Trump returns to Georgia and faces check of his maintain on GOP

Revealed: How Russia’s Bioweapons Claims Put Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian Connections Back in the Spotlight

CHICAGO: When US President Joe Biden on Monday accused his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin of preparing to use chemical or biological weapons in Ukraine, he inadvertently exposed a long-simmering scandal involving his son, Hunter Biden.

At a White House briefing on March 21, President Biden said Putin has “his back against the wall” in Ukraine and that he may stage a “false flag” operation to justify the use of outlaw weapons against civilian and military targets .

“We’ve seen it before,” President Biden said. “He did a lot of false flag operations. Whenever he starts talking about something he thinks NATO, Ukraine, or the United States will do, it means he’s preparing for it.”

The Kremlin responded to Joe Biden’s comments by accusing his son of supporting a bioweapons program in Ukraine, putting Hunter Biden’s scandalous dealings back into the public spotlight when his father was US Vice President. But more on that later.

Conservative critics claim the president’s second son conspired with his uncle James Biden to exploit Joe Biden’s political clout, first as longtime Delaware senator and later as Barack Obama’s two-year vice president, to secure lucrative contracts in Ukraine — claims , both of which deny.

Few in the mainstream media covered the story when it first surfaced. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter even blocked posts related to the allegations ahead of the 2020 election, including articles from the conservative-leaning New York Post.

The controversy first became public after Hunter Biden took his personal laptop to a computer repair shop in Delaware in April 2019 — the same month his father officially launched his bid for the presidency — but forgot to pick it up.

Legally, the laptop became property of the store owner, who turned over its contents, including thousands of Hunter Biden’s personal emails, to Republican activists.

These emails contain lurid details of a decadent lifestyle, as well as information about Hunter Biden’s multi-million dollar foreign deals with China and Ukraine, according to multiple published reports.

In 2014, Hunter Biden joined Ukraine’s state-owned natural gas company Burisma as a consultant. Less than a month after his then-vice president father visited Ukraine and met Burisma executives in April of that year, the lucrative deals began to roll in.

Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden gestures as he delivers an address to the Ukrainian people in Kyiv July 22, 2009, a speech to reaffirm U.S. support for the country’s ambitions to become more integrated with the West . (AFP/File Photo)

Burisma itself has been plagued by allegations of corruption. Additionally, critics claim that Hunter Biden lacked the necessary qualifications to advise for the firm — aside from the fact that his father was a vice president and helped develop Ukraine policy.

A senior US diplomat stationed in Kyiv in a secret email to the State Department in 2016 warned that Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine while his father was still vice president had “undermined” anti-corruption efforts in the country .

The email, dated November 22, 2016, was written by George Kent, who was deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy in Ukraine at the time.

According to the email, he detailed a discussion of a “saga” surrounding the case against Mykola Zlochevsky, a former Ukrainian natural resources minister and founder of Burisma Holdings.

In an Oct. 4, 2020 New York Post report citing Hunter Biden’s laptop emails, Zlochevsky claimed “less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine to hire a prosecutor.” fired, who introduced Vice President Joe Biden to a top executive in Burisma who was investigating the company.”

This video, captured by the online broadcast of the Democratic National Convention on August 20, 2020, shows Hunter Biden speaking on the final day of the convention. (AFP/Democratic National Convention/File Photo)

The meeting is mentioned in a message of thanks that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to Burisma’s board of directors, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined Burisma’s board of directors.

In 2017, Hunter also joined the board of China-based private equity fund Bohai Harvest RST of Shanghai Equity Investment Fund Management Co. with a 10 percent stake.

BHR was established in 2013 by Bohai Industrial Investment Fund Management Co., which is controlled by Bank of China. Founders included Hunter Biden’s investment firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners.

It’s not uncommon for the children of powerful US politicians to end up in top jobs or be accused of profiting from their parents’ political influence.

FASTFACT

* Beautiful Things, a 2021 memoir by Hunter Biden published by Gallery Books, has been described as equal parts family saga, grief tale and addict’s howl.

President Donald Trump’s sons and daughter have been in the news throughout his tenure and since for what opponents have dubbed “acting with influence.”

