Anyone have any idea who that Moscow widow was, who handed Hunter Biden $3.5 million?
When Hunter Biden took that $3.5 million in money transfers from Yelena Baturina, Russia's richest woman, the media lapsed into sudden incuriosity, very bizarre, given that it spent four years yelling about President Trump and his supposed "Russian collusion."
Here was real Russian collusion and the blue-checks went blue-screen. Miranda Devine at the New York Post has some excellent observations on that here.
The corruption watchers in the U.S. government, though, didn't -- bells and alarms went off -- which is why a record of this activity, obtainable by the Senate in its damning interim report, is there at all. According to the New York Post:
Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia and the widow of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, Senate Republicans revealed in their report on the younger Biden’s work in Ukraine.
Baturina is referenced in the 87-page report, which was released Wednesday, addressing her payment to Biden’s investment firm in early 2014.
“Baturina became Russia’s only female billionaire when her plastics company, Inteko, received a series of Moscow municipal contracts while her husband was mayor,” it said in providing background on the businesswoman.
Was this just any Russian oligarch that young Hunter Biden with his dad as vice president, took the big payment from?
Nope, it was a person associated with political corruption and lots of pocket-lining. Take a gander at who her now-late husband was:
In 2010. the Guardian reported this:
The US ambassador to Russia claimed that Moscow's veteran mayor Yuri Luzhkov sat on top of a "pyramid of corruption" involving the Kremlin, Russia's police force, its security service, political parties and crime groups.
The 74-year-old has subsequently been sacked as mayor by President Dmitry Medvedev, after the Kremlin-controlled media broadcast allegations of corruption aimed at him and his billionaire wife, Yelena Baturina, who heads a construction company called Inteko. The couple have vehemently denied the accusations as "total rubbish" designed to make Luzhkov "lose his balance".
In a leaked secret cable sent in February, the US ambassador John Beyrle gives a forensic account of Moscow's "murky" criminal world, alleging a shadowy connection between bureaucrats, gangsters and even prosecutors.
According to Beyrle corruption in Moscow was "pervasive". "Luzhkov is at the top of the pyramid," he claimed. He told the US state department: "Luzhkov oversees a system in which it appears that almost everyone at every level is involved in some form of corruption or criminal behaviour."
Russia's well-developed system of bribe-taking was ubiquitous, Beyrle said. In the absence of laws that worked, Luzhkov – as well as other mayors and governors – paid off "key insiders in the Kremlin". Officials had even been spotted entering the building carrying large suitcases, presumed to be "full of money".
What was his relationship to Vladimir Putin? Mostly a rival, given his power as Moscow mayor for 18 years and presidential ambitions of his own. They often were in opposing camps. But at the same time, Putin domesticated him, learning his craft of leverage on Yuzhkov's head, a style of Chicago politics that can only be said to be on steroids. Dawisha says he learned to use muscle from the tactics of Russian mafiosos back in St. Petersburg, internalizing it deeply, learning that the only way to deal with corrupt and powerful rivals was with a boot on their necks.
According to Karen Dawisha, in her book "Putin's Kleptocracy":
Little by little regional governors lined up behind Putin's candidacy. Even Luzhkov, who had been a candidate, withdrew to support him. Despite this, the Kremlin signaled to governors that their failure to support Putin would likely have very disastrous results. For example, the report on the elections by the Organization for Security and Co-Operation in Europe noted that shortly before the election, the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Investigation Committee demanded all documents related to housing construction in Moscow in 1999, an area where there had been numerous reports of corruption involving Luzhkov and his wife, Yelena Baturina. If Kremlin officials were going to go after Luzhkov, they could go after anyone who showed independence.
Yelena Baturina, who gave Hunter Biden the big cash, is absolutely famous for corruption.
According to her Wikipedia page, the U.S. ambassador to Russia in 2010 laid it out like this:
According to secret cables published by WikiLeaks, the US ambassador to Russia, John Beyrle, reported allegations that Baturina had links to major criminal groups, particularly Solntsevskaya Bratva.[54] The full text of the cable makes clear that Mr Beyrle is simply repeating gossip and allegations conveyed to him by journalist Sergei Kanev. Beyrle writes, 'Kanev told us that Luzhkov's wife, Yelena Baturina, definitely has links to the criminal world, and particularly to the Solntsevo criminal group'.[55] Beyrle stated that her husband Yury Luzhkov sat on top of a "pyramid of corruption". "Luzhkov oversees a system in which it appears that almost everyone at every level is involved in some form of corruption or criminal behaviour," wrote Beyrle. "Analysts identify a three-tiered structure in Moscow's criminal world. Luzhkov is at the top. The FSB, MVD and militia are at the second level. Finally ordinary criminals and corrupt inspectors are at the lowest level." Beyrle also suggested that much of Luzhkov's business empire had been acquired using municipal finances to invest in "less than transparent" projects with former Soviet republics.[56] The couple denied the accusations as "total rubbish".[56]
Click on that link to the Solntsevskay Bratva mafiya -- and be grossed out.
