Hunter Biden Under Federal Criminal Investigation Over Shady Chinese Deals
Joe Biden responds to news of tax probe, saying he's 'proud' of his son
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Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, is the "target" of a federal criminal investigation over his shady Chinese business dealings, according to several reports.
On Wednesday night, former Vice President Biden responded to the news federal prosecutors have publicly launched a probe into Hunter's taxes, insisting he is "proud" of his son.
Federal authorities were forced to pause their investigation in the run-up to the election to avoid affecting the outcome, which would be a breach of the Justice Department guidelines.
Now Election Day has passed, prosecutors in Delaware, the IRS Criminal Investigation agency, and the FBI, have stepped up their probe by issuing subpoenas and seeking interviews, according to CNN.
Reacting to the news, the "Biden-Harris transition team" released a cold and impersonal statement saying the ex-VP was "deeply proud of his son."
Joe Biden has yet to make a personal public statement on the matter, however.
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The statement adds that Hunter had "fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger."
At no point in the statement does Joe Biden protest his son's innocence, nor does it comment on the former vice president's own role in the deals.
Earlier on Wednesday, Hunter put out a statement saying he is under federal investigation over his taxes.
"I learned yesterday for the first time that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Delaware advised my legal counsel, also yesterday, that they are investigating my tax affairs," the younger Biden said.
The statement was put out by the so-called "President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris' transition office."
Reports have revealed that Hunter is under federal investigation for possible tax fraud, with a report saying the Justice Department is examining his overseas business dealings.
The probe also reportedly involves a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden, the existence of which was first reported by The New York Post.
The computer's hard drive contains communications and documents detailing some of the Biden family's business dealings in China and Ukraine.
The probe reportedly began in 2018, sources told Fox News and CNN.
Investigators are looking into whether Hunter and his business associates violated various tax and money laundering laws, CNN said.
The probe is focused on Hunter’s business dealings in China and other countries and involves transactions with people who posed counterintelligence concerns, CNN said.
The investigation was resumed after the election and is entering a new phase, with the FBI and IRS issuing subpoenas and seeking interviews, CNN added.
Fox News reported that the probe includes examining the Hunter Biden laptop exposed by The Post, citing two sources familiar with the investigation.
The probe is before a grand jury and involves so-called “Suspicious Activity Reports” from banks flagging transfers of funds from China and other nations, Fox News also said.
A "well-placed government source" reportedly told Fox that Hunter Biden is a subject/target of the grand jury investigation.
According to the source, a "target" means that there is a "high probability that person committed a crime," while a "subject" is someone you "don't know for sure" has committed a crime.
The source said it's not yet known if Joe Biden is a subject of any grand jury investigation at this time.
In September, Republican senators released a report on Hunter’s business affairs that said he “and his family were involved in a vast financial network that connected them to foreign nationals and foreign governments across the globe.”
Some of those ties “raise criminal financial, counterintelligence and extortion concerns,” the report said.
Wednesday’s surprise disclosure of the federal probe came exactly one year after FBI agents seized a laptop from a Delaware computer shop whose owner claims it was left there by Hunter and never retrieved.
In October, The Post exclusively revealed that a copy of the computer’s hard drive contained a 2015 email that showed Hunter introduced his father, then vice president, to a top executive at Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company where he was a board member earning a reported $83,000 a month.
Less than a year later, the elder Biden pressured officials in Ukraine into firing a top prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.
Joe Biden has said he used a $1 billion US loan guarantee as leverage to get Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin canned because of corruption concerns shared by the European Union.
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Other emails showed Hunter pursued lucrative business deals involving China’s largest private energy company, including one that he described as “interesting for me and my family.”
A related email from 2017, after Joe Biden left the White House, detailed a “provisional agreement” to divide ownership in a new company that included a 10 percent share “held by H for the big guy?”
A participant in that deal, Tony Bobulinski, later confirmed that “H” stood for Hunter and his dad was “the big guy.”
During the second and final presidential debate in October, Joe Biden declared: “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.”
In addition to the emails and related business documents, the laptop contained numerous sexually explicit images, including a 12-minute video that appears to show Hunter — who’s acknowledged repeated struggles with drug and alcohol addictions — smoking crack while engaged in a sex act with an unidentified woman.
