GAMER LAWYERS:
Prosecutors wanted to charge Hunter with felonies, but he ended up with misdemeanors
Hunter deducted hotel rooms for father and drug dealer from his taxes
Drew’s Receipts: Media Failures of the Week
Think about Hunter Biden's pain. Talk to your dad about his feelings—and his period. And be warned: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is suspiciously cozy with his wife.
These were actual mainstream media narratives last week. As usual, I’m saving the receipts.
"I don’t know how they sleep at night"
Almost as soon as news broke Tuesday that Hunter Biden reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors that will probably allow him to avoid jail time for tax and gun charges, the media were ready to move on. What kind of monster wouldn't be?
ABC News focused on the emotional impact of the development on Hunter Biden and his father:
President Joe Biden had just six words to offer after his 53-year-old son Hunter pleaded guilty to federal tax offenses in a deal that is also likely to spare him time behind bars on a weapons charge.
"I’m very proud of my son," he said.
That pride has been accompanied by pain, and for the president’s family, both have been on public display. Republicans have worked to use Hunter Biden’s actions—and his acknowledged struggle with addiction—as an anchor to try to drag down his father.
Also ABC News: "It is clear Republicans are not going to drop [their investigations of Biden's corruption] despite the fact that there is nothing in this agreement to substantiate their concerns."
On MSNBC, former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) raged at Republicans for daring to continue investigating the Bidens: "I don’t know what America they live in. And I don’t know how they sleep at night. What do these jerks in the House want Joe Biden to do, throw [Hunter Biden] out, refuse to speak to him, say he doesn’t love him publicly?"
Watch two more glorious minutes of the media rushing to Biden's defense, courtesy of Washington Free Beacon video guru Thaleigha Rampersad.
"I want to know more about how you’re feeling"
Father's Day 2023 was about getting in touch with your feminine side, at least according to the media.
An MSNBC host praised her dad for defying "tired, old gender roles" and urged: "In this time of intolerance, we should encourage everyone to say goodbye to old harmful gender stereotypes and allow them to freely express themselves. To be vulnerable and open and to embrace and celebrate that open vulnerability."
CNBC featured an essay by a father suggesting that "instead of telling dads how strong and emotionally bulletproof they are, consider saying: 'I’m grateful for the time we get to spend together, and I want to know more about how you’re feeling.'"
NPR profiled a "father" who recently gave birth to two young daughters and looks forward to one day sharing his lived experience as a "menstruator" with them:
Both pregnancies were difficult because he "spent more time fighting for autonomy over myself to just get an equitable space comfortable enough for me to give birth" and didn't get a chance to "actually enjoy the process of being pregnant." ...
"For those of us who identify more on the masculine spectrum, just because we identify as such does not take away our desire to have kids. If we have the body parts to do so, why not?" ...
"I also just have certain experiences. I know how to do hair. I'll know how to navigate when the menstrual cycle starts and the bodies start changing. I know how to prepare them for what society is going to be expecting of them and teach them that they have autonomy over themselves."
"Ron was always talking about the two of them"
The Washington Post came out with the latest anonymously sourced hit-piece about how Casey DeSantis's husband loves and respects her too much.
Ron DeSantis regularly refers to his wife and himself as a unit, the Post scooped:
Ron was always talking about the two of them as one—when "we" got elected, when "we" protect freedom, when "we" fight the woke agenda—as if it was hard to see his role and hers in clear relief.
Furthermore, the newspaper was able to report, the couple enjoys spending time together as a family.
They don’t take social calls to the mansion, except for Christmas receptions and Easter egg rolls and the like.
In unrelated news, the Post's new CEO, Patricia Stonesifer, has contributed more than $600,000 to Democrats, according to campaign finance disclosures reviewed by the Free Beacon.
That’s enough media for now. See you next week.
16 Bombshells on Hunter Biden From The IRS Whistleblowers
Two IRS whistleblowers leveled serious allegations about Hunter Biden and the government’s investigation of the troubled first son, according to transcripts of testimony released this week.
The whistleblowers, IRS supervisory criminal investigator Gary Shapley and a second unnamed IRS investigator, provided evidence to the House Ways and Means Committee that top Justice Department officials stonewalled an investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes and foreign business ventures. They also call into question President Biden’s repeated denials that he has no knowledge of his son’s business dealings.