According to the Moscow Times:
Another feature of his: Luzhkov always sued those who offended him and always won — thanks to the Moscow justice system that he kept in his back pocket.
Luzhkov described his wife, Russia’s richest women Elena Baturina, as a “talented entrepreneur.” This phrase became famous as everyone knew she received billions in state construction contracts in the capital.
Now what was going on in 2014 and 2015 when these wire transfers were happening four and five years after the Wikileaks and surely with young Hunter's if not old Joe's knowledge of them?
Luzhkov and his wife had been ousted from power by Putin's puppet successor Dmitri Medvedev for insubordination. Baturina took much of the fortune abroad, investing in hotels, real estate and green energy, an Obama administration hobbyhorse in its picking winners-and-losers economy. There also was the Kremlin's invasion into Crimea, which was Luzhkov's hobbyhorse, and Luzhkov was still in Russia at the time. The Senate report also says that the money went into a venture with Chinese ties, which adds another odd thread.
So it's very much a question of what the Moscow billionaire with the huge power-boss husband got for their $3.5 billion to Hunter Biden, son of the U.S. vice president.
Knowing how they worked, they didn't just fling money around for nothing in return, they both practiced a brutal Chicago-style-cubed politics over there with cash and muscle subject only to Putin's greater power. They got something, they were happy in Moscow at their prized catch of the U.S. vice president's son for a mere $3.5 million, possibly on Putin's muscled string, or possibly in some kind of bid to put Putin at bay, it could have been either.
Given the way the game is played in Russia, it sure as heck wasn't about the simple making of money.
What the heck was the ignorant and drug-disgraced, stripper-and-hooker-addicted Hunter giving them in return? We don't know and now the media is keeping the desired silence. The only thing most likely is that they were giggling in Moscow when they bagged this wastrel younger son of the most powerful vice president on earth, and on their own terms. The game in Russia is power, fortified by cash.
A huge miasma of
corruption encircling Hunter and Joe Biden
Do you
remember how Joe Biden gracefully demonstrated a true presidential demeanor
by blasting an Iowan voter who asked him about
Hunter Biden's role on the board of the corrupt Ukrainian company?
According to
Joe, a man was a "damn liar," "fat," and "too old to
vote for me." Guess what. The man was right, and the
question was legitimate, even though Joe Biden doesn't condescend to
answer any of those. People, however, still ask, and it looks
as though the questions are mounting with a neck-breaking speed that even a
healthy and clear-witted politician would have a hard time handling.
On
Sept. 23, Senators Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Chuck Grassley
(R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, released a report titled
"Hunter Biden, Burisma and Corruption:
the Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy and Related Concerns" that revealed millions of
dollars in questionable financial transactions between Hunter Biden and his
associates and foreign individuals, including the wife of the former mayor of
Moscow and individuals with ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
The
investigation was launched in August 2019 as the result of the so-called
"Henniges transaction," when Senate Finance Committee Chairman
Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) raised concerns over the process by which the
Obama administration's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States
(CFIUS) approved the acquisition of a U.S. automotive technology company,
Henniges, with reported military applications. Henniges was
reportedly jointly acquired by Chinese government entities and an investment firm
linked to family members of then–vice president Joe Biden and other Obama
administration officials. Mr. Grassley wrote: "[O]ne of the
companies involved in the Henniges transaction was a billion dollar private
investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). BHR was formed in
November of 2013 by a merger between the Chinese-government linked firm, Bohai
Capital, and a company named Rosemont Seneca Partners. Rosemont
Seneca was reportedly formed in 2009 by Hunter Biden, the son of then–Vice
President Joe Biden, Chris Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John
Kerry, and others."
As the
investigation dug dipper, new and unexpected sums of cash, foreign entities,
and transactions appeared in the Biden case. The Biden family and
their associates got involved in shady relations with Ukrainian, Russian,
Kazakh, and Chinese nationals, which raises criminal concerns and
extradition threats, as put in the report.
