Attempts to discredit impeachment inquiry overlook concrete evidence

Congressional Democrats pounced on the recent charges against a Hunter Biden informant, claiming the source’s questionable reliability calls into question the foundation of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Biden.

Yet the informant’s information, which the prosecutors allege is false, has little to do with the the concrete evidence assembled by the impeachment inquiry and from independent sources, including by Just the News, that indicate that President Biden likely had knowledge of, participated in, and may have taken official actions based on his son’s business ventures.

Last week, Special Counsel David Weiss, who is prosecuting Hunter Biden on alleged tax and gun crimes, recently charged an FBI informant with providing false information to the intelligence agency in his reports about the younger Biden’s work with Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company on which he served as a board member.

Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the leading Democrat on the Oversight Committee, argues the impeachment inquiry is “essentially over,” undermined by the new revelations exposed this week in court documents that the informant lied about alleged conversations with Burisma officials and had contact with “Russian intelligence agents.”

In the Feb. 15 indictment filed in California, Weiss alleged that the informant, Alexander Smirnov, gave false information about the Bidens and Burisma that was recorded by the agency in an FD-1023 form. The form was later obtained in the impeachment inquiry and made public. It contained several allegations including that Joe and Hunter Biden had been bribed by the Ukrainian energy company for $5 million each.

Then, on Wednesday, a new court filing showed that Smirnov told officials after his arrest the information he provided to the FBI came from individuals “associated with Russian intelligence.”

“It appears like the whole thing is not only obviously false and fraudulent, but a product of Russian disinformation and propaganda,” Raskin said afterward. “And that’s been the motor force behind this investigation for more than a year.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, a leading Republican in the impeachment effort, pushed back on Raskin’s characterization.

“When Christopher Steele lied to the FBI about President Trump, he gets paid more; when Smirnov lies to the FBI about President Biden, he gets indicted, go figure,” Jordan told reporters Wednesday, referencing the infamous Steele dossier author who forwarded disproven allegations about then-candidate 2016 GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“It doesn’t change the fundamental facts,” Jordan asserted.

Despite Smirnov’s alleged lies, Raskin did not address the other evidence collected by the impeachment inquiry and journalists that raise concerns about Hunter Biden’s foreign ventures and his father’s involvement with them, directly or tangentially.

The Biden-Ukraine Saga

In August, Just the News obtained new documents showing that in 2015 then-Vice President Joe Biden had changed U.S. policy when he called for the ouster of the Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma in exchange for a $1 billion government loan guarantee.

The Washington Post followed up on Just the News’ reporting and found Biden “called an audible” onboard Air Force 2 during his flight to Kyiv in December 2015.

Prior to Biden’s trip to Ukraine, the State Department and the European Union each concluded that Ukraine had made adequate progress on its anti-corruption reforms – which included reform to the prosecutor general’s office – to merit new loan guarantees and assistance.

“Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its reform agenda to justify a third [loan] guarantee” and “the anti-corruption benchmark is deemed to have been achieved,” the State Department Interagency Policy Committee and the EU European Commission confirmed, respectively.

Concurrently, Hunter Biden played a vital role in Burisma’s hiring of Blue Star Strategies, a Democratic-connected public relations firm, to develop a plan to halt investigations into Burisma and its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky.

In an email to Hunter Biden, Burisma official Pozharskyi emphasized that Blue Star’s goal should be “to close down for any cases/pursuits against Nikolay [Mykola] in Ukraine.”

In the days leading up to his father’s trip to Ukraine, Hunter Biden attended a Burisma board meeting in Dubai where he received a request from company founder Mykola Zlochevsky and official Vadim Pozharskyi to “call D.C.,” according to testimony from Devon Archer – a business partner and fellow board member with Hunter Biden.

He also testified this request came as a result of pressure from Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was investigating the company for corruption.

“What did Hunter Biden do after he was given that request?” a congressional investigator asked Archer, about the request for Biden to call his father.

Archer replied: “I did not hear this phone call, but he – he called his dad.”

Archer claimed that Pozharskyi later told him Hunter Biden had called his father. The Burisma executives requested the call just days before his father left for Kyiv and revised U.S. policy on his trip.

Joe Biden received payments funded by Chinese transfers

The impeachment inquiry led by the Oversight committee has also uncovered several bank records showing Joe Biden receiving funds directly from his son and brother James Biden, some of which were funded by Chinese transfers.

In December the Oversight committee released new bank records from Hunter Biden that show a recurring $1,380 payment from his Owasco PC business account to Joe Biden. The first recorded payment, on Sept. 17, 2018, coincided with what is likely one of Hunter Biden’s final payments from Hudson West III, a joint venture he started with Chinese energy tycoon Ye Jianming, Just the News previously reported.

At the time the payments began, Hunter Biden was still receiving funds from Hudson West III, though the joint venture appeared to be in the process of winding down after CEFC’s founder and chairman, Ye Jianming, was detained and disappeared in China earlier in 2018, according to emails obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop.

Impeachment investigators also uncovered further bank records that showed Joe Biden received a $40,000 check marked as a "loan repayment" from his brother's account before he became president. The committee traced the funds for the check from James Biden from a $5 million payment from Northern International Capital, a Chinese company affiliated with CEFC.

The same month, Hunter Biden’s firm received the payment from the Chinese company, he wired $150,000 to Lion Hall Group, a company owned by James Biden and his wife, Sara Biden, evidence shows.

Days later, Sara Biden took out $50,000 in cash from Lion Hall Group, then deposited it into her and James Biden's personal account that same day. The following week, Sara Biden sent a $40,000 check to Joe Biden marked as a "loan repayment,” according to the document uncovered by the committee.

Joe Biden met with nearly all of Hunter’s business partners in close proximity to payments, agreements

From witness testimony and email evidence, the impeachment inquiry has also established that Joe Biden met in person with many of his son's large foreign clients, including Russian, Chinese and Ukrainian business executives.

The president has quite loudly and definitively denied ever meeting with any of his son's business partners. The Washington Post published a clip reel of Biden making the claim over and over. But evidence continues to emerge that indicates this is not true.

The latest Biden confidant to confirm the president met with Hunter's foreign clients was Rob Walker. A friend who knew Hunter Biden since the 1990s, Walker testified unequivocally in an interview transcript released by the Oversight committee on Tuesday that Joe Biden met with a delegation of officials from the Chinese energy company CEFC, including its Chairman Ye Jianming, at a lunch in Washington, D.C., shortly after leaving office.

That hotel meeting occurred just before CEFC made its first payment, totaling $3 million, to a Hunter Biden-tied company in March 2017, the transcript showed.

To date, impeachment investigators have determined that Joe Biden met with at least six of Hunter Biden’s foreign clients, including two Chinese businessmen, a Burisma executive, a Russian oligarch and real estate investor, and two Kazakhstani oligarchs. The meetings coincided with payments to Hunter Biden or key developments in the business deals with these foreign clients, Just the News previously reported.

For example, in early 2017, Hunter Biden and his business associates met with a CEFC delegation, including its Chairman Ye Jianming, at a lunch in Washington, D.C. According to testimony that Rob Walker gave to the House Oversight Committee, Joe Biden joined his son and the delegation of CEFC officials at the lunch and spoke to the assembled group.

According to Walker’s testimony, shortly after that lunch in which Ye Jianming met the former vice president, a CEFC affiliate wired $3 million to Walker’s company, Robinson Walker LLC, the first transfer in the deal between the Chinese energy company and Hunter Biden’s group.