On 23 Sep 2021, Rudy Canoza <c...@philhendrie.con> posted some
news:N533J.92684$jl2....@fx34.iad:
> Gunner really kicked the shit out of me.
When Hunter Biden reached a plea deal with the Justice Department on tax
evasion and gun charges, Democrats hoped the embarrassing saga of the
president’s son might fade away.
But two days after the plea deal was announced last week, Republicans
released claims from an IRS whistleblower that said Hunter Biden in 2017
threatened Chinese business partners in a effort to get them to send him
millions of dollars, and implicated his father in the pressure campaign.
President Biden has denied any wrongdoing and repeatedly defended his son,
who was in the throes of a drug addiction when he sent the messages. The
incident, however, demonstrates that Republicans can likely keep releasing
similar allegations of misconduct by the president’s son for some time, to
keep the story in the news and hurt Biden’s political image leading up to
next year’s presidential election.
What did the IRS whistleblower say?
Gary Shapley, an IRS supervisory special agent since 2018, had already
alleged in media interviews earlier this month that the Justice Department
“slow-walked the investigation” into Hunter Biden, which began at the end
of 2019.
Shapley alleged in a May 26 interview with Congress that his frustration
with the pace of the investigation began in the summer of 2020, when
Donald Trump was still president and the Justice Department was run by
Trump appointee William Barr.
House Republicans released the transcript of that interview last week. In
his testimony, Shapley recounted an alleged WhatsApp message between
Hunter Biden and a Chinese businessman named Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017,
in which the younger Biden pressured Zhao to finalize a business deal.
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the
commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden messaged Zhao.
“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.”
White House spokesman Ian Sams told Yahoo News, “As we have said many
times, the president was never in business with his son.” Hunter Biden
attorney Chris Clark has said that “any verifiable words or actions of my
client in the midst of a horrible addiction are solely his own and have no
connection to anyone in his family.”
Hunter Biden has written in a memoir about his substance abuse problems,
which grew worse after the death of his brother, Beau, in 2015 and lasted
for at least four years.
Zhao worked with CFEC, a Chinese energy conglomerate with links to the
Chinese government. And after Hunter Biden’s threats to Zhao, on Aug. 2,
2017, a business deal was signed between CFEC and the younger Biden’s
company, Hudson West. The deal ultimately paid him $4.8 million over 14
months, the Washington Post reported in 2022.
The WhatsApp messages were obtained by the IRS through a search warrant
into Hunter Biden’s iCloud account, Shapley said. That search warrant was
issued on the basis of what the IRS had found late in 2019, on a laptop
computer belonging to Hunter Biden that he was said to have left in a
repair shop.
What are Democrats saying?
President Biden, who had left the vice presidency during the time in
question in 2017 and was not in any elected office, was asked this week if
he was indeed present when his son wrote that message to Zhao.
“No, I wasn’t,” Biden said.
Previously, the White House has said the president “has never even
considered being involved in business with his family, nor in any overseas
business whatsoever.”
As for the Justice Department’s investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax
avoidance, Attorney General Merrick Garland held a press conference last
week to give his side of the story.
The Justice Department, Garland said, gave David C. Weiss, the U.S.
attorney from Delaware overseeing the Hunter Biden investigation,
“complete authority” over the investigation and prosecution decisions.
Shapley has contested that, but Weiss himself — who was a Trump appointee
— has corroborated Garland’s version of events.
“I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter, including
responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges and
for making decisions necessary to preserve the integrity of the
prosecution, consistent with federal law, the Principles of Federal
Prosecution, and Departmental regulations,” Weiss wrote in a letter to
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
John P. Fishwick, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of
Virginia, told Yahoo News that Garland’s press conference was “a good
first step” but that the Justice Department needed to be more aggressive
in publicly responding to the Hunter Biden story.
“DOJ is always reluctant to talk about decisions they’ve made,” Fishwick
said. “I think we’re left to speculate a little bit on this. … The
important thing is to give the American people confidence in the
situation.”
Rob
7 hours ago
This is the full WhatsApp message from Hunter to Zhao:
"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."
https://news.yahoo.com/hunter-bidens-misdeeds-continue-to-haunt-president-
biden-141741664.html