Here are some
key findings:
First and
foremost: The Obama administration was aware of, but did nothing
about, the conflict of interest that was created when Joe Biden's son, Hunter
Biden, was appointed to the board of Burisma, a corrupt Ukrainian fossil fuel
company. In early 2015, the former acting deputy chief of mission at
the U.S. embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, George Kent, raised concerns to officials in
Vice President Joe Biden's office about the perception of a conflict of
interest with respect to Hunter Biden's role on Burisma's board. His
concerns went unanswered. Later that year, senior State Department
official Amos Hochstein raised concerns with Vice President Biden himself, as
well as with Hunter Biden, that Hunter's position on Burisma's board enabled
Russian disinformation efforts and risked undermining U.S. policy in Ukraine. In
addition to that, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch,
admitted that she had been briefed about the fact that Hunter Biden was on
Burisma's board, but ignored it in 2016.
Hunter Biden
and his business partner Devon Archer joined Burisma after the British
officials seized $23 million from the London bank accounts of Burisma's owner —
it was a known fact that Burisma is not a suitable company for the vice
president's son to join — especially when the father is called a "public
face of the administration's handling of Ukraine," where anti-corruption
efforts were the number-one priority. Nonetheless, over the course
of the several years, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were paid millions of
dollars from a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch for their participation on the board.
Furthermore,
in addition to the over $4 million paid by Burisma for Hunter Biden's and
Archer's board memberships, Hunter Biden, his family, and Archer received
millions of dollars from foreign nationals with questionable
backgrounds. The report names Archer as receiving $142,300 from
Kenges Rakishev of Kazakhstan, purportedly for a car, on the same day that Vice
President Joe Biden appeared and addressed Ukrainian legislators in Kyiv
regarding Russia's actions in Crimea. Hunter Biden also received a
$3.5-million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of
Moscow. Hunter additionally opened a bank account with China's
Gongwen Dong to fund a $100,000 global spending spree with James Biden and Sara
Biden. Hunter Biden had business associations with Ye Jianming,
Gongwen Dong, and other Chinese nationals linked to the communist government
and the People's Liberation Army. Those associations resulted in
millions of dollars in cash flow. And last but not the least, it was
found that Hunter Biden paid nonresident women who were nationals of Russia or
other Eastern European countries and who appear to be linked to an
"Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking
ring." This is the same Hunter Biden who had well-known
compulsive relationships with prostitutes and strippers back home. Even
though Jill Biden claims that she "knows her
son's character," so he couldn't do "anything wrong," paying
women for sex and being associated with prostitution rings is something that
resonates with Hunter's character just perfectly. Sentiments
aside, it is simply hard to argue with stone-cold evidence of money wires.
You certainly
may try to imagine one of Trump's children being in Hunter's place. The hell of
professional protestors would have stormed the White House by now demanding
"justice," because "no one is above the law." The media
reaction to the 87 pages of the detailed report of the Biden's sketchy schemes?
Don't roll your eyes too hard, you don't want to injure yourself. Trump
and Russia are to blame.
The New York
Times and The Washington Post scorned the report as an "inconclusive"
partisan smear echoing of Russian propaganda. "Republican Inquiry Finds No
Evidence of Wrongdoing by Biden," was the Times' headline. "GOP's Hunter
Biden report doesn't back up Trump's actual conspiracy theory — or anything
close to it," said the Washington Post. "GOP senators' anti-Biden report
repackages old claims" was another typical headline dismissing the report,
this from Politico.
A story of a
then-Vice President's son receiving millions of dollars from foreign entities
associated closely with their governments and whose interests did not
necessarily coincide with America's best interests gets frowned upon with
such unseen hypocrisy and blind bias, that one may wonder that if democracy
truly dies in darkness, then maybe it is an ultimate leftist plan for this
country, after all.
Mainstream
media may deliberately shut their eyes on the facts of the unfolding case of
the Biden family getting rich in exchange for American interests. They may even
distort the gross and, as it seems, criminal wrongdoings, as in some wild
junkie's dream, and present it as a legit business venture. They may put as
much lipstick on a pig as they wish. But an demented, enormously corrupt
man who reeks of treason cannot be a president of the United States.
Please
follow Veronika Kyrylenko, Ph.D on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Photo illustration by Monica
Showalter with use of images by Gage
Skidmore, via Flickr // CC
BY-SA 2.0, Acaben,
via Wikimedia Commons // CC
BY-SA 2.0, PxFuel
public domain, ABC
News YouTube screen shot, and Voice
of America // public domain
Senate Report Exposes Dealings Between Biden’s Son and Businessmen Connected to Chinese Regime
Robert Hunter Biden, son of former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, made millions of dollars worth of “questionable transactions” with Chinese nationals connected to the Chinese regime and military, according to a new congressional report.
Hunter Biden began developing associations with Chinese nationals beginning in at least 2009, the year he co-founded the U.S. investment and advisory firm Rosemont Seneca Partners. According to the report, these financial connections “accelerated while his father was vice president and continued after he left office.”
