‘Renminbi Diplomacy’: How China Bought US Government?

In an explosive scoop [1], alternative news outlet Zero Hedge has laid bare how China’s state apparatchik clandestinely baited the family members of the Obama-era vice president and secretary of state into joint business ventures in order to surreptitiously influence the trade and economic policies of the US government favoring China’s geo-economic interests spanning the globe.

Here are a few relevant excerpts from the investigative report authored by Christopher Balding, Associate Professor at Peking University HSBC School of Business Shenzhen, China, and also a Bloomberg contributor:

“Hunter Biden partnered with the Chinese state. Entire investment partnership is Chinese state money from social security fund to China Development Bank. It is actually a subsidiary of the Bank of China. This is not remotely anything less than a Chinese state-funded play.

“Though the entire size of the fund cannot be reconstructed, the Taiwanese cofounder who is now detained in China, reports it to be NOT $1-1.5 billion but $6.5 billion. This would make Hunters stake worth at a minimum at least $50 million if he was to sell it.

“The believed Godfather arranging Hunter’s business ventures is a gentleman named Yang Jiechi. He is currently the CCP Director of Foreign Affairs leading strategist for America, Politburo member, one of the most powerful men in China, and Chinese President Xi Jingpin’s confidant.

“He met regularly with Joe Biden during his stint as Chinese ambassador the US when Biden chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Later he was Minister of Foreign Affairs when the investment partnership was made official in 2013.

“Hunter Biden’s 2013 Bohai Harvest Rosemont investment partnership was set-up by Ministry of Foreign Affairs institutions which are tasked with garnering influence with foreign leaders during Yang’s tenure as Foreign Minister.

“Hunter’s BHR stake (purchased for $400,000) is now likely be worth approx. $50 million (fees and capital appreciation based on BHR’s $6.5 billion AUM as stated by Michael Lin).

“Joe Biden’s foreign policy stance towards China (formerly hawkish), turned positive despite China’s country’s rising geopolitical assertiveness.”

China is known to follow the economic model of “state capitalism,” in which although small and medium enterprises are permitted to operate freely by common citizens, large industrial and extraction companies, especially multi-billion dollar corporations doing business with foreign clients, are run by the Communist Party stalwarts masquerading as business executives.

In addition, China is alleged to practice “debt-trap diplomacy” for buying entire governments through extending financial grants and loans, and what better way to buy the rival government of the United States than by financing the Biden campaign through bestowing financial largesse on the Biden and John Kerry families and other prominent former officials of the Obama-Biden administration.

In an exclusive report [2] for the Breitbart New on October 16, Peter Schweizer and Seamus Bruner allege that newly obtained emails from a former business associate of Hunter Biden's inner-circle reveal that Hunter and his colleagues used their access to the Obama-Biden administration to peddle influence to potential Chinese clients and investors—including securing a private, off-the-books meeting with the former vice president.

The never-before-revealed emails, unconnected to the Hunter Biden emails being released by the New York Post, were provided to Schweizer by Bevan Cooney, a one-time Hunter Biden and Devon Archer business associate. Cooney is currently in prison serving a sentence for his involvement in a 2016 bond fraud investment scheme.

The report notes: “On November 5, 2011, one of Archer’s business contacts forwarded him an email teasing an opportunity to gain ‘potentially outstanding new clients’ by helping to arrange White House meetings for a group of Chinese executives and government officials.

“The group was the China Entrepreneur Club (CEC) and the delegation included Chinese billionaires, Chinese Communist Party loyalists, and at least one ‘respected diplomat’ from Beijing. Despite its benign name, CEC has been called ‘a second foreign ministry’ for the People’s Republic of China—a communist government that closely controls most businesses in its country. CEC was established in 2006 by a group of businessmen and Chinese government diplomats.

“CEC’s leadership boasts numerous senior members of the Chinese Communist Party, including Wang Zhongyu (vice chairman of the 10th CPPCC National Committee and deputy secretary of the Party group), Ma Weihua (director of multiple Chinese Communist Party offices), and Jiang Xipei (member of the Chinese Communist Party and representative of the 16th National Congress), among others.

“‘I know it is political season and people are hesitant but a group like this does not come along every day,’ an intermediary named Mohamed A. Khashoggi wrote on behalf of the CEC to an associate of Hunter Biden and Devon Archer. ‘A tour of the white house and a meeting with a member of the chief of staff’s office and John Kerry would be great.’

