REALITY: JOE BIDEN IS, AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN, A BRIBES SUCKING WHITE COLLAR CRIMINAL AND A REMINDER OF THE DANGERS OF HAVING GAMER LAWYERS IN POLITICS

 

Pinkerton: The Glaring Loopholes in Hunter Biden’s Art Deal – The White House Thinks Less Transparency Can Fix an Ethics Problem

AP Photo/Charles Dharapak

JAMES P. PINKERTON

10 Jul 20211,200

If there’s a pipeline of big-money influence into the Biden White House, are we supposed to feel better if the exact nature of the flow within that pipeline is secret?  

That’s the strange argument reportedly being made by lawyers for the 46th president, as they grapple with the fact that Hunter Biden plans to make millions as an artist even as, of course, Hunter retains his anointed status as First Son to President Joe Biden. Yes, that’s right — the Biden lawyers think that it will be best if we, the American people, don’t know who’s buying Hunter’s art and for how much.

Interestingly, this cover-up approach seemed to be too much even for the Washington Post, an outlet not normally seen as as a critic of the Biden administration. Under the quippy headline, “Deal of the art: White House grapples with ethics of Hunter Biden’s pricey paintings,” the Post reported on July 8 that Hunter will be free to sell his artwork through a New York City art dealer, so long as he, Hunter, never learns the identity of the purchaser, and so long as the dealer rejects purchasers deemed to be “suspicious.” 

We can immediately see that this arrangement is completely unenforceable and in fact impossible to make work. If someone buys a Hunter Biden artwork for six figures (or maybe, who knows, even more), that purchase is not going to stay secret, even in the unlikely event that the purchaser wanted his or her buy to remain secret. After all, most art buyers are sociable enough, living, as they do, in a world of galleries and exhibitions. And of course, plenty of reporters—society gossips as well as political journos—as well as others are curious about anything concerning the First Family.

Furthermore, political influence-buyers actively want their influence to be known—especially with the person they hope to influence.  In other words, the fact that big money is gushing toward Hunter Biden is sure to be known–at least to Hunter and to anyone he cares to tell about it.

Yet lest anyone think that the Post report of the unusual secrecy surrounding the First Son’s art sales was somehow fake news, White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended it the following day, declaring that Hunter Biden  “has the right to pursue an artistic career.”  And she added, “I can tell you that after careful consideration, a system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards,”

The White House / YouTube

Volume 90%

 

Perhaps this rickety arrangement is already flunking the reader’s laugh test.  And yet, as this author noted back in June, the issue of art-purchasers potentially buying influence in the White House is no laughing matter.  So it’s worth digging into the details of the proposed arrangement, as they have been provided to the Post:

White House officials have helped craft an agreement under which purchases of Hunter Biden’s artwork—which could be listed at prices as high as $500,000—will be kept confidential from even the artist himself, in an attempt to avoid ethical issues that could arise as a presidential family member tries to sell a product with a highly subjective value.

So again, that’s the White House’s key idea: Keep the identities of the purchasers away from Hunter lest he wish to help reward them with his presidential pull. And Hunter, of course, has had a long career as a helper for big companies and foreign countries–from Ukraine to China to Mexico–and those deals have been and can still be an embarrassment or worse for Team Biden.  

On July 10, a very droll Ian Bremmer, the well-known geopolitical pundit, tweeted a picture of one of Hunter’s art works and added the joke, “I don’t hate this Hunter Biden painting. But for $500,000 I feel like I should also get some of his Ukraine energy expertise thrown in.”  The joke being that Hunter has no Ukraine energy expertise.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) also weighed in about “tough” ethical questions surrounding Hunter, who is, Cotton added, “still investing in CCP [Chinese Communist Party]-linked firms.”  In other words, according to Cotton, the potential exists for the People’s Republic of China to directly influence Hunter; it could be PRC money flowing through that pipeline to the White House. 

Yet while Hunter is for sure a black sheep, he is also still much loved by his doting father.  Thus in January 2021, even after so many disclosures about Hunter’s misdealings, the younger Biden was highly visible at his father’s inaugural.  Indeed, Hunter’s showcasing sent the world an unmistakable message: The son is still in good with his father, now the 46th president.  

Given this tight family bonding, perhaps we can spare some sympathy for the Biden White House lawyers, who have been called upon to cobble together something that’s un-cobble-able—a plan for insulating Joe’s Oval Office from Hunter’s new moneymaking plan.

Returning again to that Post article, we might consider the extraordinary trust being placed in a New York City art dealer, Georges Bergès; it is up to him—a man with no vetting—to make myriad high-dollar ethical decisions for Hunter, for the Biden White House, and in effect for the United States:

Under an arrangement negotiated in recent months, a New York gallery owner is planning to set prices for the art and will withhold all records, including potential bidders and final buyers. The owner, Georges Bergès, has also agreed to reject any offer that he deems suspicious or that comes in over the asking price, according to people familiar with the agreement.

Is Bergès to be trusted like this?  Will he be trustworthy on such matters as the purchase price?  Will crypto-currencies, which are nearly impossible to trace, be involved?  We’ll have to wait and see, although, of course, maybe we won’t see. Indeed, the loopholes here so wide that it seems that they’re all hole and no loop.  

In the meantime, we already know this much: Joe Biden has had a long—lifelong, of course—association with wheeler-dealers within his family, with those many relatives happy to make money off their powerful family tie.  

This reality was made plain back in 2019 by Politico in a piece headlined, “Biden Inc.: Over his decades in office, ‘Middle-Class Joe’s’ family fortunes have closely tracked his political career.” The piece was a tale of familial financial opportunism, as Biden family members cashed in on their connection; for instance, the article includes a moment in 2006 when Biden’s younger brother, James, laid out his development strategy for a proposed hedge fund: “Don’t worry about investors. We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden.” (At the time, Joe Biden was a U.S. Senator.) 

We pause over James Biden’s words, We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden.  And if we do so pause, we can begin to better see the dimensions of the issue with Hunter Biden and his father.

Moreover, James Biden isn’t the only political entrepreneur in the Biden brotherhood.  Here’s a CNN headline in February: “Frank Biden’s actions already testing Joe Biden’s ethics claims.” 

