Schweizer joined Levin on Tuesday’s edition of the latter’s eponymous radio program to discuss the findings of his latest book.
“We cover the progressive leaders,” said Schweizer of Profiles in Corruption , listing Joe Biden; Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Kamala Harris (D-CA); and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti as the subjects of his research team’s 18-month investigation.
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Schweizer added, “The common theme [of Profiles in Corruption ] is to really investigate them from the standpoint: What have they done with the power they have had?”
Schweizer continued, “These progressives are saying, ‘Give us more power. We will take care of you,’ and what I think the book demonstrates clearly is the power that they have already now, they have abused it. They’ve used it for their own self interest, for the profit of their family, to advance their political careers, and it’s really abuse of power in the true sense of the word, not what’s being discussed on Capitol Hill — but real abuse of power.”
Schweizer shared some of his findings about Klobuchar.
“Before [Amy Klobuchar] was a U.S. senator, she was a prosecutor in Hennepin County in [the] Minneapolis area, and she was highly selective in who she chose to prosecute,” Schweizer explained. “She went after people who she said had engaged in financial fraud, so she went after airline pilots who claimed they were living out of state but were living in Minnesota. She said they were avoiding paying Minnesota income taxes. She went after small operators who she said engaged in financial fraud.”
Schweizer continued, “Who did [Amy Klobuchar] not go after? She did not go after some very big hedge fund operators who were involved in the biggest Ponzi scheme other than the famous one we all know about in New York. This guy’s name was Thomas Petters, and she had all these warning signs. She arrested people around him, but she never went after him. Why? Because he was her largest campaign contributor, and she knew something was wrong, and she did not prosecute it.”
“When you get to [Amy Klobuchar’s] tenure in the U.S. Senate, the pattern is very, very clear,” added Schweizer. “She shakes down industries and companies for donations, so she’ll get, say, 25 executives from a company to give her money over a three- or four-day period, and then within two weeks she will introduce legislation that is beneficial to them.”
Schweizer determined, “[Amy Klobuchar] abuses her power, and uses her power to basically extract donations in exchange for favors from large corporations.”
Levin estimated Democrats’ impeachment push against President Donald Trump as an effort to shield Joe Biden from criticism and investigation related to Schweizer’s research.
“One of the reasons for this impeachment on this issue of the Bidens is to try to immunize [the Biden family] from political attack and investigation should [Joe Biden] be the nominee,” said Levin. “They would make it like kryptonite. That would be the bubble family, ‘You can’t mention them, because then you’re interfering with an election. You can do whatever you want to Trump, of course.’ Does that sound like a potentiality to you?”
Schweizer agreed, “That’s exactly right. … We were told in 2016, ‘You cannot investigate Hillary Clinton after the election because she’s no longer going to be in office.’ Now we’re being told, ‘You cannot investigate Joe Biden because he’s running for office.’ So the question becomes, when are you supposed to investigate people who are engaged in corrupt behavior? And in the case of the Bidens, it’s not even a question.”
“Hunter Biden is the tip of the iceberg,” added Schweizer. “We call them the Biden Five. … I have never in my professional career encountered a family where five members are engaged in behavior where they are using and abusing the powers that Joe Biden has for their financial benefit. Hunter Biden is just the first part of the pattern. … They see this as a vulnerability. It’s been exposed, and now they basically want Joe Biden to have a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Schweizer continued, “[The Biden Five] are all linked to corrupt deals and self-enrichment when Joe Biden was vice president of the United States. … This has been a corrupt family enterprise when Joe Biden was vice president of the United States.”
Levin observed, “It’s an amazing thing how the media protect Biden.”
Schweizer said, “A complete lack of curiosity about this. … I got no contacts. No interest whatsoever from journalists. … If this were the Trump family, if Don Jr. had flown on Air Force One with his dad to China and signed a $1.5 billion private equity deal with the Chinese government, the media would be going ballistic. I would be going ballistic. But of course that hasn’t happened. The Bidens did it. And for some reason — I think we all know the reason — they have a complete lack of interest in reporting on this stuff.”
Levin remarked, “Let me ask Chuck Todd … where the hell are you? Jake Tapper? Where are they? Are they not curious about this, at all? You’ve done all the legwork here. They can challenge your investigations. They can bring you on, but they don’t. They pretend you don’t exist.”
The rule of law is undermined when political leaders escape legal liability for corrupt behavior, warned Schweizer.
“I really do believe that this is sort of a touchstone,” stated Schweizer. “Are our political leaders — meaning the Bidens — are they essentially above the law? Are they essentially in a position, have they reached a position in life where they can no longer be investigated? They can no longer be looked at, they can no longer be held into account as to how they are profiting and manipulating government power to benefit their family? That is ultimately what this is about.”
Six Unanswered Questions Surrounding the Biden Family’s Culture of Corruption
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Former Vice President Joe Biden will make his first morning show appearance in months on Wednesday when he sits down with MSNBC’s Morning Joe .
