“We must not be naïve -- the Ukrainian company Burisma
Holding Limited did not hire a druggie like Hunter Biden, the
son of the Vice President of the United States Joe Biden, for
his
expertise or business acumen.”
ALEXANDER G. MARKOVSKY
How to Understand Joe Biden’s Ukrainian Connection
Joe
Biden’s shenanigans in Ukraine need to be understood in the context of the
business and political culture of Ukraine and the former Soviet bloc. We must not be naïve -- the Ukrainian company Burisma Holding Limited
did not hire a druggie
like Hunter
Biden, the son of the Vice President of the United States Joe Biden, for
his expertise or business acumen. It did not hire obscure Devon Archer, a
managing partner of Rosemont Seneca Partners, a $2.4 billion private equity
firm co-owned by the stepson of John Kerry Christopher Heinz, for his
administrative genius, either.
Burisma expected
it was hiring the principals, Joe Biden and John Kerry. Hunter
Biden and Devon
Archer were just bagmen.
The
arrangement is called “крыша,” which translates as “roof” in Russian. It means patronage and protection in
exchange for an agreed monthly payment, often payable to a third party to
ensure deniability. It is important to point out that “roof” is not just
criminal jargon, it is a contract. But unlike a legal document secured by a
written text, criminals operate outside the law and leave no paper trail.
“Roof”
has been prevalent in the post-Soviet era in the territories of the former
Soviet Union, where various
entities offer protection -- organized crime, police, high ranking government
officials, and a few other powerful entities. The necessity for “roof” is often
part of business planning. Burisma is not an exception.
In
2002, during the tenure of President Viktor Yanukovych, his ecology
minister Mykola Zlochevsky registered Burisma Holding Limited on Cyprus. Burisma
managed to secure lucrative government licenses for gas field
exploration and production to become the largest private gas company in
Ukraine. De jure, the licenses
for the exploration of natural resources are drafted as bilateral agreements
between the government entities and private enterprises, but de facto they are unilateral and
revocable grants of privileges by a president and high-ranking government
officials to their cronies and supporters.
As long as President Yanukovych was in power Mr. Zlochevsky’s assets were secured from a
hostile takeover. President Yanukovych
was his “roof,” his protector, defender, and
benefactor. But, nothing under the sun is permanent.
In
February 2014 Yanukovych was overthrown in a coup and fled the country. Zlochevsky followed him
shortly. In
a dramatic
reversal of fortunes, Burisma overnight changed from one of the strongest to
one of the weakest players in Ukrainian power politics. The recourse of the
weakest was to find a new “roof” before newly-elected President Petro
Poroshenko, who made no secret of his desire to add Burisma
to his basket of assets, would
be sworn in during June 2014.
It is not known when and who approached John Kerry and or Joe
Biden, assuming the deal followed classic local customs, and what was offered in exchange for lobbing
and political support. But on April 22, 2014, Devon Archer was put on Burisma's board. On May 13,
2014, Hunter Biden himself joined the board.
On
the same day, Christopher Heinz rushed to dissociate himself and the
firm from what looked like an unscrupulous endeavor. He emailed Matt Summers and David
Wade, two of his stepfather’s top aides at the State Department, “I can’t speak
why they decided to, but there was no investment by our firm in their company,” wrote Heinz.
The
passage clearly displayed that the State Department was aware of the
arrangement and revealed Christopher Heinz’s concern regarding if not the
legitimacy but certainty the ethics of the undertaking.
For
Burisma, the impact of having Hunter Biden and Devon Archer
on its board could not be overstated. It thought
that it had acquired an ultimate “roof” -- the Vice
President and the Secretary of State of the United States of America. The hiring sent a subliminal message to
Poroshenko that Burisma is protected by the US Government.
Poroshenko
ignored the message. As soon as he was sworn in, he directed his prosecutor general, Vitaly
Yarema, to open a corruption investigation into Burisma
in order to build
a case to forfeit the
profitable gas licenses awarded to Burisma.
In
January 2015 Yarema was replaced with Poroshenko’s close associate Viktor
Shokin who continued the investigation.
By
2016 the investigation was at its pinnacle and Burisma’s management panicked.