The article continues:

Francis ‘Frank’ Biden, the President’s brother, was hired as a non-attorney, senior adviser for Berman Law Group, a Boca Raton law firm in 2018. The firm frequently touts Frank Biden’s ties to the President, featuring Frank and his family connections prominently on their website, in ads and on social media. [emphasis added] 

Given all this media and social-media saturation, it’s becoming apparent that there’s no way that any purchase of Hunter’s art is going to stay secret.  Not from Hunter, and probably not from anyone else in his family. 

 So it’s little wonder that the White House’s proposed “secret plan” raised hackles among prominent Washington legal ethicists cited by the Post.  

“The whole thing is a really bad idea,” said Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer to President George W. Bush. “The initial reaction a lot of people are going to have is that he’s capitalizing on being the son of a president and wants people to give him a lot of money. I mean, those are awfully high prices.”   

And then there’s this equally stinging quote from Walter Shaub, head of the Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017: “Because we don’t know who is paying for this art and we don’t know for sure that [Hunter Biden] knows, we have no way of monitoring whether people are buying access to the White House.  What these people are paying for is Hunter Biden’s last name.”

Given these realities—no money secrets from Hunter and no apparent family distance between Hunter and Joe—it’s easy to see that the White House plan for Hunter’s art is not going to work as advertised.  There’s no veil, no wall, no blind trust, no black box, no anything, that can fully compartmentalize the public interest from Hunter’s private interest.

In fact, there might be a lot less separation between Joe and the Biden family politics business than most Americans have realized—or that the Main Stream Media has been willing to fully explore.   

In 2019, Forbes magazine estimated Joe Biden’s net worth at $9 million. Now how did Middle Class Joe come by that much money when he’d been working almost continuously on a government salary since 1970? Earlier this year, Town and Country magazine offered a photographic look at Biden’s real estate holdings, which are extensive, including a 6,850-square-foot manse on “four acres of secluded, lakefront land” in Wilmington, DE.  Plus another nice home in Rehoboth DE, and yet another in McLean, VA.  (On July 8, a report in Mediate brought all this back to mind, as readers were reminded that for a mere $2.39 million, they could be a neighbor of the Bidens in Wilmington.)

Without a doubt, the Biden family has done very well. And now, here comes Hunter Biden with his latest money-making plan; he’s seemingly destined to blaze a lucrative trail in the art world. Nice work if you can get it! 

Hunter Biden working on his artwork. (Hunter Biden)

In the meantime, the rest of us—those of us not blessed with Hunter’s talent as a well-born “art-preneur”—should at least demand total transparency in his dealings.  That is, the only hope that we can have for any kind of accountability is if all of Hunter’s art purchases are fully publicized, including not only the identity of the purchaser but also the precisely audited dollar total paid by the purchaser. 

This is a point made by Breitbart News senior contributor and Profiles in Corruption author Peter Schweizer, who earlier told Breitbart News that the Biden White House plan was “absurd.” “The only way to address these issues is with greater transparency–not less,” he added. “Their proposed solution is greater secrecy, not transparency. And they are essentially saying ‘Trust Us.’ Joe and Hunter Biden’s track record on such matters gives us no reason to trust them.”

More than a century ago, the eminent social reformer and future Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”  That is, the public’s right to know is what guarantees honesty and fair dealing.

Today, what’s needed is a good dose of the Brandeisian sunlight-as-the-best-disinfectant therapy.  Unfortunately, the Biden White House is pursuing the exact opposite approach.

THIS IS ALMOST TOO FUNNY.

THE OBOMB WAS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY HIS CRONY BANKSTERS FROM DAY ONE. AFTER HIS 8 YEAR BANKSTER REGIME, DURING WHICH TIME NO BANKSTER WENT TO PRISON FOR PERPETRATING A TRILLION DOLLAR LOOTING OF AMERICA, OBOMB WENT OFF TO DO HIS BANKSTER SPEECHS AT $500K A WACK. THAT NOT A BRIBE? WHO DO THESE FUCKNG PARASITE LAWYERS THINK THEY'RE KIDDING?!?

Fmr WH Ethics Chief Shaub on Hunter’s Art Sales: Biden Created ‘Perfect Mechanism for Funneling Bribes’

PAM KEY

9 Jul 20211,051

3:22

Walter Shaub, who served as director of the Office of Government Ethics under former President Barack Obama and former Donald Trump said Friday on CNN’s “Newsroom” that the Biden administration has created a “perfect mechanism for funneling bribes ” with how it handled the president’s son Hunter Biden’s artwork sales.

White House officials helped draft an agreement to sell the artwork where buyers were kept confidential from even Hunter.

In a video, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “I can tell you that after careful consideration, a system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards.”

Shaub said, “They have outsourced government ethics to an art dealer. She mentioned industry standards. It’s an industry that’s notorious for money laundering.

He continued, “This is just preposterous and very disappointing.”

Shaub said, “They’ve absolutely made it worse for two reasons. One, what they’ve done is ensured that neither you nor I nor anyone watching this show will know who buys the art unless they share it publicly. But there’s nothing that we can do to monitor to make sure that Hunter Biden or anyone in the White House doesn’t find out that the dealer keeps his or her promise, that the buyers don’t call the White House, ask for a meeting and say, ‘Hey, I just bought the president’s son’s art for $500,000. Now, maybe we trust Joe Biden not to give preferential treatment because he’s a better human being than Donald Trump, but you don’t run an ethics program on the idea that you hope everybody behaves. If everybody in the world would behave, we don’t even need laws prohibiting murder then.”

He continued, “The thing is, it’s just got the absolute appearance that he’s profiting off of his father’s fame. He’s not selling under a pseudonym. He’s not waiting until his father is out of office. He’s not selling at any price comparable to what other first-time artists are selling. So, the White House should have first made its move to have the president try to talk him out of doing this, and if that failed, they should have gone the opposite direction and asked that the name of buyers be released and pledge to the American people that what they would do is let us know any time one of those buyers got a meeting with an administration official so that the public could judge whether or not they were getting preferential treatment. The problem is, now they’ve set a precedent for the next president. Even if you happen to trust Joe Biden, what if the next president has the character of a Donald Trump? This would be a perfect mechanism for funneling bribes to that president.”

He concluded, “He can sell art all he wants, but he ought to be abiding by a standard that he shouldn’t be doing things to capitalize on his father’s name. You just are never going to convince me that selling art as a first-time artist at this price. He’s not selling it based on his father’s name. People are going to buy this art to be able to say, I’ve got the president’s son’s art hanging in my den or whatever room rich people who can afford this art have. He’s just not doing what he needs to do to avoid that. I know he’s not a government official and isn’t covered by the government ethics laws, but he’s an American citizen, and he has a patriotic duty not to capitalize on his father’s public service, and that’s clearly what he’s doing here.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

The Biden administration has decided to conceal all paper trails to Hunter Biden's suspiciously high-priced "art" sales in an amazing claim to "ethics." 

