Fact-Check on the Biden Family's Money Trail | China In Focus
Bidens don't seem to 'cover their tracks' in alleged China money web: Curley
SVB Went Woke, Then Broke, Then Got a Bailout
Americans can’t afford food, but leftist and Chinese companies get bailed out.
Silicon Valley Bank spent billions on green energy, millions on Black Lives Matter and other leftist causes, until it finally ran out of ‘other people’s money’.
That’s when the Biden administration decided to bail out its depositors.
At a dinner hosted by Peter Orszag, Obama’s former budget director, Wally Adeyemo, Obama’s Nigerian assistant treasury secretary and Biden’s deputy treasury secretary, chatted with Blair Effron, an influential Biden donor, serving on Biden’s Intelligence Advisory Board, who had been hired as an advisor by SVB to deal with its financial crisis. The outcome was inevitable.
“Because of the actions that our regulators have already taken, every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them,” Biden lied.
The deposits of ordinary Americans were already protected up to $250,000.
But unlike banks that serve ordinary customers, the vast majority of SVB’s clients held over $250,000 and were not protected by FDIC insurance. Rather than risk its political donors and allies having to take a 10% loss on their funds, the Biden administration illegally bailed them out while unilaterally transforming FDIC insurance into a protection plan for its political allies.
The Biden bailout was not there to protect Americans, but leftist and even Chinese interests.
SVB was the embodiment of Environmental, Social, and Governance or ESG investing which prioritizes leftist politics over profitability. The Biden administration recently announced that it would allow 401(k) pension plans to be put into ESG instead of reliable investments potentially endangering the retirements of tens of millions of Americans which might also get ‘SVB’d.’
While SVB focused on “climate change” and “diversity”, it ignored rising interest rates. The woke bank was too busy with its politics to deal with the math. SVB had no risk officer for 8 crucial months, but its risk officer for Europe, Africa and the Middle East focused on sharing her “experiences as a lesbian of color” and “moderating SVB’s EMEA Pride townhall.”
CEO Greg Becker led quarterly diversity, equity and inclusion town halls instead of figuring out that startups squeezed by rising interest rates would need money that the bank didn’t have.
Silicon Valley Bank directed over $73 million to Black Lives Matter and other causes. It put millions into, among others, the Accion Opportunity Fund which describes its mission as advancing “racial, gender and economic justice”. It focused on “building a culture of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” and advancing the “transition to a low-carbon world.”
SVB’s mission was to force 100% of its employees to participate in DEI indoctrination.
Newsweek named SVB one of “America’s Most Responsible Companies”: not because the woke bank managed its money well, but because it had the right politics.
Now one of “America’s Most Responsible Companies” is responsible for economic devastation.
SVB mastered wokeness, but failed economics 101. And that was by design. Its real business was politics. By financing leftist causes, SVB had become politically too big to fail. While its own finances are wrecked, the Biden administration quickly stepped in to protect its woke depositors.
The SVB bailout was an announcement that the Biden administration would stand behind woke financial institutions and instruments, socializing the pain by spreading it to more stable financial systems, no matter how irresponsibly they put funds at risk in the pursuit of their politics.
SVB’s clients included California Gov. Newsom’s wine companies as well as assorted politically connected figures, and “1,550 climate tech and sustainability” companies and churned out billions in loans for the woke companies pitching government-subsidized ‘green’ tech.
The woke bank hoovered up subsidies and tax breaks to worthless wind and solar programs and its collapse will leave a “hole” in the green industry. The intersection between the Biden administration’s special interests and SVB was made clear in the Washington Post’s headline, “Biden Boosted Clean Tech. How Much Will SVB Set It Back?”
Last year, Pink Energy, a solar company, shut down after multiple complaints about lying to customers about how much money they would save by switching to worthless solar. The Ohio Attorney General finally issued an injunction against Pink. And Pink’s financing came through Sunlight Financial Holdings which kept the majority of its money in an SVB account.
That’s the sort of junk ‘green’ businesses that the Biden bailout was meant to reward.
SVB was a key element in a woke economy that moved money to political causes with no fiscal responsibility. Its board of directors was short on banking officials, but included major Democrat donors, including a Pelosi neighbor, as well as Janet Yellen’s protege: Mary J. Miller, who had implemented the Dodd-Frank reform package and also chaired the San Francisco Fed’s Diversity and Inclusion Council. Meanwhile, SVB CEO Greg Becker sat on the Fed’s board.