1. How did Joe Biden’s brother, Frank, secure $45,000,000 in taxpayer loans from the Obama administration for his Caribbean projects?
As detailed by Schweizer, a senior contributor at Breitbart News who is also the president of the Government Accountability Institute, Frank Biden has made a lucrative career since 2009 in the Caribbean, especially in solar power and real estate.
Despite having no extensive background in either of the fields, or international development for the matter, Frank and his company, Sun Fun Americas, have found tremendous opportunities in both Jamaica and Costa Rica. In particular, projects linked to Frank in those two countries were on the receiving end of more than $45 million in U.S. taxpayer-backed loans during the Obama years.
2. What was Hunter Biden’s involvement in the Burnham Financial Group?
A firm started by Hunter and his longtime business partner Devon Archer allegedly scored hundreds of millions from Russian and Chinese interests. The Burnham Financial Group, according to Profiles in Corruption, was used by the duo to broker deals with foreign governments and oligarchs.
A number of those deals were with shadowy groups like Kirin Global Enterprise Limited. Little is known about the firm run by Xiangyao “Larry” Liu and Guo Jianfeng apart from that it is one of the biggest real estate investors in Mainland China.
Burnham also had a financial relationship with Yelena Baturina, a Russian oligarch with extensive political and criminal connections in Moscow. According to Schweizer’s book, Baturina invested $200 million in “various” funds with which Archer was involved.
The group was dismantled after Archer was arrested for using it in a $60 million bond scheme designed to rip off union pension funds and the poorest Indian tribes in the U.S.
Although Hunter escaped the situation without legal repercussions, Schweizer writes that “his fingerprints were all over Burnham.”
3. How did a newly-minted firm employing Joe Biden’s other brother, James, receive a $1.5 billion contract to build homes in Iraq—despite no experience?
In 2010, fresh off a disastrous attempt at running a Wall Street hedge fund, James Biden joined HillStone International as executive vice president. The newly founded company was run by Kevin Justice, a longtime family friend of the Bidens. Under Justice’s leadership, HillStone International was setting out to pursue construction and technology projects, especially those being funded by the U.S. government in Iraq.
Hiring James, who had neither experience in construction nor international development, seemed to be a big part of the company’s strategy to secure such projects. When announcing the hire, Hillstone touted the political connections James had built up through helping run his older brother’s political campaigns.
Six months after James was hired, the company received a contract, estimated to be worth upwards of $1.5 billion, to build more than 100,000 homes in Iraq. As a minority partner in the firm, James would have been eligible to split more than $735 million in profits upon the contract’s completion.
4. Why was Hunter Biden hired by Burisma Holdings?
One of the biggest mysteries in American political life at the moment revolves around Hunter Biden’s wheeling and dealing in Ukraine. The former vice president’s youngest son joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas company, in May 2014. Hunter secured the appointment, which paid as much as $83,000-per-month, despite having no background in the energy industry or Ukraine.
The timing of the appointment drew scrutiny, as it occurred around the same time that Joe Biden was tasked with leading the Obama administration’s policy towards Ukraine in light of Russia’s invasion of Crimea.
A Ukrainian official with strong ties to Burisma’s founder has admitted the only reason Hunter was appointed to the board of directors was to “protect ” the company from foreign scrutiny.
5. How much did Joe Biden know about his son’s work in Ukraine?
First the former vice president claimed he never spoke to his son about Burisma, a claim Hunter, himself, has contradicted . Then, Joe Biden claimed he was unaware his son was even on the company’s board of directors. His story shifted once again when countless witnesses came before the House impeachment hearings and admitted they were so troubled by the Burisma issue that they attempted to broach the topic with Joe Biden’s White House staff.
After those revelations, the former vice president again changed his story. This time, he claimed that aides never warned him about the potential conflicts of interest posed by Hunter’s service with Burisma.
As Breitbart News has reported, that most recent claim is not only contradicted by one of the former vice president’s top foreign policy advisers, but also by the timeline of events surrounding the scandal.
6. Did Hunter Biden sell his stock in Bohai Harvest RST?
As revealed in Secret Empires , Ukraine was not the only foreign country where Hunter had lucrative business dealings. In 2012, Hunter inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the state-owned bank of China to create a private equity fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR).
The timing of the deal has been brought into question, as it came only 12 days after Hunter visited China with his father aboard Air Force Two. Officially, the then-vice president was visiting the country amid escalating tensions over islands in the South China Sea. On a whim, Biden supposedly decided to bring his granddaughter and son along.
After the visit, once BHR was up and running, the fund proceeded to invest heavily in energy and defense projects. Some of those investments, however, have caught the eye of congressional investigators . Most notably, BHR’s purchase of an American company with insight into military technology and its investment in another firm recently blacklisted by the U.S. government has raised eyebrows.
In light of such developments, Hunter resigned from the company’s board in October, but did not address what he would do with his ten percent ownership stake.
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