Why does Hunter Biden matter?

Democrats constantly downplay Hunter Biden’s troubles and any felonies he might have committed. The legacy media avoid them entirely. What do they say when they can’t bury the story?

Their most common defense is also their most important: Hunter Biden’s troubles matter only if they can be linked directly to his father and specifically to Joe’s official position. So far, they say, those links are weak and unproven.

What other defenses do they put forward?

First, they say that whatever money Hunter made from his foreign business dealings, he did not benefit from any official action taken by the vice president. Neither did Joe himself. Those points are crucial.

Second, it’s not a crime to benefit from your family name. Profiting from close connections to powerful officials is common practice in Washington. Lobbyists and advisors do it all the time, legally.

Third, it’s not a crime to tell the public, as Joe Biden has repeatedly, he knew nothing about his son’s business activities, even if those statements are false. Politicians lie all the time. It’s only a crime if the lies are told to a federal investigator or grand jury.

Finally, they note that President Biden has, quite properly, avoided interfering in the ongoing federal investigation of his son (and perhaps other family members). They always add that the lead investigator, David Weiss, the US attorney for Delaware, was originally appointed by the Trump administration. There is no indication the White House has meddled in his work.

How well do these defenses stand up?

Some stand up well. It is certainly correct to say Hunter’s troubles matter only if they are tied directly to his father’s official position. It is also correct to say Joe’s fable about his total ignorance of Hunter’s affairs is not, in itself, a crime. Finally, it is correct to say that, at least on current evidence, the Biden White House has not meddled in the investigation.

There are, however, two known exceptions to the White House’s hands-off approach. The first was President Biden’s blunt statement, made during a televised interview, that his son was innocent and had done nothing wrong. As head of the executive branch, the president should never have made that statement. He leads all the agencies investigating his family, and that statement was an unmistakable signal to them.

The other exception was the Secret Service’s likely involvement in averting a search of Hunter’s storage locker and surprise interviews with his business partners. The obstruction came from a tip, apparently given to the Secret Service and Hunter’s lawyers by Weiss’s top deputy, Lesley Wolf, that a search would be conducted the next day. Surprise, surprise, all Hunter’s documents were removed and his friends disappeared. They were never interviewed and the documents never found.

The bigger question is whether Joe Biden used his official position to help Hunter. The answer is still murky and, like everything else in American political life, is divided along partisan lines. What we know so far is that Joe repeatedly signaled Hunter’s business associates that he was closely connected to his son’s activities. Hunter then leveraged that visible proximity to a powerful official for enormous profits from overseas corporations, despite his lack of business expertise or experience. At the very least, Joe aided the grift with his signals.

Some of those signals are now publicly known. One was letting Hunter ride on Air Force Two to foreign business meetings. Take Joe’s 2013 trip to Beijing. Hunter returned with a multibillion-dollar investment deal that renowned banks like Goldman Sachs were unable to land. Yet Hunter had no investment experience.

Vice President Biden signaled his connections to Hunter’s business associates in other ways, as well. At his son’s request, he called Hunter’s business dinners multiple times and frequently arranged White House meetings for his son’s partners. Those meetings were not listed on Joe’s official calendar. The topics discussed are still secret.

This weekend, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Representative James Comer, announced that Joe Biden used a pseudonym to copy Hunter on official government correspondence involving US foreign policy in Ukraine, where Hunter was doing business. Those emails not only gave Hunter inside information, they allowed him to share it with associates and show his tight connection with the vice president and US foreign policy.

What was the point of all those calls and meetings? At the very least, they demonstrated to Hunter’s clients that he could deliver on what he was selling: his powerful connection to the second-highest official in the US government. He could get the vice president to call into any business meeting he wished, implying (though not proving) he could receive other official help whenever he wanted it. He was in the loop on foreign policy emails. He could arrange meetings for associates in the White House, as he did dozens of time. He could fly to foreign meetings on Air Force Two and seal lucrative deals with businesses connected to corrupt foreign governments while his father was conducting official business with the leaders of those countries. His last name could open doors for his associates to meet with high-level officials in the State Department and other agencies.