The San Francisco Fed should have monitored SVB’s books and spotted the trouble, but instead it focused instead on fighting “systemic racism” and making banking more “inclusive”.
Going out of business is inclusive.
Not satisfied with bailing out their own supporters, the Biden administration also set out to bail out our enemies.
One of SVB’s major client bases was in China. Chinese companies were able to open an account in a week while “mainstream traditional banks, such as Standard Chartered, HSBC, Citi have strict compliance and it takes a long time to start a bank account with them.”
It’s unclear how many of these Chinese businesses, some likely linked to the Communist Party, Biden has chosen to bail out at the expense of bank customers and while further feeding the inflation that is destroying American families and wiping out the remains of the middle class.
Silicon Valley Bank also maintained a joint venture with China’s Communist state owned
Shanghai Pudong Development Bank which has been under investigation for aiding North Korea’s nuclear program meant to kill millions of Americans. That venture however does not appear to be affected by SVB’s collapse or the illegal Biden bailout of woke capital.
Like SVB, Signature Bank, the second ESG bank that failed, had social impact reports and provided climate disclosures. Its boss led a seminar on gender neutral pronouns and former Rep. Barney Frank (half of Dodd-Frank’s regulatory regime) served on its board. Meanwhile, the DOJ was conducting a criminal investigation involving money laundering by its clients.
ESG is a disaster causing the third largest bank failure in America in just two days.
But ESG is too big to fail because it is at the heart of the leftist scheme to divert money into its causes and to fund its activism. The SVB disaster revealed how fiscally unsound these economic schemes are and how the Democrats will abuse their power to protect them anyway.
Even as the Fed pushes interest rates higher to slow down the economy and inflation, the Democrats have plenty of money on tap for their political allies. American families may not be able to afford to buy eggs, but the cash keeps on flowing for woke capital.
Go woke, go broke and if you support him, Biden will still bail you out.
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.
Reader Interactions
ESG Will Bankrupt You — Financially and Morally
Do you believe in cautionary tales or think most things happen without warning? Your answer might reveal how your psyche processes information to which you are exposed. Everything you need to make good decisions is readily available, depending upon which sources you rely.
Recently publicized topics should set your spidey senses twitching:
Silicon Valley Bank suffers an abrupt collapse.
Joe Biden resurrects the all-but-dead Willow Creek Oil project.
Biden’s Energy Secretary praises China’s work on climate change.
The president delivers his vision for his FY 2024 budget, with a $6.9 trillion price tag.
40,000 hours of security footage inside the Capitol on January 6th are released to the public, initially through Tucker Carlson.
All of these bullets connect — ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) ideology permeates everything, and it will cost us all. You’ll understand who wins and who will lose when ESG is fully implemented. ESG is intended to replace the profit motive for large companies with something more akin to a social conscience. What could go wrong?
Prepare to be amazed!
Silicon Valley Bank
The biggest little bank you had never heard of was a key bank to the small and medium-sized businesses in the tech industry. Remember, the FDIC guarantees up to $250,000 per account. But, in a jaw-dropping move, Biden bailed out all accounts in a change not contemplated by the FDIC act. Is this to be the new FDIC standard?
Where did Biden get such authority, and is this yet another abuse of his presidential powers? Where’s Congress in all of this? Given Biden’s extra-lawful money grabs, why have a Congress at all?
Early information about the bank’s demise gives a definite and suspected reason. Long-term bonds, issued at low yields, secured many of the bank’s assets. When liquidated early to cover cash calls, SVB suffered huge losses. Why did SVB need cash? Because the government spent trillions it did not have making the money supply massively inflated, thus creating runaway inflation. The Fed’s only real inflation-fighting weapon is raising interest rates, which it has done so at a voracious rate, thereby making everyone poorer. Biden’s wasteful spending is directly tied to the default of SVB and other banks.
Even more controversial is that SVB’s head of risk management spent considerable time spearheading multiple “woke” LGBTQ+ programs, including a “safe space” for coming-out stories, even as the firm catapulted toward collapse. Like its tech clients, SVB embraced ESG and took its eyes off the ball while serving “higher interests.”