“The gross income of the CEC members’ companies allegedly ‘totaled more than renminbi 1.5 trillion, together accounting for roughly 4% of China’s GDP.’ The overture to Hunter Biden’s associates described the Chinese CEC members variously as ‘industrial elites,’ ‘highly influential,’ and among ‘the most important private sector individuals in China today,’ dubbed as the China Inc.

“Hunter Biden and Devon Archer apparently delivered for the Chinese Communist Party-connected industrial elites within ten days … The Obama-Biden administration archives reveal that this Chinese delegation did indeed visit the White House on November 14, 2011, and enjoyed high-level access.

“The visitor logs list Jeff Zients, the deputy director of Obama’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as the host of the CEC delegation. Obama had tasked Zients with restructuring and ultimately consolidating the various export-import agencies under the Commerce Department—an effort in which the Chinese delegation would have a keen interest.”

Schweizer suggests that the meeting may have opened the door for Hunter and Devon Archer down the road—as just two years later they formed the Chinese government-funded Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) investment fund which saw Chinese money pour into it for investments in CEC-linked businesses.

According to the report, "One of BHR’s first major portfolio investments was a ride-sharing company like Uber called Didi Dache—now called Didi Chuxing Technology Co. That company is closely connected to Liu Chuanzhi, the chairman of the China Entrepreneur Club (CEC) and the founder of Legend Holdings—the parent company of Lenovo, one of the world’s largest computer companies. Liu is a former Chinese Communist Party delegate and was a leader of the 2011 CEC delegation to the White House. His daughter was the President of Didi."

After reading the names of these high-profile Chinese business and political elites visiting the White House and cultivating personal friendships and business relationships in the highest echelons of the Obama-Biden administration, one wonders whether the latter formulated trade and economic policies serving the interests of the American masses or took care of financial stakes of global power elites.

During the last decade, all the manufacturing has outsourced to China, Chinese entrepreneurs are stealing American jobs and the American working classes are finding it hard to make ends meet, yet neoliberal Democrats are dogmatically sticking with market fundamentalism of globalization and free trade.

In order to understand the real and perceived grievances of Donald Trump’s “alt-right” electoral base, we need to understand the prevailing global economic order and its prognosis. The predictions of pragmatic economists about free market capitalism have turned out to be true. A kind of global economic entropy has set into motion, and money is flowing from the area of high monetary density to the area of low monetary density.

The rise of BRICS countries in the 21^st century is the proof of this tendency. BRICS are growing economically because the labor in developing economies is cheap; labor laws and rights are virtually nonexistent; expenses on creating a safe and healthy work environment are minimal; regulatory framework is lax; expenses on environmental protection are negligible; taxes are low; and, in the nutshell, windfalls for multinational corporations are massive.

Thus, BRICS are threatening the global economic monopoly of the Western capitalist bloc: North America and Western Europe. Here we need to understand the difference between manufacturing sector and services sector. Manufacturing sector is the backbone of economy; one cannot create a manufacturing base overnight.

It is based on hard assets: the national economies need raw materials; production equipment; transport and power infrastructure; and, last but not the least, a technically educated labor force. It takes decades to build and sustain a manufacturing base. But the services sector, like the Western financial institutions, can be built and dismantled in a relatively short period of time.

If we take a cursory look at the economy of the Western capitalist bloc, it has still retained some of its high-tech manufacturing base, but it is losing fast to the cheaper and equally robust manufacturing base of the developing BRICS nations. Everything is made in China these days, except for high-tech microprocessors, software, several internet giants, some pharmaceutical products, the Big Oil and the military hardware and defense production industry.

Apart from that, the entire economy of the Western capitalist bloc is based on financial institutions: the behemoth investment banks that dominate and control the global economy, like JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs in the US; BNP Paribas and Axa Group in France; Deutsche Bank and Allianz Group in Germany; and Barclays and HSBC in the UK.

After establishing the fact that the Western economy is mostly based on its financial services sector, we need to understand its implications. Like I have contended earlier that it takes time to build a manufacturing base, but it is relatively easy to build and dismantle an economy based on financial services.

Moreover, the manufacturing sector is labor-intensive whereas the financial services sector is capital-intensive, therefore the latter does not create as much job opportunities to keep the workforce of a nation gainfully employed and sufficiently remunerated as the industrial sector does.

Although the bankers and corporate executives of the Western economies are the beneficiaries of such exploitative practices, the middle and working classes are suffering. Besides the Trump supporters in the United States, the far-right populist leaders in Europe are also exploiting popular resentment against free trade and globalization.

The Brexiteers in the United Kingdom, the Yellow Vest protesters in France and the far-right movements in Germany and across Europe are a manifestation of a paradigm shift in the global economic order in which nationalist and protectionist slogans have replaced the free trade and globalization mantra of the nineties.

