- State Department officials were concerned about Hunter Biden’s board position at Ukrainian company Burisma, with one even voicing concerns to Vice President Joe Biden
- CEFC, a Chinese energy company, had close financial ties to the Biden family
- The Senate Report identifies $3.5 million transferred to Hunter Biden’s firm from a Russian oligarch linked to organized crime
In the latest episode, Peter Schweizer details how a recent US Senate report unveils new revelations about Hunter Biden’s financial relationships with foreign oligarchs, and how much money the Biden family received as a result.
Full Transcript:
Hi, I’m Peter Schweizer, and this is The Drill Down, where we drill down on cronyism and corruption in our federal government.
Now, two very important Senate committees recently released a report on the financial ties between the Biden family and some pretty sketchy people around the world.
Those two committees, in the summer of 2019, decided to look into concerns about the financial ties between the Biden family (particularly Hunter Biden) and a series of foreign governments and foreign oligarchs that were highly troubling.[i]
The report is basically broken down into three areas. The first concerns Ukraine. This is probably the best known of all the corruption allegations against the Bidens, and this looks at the ties between Hunter Biden and Burisma, the Ukrainian national gas company that was founded and run by a corrupt oligarch named Zlochevsky.
This new Senate report offers some very interesting insights. For one, it demonstrates that certain state department officials were very concerned about the son of the sitting vice president sitting on the board of such a notoriously corrupt company.
The report also reveals that one senior State Department official even spoke with Vice President Biden about their concerns.
Another interesting revelation is that Zlochevsky, the Ukranian oligarch who was paying Biden’s son, was not specifically mentioned by Biden in a 2015 speech he gave about corruption in Ukraine. Biden’s staff even advised him not “to get into naming names or accusing individuals”. This is particularly troubling because one would expect that the vice president would speak freely about who he believes is corrupt and not corrupt in Ukraine.[ii]
State department officials admitted in this report that the financial ties between the Biden family — that is, Hunter Biden – and the Ukrainian oligarch created serious complications and problems for US policy in Ukraine.
The second area of revelation concerns the People’s Republic of China. Now, it’s already been known that Hunter Biden had deep financial ties to the Chinese government here. After all, he sat on the board of directors of BHR Partners, a private equity firm that was financed by the Chinese government. But this Senate report adds new areas and new companies upon which Hunter Biden had financial ties. The report centers on something called CEFC, which is a Chinese energy company. CEFC is closely aligned with the People’s Liberation Army, and the Chinese government. And what this report demonstrates is that there were financial ties involving this entity, as well as BHR. What strings were attached were unknown. But the report also hints at the fact that there were deeper financial ties between CEFC and the Biden family.[iii]
The third area of revelation concerns other parts of the world, but the most interesting centers around Russia itself. Now, there’s been swirling controversy in the United States for more than two years about so-called “Russia collusion,” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. That was never proven, in fact the Mueller Report essentially said there was nothing there.
But what’s curious is the emerging portrait of financial ties between the Biden family and oligarchs in Russia. In particular, this report identifies 3.5 million dollars that is transferred from a Russian oligarch named Yelena Baturina to a company controlled by Hunter Biden.[iv]
Now, who is Yelena Baturina? Well, first off, she is the wife of the former mayor of Moscow; politically connected to Vladimir Putin, and a whole host of others. But even more troubling: Yelena Baturina, according to various US government documents, is linked to Russian organized crime. Why was Yelena Baturina sending 3.5 million dollars to Hunter Biden’s company? We don’t know. But it’s a troubling development, and it hints that there may have been deeper financial ties here itself.
The report adds other countries to the list – Kazakhstan, for example. A Kazak oligarch sent money so that Devon Archer, Hunter’s business partner, could buy a luxury automobile. And the list goes on and on and on.[v]
What this report demonstrates is that money was coming from around the world.
These are troubling developments that demand further investigation, and the good news is: this is only an interim report, and we can expect more down the road.
The bottom line is there’s a lot of new things in this report. The only thing that’s not new is Hunter Biden’s pattern of behavior.
This is Peter Schweizer, thank you for joining me on The Drill Down. For more episodes, follow us on social media, or go to drilldowntv.com.
Sources
- US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and US Senate Committee on Finance, 116th Cong., “Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Corruption: The Impact on U.S. Government Policy and Related Concerns,” (2020), https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC_Finance_Report_FINAL.pdf.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.