The question is when, not if, Hunter Biden's laptop will bring down Joe Biden's presidency

By Thomas Lifson

Thanks to a series of leaks from the hard drive of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop computer, we know there is more than enough evidence to appoint a special counsel, or at least convene a grand jury to investigate bribery, tax fraud, and probably several other categories of crime involving the Biden Crime Family.  Three recent articles by highly respected reporters Miranda Devine (who has a book on the subject about to come out and whose work informs the other two writers), Byron York, and Emily Jashinsky present evidence typed in Hunter's own hand of the schemes whereby Hunter acted as the bagman collecting vast wealth from foreign interests by selling access to Joe when he was vice president and a potential candidate for the presidency.

All three accounts are worth reading, though there is considerable overlap.  From Devine, here is an example of evidence that already ought to have led to a subpoena for financial records:

Hunter complained that he was forced to give half his salary to his father. 

"I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years," Hunter wrote in a 2019 text message to his daughter, Naomi, that was found on his abandoned laptop. 

"It's really hard. But don't worry, unlike Pop [Joe], I won't make you give me half your salary." 

There's no direct evidence of such a wealth transfer on Hunter's laptop. 

A mildly curious U.S. attorney ought to be able to get a grand jury to subpoena the financial records of the Biden clan on this basis.  Or, in an alternate reality, a special counsel, appointed to reassure the public that their president is not beholden to foreign interests, ought to be digging through these and other financial records, such as (via Devine) that Hunter routinely paid at least some of his father's household expenses, including AT&T bills of around $190 a month. 

We know from an e-mail on June 5, 2010, with the subject "JRB bills" to Hunter from Eric Schwerin, his business partner at Rosemont Seneca, that he was expected to foot hefty bills to Wilmington contractors for maintenance and upkeep of his father's palatial lakefront property. Joe's initials are JRB, for Joseph Robinette Biden. 

The bills that June included $2,600 to contractor Earle Downing for a "stone retaining wall" at Joe's Wilmington estate, $1,475 to painter Ronald Peacock to paint the "back wall and columns" of the house, and $1,239 to builder Mike Christopher for repairs to the air conditioning at the cottage of Joe's late mother, Jean "Mom-Mom" Biden, which was on his property and which he would later rent to the Secret Service for $2,200 a month. 

"This is from last summer I think and needs to be paid pretty soon," wrote Schwerin of Christopher's bill. 

Another $475 "for shutters" was owed to RBI construction, of Bear, Del., about 15 minutes west of Wilmington. 

Gifts to public officials that are not disclosed can and have led to criminal prosecution of both parties.

As Byron York reminds us:

For years, Joe Biden was known as the poorest man in the U.S. Senate. It was a label he himself welcomed, claiming it showed how ethically clean he was. "I entered as one of the poorest men in Congress, left as one of the poorest men in government, in Congress, and as vice president," Biden said during his presidential campaign in 2019. What Devine has discovered suggests that while Biden bragged about his lack of money — in other words, claiming to be free of the financial corruption common in politics — he was relying on his influence-peddling son to pay some of his bills.

York also mentions the photo Devine obtained of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim with both Bidens at the Vice President's Residence, putting the lie to Biden's claim he had no knowledge of Hunter's business dealings.  Hunter gloated over the size of the business deals he expected with Slim and his associates.  Recall that it was Slim's cash infusion that saved the New York Times when it was at a financial low point.

Jashinsky's headline summarizes the big issue: "In A Healthy Country, The Bidens Would Be Seen As The Picture Of Elite Corruption."  She reminds us that Joe raking off the top of Hunter's business income is an old story:

Hunter's complaint about his father taking a chunk of his earnings might sound familiar. It's basically exactly what we learned from Tony Bobulinski shortly before the 2020 election, even if the media chose not to treat that information credibly.

Here's more from Devine: "Further evidence that Joe expected to receive a slice of his son's income was provided by Tony Bobulinksi, Hunter's former business partner in a firm called Oneida, which was set up to enter a joint venture with the Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC. Bobulinski says that Joe was the "big guy" referred to in a 2017 e-mail who was to be allocated 10 percent equity in the firm: "10 [percent] held by H [Hunter] for the big guy."

CEFC is a recurring character in the Biden drama. When the FBI caught Patrick Ho, an executive with CEFC, bribing African officials with cash in Chad and Uganda, he made a call. It was to James Biden, whose brother had just departed the vice presidency and was exploring a bid for the Oval Office. Why on earth would a corrupt Chinese business executive make an emergency call to James Biden?

Well, according to Jim, Ho was actually trying to contact his nephew Hunter. Here's how the New York Times reported on the exchange back in 2018: "In a brief interview, James Biden said he had been surprised by Mr. Ho's call. He said he believed it had been meant for Hunter Biden, the former vice president's son. James Biden said he had passed on his nephew's contact information."

"There is nothing else I have to say," James Biden told the Times. "I don't want to be dragged into this anymore."

Part of the point of paying Hunter Biden money to oversee business dealings outside his areas of expertise is so that you can make a call just like the one Ho made back in 2017.

So the new emails make it pretty clear that Hunter Biden's corrupt foreign influence peddling benefitted the current president of the United States[.]

It is far from clear how many copies of Hunter's hard drive are in the hands of others, and far from clear who is orchestrating the leaks.  But what is absolutely clear is that Biden's presidency could be brought to its knees, possibly even ended, if the media gatekeepers at the New York Times and Washington Post decided to give the story enthusiastic coverage, bringing the rest of the agitprop along with them.  They could agitate for the appointment of a special counsel, as was done with President Trump over the nonsense Russiagate fake scandal.

Or a U.S. attorney who convened a grand jury could issue subpoenas and eventually obtain indictments, setting the stage for impeachment.

We understand why none of this is happening — yet.  Biden is serving his purpose, appointing officials and signing executive orders that advance the progressives' agenda.  But the drip, drip, drip continues and accumulates.

Glenn Reynolds, AKA the Instapundit, offers a fascinating theory:

Hunter's laptop is being held for when they decide to get rid of Joe. The leaks are just to remind everyone it's out there. Well, everyone except for Joe. He won't remember for long anyway.

