With Joe Biden out as Democrats’ candidate for president, the House of Representatives’ report on the impeachment inquiry released this morning may give off a “What difference, at this point, does it make?” vibe.
After all, even if the House votes to impeach the president, the Senate won’t convict him and he’ll be out of office and politics forever in January 2024. The nearly 300-page report nonetheless matters for many reasons, the most important of which is to restore America’s standing in the world.
Over more than 150 pages, the House’s impeachment report establishes that Joe Biden conspired with his family members and their business partners to monetize his position as vice president. In exchange for access to then-Vice President Biden, foreign individuals and entities gave various Biden family members and their friends more than $27 million—some of those proceeds passed directly on to the Big Guy.
Those generalities fail to adequately capture the audacity of the conspiracy, or the harm to our country caused by Biden announcing through his conduct that the United States of America can be bought. Four specific payoffs crystallize both.
Large Foreign Payments While Obama’s Vice President
First, as the House report details, in early 2014, while Barack Obama’s vice president Biden attended a birthday party for Hunter Biden with Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina. Baturina is the wife of the former mayor of Moscow. The United States had accused him of heading a “pyramid of corruption” involving the Kremlin. Ten days later, Baturina transferred $3.5 million to Hunter Biden-connected businesses.
In May 2014, Joe Biden spoke with Baturina by phone, with the then-vice president telling her, “You be good to my boy,” and Hunter responding, “Everything is good, and we’re moving ahead.” Less than a week later, an email memorialized the Russian oligarch committing to investing $10-$20 million in an investment firm in which Hunter Biden had an interest.
Further, as the House report noted, “neither the Obama nor Biden Administrations placed Ms. Baturina on the sanctions list even though both administrations substantially increased sanctions against Russian oligarchs due largely to Russia’s invasions of Crimea and Ukraine during their respective terms.”
Big Romanian Payoffs While Decrying Corruption
A second concrete example of Joe Biden selling out our country comes from Romania. In May 2014, during an official visit to Romania, then-Vice President Biden delivered a speech to the Romanian prime minister, judges, prosecutors, and leaders of the parliament speaking of the cancer of corruption, proclaiming it a “cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy.”
At the time of Biden’s speech, “one of the most high-profile corruption cases in Romania concerned Gabriel Popoviciu,” whom Romanian prosecutors had charged with a bribery-related offense. Biden’s involvement in Romania’s corruption scandal continued, with the then-vice president meeting with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in the White House on September 28, 2015.
A readout of the meeting, quoted in the House report, stated, “The Vice President welcomed President Iohannis’ focus on anti-corruption efforts and rule of law as a means to strengthen national security and promote greater investment and economic growth.” President Iohannis confirmed that Obama’s vice president “voice[d] satisfaction over Romania’s fight against corruption.”
Within five weeks of this meeting, one of Popoviciu’s businesses began depositing monthly payments of $180,000 into a Hunter Biden-related entity. Those payments continued for the rest of the Obama-Biden administration, then abruptly stopped after Joe Biden left office. A former business associate of Hunter Biden told the House committee that Popoviciu had been “very vocal” about stopping the payments “because he viewed that he no longer had the power or the leverage of the Biden family to—for what he was dealing with in Romania.”
A third example of Joe Biden selling out America’s reputation is more discrete and involves a one-time payment by Kenes Rakishev, a Kazakhstani oligarch, of six figures to fund a sports car for Hunter Biden. The report details how, in February 2014, Rakishev, then a director of a Kazakhstan state-owned oil company and a close associate with the soon-to-be prime minister of Kazakhstan, joined Hunter Biden and then Vice-President Joe Biden at Hunter’s birthday celebration at Café Milano in Washington D.C. Two months later, Rakishev used one of his businesses to transfer $142,300 to a Hunter Biden-connected business, which then transferred the exact same sum to an automobile dealership to pay for a sports car for Hunter Biden.
Multiple Payoffs from Foreign Adversary China
In contrast to the one-time wheel-greasing gifted to Hunter Biden by Kazakhstan, money flowing from China came in several streams. That avenue of Biden family corruption had two main sources: Bohai Harvest RST and CEFC.
In December 2013, again while Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden brought Hunter on an official government trip to China. During that trip, Joe Biden met with Jonathan Li, a CCP-connected businessman with whom Hunter and his associates were seeking money.
