{"id":1459858,"date":"2024-02-28T23:20:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-29T04:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1459858"},"modified":"2024-02-28T23:20:00","modified_gmt":"2024-02-29T04:20:00","slug":"a-moment-of-truth-five-questions-for-hunter-biden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/a-moment-of-truth-five-questions-for-hunter-biden\/1459858\/","title":{"rendered":"A Moment Of Truth: Five Questions For Hunter Biden"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Moment Of Truth: Five Questions For Hunter Biden<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Jonathan Turley,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Below is my column in the New York Post on the closed door deposition of Hunter Biden.\u00a0 After years of conflicting and evasive responses on these corruption allegations, Hunter Biden is now faced with a moment of truth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

In 2016, Hunter Biden and his father Joe Biden gave an interview in which he declared \u201cThe single best thing is, family comes first.\u201d In a gushing account,\u00a0Salon warned<\/a>\u00a0readers that the interview \u201cwill make you want to be a Biden.\u201d That may not be so true today as Hunter faces hours of questioning about his family\u2019s alleged corruption and influence peddling. It is likely that he will again put \u201cfamily first\u201d but there are obvious penalties if he puts family before the facts in this corruption scandal.<\/p>\n

This is a moment that has been building for years. After committing open contempt of Congress with a sensational press conference outside of Congress, Hunter is facing a target-rich environment for investigators who have detailed millions that allegedly went to him and his family members from foreign sources in China, Russia, Ukraine, and other countries.<\/p>\n

Hunter will have the difficult task of maintaining two seemingly conflicting narratives. On one hand, he has claimed that he was given millions due to his skills and knowledge. On the other hand, he has repeatedly dismissed embarrassing evidence or his lack of memory as the result of being in the throes of addiction\u2026for years.\u00a0 The spins seem to whip wildly between \u201cHunter the globe-trotting business genius\u201d and \u201cHunter the blacked out junkie.\u201d<\/p>\n

There are dozens of questions concerning \u201cloans\u201d and transfers to Hunter that will be explored over a full day of questioning. However, five basic questions should be priorities for investigator assuming that Hunter does not simply plead the Fifth Amendment to remain silent.<\/p>\n

1. Did Joe Biden know about his business dealings?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

President Biden has maintained for years, including during the last presidential election, that he had no knowledge of his son\u2019s business dealings. President Biden and the White House continued to repeat his denial from the campaign trail in 2019: \u201cI have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.\u201d These denials have continued even after\u00a0an audiotape surfaced<\/a>\u00a0showing President Biden leaving a message for Hunter specifically discussing coverage of those dealings.<\/p>\n

Some of us have\u00a0written for years<\/a>\u00a0that Biden\u2019s denial of knowledge is patently false. Hunter previously contradicted that statement. While Hunter is likely to spin the question as denying his father \u201cdid business\u201d with him, he is expected to confirm that he did discuss his dealings with his father, which were referenced in the media for years.<\/p>\n

2. The WhatsApp Message.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The addiction defense is likely to be raised quickly as Hunter is confronted with testimony and messages suggesting that he directly used his father to coerce foreign sources to folk over a fortune. The House investigators previously discovered\u00a0the infamous WhatsApp message<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunter is expected to claim that it was the drugs speaking and that his father was not sitting next to him. However, it will also prompt follow up questions about repeated references to his father in messages on meetings, dinners, and influence.<\/p>\n

3. The Ukraine Call and Reaching Out to Touch Someone.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Devon Archer reportedly<\/a>\u00a0recounted how, in 2015, Mykola Zlochevsky and Vadym Pozharski, two executives of the corrupt Ukrainian energy firm Burisma. Archer testified that there was nothing subtle in their demands. They pressed Hunter to \u201cget help from D.C.\u201d to fire a Ukrainian prosecutor who was investigating Burisma for corruption. Archer said that Hunter, Zlochevsky and Pozharski stepped away to make the call.<\/p>\n

Hunter is again expected to use the addiction defense as being blacked out on the call or its details. However, it will also prompt questions on contacts of Hunter with various administration officials on behalf of clients. The Ukraine call was a direct request for Hunter to, as AT&T once advertised, \u201cto reach out and touch someone.\u201d Those \u201ctouches\u201d will be a key to showing that there was not just an offer of influence but deliverables on the promise.<\/p>\n

4. The Shokin Controversy.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In March 2016, Biden bragged he told the Ukrainian government that he would unilaterally withhold a billion dollars of aid unless they removed the top prosecutor Viktor Shokin.\u00a0 In an interview with the\u00a0Council on Foreign Relations<\/a>\u00a0in 2018, Biden proudly recounted:<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018You\u2019re not getting the billion.\u2019 I\u2019m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours \u2018I\u2019m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you\u2019re not getting the money.\u2019\u2026Well, son of a bitch, he got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics allege that Hunter\u2019s Ukrainian clients complained shortly before that ultimatum about Shokin in a meeting with Hunter and Archer. The House is likely to push Hunter on whether he discussed Ukrainian prosecutor with his father and whether his clients were upset with the inquiries by Shokin.<\/p>\n

5. Services and Swag.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Hunter will be pressed on his receipt of lavish gifts and expense accounts, including a 3.16-carat diamond estimated to be worth $80,000 from Ye Jianming, chairman of Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC. The question is what services were rendered during such periods. There will also be question of services rendered and the timing of calls and meeting with his father. The House investigators have assembled a time line where major deals or payments were made after his father called into meetings or met with clients. There are emails thanking him for arranging the meetings.<\/p>\n

The testimony today could not be more dangerous for Hunter. Any misleading or false claim in the course of this testimony could result in new federal criminal charges. It will be difficult for the Justice Department to run interference on false testimony in an investigation into corruption and special dealing. In other words, time\u2019s up. In this case, the family cannot come before the facts: the family is the fact that is at issue before Congress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nWed, 02\/28\/2024 – 18:20<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bRead More<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Moment Of Truth: Five Questions For Hunter Biden Authored by Jonathan Turley, Below is my column in the New York Post on the closed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1459858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1459858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1459858\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1459858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1459858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1459858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}