Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings appeared to reduce Hunter Biden’s salary after his father’s vice presidency concluded and former President Donald Trump took office, according to a new indictment.
Burisma hired Hunter Biden to sit on the company’s board in spring 2014 and began paying him more than $80,000 per month while then-Vice President Biden ran the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, bank records show. His salary dropped significantly beginning in March 2017, according to a new indictment leveled against Hunter Biden by a grand jury in California Thursday for numerous tax related charges. (RELATED: Hunter Biden’s Financial Backer Feared Political ‘Risk’ Caused By Delinquent Tax Returns, Docs Show)
“In or around April 2014, the Defendant joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings Limited,” the indictment reads. Hunter Biden lacked experience in the energy industry and Ukraine affairs prior to his position with Burisma. (RELATED: Strip Clubs, Girlfriends, Porn: Here’s How Hunter Allegedly Spent His Money Instead Of Paying Taxes)
“Burisma agreed to pay the Defendant an annual salary of approximately $1,000,000, to be paid in monthly disbursements. In March 2017, Burisma reduced his compensation to approximately $500,000 a year but he continued to serve on the board of directors until in or around April 2019. As a result, he received a total of approximately $1,002,016 in 2016, $630,556 in 2017, $491,939 in 2018, and $160,207 in 2019,” the indictment adds.
According to the new indictment, Burisma cut Hunter Biden’s salary in half two months after Trump took office. That cannot be a mistake. pic.twitter.com/16ASwCVQ7G
— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) December 8, 2023
Hunter Biden appeared to not report his 2014 Burisma income on his 1040 tax form, the indictment explains. His money from Burisma in 2014 went to a shell company he formed with another business associate and Burisma board member who is not named in the indictment. (RELATED: Joe Biden Used Fake Name To Exchange Over 50 Private Emails With Hunter Biden’s Business Associate, Docs Show)
“The Defendant did not report his income from Burisma on his 2014 Form 1040. All the money the Defendant received from Burisma in 2014 went to a company, hereafter ‘ABC’, and was deposited into its bank account. ABC and its bank account were owned and controlled by a business partner of the Defendant’s, Business Associate 5. Business Associate 5 was also a member of Burisma’s Board of Directors,” the indictment asserts.
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE – JULY 26: Hunter Biden, son of U.S. President Joe Biden, departs the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building and United States Courthouse on July 26, 2023 in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden pleaded not guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges in a deal with prosecutors to avoid prosecution on an additional gun charge. However, the federal judge overseeing the case unexpectedly delayed Biden’s plea deal and deferred her decision until more information is put forth by both the prosecution and the defense. (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)
Hunter Biden and former business associate Devon Archer created a holding company in 2014 for the Burisma money, according to bank records released by the House Oversight Committee and testimony from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler.
“All right. So essentially for 2014, we had found that Hunter didn’t report any of the money he earned from Burisma. So the reason why this is important is because Hunter set it up this way, to not — to essentially earn the money through his friend’s corporation and then have his friend pay him back half of the money as loans, quote, unquote, loans,” Ziegler testified to the House Ways and Means Committee in June.
Archer joined Burisma’s board in spring 2014 right before the company hired Hunter Biden. He owned the holding company and paid taxes on the income he and Hunter Biden brought in from Burisma, until Hunter Biden redirected his portion of the money to his Owasco P.C. business account, according to the indictment.
“Because he owned ABC, Business Associate 5 paid taxes on income that he and the Defendant received from Burisma. Starting in November 2015, the Defendant directed his Burisma Board fees to an Owasco, PC bank account that he controlled,” the indictment says.
Archer testified before the House Oversight Committee in July and described how the Biden family “brand” protected Burisma from scrutiny. He recalled Joe Biden speaking with his son’s business associates around 20 times and described a dinner Joe Biden attended in spring 2015 alongside Burisma executive Vadim Pozharskyi.
In addition, Archer told lawmakers about an instance where Hunter Biden “called D.C.” on Burisma’s behalf after pressure from company executives at the firm’s December 2015 board meeting. He was unable to confirm whether then-Vice President Biden was on the other end of the phone call.
Burisma hired lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies in November 2015 and the firm sent the company Joe Biden’s talking points for his upcoming trip to Ukraine, according to an internal memo released in September by the Ways and Means Committee.
Blue Star and Hunter Biden’s former business associate Eric Schwerin celebrated a “victory lap” the next year when it appeared Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky was going to be let off by Ukrainian authorities, emails released by the Ways and Means Committee show.
The lobbying firm disclosed its relationship with Zlochevsky in a May 2022 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) form listing $60,000 worth of payments for Blue Star’s work. In addition, Blue Star conducted lobbying for the Ukrainian prosecutor who let off Zlochevsky, internal State Department emails show.
The statute of limitations expired for the 2014-15 tax years after Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves declined to partner with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss on the case, Weiss confirmed when he testified in November before the House Judiciary Committee, according to a transcript reviewed by the Daily Caller.
IRS whistleblowers Shapley and Ziegler have testified about potential Burisma related charges in the 2014-15 tax years under D.C.’s jurisdiction rather than the Central District of California, where Biden was indicted Thursday for his alleged tax issues. The whistleblowers were the first ones to disclose Graves’ conduct and the expiration of the statute of limitations. (RELATED: Second Biden-Appointed Prosecutor Confirms He Refused To Cooperate On Hunter Biden Case)
Former President Donald Trump took office in January 2017 after he defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Shortly after his father’s vice presidency concluded, Hunter Biden and his business associates received $3 million from Chinese energy firm State Energy HK, an account connected to Chinese company CEFC, the indictment lays out. (RELATED: Biden Associate At Center Of China Money Transfers Played Golf With Joe Up To A Dozen Times, FBI Docs Show)
Hunter Biden himself received $1 million of the CEFC funds and redirected a portion of the money to another business associate. The indictment outlines additional income Hunter Biden received from Hudson West III, his joint business venture with CEFC associates, after his income from Burisma dried up. He made a total of $2.3 million in 2017 alone, even with the reduced salary from Burisma, the indictment states.
Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in prison for an assortment of felony and misdemeanor charges in California related to his failure to pay taxes in a timely manner. The Biden family and its business associates hauled in more than $24 million from foreign sources over a five year period concluding in 2019, a House memo from September shows.
“Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter’s last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought,” Hunter Biden’s attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement. His client is also facing federal gun charges in Delaware to which he plead not guilty in October.
House Republicans are also seeking to have Hunter Biden appear for a closed-door deposition Dec. 13 in front of the Oversight Committee. Lowell offered to have Biden testify publicly instead of showing up for the deposition, a proposal GOP lawmakers quickly rejected.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan have threatened to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of congress if he defies a subpoena from the Oversight Committee and fails to attend the deposition.
Comer, Jordan and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith are leading the impeachment inquiry into President Biden based on his son’s foreign business dealings and the IRS whistleblower allegations of special treatment during the Hunter Biden investigation.
The White House has called the inquiry “illegitimate” and said Joe Biden was “not in business” with his son. The president himself has said Archer’s testimony is “not true” and denied ever meeting with his son’s business associates, despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary.
House Republicans are weighing a floor vote to officially authorize the impeachment inquiry and strengthen its legal standing.