We recently discussed the latest disclosures from the laptop of Hunter Biden showing new business dealings leveraging access to his father — and further contradicting President Joe Biden’s repeated denials of any knowledge or involvement with his son’s deals. Now there is a new disclosure of $100,000 given to the Biden grandchildren by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, who was seeking business deals with the Bidens. As usual, there remains a virtual blackout on the Biden laptop or the mounting evidence of Hunter Biden’s influence peddling. Beyond a couple outlets like the New York Post, voters have to rely on the foreign press for coverage of the disclosures.
Freeh reportedly made the gift in April 2016 to the trust for the children of Hunter’s late brother, Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015. The donation would well be a humanitarian gesture. However, it was the contemporaneous pitches for business deals with Hunter that has attracted the attention of some. In July 2016, he contacted Hunter and said that he “spoke to Dad a few weeks ago.” He tells Hunter “I believe that working together on these (and other legal) matters would be of value, fun and rewarding.”
Freeh keeps pitching work with the Bidens. In another email, Freeh writes “I would still like to persuade him to associate with me and FSS—as we have some very good and profitable matters which he could enhance with minimal time.”
Notably, emails show that Hunter Biden referred a client to Freeh. It was Romanian real estate tycoon Gabriel “Puiu” Popoviciu who is a notoriously corrupt businessman.
Freeh later wrote to say on July 8, 2016. “I wanted to thank you again for referring Gabriel to us and we have finalized an attorney letter of engagement with him.”
On April 24, 2017, Freeh writes Hunter to say that there were problems with the $100,000 and pledging “a new $100k gift” and having the trust “reimburse the foundation by paying it $100k.”
There is nothing here that is clearly criminal. Freeh was clearly trying to tap into the Bidens for business, not that type of rainmaker dealing is common in Washington. What is most interesting about the emails (beyond the $100,000) is that Freeh understood that Hunter Biden was the window to deal with the Bidens on deals. Keep in mind that, during these years, Hunter Biden says that he was a wreck dealing with drug and alcohol abuse. Biden admits that he was still a crack addict running into his father’s last presidential campaign and the photos from China show him passed out and doing drugs as well as sexual trysts with various women, including possible prostitutes. In this book, Hunter admitted that he was still a crack addict and alcoholic: “[d]rinking a quart of vodka a day by yourself in a room is absolutely, completely debilitating” as well as “smoking crack around the clock.”
Both Hunter and his uncle are repeatedly referenced in a variety of deals as conduits to Joe Biden. Tony Bobulinski stated that he personally met with Joe Biden to discuss the business dealings of his son and brother. Bobulinski has been supported by these emails and is repeatedly praised by Hunter Biden in the emails and identified as the person in control of transactions for “the family.” He has directly contradicted Joe Biden’s denial of any knowledge or involvement in his son’s dubious dealings. He has never been called a liar by the Biden and Hunter admits that the laptop “might” be his — or they might be entirely fake Russian propaganda. The mainstream media has no interest in determining which is true — or to recognize the fact that third parties confirmed that these emails are real.
There are more serious disclosures raised in these emails that not only reveal influence peddling in details but contradict the repeated denials of President Joe Biden. While the Bidens are not claiming that these emails are fake, the media has a blockbuster story in either case: either this is the greatest frame up of all time or it is the greatest cover up. The problem is that, if it is a cover up, the media played a major role in it.
While the media assigned teams of investigators and reporters to cover every possible shady deal of the Trump children, most media outlets are continuing to bury the laptop story. If they do not report on it, it did not happen. That has fueled concerns that we have a type of state media by default where reporters follow a narrative not by legal coercion but personal conviction. In the age of echo journalism and advocacy reporting, shaping the news has become acceptable, even commendable. At this point, the mounting evidence of self-dealing and influence peddling by the Bidens cannot be reported without being an indictment of not just this conduct but that of many journalists and columnists.
“Beyond a couple outlets like the New York Post, voters have to rely on the foreign press for coverage of the disclosures…Notably, emails show that Hunter Biden referred a client to Freeh. It was Romanian real estate tycoon Gabriel “Puiu” Popoviciu who is a notoriously corrupt businessman.”
