The FBI conducted FISA surveillance on one of Hunter Biden’s Chinese business partners while other federal prosecutors secured evidence that a second Chinese associate of the first family was present when foreign bribery payments were made. And a major bank reported to the U.S. Treasury Department that in 2017 a $5 million loan the Bidens got from a Chinese energy company smacked of a Beijing influence operation targeting Joe Biden before he was president.
A fast-growing body of evidence from bank transactions to court transcripts is putting pressure on Congress to resolve an important question: Did Joe Biden or any of his family members get a defensive briefing from U.S. intelligence that some of their foreign business partners had unsavory ties or were engaged in criminal behavior?
The answer could have a profound effect on the direction of the nascent House impeachment inquiry.
If lawmakers confirm that the president got one or more defensive briefings, it could add an element of intentionality and motive since his family would have proceeded with deals and partners despite warning signs delivered from the U.S. government.
If the Bidens didn’t get defensive briefings, it could raise fresh questions about the U.S. intelligence community’s capabilities and the selective nature of its use of defense briefings.
Just the News confirmed Hillary Clinton got at least one such defensive briefing about one of her family or political associations while Donald Trump did not when allegations of Russia collusion – long since debunked – first surfaced in 2016. Instead, Trump and his associates were targeted for criminal investigation.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the fiery Republican from Georgia, was the latest Wednesday to add her name to those pushing Congress to determine once and for all whether Joe Biden or his family got warnings from the FBI, the CIA, or other intelligence agencies.
Those warnings, if they happened, would have come as the first family did business with a Ukrainian oligarch deemed corrupt by the State Department, a Romanian oligarch dealing with corruption allegations in his own country and the energy firm CEFC China Energy that was implicated in a foreign bribery scheme that resulted in a federal conviction of Patrick Ho, one of Hunter Biden’s associates and law clients.
“We should be pursuing that information,” Greene told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show. “If there was anything approached in the FISA court, if there was anything about, you know, not registering as a foreign agent, we should be pursuing that information. And we should be holding every single person accountable. That's what the American people want. They want accountability."
“This is an important task that should be taken up on the Weaponization subcommittee chaired by Jim Jordan,” she added. “I think that's the proper committee to handle this investigation. And I'll be urging my colleague Jim Jordan, I'm sure he'll do a great job with it to pursue this. I'll also talk with my chairman, Jamie Comer on the Oversight Committee, because if we can't do it on weaponization, I'm sure that Oversight can get it done.”
Kevin Brock, the former Assistant FBI Director for Intelligence told Just the News that the facts now released into the public by Congress suggest the U.S. intelligence community knew the Bidens were dealing with questionable foreign characters and that should have triggered one or more defensive briefings or other types of warnings, particularly since Joe Biden himself reportedly came in contact with officials from CEFC between 2015-17.
"Joe Biden’s intersections with his son’s overseas business occurred within three different realities, first as Vice President, second as a private citizen, and third as President. Each reality will determine the advisability of the type or necessity of a defensive briefing," Brock said.
"Hunter Biden didn’t consult with Canada or New Zealand. He picked money gushers in China and Russia and Ukraine,” Brock added. “Countries with hostile intelligence services that would jump at the chance to engage with an offspring of a U.S. VP. What do you think we would do if a son of Putin or Xi came here to consult with Exxon or Apple? Joe Biden was briefed, alright. But his track record suggests his own interests came first no matter the briefing."
Brock said two specific business relationships should have triggered defensive warnings.
The first involved China, where Hunter Biden traveled aboard his father’s government jet to start one business venture in Beijing in 2013 and then later in 2015 through 2017 when Biden family entities took millions from CEFC, a company brother James Biden knew was tied to the president of communist China. CEFC at the time was trying to buy up U.S. energy and gas assets, including in Louisiana.
“Heck, he took his un-security cleared son along on an official trip to China while he was VP so that his boy could develop business with CCP affiliated actors,” Brock noted. “That alone should have set off a convulsion of briefings that, logically, would have said: ‘Mr. VP, tell your son to take a commercial flight at a different time. Linking his business to your official visit sends a message that is not in the best national security interests of the U.S.’ But, that is not what Joe Biden did.”
Whether U.S. intelligence raised a red flag, at least one major U.S. bank did. In a 2018 memo outlining one of its Suspicious Activity Reports to the Treasury flagging a Biden family transactions related to CEFC, a bank money laundering investigation raised specific concerns of an intelligence or influence peddling operation targeting the future first family.
"There has been negative news regarding the beneficial owner of Owasco PC, Robert Hunter Biden (son of former U.S. Vice President-Joe Biden) regarding allegations by his ex-wife that there were financial concerns about his extravagant spending on his own Interests (drugs, strip clubs, prostitutes, etc,) which may put his family ln a deep financial hole," the examiner wrote in a memo released late last year by Congress.
"More recent negative news indicate China targeting children of politicians and purchase of political influence through 'sweetheart deals,'" the examiner added.
Brock said the other relationship involved Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company deemed corrupt by the State Department and that was flagged by the U.S. embassy in Kyiv for alleged bribery payments during the time Hunter Biden served on its board. During that tenure, Joe Biden as vice president boasted of forcing Ukraine’s chief prosecutor to be fired when that prosecutor was investigating Burisma and its owner.
"We know that Joe Biden went against official Obama administration policy when he threatened Ukraine with loss of U.S. dollars if they didn’t fire the prosecutor who was investigating his son’s client company,” Brock said. “It would defy logic that he wasn’t at least offered a briefing on that policy and the ramifications of certain actions. But Joe Biden chose his son’s interests over national policy.”
There is evidence in a classified State Department official obtained by Just the News that a U.S. embassy official in Kyiv wanted Joe Biden to be warned about Hunter Biden and Burisma.
“The real issue to my mind was that someone in Washington needed to engage VP Biden quietly and say that his son Hunter's presence on the Burisma board undercut the anti-corruption message the VP and we were advancing in Ukraine," then-embassy official George Kent wrote multiple high-ranking officials in the State Department in Washington in November 2016.
Former Assistant Secretary of State Bobby Charles, a former investigative counsel for Congress, said it is important for the House impeachment inquiry to determine if Joe Biden or any family member got a defensive briefing.
“One of our tools on the tactical side is a subpoena. And that's a subpoena for documents and for people,” Charles told the John Solomon Reports podcast. “And we know that this administration and in particularly the Bidens personally, have resisted vehemently being subjected to rule of law as it comes to compliance with subpoenas."
“And the briefing obviously is very important because it's indicative of what was known, and the conscious decision to ignore the national security threat posed by what they were doing,” he added.
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