Text messages and witness testimony released by the House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday contradicts President Joe Biden’s earlier claims that he was unaware of his son Hunter Biden’s business deals with foreign entities.
Hunter Biden, who recently agreed to plead guilty to federal tax and gun crimes, was under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of Justice (DOJ) for several years. Whistleblowers from the IRS who spoke with the House committee claimed that the DOJ deliberately delayed investigations of Hunter Biden and provided the committee with text messages and witness accounts that Joe Biden knew of Hunter Biden’s business activities, according to transcripts of testimony released by the committee. (RELATED: Legal Experts Call Hunter Biden Plea Deal A ‘Joke,’ ‘Sweetheart Deal’)
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” wrote Hunter Biden in a WhatsApp text message to Henry Zhao in 2017, per the released testimony.
This is mind blowing testimony. Biden was making appearances at CEFC meetings his son had arranged.
While the witness says Biden wasn’t officially part of the deal, that was the eventual goal because “the VP was never going to run” … this occurred while he was in office. pic.twitter.com/fbD5ulOV05
— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) June 22, 2023
In another part of the testimony, Rob Walker, an associate of Hunter Biden, told the FBI that Joe Biden attended a CEFC meeting to allegedly impress the Chinese executives and facilitate the business deal, according to the testimony. Walker also told the FBI that Hunter Biden had attempted to set up such meetings when Joe Biden was still Vice President.
“The American people deserve to know that when it comes to criminal enforcement, they are not on the same playing field as the wealthy and politically connected class,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith wrote in a statement, adding that the whistleblowers had been “retaliated against.”
Biden has previously maintained that he did not converse with Hunter about his foreign business contacts, saying so in 2019 after they first began attracting scrutiny. That denial was reaffirmed in 2022 after he became President, per the New York Post.
Legal and political commentators have pointed out the contradiction and demanded answers from Biden. Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, wrote on Twitter that “the brilliance of this trick [is that] the Bidens got the media to participate in the illusion.”
“Is anyone going to ask President Biden about this? It obviously contradicts his oft-repeated claim that he never once discussed Hunter’s business dealings with him,” tweeted Tom Bevan, the co-founder of RealClearPolitics.
The release of whistleblower transcripts comes as Hunter Biden’s activities have gained considerable scrutiny from multiple federal actors. Apart from the U.S. Attorney for Delaware and the Ways and Means Committee, the House Oversight Committee is conducting its own investigation into Hunter Biden’s business activities and probing Joe Biden’s connection to them.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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This post originally appeared on and written by:
Zonia Pepper
The Daily Caller 2023-06-22 21:20:56