As Hunter did all that for foreign clients, he should have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. He didn’t. Instead of prosecuting that obvious FARA violation, Weiss’s office sat on its hands. (They are likely to prosecute those violations now, after being humiliated in open court by Federal Judge Maryellen Noreika. She simply asked Hunter’s attorney and Weiss’s office if their proposed immunity deal covered FARA charges. Hunter’s team said “yes.” Weiss’s team, flustered, said “no.” Hunter’s team then said “tear up the deal.” The judge ruled that the two sides had not reached a true agreement.)

The collapse of this sweetheart plea deal is only the latest fiasco for Weiss’s office. No matter who appointed him or what his party affiliation, his investigation has been a sham. Not that it prevented his being promoted to special counsel. Perhaps it ensured it.

His office slow-walked the criminal investigation for years. They inexplicably allowed the statute of limitations to expire on several major tax charges, leaving federal taxes unpaid. US attorneys normally stop the clock by filing criminal charges. Not Weiss.

His office acknowledged, when Judge Noreika asked, that there was no precedent for the lax terms of the proposed plea deal. That’s undoubtedly why Weiss’s office tried to hide the promise of future immunity in a special section, handed to the judge only the day before.

His office gave the silent treatment to one of Hunter’s most prominent business partners, Tony Bobulinski, who publicly stated he met jointly with Joe and Hunter to discuss business. Bobulinski was not contacted by Weiss’s office. He reached out to them, told them he would be glad to testify to their grand jury, and never heard back. Why?

Two senior IRS whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, gave equally damning testimony. They said Weiss’s office informed a roomful of IRS agents that the US attorney would not pursue any leads, however credible, that might lead to “the Big Guy,” Joe Biden. Although Weiss’s office has denied making that statement, it was heard by multiple non-partisan agents.

Whatever Weiss and his team may have said, they did block the investigation. Repeatedly. Take Hunter Biden’s WhatsApp message threatening his Chinese business partner, Henry Zhao, unless Zhao immediately paid Hunter a substantial fee. The threat included Hunter’s ominous statement that he was sitting beside his father and the two of them would punish Zhao if he didn’t pay. (After that threat, he did pay.) To see if Hunter was telling the truth about his father’s presence, the IRS agents made a routine request to use GPS location data to find Joe and Hunter’s phones. Weiss’s office denied that request and still hasn’t explained why.

This impenetrable stone wall matches the US attorney’s failure to pursue hundreds of “suspicious activity” reports, made by major banks, regarding foreign money transfers to Hunter Biden’s web of family LLCs. Those LLCs served no legitimate business purpose, but they did serve an illegitimate one: hiding the sources of foreign income and their distribution to Biden family members. Comer’s Oversight Committee has said the Bidens received between $20 and $40 million, which went to at least nine family members, including minor children. There is still no indication what business service they performed.

Finally, Weiss himself told IRS agents he was not the ultimate authority for charging any Biden cases. Attorney General Merrick Garland told Congress something quite different, saying (under oath) that Weiss could bring cases in any jurisdiction, not Delaware alone. In fact, Weiss was prevented from charging Hunter in California and Washington, DC. US attorneys in those jurisdictions, appointed by the Biden administration, blocked him. When Weiss then asked Garland for formal authority to file the charges, the Attorney General apparently turned him down. (Expect Weiss to file those criminal charges soon, now that Comer’s committee has publicly exposed the DoJ’s obstruction and Garland has been forced to grant Weiss the authority.)

All this stinks, but it doesn’t prove Joe Biden was criminally involved in Hunter’s businesses. It does prove the Department of Justice is neck-deep in a systematic cover up, designed to insulate the president from any serious investigation. It also suggests the Biden grift was an organized family enterprise — one that started when Joe became vice president, revolved around his official position, monetized it, focused solely on countries where Joe was in charge of US policy, and hid the sources and distribution of income. It shows Joe was more than willing to signal Hunter’s partners that he was helping his son, even if his defenders say the signal was misleading. Now, we also learn Joe was using a pseudonym to copy Hunter on official government correspondence, undermining Joe’s claim that he knew nothing about Hunter working with Burisma in Ukraine.

There are scandals aplenty here. The Department of Justice has abdicated its fundamental responsibility to conduct an honest, thorough investigation and to prosecute all provable charges. The legacy media long ago abdicated its responsibility to investigate these scandals or even to report them. The American people aren’t so easily fooled by these cover ups and corruption. They smell a rat.