Willow Creek Oil Project
It would be difficult to find another oil field approval on public land since Biden came to office. Biden’s earlier statements about ending our dependence on fossil fuels without regard for Americans going cold this winter; making electricity less and less affordable for the everyday citizen; and seizing the freedom a personal vehicle brings all show he believes such suffering will make us more pliable as the only alternatives are those that fold into his “green” energy agenda.
So why has the Willow Creek project just been approved? Look no further than the imminent announcement of Biden’s reelection. His overlords use Clinton’s famous triangulation tactic to win support from people who would otherwise not consider voting for him in 2024 and are not aligned with his climate politics.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm praises China
What at first would appear to be a head-scratcher comes sharply into focus only when you understand that China is constantly increasing its greenhouse gas output without U.S. rebuke. Its output is now greater than all the other developed nations combined! Nothing the rest of the world (i.e. America and Europe both committed to net zero) does will achieve Biden’s stated goals to “save” the planet. China greenlights two coal plants a week while the U.S. and Europe shutter their own, risking brownouts and people dying from the cold!
Why are we such zealots for dumping our traditional sources of energy with nothing on the near horizon to replace our needs? Granholm knows what’s going on, and, like our President, both are in the tank for an ever-ascendant China. Why? This seems to continue our government’s ever-firming control over us. Do you see a different answer? I certainly don’t!
Biden releases his vision for our next budget
I can’t express the staggering numbers within Biden’s proposed budget meaningfully. Key takeaways include; A record-breaking $6.9 Trillion to fund all of Biden’s priorities. This budget breaks new ground by proposing the confiscation of some individuals’ assets outright, departing from our tradition of only taxing realized income. U.S. dollars will be sent worldwide to further “woke” agendas. We will see our budget deficit grow to $50.7 Trillion over the next ten years, according to his numbers, even though he promises a magical $3 trillion in deficit reduction. Unfortunately, it’s all smoke and mirrors, so deficit reduction in our years will never occur. (Remember, government spending will increase by double digits this year.) Spending is accelerating, not slowing.
No one expects Biden’s budget to become a reality, and it is as much a political budget to gin up his constituency as a fiscal one. But if you discounted his budget entirely, you would be missing something important. His budget does not deal with extending Social Security’s life, the realities of our deficit spending, or the interest we will be paying on our debts, soon to become the single largest item in our Federal budget. God save our children!
40,000 additional hours of security footage inside the Capitol on January 6th were released
What’s the difference between an “insurrection” and a riot?
For the first time I know of, since that incident, our country has been holding prisoners of conscience in solitary confinement without a trial. Democrats had free rein on prime-time television to sell the American people a narrative of an insurrection, yet many rightfully remain unconvinced. A stink is attached to the entire process with a kangaroo court, scripted television, and zero defense of those accused of high crimes. Process matters.
Dozens died in the streets due to rioting during the pandemic, and property damages were billions of dollars. Comparing the differences in how these two series of actions were spun is instructive, and analyzing the different approaches to how we reacted is reasonable and proper. It is an inconvenient truth that an overwhelming majority of participants at the Capitol did no physical damage and harmed no one. The only known violent death was Ashli Babbitt, who was unnecessarily shot.
We, the People, used to mean something. Now, it's little more than a catchphrase with the government going after a thousand people (many who never set foot in the Capitol building). They are targets because of what they think. What does that portend?
Freedom today is defined by what some Democrats decide it to be. You can riot in American streets almost without consequence, but demand change at our Capitol, and you will be imprisoned and the key thrown away. How does this square in our “free” country?
ESG is an additional control measure that helps to point us down a path that today’s Democratic/Marxist leaders demand. Ask the financial institutions you deal with to explain their ESG policy. Then decide what you will do with your money, politics, and future.
God Bless America!
Allan J. Feifer—Patriot, Author, Businessman, and Thinker. Read more about Allan, his background, and his ideas to create a better tomorrow at www.1plus1equals2.com.
White House-Backed TikTok Bill Is Toothless, China Hawks Say
Bill allows Biden admin to delay action on TikTok despite national security concerns
White House-backed legislation to "ban" TikTok is toothless and includes a loophole that will let the Biden administration avoid taking real action against the Chinese social media app, according to congressional China hawks pushing for more direct action.
