- VP Biden Feathers Son Hunter’s Nest With Air Force Two
- Money Trail From Foreign Oligarchs to Biden Bank Accounts Exposed
- Candidate Biden Must Answer For Deals with China, Ukraine that funneled cash to son
Full Transcript:
Peter Schweizer: Hello, and welcome to The Drill Down with Peter Schweizer, where we drill down on key facts about important figures. Today you’re going to learn three things about Joe Biden, and what you’re going to learn about is how the Biden family has offshore-ed its corruption.
What is offshoring corruption? This means when a politician themselves don’t necessarily benefit from the policy decisions that they make, but their family members do. They like to do things this way because they can avoid detection, and they don’t have to disclose the financial ties or relationships or income of their family members. These sorts of deals work with foreign governments because that’s how business is done in their countries. They like these kinds of deals with American politicians because they are familiar to them, and they are happy to do these kinds of deals with American politicians regardless of their political affiliation.
So here are the three things that you need to know about Joe Biden. Thing number one that you need to know about Joe Biden, and that is that while he was Vice President, the Chinese government and Ukrainian oligarchs made his family very wealthy. Let’s begin in December of 2013. Then Vice President, Joe Biden, is flying on Air Force Two to Beijing, China. He’s got a lot of sensitive issues to discuss with his counterparts, including trade issues, national security matters and North Korea.
But on the plane with him was Hunter Biden, his son (1). Hunter Biden was the head of a small financial consultancy called Rosemont Seneca Partners. Now, what’s most interesting is not what happened in Beijing, but what happened 10 days later when they returned. And that’s when Hunter Biden’s small financial consultancy landed a one billion dollar (later raised to $1.5 billion) private equity deal from the Chinese government (3).
What they set up was something called Bohai Harvest RST, and it was a unique arrangement (4). All the big players in finance in China, whether it’s Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, none of them had the kind of arrangement that the Vice President’s son enjoyed. And, to top it all off, Hunter Biden at the time had no background in China and had little background in private equity.
Let’s go to another country, Ukraine. Just four (correction: five) months after that deal was landed with the Chinese government, Hunter Biden joined the board of a Ukrainian energy company called Burisma (5). Burisma is headed by two corrupt Ukrainian oligarchs, who are under investigation by the Ukrainian government (6). What’s interesting here is, of course, Hunter Biden had no background in Ukraine and he had no background in the energy field.
Thing number two to know about Joe Biden, and that is that new documents shed light on just how much money the Chinese government was sending, and the Ukrainian oligarchs were sending, to the Biden family while he was Vice President. We have a glimpse of this, not because the Biden family has disclosed it, but because documents that came out in a court case offer access to financial records involving Hunter Biden.
By looking at this just one account, we know what was flowing into the account and what was flowing out while Joe Biden was Vice President. Flowing in over an 18-month period was $3.1 million dollars from the Ukrainians. There was 142 thousand dollars that showed up from a Kazak oligarch, and then there was a mysterious $1.2 million dollars from a limited liability company that nobody seems to know where it exists, that funneled the money through a small Swiss bank that has been implicated in international money laundering (7).
Flowing out of the account, hundreds of thousands of dollars into the personal banking accounts of Hunter Biden himself. 142 thousand dollars to a luxury auto-dealership. Another 182 thousand dollars to a luxury watch company. This is all from just one account (8).
Thing number three that you need to know about Joe Biden, and that is that money flowed to his family, that made them wealthy, while Joe Biden was Vice President of the United States. In fact, he was the point person on US policy towards China, and he was even criticized from time to time for going soft on Beijing (9). That’s troubling in light of the fact that he was doing this while his son was striking billion dollar private equity deals with that same government.
Or look at the Ukraine. In the case of the Ukraine, the very energy company that was paying Hunter Biden millions of dollars was under investigation in the Ukraine for corruption (10). Ukrainian officials have claimed that Joe Biden pressured them to suspend or end that investigation. That’s in fact what the Ukraine did (11).
These are very troubling issues because of three words that are central to American politics today. Those three words are follow the money. We have all kinds of arrangements in this country to monitor the influence of money. If I make a campaign contribution, that gets disclosed. If a politician owns stock in a company, that gets disclosed. But if their adult children strike billion dollar private equity deals with foreign governments that are our rivals, no disclosure is required.
Essentially, we are trusting politicians like Joe Biden to do the right thing when it comes to money and the influence of money. I think it’s a huge mistake for us to trust them to do that.
Thanks for watching The Drill Down. Make sure to like us on Facebook, and subscribe for more episode at DrillDownTV.com.
Sources:
- Leslie Larson, “Joe Biden’s 15-year-old Granddaughter, Finnegan, Gets a Turn Traveling Asia with “Pop” Biden,” New York Daily News, December 6, 2013, https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/biden-granddaughter-joins-vp-asia-trip-article-1.1539770; Oliver Knox and Meredith Shiner, “Why Did an Energy Firm with Big Assets in Ukraine Hire Joe Biden’s Son?” Yahoo News, May 14, 2014, https://news.yahoo.com/why-did-a-energy-firm-prospecting-for-gas-in-ukraine-hire-joe-biden-s-son-195339212.html;_ylt=AwrE18_tnv5c8CwAECxXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByOHZyb21tBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg–.
- Chao Deng, “Bohai, Harvest and U.S. Investment Firms Expand Targets for Outbound Fund,” Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2014, https://www.wsj.com/articles/bohai-harvest-and-u-s-investment-firms-expand-target-for-outbound-fund-1404956572.
- Ibid.; “Overview,” BHR Partners, n.d., http://en.bhrpe.com/Overview.
- “Vice President Joe Biden’s Son Joins Ukraine Gas Company,” BBC News, May 14, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27403003.
- Без категорії, “Kings of Ukrainian Gas,” Antac.org, August 26, 2012, http://antac.org.ua/2012/08/26/kings-of-ukrainian-gas/; Josh Cohen, “Corruption in Ukraine Is So Bad, a Nigerian Prince Would Be Embarrassed,” Reuters, December 30, 2015, http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2015/12/30/corruption-in-ukraine-is-so-bad-a-nigerian-prince-would-be-embarrassed-2/; John Solomon, “Joe Biden’s 2020 Ukrainian Nightmare: A Closed Probe Is Revived,” Hill, April 1, 2019, https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/436816-joe-bidens-2020-ukrainian-nightmare-a-closed-probe-is-revived.
- GX 301; court document.
- Ibid.
- Steve Clemons, “Biden’s 330-Minute Balancing Act in China,” Atlantic, December 4, 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/12/biden-s-330-minute-balancing-act-in-china/282061/.
- James Risen, “Joe Biden, His Son and the Case Against a Ukrainian Oligarch,” New York Times,, December 8, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-ukraine-joe-biden-son-hunter-biden-ties.html.
- Solomon, “Joe Biden’s 2020 Ukrainian Nightmare: A Closed Probe Is Revived.”
- Ibid.