Biden family business needs its own special counsel
Washington Examiner
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Perhaps the worst argument against indicting former President Donald Trump is that the Justice Department failed to pursue strong cases against the Clinton and Biden presidential families. The right answer isn’t to let Trump skate free but, without ignoring political realities, to hold serious presidential corruption to account. This certainly applies to the obvious malfeasance of the Bidens.
New reporting by the Washington Examiner’s Jerry Dunleavy adds significant credibility to claims of corruption involving President Joe Biden himself. Dunleavy reported that Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian owner of the Burisma energy company that hired then-vice presidential son Hunter Biden to a lucrative board position, reportedly called Joe Biden “the big guy” during discussions of what reputable sources call a $5 million bribery scheme.
COMER UNVEILS ‘BIDEN FAMILY’S INFLUENCE PEDDLING IN CHINA
This is at least the third instance of different, shady business associates of Hunter Biden referring to the now-president as “the big guy.” In October 2020, onetime Biden family business partner Tony Bobulinski released an email from 2017 referring to “the big guy,” meaning (Bobulinksi said) Joe Biden. One of the other Biden business partners Bobulinski mentioned was James Gilliar, who referred to Joe Biden as “the Big Guy” in a panicked message the very day news of Hunter’s now-infamous laptop computer broke. Now we discover that Zlochevsky referred to “the big guy” again in 2017 while discussing negotiations with a Chinese intelligence-linked businessman.
When multiple people in multiple circumstances all use the same, semi-unusual appellation to refer, as if in code, to an effectively silent partner in legally questionable business dealings, the likelihood that they are referring to the same person increases substantially.
These reports are significant because they more directly link Joe Biden himself to what can only be described as massive influence-peddling — whether legal or illegal is to be determined — by multiple members of his family. Joe Biden has insisted for years that he barely even knew about, much less participated in, the foreign engagements for which Hunter and Joe’s brother Jim each were paid millions of dollars. The references to “the big guy” add to copious circumstantial evidence indicating those protestations were untrue.
Andrew C. McCarthy, once a high-ranking federal prosecutor on national security matters and a noted critic of Trump’s own behavior, is equally tough on Joe Biden in a way the Justice Department, inexcusably, is not. He concisely summarizes, to devastating effect, the massive trail of unsavory and probably illegal business dealings of the Biden family.
“The telltale signs of illegitimate business are reticulated payment arrangements featuring shell companies, complex banking channels, and money transfers to people with no clear — and sometimes no plausible — connection to the provision of goods and services,” McCarthy wrote. “Such practices are strongly suggestive of money-laundering. … This is what one sees with the Biden-family transactions. So far, House Republicans have shown the use of 20 limited-liability companies for transferring funds — 15 of them established by Hunter while his father was vice president.”
Throughout all of this now-incontrovertible evidence, the obvious common thread is that none of it makes any sense for the foreign officials unless Joe Biden himself was lending a hand on desired policy outcomes.
The lack of indictments against Biden family members is not a reason Trump should escape justice, but justifiable concern about Trump’s willful misbehavior should set the standard that nobody is above the law — including the Bidens.
The “big guy” himself and his top aides repeatedly took meetings with shady foreigners who were funneling millions of dollars to Joe Biden’s family when he was overseeing policy toward those foreign interests. Complicated policy questions in Ukraine, Russia, Romania, China, and elsewhere were pursued in ways seemingly beneficial to the Biden family’s benefactors. Payments were funneled through shell corporations not just to Hunter and Jim Biden but to widows and paramours and even Joe Biden’s grandchildren.
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FBI officials have been exposed deliberately to have impeded investigations into Hunter Biden.
With all of these indicators of corruption, and with three different people saying the “big guy” is involved, the Justice Department’s inaction looks incoherent and inexcusable, especially as Trump is being dragged into court. The credibility of its prosecution of Trump is inextricably associated with the need for a parallel investigation into Joe Biden’s apparent links to influence-peddling. A special counsel should be appointed to investigate it.