New Evidence Emerges of Hunter Biden's FARA Violations
Hunter Biden isn’t having a good week. On Wednesday, everything blew up for the first son after the judge presiding over his sweetheart plea deal started to question the arrangement. What was revealed was an attempt to hide near-global immunity in a pre-trial diversion document.
After being pressed, prosecutors admitted such an arrangement is without precedent. When Hunter Biden was made aware that such immunity wouldn’t be included, his lawyers angrily changed course and he pleaded not guilty.
To add to the younger Biden’s troubles, there is now new evidence to suggest that he violated FARA provisions.
Hunter Biden worked closely with multiple people who disclosed their lobbying for foreign companies under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, raising questions about whether he broke the law by not registering himself for doing the same work.
He also lobbied U.S. officials, alongside many others who did not register under FARA, for work that, emails show, clearly involved advocacy that would trigger the FARA requirements.
The focus on Hunter Biden’s foreign lobbying grew more intense this week when a judge in Delaware pressed prosecutors about whether they were still investigating the president’s son for alleged FARA violations.
A day in court that was supposed to mark the end of Hunter Biden’s legal troubles may have been the start of even more, as the judge rejected a plea deal on Wednesday that Hunter Biden believed would shield him from prosecution for his foreign business dealings.
Some of the individuals at a firm that worked with Hunter Biden in advocating Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company whose board Hunter Biden joined in 2014, registered their work under FARA after apparent prodding from the Justice Department.
In other words, the DOJ’s standard for enforcing FARA seems to be entirely dependent on who the person at the receiving end would be. In the case of Gal Luft, who received some $700,000 from CEFC China, he was recently charged with FARA violations. In the case of Hunter Biden, he made more money doing the same thing for CEFC China but has yet to be charged.
That would seem to be highly inconsistent, especially since Hunter Biden was the ring-leader between himself and his business associates. It doesn’t stop with China, though. There’s also ample reason to believe Hunter Biden lobbied for the Libyan government without registering as a foreign agent. That comes directly from emails that he sent.
The question is what the DOJ is going to do with all this information. Given its current posture under AG Merrick Garland, the answer would seem to be not much. Still, as part of the now-nuked plea hearing mentioned above, the DOJ did admit all but admit they are still investigating Hunter Biden for possible FARA violations.
To be frank, if they don’t end up charging the president’s son for illegally operating as an unregistered foreign agent while they rack up charges against his associates for doing the same thing, it’s going to be an awful look for the department. Of course, there’s no reason to believe anyone within the DOJ actually cares. They’ve thrown appearances to the wind long ago.
Post a Comment