President Joe Biden's Energy Department funneled millions of dollars to a green energy company in the months after the company partnered with a Chinese state-owned entity that it acknowledges could face business-crippling sanctions.
Carbon capture company LanzaTech, federal spending disclosures show, has received more than $10 million in grant payments from the Biden administration since April 2021, when the company announced a partnership with Sinopec Capital—the clean energy investment arm of the Sinopec Group, a Chinese state-owned oil conglomerate also known as the China Petrochemical Corporation—to "debut an international market of new energy and new materials." LanzaTech has acknowledged in SEC disclosures that its association with Sinopec, which China has used to purchase oil from U.S.-sanctioned nations such as Russia and Iran, could jeopardize its bottom line. The company's financial interactions with Sinopec and other Beijing-run entities, LanzaTech wrote in a November filing , could bring "complications" and "restrictions" should the United States or other nations implement "sanctions on certain Chinese individuals." That filing also notes "that the Chinese government may intervene or influence our operations at any time" and that LanzaTech may be unable to "protect our interests" in Chinese joint ventures "by nominating a non-Chinese director to the board of directors of any such joint venture." Sinopec Capital managing director Bo Ren, who worked for CITIC's brokerage arm prior to joining Sinopec and who graduated from a Chinese university that sits on a U.S. trade blacklist for stealing American trade secrets, is a LanzaTech board member .
Biden has placed green energy at the center of his administration's priorities, with the Democrat working to invest billions of dollars in "America's clean energy economy" to create "good-paying jobs" in the United States. However, China's dominance of the clean energy supply chain challenges that priority. In addition to LanzaTech, Biden's Energy Department has touted a $200 million grant to lithium battery company Microvast Holdings, which the department said would "supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is America-made." Microvast operates primarily out of China and was recently added to a Securities and Exchange Commission watchlist of Chinese companies that have failed to comply with American auditing requirements, the Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday.
LanzaTech's partnership with Sinopec was not the first time the company aligned itself with a Beijing-run entity. In June 2018, LanzaTech entered into a joint venture with Chinese state-owned steel giant Shougang Group to build an ethanol plant in China's Hubei province, one of the company's three plants in the communist nation. LanzaTech has also raised millions from CITIC Capital, a subsidiary of China's largest state-run conglomerate. Still, the company's relationships with Beijing did not stop the Biden administration from sending LanzaTech millions of dollars for green energy projects such as "low-cost sustainable aviation fuel."
For Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton, Biden's support for companies such as LanzaTech shows that the Democrat's "green energy agenda is stamped with the words ‘made in China.'"
"Instead of handing millions of taxpayer dollars to a Chinese-backed company, the president should be encouraging American energy production and American energy independence," Cotton told the Free Beacon .
Neither the White House nor LanzaTech returned requests for comment. The Energy Department told the Free Beacon that it "makes financial assistance awards on a competitive basis and follows a rigorous merit review process using independent technical experts" and "requires that DOE-funded inventions be substantially manufactured in the United States." The department did not return a follow-up request for comment on its payments to LanzaTech following the company's Sinopec partnership.
LanzaTech has political connections to top Democrats. One of the company's most influential financiers, billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, led then-presidential candidate Barack Obama's India policy team in 2008 and went on to host a $32,400-a-head Democratic Party fundraiser at his California mansion, which Obama personally attended. Obama's former deputy chief of staff and campaign manager Jim Messina, meanwhile, joined LanzaTech's board in 2013. LanzaTech received tens of millions of dollars in Energy Department grants during Obama's time as president, some of which carried over to the Trump administration, which awarded the company less than $3 million in new grants prior to its Sinopec deal. In September 2022 company CEO Jennifer Holmgren accepted a White House invite to brief Biden administration officials and members of Congress "on the progress LanzaTech has made in leveraging biotechnology and biomanufacturing for a safe, secure, and sustainable U.S. bioeconomy."
