Below is my column in the New York Post on the closed door deposition of Hunter Biden. After years of conflicting and evasive responses on these corruption allegations, Hunter Biden is now faced with a moment of truth.
In 2016, Hunter Biden and his father Joe Biden gave an interview in which he declared “The single best thing is, family comes first.” In a gushing account, Salon warned readers that the interview “will make you want to be a Biden.” That may not be so true today as Hunter faces hours of questioning about his family’s alleged corruption and influence peddling. It is likely that he will again put “family first” but there are obvious penalties if he puts family before the facts in this corruption scandal.
This is a moment that has been building for years. After committing open contempt of Congress with a sensational press conference outside of Congress, Hunter is facing a target-rich environment for investigators who have detailed millions that allegedly went to him and his family members from foreign sources in China, Russia, Ukraine, and other countries.
Hunter will have the difficult task of maintaining two seemingly conflicting narratives. On one hand, he has claimed that he was given millions due to his skills and knowledge. On the other hand, he has repeatedly dismissed embarrassing evidence or his lack of memory as the result of being in the throes of addiction…for years. The spins seem to whip wildly between “Hunter the globe-trotting business genius” and “Hunter the blacked out junkie.”
There are dozens of questions concerning “loans” and transfers to Hunter that will be explored over a full day of questioning. However, five basic questions should be priorities for investigator assuming that Hunter does not simply plead the Fifth Amendment to remain silent.
1. Did Joe Biden know about his business dealings?
President Biden has maintained for years, including during the last presidential election, that he had no knowledge of his son’s business dealings. President Biden and the White House continued to repeat his denial from the campaign trail in 2019: “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.” These denials have continued even after an audiotape surfaced showing President Biden leaving a message for Hunter specifically discussing coverage of those dealings.
Some of us have written for years that Biden’s denial of knowledge is patently false. Hunter previously contradicted that statement. While Hunter is likely to spin the question as denying his father “did business” with him, he is expected to confirm that he did discuss his dealings with his father, which were referenced in the media for years.
2. The WhatsApp Message.
The addiction defense is likely to be raised quickly as Hunter is confronted with testimony and messages suggesting that he directly used his father to coerce foreign sources to fork over a fortune. The House investigators previously discovered the infamous WhatsApp message:
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
Hunter is expected to claim that it was the drugs speaking and that his father was not sitting next to him. However, it will also prompt follow up questions about repeated references to his father in messages on meetings, dinners, and influence.
3. The Ukraine Call and Reaching Out to Touch Someone.
Devon Archer reportedly recounted how, in 2015, Mykola Zlochevsky and Vadym Pozharski, two executives of the corrupt Ukrainian energy firm Burisma pressured Hunter to do something about the investigation into corruption. Archer testified that there was nothing subtle in their demands. They pressed Hunter to “get help from D.C.” to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma for corruption. Archer said that Hunter, Zlochevsky and Pozharski stepped away to make the call.
Hunter is again expected to use the addiction defense as being blacked out on the call or its details. However, it will also prompt questions on contacts of Hunter with various administration officials on behalf of clients. The Ukraine call was a direct request for Hunter, as AT&T once advertised, “to reach out and touch someone.” Those “touches” will be a key to showing that there was not just an offer of influence but deliverables on the promise.
4. The Shokin Controversy.
In March 2016, Biden bragged he told the Ukrainian government that he would unilaterally withhold a billion dollars of aid unless they removed the top prosecutor Viktor Shokin. In an interview with the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018, Biden proudly recounted:
“I said, ‘You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’…Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.”
Critics allege that Hunter’s Ukrainian clients complained shortly before that ultimatum about Shokin in a meeting with Hunter and Archer. The House is likely to push Hunter on whether he discussed the Ukrainian prosecutor with his father and whether his clients were upset with the inquiries by Shokin.
5. Services and Swag.
Hunter will be pressed on his receipt of lavish gifts and expense accounts, including a 3.16-carat diamond estimated to be worth $80,000 from Ye Jianming, chairman of Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC. The question is what services were rendered during such periods. There will also be question of services rendered and the timing of calls and meeting with his father. The House investigators have assembled a time line where major deals or payments were made after his father called into meetings or met with clients. There are emails thanking him for arranging the meetings.
The testimony today could not be more dangerous for Hunter. Any misleading or false claim in the course of this testimony could result in new federal criminal charges. It will be difficult for the Justice Department to run interference on false testimony in an investigation into corruption and special dealing. In other words, time’s up. In this case, the family cannot come before the facts: the family is the fact that is at issue before Congress.
Before our country was occupied by leftist guerrillas (our big media) Americans had things purtie good. The Fourth Branch of non-elected dictators (graduates of Goebbels School of How to Dupe the Dumbest There Be) usurped our congress and the authoity of our judiciary, calling the shots by billionaire executives residing in their abc, cnn, cbs, nbc, pbs, wapo, nyts penthouses. All bets r off.