They had been contacting the State Department requesting to end the
investigation. In spring 2016 Joe Biden was forced to act. He stepped
in to protect his client Burisma Holding and
demanded Poroshenko to dismiss Shokin. Poroshenko refused.
They said, ‘You have no authority. You’re not the
President — Poroshenko said’ … I said, 'Call
him.' “I
looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not
fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a b----. He got fired. And
they put in place someone who was solid at the time," Biden bragged about
his accomplishment.
In a process, Biden inadvertently admitted
that President Obama, if not involved, at least was aware
of the shady business of his Vice President.
Poroshenko
couldn’t fight the President of the United States, and Shokin was fired. At this
juncture, Poroshenko decided that it is better to have a percentage of
something than a hundred percent of nothing. He made a deal with Zlochevsky and his trusted
man Igor Kononenko joined Burisma's
board. The vanquished enemies became allies.
Miraculously,
there was no longer a need for investigation and a new prosecutor Yuriy
Lutsenko, “who was solid at the time,” closed the probe. There was no
longer a need for Joe Biden’s services either. Hunter Biden and Devon Archer
eventually resigned from Burisma's board. Zlochevsky returned to the country. The “roof” earned its pay.
Photo
credit: YouTube screengrab
(cropped)
Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London
Center for Policy Research, a conservative think hosted at King’s College, New
York City, which examines national security, energy, risk-analysis and other
public policy issues. He is the author of Anatomy of a Bolshevik and Liberal
Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It. Mr. Markovsky is the owner
and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be reached at info@litwinms.com
Hunter Biden’s Former Business Partner to Be Sentenced after Court Revives
Fraud Conviction
Mairead McArdle
,
Devon Archer, a
longtime business associate of Joe Biden’s son, was convicted
in June, 2018 on charges related to his involvement in a scheme to defraud a
Native American tribe.
The defendants, including Archer, are accused of
pressuring the Wakpamni Lake Community Association, an affiliate of the
Oglala Sioux Tribe to issue $60 million in economic-development bonds
which the defendants then used for their own purposes, such as investing in
their own businesses instead of investing it back into the tribe.
After his conviction, a federal judge in New York overturned
Archer’s conviction later that year, saying the evidence was insufficient
to prove that Archer was aware of the multi-million dollar bond fraud scheme.
The three-judge panel of the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court
of Appeals reinstated Archer’s conviction on Wednesday, ruling that the lower
court “abused its discretion in vacating the judgment and granting a new trial”
and stating that Archer “knew at least the general nature and extent of the
scheme and intended to bring about its success.”
Archer is scheduled to be sentenced on January 21.
Archer worked with Hunter Biden on various business ventures,
including serving with the Democratic presidential nominee’s son on the board
of a Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings.
Hunter Biden was appointed to Burisma’s board in 2014 while his
father was vice president and resigned from the board in April of last
year after his lucrative position on the board drew scrutiny.
In spring, 2016, Biden called on Ukraine to fire the prosecutor
who had been investigating the energy company paying his son. The vice
president threatened to withdraw $1 billion in U.S. military aid to Ukraine if
the country did not fire the prosecutor, who was accused by the State
Department and U.S. allies in Europe of being soft on corruption.
More from National Review
·
Photo
Shows Joe, Hunter Biden Golfing with Ukrainian Oil Exec in 2014
·
Mainstream
Outlets Ignore Evidence of Hunter Biden’s Corrupt Foreign Dealings
Senate
Report: Hunter Biden’s Law Firm Took Nearly $6M from Chinese Oligarch
23 Sep
2020581
6:07
Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden’s son’s law firm
received nearly six million from a Chinese oligarch who sought power and influence
in Washington, D.C.
A bombshell report by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee and Senate Finance Committee details numerous cases in which
Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and family members have deep ties to the Chinese
communist government, Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan.
One such case notes Hunter Biden’s law firm, Owasco, seemingly
accepting nearly six million in consulting fees and legal representation from
Chinese oligarch Ye Jianming.
The report details:
On Aug. 8, 2017, CEFC Infrastructure Investment wired $5 million
to the bank account for Hudson West III. These funds may have originated from a
loan issued from the account of a company called Northern International Capital
Holdings, a Hong Kong-based investment company identified at one time as a
“substantial shareholder” in CEFC International Limited along with Ye. It is
unclear whether Hunter Biden was half-owner of Hudson West III at that time.
