Posted on 12/11/2020 8:16:07 AM PST by EinNYC
One investigation became public this week after federal investigators served a subpoena on Hunter Biden. The subpoena sought detailed financial information in connection with a criminal tax investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware, according to people familiar with the matter.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan had also been looking at Hunter Biden’s business and financial dealings, as part of a broader criminal investigation that two people familiar with the matter described as an international financial investigation that had been going on for at least a year. Hunter Biden is implicated in that investigation but was never a specific target for criminal prosecution, the people said. They declined to provide details on the substance of the probe.
The federal scrutiny dates back to 2018, the people familiar with the matter said.
Neither the Delaware nor the Manhattan investigation implicates President-elect Biden, according to people familiar with the matter.
Hunter Biden said in a statement Wednesday that his lawyer advised him about the investigation into his “tax affairs” and said he had acted legally and appropriately. His lawyer, George Mesires, didn’t respond to questions on Thursday.
The Biden transition team has declined to say when Joe Biden learned of the investigation. A statement circulated by that team on Wednesday said President-elect Biden is “proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.”
While the investigations in Delaware and Manhattan proceeded, investigators tried to keep the cases out of public view by taking few visible steps in the weeks before the November election, recognizing the impact their work could have, said one of the people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Barr was aware of the investigations involving Hunter Biden before the spring, the person said, though it isn’t clear when or how he first learned of the inquiries.
Mr. Trump has fumed about Mr. Barr for a number of reasons including his acknowledgment last week that the Justice Department hadn’t found widespread evidence of election fraud that would reverse Mr. Biden’s victory.
On Thursday night, Mr. Trump tweeted his frustration about the Justice Department and the FBI’s failure to disclose the Hunter Biden investigation earlier. “Why didn’t the Fake News Media, the FBI and the DOJ report the Biden matter BEFORE the Election,” he wrote.
Justice Department guidelines advise investigators against taking overt actions in a run-up to an election so as not to be seen as affecting the outcome.
Mr. Trump talked of involving Mr. Barr when he urged the president of Ukraine in a July 2019 phone call to announce an investigation into Joe Biden and his son. Mr. Trump said he would direct his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and Mr. Barr to contact the Ukrainian president. The Justice Department said Mr. Trump never asked Mr. Barr to contact the Ukrainians. The request ultimately led to Mr. Trump’s impeachment by the House.
Appeals from Republicans to investigate Hunter Biden stepped up in the weeks leading up to the election. After a Republican Senate investigation in September produced a report on Hunter Biden’s finances and overseas business interests, several Republican lawmakers demanded that the Justice Department investigate. Rep. Jim Jordan (R, Ohio), for example, the ranking member of the House Judiciary panel, wrote to Federal Bureau of Investigation director Christopher Wray asking what steps the FBI had taken to investigate the information in the “explosive report.”
An FBI spokeswoman said the bureau responded to the letter and declined to comment further.
On Oct. 19, Mr. Trump’s Republican allies in Congress urged Mr. Barr to appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden and his father, and demanded that Mr. Barr respond within five days.
A day later, asked on Fox News whether he supported tapping a special prosecutor , Mr. Trump said: “We’ve got to get the attorney general to act. He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast. He’s got to appoint somebody. This is major corruption and this has to be known about before the election.”
The tax investigation into Hunter Biden was sparked in part by reports of suspicious activity filed by a bank that handled foreign transactions related to him, a person familiar with the matter said.
Mr. Biden, a lawyer, has had various sources of income from the U.S. and overseas. In addition to legal work in recent years, he has been a partner in some U.S.-based investment companies.
His earnings from work outside the U.S. included a board seat for around five years until April 2019 at Ukraine gas company Burisma Holdings, where he was paid roughly $50,000 a month for his work.
Mr. Biden also did advisory work for China CEFC Energy Co., as the company pursued deals in Europe and the Middle East, and in 2017 he was a shareholder in a venture with that Chinese company as it sought a foothold in the U.S. While the joint venture never got off the ground, the Senate Republican report in September alleged an entity linked to CEFC paid Mr. Biden’s law firm millions of dollars for legal and advisory work.
Around the time CEFC was trying to break into the U.S., its activity became a focus of a corruption case brought by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office, which resulted in the 2018 conviction of a former Hong Kong official on charges that he bribed African officials to secure business benefits for CEFC. The company, which is now effectively defunct, wasn’t charged in the U.S. corruption case.
Mr. Biden is also a 10% shareholder in a Shanghai private-equity firm and earlier sat on its board, though the board position was unpaid and he is among investors who haven’t recouped their investment, say people with knowledge of the situation. His investment was $420,000 for 10% of the firm, which owns stakes in several companies, most in China.
Barr is worthless. Look for him to be gone after Jan.
amen....sadly.
Barr appoints special prosecutor OR he confirms he is a deep state plant.
He's useless and in collusion with the Ds and Red Chinese, but he isn't as useless as the Q'tips who defended him with child-like attacks when Big government skeptics noted his malfeasance.
Unfortunately Barr was probably as good as Cocaine Mitch would let Trump have.
Interesting Times
are coming.
No dispute there.
This is a fact. McConnell is part of the real Plan and that's why I could care less if he remains majority leader. We MAGA folks will be no better off with him or without hem.
Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Cromwell, and the president has been sabotaged by many of his own disloyal appointees.
I could easily see Barr being kept on by Biden as AG. Absolutely. He’ll do the bidding of the Deep State. In fact, we may see a newly invigorated Barr do everything he can to keep the spotlight away from Joe and Hunter.
Disappointing is an understatement. The guy’s nothing more than a plant.
I’ve been saying ever since he passed on prosecuting Comey and McCabe he was protecting the deep state.
QANON trust the plan BS is stupid. Anyone that believes that crap is crazy.
Will Barr and Wray sing to avoid the noose or firing squad?
Many military court openings now on their very recently cleared out calendar:
And Trump hired him.
I wouldn’t go that far. But Trump’s hands indeed were tied.
I think every significant cabinet position is short listed by the senate before appointment. They limited the choices to swamp creatures and told Trump they never would confirm true conservative candidates.
> Interesting Times are coming. <
Yes, indeed. If Biden should win, I suspect we will slide into something like Swedish socialism (most folks happy for a while). Then comes something like Venezuelan socialism (strict censorship, worthless currency, food shortages, etc.).
After that, who knows?
Our own LS was adamant in September and October that we should not worry about fraud in this election.
Maybe Barr can post a current picture of Gina Haspel, the undead and un-missing CIA Director. She has been undead and un-missing since the raid on Frankfort, Germany, where a shoot-out took place and 5 soldiers and one ‘intelligence agent’ were killed. That agent was not Gina. ALL the fact checking are devoid of any current proof of life since that time. No pictures, no meetings, no statements to press, nada, zip, “She’s dead, Jim” if I’m not mistaken.
LS has been wrong on many, many issues - no longer has a modicum of credibility.
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