This makes perfect sense because Joe Biden already is damaged goods, his accelerating mental decline self-evident to all who do not wear ideological blinders.  What is most intriguing is the calculus behind "when they decide to get rid of Joe."  I strongly suspect that Kamala Harris is now recognized to be such a disaster, unelectable if she inherits the presidency after Joe resigns, is impeached, or leaves under the terms of the 25th Amendment, that she must be Agnewed before Joe leaves.  Clayton Spann yesterday explored some of the types of maneuvers that might be executed to accomplish this, but there are many other approaches one could imagine.

Kamala Harris, for all her purported friction with Dr. Jill Biden, is Joe's insurance policy.  If and when she leaves the vice presidency and is replaced by someone who could be elected in 2024, Joe's and Jill's days in the Oval Office are numbered.

All of this is uncomfortably banana republic territory: powerful, unseen forces pulling strings and deciding the fate of the nation's leadership by manipulating corrupt media and officialdom.  That's where we are today.

They think we're stupid: Biden conceals paper trail on Hunter Biden 'art' sales, calls it 'ethics'

By Monica Showalter

How bad is this?

The Biden administration has decided to conceal all paper trails to Hunter Biden's suspiciously high-priced "art" sales in an amazing claim to "ethics." 

According to the Washington Post:

White House officials have helped craft an agreement under which purchases of Hunter Biden’s artwork — which could be listed at prices as high as $500,000 — will be kept confidential from even the artist himself, in an attempt to avoid ethical issues that could arise as a presidential family member tries to sell a product with a highly subjective value.

Under an arrangement negotiated in recent months, a New York gallery owner is planning to set prices for the art and will withhold all records, including potential bidders and final buyers. The owner, Georges Bergès, has also agreed to reject any offer that he deems suspicious or that comes in over the asking price, according to people familiar with the agreement

Memo to the Post: That's "artist" not artist. Unless, of course, you'd like to modify it as "con" artist.

The whole thing is an amazingly bad load effort to fool the public into thinking that Hunter Biden's sudden interest in art is not a sophisticated money-laundering operation premised on the lack of transparency that exists in the world of art sales. Bad guys the world over are known to launder their ill-gotten cash through purchases of art, and then resell the art, making a clean paper trail for their nefarious doings and pocketing the cash. To say that political bribes, from gamey foreign actors, organized crime, or Washington lobbyists, can't be done through the same medium is nonsense.

The New York Post, in a pointed editorial, points out the problem with this "ethical" approach:

Yet the White House is pretending it can all be kept clean by having the dealer keep the buyers anonymous along with guarantees to reject any suspicious offers above the asking price.

But Hunter says he expects to pull up to half a million bucks apiece, which makes the asking price plenty suspicious. Even art aficionado Alex Acevedo, who says he’s “floored” by Biden’s self-taught skill, sees the proper price for this level of work as $25,000 to $100,000. But the most likely buyers won’t be paying for the art.

And nothing can stop the buyers from quietly letting their purchase be known — just display it at a DC cocktail party.

That's not the only way a lobbyist can make his purchase known. How many photos out there of Hunter and Joe and some skeezy foreign player meeting in official and unofficial settings. All a lobbyist has to do is tell Joe and Hunter that he bought the work so he can get the political favor he wants. Only the public will be kept in the dark with these new "ethics" rules.

Those who profit, are going to know. Yet the Biden administration thinks the public is going to buy this nonsense is, convinced that the public is stupid.

Biden Junior, recall, turned up as an "artist" about a year ago, claiming he had this great vocation to create art after a career of political wheeling-dealing. He claimed he was entirely self-taught, with zero art education, zero art skills, conveniently doing abstract rather than representational painting which is a good way to conceal a lack of talent and discipline. Yet somehow he would have us think his paintings are worth half a million bucks straight out the gate, literally "masterpieces," and he's this art sensation, despite the fact that other, more skilled, talented, and educated artists typically take in about $1,000 to $2,000 for their first paintings. The Daily Wire quotes art experts as saying he does hotel-wall level art at best.

All of this followed a previous career as a bagman for his powerful politician dad, (known as "the big guy," in his emails found on his abandoned laptop computer, one who'd take a 10% or perhaps 50% cut, depending on the email.)  During the Obama/Biden administration, young Hunter the art prodigy followed his dad around on his travels wherever he went, effectively with his black bag extended, collecting millions of dollars from gamy suspect foreign entities from places like Ukraine, Romania, and China just by amazing coincidence. It was all his business prowess, you see, that he raked in so much cash, the Bidenites claimed.

Yet with all this supposed business talent, on top of all this artistic talent, when Joe was out of power, Hunter descended into the world of junkies as a crack-addicted loser wastrel son of a powerful pol out of power. As recently as three years ago, Hunter used his ill-gotten cash to make Chateau Marmont, a ritzy movie-star hotel, as his flophouse with "an ant trail" of drug dealers and sleazy hangers-on marching in and out, until he got thrown out for kicking out walls and stinking up the joint. Apparently, he got thrown out of a lot of them, as I wrote here.

Now we're supposed to believe he's this art prodigy who comes along only once in a century, with painting sold for $500,000 a pop.

But it's all ethical, you see, with the public now to be kept in the dark on the art-sales records, and Hunter shielded from the long arm of the law in some future administration by the fact that he "didn't know" who bought his paintings. Even the fact that the art dealer, a man with significant Chinese connections, is setting a ceiling on the price, rather than a floor, as normal art sales do, as part of this "ethics" deal is suspect. That whole detail suggests that art prodigy Hunter is putting out a price list of what to get in exchange for particular political favors. Don't be surprised if it is.

All this, as White House spokesweasel Jen Psaki declares the Biden administration the "most ethical" in history.

They've pegged the public for stupid on this and seem to be sure the money will keep rolling in and out.

REMEMBER THAT THESE TWO LAWYERS HAVE SPENT THEIR LIVES GAMING THE LAWS AND ANY NOTION OF ETHICS. THIS IS JUST BIDEN BULLSHIT

The Biden White House is attempting to address the ethical questions swirling around Hunter Biden’s newfound art venture, as officials reportedly craft an agreement ensuring that the buyers of the scandal-plagued son’s art, which is expected to sell for up to half a million dollars, will remain anonymous, even to Hunter himself.