Though the “alt-right agenda” of the Trump presidency has been scuttled by the political establishment and the deep state, Trump’s views regarding global politics and economics are starkly different from the establishment Democrats and Republicans pursuing neoliberal economics masqueraded as globalization and free trade.

With his anti-globalist and protectionist agenda, Trump represents a paradigm shift in the global economic order. Trump withdrawing the United States from multilateral treaties, restructuring trade agreements, bringing investments and employments back to the US and initiating a trade war against China are a silent revolution against neoliberal ideals of globalization and free trade of which China is the new beneficiary with its strong manufacturing base and massive export potential.

Thus, it’s only natural for the Chinese government to try to oust Trump from the presidency with all available means, including providing financial support to his neoliberal Democratic rivals, favoring globalization and free trade, in the upcoming US presidential elections slated for November 3.

Citations:

[1] Blockbuster Report Reveals How Biden Family Was Compromised By China:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/blockbuster-report-reveals-how-biden-family-was-compromised-china

[2] Emails Reveal Hunter Biden’s Associates Helped Communist-Aligned Chinese Elites Secure White House Meetings:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/16/exclusive-this-is-china-inc-emails-reveal-hunter-bidens-associates-helped-communist-aligned-chinese-elites-secure-white-house-meetings/ 

Is Biden Campaign’s Slogan ‘Make China Great Again’?

In two bombshell reports, Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge of the New York Post have leveled damning allegations of Hunter Biden’s murky financial dealings with Ukrainian and Chinese oligarchs. As expected, $50,000 remuneration paid by Burisma Holdings of Ukraine annually for Hunter’s “consultancy job” was only the tip of the iceberg. Hunter was paid millions of dollars bribes that sustained his “rockstar lifestyle” over the years.

Although it was the first report [1] published on Thursday, October 14, and titled “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad” that gained most attention on the mainstream media, it was the second report [2] published on Friday, October 15, in which the authors have furnished documentary evidence of Hunter Biden’s sleazy dealings, amounting to millions of dollars and stakes in equities and profits of a private Chinese oil company doing business in Africa, with a Chinese billionaire Ye Jianming that raises serious questions whether the loyalty of the Biden campaign to the American electorate has been compromised due to Hunter Biden’s illicit financial transactions with the representatives of the Chinese government.

It’s noteworthy that the name of Ye Jianming came up in the Johnson-Grassley report released last month, too. “The Suspicious Activity Reports of the Treasury Department flagged millions of dollars in transactions from the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, a Russian oligarch named Yelena Baturina, and a Chinese businessmen with ties to Beijing's communist government,” the Senate report said.

The Johnson-Grassley report further alleged: “Hunter Biden had business associations with Ye Jianming, Gongwen, and other Chinese nationals linked to the communist government and the People's Liberation Army. Those associations resulted in millions of dollars in cash flow.”

Corroborating the Senate investigation, Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge noted in the second report of the New York Post: “Another email — sent by Biden as part of an Aug. 2, 2017, chain — involved a deal he struck with the since-vanished chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, for half-ownership of a holding company that was expected to provide Biden with more than $10 million a year ‘for introductions alone.’

“’The chairman changed that deal after we me[t] in MIAMI TO A MUCH MORE LASTING AND LUCRATIVE ARRANGEMENT to create a holding company 50% percent [sic] owned by ME and 50% owned by him,’ Biden wrote.

“A photo dated Aug. 1, 2017, shows a handwritten flowchart of the ownership of ‘Hudson West’ split 50/50 between two entities ultimately controlled by Hunter Biden and someone identified as ‘Chairman.’

“According to a report on Biden’s overseas business dealings released last month by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a company called Hudson West III opened a line of credit in September 2017.

“Biden’s email was sent to Gongwen Dong, whom the Wall Street Journal in October 2018 tied to the purchase by Ye-linked companies of two luxury Manhattan apartments that cost a total on $83 million.

“The documents obtained by The Post also include an ‘Attorney Engagement Letter’ executed in September 2017 in which one of Ye’s top lieutenants, former Hong Kong government official Chi Ping Patrick Ho, agreed to pay Biden a $1 million retainer for ‘Counsel to matters related to US law and advice pertaining to the hiring and legal analysis of any US Law Firm or Lawyer.’

“In December 2018, a Manhattan federal jury convicted Ho in two schemes to pay $3 million in bribes to high-ranking government officials in Africa for oil rights in Chad and lucrative business deals in Uganda. Ho served a three-year prison sentence and was deported to Hong Kong in June.”

