As Jen Psaki dodged a question regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop, which contained an email showing that he used his father Joe Biden’s, then vice-president, political influence in his overseas business dealings, especially in Ukraine.
In US media circles, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer’s roles in Ukrainian energy company Burisma have been discussed widely and the current US president influenced the Ukrainian government then under president Petro Poroshenko’s rule to fire its prosecutor general Viktor Shokin. Shokin, according to a news report by the New York Post, was planning to conduct an investigation into Burisma. Shokin, according to the news agency, would have also investigated the role played by all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden and launched crime-investigation procedures.
The New York Post said that President Biden in 2018 told the Council on Foreign Relations that he would withhold $1 billion US loan guarantee during a December 2015 trip to Kiev if then Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko and prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk did not fire Shokin.
The New York Post also lashed out at news agency the New York Times who in a report on Thursday said that there was a laptop – which is at a centerpoint of this controversy – which the Times and the Biden administration denied to have even existed in the first place. Jen Psaki earlier referred to the laptop as part of a so-called Russian misinformation campaign.
The laptop, a water-damaged notebook, was left at a repair shop in Delaware and remained unclaimed despite the repairers trying to connect with the client on several occasions. The laptop is now seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is currently being investigated by the agency as well as the Justice Department of the US and the US attorney’s office in Delaware.
David C. Weiss, the US attorney for Delaware, will remain in office until the Biden case is resolved.
The email that has landed Biden’s son in concern is one sent by Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, thanking him for allowing him to meet then vice-president Joe Biden in 2015. Eight months after the meeting, Biden said that he asked Poroshenko to take action against Shokin.
The laptop, according to New York Post, also contains video of Biden’s son doing drugs and engaging in sexual activities with an unknown woman. There is also other evidence which indicates Hunter used his father’s influence while conducting business in Europe and Asia. Hunter Biden’s roles in Burisma have come under the scanner along with his roles in doing business with an oligarch from Kazakhstan and with a Chinese energy conglomerate.
The probe is also seeking to find out whether Hunter Biden intentionally violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA. FARA requires stakeholders to inform the Justice Department of lobbying or public relations assistance on behalf of foreign clients.
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