justice programs, paying the firm $114,000 over the next year. In early 2008, SEARCH was seeking funding “to assist states in development and use of information to accelerate automation of fingerprint authentication processes and criminal justice data which are compatible with the FBI’s” system, according to lobbying records.

Biden introduced a bill called the “Child Protection Improvements Act” on March 13, 2008, which created a national fingerprint background check system for volunteer groups that worked with children. Oldaker, Biden & Belair promptly began lobbying for the bill on behalf of their client, SEARCH, according to lobbying records. SEARCH paid the firm $93,000 in 2008, records show.

Hunter Biden founded Oldaker, Biden & Belair with William Oldaker, a former adviser to his father. During his time at the firm, he was registered to lobby for clients on issues ranging from online gambling to higher education. After Biden became a vice presidential candidate in 2008, Hunter stepped away from lobbying, and the firm was renamed Oldaker, Belair & Wittie.

ABC News reported last week that Biden was concerned conflicts with his son’s lobbying work could negatively affect his presidential run in 2008.

Biden was “concerned with the impact that Hunter’s lobbying activities might have on his expected campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination,” according to court documents filed by a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s in 2007, ABC News reported.
“Because my dad was vice president of the United States, there’s literally nothing, as a young man or as a full-grown adult, that my father in some way hasn’t had influence over,” Hunter told the outlet in an interview.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/biden-outreach-to-dhs-and-doj-overlapped-with-work-by-son-hunters-lobbying-firm


14 posted on 12/19/2019 1:18:42 PM PST by Liz (Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: joethedrummer

“Why is it that only DEMOCRATS have any power to investigate and prosecute?!?!?”

They own the media, infiltrated and corrupted courts, local gov’ts, Dept of InJustice, State Dept, academia, and on and on and on. They can do what they want with impunity, with the GOPe’s tacit help, and no one can stop them, for now.


15 posted on 12/19/2019 1:39:45 PM PST by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: Liz

Anybody that thinks this is anything other than a mafia style kickback scheme has rocks in their head. It couldn’t be more obvious what was going on.


16 posted on 12/19/2019 1:40:19 PM PST by GaryCrow
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To: GaryCrow

Yeah........every so often Joe comes out and publicly defends Hunter soon as the check clears.


17 posted on 12/19/2019 1:46:09 PM PST by Liz (Our side has 8 trillion bullets; the other side doesn't know which bathroom to use.)
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To: Dave Wright

He was an expensive insurance policy and lobbyist—and they got their money’s worth. He got his dad to get the investigation cancelled. He got them an iron shield to keep their corruption in the dark for a while.


18 posted on 12/19/2019 1:46:57 PM PST by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll Onward! Ride to the sound ovil.f the guns!)
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To: Dave Wright

He was an expensive insurance policy and lobbyist—and they got their money’s worth. He got his dad to get the investigation cancelled. He got them an iron shield to keep their corruption in the dark for a while.


19 posted on 12/19/2019 1:46:57 PM PST by Forward the Light Brigade (Into the Jaws of H*ll Onward! Ride to the sound ovil.f the guns!)
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To: powermill

There is this basic question: What was Hunter Biden doing on the board of a Ukrainian energy company?

Answer: Orange Man Bad!


20 posted on 12/19/2019 2:02:17 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion or satire. Or both.)
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