According to a Washington Post report [3] in September: “Ye Jianming had made inroads with Joe Biden’s brother James Biden, as well as Hunter Biden, as the Chinese tycoon sought to build influence in the United States. In early 2018, Hunter Biden was paid $1 million to represent Ye’s aide while he was facing the federal bribery charges in the United States.

“In August 2017, a subsidiary of Ye’s company wired $5 million into the bank account of a US company called Hudson West III, which over the next 13 months sent $4.79 million marked as consulting fees to Hunter Biden’s firm, the report said. Over the same period, Hunter Biden’s firm wired some $1.4 million to a firm associated with his uncle and aunt, James and Sara Biden.”

Ironically, it was the mainstream media that first broke the story of the illicit financial transactions between the Biden family and Chinese billionaire Ye Jianming in December 2018, though that was an year before Joe Biden was chosen as the Democratic presidential candidate in April.

Giving a detailed biographical account of Ye Jianming from his rapid ascent to a sudden fall from grace in 2017, as the FBI closed in on the Chinese billionaire’s company and aides, a December 2018 New York Times report [4] revealed: “Ye Jianming, a fast-rising Chinese oil tycoon, ventured to places only the most politically connected Chinese companies dared to go. But what he wanted was access to the corridors of power in Washington — and he set out to get it.

“Soon, he was meeting with the family of Joseph R. Biden Jr., who was then the vice president. He dined with R. James Woolsey Jr., a former Central Intelligence Agency director and later a senior adviser to President Trump. He bestowed lavish funding on universities and think tanks with direct access to top Washington leaders, looking for the benefits access can bring.

“‘This is a guy who courted and maintained networks with the People’s Liberation Army and took the strategy of ‘friends in high places,’ said Jude Blanchette, a senior adviser and China head at Crumpton Group, a business intelligence firm.

“He seemed to have the blessings of Beijing. State banks offered CEFC billions of dollars in loans. The company also hired a large number of former military officers, whom Mr. Ye told visitors he prized for their organizational skills. He was deputy secretary of a Chinese military organization from 2003 to 2005 that congressional researchers called a front for the People’s Liberation Army unit that has ‘dual roles of intelligence collection and conducting People’s Republic of China propaganda.’

“From 2009 to 2017, CEFC’s revenue jumped from $48 million to $37 billion. [a time period incidentally coinciding with Joe Biden’s vice presidency.]

“‘It’s been clear for some time that this is not just a Chinese commercial company, that they had some intelligence ties,’ Mr. Martin Hala, an academic based in Prague, said. ‘People from the U.S. intelligence agencies should have known something was going on.’

“Five years ago, CEFC approached Bobby Ray Inman, a retired admiral and national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter, about setting up a joint venture, Mr. Inman said in an interview. The company promised it would pay him $1 million a year, without specifying what business they would go into. He turned down the offer.

“On a 2015 trip to the United States Ye met with Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, to discuss the economy, according to CEFC.

“CEFC also donated at least $350,000 to the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a politically connected think tank, according to court testimony. The think tank counts Robert C. McFarlane, the Reagan-era national security adviser, as its president and Mr. Woolsey, a Clinton-era C.I.A. director, as its co-chairman.

“Mr. Ye also further loosened CEFC’s purse strings, donating as much as $100,000 to the Clinton Foundation. Outside the Beltway, a CEFC foundation donated at least $500,000 to a Columbia University research center.

“CEFC also organized forums in Hong Kong and Washington that brought together retired American and Chinese military officers, among other events.

“By 2015, Mr. Ye had begun working on perhaps his most politically connected quarry yet: the family of Mr. Biden, the vice president.

“An aide to Mr. Ye met the vice president’s second son, Hunter Biden, in Washington. Mr. Ye then met privately with Hunter Biden at a hotel in Miami in May 2017. Mr. Ye proposed a partnership to invest in American infrastructure and energy deals.

“During this period, the vice president’s son was managing Rosemont Seneca Partners, an investment firm he formed with Chris Heinz, the stepson of John Kerry, the former secretary of state.

“The trial and conviction in New York in December 2018 of one of his top lieutenants, Patrick Ho, showed that company officials used bribery to win oil and energy contracts in Africa.

“In 2017, as American authorities closed in on Mr. Ye’s company, the first call made by one of his emissaries in custody was to Mr. Biden’s brother.

“James Biden, a financier and brother of the former vice president, was in a hotel lobby in November 2017 when he got a surprise call on his cellphone. The call was from Patrick Ho, Mr. Ye’s lieutenant. Mr. Ho, 69, was in trouble.