The behind-the-scenes pushback from lawmakers could end up sinking the Senate bill, known as the RESTRICT Act, which would give the president new authorities to restrict social media applications run by foreign adversaries. But the bill does not make any specific mention of TikTok, and critics say the White House is backing the legislation precisely because it doesn't require the administration to ban the social media platform, which has been deemed a national security threat.
"Congress already has produced multiple bills that would finish what the Trump administration started and ban TikTok," Rep. Jim Banks (R., Ind.) told the Washington Free Beacon. "The Biden administration is endorsing this half-measure to avoid confronting their biggest benefactors—China and Big Tech."
The bill does not include a ban on the TikTok app itself, but it allows the Commerce Department to identify and potentially prohibit any technology that "poses undue or unacceptable risk to national security." TikTok has lent its support to the bill, praising it for addressing "national security concerns" without "censoring millions of Americans" who use the app.
Amid allegations that China uses the app to spy on Americans and push Communist propaganda, Democrats have been hesitant to support an outright ban on the platform, which is popular with its progressive base and which Biden has used as a voter outreach tool. TikTok recently hired Democratic lobbying powerhouse SKDK, a firm with deep ties to the White House and Democratic Senate leadership. Anita Dunn, a founding partner of SKDK, is a senior adviser to Biden.
China hawks say the RESTRICT Act, drafted by Republican senator John Thune (S.D.) and Democratic senator Mark Warner (Va.), is well intentioned but includes a provision that would allow the Department of Commerce to delay action until the conclusion of a long-running national security review of TikTok, which is being conducted by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) last week publicly came out against the RESTRICT Act, saying it "gives the illusion of action, but it's not action."
"I think [Warner's] intentions are good in terms of how he views the whole thing, but his bill will not ban TikTok," Rubio said. "I think that's what the White House wants. I think he's trying to offer a bill that the White House will be supportive of and that he thinks can get passed."
Experts warn that the bill could actually insulate TikTok from any concrete action.
"There's a risk that the Biden administration could use provisions within the Warner-Thune bill as justification for not touching TikTok, and further delaying action," said Michael Sobolik, a China expert with the American Foreign Policy Council. Sobolik points to the provision allowing for the conclusion of the national security review, which he says is "stuck" in government bureaucracy.
The Thune-Warner bill gives the Biden administration more leeway than other proposed TikTok legislation.
One bill, spearheaded by House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R., Texas), would force the administration to make a decision on banning TikTok by a specific deadline, while another championed by Rubio and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R., Wis.) would institute an outright ban. Increased attention on these bills has reportedly forced TikTok's leadership to consider severing its American arm from Chinese Communist Party control.
Capitol Hill sources expressed concerns about the Thune-Warner bill, which they described as a TikTok ban in name only.
"The White House isn't fooling anyone," said one senior Republican aide.
Another senior Republican aide argued that the White House's track record on TikTok and China makes it hard to believe the administration will take action unless Congress forces it to do so.
"This is the same administration that invites TikTok influencers to the White House," said the aide. "It has shown no inclination to actually take action on TikTok."
Published under: Biden Administration , CCP , China , Department of Commerce , Espionage , Jim Banks , John Thune , Marco Rubio , Mark Warner , National Security , TikTok
VIDEO
New Biden family member emerges in Hunter Biden probe
Congressional Oversight Committee Presses Hunter Biden's Art Dealer for Information
Georges Bergès has repeatedly refused to turn over 'critical' information about Biden's art sales
The House Committee on Oversight and Accountability is again pressing Hunter Biden's art dealer to turn over "critical" information in the committee's investigation of the first son's foreign and domestic business dealings.
Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) sent another letter Monday to Georges Bergès, the owner of the Georges Bergès Gallery, requesting information related to Biden's anonymous, high-priced art transactions. Even after four previous requests from Comer's committee over the last two years, Bergès still refuses to disclose any information on the purchasers of Biden's art.
"Mr. Bergès is completely refusing to cooperate with the committee's requests. He has chosen to obstruct in an apparent effort to shield Mr. Biden and/or the purchasers of Mr. Biden's art from congressional oversight," Comer wrote to Bergès's lawyer, William Pittard.
The committee is demanding transparency as it investigates foreign business dealings of Biden and his father, President Joe Biden. Ethics watchdogs are concerned that Hunter Biden's art provides a way for foreign buyers and lobbyists to curry favor with the White House. The Treasury Department in 2022 encouraged creating more safeguards against "the use of high-end art as a means to launder money along with other potential illicit financial transaction," according to Comer.