White House Struggles With Hunter Biden Art Sales Ethics, Proposes Anonymous Buyers

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

HANNAH BLEAU

8 Jul 2021156

7:27

The Biden White House is attempting to address the ethical questions swirling around Hunter Biden’s newfound art venture, as officials reportedly craft an agreement ensuring that the buyers of the scandal-plagued son’s art, which is expected to sell for up to half a million dollars, will remain anonymous, even to Hunter himself.

Hunter Biden is working with Soho art dealer Georges Bergès, who is expected to hold an exhibition in New York this fall and sell Hunter’s paintings anywhere from $75,000 to $500,000. The general lack of transparency, which is already a well-known reality in the art world, has triggered concerns, particularly for the Biden family, which has been accused of using the family name as leverage and engaging in pay-for-play schemes over the years.

In order to avoid these mounting ethical questions, the Biden White House is comprising an arrangement that would leave all buyers of Hunter’s art anonymous — even to the artist himself. According to the Washington Post, the plan will see Bergès determining the price points for the artwork and withholding “all records, including potential bidders and final buyers.”

“The owner, Georges Bergès, has also agreed to reject any offer that he deems suspicious or that comes in over the asking price, according to people familiar with the agreement,” the Post reported.

“This is an absurd solution,” Breitbart News senior contributor and Profiles in Corruption author Peter Schweizer told Breitbart News.

“The only way to address these issues is with greater transparency–not less,” he continued. “Their proposed solution is greater secrecy,  not transparency. And they are essentially saying ‘Trust Us.’ Joe and Hunter Biden’s track record on such matters gives us no reason to trust them.”

Former ethics officials for both former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama also appear to be cautioning the arrangement as a bad idea.

“The whole thing is a really bad idea,” Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer to Bush, said. “The initial reaction a lot of people are going to have is that he’s capitalizing on being the son of a president and wants people to give him a lot of money. I mean, those are awfully high prices.”

 As the Post noted, “some experts argued that the best protection against influence-seeking would be transparency, not secrecy.”

Walter Shaub, who served as the Office of Government Ethics director under former President Obama, previously said the art venture has a “shameful and grifty feeling to it” and hinted the White House’s plan is not sufficient.

“Because we don’t know who is paying for this art and we don’t know for sure that [Hunter Biden] knows, we have no way of monitoring whether people are buying access to the White House,” Shaub, according to the Post. “What these people are paying for is Hunter Biden’s last name.”

New York gallery owner Marc Straus appeared to balk at the price points set for Hunter’s work, concluding that “nobody would ever start at these prices” for a novice, such as Hunter.

“There has to be a résumé that reasonably supports when you get that high,” Straus said. “To me, it’s pure ‘how good is it and what’s this artist’s potential, what’s the résumé?’ On that basis, it would be an entirely different price. But you give it a name like Hunter Biden, maybe they’ll get the price.”

“My take was [the paintings] weren’t bad at all,” he added, according to the Post. “But there’s a yawning gap between not bad and something fabulous.”

However, the White House has exuded nothing but confidence in this suspected arrangement.

“The president has established the highest ethical standards of any administration in American history, and his family’s commitment to rigorous processes like this is a prime example,” deputy White House press secretary Anthony Bates said.

Bergès, who has some ties to China, did not directly comment on the arrangement, but a woman speaking to the Post on his behalf dismissed it as “nothing unusual.”

Notably, the art dealer’s website does not mention Hunter’s connection to the president, describing him as a “lawyer by trade who now devotes his life to the creative arts.”

But pay-for-play concerns still linger.

“Anybody who buys it would be guaranteed instant profit,” Alex Acevedo, owner of the Alexander Gallery in Midtown Manhattan, told the New York Post. “He’s the president’s son. Everybody would want a piece of that. The provenance is impeccable.”

If not for the Biden family name, Acevedo estimated Hunter’s art would range lower, from $25,000 to $100,000.

Shaub told Fox News last month that Bergès “should disclose the identity of the purchasers” to alleviate concerns of buyers attempting to “gain access to [the] government.” This is not a foreign concern for the Biden family, as Hunter engaged in several controversial international business dealings as his father served as vice president, triggering myriad ethics concerns. Hunter’s work on the Ukrainian oligarch-owned energy company Burisma, where he made tens-of-thousands of dollars per month despite a stunning lack of experience in the energy sector, stands as one of the primary examples of alleged “Biden Five” family corruption, as Breitbart News reported:

One of the most well-known examples of this centers around Hunter’s involvement on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian oligarch-owned oil and gas company, which paid him tens of thousands of dollars per month despite his lack of experience in the energy sector or Ukraine in general. At the time, Hunter’s then-vice president father was the point-person negotiating U.S. policy with Ukraine. After leaving office, Joe Biden later bragged about how he threatened to withhold U.S. assistance to Ukraine unless Ukrainian officials fired a prosecutor who had launched a corruption investigation into the company that had hired Hunter.

Hunter also came under criticism for his lucrative business dealings with state-owned entities in China, as Breitbart News senior contributor and Secret Empires author Peter Schweizer has reported in detail.

“In China, [Hunter] travels with his father in December [2013] aboard Air Force Two. While his father is meeting with Chinese officials, Hunter Biden is doing we don’t know what. But the evidence becomes clear because ten days after they return to Washington, his small boutique investment firm, Rosemont Seneca, gets a $1 billion deal,” the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) president explained during a 2019 appearance with Sean Hannity.

That aside, money laundering has already been identified as an issue in the art world, as detailed by the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report last year.

“Secrecy, anonymity, and a lack of regulation create an environment ripe for laundering money and evading sanctions,” the committee determined.

“Given the intrinsic secrecy of the art industry, it is clear that change is needed in this multi-billion dollar industry,” it added.

Speaking to Artnet in June, Hunter explained that painting is “much more about kind of trying to bring forth what is, I think, the universal truth.”

When asked what his father, President Biden, thought of his art, Hunter told the outlet, “My dad loves everything that I do, and so I’ll leave it at that.”

Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow recently revealed his new book, Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption, that Hunter Biden took nearly two dozen flights through Andrews Air Force base, the home of Air Force One and Air Force Two, while his father was in office.

Hunter Biden is suspected of having used trips with his father on Air Force Two to arrange business deals and impress potential partners.

Report: Joe Biden Promises Wall Street Donors the Status Quo in Private Calls

OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images

JOHN BINDER

8 Sep 2020343

3:50

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden is promising Wall Street donors the economic status quo that they became used to before President Donald Trump’s administration, according to a report.

