Welcome to the Twilight Zone, where two alternative realities exist side by side and the physics of common sense don’t apply. Congressional Democrats and their media cohorts persist in dismissing the various House committees’ meticulous investigations, definitive documentary evidence (i.e., bank records), reliable source reporting and first-hand testimony pointing to presidential corruption, as Republican conspiracy theories.
For example, a former federal prosecutor and self-described “law-and-facts lawyer,” from New York’s Southern District, has a rather incurious interpretation of the House’s findings:
“Many Republicans in Congress, obviously for political reasons, are trying to undermine the Weiss [Hunter Biden] investigation. So far, they have failed to uncover any evidence that Joe Biden had any involvement in Hunter’s business deals with Ukraine and China…. I have yet to see any evidence that Joe Biden used his office to help his son in any kind of substantive way.”
Really? Let’s break that down a bit. Here’s some of the evidence House investigators have produced so far:
First, a reliable FBI source reported his discussions with corporate officials of Ukrainian energy company Burisma, as early as 2015. As detailed in a released FBI FD-1023, Burisma officials said they “hired Hunter Biden to protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” Hunter was “hired” to serve on Burisma’s board and paid $83,000 a month.
The source reported that the Burisma CEO/founder stated “it costs 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden” in exchange for axing a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma.
The CEO “stated he didn’t want to pay the Bidens and he was “pushed to pay” them.” He further stated the Burisma prosecutor [Victor Shokin] had “already been fired, and no investigation was currently going on, and that nobody would find out about his financial dealings with the Bidens.”
Second, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer has now identified up to 170 suspicious activity reports (SARs), filed with the U.S. treasury indicating fishy transactions involving the Biden family and a complex maze of 20 Biden family and associates’ shell companies. These were created after Biden was Vice-President to obfuscate the receipt foreign funds totaling $17 million, including monies from Ukraine and China.
Meanwhile, the DOJ appears to be running interference for Biden & Co. There is the testimony of two IRS whistleblowers whom federal prosecutors blocked and checked from pursuing any lines of inquiry on Biden family members including Joe (the “Big Guy”). Prosecutors slow-walked the Hunter Biden tax case since its inception in 2018, even allowing viable felony charges to lapse. Agents were thwarted from executing valid search warrants and, in an ultimate act of betrayal, the lead prosecutor tipped off Hunter’s attorney of the government’s search plans.
It’s also increasingly clear the president has lied about not having conversations about, or knowledge of, his son’s business activities. The White House has now modified its response claiming the “president was never in business with his son.”
In another embarrassing moment for the DOJ; Hunter Biden’s scuttled plea arrangement will serve to sharpen the image of the Biden family portrait of accumulated and unaccountable wealth.
I am not a lawyer, but from my observations as an investigator, it appears that the agreement’s terms were never fully consummated between Hunter’s attorney and federal prosecutors, and the Biden DOJ painted themselves into a corner.
As events unfolded in court, it became clear that negotiations over Hunter’s plea had not been an adversarial process among opposing parties. Rather, it appeared a joint conspiratorial effort between federal prosecutors and Hunter’s counsel hoping to slip an unprecedented, and possibly unconstitutional, (i.e., illegal), arrangement past the judge, and she wasn’t buying it. Some may call this collusion.
Nevertheless, it all fell apart when U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika asked the DOJ lawyers for some basic clarification. It went downhill from there.
Moreover, as Judge Noreika dissected the purported “agreement”, it became clear the parties were lightyears apart, (though they were both in accord with letting Hunter off with a wrist-slap and immunity from further charges).
The rift was exposed when the federal prosecutor informed the judge that an investigation remains “ongoing” and a future charge of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) is possible.
In fact, the Delaware US Attorney David Weiss said as much in a June press release when he announced the plea deal. At the same time, Hunter’s attorney Chris Clark also issued a statement claiming, “it is my understanding that the five-year investigation into Hunter is resolved.” With statements this incompatible, there’s going to be trouble … boom. Clark declared the plea deal “null and void.”
My faith in judicial independence has been affirmed.
None of the above amounts to a “smoking gun” proving President Biden’s direct involvement with extracting a bribe in exchange for an official act. But is there a legitimate reason for the Biden family to be receiving millions from Ukraine and China and laundering the funds through a maze of accounts while Joe was Vice-President?
Finally, after former Hunter Biden business partner, Devon Archer, testified on Monday, Democratic Congressman Daniel Goldman conceded that, sure, Hunter put his dad on speaker phone during meetings with Burisma and other officials halfway around the world. But no business was discussed – just “niceties [and] the weather.” According to Goldman, Hunter was just selling the “illusion of access.” However, Goldman fails to explain a legitimate purpose for millions paid to the Bidens for perpetuating that “illusion”.
That the “illusion” seemingly cost Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky $10 million. Even if Vice President Biden’s official US policy objective was to have Ukraine fire a debatably “corrupt” Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin by withholding US aid, the Bidens still got $10 million from Zlochevsky. So, Hunter convinced Zlochevsky to pay $10 million to the Bidens for something the then-vice president was always intending to do – regardless of Burisma’s stake in the outcome.
Congressman Goldman may have a point. Hunter and Joe created the illusion for Zlochevsky that the $10 million he paid to the Bidens made the difference in Shokin’s sacking. Glad we have that sorted out. However, following Goldman’s logic, this would not have been a payment to influence an official act, but simply an elaborate scam orchestrated by Joe and Hunter to swindle millions from the CEO of a Ukrainian energy company. Nice side gig. Now, how do you report fraud proceeds on your tax return?
To say that House investigators “have failed to uncover any evidence that Joe Biden had any involvement in Hunter’s business deals with Ukraine and China” is disingenuous and ignores the obvious.
Sci-fi author Isaac Asimov noted, “Circumstantial evidence can be overwhelming. We have never seen an atom, but we nevertheless know that it must exist.”
The circumstantial evidence against Joe Biden is quickly becoming “overwhelming.” Any “law-and-facts lawyer” will acknowledge that with enough circumstantial “pieces” to the puzzle, an unmistakable picture emerges revealing a stark reality.
Mark D. Ferbrache served as an FBI special agent for 27 years specializing in white-collar criminal investigations. He later worked in the bureau’s National Security Division and CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, and held diplomatic assignments in Prague, London and Bucharest, as well as field office assignments in Seattle, New York and the FBI Headquarters in Washington. He is currently employed as a contractor in the U.S. intelligence community.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.