President Joe Biden just tacitly acknowledged what conservatives have long suspected—that Hunter Biden may be guilty of far more than just lying on a gun-registration form and cheating on his taxes.
On Sunday, Biden issued a “full and unconditional pardon” to his son for “those offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024, including but not limited to all offenses charged or prosecuted” by the prosecutors in Delaware and California.
This came just days before Hunter was to face sentencing for multiple felony convictions on gun and tax charges.
The timeline raises important questions because it extends far beyond the scope of both the gun and tax prosecutions. The gun charges trace back to Hunter Biden’s claim in May 2018, when filling out a gun-registration form, that he was not addicted to drugs. The tax charges trace back to the younger Biden’s failure to pay taxes and various acts to avoid tax assessments beginning in 2016 and lasting through 2019.
Why begin the pardon two years predating anything for which the son had been charged? The answer is obvious: Joe Biden either suspects that his son will face charges for something between 2014 and 2016 or he knows that some of his son’s activities during that period were not exactly aboveboard.
So, what was Hunter Biden doing in 2014? Joining the board of the Ukrainian gas firm Burisma.
Burisma
As Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute, first exposed in his 2018 book “Secret Empires,” Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma despite the fact that his experience in the energy industry was considerably lacking. (Read: nonexistent.)
According to Reuters, sources with knowledge of Hunter Biden’s work on the board of Burisma, which began in June 2014 and lasted until April 2019, said the younger Biden gave the company advice on legal issues, corporate finance, and strategy. They said he never visited Ukraine for company business during that time, and his presence on the board did not protect the firm from its most serious challenge: criminal investigations into Burisma’s owner, Mykola Zlochevsky.
Zlochevsky, a former Ukrainian minister of ecology and natural resources, faced allegations of tax violations, money laundering, and licenses given to Burisma while he served as a governmental minister. Zlochevsky remains a wanted man in Ukraine after he allegedly attempted to bribe Ukrainian authorities to drop the investigations.
It seems Hunter Biden’s primary qualification for his job was none other than his last name—a last name that carried tremendous clout when then-President Barack Obama had appointed his vice president as point man on Ukraine.
Last year, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, released an unclassified FBI form quoting Zlochevsky as suggesting that Hunter Biden cost $5 million and Joe Biden cost another $5 million.
Joe Biden further muddied the waters in 2017 by claiming that he threatened then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees if the country didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Shokin had been investigating Burisma for corruption at the time.
It seems Biden’s bluster about getting Shokin fired in six hours was baseless. Sources told investigative journalist John Solomon that the U.S. applied pressure to fire Shokin over several months in late 2015 and early 2016. Ukrainian and U.S. officials had criticized Shokin for failing to bring enough corruption prosecutions.
President Donald Trump took Biden’s bluster seriously, and asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a phone call for more information about the Shokin ouster. The then-Democrat-majority House impeached Trump over this phone call in 2019.
Many commenters have dismissed as a conspiracy theory any suggestion that Hunter Biden played a role in Shokin’s ouster, and there seems to be no direct evidence he did so. Yet Joe Biden’s 2017 stem-winder about firing Shokin reveals that this incident was personally important to the former vice president, and the pardon raises further questions about it.
China
The Jan. 1, 2014, date also roughly coincides with the beginning of Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China. The younger Biden and his business partner, Chris Heinz (the stepson of then-Secretary of State John Kerry), had launched a firm called Rosemont Capital in 2009. The firm aimed “to strike profitable deals overseas with foreign governments and officials with whom the U.S. government was negotiating,” according to Schweizer’s book.
When then-Vice President Biden went to China in December 2013 amid Beijing’s aggression in the South China Sea, Hunter traveled with him. Hunter negotiated a major deal between Rosemont Seneca Partners (an arm of Rosemont Capital) and the Chinese government-owned Bank of China. As Joe Biden discussed China’s trade with the U.S., his son was negotiating a business deal.
Ten days after the Bidens visited China, the Bank of China—which provides capital for the Chinese Communist Party’s statecraft—created an investment fund with Rosemont Seneca called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR).
“In short, the Chinese government was literally funding a business that it co-owned along with the sons of two of America’s most powerful decision makers,” Schweizer explains.
In July 2014, Kerry visited China. He claimed that “China and the United States represent the greatest economic alliance trading partnership in the history of humankind.”
Schweizer recounts that at the same time, a former subsidiary of the Chinese government, Gemini Investments, sought to acquire Rosemont Realty, another branch of the Rosemont Capital tree run by Hunter Biden, Chris Heinz, and their business partner, Devon Archer.
According to Schweizer, Gemini Investments has multiple ties to the Chinese Communist Party. The company’s director, Li Ming, served for several terms as a member of the party’s elite conference, and the company’s parent company, Sino-Ocean Land, originated from the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO). COSCO has close ties with the Communist Party and assists the Chinese navy.
Gemini Investments also purchased the Rosemont Opportunities Fund II, another Rosemont Seneca arm, for $34 million in December 2014.
In May 2015, Kerry visited China again. That August, Rosemont Realty announced that Gemini Investments was buying a 75% stake in the company, including a $3 billion commitment from the Chinese.
Last year, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., released bank records showing that Owasco PC, which Hunter Biden set up as a business entity, sent direct monthly payments to Joe Biden. Owasco has links to the Chinese energy company CEFC, where Hunter Biden served as a partner.
Unanswered Questions
An NBC News analysis of the Hunter Biden laptop found that Biden’s surviving son and his company brought in about $11 million through his roles with Burisma and his work with a Chinese businessman now accused of fraud.
President Biden has repeatedly denied ever speaking with his son about his foreign business dealings, but he has also described his relationship with his son as very close, and a former business partner claimed Hunter Biden threatened to put his father on the phone when negotiating with a foreign business partner.
Joe Biden could have been protecting his son with this overbroad pardon, but he could also have been protecting himself. Questions about Hunter Biden’s business deals necessarily involve his father’s influence, and the father has every motive to want to see his son get rich.
Did business concerns play any role in Biden’s negotiations with foreign countries? Biden said he didn’t discuss the business dealings with Hunter, but he also promised he wouldn’t pardon his son. Biden’s word isn’t exactly gold there.
Are any of Hunter Biden’s foreign business deals still paying dividends today? If not, why did the pardon extend up to Dec. 1, 2024?
President Biden justified the pardon by claiming that his son suffered from “selective” prosecution. He noted that the prosecutions came “only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election.” He said that the plea deal that the Justice Department negotiated with Hunter would have been “a fair, reasonable resolution of Hunter’s cases.”
Yet the actual truth is the opposite. Two career IRS employees testified that Hunter Biden received favorable treatment due to his father’s position. The plea deal fell apart in court because a federal judge looked closely at it, and found it “atypical” and “not straightforward.” The deal would have excused Hunter from any and all criminal responsibility for any of the crimes charged against him, in that case or any other. Sound familiar?
Biden’s pardon seems to be yet another attempt to brush all potential scandal under the rug.
The facts remain that Hunter Biden raked in millions of dollars in foreign business deals negotiated while Joe Biden influenced U.S. policy in Ukraine and China. It remains fair to ask questions about this, even though our ostensible betters in the press and in the Democratic Party loudly condemn those questions as conspiratorial.
If Joe Biden has his way, the American people may never know the full extent of this corruption.