“In a brief interview, James Biden said he had been surprised by Mr. Ho’s call. He said he believed it had been meant for Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son. James Biden said he had passed on his nephew’s contact information.

“‘There is nothing else I have to say,’ James Biden said. ‘I don’t want to be dragged into this anymore.’

“Federal agents who had monitored CEFC’s rise since at least the summer of 2016 had sprung into action, arresting Mr. Ho in New York on allegations that he had bribed African officials in Chad and Uganda.

“Mr. Ye, meanwhile, has disappeared into the custody of the Chinese authorities. He was last seen in February, 2018, when his private jet touched down in the Chinese city of Hangzhou. CEFC is struggling under $15 billion in debt, and was dissolved early this year.”

After reading all this revelatory information regarding suspicious financial transactions between prominent former officials of the US government and the “disappeared” Chinese billionaire, it becomes abundantly clear that Ye Jianming, most likely a pseudonym, was a frontman for the Chinese government who was sent on a clandestine mission to nurture business relations with the Beltway elites, and later made to disappear after his cover was blown once his aides were charged with criminal offenses in the US courts.

China is known to follow the economic model of “state capitalism,” in which although small and medium enterprises are permitted to operate freely by common citizens, large industrial and extraction companies, especially a multi-billion dollar corporation the size of CEFC, are run by the Communist Party stalwarts masquerading as business executives.

In addition, China is alleged to practice “debt-trap diplomacy” for buying entire governments through extending financial grants and loans, and what better way to buy the rival government of the United States than by financing the Biden campaign through bestowing financial largesse on the profligate son of the former vice president and current presidential candidate.

Notwithstanding, in a tit-for-tat response to the New York Post’s explosive report alleging Hunter Biden introduced a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm he was working for to his vice president dad, the Daily Beast came up with a scoop [5] on Friday, October 16, that the hard disks in which Hunter’s emails were found were provided to Rudy Giuliani by a Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui on behalf of dissident members of the Chinese Communist Party.

According to the report, “Weeks before the New York Post began publishing what it claimed were the contents of Hunter Biden’s hard drive, a Sept. 25 segment on a YouTube channel run by a Chinese dissident streamer, who is linked to billionaire and Steve Bannon-backer Guo Wengui, broadcast a bizarre conspiracy theory.

“According to the streamer, Chinese politburo officials had ‘sent three hard disks of evidence’ to the Justice Department and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi containing damaging information about Joe Biden as well as the origins of the coronavirus in a bid to undermine the rule of Chinese President Xi Jinping …

“While Guo’s ties to Steve Bannon have long been known—Bannon was arrested for defrauding donors in August on a 152-foot-long yacht reportedly owned by Guo—the billionaire appears to have also joined forces with Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani in the former New York mayor’s relentless anti-Biden dirt-digging crusade.”

Besides posting pictures of Rudy Giuliani and Guo Wengui “cavorting and smoking cigars together” and leveling unsubstantiated allegations that Giuliani has stakes in Guo’s fashion lineup, the Daily Beast hasn’t challenged the authenticity of Hunter’s emails but only questioned the source of origin of hard disks containing irrefutable evidence of the Biden family’s murky financial dealings and made a paradoxical claim that dissident members of Chinese Communist Party are trying to sabotage Joe Biden’s electoral campaign on Trump’s behalf.

Nevertheless, the report raises startling questions that why Chinese dissidents would form “a government-in-exile” in the United States and allegedly support the Trump campaign against Joe Biden’s bid for the presidency unless the Biden campaign had received financial support from the government of People’s Republic of China whom the Chinese dissidents want to subvert.

The report further alleges: “Guo Wengui has been in the Trumpworld orbit pretty much from the beginning, paying the $200,000 initiation fee to become a member of the president’s Florida golf resort Mar-a-Lago, which Trump has dubbed the ‘Southern White House.’ But Guo’s membership soon became a headache for the administration in the run-up to Trump’s first summit meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2017, due to Guo’s fugitive status in China.

“At one point, Trump had reportedly considered deporting Guo after the Chinese government called for his extradition in a letter delivered to Trump by casino mogul Steve Wynn in 2017. After presenting the letter during a policy meeting, the president reportedly said, ‘We need to get this criminal out of the country,’ only for aides to remind him that Guo was a Mar-a-Lago member, eventually talking him out of the decision and ensuring the deportation was scuttled …

“Guo has framed himself as a stalwart critic of the CCP and China’s corrupt elite, but his efforts have divided China’s exile community. Guo has enthusiastically attacked other critics of Beijing as jealous poseurs, including most recently a Texas Christian pastor and Tiananmen protester named Bob Fu—who was imprisoned in China for his faith before escaping to the U.S.—whom Guo accuses of being a secret agent for the CCP. Fu has lobbed the same charge back at Guo and his followers.”