An investment banker on Wall Street told the Washington Post that in private calls with financial executives two months ago, Biden’s campaign assured them that talk of populist reforms on the campaign trail was nothing more than talking points.

The Post reports:

When Joe Biden released economic recommendations two months ago, they included a few ideas that worried some powerful bankers: allowing banking at the post office, for example, and having the Federal Reserve guarantee all Americans a bank account. [Emphasis added]

But in private calls with Wall Street leaders, the Biden campaign made it clear those proposals would not be central to Biden’s agenda. [Emphasis added]

“They basically said, ‘Listen, this is just an exercise to keep the Warren people happy, and don’t read too much into it,’” said one investment banker, referring to liberal supporters of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). The banker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private talks, said that message was conveyed on multiple calls. [Emphasis added]

In a statement to the Post, Biden’s campaign downplayed the influence of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — left populists on trade and economic policy — on the former vice president’s agenda.

“The Biden-Sanders task forces made recommendations to Vice President Biden and to the [Democrat National Committee] platform drafting committee,” Biden spokesperson TJ Ducklo said. “This anonymous source appears to be confused and uninformed about this very basic distinction.”

The report comes as Biden told AFL-CIO members on Labor Day that he will be the “strongest labor president” union workers “have ever had.”

“You can be sure you’ll be hearing that word, ‘union,’ plenty of times when I’m in the White House,” Biden pitched. “The words of a president matter. Union. We’re going to empower workers and empower unions.”

In the Democrat presidential primary, Biden told a group of rich Manhattan donors at a private fundraiser that “nothing would change” for them or their wealthy lifestyles if elected.

“I mean, we may not want to demonize anybody who has made money,” Biden said at the June 2019 fundraiser.

“The truth of the matter is, you all, you all know, you all know in your gut what has to be done. We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is it’s all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished,” Biden said. “No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.”

Like failed Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Biden has enjoyed a cozy relationship with Wall Street executives, along with his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).

Most recently, Biden touted Wall Street’s support for his plan to abolish America’s suburbs by seizing control of local zoning laws to construct housing developments and multi-family buildings in neighborhoods. Likewise, Wall Street is fully behind Biden’s plan to hugely expand legal immigration levels, beyond already historical highs at 1.2 million green cards and 1.4 million visa workers a year.

The Biden-Harris ticket has elated Wall Street so much that for the first time in a decade, more financial executives are donating to the Democrat candidates than Republicans, the latest Center for Responsive Politics analysis reveals.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

Joe Biden Endorses Drug Sentencing Reform That Would Benefit Hunter

Bill would eliminate disparity between powder cocaine and crack offenses

Andrew Stiles • June 22, 2021 4:30 pm

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President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday announced its support for bipartisan legislation that would end the sentencing disparity among drug offenses involving crack and powder cocaine.

The administration's endorsement is likely to draw scrutiny from ethics experts, given how the proposed sentencing reform could benefit Hunter Biden, the president's crackhead son. Hunter detailed his "next-level" addiction to crack cocaine in his recently published memoir, Beautiful Things. The late Jim Morrison "was a fucking piker compared to my shenanigans," he boasted.

A mediocre author at best, Hunter is at his most eloquent when describing his love of smoking crack. "The sensation is one of utter, almost otherworldly well-being," he writes. "You are at once energetic, focused, and calm. Blood rushes to every extremity; your skin ripples with what feels like bumblebees." That first hit of the pipe is like "being transported—at something like warp speed, as if riding bareback on a rocket ship—to some far-off, beautiful place."

Hunter is also a fan of powder cocaine. In Beautiful Things, he recounts using it in Monte Carlo during a Burisma board retreat. The controversial Ukrainian energy firm paid him up to $50,000 a month for the privilege of putting his name on corporate documents, enabling his addiction to crack, which will always be his drug of choice.

Given his family name and political affiliation, the First Son is unlikely to face any legal consequences for his "nonstop depravity." But the new legislation would ensure, at least in theory, that Hunter would be treated more leniently if charged with a future crack cocaine-related offense.

President Biden's support for the legislation, called the "Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law Act," is consistent with his campaign pledge to eliminate the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine. Yet it is Biden, as a U.S. senator in 1986, who authored the legislation that created the disparity by imposing a minimum five-year sentence for trafficking in 500 grams of powder cocaine or just 5 grams of crack cocaine.

Hunter Biden, who is allegedly in recovery, is pursuing a career as an artist in California, where he rents a $5.4 million mansion. He is planning an art exhibition this fall in New York, where "confidential" buyers will be able to buy his paintings for as much as $500,000 each. Meanwhile, the First Son is still "working to unwind" his 10 percent stake in a shadowy Chinese investment firm.

Hunter Biden Consulted for Oil Man Connected to Notorious Congolese Warlord, Emails Show

David Axelrod's son helped connect mogul with multiple ambassadors

Chuck Ross • July 6, 2021 4:58 am

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Hunter Biden consulted for a Nigerian-American businessman who tried to buy gold from a wanted Congolese warlord known as "The Terminator," according to emails from Biden’s abandoned laptop.

Biden arranged introductory meetings in 2011 and 2012 for Kase Lawal, the president of CAMAC International, a Houston-based oil company, and the ambassadors of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, the emails show. Biden partnered with Mike Axelrod, the son of Obama adviser David Axelrod, on the consulting agreement. Lawal was appointed to serve on President Obama’s international trade advisory board in September 2010. Months later, Lawal paid $10 million to purchase gold from Bosco Ntaganda, a Congolese rebel warlord accused by the International Criminal Court of leading an ethnic cleansing campaign.

The consulting deal is another example of Biden securing international business contracts while his father served as vice president. It also highlights Biden’s penchant for working for scandal-plagued clients. In April 2014, Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, whose owner was the subject of an international bribery investigation. Biden also struck a $6 million consulting deal with CEFC China Energy, a conglomerate suspected of having ties to Chinese military intelligence. Biden received $1 million to represent a CEFC official who was indicted on charges of trying to bribe two African officials to secure oil drilling rights in 2012.

Biden, who is currently the target of a federal tax investigation, helped arrange the meetings for Lawal even after news reports surfaced that the United Nations accused the billionaire oilman of trying to purchase gold from Ntaganda. The first reports about the gold deal surfaced in early 2011. Lawal never received the gold after paying Ntaganda, but the United Nations issued a report about his efforts in December 2011. The Guardian published a story about the United Nation findings on Feb. 5, 2012.