However, starting on Aug. 8, the same day the $5 million was received, and
continuing through Sept. 25, 2018, Hudson
West III sent frequent payments to Owasco, Hunter Biden’s firm. These payments,
which were described as consulting fees, reached $4,790,375.25 in just over a
year. [Emphasis added]
A million of the nearly six million transferred to Hunter
Biden’s law firm was then refunded, claiming that the payment was related to
his firm’s representation of Jianming associate Patrick Ho — convicted of
international bribery and money laundering in 2019.
Ho’s legal representation in the case, though, did not include
Hunter Biden’s law firm. Attorneys with the firms Krieger Kim & Lewin
LLP and Dechert LLP represented Ho in the case, court records show.
The report states:
On March 22, 2018, a $1 million payment was sent from Hudson
West III to Owasco with a memo line for “Dr Patrick Ho Chi Ping
Representation.” In his alternative
explanation, Hunter Biden indicated that the misdirected $1 million was related
to his representation of Ye’s associate, Patrick Ho. These transactions illustrate the financial connections
between Gongwen Dong’s Hudson West III, Ye Jianming’s CEFC, and Hunter Biden’s
Owasco. [Emphasis added]
Biden stated that:
Boies Schiller Flexner is co-counsel for Dr. Patrick Ho’s case.
Hudson West III LLC has no involvement with Patrick Ho Chi Ping[’]s case and
won[’]t expect further transaction related to Dr. Patrick Ho Chi Ping trail
[sic] for Hudson West III LLC. Owasco LLC and co- Counsel
Boies Schiller Flexner will represent Dr. Patrick Ho Chi Ping [at] trial. [Emphasis added]
The report also reveals that at the same time Hunter Biden’s law
firm was taking payments from Jianming, he was transferring money to the
Lion Hall Group, a consulting firm run by Joe Biden’s brother, James Biden.
“Between Aug. 14, 2017 and Aug. 3, 2018, Owasco sent 20 wires
totaling $1,398,999 to the Lion Hall Group, a consulting firm that lists James
Biden and his wife, Sara Biden, on the bank account. This transaction was
identified for potential criminal financial activity,” the report states:
These transfers began less than one week after CEFC
Infrastructure Investment wired $5 million to Hudson West III and Hudson West
III sent its first payment of $400,000 to Owasco. Most of the payments from Owasco to the Lion Hall Group had
vague notes in the memo lines, 15 of which simply indicated that they were for
further credit to James Biden; however, the memo
line for one of the payments read “HW3,” which indicates some of the
transferred money could be from Hudson West III. When the bank contacted Sara
Biden regarding the overall wire activity, she stated that the Lion Hall Group
and Owasco provide international and business consulting and that the Lion Hall
Group was assisting Owasco with an international client through a contract that
had since terminated. Sara Biden told the bank
that she would not provide any supporting documentation, and she also refused
to provide additional information to more clearly explain the activity. Consequently, the bank submitted the account for closure. The
Committees created the following chart with respect to this transaction.
[Emphasis added]
Hudson West III also sent funds directly to the Lion Hall Group.
According to records on file with the Committees, James B. Biden is the
principal contact for the Lion Hall Group, and between January 2018 and October
2018, Hudson West III sent the Lion Hall Group outgoing wires totaling
$76,746.15 with the memo, “office expense and reimbursement.” These transactions illustrate a direct financial link between
Hudson West III (which was connected to CEFC, the Chinese government, and
Gongwen Dong) and James Biden. [Emphasis added]
Similarly, as Breitbart News reported, Hunter Biden’s private
equity firm received about $3.5
million from Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina in 2014 as part of a
“consultancy agreement.”
The report states that members of the Biden family used credit cards linked to
associates with ties to the Chinese communist government and bought luxury
items with the funds.
Hunter Biden, in the report, is accused of making
payments to Russian and Eastern European women linked to prostitution and human
trafficking.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on
Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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
GET
THIS BOOK ON AMERICA’S RULING CLASS KLEPTOCRACY
On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake BY SARAH CHAYES
· Hardcover : 432
pages
· ISBN-10
: 0525654852
· ISBN-13
: 978-0525654858
·
Sarah Chayes uses her
considerable analytical skills to tell the story of corruption in America and
the scale of our current corrupt systems, exemplified by the network of
Corporations, politicians, enabling lawyers and other
agencies who have effectively corroded in the furtherance of their profit, all
that was good and just and egalitarian in US society. Please read, please vow
to support the changes she calls for. Our morality, our souls are at stake.