Joe Biden was vice president during the Obama administration, from 2009 to 2017. He’s currently the Democratic Party candidate for the upcoming presidential election in November.
The other founders of Rosemont Seneca Partners were Chris Heinz, the stepson of former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and Devon Archer, one of Hunter Biden’s business partners.
The report, released on Sept. 23, was authored by two Senate committees: Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and the Department of Finance.
In response, Joe Biden’s campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said the Senate report was using taxpayer dollars to launch “an attack founded on a long-disproven, hardcore rightwing conspiracy theory.”
Beijing-Friendly Businessmen
Two Chinese nationals became prominent in Hunter Biden’s financial network with China: disgraced Chinese oil tycoon Ye Jianming and Asia-based financier Dong Gongwen. According to the report, Dong was Ye’s business associate and executed transactions for Ye’s companies.
Hunter Biden made millions from his relationship with Ye and received millions from Dong’s companies, the report found.
“Ye and his associates had robust relationships with China’s military units, some of which were involved in matters in direct opposition to U.S. policy in the region,” the Senate report stated.
Ye founded CEFC China Energy, an oil conglomerate that made billions of dollars in Russia, eastern Europe, and parts of Africa.
It became China’s largest privately held oil company before it was caught in Beijing’s crosshairs in 2018. Ye was placed under investigation in February 2018 for “suspected economic crimes” and subsequently detained. His current whereabouts remain unknown. A state-owned enterprise took control of CEFC in March 2018.
In addition to shady business practices, the oil company hired former military cadres and leveraged such connections to advance itself, according to Chinese media exposés.
Ye also served as deputy secretary-general of the China Association for International Friendly Contact (CAIFC) from 2003 to 2005.
The association is a front group for the Chinese military’s former General Political Department (GPD), a political organ within the Central Military Commission—the Chinese Communist Party agency that controls the military, according to a 2018 report published by the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC). The GPD was replaced by a new agency called the Political Work Department in 2016.
According to USCC, CAIFC is responsible for collecting intelligence and conducting propaganda and perception management campaigns.
Transactions With Biden
The new Senate report identified a transaction of “potential criminal financial activity” in August 2017, when CEFC Infrastructure Investment (US) LLC, a subsidiary of CEFC China Energy, sent a payment of $100,000 to Hunter Biden’s Washington-based law firm Owasco. It is unclear what the money was for.
Another incident the Senate identified as “potential financial criminal activity” took place in September 2017, when Hunter Biden and Dong opened a line of credit at a bank under a business named Hudson West III LLC.
The credit was made available to Hunter Biden, James Biden, and James Biden’s wife Sara Biden. James Biden is Joe Biden’s brother.
“The Bidens subsequently used the credit cards they opened to purchase $101,291.46 worth of extravagant items, including airline tickets and multiple items at Apple Inc. stores, pharmacies, hotels, and restaurants,” the Senate report stated.
Millions went from CEFC Infrastructure Investment to Hudson West III and then to Owasco. On Aug. 8, 2017, CEFC Infrastructure Investment wired $5 million to Hudson West III’s bank account. From Aug. 8, 2017, to Sept. 25, 2018, Hudson West III sent more than $4.79 million in the name of consulting fees to Owasco.
Hudson West III was 1 of 8 numbered Hudson West business entities, and the Senate report found that Dong was connected to seven of them. The report didn’t elaborate on the connections, and it’s unclear whether Hunter Biden is connected to the other Hudson West firms.
Patrick Ho, a Hong Kong-based businessman who served as secretary-general of a CEFC subsidiary, China Energy Fund Committee, was also Hunter Biden’s client at Owasco, according to the Senate report.
Ho is also implicated in CEFC’s misdeeds. He was charged by U.S. prosecutors of bribing top officials in Chad and Uganda in exchange for business opportunities for CEFC.
On March 22, 2018, months before Ho was to go on trial, a $1 million payment was sent from Hudson West III to Owasco for Ho’s legal representation, the Senate report found.
Ho was sentenced to three years in prison in March 2019 on several charges including money laundering and violating the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act, according to a Department of Justice press release. He was freed in June this year, with the judge shortening his incarceration time after he demonstrated good behavior.
The Senate committees said the financial ties between Hunter Biden, his family, and the Chinese nationals “don’t just raise conflicts of interest concerns, they raise criminal financial, counterintelligence, and extortion concerns.”
The Joe Biden campaign didn’t immediately return a request for comment on the transactions with Chinese individuals.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Sept. 24 sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking if the agency will investigate certain findings of the report, including Hunter Biden’s Chinese transactions involving potential criminal activity.
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