And here’s what all of the people there say
… So long, it’s been good to know yuh
So long, it’s been good to know yuh
So long, it’s been good to know yuh
This dusty old dust is a-gettin’ my home
And I’ve got to be driftin’ along
It’s funny, because the parallels between this spoiled d*uche and Zuckerberg are plentiful (Zuck lied on the stand, too). We have not seen anything like this administration, and I pray we never do again. May we burn the wannabe Capones from our society forever – all of them. I would never have believed 20 years ago that these kinds of conversations would ever be necessary in America, let alone, de rigueur. The damage the dem party has done to us in such a tiny snap of time is incalculable. 2020 changed everything, alright. 🙄 I thank my lucky stars 2016 threw the monkey wrench in.
Hubris is an excess of confidence: a boxer who shouts “I’m the greatest!” even though he’s about to get pummeled by a much stronger opponent is displaying a lot of hubris. Hunter is only acting in a way that was taught to him by his father beginning at an early age. He is only carrying out the instructions of the man who groomed him from the beginning of his life to be who he has become. The fault lies not in the stars but in the convoluted mind of the man who was in charge of Hunter’s formulation. His father has been very successful in teaching him the art of the con.
A Conservatorship for Hunter Biden much like that of Britney Spears might be the best thing for the Country and the Biden Family. Hunter’s addictions and recovery parallels Britney’s life like a glove. The two seem to be cast from the same mold.
His activities have endangered the Presidency and Our Country. If the President and First Lady truly care about the Country and Hunter, then instituting a Conservatorship would only be humane, before Congress has to. Truly only God can save Us from Hunter and Hunter himself.
Britney Spears and the Limits of Freedom
By: Kayla Bartsch ~ February 23, 2024
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/britney-spears-and-the-limits-of-freedom/
Why hasn’t there been a medical professional with top quality skills in the field of drug addiction brought in to testify re: the long-term brain damage of Hunter Biden’s years-long drug use/abuse?
Why? Becuase We don’t need anymore excuses for Hunter Biden.
Hunter has played all his cards. Opossum Time
SCOTUS has just agreed to take up Trump’s immunity claim. With oral arguments in late april and a decision in Late June.
This means the DC, GA and FL cases are Dead until after the election.
After Hunters closed door testimony – democrats are now unsure they want Hunter to testify publicly.
I wonder what those on the left on this blog have to say about that ?
BTW now that the closed door deposition has taken place I have no problems with holding a public hearing.
The house should also subpeona Smirnov – offering him immunity if necescary.
And they should subpeona Weis and have him testify.
If the house gives Smirnov immunity – he can not plead the 5th AND Weis can not refuse to answer house questions about the case.
The pattern here maybe be considered by some to be unmentionable but it is unmistakable.
Another judge who just happens to once again be a black female liberal just “disqualified” Trump on the bogus claim of insurrection.
Isn’t there some sort of litmus test for these prosecutions to move forward and not themselves be disqualified? Think about it. Not one conservative or moderate judge or prosecutor has moved forward in these prosecutions. Its all been liberal judges and prosecutors and angry black liberal females seem to lead them all.
It is evident on face value alone that this is a political motivated prosecution. These aren’t claims without merit. It is obvious in your face political persecution, with the angry black females coming out on camera strutting and promulgating their “control over this racist white bigot”…
It has to stop. These “judges” and prosecutors need to be reined in. Who is this angry liberal woman to deny millions of supposedly free men and women the right to vote for a mainstream candidate of their choice? How does the Supreme Court not strike down these political prosecutions? And how isn’t there any oversight in these states to rein in these corrupt judges and prosecutors?
New York and Illinois. Two of the biggest dung-heaps on the continent.
“https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4351026/user-clip-clinton-1995-immigration-sotu”
I agree with this message. __Donald J Trump
FWIW, from Bill Cliton’s SOTU speech:
All Americans, not only in the States most heavily affected but in every place in this country, are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public service they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.
Floyd, I am waiting for the attack on Clinton by our leftist friends. Attack Clinton for his racist and xenophobic words like they do the orange man.
Why can’t they do that? They are following the Marxist revolutionary way, trying to get and keep power by any means possible. Their favorite one is disposable facts, so they can love Clinton for his statements on immigration and hate Trump for his, despite the words meaning the same thing.
They won’t because they are unable to explain their sudden change in beliefs. Why? They are ignorant of all facts, which to them are disposable and only to be used to promote the power-hungry attitudes of those they follow.
The stupid one replied and was deleted “Why bring in Clinton now when the man on the bit is Joe Biden. Wouldn’t it be proper to publish a likely speech by the current US President? What are you trying to conceal?”
If you weren’t in a stupor you would have noted the link, looked at it, and understood what the discussion was about. I’ll repeat the link for you to see when you wake up.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4351026/user-clip-clinton-1995-immigration-sotu
The Clinton Exoneration FBI Team became the Crossfire Hurricane FBI Team; which became the Mueller FBI Team; which became the Impeachment FBI Team; which became the J6 FBI Team; which became the Jack Smith FBI Team.
It’s all the same damn people!
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2024/01/04/its-the-same-people-politico-confirms-robert-mueller-agents-lawyers-are-jack-smith-agents-lawyers/
These are people who have repeatedly lied publicly, to congress and to the courts.
These are the people that with Certainty Trump will can when he is elected.
These people are interfering with the election as if their livelyhood depends on it,
because it does.