Well when the NYT’s Kenneth P. Vogel reported this story out two years ago what he disclose was that Hunter dropped off Popoviciu’s case in 2016 and Freeh handed it over to one Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Great piece. I have one editorial note. This sentence needs attention, “Freeh was clearly trying to tap into the Bidens for business, not that type of rainmaker dealing is common in Washington.”
Thanks again!
Anyone notice how the MSM has dropped the narrative that Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation. They realized that they beat that horse for so long that the public were no longer buying it. They won’t even take that horse at the glue factory.
Even Hunter does not deny that the laptop was his. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-laptop-reports-intervention-memoir/. After emailing Louis Freeh Hunter would drink a quart of vodka and sing his favorite song.
I got friends in low places where the whiskey flows down at the Oasis
I got friends in low places
I got friends in low places where the whiskey flows down at the FBI
I got friends in low places.
In additional verses the locations such as China and Burisma can be added as the low places.
There’s nothing new about this; it was all reported last year. Nor is there anything improper about it, forget about “criminal”. Turley seems to aspire to be the new John Solomon, writing long factoid-filled screeds and suggesting they’re all very sinister without ever explaining why.
When and where?
A very muted version of what was done to Trump for 5 years.
Only there actual accusations of criminality were constantly made, with no evidence at all; given comparable emails for Trump’s children, the MSM would have had it on headline news for years, in depth and with investigations & inquests being called for.
One reason they are sinister is because the MSM and Big Tech conspired with the Democratic Party to keep information about Hunter Biden’s dealings—and the FBI’s year-long investigation into them–hidden from the voting public prior to the election. That is election interference.
They are sinister for other reasons: they show that Hunter Biden is a conduit for improperly accessing the power of the Vice Presidency and perhaps now the Presidency to cull favors—and the Hunter Biden conduit is used by foreign nations and political actors and U.S. institutions such as the FBI.
Welcome to communism in Murika.
“EXCLUSIVE: Hunter Biden addressed his white lawyer as ‘n***a’ multiple times, used phrases like ‘true dat n***a’ and bantered ‘I only love you because you’re black,’ in shocking texts unearthed days after Joe’s emotional Tulsa speech decrying racism”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9661781/Hunter-Biden-used-n-word-multiple-times-casual-conversation-text-messages-show.html
Jonathan: All of us out here thought you would want to address Thursday’s far reaching decision by the the 6-3 conservative majority of the Supreme Court upholding Arizona’s voter suppression laws (Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee). Like the laws in Georgia and elsewhere Arizona’s law is intended to make it more difficult for Blacks and other minorities to vote. It is a racist law and a “free speech” issue–dear to your heart. But Arizona’s attack on voting rights is apparently of little concern to you. No, your continuing focus is on the Bidens and your attempts to dig up dirt on them to tarnish the President’s image and make it more difficult for him to carry out his agenda. This seems to be the cause celebre of you conservatives. So, OK, let’s address the documents attached to your column.
First, did you obtain the alleged messages between Louis Freeh and Hunter Biden from the FBI? Unlikely. That probably leaves Rudy Giuliani or the New York Post that originally broke the story about a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden. The major media did cover the story originally but gave up because there has been no actual proof the laptop belonged to Hunter or that the contents of the hard drive are authentic. Neither Rudy Giuliani nor the Washington Post have been noted for objectivity in reporting the facts. We know Giuliani is a liar. But in a leap of faith let’s assume for the sake of argument the communications between Freeh and Biden are authentic. What do they reveal? That Freeh was seeking business for his law firm and wanted Hunter’s help in contacting Hunter’s father. Freeh’s message of 3/12/17 to Hunter occurred after VP Biden had left office and was then a private citizen. Freeh was seeking to employ the former VP as a “rainmaker”–to help generate business for FSS (Freeh, Sporkin & Sullivan) a well known law firm in DC. You say “rainmaking” is not “common in Washington”. That’s ludicrous! Almost every big law firm in DC hires former legislators and ranking members of presidential administrations to help navigate the corridors of power and make an impact on legislation favorable to their clients. That’s how Washington works and for you, very experienced in Washington, to pretend otherwise is laughable! So for Freeh to hire Joe Biden as the ultimate “rainmaker” would have not been unusual and certainly a feather in Freeh’s hat. Apparently, nothing happened on this front but not because Freeh didn’t try.