The White House tapped Bergès, who spent time in jail for making "terrorist threats," to vet all the art sales for ethical conflicts, a move that brought more concern from critics.
Bergès's "arrangement with Mr. Biden raises obvious ethical red flags and Mr. Bergès's purported 'safeguards' are insufficient and troubling," Comer said.
Obama-era Office of Government Ethics director Walter Shaub has also raised concerns, saying the White House has "basically outsourced government ethics to a private art dealer and they're depending on unknown art purchasers to help keep the secret."
Pittard has maintained that keeping the buyers anonymous is vital to safeguarding against ethical concerns. "Providing the documents and information requested in your letter seemingly would defeat the efforts of Mr. Biden and the White House to avoid the 'serious ethics concerns' that you raise," Pittard wrote in response to Comer's January 2023 request.
"The committee is reviewing legislative solutions that address the ethics and money laundering issues raised by certain high-end art deals, and your information is critical to our investigation," Comer wrote in his March 13 letter. "Notwithstanding his tenuous legal arguments, Mr. Bergès mischaracterizes the purpose of our investigation and fails to acknowledge that the committee's requests are 'related to, and in furtherance of, a legitimate task of the Congress.'"
Exclusive — Speaker McCarthy: Administration ‘Fighting Every Step of the Way’ Against Biden Family Business Investigations
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Breitbart News last week that Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration has been “fighting” against transparency “every step of the way” with GOP investigators probing the president’s family business dealings.
McCarthy’s interview, taped on Wednesday in the ceremonial U.S. House Speaker’s office, came before the Treasury Department finally, after weeks, relented and agreed to provide the many Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) on Biden family members’ bank transactions. McCarthy sat for the hourlong interview as part of the long form Breitbart News exclusive On The Hill video series. The first part, on McCarthy’s decision to release Jan. 6, 2021, surveillance footage from the Capitol, was published last week. This second part is one of many other major topics, including on other investigations, the debt ceiling, leftist efforts to engage in censorship of conservatives, the rising threat of China, and the currently open U.S. southern border, addressed in the interview. More is forthcoming.
SARs are when a bank flags for the government suspicious activity regarding transactions, and apparently several Biden family members including the president’s son Hunter Biden and his brother James Biden have several of them. For months this year, the Treasury Department refused to provide the documents to Congress, but after the McCarthy interview with Breitbart News last week the administration relented this week and agreed to provide the documents to the committee.
“Why?” McCarthy asked when Breitbart News asked him why the Biden Administration was covering up these documents. “There are hundreds of them. It’s not easy to get one of those to happen, and it’s not with one bank. Why would they hold that up?”
McCarthy said that House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) has the authority to follow this investigation wherever it leads, even though the Biden White House and administration have been resisting investigators at every turn.
“Jamie Comer has been doing an excellent job on this,” McCarthy said when asked where this goes. “He has a great information book behind this. We are following the information every place it takes us but what we’re finding is the administration is fighting every step of the way. Why would they fight it? It’s very interesting to us. Why would they fight just the story on the laptop itself? Why would they go out of their way to get people who are in the intel community—literally, 52 of them—to sign a letter to say it was false? Well, we’re bringing those people in. We’re going to cross every T and dot every I and we’re going to get all the information here.”
McCarthy would also not rule out the possibility that members of Biden’s family, such as his son Hunter or his brothers Frank or James or other family members of the president, or close business associates of theirs, would possibly be called to testify before congressional hearings later this year.
“I won’t prejudge the work that Congressman Comer is doing,” McCarthy said when asked if Americans should expect members of the president’s family on the witness stand. “The chairman, he’s doing an excellent job. And he will, I promise you this, when we talk—he will follow it wherever it takes him.”
Republicans have been making some headway with the Biden family investigations since their newly won majority in the 2022 midterm elections took office in January. Biden’s former assistant Kathy Chung is now cooperating with House GOP investigators, as is Biden family business associate Eric Schwerin.
In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism.
Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’ investigative work at the New York Post on the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have a 10 percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
James Comer: Treasury Reports Show Biden Family Made Millions from Chinese Company After 2016
The Biden family business received a $3 million wire transfer from a Chinese energy company and subsequent payments after President Joe Biden left the vice presidency in 2017, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) announced upon receiving suspicious activity reports from the Treasury this week.
