On a dreary Sunday, as severe storms crippled vast portions of the Great Lakes and families planned to return home after a long Thanksgiving weekend, Joe Biden sprung the second surprise of his presidency. He issued a presidential pardon for his son Hunter's activities dating back to January 1, 2014. The pardon was overbroad and covered activities that were not even the subject of a DOJ trial of Hunter, such as lying about filling out a form to obtain a gun and failing to pay taxes on time.
[The first surprise he sprung resulted in a resounding defeat for the Democrats last month. Biden withdrew from running after winning his party's nomination, anointed Vice-President Harris to run in his place, and saw the disgrace of his party losing the White House, the Senate, the House, and many governor's and state legislature races].
The presidential pardon, however, shook Biden's loyal supporters. They said Biden had said he wouldn't do it, and yet he did—so he lied. Others said Biden shouldn't have issued a pardon for an individual who was known to associate himself with prostitutes and indulge in sex parties, drugs, and alcohol. Some, like Rep. Greg Stanton (D-Arizona), criticized Biden for thumbing his nose at the justice system. "I respect President Biden, but I think he got this one wrong. This wasn't a politically motivated prosecution. Hunter committed felonies and was convicted by a jury of his peers."
Even the federal judge overseeing Hunter's tax trial in the Central District of California was critical of Biden. US District Judge Mark Scarsi wrote: "The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history." Judge Scarsi was referring to the broad pardon for any crimes that Hunter may have committed in the past 11 years.
Why 2014 is a critical tipping point for Biden
Biden was the Obama administration's point man in Ukraine. The official goal of American policy was to help Kyiv transition to a more democratic, Western-friendly governing authority that addresses endemic corruption. Biden, in 2013, deployed senior officials like Victoria Nuland at the State Department and CIA operatives to help wreck the pro-Kremlin Ukrainian government. Sen. Lindsey Graham and his best buddy, the late Sen. John McCain, openly supported the Kyiv Maidan Revolution, resulting in President Victor Yanukovich's ouster and his bolting to Moscow. The date was February 21, 2014.
With significant American support, Petro Poroshenko, a former businessman, became president on June 7, 2014. The same day, Hunter Biden became a director in the Ukrainian energy company Burisma's board to enforce "governance and transparency." Hunter had no experience in this area, had never worked in Ukraine, and had little knowledge of the energy industry.
Burisma was a troubled company. It was owned by a corrupt Ukrainian oligarch, Mykola Zlochevsky, whose assets, totaling $23 million, had been seized by British authorities just a few weeks before Hunter assumed his role. To most observers, it was clear that Ukraine was trying to buy influence all the way to the White House by appointing Hunter to Burisma's board.
George Kent, the former Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the US Embassy in Kyiv, raised concerns to officials in Vice President Joe Biden's office in early 2015 about the perception of a conflict of interest with respect to Hunter Biden's role on Burisma's board. In September 2016, Kent emphasized in an email to his colleagues, "Furthermore, the presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine." Biden and his inner circle ignored such missives.
When it became clear that Trump would be the 2016 GOP nominee, the Biden Deep State turned their attention to Trump-aide Paul Manafort, who had a history of working with pro-Kremlin Ukrainian leaders. They sought the assistance of Ukrainian officials, who had become used to serving their Washington bosses' interests in return for receiving financial and military aid, to deliver sensitive intelligence about Manafort's activities to tarnish Trump and help Hillary win. She would continue Washington's Ukraine policy unscathed.
Senior FBI lawyer Lisa Page and her lover, FBI agent Peter Strzok, plotted to stop the Trump train and exchanged numerous messages on their FBI-issued phones. Marc Elias, a lawyer for the Hillary campaign (who later was instrumental in filing over 145 lawsuits during the 2020 election to lower election integrity standards to help tilt the election to Joe Biden) conspired with Strzok. He invented a hoax that President Trump colluded with Russia, and Strzok filed paperwork with a judge to surveil the Trump campaign. What was phony opposition research of a political campaign became DOJ material to go after Trump. The plot failed when Trump won in 2016.
Hunter's corrupt activities only increased during the Trump administration
Even under President Trump, the National Security Council was concerned about Ukraine's corrupt ways. The NSC provided talking points to Trump to mention corruption in his congratulatory call with President Zelenskyy, who was elected in May 2019. Trump did not use those talking points, but in a more consequential call in July, he asked Zelenskyy for help investigating Hunter. A partisan House impeached Trump for using his presidential power to influence a future election.
Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings for approximately five years. According to the House Oversight Committee, the total amount the Biden family and their associates received during this period touched $6.5 million.
President Biden was clearly worried that Hunter could be criminally vulnerable to an investigation by Trump's second-term DOJ and the FBI, which is why the President extended Hunter's pardon to the date when Hunter joined Burisma's board and five months prior.
Biden's pardon proves that a concerned Trump was right in asking Ukraine to investigate the Biden family's corrupt dealings. Rather than Congress applauding Trump for advancing America's stated policy goals of rooting out corruption in Ukraine, a partisan House impeached Trump!
California's newest senator, Adam Schiff, who is now in the minority but was the key congressional leader who pushed for Trump's impeachment, is also probably lawyering up. So should Alexander Vindman, the staunch Ukraine supporter on Trump's then-NSC, who worked with a whistleblower to leak Trump's call details to Schiff, thus kickstarting the impeachment inquiry and foreclosing any investigation into the Biden family's dealings.
As we go to press, reports suggest that Biden is considering preemptive pardons for Adam Schiff and Liz Cheney. This development only strengthens the belief that Trump’s impeachments were unjustly orchestrated. After all, if their actions were as transparent and untainted as they claim, why would they need pardons at all?
We have noted numerous times in these pages that the Obama-Biden-Hillary-Pelosi-Schiff-Schumer cabal has been addicted to a symbiotic relationship with Ukrainian officials for more than ten years. President Biden's pardon of his son confirms that Trump was wrongfully impeached in 2019.