Instead of debunking Trump’s witty remarks following the publishing of Hunter Biden’s emails that “the Biden family treated the vice presidency as a for-profit corporation,” the information contained in the Daily Beast article lends further credence to the investigative reporting by Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge for the New York Post exposing Hunter Biden’s sleazy financial dealings with Ukrainian and Chinese oligarchs.

In an exclusive report [6] for the Breitbart New on Friday, October 16, Peter Schweizer and Seamus Bruner allege that newly obtained emails from a former business associate of Hunter Biden's inner-circle reveal that Hunter and his colleagues used their access to the Obama administration to peddle influence to potential Chinese clients and investors—including securing a private, off-the-books meeting with the former vice president.

The never-before-revealed emails, unconnected to the Hunter Biden emails being released by the New York Post, were provided to Schweizer by Bevan Cooney, a one-time Hunter Biden and Devon Archer business associate. Cooney is currently in prison serving a sentence for his involvement in a 2016 bond fraud investment scheme.

Cooney believes he was the "fall guy" for an investment scheme in which Hunter and business associate Devon Archer avoided responsibility. He reached out to Schweizer after the journalist published a book “Secret Empires” in 2018. Archer was initially spared jail and handed a second trial, however, a federal appeals court reinstated Archer's fraud conviction in the case last week.

The report notes: “On November 5, 2011, one of Archer’s business contacts forwarded him an email teasing an opportunity to gain ‘potentially outstanding new clients’ by helping to arrange White House meetings for a group of Chinese executives and government officials.

“The group was the China Entrepreneur Club (CEC) and the delegation included Chinese billionaires, Chinese Communist Party loyalists, and at least one ‘respected diplomat’ from Beijing. Despite its benign name, CEC has been called ‘a second foreign ministry’ for the People’s Republic of China—a communist government that closely controls most businesses in its country. CEC was established in 2006 by a group of businessmen and Chinese government diplomats.

“CEC’s leadership boasts numerous senior members of the Chinese Communist Party, including Wang Zhongyu (vice chairman of the 10th CPPCC National Committee and deputy secretary of the Party group), Ma Weihua (director of multiple Chinese Communist Party offices), and Jiang Xipei (member of the Chinese Communist Party and representative of the 16th National Congress), among others.

“‘I know it is political season and people are hesitant but a group like this does not come along every day,’ an intermediary named Mohamed A. Khashoggi wrote on behalf of the CEC to an associate of Hunter Biden and Devon Archer. ‘A tour of the white house and a meeting with a member of the chief of staff’s office and John Kerry would be great.’

“The email boasted of CEC’s wealthy membership: CEC’s current membership includes 50 preeminent figures such as: Liu Chuanzhi, Chairman of the CEC, Legend Holdings and Lenovo Group; Wu Jinglian, Zhang Weiying, and Zhou Qiren, China’s esteemed economists; Wu Jianmin, respected diplomat; Long Yongtu, representative of China’s globalization; Wang Shi (Vanke); Ma Weihua (China Merchants Bank); Jack Ma (Alibaba Group); Guo Guangchang (Fosun Group); Wang Jianlin, (Wanda Group); Niu Gensheng (LAONIU Foundation); Li Shufu (Geely); Li Dongsheng (TCL Corporation); Feng Lun (Vantone) and etc.

“The gross income of the CEC members’ companies allegedly ‘totaled more than RMB 1.5 trillion, together accounting for roughly 4% of China’s GDP.’ The overture to Hunter Biden’s associates described the Chinese CEC members variously as ‘industrial elites,’ ‘highly influential,’ and among ‘the most important private sector individuals in China today,’ dubbed as the China Inc.

“Hunter Biden and Devon Archer apparently delivered for the Chinese Communist Party-connected industrial elites within ten days … The Obama-Biden Administration archives reveal that this Chinese delegation did indeed visit the White House on November 14, 2011, and enjoyed high-level access.

“The visitor logs list Jeff Zients, the deputy director of Obama’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), as the host of the CEC delegation. Obama had tasked Zients with restructuring and ultimately consolidating the various export-import agencies under the Commerce Department—an effort in which the Chinese delegation would have a keen interest.

“Curiously, the Obama-Biden visitor logs do not mention any meeting with Vice President Joe Biden. But the Vice President’s off-the-books meeting was revealed by one of the core founders of the CEC. In an obscure document listing the CEC members’ biographies, CEC Secretary General Maggie Cheng alleges that she facilitated the CEC delegation meetings in Washington in 2011 and boasts of the Washington establishment figures that CEC met with. The first name she dropped was that of Vice President Joe Biden.”