Beyond LanzaTech, the Biden administration has already faced criticism for its dealings with Sinopec. Biden's Energy Department in April announced the sale of nearly one million Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to the Chinese state-controlled gas giant's trading arm, Unipec, a move the administration said would "support American consumers" and "combat Putin's price hike." But the sale—which helped drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest level in more than four decades—came as Unipec underwent an "unusual buying spree" aimed at boosting China's own oil reserves. It also came as China used Sinopec and its state-run affiliates to strengthen the nation's energy relationship with Russia and Iran. The sale prompted congressional Republicans to open a formal investigation into the Biden administration .
Biden is now facing similar probes over his green energy grants. Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on Dec. 7 launched an inquiry into the administration's Microvast grant. That grant "endangers our national security" and "undermine[s] the United States' position in its race against China for technological supremacy," Barrasso said in a letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. Former energy secretary Rick Perry also called for congressional investigations into Granholm for the grant, which he called "unacceptable."
Chinese Hackers Stole Millions From US COVID Relief Benefits, Secret Service Reports Chinese president Xi Jinping / Getty Images Anna Allen • December 5, 2022 2:00 pm
Hackers with ties to the Chinese government stole at least $20 million from U.S. taxpayer-funded COVID-19 relief benefits in more than a dozen states, the Secret Service reports.
The hacking group APT41, known as "the ‘workhorse' of cyberespionage operations that benefit the Chinese government," looted pandemic-related Small Business Administration loans and unemployment insurance funds, NBC News reported Monday. The theft is the U.S. government's first publicly acknowledged incident of pandemic fraud linked to foreign, state-sponsored cybercriminals.
The Secret Service considers APT41 a "Chinese state-sponsored, cyberthreat group that is highly adept at conducting espionage missions and financial crimes for personal gain." It is unclear if the Chinese Communist Party directed the hackers' attack on U.S. taxpayer funds, but APT41's targeting of government money—a move cybersecurity analysts have never seen before—is a "dangerous" and "serious" threat to U.S. national security, intelligence and cybersecurity officials told NBC News:
The experts and officials describe the Chinese model of "state-sponsored" hackers as a network of semi-independent groups conducting contract work in service of government espionage. … APT41, also known to cybersecurity firms as Winnti, Barium, and Wicked Panda, fits the model and is considered a particularly prolific Chinese intelligence asset, known to commit financial crimes on the side. …
The primary purpose of APT41's state-directed activity, the experts and officials say, is believed to be collecting personally identifying information and data about American citizens, institutions, and businesses that can be used by China for espionage purposes.
The U.S. government’s implementation of COVID relief programs was already rife with fraud, with millions of dollars sent to ineligible businesses and organizations. Of the $872.5 billion in federal pandemic unemployment funds, roughly 20 percent were improper payments, the Department of Labor reported. The Labor Department overpaid unemployment benefits by more than $350 billion between April 2020 and May 2021, a Heritage Foundation analysis estimates.
In its COVID fraud scheme, APT41 hacked 2,000 accounts connected to more than 40,000 financial transactions.
APT41 has "the patience, the sophistication, and the resources to carry out hacking that has a direct impact on national security," a former Justice Department official familiar with the group told NBC.
China has prioritized cyberespionage for years to strengthen its position in international politics, said Ambassador Nathaniel Fick, the head of the State Department's Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy.
"The United States is target No. 1, because we are competitor No. 1," Fick told NBC News. "It's a really comprehensive, multi-decade, well-considered, well-resourced, well-planned, well-executed strategy."
The Secret Service has recovered half of the stolen $20 million so far.
Hunter has reportedly sold five paintings worth $75,000 each to an anonymous buyer. Hunter’s art dealer, Georges Bergès, has previously boasted he had strong ties to businessmen in Communist China, which has concerned many due to the Biden family’s business ventures abroad.
“We are 95% sure that that artwork went to China,” Comer said. “We don’t know where exactly that went to in China, but we’re going to try to find out when we get subpoena power.”