U.S. banks have flagged over 150 SARs from Hunter and James Biden that included “large” amounts of money flagged for further review. According to a 2020 Senate report, SARs “often contain evidence of potential criminal activities, such as money laundering and fraud.”
“According to bank documents we’ve already obtained, we know one company owned by a Biden associate received a $3 million dollar wire from a Chinese energy company two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency,” Comer said in a statement. “Soon after, hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts went to members of the Biden family.”
The Biden family had previously negotiated a deal with CEFC from which Joe Biden (Big Guy) would receive a ten percent equity stake in the joint venture with Hunter’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski. In 2017, Hunter earned a $1 million legal retainer from the company’s chairman, Ye Jianming. Hunter also received a large diamond from Ye worth an estimated $80,000 in February 2017.
The SARs also likely show money paid to Hunter and James Biden for their work with a Ukrainian energy company. In April 2014, Hunter joined the board of Burisma, just two years before Joe Biden stated he forced the firing of prosecutor Viktor Shokin investigating Burisma. Despite Hunter’s lack of experience in Ukraine or the energy sector, he was paid $83,000 per month by the energy company or $1 million per year — just weeks after his father was announced “point person” on U.S. foreign policy toward Ukraine.
President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, step off Air Force One, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023, at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, N.Y. The Bidens are in Syracuse to visit with family members following the passing of Michael Hunter, the brother of the president’s first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
“We are going to continue to use bank documents and suspicious activity reports to follow the money trail to determine the extent of the Biden family’s business schemes, if Joe Biden is compromised by these deals, and if there is a national security threat,” Comer explained.
The Treasury had previously refused to disclose the banking documents to the committee and even backed out from attending a committee hearing on Friday. “After two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions,” Comer said.
“It should never have taken us threatening to hold a hearing and conduct a transcribed interview with an official under the penalty of perjury for Treasury to finally accommodate part of our request,” Comer added. “For over 20 years, Congress had access to these reports but the Biden Administration changed the rules out of the blue to restrict our ability to conduct oversight.”
In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism. Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’s investigative work at the New York Post on the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have a ten percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
Rep. Comer: 'Treasury Is Going to Let Us Have Access to the Suspicious Activity Reports'
(CNSNews.com) - After all the talk about alleged Biden family influence-peddling, finally some action behind the scenes:
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the head of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, says the U.S. Treasury Department has finally complied with the committee's subpoena for the suspicious activity reports that banks use to flag transactions that may involve violations of the law:
"Well, as you know, Sean, we've been demanding these for over a year," Comer told Fox News's Sean Hannity Monday night.
"The Treasury Secretary Yellen said we couldn't have them because we were in the minority. When I became chairman of the committee, when the House flipped, she said well I don't understand the purpose for why you need these suspicious activity reports, which is a joke.
"Then we asked for a committee hearing with the person from Treasury that signed the letter declining our most recent invitation. They said they had surgery that day. They offered another person. This person then declined.
"So, we offered to invite them in with the threat of a subpoena for a transcribed interview. We just got word that Treasury has now said they're going to let us have access to those suspicious activity reports. So, there is still a lot to learn, about how we are going to receive those. But we're moving in a good direction with respect to this investigation."
Comer also said on Monday that a bank has complied with the committee's subpoena for the financial records of Biden family business associates:
"Two weeks ago, Sean, I subpoenaed a bank for records for three different former Hunter Biden business associates. One of those associates in particular was Rob Walker. We got his account. We confirmed that that account, around two months after Joe Biden left the office of vice president, received a $3 million wire from two individuals directly associated with the Chinese Communist Party.
"The very next day after that wire was received, the Walker account started transferring money into three different Biden family members' accounts, including a new Biden family member that's never before been identified as someone being involved in the influence-peddling scheme."
Comer did not identify that person.
"So, this is very serious information that we've received, very troubling information," he continued. "It does show a pattern that the Biden family was receiving money directly from China.
"And the question I have, Sean, is, what were they doing in return for that money? Now, this is just one account, there are many more accounts and many more associates. But fortunately for us, we've had people, whistleblowers, that have been coming in. We knew pretty much which account to investigate. Fortunately, the bank did comply with our subpoena," he said.