Schweizer suggests that the meeting may have opened the door for Hunter and Devon Archer down the road—as just two years later they formed the Chinese government-funded Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) investment fund which saw Chinese money pour into it for investments in CEC-linked businesses.

According to the report, "One of BHR’s first major portfolio investments was a ride-sharing company like Uber called Didi Dache—now called Didi Chuxing Technology Co. That company is closely connected to Liu Chuanzhi, the chairman of the China Entrepreneur Club (CEC) and the founder of Legend Holdings—the parent company of Lenovo, one of the world’s largest computer companies. Liu is a former Chinese Communist Party delegate and was a leader of the 2011 CEC delegation to the White House. His daughter was the President of Didi."

The report adds: "Liu has long been involved in CCP politics, including serving as a representative to the 9th, 10th, and 11th sessions of the National People’s Congress of the PRC and as a representative to the 16th and 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. Liu was the Vice Chairman of the 8th and 9th Executive Committee of All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce (ACFIC), an organization known to be affiliated with the Chinese United Front."

After reading the names of these high-profile Chinese business and political elites visiting the White House and cultivating personal friendships and commercial relationships in the highest echelons of the Obama-Biden administration, one wonders whether the latter devised trade and economic policies serving the interests of the American masses or took care of financial stakes of global power elites.

With his anti-globalist and protectionist agenda, Trump represents a paradigm shift in the global economic order. Trump withdrawing the United States from multilateral treaties, restructuring trade agreements and initiating a trade war against China are a revolution against globalization and free trade of which China is the new beneficiary with its strong manufacturing base and massive export potential.

Thus, it’s only natural for the Chinese government to try to oust Trump from the presidency with all available means, including providing financial support to his neoliberal Democratic rivals, favoring globalization and free trade, in the upcoming US presidential elections.

Citations:

[1] Chinese Billionaire’s Network Hyped Hunter Biden Dirt Weeks Before Rudy.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-billionaires-network-hyped-hunter-biden-dirt-weeks-before-rudy?ref=home

[2] Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad:

https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/

[3] GOP senators’ report calls Hunter Biden’s board position with Ukraine firm ‘problematic’:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-gop-report-calls-hunter-bidens-board-position-problematic-but-offers-few-specific-examples-it-changed-obama-administration-policy/2020/09/23/4b66d41e-fd44-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html

[4] Ye Jianming, Chinese oil tycoon, had business relations with James and Hunter Biden:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/business/cefc-biden-china-washington-ye-jianming.html

[5] Chinese Billionaire’s Network Hyped Hunter Biden Dirt Weeks Before Rudy.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/chinese-billionaires-network-hyped-hunter-biden-dirt-weeks-before-rudy?ref=home

[6] Emails Reveal Hunter Biden’s Associates Helped Communist-Aligned Chinese Elites Secure White House Meetings:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/16/exclusive-this-is-china-inc-emails-reveal-hunter-bidens-associates-helped-communist-aligned-chinese-elites-secure-white-house-meetings/ 

The Biden Inc: How Vice Presidency was Treated as For-profit Corporation?

In two bombshell reports, Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge of the New York Post have leveled damning allegations of Hunter Biden’s murky financial dealings with Ukrainian and Chinese oligarchs. As expected, $50,000 remuneration paid by Burisma Holdings of Ukraine annually for Hunter’s “consultancy job” was only the tip of the iceberg. Hunter was paid millions of dollars bribes that sustained his “rockstar lifestyle” over the years.

The first report [1] published on Thursday, October 14, is titled “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad,” that has been suppressed by social media giants Facebook and Twitter on the pretext of “curtailing disinformation,” though it can be argued that if such evidentiary standards were applied for muzzling the press, then all the mainstream media houses relying on anonymous sources and “persons familiar with the matter” would have to be permanently shut down.

Nevertheless, Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge write: “Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post.

“The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.

“’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,’ the email reads.”

The New York Post report adds: “Less than eight months after Pozharskyi thanked Hunter Biden for the introduction to his dad, the then-vice president admittedly pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk into getting rid of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin by threatening to withhold a $1 billion US loan guarantee during a December 2015 trip to Kiev.

“’I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’ Biden infamously bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018. ‘Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.’

“Shokin has said that at the time of his firing, in March 2016, he’d made ‘specific plans’ to investigate Burisma that ‘included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.’”