Exclusive: Elise Stefanik, James Comer Pledge to Probe into Biden Business After Hunter Spotted Selling ‘Artwork’ for Increased Price of $200K Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images, inset: Hunter Biden 5:37
Republican Conference Chair Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Rep. James Comer (R-KY), the top Republican on the oversight committee, told Breitbart News they plan to probe into the Biden family business “as a matter of national security,” after Hunter was recently spotted selling his artwork for a more than 100 percent higher price than previously.
Hunter was spotted on Friday at his SoHo art exhibit, held by art dealer Georges Bergès, who has strong business ties to the Chinese art market. Bergès has been representing the novice painter since 2021. Back then, Hunter reportedly sold the art for $75,000. According to Fox News, the prices have dramatically increased — by over 100 percent — now going for up to $200,000. “We already know Hunter Biden made millions off of his corrupt business dealings with the Chinese Communist Party,” Stefanik and Comer said in a joint statement. “We must know how far Hunter Biden’s corruption goes as a matter of national security. ”
“One thing is clear, the facts are revealing that Joe Biden is compromised,” the statement continued. “In the new majority, House Republicans will use our subpoena power to expose how deep Hunter Biden and the entire Biden family’s corruption goes and hold this Administration accountable.”
Comer told Breitbart News in November he is 95 percent sure the artwork has been sold to Chinese investors, which could compromise Hunter’s father, President Joe Biden, due to the conflicts of interest, such as influence peddling.
In this Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013 file photo, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, waves as he walks out of Air Force Two with his granddaughter Finnegan Biden and son Hunter Biden at the airport in Beijing, China. (Ng Han Guan, Pool/AP)
“We are 95% sure that that artwork went to China,” Comer stated. “We don’t know where exactly that went to in China, but we’re going to try to find out when we get subpoena power.”
Hunter has reportedly sold five paintings worth $75,000 each to anonymous buyers. Hunter’s art dealer, Bergès, has previously hosted art shows in the United States for Hunter while boasting strong ties within the Chinese art market, a worrisome fact due to the Biden family’s business schemes in Communist China.
Joe Biden’s potential conflict of interest is not the only issue that Comer is investigating. Comer’s committee is also investigating Hunter for money laundering, one of nine potential violations. Money laundering in the art world was identified as a major issue by a bipartisan Senate investigation last year.
CNN Business reported :
The Senate report details how a pair of Russian oligarchs with ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin allegedly seized on the secrecy of the art industry to evade sanctions by making more than $18 million in high-value art purchases.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” investigators for the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations told reporters on a call. The art world is considered to be the largest legal unregulated industry in the United States, according to the Senate investigation.
…
The Rotenberg example and many other investigation details highlight the fact that, unlike selling stock or making routine bank transfers, art sales through auction houses are not subject to anti-money laundering provisions in the Bank Secrecy Act. When art is sold, according to the report, sellers are not required to confirm the identity of the buyer nor to make sure the artwork isn’t being used to launder dirty money.
“Secrecy, anonymity, and a lack of regulation create an environment ripe for laundering money and evading sanctions,” a 2020 Senate subcommittee report found .
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki has defended Hunter’s art scheme with “anonymous” art buyers as “reasonable,” claiming Hunter “is not involved in the sale or discussions about the sale of his art,” and that Hunter will not be “informed” of “who is purchasing his art.”
Hunter’s art dealer has also claimed he would abide by ethical standards and not sell Hunter’s artwork to anyone who seems suspicious.
“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.”
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 10 percent stake in a company the scion formed with officials at the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party.
In this composite photograph Peter Schweizer is seen alongside his book “Secret Empires.” (Nicole Myhre Photography, Amazon)
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality .
Biden accused of 'towing the line of treason' with this
Biden White House Set to Pull Chinese Companies From Red-Flag Trade List Administration officials have preached cooperation with communist nation on climate change
Joe Biden and Chinese president Xi Jinping Collin Anderson • December 14, 2022 President Joe Biden is set to pull a number of Chinese companies from a red-flag trade list, a move that comes as the Democrat and other administration officials stress the need for cooperation with the communist nation on climate change.