Several investigations into the dealings of Trump’s children Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr. are ongoing, including one opened by the New York Attorney General this January.

For their part, Republicans in Congress introduced a resolution on Oct. 15, 2019, that included specific details from the laptop and called for an investigation into Hunter Biden’s Ukraine dealings.

In the final weeks before the November 2020 presidential election, President Biden dismissed the allegations against his son, calling them nothing more than “Russian disinformation” and “a last-ditch effort to smear me and my family.”

Republican Congressman Darrell Issa of California’s 50th District, who has led the prosecution to expose Hunter Biden’s role in Ukraine and China, told Arab News there was more than enough evidence to warrant a congressional investigation justify.

Issa said the exposé could be bigger than Watergate, the scandal that brought down former President Richard Nixon in 1974.

At a White House briefing on March 21, President Biden said Putin has “his back against the wall” in Ukraine and that he may stage a “false flag” operation to justify the use of outlaw weapons against civilian and military targets . (AFP/File Photo)

“This is the scandal that Big Tech and the Democrat industrial complex would like to make go away,” Issa said. “They know what they did and of course they think they got away with it. It is therefore crucial that we do not squander the opportunity for accountability.

“What I can’t live with is the fact that Facebook and Twitter and most major media players are suppressing the truth with the help of more than 50 of the best-informed people in the intelligence world, all of whom say they have concluded that this was incorrect information.

“This is a conspiracy of monumental proportions. This is the most momentous political scandal since Watergate, and it deserves an investigation in Congress no less rigorous and no less bipartisan than this.”

When Joe Biden this week accused Moscow of preparing to use biological or chemical weapons, the Russians intervened in the Hunter Biden dispute, using corruption allegations to accuse the US President’s son of funding biological weapons production in Ukraine to have.

Igor Kirillov, head of the Department of Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection at the Russian Defense Ministry, said Thursday that Hunter Biden was directly involved in US plans to station weapons of mass destruction in Ukraine.

Kirillov accused him of financing “the Pentagon’s bioweapons program in Ukraine” through an investment fund, the Kremlin-backed news agency Sputnik International reported.

“The incoming materials have enabled us to trace the interaction scheme between US government agencies and Ukraine’s biolaboratories,” Kirillov said at a news conference.

“The involvement in the funding of these activities by structures close to the current US leadership, notably Hunter Biden-managed Rosemont Seneca mutual fund, is drawing attention. The scope of the program is impressive.”

Liberal media was quick to defend President Biden after the Russian allegation. USAID and the CDC, with support from liberal philanthropist George Soros, were responsible for establishing 31 laboratories in 14 locations across Ukraine. (AFP/File Photo)

Citing a common conspiracy theory being peddled by state-backed Russian media, Kirillov reportedly said that USAID and the CDC, with support from liberal philanthropist George Soros, were responsible for setting up 31 labs in 14 locations across Ukraine.

There is no credible evidence to justify the claim.

Liberal media outlets were quick to defend President Biden after the Russian allegation. Julia Davis, a columnist for the Daily Beast, tweeted: “If you thought Russian propaganda was ever ‘sophisticated,’ I hate to tell you: it was always pretty stupid. Is still. Here’s their latest gem: Hunter Biden-funded biolabs in Ukraine. Handcrafted for Fox News.”

However, Russia’s allegations have fueled public interest in Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine. A Rasmussen poll released this week found that 66 percent of likely US voters believe the issues raised by Hunter Biden’s leaked emails are “important.”

The allegations have also renewed Republicans’ resolve to push for an investigation that will likely cost Democrats in November’s midterm elections.

Republican Congressman Darrell Issa of California’s 50th District, who has led the charge to expose Hunter Biden’s role in Ukraine and China. (included)

“Big tech, the mainstream media and Democrat intelligence agencies either want to rewrite the history of their collusion — or erase it entirely,” Issa told Arab News.

“We won’t let them do that. These letters alert everyone: Real accountability will take place. And we will not rest until the full truth is known.

“We already know for certain that Big Tech has worked with some of the most powerful media outlets in the country and the most influential Democratic partisans in the intelligence community to suppress the truth, stop public access to fact-based journalism, and shut down the Biden family scandals cover up. ”

The White House did not respond to Arab News requests for comment.