On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake
From the prizewinning
journalist, internationally recognized expert on corruption in government
networks throughout the world, author of Thieves of State: Why
Corruption Threatens Global Security ("I can't imagine a more
important book for our time,"--Sebastian Junger; "Required
reading,"--Tom Friedman; "compelling, fascinating . . . a call to
action,"--The Huffington Post), a major, unflinching book that
looks homeward to America, exploring the insidious, dangerous networks of
corruption of our past, present, and precarious future.
Now, bringing to bear all of her knowledge, grasp, sense of history and
observation, Sarah Chayes writes in her new book, that
the United States is showing signs similar to some of the most corrupt
countries in the world. Corruption, as Chayes sees it, is an operating system
of sophisticated networks in which government officials, key private-sector
interests, and out-and-out criminals interweave. Their main objective: not to
serve the public but to maximize returns for network members.
From the titans of America's Gilded Age (Carnegie, Rockefeller, J. P. Morgan,
et al.) to the collapse of the stock market in 1929, the Great Depression and
FDR's New Deal; from Joe Kennedy's years of banking, bootlegging, machine
politics, and pursuit of infinite wealth, as well as the Kennedy presidency, to
the deregulation of the Reagan Revolution, undermining the middle class and the
unions; from the Clinton policies of political favors and personal enrichment
to Trump's hydra-headed network of corruption, systematically undoing the
Constitution and our laws, Chayes shows how corrupt systems are organized, how
they enforce the rules so their crimes are covered legally, how they are
overlooked and downplayed--shrugged off with a roll of the eyes--by the richer
and better educated, how they become an overt principle determining the shape
of our government, affecting all levels of society.
Top reviews from the United States
5.0 out of 5 stars The
21st century successor to Ida Tarbell and Upton Sinclair
Reviewed in the United States on August
14, 2020
Verified Purchase
Reading Sarah Chayes's descriptions of
Gilded Age and modern kleptocracy from Reagan to Trump, I couldn't help
remembering Upton Sinclairs' observation that he had aimed for the nation's
heart with his novel _The Jungle_ but hit its stomach. Chayes's history of the
Gilded Age, in my opinion, is at least as good if not better than Howard Zinn's
and Thomas Frank's, and some of her detailed descriptions of American
corruption from 1873 to present often made me feel physically ill.
Not a few money-obsessed Democrats come in for scathing criticism alongside the
expected bevy of Republicans (including the heirs to the Dixiecrats). It is not
a matter of party or class per se: Chayes argues, correctly I think, that the
Great Depression and World War II not only enabled the fulfillment of many of
the goals of the strikers and protestors of the six decades from 1873 to 1933
but also taught most Americans a kind of social empathy that has been
systematically and deliberately attacked by networks of moneyed interests from
1980 to the present day.
Some readers may be a bit put off by Chayes's reliance on Greek and Christian
allegories for thematic continuity, but I appreciated them. In any case, she
more than redeems herself by drawing from her personal experiences in
"third world" nations to expose, again and again, the hubris of
Americans like Trump, whose infamous comment about "shithole" African
countries reveals so much of the kleptocratic mindset and his personal
psychopathy.
Chayes offers many specific ideas for digging ourselves out of the quagmire of
kleptocracy and corruption, but no simple solutions. Given climate change and
the COVID-19 pandemic, will we survive long enough to pursue them, let alone
turn the tide?
This process was sped up
by the 2008 financial crisis, in which the Obama administration took measures
to gut autoworkers’ pay while funneling trillions of dollars to Wall Street.
According to a Bloomberg analysis
of the data, the richest 50 Americans now have as much wealth as the bottom
half of the population. The increased concentration of wealth at the top in the
course of 2020 is the result of the unprecedented injection of money into the
stock market by the Fed, which has led to an explosive growth in the fortunes
of moguls such as Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Tesla chief Elon Musk and Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg.
Richest 50 Americans now have as much wealth as bottom 165
million
The Federal Reserve
released data this week on US household wealth that documents the acceleration
of wealth inequality during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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