Here are 16 of the biggest revelations from transcripts of their interviews:
Hunter linked dad to Chinese deal in threat to business partner
Hunter Biden invoked his father’s name in a text message, threatening his Chinese business partner to come down on him with their full weight if the business partner did not fulfill his "commitment."
Biden claimed he was sitting right next to his father in an encrypted message on July 30, 2017, to an associate at CEFC China Energy. While the message does not verify that Joe Biden was sitting with his son, the Washington Free Beacon obtained photographic evidence that places Hunter Biden at his father’s Delaware home the day of the text message.
"I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father," Hunter Biden wrote to CEFC official Henry Zhao. Hunter pressed Zhao to call him to discuss a delay in payment as part of the multimillion-dollar consulting agreement.
"I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. All too often people mistake kindness for weakness—and all too often I am standing over top of them saying I warned you," Hunter wrote.
Joe Biden attended other business meetings with Hunter and his Chinese partners
Biden family friend and business partner Rob Walker told the FBI that the elder Biden often attended business meetings with his son, including when he was vice president.
The bombshell claim undermines Joe Biden’s claims to have never been involved in his son’s business ventures.
Walker said he was present when Joe Biden stopped by a meeting at the Washington, D.C., Four Seasons hotel with executives from CEFC China Energy.
The FBI authenticated Hunter Biden's laptop almost a year before we knew it existed
The FBI authenticated Hunter Biden’s laptop as far back as November 2019 and knew the device was not part of a foreign disinformation campaign.
Democrats had questioned the authenticity of the laptop after it was released in October 2020. They cast doubt on Delaware computer shop owner John Paul Mac Isaac, who said Biden had abandoned his computer at his store in April 2019. The Biden campaign even orchestrated an initiative to portray the laptop as a Russian intelligence operation.
But FBI agents authenticated the laptop as Biden’s in November 2019 and found no evidence that its contents were manipulated, according to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley.
Investigators also obtained evidence that placed Hunter Biden near Isaac’s computer shop on the day he allegedly dropped it off for repairs.
Hunter deducted hooker and sex club payments from his taxes
Hunter, who has been known to frequent strip clubs and pay for sex, deducted payments he made to prostitutes and a Los Angeles sex club from his 2018 taxes, according to Gary Shapley, who called the evidence a "slam dunk case" of tax fraud.
According to another whistleblower, Biden sent wire payments to a "West Coast assistant," who was actually a prostitute. He also sent a $10,000 wire earmarked for a golf club membership that was actually a dues payment for a sex club.
The FBI division that investigates foreign spies was involved in Biden probe
The FBI’s national security division, which investigates foreign intelligence and espionage operations, took an interest in Biden’s dealings with China, according to Shapley.
"The FBI is considering a lot of national security type issues here," Shapley said in a discussion about Hunter Biden’s work with CEFC China Energy, which had links to Chinese military intelligence.
Hunter Biden received at least $6 million from CEFC China Energy. The company approached Biden in late-2015 with an offer to donate to a charity affiliated with the first son.
Biden referred to one of his CEFC associates, Patrick Ho, as the "fucking spymaster of China" in a 2018 audio recording. CEFC had hired Biden to the tune of $1 million to represent Ho after he was indicted for trying to bribe African officials for oil rights.
The Justice Department and FBI obtained Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants to surveil Ho based on suspicion that he was acting as a covert agent of China.
Shapley said he does not know the status of the FBI’s national security probe.
The investigation into Biden had porn-related origins
The investigation into Hunter Biden has a strange but not entirely shocking origin given Hunter’s history of sex addiction.
"The investigation into Hunter Biden, code name Sportsman, was first opened in November 2018 as an offshoot of an investigation the IRS was conducting into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform," Shapley testified.
Shapley did not provide additional details, but said that the investigation turned up evidence that Biden had committed tax crimes.
Prosecutors wanted to charge Hunter with felonies, but he ended up with misdemeanors
In early 2022, prosecutors and IRS investigators recommended felony tax evasion charges against Biden for the years 2014 to 2018.
Shapley said Biden engaged in "textbook" tax evasion and detailed Biden’s scheme to record his foreign income as loans, which are not taxable. Biden evaded $2.2 million in taxes, by Shapley’s conservative estimate.
U.S. attorney David Weiss ultimately settled on a plea deal with Hunter Biden on misdemeanor charges of failure to pay taxes in 2017 and 2018.