This brings us to Freeh’s $100K donation for the children of Beau Biden. In his 4/24/17 message to Hunter Freeh states: “My accountants now advise that since the grant did not go to a 501(c)organization, it was not a proper foundation gift. So we’ve been in touch with the IRS and PWC and want to correct the situation…” So Freeh wanted to make sure his donation complied with charitable giving laws. Freeh’s abundance of caution is in stark contrast to the practices at the Trump Foundation. In 2018 Donald Trump was forced to shut down and dissolve his foundation in NY because he was using it as his personal piggy bank to fund his 2016 campaign. In the settlement Trump was ordered to pay $2 million. Don’t recall you complaining at the time about Trump’s flagrant violation of NY’s charitable giving laws!
So what are we to conclude from the interchange of messages (even if authentic) between Freeh and Hunter? “Influence peddling”? You betcha. But nothing, by your own admission, that was “criminal”. They were simply engaging in what everyone does in Washington. Just ask Sonny Purdue who was Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture. He gave favorable administration treatment to agricultural giants in exchange for sweet heart land deals. That’s bribery! But you rather focus on the Bidens who you have claimed were involved in massive “corruption”. I say show us the beef!
“ Freeh reportedly made the gift in April 2016 to the trust for the children of Hunter’s late brother, Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015. ”
The bribe was paid while Joe was VP. It wasn’t discovered by PWC until the next year when PWC was preparing tax filings.
Would someone point out where the environmental lawyer talks about Ivanka’s Chinese patents that she received WHILE WORKING FOR HER FATHER AS A FEDERAL EMPLOYEE?
Go away. You liberals see everything through race. Voter laws apply to ALL RACES. You liberals are the real racists, you think black people can’t get their business together like white people can. You actually believe this and THAT’S the real issue here. Why do you liberals look down and think so low of black people?
+100
You reek of biasness.
There is nothing wrong or bad about having good and enforced election laws and rules. The Supreme Court was right to so rule. It can now be fully alleged that Joe and Hunter Biden have attempted to utilize the power of office to financially enhance themselves. Perdue’s actions do not reach these heights.
One can look at the tax returns released for J Biden 2020 website.
He was filing routine returns with income general of Salary, Pension, SS , Sch E of 1040 of $19,000,etc.through 2016.
Beginning in 2017 J Biden’s Sch E -1040, reflecting 2 Sub-S Corp returns, income escalates up by $10,048,739 for 2017 and up by $3,236,764 for 2018. It Would be good to know the Source of S-Corps’ Income. We know what the S-Corps K-1s reflected, as they were reported by Joe.
2019 was never released as he conveniently had it on Ext til 10-15-2020. If truth ever released, to the public, the Fed Gov’t has traced the proceeds to Hunter from China and Ukraine, probably traversing through 10 or so Shell Corporations off-shore and eventually on shore. I would wager the business partner saying 10% to the Big Guy would be Joe Biden would be prove to be spot on.. It is now factual that J Biden lied about not having imput in Hunter’s businesss and income.
There is now “no Rule of Law in America”>
There are only lthe laws that the Justice Dept choose to apply and prosecute. That is ipso facto.
Word!!
eb
HOGWASH BIDENS ARE GUILTY AS HELL
Jonathon is right in this article. The public has been duped by complicit media sources, and the FBI has covered up the evidence it received via a December 9, 2019 subpoena to take possession of Hunter’s laptop and hard drive. When a serious media outlet takes the time to delve into this story it will make Watergate look like a fairy tale.
Dennis,
I share your skepticism. On the other hand, if there is more to this story than meets the eye, I would welcome knowing about it. Needless to say, I don’t take anything Fox News reports at face value. Despite Turley’s obviously compromised position as a Fox employee, still I would never accuse him of alleging or reporting facts which he had reason to believe were suspect. While he is undeniably biased against Fox’s media competitors, as an academic who does not wish to forsake his intellectual credibility, he will not perpetrate a fraud in the court of public opinion like Giuliani, etc.