The negative publicity for Lawal did not deter Biden from helping the oil mogul arrange meetings with Yousef Al Otaiba, the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates. Emails indicate that Biden met with Al Otaiba and Lawal on Jan. 5, 2012. Biden later wrote to Al Otaiba asking him to arrange a meeting with then-Saudi ambassador Adel al-Jubeir. An email from Feb. 22, 2012, shows that Biden’s business partner, Eric Schwerin, informed Biden that a planned meeting with Lawal and the Saudi diplomat had to be delayed.

According to the laptop emails, CAMAC hired Biden’s private equity firm, Rosemont Seneca, in September 2011 to help carry out an unspecified business transaction. The emails indicate that Axelrod had a prior relationship with CAMAC and Lawal. Mark Doyle, a longtime Biden family associate, helped introduce CAMAC and Lawal to the Biden group. Doyle cofounded the pro-Biden Unite the Country PAC during the 2020 presidential campaign.

Axelrod, Biden, and their partners negotiated with CAMAC representatives about the terms of the consulting deal, emails show. On top of a $30,000 per month fee, they stood to earn five percent of the net profits from the transaction CAMAC was seeking. The deal would seemingly have been helped along by Lawal meeting with diplomats from the United Arab Emirates and oil-rich Saudi Arabia.

A lawyer for Biden did not respond to a request for comment. Axelrod, Doyle, and CAMAC also did not respond to requests for comment.

Lawal invoked his Fifth Amendment rights during a deposition for a civil lawsuit filed against him by the owner of the private airplane Lawal used to fly to Congo. A Texas jury ordered Lawal to pay $32.4 million in October 2012 to the owner of the jet, which was seized by Congolese authorities, the Washington Free Beacon reported at the time. The jury also found that CAMAC and two of its employees violated the U.S. Trading with the Enemy Act.

The International Criminal Court indicted Ntaganda in 2008 on a slew of war crime charges. He was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to 30 years in prison, the longest sentence ever handed down by the court.

Published under: Crime, David Axelrod, Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden-Linked Law Firm Dodged Lobbying Disclosures for Burisma Work

Emails from Biden's laptop reveal relationship with Boies Schiller Flexner

Hunter Biden / Getty Images

Chuck Ross • June 29, 2021 12:50 pm

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The prominent law firm for which Hunter Biden served as counsel took steps to avoid disclosing to Congress its work with Ukrainian energy giant Burisma Holdings, emails from Biden's laptop show.

Heather King, a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, detailed the lobbying strategy in emails to Biden, his business partners, and an executive for Burisma Holdings in 2014. King wrote that she planned to provide legal and political services for Burisma "right up to the line" at which the law firm would have to disclose the work under federal lobbying laws. King also wrote of plans to meet with State Department officials in order to advocate for Burisma, which was seeking to expand its operations in the West as its owner was the subject of an international bribery investigation.

The emails highlight the gray area of federal lobbying laws, which provide some exemptions for lawyers. King's strategy to avoid registering under the Lobbying Disclosure Act or the more stringent Foreign Agents Registration Act was for Burisma to hire the firm ML Strategies as its lobbyist of record.

Boies Schiller Flexner has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but another Hunter Biden-linked firm, Blue Star Strategies, is under federal investigation for its undisclosed lobbying for Burisma. Biden also helped facilitate Blue Star's consulting deal with Burisma, emails show. Rudy Giuliani, a personal lawyer for former president Donald Trump, is also under federal investigation for his foreign lobbying activities.

Boies Schiller Flexner's arrangement with Burisma appeared to be an example of a firm trying to avoid having to publicly disclose its lobbying activities, one government ethics watchdog told the Washington Free Beacon.

"There is a lot of lobbying that takes place that's never reported," said Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight. He said that lawyers and consultants often "play fast and loose" with lobbying laws by characterizing their lobbying as educational activity or by operating just under the threshold where lobbying is legally required to be disclosed.

A lawyer for Boies Schiller Flexner, who declined to speak on the record, insisted that the firm complied with lobbying laws.

Biden connected Burisma Holdings and Boies Schiller Flexner in April 2014, shortly after he joined the energy company's board of directors. Burisma paid Biden and a business partner, Devon Archer, more than $80,000 a month to help the company burnish its reputation in the West and scout out energy deals. Biden's board position has come under scrutiny because of his father's role at the time leading the Obama administration's diplomatic talks with Ukraine.

King took the lead in developing Boies Schiller Flexner's strategy for Burisma, according to emails from Biden's laptop obtained by the Free Beacon. King was a member of the firm's Crisis Management and Government Response Team. Biden referred Burisma to the team. Other emails show that a recent Justice Department nominee, Hampton Dellinger, worked on the crisis management team at Boies Schiller Flexner.

King wrote in the May 2014 emails that she wanted to contact State Department officials to "‘update' them on Burisma's current situation." She also told Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi that she planned to attend meetings with government officials alongside David Leiter, the owner of ML Strategies.

"We at [Boies Schiller Flexner] will lead all this work and can execute the political and legal work right up to the line where we would need to register as lobbyists, but I don't want to register under the lobbying disclosure act or the foreign agents registration act," King wrote in a May 12, 2014, email to Biden and Archer.

In an email to Pozharskyi, King said she planned to accompany Leiter in his meetings with government officials. She said that she would be at the meeting "strictly as" a lawyer for Burisma because she was not registered to lobby.

Burisma wired $250,000 to Boies Schiller Flexner on May 7, 2014, according to documents on Biden's laptop. ML Strategies disclosed receiving $90,000 in 2014 to lobby for Burisma. The Boies Schiller Flexner connection is not disclosed in those filings.

Other emails show that Boies Schiller Flexner paid $13,000 a month for consulting work.

Boies Schiller Flexner has come under scrutiny in recent years for its behind-the-scenes influence activities. The company hired Black Cube, an Israeli private intelligence firm, to spy on victims of Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. David Boies, the founder of the law firm, represented Theranos, a blood test maker whose owner was indicted for defrauding the government. A Wall Street Journal reporter who published a series of exposés on Theranos has said that Boies and King tried to pressure the paper to kill negative stories about Theranos.

King temporarily left Boies Schiller Flexner in 2015 to serve as general counsel for Theranos.