Comer has said previously that his oversight of Biden family business dealings has a potential legislative purpose, and that is to pass disclosure laws so there is no question about future presidents and their relatives who may also have foreign business dealings.
Also See:
Rep. Comer Wants to Ask the Bidens: 'Why Were You Trying to Hide the Source of That Money?'
U.S. Treasury to Release Biden Family’s Suspicious Bank Reports to House Oversight Committee
The Treasury Department will comply and release suspicious activity reports (SARs) generated by the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions to the House Oversight Committee, Breitbart News has learned.
The Treasury’s compliance to disclose the SARs is a massive development in the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Biden family business to determine if President Joe Biden is compromised by communist China. The committee is investigating the Biden family business for nine violations, including wire fraud and money laundering.
U.S. banks have flagged over 150 SARs from Hunter and James Biden that included “large” amounts of money tagged for further review by the Treasury. SARs “often contain evidence of potential criminal activities, such as money laundering and fraud,” according to a 2020 Senate report.
The suspicious records will provide details about how the family business operates and desired transparency on Hunter, James, and Frank’s foreign business transactions, along with knowledge of whether Joe Biden remains compromised by foreign governments through his family’s business.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) is seen in front of a newspaper page with a photograph of Hunter Biden and his father President Joe Biden before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability on February 08, 2023, in Washington, DC. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
On January 11, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) demanded the Treasury turn over the suspicious bank records, but the Treasury had denied Comer’s request citing “improper disclosure” of relevant information that could reduce the Biden administration’s ability to “conduct of law enforcement, intelligence, and national security activities.”
The Treasury’s compliance comes after the committee’s probe has so far met resistance from Hunter Biden and from some of his associates, such as Serbian politician Vuk Jeremić and Hunter’s art dealer.
While the probe has met resistance, the committee has found a few key individuals willing to comply. The Biden family’s former top financial lieutenant Eric Schwerin is expected to “soon” provide requested documents to the committee. Schwerin, who shared bank accounts with Joe Biden and was dubbed the family’s “moneyman,” was also the president of Rosemont Seneca Partners, a fund created by Hunter Biden and several associates that spawned business deals in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Romania.
In addition, Joe Biden’s former executive assistant Kathy Chung is scheduled on April 4 to sit for a requested transcribed interview with the committee’s investigation into the Biden family business and Joe Biden’s classified document scandal. Chung was hired as Joe Biden’s assistant when he was vice president after a recommendation from Hunter Biden. Chung appears in numerous email threads on Hunter’s “laptop from hell.”
President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, step off Air Force One, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023, at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, NY. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
In 2018 and 2020, Breitbart Senior Contributor and Government Accountability Institute President Peter Schweizer published Secret Empires and Profiles in Corruption. Each book hit #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and exposed how Hunter Biden and Joe Biden flew aboard Air Force Two in 2013 to China before Hunter’s firm inked a $1.5 billion deal with a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China less than two weeks after the trip. Schweizer’s work also uncovered the Biden family’s other vast and lucrative foreign deals and cronyism.
Breitbart Political Editor Emma-Jo Morris’s investigative work at the New York Post on the Hunter Biden “laptop from hell” also captured international headlines when she, along with Miranda Devine, revealed that Joe Biden was intimately involved in Hunter’s businesses, appearing to even have a ten percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
House Oversight Committee has 'documents that show just exactly how the Biden family was getting money from the Chinese Communist Party'
Documentary proof of an American president getting paid off by our greatest strategic rival, if not enemy, is no small matter.
James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, said some pretty important things yesterday, appearing on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo on Fox News Channel. Despite being stonewalled by Janet Yellen over release of Suspicious Activity Reports from banks about Hunter Biden's transactions, he has gotten evidence about Biden family receipt of money from the CCP.
What encourages me about his revelation is that there now are key forces within the Democrat establishment (which includes the legacy media) that see Joe Biden as a problem to be removed. His worsening dementia is becoming impossible to hide, and his (really Dr. Jill's?) determination to run for re-election seems likely to doom not only the presidential prospects of the party, but its congressional prospects as well.
A wipeout, especially if either Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis were to occupy the Oval Office with congressional majorities, could lead to doom for the party if it results in exposure of its mendacity. Both men play for keeps with their opponents.
