Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden avoids answering a lot of crucial questions. However, he may not make it to election day, November 3, without having to respond to a renewed examination of his son’s involvement with Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company founded by a notoriously corrupt Oligarch. Burisma gave Biden’s son, Hunter, a seat on its board of directors and paid him handsomely – some $50,000 a month. Biden Sr. has repeatedly insisted that his son had never discussed those business dealings in Ukraine, but newly-released emails suggest that these claims may not be true.
The new plot-twist begins as so many scandals do these days: with a laptop computer. In this case, the device was allegedly dropped off in April of 2019 at a computer repair business in Delaware. Whoever brought the Macbook Pro in for repair – the store owner says he could not be sure it was Hunter Biden himself – did not return to pay for the service or retrieve the laptop.
Among the device files were emails from Vadym Pozharskyi – a senior Burisma executive – to Hunter Biden. Also found on the computer were numerous sexually explicit photographs and a video of Hunter smoking crack and engaging in sex acts with an unknown woman.
Was Trump Impeached to Protect Biden?
The video is not the story, though. Hunter Biden’s admitted problems with drugs were already known, and a father cannot reasonably be held accountable for the activities of his adult son. The emails could be a whole different ball of wax, though. Joe Biden has always dismissed the Burisma scandal as a fabrication – a non-story – dreamed up by Republicans to discredit the former VP and the administration he served.
As everyone remembers, congressional Democrats even went as far as impeaching President Donald Trump for daring to suggest to the Ukrainian president that he look into the Biden-Burisma affair. Mr. Trump’s political opponents always knew Ukraine was going to be a problem, so they made him the villain in the story. It was a naked attempt to paint Hunter Biden’s influence peddling, facilitated by his dad, as one big lie. Mr. Trump was impeached and, but for a few votes in the Senate, almost removed from office because he wanted the Burisma affair examined and laid out for the American people.
Email Contradicts Joe Biden’s Claims
An email dated April 17, 2015, that purports to be from Pozharskyi to Hunter Biden reads, in part: “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.”
If Joe Biden never discussed Burisma with his son, why did he agree to meet with Pozharskyi? Clearly, if these emails are genuine, Hunter transmitted the invitation to the Ukrainian to meet with his father. What are the chances that he did so without first consulting then-Vice President Biden?
In another of the emails discovered on the damaged laptop, Pozharskyi writes to Hunter: “We urgently need your advice on how you could use your influence to convey a message / signal, etc. to stop what we consider to be politically motivated actions …”
In this case, the “we” refers to the leadership of Burisma Holdings. The new government of Ukraine, at the time, was putting pressure on the company over the business dealings of its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky. At one point, the oligarch had millions of dollars in personal assets frozen in the United Kingdom, and he allegedly attempted to bribe Ukrainian officials into helping him quash an investigation of his activities and get the assets unfrozen. In the email to Hunter and his business partner, Devon Archer, Pozharskyi claims the Ukraine authorities were simply trying to shake down his boss for money.
In 2015, Joe Biden, who was the Obama administration’s point-man on Ukraine, traveled to the country and threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees unless Ukraine’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was fired. Shokin was investigating Burisma.
If There’s No There, There, Why the Panic?
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is investigating the materials found on the laptop. To this point, Ukrainian officials have stated that they have no proof of wrongdoing on behalf of either Biden.
Whether or not crimes were committed is almost irrelevant, though. According to the emails, Joe Biden knew more than he has admitted to regarding Hunter’s role with Burisma – a position for which the latter had no qualifications. The left-wing media is already scrambling to discredit the New York Post, which first reported the laptop’s story. Facebook and Twitter have both moved to prevent the story from being shared. Undeniably, Biden’s supporters and allies have gone into panic mode.
The Biden campaign on October 14 called a lid early in what appeared to be an attempt to avoid questions about the emails. No doubt, Team Joe will be crafting a response of some kind, and the smart money is on that response being, essentially, how dare anyone question Joe Biden’s integrity?
Is the story of Hunter Biden’s incredulous rise to the position of wealthy power-player under the wing of his vice president father nothing more than debunked gossip and conspiracy theory? Perhaps not. The question is why the presidential candidate’s backers are not responding to it with exculpatory facts rather than attempting to silence anyone who disseminates this reportage.
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Read more from Graham J. Noble.