Hunter Biden Art Sales Raise Alarm With Ethics Watchdogs

Sales could leave Biden admin vulnerable to foreign influence

Hunter Biden / Getty Images

Alana Goodman • June 21, 2021 9:52 am

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Foreign nationals could be allowed to bid on Hunter Biden’s artwork, which is poised to hit the market in the fall for up to $500,000, raising alarms with ethics watchdogs who say the art sales could leave the Biden administration vulnerable to foreign influence operations.

The art dealer representing Hunter Biden said the names of the buyers will be kept confidential, a common practice, according to Fox News. The White House press office did not respond to multiple requests for comment on whether foreign nationals will be permitted to buy the pieces, or whether the buyers will be vetted by White House ethics lawyers and disclosed to the public.

"This is clearly a way for [Hunter Biden] to earn money, a lot of money, without anybody knowing who’s paying him," said Tom Anderson, director of the Government Integrity Project at the National Legal and Policy Center, an ethics watchdog group.

The sale is reigniting concerns about Hunter Biden’s business interests, which became an election issue for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, with Republicans accusing the younger Biden of profiting off his father’s name and position in Ukraine and China. The silence from the White House also comes as President Biden has pledged to increase government transparency and enforce rigorous ethical standards.

Anderson said the White House should publicly disclose the names of the buyers—even if the gallery doesn’t—and have the sales reviewed by ethics lawyers.

"Legally, [Biden] doesn’t have to disclose anything. But just for the office of the presidency, it’s just the right thing to do to be transparent and to let everybody know who’s paying for what," said Anderson. "Why would you want to jeopardize everything the administration is trying to do with something like this?"

The paintings will go on sale for between $75,000 and $500,000, although they could fetch higher bids from motivated buyers.

Art is often used to bribe public officials in China, where the practice is referred to as "yahui" or "elegant bribery," according to the New York Times.

"In some cases, an official will receive a work of art with instructions to put it up for auction; a businessman will use it as the currency for a bribe, purchasing the art at an inflated price and giving the official a tidy profit," reported the Times in 2013.

Although Hunter Biden has not exhibited his work before, the paintings are expected to sell for significantly higher than most art in the United States. The median price for a contemporary art piece was $1,300 in 2017, according to ArtPrice.com, which tracks art market information.

Joe Biden Picks University President Who Paid Him $900,000 As Ambassador to Germany

Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Berggruen Institute

CHARLIE SPIERING

3 Jul 2021139

3:43

President Joe Biden plans to nominate University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann as the U.S. ambassador to Germany, the White House announced, after the university paid him more than $911,000 after he left the White House as vice president.

Biden’s financial disclosures revealed in 2019 that he was appointed by the university to serve as the Benjamin Franklin Presidential Practice Professor — the first person to hold the position.

Biden received $371,159 from the university in 2017 as well as $540,484 in 2018 and early 2019. He stepped down from the position in 2019 ahead of his announcement to run for president.

Biden appeared for university events and public appearances but did not host regular classes for the university, according to the student newspaper. He also appeared with Gutmann for several question-and-answer events.

Biden told world leaders in February that his former position at the University of Pennsylvania made him a professor.

“Two years ago, as you pointed out when I last spoke in Munich, I was a private citizen. I was a professor, not an elected official,” he said, referring to his paid position at the university.

The University of Pennsylvania also helped develop “The Biden Center” in Washington, DC, which employed many of Biden’s staff after he left the vice presidency. Biden’s current senior advisor Steve Ricchetti was once the managing director of the Biden Center as well as Biden’s current Secretary of State Tony Blinken.

Under Gutmann, the University of Pennsylvania has enjoyed substantial donations from China.

Since announcing the creation of the Biden Center, the University of Pennsylvania received a substantial increase of donations from China, prompting the House Oversight Committee to investigate.

The January 27 letter to Gutman read:

In the 37 months of available reporting prior to the announcement of the Biden Center, the University received about $21,187,333 from China. In contrast, in the 39 months of available reporting since the announcement of the Biden Center, the University received $72,274,675 from China—an increase of $51,087,342 in a similar time frame.

The National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint with the Department of Education citing the university’s failure to disclose their donations from China.

The NLPC announcement read:

Since 2017 alone, when the Biden Center opened and after Joe Biden announced he was running for President in April 2018, the university received over $70 million from China, of which $22 million were listed as “Anonymous.” Federal law requires the disclosure of the source of all donations over $250,000.

The NLPC complaint also noted that the Biden Center co-sponsored the 2020 Penn China Research Symposium in New York on January 31, 2020. The event hosted Ambassador Huang Ping, Consul-General of the People’s Republic of China for opening remarks about the relationship between China and the United States.

“I just met President Gutmann and was very impressed by UPenn’s growing relationship with China,” he said.

Report: Joe Biden Met with Hunter Biden’s Mexican Business Associates in VP Office

Andy Wong/AP Photo

JOEL B. POLLAK

1 Jul 2021110

2:50

Joe Biden reportedly met with Hunter Biden’s Mexican business associates at the vice presidential residence in 2015, despite telling Americans repeatedly during the 2020 election that he had never discussed his son’s business dealings.

The New York Post‘s Miranda Devine reported Wednesday that documents — and photographs — on Hunter Biden’s now-infamous laptop documented meetings between then-Vice President Biden and his son’s foreign business partners:

Among more than 100 events scheduled in Hunter’s diary at the VP’s residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, there are meetings which appear to overlap with Hunter’s business interests.

“Breakfast with Dad — NavObs” is one such meeting recorded for 8:30 a.m. on Nov. 19, 2015. Five photographs date-stamped on that day and taken at 10:03 a.m. and 10:04 a.m. appear on the laptop, showing Joe posing with four of Hunter’s business associates, including Mexican billionaires Carlos Slim and Miguel Alemán Velasco.

One photo also features Velasco’s son Miguel Aleman Magnani, the founder of budget airline Interjet, at whose Acapulco mansion Hunter and wife Kathleen had stayed that March. Jeff Cooper, a longtime Biden family benefactor, who ran one of the largest asbestos litigation firms in the country, Illinois-based SimmonsCooper, also appears along with Hunter.

…

Cooper and Hunter had been working on energy deals in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America. A 2013 email from Cooper demonstrates their high expectations of the association with the Aleman dynasty.

Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow recently revealed his new book, Breaking the News: Exposing the Establishment Media’s Hidden Deals and Secret Corruption, that Hunter Biden took nearly two dozen flights through Andrews Air Force base, the home of Air Force One and Air Force Two, while his father was in office.

Hunter Biden is suspected of having used trips with his father on Air Force Two to arrange business deals and impress potential partners.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.