With this in mind, consider what he told Maria (text and videos via Vivek Saxena of Bizpac Review):
"We've had a very good two weeks. We are finally having people cooperate with us. I think we all know the Biden administration is stone-walling. Janet Yellen is stonewalling, not turning over the bank violations," he replied.
"But fortunately, since we've last spoken, we actually have bank records in hand. We have individuals who are working with our community," he added.
While he didn't specify who these people are, he did claim that they have "ties in" with the president and his family.
"In the last two weeks, we've met with either these individuals personally or with their attorneys. And that would be four individuals who had ties in with the Biden family on their various schemes around the world. So now we have in hand documents that show just exactly how the Biden family was getting money from the Chinese Communist Party…."
He added that the evidence is "as bad as we thought."
Perhaps taking lemons and making lemonade, Comer finds an upside to the stonewalling:
"It's very concerning. And in a way, I'm kind of glad that the Biden attorney and the Biden administration's been stonewalling us, because when I requested that information two weeks ago versus today because of what we have in hand now, we have a lot stronger case in court for why we need these documents that the Biden family's withholding and that the government's withholding," he said.
"So they have unintentionally helped our case in our quest to get these documents to where we can give the American people the truth and the transparency that they deserve out of their leaders in Washington," he added.
Here are the two segments on which Comer appeared:
Photo credit: AirTV screen grab.
Janet Yellen Admits 90 Percent of IRS Audits Will Slap Small Business and Families, Not Billionaires
He writes:
Hunter Biden enlisted then-vice president Joe Biden's national security adviser to help with a Serbian business partner’s campaign to become secretary general of the United Nations, a scheme that is now drawing scrutiny from the House Oversight Committee as it attempts to piece together Hunter Biden's web of foreign business dealings.
Treasury to Testify Friday for Withholding Biden Family ‘Suspicious’ Wire Transfers
YELLEN PROTECTS THE BIDEN CRIME FAMILY
Janet Yellen Admits 90 Percent of IRS Audits Will Slap Small Business and Families, Not Billionaires
Treasury Department Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged on Friday that 90 percent of IRS audits will be conducted on small businesses and families, not billionaires.
Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Adrian Smith (R-NE) questioned Yellen on the ambiguity of her opening statement. Smith prefaced his question by noting the 87,000 new IRS agents hired at the agency over the next decade to conduct tax enforcement on Americans.
“Regarding the audits, there has been confusion about the meaning of the directive that you cited,” Smith said in his line of questioning. “Are you talking about the total number of audits or the proportion of audits on families and small businesses under 400,000 dollars?”
“I’m talking about the proportion of those small businesses and families,” Yellen admitted.
Smith responded, “So the proportion is 90 percent. Ninety percent of the new audits will be, according to the data — that we can expect up to 90 percent of new audits on those making less than $400,000.”
Yellen tried to draw attention to the total number of audits and not the proportion of audits that will disproportionally impact small businesses and families.
“The purpose of this legislation is to vastly increase the audit rate on high income, high wealthy, complex partnerships,” she said without denying the 90 percent proportion.
Smith reminded Yellen that “the rates of audits and commitments I believe are certainly very clear”:
In August, Yellen told IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig that the new IRS agents President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act designated would not increase audits rates “relative to recent years” on Americans earning under $4000,000 a year:
Specifically, I direct that any additional resources—including any new personnel or auditors that are hired—shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels. This means that, contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited.
Although Yellen promised to not increase the proportion of audits for those earning under $400,000 beyond historical levels, that pledge is not enshrined in law.
In February, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) questioned the now-newly confirmed IRS chief Danny Werfel during his confirmation hearing about how he would keep Yellen’s under-$400,000 pledge, noting that it is not law.
“Secretary Yellen’s statement leaves a lot of wiggle room,” Crapo explained. “I don’t expect to see wiggle room in this commitment.”
“I look forward to working with you and you holding me accountable for that,” Werfel replied.
On Wednesday, Biden released a proposed 2024 budget requesting American taxpayers increase IRS funding by 15 percent in fiscal year 2024 to conduct audits. The proposed 15 percent increase is in addition to the previously allocated $79 billion over the next decade from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
Republicans have widely opposed increasing taxpayer funds to the IRS and its desire to hire 87,000 new agents. House Republicans in January voted to slash funding for the agency after pledging to repeal the nearly $80 billion allocation from 2022 that funded the 87,000 new IRS agents.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