Biden's Commerce Department plans to remove an undisclosed number of Chinese entities from its so-called unverified list, which includes foreign companies that the United States cannot tour in person "to determine whether they can be trusted to receive sensitive technology exports," Reuters reported Wednesday. American officials must receive approval from China's commerce ministry to inspect any Chinese company—approval that Beijing has been unwilling to grant in the past. Once the decision is finalized, U.S. exporters "will no longer have to conduct additional due diligence before sending goods" to the Chinese companies removed from the list, according to Reuters.
Both Biden and his climate czar, John Kerry, have expressed a desire to work with China on climate change in recent weeks. In a Nov. 14 meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Biden "underscored that the United States and China must work together to address transnational challenges such as climate change … because that is what the international community expects," a White House readout of the meeting shows. Kerry, meanwhile, lamented in October that geopolitical tension between the United States and China interrupted the two nation's climate talks.
Biden has pledged to transition the United States away from fossil fuels and toward a "green" economy, which the Democrat says will be "truly made in America." China's dominance of the green energy supply chain, however, complicates that initiative. Biden has already sent hundreds of millions of dollars in green energy funding to companies with deep ties to Beijing—in October, for example, the Democrat's Energy Department awarded a $200 million grant to lithium battery company Microvast Holdings, a lithium battery company that operates primarily from China. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the grant would "supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is American-made," prompting staunch criticism from Republicans.
"The Department of Energy continues to operate in a manner that undermines and endangers our national security," Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) said in a Dec. 7 letter to Granholm. "It is clear DOE's actions directly undermine the United States' position in its race against China for technological supremacy."
Published under: Biden Administration China Clean Energy for Biden Department of Commerce Department of Energy
Biden’s Energy Department Funnels Millions to Beijing-Backed Green Energy Company LanzaTech rakes in taxpayer funds despite tight relationship with China-run energy giant Sinopec
President Biden and (on the monitor) Chinese president Xi Jinping / Getty Images Collin Anderson • December 14, 2022 President Joe Biden's Energy Department funneled millions of dollars to a green energy company in the months after the company partnered with a Chinese state-owned entity that it acknowledges could face business-crippling sanctions.
Carbon capture company LanzaTech, federal spending disclosures show, has received more than $10 million in grant payments from the Biden administration since April 2021, when the company announced a partnership with Sinopec Capital—the clean energy investment arm of the Sinopec Group, a Chinese state-owned oil conglomerate also known as the China Petrochemical Corporation—to "debut an international market of new energy and new materials." LanzaTech has acknowledged in SEC disclosures that its association with Sinopec, which China has used to purchase oil from U.S.-sanctioned nations such as Russia and Iran, could jeopardize its bottom line. The company's financial interactions with Sinopec and other Beijing-run entities, LanzaTech wrote in a November filing , could bring "complications" and "restrictions" should the United States or other nations implement "sanctions on certain Chinese individuals." That filing also notes "that the Chinese government may intervene or influence our operations at any time" and that LanzaTech may be unable to "protect our interests" in Chinese joint ventures "by nominating a non-Chinese director to the board of directors of any such joint venture." Sinopec Capital managing director Bo Ren, who worked for CITIC's brokerage arm prior to joining Sinopec and who graduated from a Chinese university that sits on a U.S. trade blacklist for stealing American trade secrets, is a LanzaTech board member .
Biden has placed green energy at the center of his administration's priorities, with the Democrat working to invest billions of dollars in "America's clean energy economy" to create "good-paying jobs" in the United States. However, China's dominance of the clean energy supply chain challenges that priority. In addition to LanzaTech, Biden's Energy Department has touted a $200 million grant to lithium battery company Microvast Holdings, which the department said would "supercharge the private sector to ensure our clean energy future is America-made." Microvast operates primarily out of China and was recently added to a Securities and Exchange Commission watchlist of Chinese companies that have failed to comply with American auditing requirements, the Washington Free Beacon reported Tuesday.
