Now US intelligence services to be probed in Hunter Biden cover-up investigation
As Hunter Biden remains under federal investigation for possible tax fraud for which he could face charges related to tax violations or foreign lobbying violations, House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy told Biden probe will expand to US intelligence agencies and chiefs who were “almost certainly aware of his shady foreign activities while his father [Joe Biden] was vice president,” as per NY Post.
McCarthy said, “They should come in and talk to us. You’d want to ask these individuals what did they know and when. People can come in and talk to us and answer the questions. If that’s not the case there are times we will use the subpoena as well." According to the report, in October 2020, when Hunter Biden's laptop controversy happened, 51 former intelligence agency officials released a public letter denouncing the story as “disinformation pushed by Russia.” The letter read, "We are all also individuals who see Russia as one of our nation’s primary adversaries. All of us have an understanding of the wide range of Russian overt and covert activities that undermine US national security, with some of us knowing Russian behavior intimately, as we worked to defend our nation against it for a career. A few of us worked against Russian information operations in the United States in the last several years." It further said, "The arrival on the US political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving on the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." John Brennan, who served as CIA director from 2013 to 2017, and Leon Panetta, CIA director from 2009 to 2011 and defense secretary from 2011 to 2013, were among the signatories.
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To which McCarthy said, “You would want to ask these individuals first of all, ‘Would you still sign the letter today, and who asked you to sign the letter and why did you sign the letter, and what information did you have prior?' Why did you feel comfortable — especially with your own reputations — that you would sign that letter? Was it someone from the [Biden] campaign who asked, or was it people in the intel community?" "I think these questions have to be answered. You cannot allow an intel community to utilize their name in an improper way without correcting," he added.
On August 4, GOP members of the body ripped into FBI director Christopher Wray saying that FBI agents falsely labeled derogatory information on Biden's laptop as disinformation. To which, Wray responded by saying that these accusations are "deeply troubling," as per Fox News.
“I am going to give [Wray] the benefit of the doubt at this moment in time,” McCarthy said. “We are going to ask the tough questions and if we don’t get the honest answers, there’s consequences.”
The Hunter Biden probe
The probe against Hunter Biden, run by the US Attorney's Office in Delaware, dates back to 2018. Federal investigators have been looking at possible money laundering and violations of US tax laws. As per Newsweek, Biden has worked for businesses and tycoons in China, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. He sat on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma for five years between 2014 and 2019, receiving a whopping amount. The company he set up, Rosemont Seneca Bohai LCC was sent $142,000 by a Kazakh oligarch, money which Biden then reportedly spent on a sports car. And between the years 2017 and 2018, a Chinese energy company sent $4.8 million to entities Hunter and his uncle, James Biden, for legal and advisory work.