This article first appeared in New English Review.
History may record that the Republicans taking back the
House of Representatives in 2022 was a landmark event in bringing about the
downfall of Joe Biden. At the risk of getting ahead of myself here, the House
hearings into the Biden family misdeeds seem to be bearing fruit. At appears about half a dozen FBI and IRS whistle-blowers have come forward to tell House
Republicans how their investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings with
China, Ukraine, and other questionable entities, coupled with his tax problems,
was thwarted by the Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland.
IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler have now
publicly testified under oath that their investigation into Hunter Biden was
obstructed by DOJ. They claim that the US Attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, told
them that he was not given permission by DOJ to fully investigate Hunter
Biden’s business dealings. Garland has denied this allegation to Congress. In a
letter to the House, Weiss basically supported Garland’s claim. This is a
matter that needs to be clarified fully and in detail because somebody is lying
to Congress here. As everyone knows, Hunter Biden has been allowed to plead to
a sweetheart deal that fails to serve the cause of justice given the huge
amounts of money he has reportedly failed to pay taxes on.
In addition, after much wrangling, Congress has finally
obtained a copy of an official FBI report (FD-1023) that outlined
allegations made by a confidential informant, whom they have described as
highly trustworthy, one who has had a long association with the Bureau as a
source of information. This informant told agents that he or she had met with Mykola
Zlochevsky, the
head of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, in Kiev and was told by him that
he had 17 tape-recorded conversations with Joe (2) and Hunter Biden (15), as
well as text exchanges discussing payments to the Biden family in exchange with
then-Vice President Biden’s (successful) efforts to get the Ukrainian prosecutor
fired who was investigating Burisma. This occurred while Hunter Biden was
serving on Burisma’s Board of Directors. According to what the source heard
from Zlochevsky, ten million dollars was paid to Joe and Hunter Biden, evenly
divided. Others were reportedly at this meeting including Oleksandr Ostapenko,
who reportedly traveled to Ukraine with the informant. If true, it would mean
that Joe Biden had another reason to get the prosecutor fired aside from
protecting his son-cold hard cash.
At this point, I should point out that this is an allegation
made by the confidential informant. It may be argued that it could all turn out to be another Steele Dossier, which contained unverified and false allegations
against then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. What is needed here is
corroboration by Zlochevsky (and any others present) backed up by his producing
and authenticating the recorded telephone conversations and texts. In addition,
the payments need to be documented as well. I would assume that the appropriate
travel documents for the source and Ostapenko are readily available for
purposes of partial corroboration.
I have no idea whether Zlochevsky or the others present would
be inclined to furnish this evidence and testimony, and given the huge military
support we are giving Ukraine, I would not discount the possibility of
international big-power politics getting involved here.
The task at hand for the House Republicans (because DOJ and
the FBI cannot be trusted to follow this trail) is to corroborate what is
alleged by the FBI informant through direct evidence-both testimony and
documents- and to reconcile the contradiction between what the whistleblowers
are telling Congress vs what Congress is being told by Garland and Weiss regarding
alleged obstruction. If all that can be accomplished, the House Republicans can
at least send a very strong referral for indictment to DOJ, not to mention a
move toward impeachment. Of course, the difficulty of charging a sitting
president also comes into play, added to the fact that DOJ has allowed the
statute of limitations to pass on many of these alleged crimes, seemingly by
slow-walking the whole investigative process.
Compared to the treatment of former President Donald Trump,
it does not speak well for what was once the fairest system of justice in the
world.
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