I confess that I have ignored this Biden story because I don’t wish to invest any of my time until and unless it is picked up by the mainstream press. If this story has real meat, I don’t doubt that they will cover it. They do not want to be scooped by their media competitor, Fox. There is a healthy competition for breaking news. They both want that Pulitzer Prize for news reporting. So, I am content to wait and see.
Perhaps, this is the way reporting is supposed to work. The Rightwing press focuses on exposing the Democrats and the mainstream press focuses upon exposing the Republicans. Can we realistically expect otherwise? As long as both sides are kept in check, perhaps it is pointless to complain about bias. If this story has legs, I am confident that the mainstream press will investigate it (assuming it is not currently doing so unbeknownst to us), and we will have the Rightwing media to thank for it. If and when these allegations get to trial, only then will I give it my full attention since I trust our legal system to uncover the truth, not the court of public opinion.
“Arizona’s voter suppression laws” is your demented view of completely reasonable voter guidelines
There was nothing racist about the SCOTUS Arizona voting decision. Anything Democrats don’t like is “discriminatory intent.” Democrats’ premise that non-whites are somehow incapable is what is racist.
It’s safe to say that, no matter that corruption has always been, this is the first time in our history it has been so brazenly out in the open and its perpetrators have been so comfortable in not giving that fact much thought (excepting perhaps the Clintons, which tells me their crimes must be truly egregious and depraved).
The next two years will likely either make or break us. Stop voting dem and actually inform yourselves, ‘classical’ libs. The doors leading to the outside of your ivory towers, even just the sleepy ones in your minds, work, y’know. . . .
Once upon a time Mr. Turley was interested in law – he has left that jurisdiction to enter the world of crazy and continues to somehow believe that Hunter Biden is the only important topic of the day. He is far down the rabbit hole and deserves nothing but disrespect
Actually, far more time should be spent on Hunter because he provides evidence of financial schemes between the Biden Family Syndicate and our military and economic enemies. He has linked the President of the US to payoffs.
The left was happy accusing Trump of dealings with Russia that were proven false. Still, Hunter provides us insight into the Biden Family’s deals with powerful Russians based on influence peddling. In the process, the leader of Ukraine called Biden’s deals with the Russians regarding the pipeline a threat to Ukraine’s existence. The Biden Family doesn’t stop there. We see the same with China, and one deal ended up benefiting the Chinese military. We see it elsewhere as well, but you know none of this because the MSM refuses to write about true and dangerous things for our society.
Today we are celebrating The 4th of July. One genious we celebrate is Ben Franklin. He created a newspaper and realized that without a free and fair press America would not be living up to its greatness and uniqueness. He believed this so strongly he always published opposing opions and suppressed no news. He himself would write opposing opions under a alias name to show an opposing viewpoint. Readers did not know he was doing it. As we celebrate our birth today let us pray for our country that the censorship and the hiding of stories stops. This is not the dream of those geniuses like Ben Franklin.
PBS asked Vanessa Williams to sing the ‘Black National Anthem’ at Capitol Fourth Celebration. How “unifying” for the country, eh?
Noice. FKA twigs Francis Key Anthem
Thank you!!!
You rock, Carole!
I am waiting for Cyrus Vance to go after Louis Freeh since half of his claims against THE TRUMP ORG. involve what Freeh did, except the Freeh – Biden arrangement was influence peddling.
Additionally, Freeh admits to violating IRS law using his private foundation illegally according to IRS rules. Freeh rectified this AFTER THE FACT.
What good does it do to merely inform our small group of this travesty? Why doesn’t Turley write about these revelations on thehill.com where he is a contributor? For that matter, why isn’t he invited to appear on Fox News to discredit the mainstream press for its silence?
Turley should inform us if he has attempted to reach out to his contacts in the mainstream press to discover why they are ignoring this apparent scandal. I find it hard to believe that he has not made such inquiries and heard their explanation for ignoring these revelations. Surely Turley has spoken with his good and trusted friend Bill Barr about the Bidens! Why won’t he tell us why Barr apparently did not see fit to investigate the Bidens despite Trump’s demand to do so?
Something does not add up. Turley must know more than he is willing to tell us.
