Joe Biden, who spent his vice presidency as the “big guy” behind his son Hunter’s foreign influence-peddling exploits and skated into the presidency because media and tech gatekeepers covered up news of the family pay-for-play business, issued a blanket pardon to Hunter for “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024.” The pardon doesn’t just apply to the (comparatively) minor crimes the Special Counsel David Weiss reluctantly prosecuted, but the host of potential crimes, from money laundering to bribery to FARA violations, for which Hunter hasn’t been prosecuted.
The pardon is an unprecedented, corrupt trick that we all knew was coming no matter how brazen and how many times Biden and his media mouthpieces lied about it. Biden isn’t just trying to protect Hunter, he’s desperately trying to cover up the scam he’s been running on the American people for the past decade.
Hunter might have been the dumbest member of the Biden crime syndicate and the easiest to prosecute, but he’s not the only one implicated in crimes against the United States. It’s time for the incoming Department of Justice to prosecute everyone else who participated in the apparent scheme to trade government favors to foreign actors for money, diamonds, and fancy cars, starting with the “big guy” himself.
Joe Biden
The most obvious thing about Hunter Biden’s access-for-cash deals with foreign oligarchs was that they only worked because of Joe Biden. Why else would Chinese, Ukrainian, and other foreign interests pay heaps of money to an unstable crackhead nepo baby? Why else would the deals dry up when then-Vice President Biden left office? In Hunter’s own words, the “family’s brand” that Joe had so carefully built was the “only asset.”
Joe Biden was the one Hunter invoked in a WhatsApp message he purportedly sent to Chinese businessman Henry Zhao.
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” the message, sent in July 2017, read. Hunter also threatened to leverage “the man sitting next to me and every person he knows” to “forever hold a grudge that you will regret” if Zhao did not accede to his demands.
Besides Hunter, Joe Biden was apparently the one to whom Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder of the Ukrainian energy firm that was paying Hunter Biden millions, was referring when he allegedly told an FBI confidential human source that “It costs 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.” Joe Biden repeatedly spoke to or met with Hunter’s foreign associates.
Joe Biden, by Hunter’s own admission, was the “big guy” in the smoking gun email that referenced 10 percent of a business venture with Chinese firm CEFC being held by Hunter “for the big guy.” Joe Biden ended up receiving $40,000 that originated with the CCP-linked firm and was then funneled through a series of Biden family accounts — “exactly 10 percent of the $400,000 Hunter Biden received” from CEFC, as The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland noted last year.
And, perhaps most damning, Joe Biden was the one who publicly used his position as vice president of the United States to pressure the Ukrainian government to fire the prosecutor who appeared to be investigating the energy firm where Hunter was on payroll.
James Biden
There’s also extensive evidence implicating James Biden, Joe’s younger brother, in the attempt to sell foreign oligarchs access to Joe in exchange for payouts. Via wires that passed through an account run by Biden family associate Rob Walker, James Biden profited at least $360,000 from a deal with CEFC. After that, James Biden’s consulting group received more than $1 million in a series of wires from a Hunter Biden company that was receiving money from a joint venture between Hunter Biden and CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming.
Even The Washington Post admitted in 2022 that “the Chinese energy conglomerate and its executives paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle.”
On top of that, James, his wife Sara, and Hunter went on a $101,291 spending spree with credit cards opened by Hunter and Kevin Dong, who “served as ‘Chairman Ye[’s] CEFC emissary’ in the United States.” The three Bidens purchased “extravagant items, including airline tickets and multiple items at Apple Inc. stores, pharmacies, hotels and restaurants.”
And James appeared to be an active player in setting up meetings with foreign players, some of which were set to include Joe Biden, according to WhatsApp messages apparently sent by Hunter.
“My uncle will be here with his BROTHER who would like to say hello to the Chairman,” Hunter wrote in August 2017 to Kevin Dong, whom IRS investigators described as one of the “U.S. managers for CEFC.”
James Biden admitted to IRS investigators that he had met with Chairman Ye Jianming of CEFC “once,” and said he had attended a luncheon in Romania with Hunter and a few of Hunter’s associates in what the IRS said James “understood … to be a side deal.”
And in the same email noting that 10 percent of the CEFC deal would be held by Hunter for the “big guy,” another 10 percent was earmarked to go to “Jim.”
Who Else?
Hunter, Joe, and James weren’t the only Biden family members profiting from the scheme. In May 2023, House investigators reported that the Bidens received a total of $10 million — later revealed to be at least $20 million — in a series of payments that originated with foreign benefactors and trickled down as far as the Biden grandchildren.
These payments reached “at least nine Biden family members including the president’s son Hunter Biden, his brother James Biden, James’s wife, Hunter’s ex-girlfriend who is also his brother Beau Biden’s widow, Hunter’s ex-wife, Hunter’s current wife, and at least one grandchild and a couple of nieces and/or nephews,” as The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported at the time.
It’s time to investigate and prosecute Joe Biden, James Biden, and anyone else who played an active role in the family business of trading influence for goodies. The Trump DOJ should subpoena Hunter Biden, who can no longer incriminate himself and therefore may not be eligible to plead the Fifth Amendment. If the Bidens want to escape legal accountability for their pay-for-play operation, Joe better be ready to pardon the whole family.
Elle Purnell is the elections editor at The Federalist. Her work has been featured by Fox Business, RealClearPolitics, the Tampa Bay Times, and the Independent Women’s Forum. She received her B.A. in government from Patrick Henry College with a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @_etreynolds.
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