“On December 16, 2013, twelve days after Vice President Biden met Mr. Li, Chinese authorities approved and registered BHR to conduct business,” says the House report. Within weeks, Li would become CEO of BHR, Hunter Biden would be appointed to BHR’s board, and Hunter Biden would obtain a 10 percent equity interest in BHR.
The House report detailed how Li obtained “preferential access to then-U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus,” with “an email saying that it’s very highly unusual to host a financial company at the U.S. Embassy but [Baucus]” “agreed to the meeting based on the relationships.” Banking records also establish that Li and another BHR associate together wired Hunter Biden more than $250,000 in 2019.
The second main source of funds from China came from the CCP-connected entity CEFC, a Chinese energy conglomerate. Special Counsel David Weiss highlighted the origins of this relationship in his December 2023 indictment against Hunter Biden. Weiss stated that in late fall 2015, Hunter Biden began pushing potential “infrastructure projects” with “individuals associated with CEFC.” Then, on December 1, 2015, a Serbian politician and the former president of the United Nations General Assembly, Vuk Jeremic, invited Hunter Biden to a “private dinner” with Ye Jianming—the founder of CEFC.
Evidence further shows that later in December 2015, Hunter Biden met with CEFC Executive Director Zang Jianjun and other “individuals associated with CEFC” in Washington D.C., and that during that meeting Chairman Ye gave Hunter Biden a “generous” and “wonderful gift.”
Shortly after Joe Biden left office, CEFC-connected individuals or entities transferred millions to Hunter Biden-connected entities. One of Hunter’s former business partners described the payments as a “thank you” for making “introductions on behalf of CEFC.”
Soon after, a CEFC-affiliated business would wire $5 million to a company of which Hunter Biden was co-owner, on July 30, 2017. That wire transfer followed a threatening text Hunter had sent nine days earlier, stating he was “sitting here with my father” trying “to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.”
Hunter warned that if “the promises and assurances that have been made” were not kept, “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.” Hunter later claimed his father was not sitting next to him when he sent this text. But that CEFC paid the $5 million soon after proves it didn’t matter: The CCP-connected business was willing to pay millions by the mere incantation of Joe Biden’s presence and influence.
Democrat Corruption In Now War-Torn Ukraine
A final concrete example of Biden selling out the United States concerns Ukraine. The country has some familiarity with the scandal that involved Hunter Biden receiving more than a million dollars for serving on the board of directors of the Ukraine energy giant Burisma, when its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, was under investigation by the then-Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Then-Vice President Joe Biden would later threaten to withhold a $1 billion loan from Ukraine unless the country fired Shokin; Shokin was promptly axed.
Four years of lies and spin by the legacy media, however, have left many Americans wrongly believing that Biden’s threat to withhold the loan was American policy and that the Obama administration wanted Shokin fired because he wasn’t investigating Burisma—not because he was.
The House report disproves this narrative, detailing evidence establishing that: Prosecutor General Shokin was investigating Burisma; Burisma knew of the investigation and sought Hunter Biden’s assistance in thwarting it; the Obama administration was previously satisfied with Ukraine’s corruption investigations; and after Hunter arranged a call with Joe Biden on behalf of Burisma, the then-vice president forced Shokin’s firing by threatening to withhold the loan.
The House report further reveals the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to obstruct the impeachment inquiry by preventing the National Archives and Records Administration from providing the House committees drafts of the speech Joe Biden gave to the Ukrainian parliament in December 2015.
Democrats Told Our Enemies Government Officials Can Be Bought
Those following the Biden-family corruption scandal since news first broke that evidence connecting Joe Biden to the pay-to-play scheme had been recovered from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop will not be surprised by the House’s report. However, the thickness of the report, coupled with President Biden’s lame-duck status, might cause the rest of the country not to care.
That would be a big mistake. The scandal is not merely about an elderly, soon-to-be-retired politician and his parasitic relatives, but about the reputation of the United States of America.
Joe Biden sold out the integrity of the United States to our most formidable geopolitical foes. Worse still, by allowing, ignoring, and covering up the scandal, members of the Obama-Biden administration and now the Biden-Harris administration, Democrats in Congress and our legacy press, and indeed even some Republicans in Congress refusing to hold those guilty accountable, proclaim to the world that it isn’t just the Biden family that is corrupt: so, too, is the rest of our government.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
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