JS, I appreciate the fact that Professor Turley brings these important developments to our attention on a daily basis. In your commentary, you steadfastly criticize Professor Turley. Some of us find your constant efforts to demonize Professor Turley disconcerting. By the way, the readership of this wonderful blog is not a small group.
Cassidy,
I don’t wonder that you find my reporting of Turley’s hypocrisy “disconcerting.” So do I which is why I bring it up.
“Why doesn’t Turkey write about…”
Because, Little Jeffy, Prof. Turley is his own man doing his blog his way.
He cares not, for the emotionally stunted whimpering of ignorant leftists like yourself.
Iowan2,
Get it all out. Feel better?
Boy, I’d sure hate to meet Iowan1!
See, if Hunter was in office personally, I’d actually GAF about this. The fact that he’s the child of a president who saw/sees his role as granting access to the power puts him in the company of Bush jr., Ivanka, Jared, Don jr., etc…
This is a despicable side of American politics, yet also completely normalized. I don’t like it all the time, The trumpers on this blog don’t like it when a dem is in office.
And Turley, I’d love to put you in a room with Jen Psaki with all your “some of us felt…”, “many of us said…” archaically collective point of view narration. She’d be like: some of us? who exactly are we speaking of???…
In other words, let the proctological exam begin.
eT
Just kidding…it’s eb.
Response from the Lefty bloggers:
“When is Turley going to talk about Fox…?” Or
“But Trump…”
The Lefties have no interest in any truth that does not fit their narrative.
MollyG, Natacha, Fishwings (sp?), Anonymous are shrill in their outrage at conservatives, but seem to accept Dem corruption as a given.
And they don’t seem to mind being lied to by the MSM.
Monument, thanks for saving me the trouble of making the points you so eloquently made. I especially loved the “when will Turley talk about Fox…” line.
Deal with it. We have to read your nonsense when you post, we don’t complain about it because we’re not as snowflaked out as you are.
eb
Except that, there’s no proof that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden, but we DO have proof of the daily lies put out by Fox. What does the MSM lie about? You wouldn’t know because you don’t watch them, but rely on the alt-right “media” for your information. Here’s one little tidbit: MSM does not tell viewers not to trust alt-right media. It is an alt-right indoctrination measure to get you to believe that all Democrats are bad and that MSM can’t be trusted. They are afraid you might catch on that you are being indoctrinated.
Natacha, you say that the laptop was not Hunters laptop but Hunter contradicts your assertion. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-laptop-reports-intervention-memoir/. You deny that the laptop was Hunter’s but Hunter has never made such a denial. She knows more than Hunter himself. Once again Natacha gazes into her crystal ball. Bubble bubble toil and trouble.
Regardless of political party this behaviour does more to undermine the US than any amount of foreign interference. A mighty tree rotting from within.
The legacy media has no honor
Remember Louis Freeh accepted a bribe to write the ‘report’ when Joe Paterno’s decades of child molestation was revealed at Penn State, the ‘Sanctuary City for Pedophiles’? Freeh recommended that Pervert State serve a 4 year ban on bowl appearances, that George Mitchell (who flew on Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘Lolita Express’ and visited Epstein’s ‘Paradise Island’ reduced to 2 years.
Freeh has replaced Jim Comey has the most corrupt FBI Director of all time.
A man dies. He has children. A gift in the nature of a scholarship is given to his children.
The giver later reaches out to the kids living grandpa for some social and business dealings .
Common. No big deal.
In honor of Beau. Not Joe.
GUESS IT DEPENDS ON YOUR SENSE OF FAIRNESS. IF THIS HAD BEEN DONALD TRUMP AND HIS FAMILY THEN THE MSM (CNN, MSNBC, ETC) AND THE LEFT WING POLITICIANS WOULD HAVE BEEN IN AN UPROAR AGAINST THEM. NOW THAT IT’S THE BIDEN FAMILY ITS “NO BIG DEAL”. THIS IS NOT THE UNITED STATES I GREW UP IN.
Crickets from the propagandists in the media. Just imagine if this happened with the Trump kids.
If one of the Trump kids had died the media would be in a frenzy alright, a frenzy of rejoicing. Then, if someone gave a “gift” of 100k to the their children the media would be in another frenzy.