LanzaTech's partnership with Sinopec was not the first time the company aligned itself with a Beijing-run entity. In June 2018, LanzaTech entered into a joint venture with Chinese state-owned steel giant Shougang Group to build an ethanol plant in China's Hubei province, one of the company's three plants in the communist nation. LanzaTech has also raised millions from CITIC Capital, a subsidiary of China's largest state-run conglomerate. Still, the company's relationships with Beijing did not stop the Biden administration from sending LanzaTech millions of dollars for green energy projects such as "low-cost sustainable aviation fuel."
For Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton, Biden's support for companies such as LanzaTech shows that the Democrat's "green energy agenda is stamped with the words ‘made in China.'"
"Instead of handing millions of taxpayer dollars to a Chinese-backed company, the president should be encouraging American energy production and American energy independence," Cotton told the Free Beacon .
Neither the White House nor LanzaTech returned requests for comment. The Energy Department told the Free Beacon that it "makes financial assistance awards on a competitive basis and follows a rigorous merit review process using independent technical experts" and "requires that DOE-funded inventions be substantially manufactured in the United States." The department did not return a follow-up request for comment on its payments to LanzaTech following the company's Sinopec partnership.
LanzaTech has political connections to top Democrats. One of the company's most influential financiers, billionaire venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, led then-presidential candidate Barack Obama's India policy team in 2008 and went on to host a $32,400-a-head Democratic Party fundraiser at his California mansion, which Obama personally attended. Obama's former deputy chief of staff and campaign manager Jim Messina, meanwhile, joined LanzaTech's board in 2013. LanzaTech received tens of millions of dollars in Energy Department grants during Obama's time as president, some of which carried over to the Trump administration, which awarded the company less than $3 million in new grants prior to its Sinopec deal. In September 2022 company CEO Jennifer Holmgren accepted a White House invite to brief Biden administration officials and members of Congress "on the progress LanzaTech has made in leveraging biotechnology and biomanufacturing for a safe, secure, and sustainable U.S. bioeconomy."
Beyond LanzaTech, the Biden administration has already faced criticism for its dealings with Sinopec. Biden's Energy Department in April announced the sale of nearly one million Strategic Petroleum Reserve barrels to the Chinese state-controlled gas giant's trading arm, Unipec, a move the administration said would "support American consumers" and "combat Putin's price hike." But the sale—which helped drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its lowest level in more than four decades—came as Unipec underwent an "unusual buying spree" aimed at boosting China's own oil reserves. It also came as China used Sinopec and its state-run affiliates to strengthen the nation's energy relationship with Russia and Iran. The sale prompted congressional Republicans to open a formal investigation into the Biden administration .
Biden is now facing similar probes over his green energy grants. Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.), the ranking member on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on Dec. 7 launched an inquiry into the administration's Microvast grant. That grant "endangers our national security" and "undermine[s] the United States' position in its race against China for technological supremacy," Barrasso said in a letter to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. Former energy secretary Rick Perry also called for congressional investigations into Granholm for the grant, which he called "unacceptable."
Published under: Biden Administration China Clean Energy for Biden Department of Energy Feature Green Energy Oil
Watch (GAMER PIG LAWYER) Garland HIDES LIKE RATS after CONFRONTED at hearing over Obama's 'Hunter' coverup
After studying the documents on the Hunter Biden laptop, former criminal prosecutor and New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani concluded that: “What Hunter Biden is, is a bagman… I’ve prosecuted many cases like this. He’s collecting Joe’s bribes that come to about $12 million from Ukraine and $3.5 million from Russia. But the big money comes from China. And the amount of money involved is in the tens of millions of dollars.” Today, there is documented proof that that the Biden family has received at least $31 million from entities controlled by the CCP, with greater Chinese payoffs yet to come.
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