Biden’s Department of Justice blocked investigation at multiple turns
According to Shapley, Biden-appointed prosecutors in Washington, D.C., and California rejected David Weiss’s requests that they charge Biden with tax crimes in their jurisdictions.
Shapley also claimed that Weiss said in an Oct. 7, 2022, meeting that he sought special counsel status for the investigation, but was rejected by "Main DOJ" and told to "follow the process."
The denial prevented Weiss from taking aggressive steps in the investigation or from bringing charges against Biden in jurisdictions where he allegedly committed tax fraud.
The IRS whistleblower’s boss corroborated bombshell claims
Shapley’s boss, IRS special agent Darrell Waldon, confirmed Shapley’s recollection of the meeting with Weiss on Oct. 7, 2022.
Shapley emailed his summary of that three-hour meeting to Waldon, who concurred with his memory.
"You covered it all," Waldon wrote.
Hunter won’t ever pay tax on $400,000 income from Ukraine
While Biden has paid off around $1.4 million in unpaid taxes, he will never have to pay taxes on more than $400,000 in income he received in 2014 from Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings.
That’s because the statute of limitations has expired on Biden’s possible tax evasion crimes for that year, according to Shapley.
In his testimony, Shapley described Biden’s alleged scheme to conceal income from Burisma, where he served as a director. Shapley said Biden funneled his Burisma income through his consulting firm, and then disguised payments to himself as loans, which are untaxable.
Agents wanted to search Biden family homes, but were shot down due to ‘optics’
IRS and FBI agents were blocked from searching Hunter Biden’s residence and a guest house at Joe Biden’s compound where his son often stayed, according to Shapley.
The whistleblower said the Biden investigative team discussed search warrants during a meeting on Sept. 3, 2020. Assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf said there was enough probable cause to support a warrant, but she questioned the "optics" of conducting a search of Biden properties close to the election.
The next day, officials at the Justice Department ordered investigators to "cease and desist" from any "overt" investigative steps—such as search warrants—because of the upcoming election.
Ironically, if that search had been conducted, investigators may have discovered the reams of classified documents that Joe Biden stored at his house.
IRS wanted search warrant for Hunter’s storage locker, but prosecutor tipped off his lawyers
After Joe Biden’s election, investigators learned that Hunter Biden maintained a storage locker in northern Virginia where he stored documents related to his company, Owasco.
Seeing this as a potentially fruitful tranche of evidence, Shapley and other investigators pushed for a search warrant for the unit.
But before agents could conduct the search, according to Shapley, assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf informed Hunter Biden’s legal team that investigators had identified his storage unit.
This gave Biden a chance to remove evidence from the facility.
A mole tipped off Hunter that FBI wanted to interview him
According to Shapley, someone from the FBI informed Hunter Biden’s legal team and the Joe Biden transition team of investigators’ interests in interviewing Hunter Biden on Dec. 8, 2020.
"I was informed that FBI headquarters had notified Secret Service headquarters and the transition team about the planned actions the following day," Shapley testified.
He said the tip-off gave Hunter Biden and his team "an opportunity to obstruct" the investigation.
Hunter’s lawyer said prosecutors would be committing ‘career suicide’ if he was charged
According to Shapley, Hunter Biden attorney Chris Clark threatened prosecutors that if they charged his client, they would be committing "career suicide."
Clark did not respond to the Free Beacon’s request for comment about this allegation. But he smeared Shapley in a statement on Friday as a "very biased individual" whose allegations are "dangerously misleading." Clark claimed without merit back in April that Shapley broke the law by making whistleblower disclosures to Congress.
Joe Biden visited FBI Delaware office during investigation
As vice president, Joe Biden visited an FBI field office in Delaware, the unnamed whistleblower alleges. Although that visit was about an "unrelated matter," the whistleblower said it was "joked" about with investigators.
"Delaware was in the State in which the subject's father lived, and the family was extremely well-known throughout the State, including people on the team," the whistleblower said.
Hunter deducted hotel rooms for father and drug dealer from his taxes
The unnamed whistleblower said that Hunter Biden "deducted expenses for hotel rooms for one of his drug dealers, or what we believed to be one of his drug dealers."
In another instance, investigators found a hotel invoice in President Joe Biden’s name. That stay was for two nights and subsequently deducted as a business expense.
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