If we look at the sequence of events and the first-hand evidence provided by the New York Post report, what could be more incontestable proof of Joe Biden’s conflict of interest and complicity in shielding his son’s sleazy dealings with Burisma Holdings of Ukraine?

Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company, on April 18, 2014. Joe Biden traveled to Ukrainian capital Kyiv couple of days later on April 21, 2014, and urged the Ukrainian government "to reduce its dependence on Russia for supplies of natural gas"

In December 2015, then-vice president Biden visited Kyiv and informed the Ukrainian government that $1 billion in loan guarantees would be withheld unless anti-corruption reforms were implemented, including the removal of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin investigating illicit financial dealings of Burisma. Ukraine's parliament voted to dismiss Shokin in March 2016, and the loan guarantees were approved on June 3, 2016.

It’s still possible that the entire sequence of events was nothing more than a series of “fortuitous coincidences,” if one is as credulous as the apt electoral symbol of the Democratic Party, the jackass. 

In the second report [2] published on Friday, October 15, the authors have furnished documentary evidence of Hunter Biden’s illicit financial dealings, amounting to millions of dollars and stakes in equities and profits of a Chinese oil company doing business in Africa, with a disgraced Chinese billionaire Ye Jianming.

Emma-Jo Morris and Gabrielle Fonrouge note: “Another email — sent by Biden as part of an Aug. 2, 2017, chain — involved a deal he struck with the since-vanished chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, for half-ownership of a holding company that was expected to provide Biden with more than $10 million a year ‘for introductions alone.’

“’The chairman changed that deal after we me[t] in MIAMI TO A MUCH MORE LASTING AND LUCRATIVE ARRANGEMENT to create a holding company 50% percent [sic] owned by ME and 50% owned by him,’ Biden wrote.

“A photo dated Aug. 1, 2017, shows a handwritten flowchart of the ownership of ‘Hudson West’ split 50/50 between two entities ultimately controlled by Hunter Biden and someone identified as ‘Chairman.’

“According to a report on Biden’s overseas business dealings released last month by Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), a company called Hudson West III opened a line of credit in September 2017.

“Biden’s email was sent to Gongwen Dong, whom the Wall Street Journal in October 2018 tied to the purchase by Ye-linked companies of two luxury Manhattan apartments that cost a total on $83 million.

“The documents obtained by The Post also include an ‘Attorney Engagement Letter’ executed in September 2017 in which one of Ye’s top lieutenants, former Hong Kong government official Chi Ping Patrick Ho, agreed to pay Biden a $1 million retainer for ‘Counsel to matters related to US law and advice pertaining to the hiring and legal analysis of any US Law Firm or Lawyer.’

“In December 2018, a Manhattan federal jury convicted Ho in two schemes to pay $3 million in bribes to high-ranking government officials in Africa for oil rights in Chad and lucrative business deals in Uganda. Ho served a three-year prison sentence and was deported to Hong Kong in June.”

In December 2018, more than an year before Joe Biden was chosen as the Democratic presidential nominee, the mainstream media first broke the story of the murky dealings between the Biden family and Chinese billionaire Ye Jianming.

According to an uncharacteristically non-partisan New York Times report [3], Ye Jianming had made inroads with Joe Biden’s brother James Biden, as well as Hunter Biden, as the Chinese tycoon sought to build influence in the United States. In early 2018, Hunter Biden was paid $1 million to represent Ye’s aide while he was facing the federal bribery charges in the United States.

In August 2017, a subsidiary of Ye’s company wired $5 million into the bank account of a US company called Hudson West III, which over the next 13 months sent $4.79 million marked as consulting fees to Hunter Biden’s firm, the report said. Over the same period, Hunter Biden’s firm wired some $1.4 million to a firm associated with his uncle and aunt, James and Sara Biden.

A Washington Post report [4] further elaborates the nature of illicit financial transactions with foreign companies and nationals conducted by Hunter Biden during his father’s tenure as the vice president:

“The Senate GOP report suggests that while his father was vice president, companies associated with Hunter Biden received $3.5 million from Russian tycoon Yelena Baturina, who is the widow of former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and is a member of Kazakhstan’s political elite.

“The records in the report also detail a number of transactions involving Ye Jianming, a Chinese oil tycoon who was taken into custody by Chinese authorities in 2018 after one of his top aides was convicted in a US federal court of bribing officials in Chad and Uganda for oil contracts.”

In a 2019 interview [5] with the New Yorker, Hunter Biden said he was working with Ye to identify investments in the United States, including a substantial liquefied natural gas investment in Louisiana. But he said the deal fell through after Chinese authorities detained Ye.

Hunter Biden told the New Yorker he did not consider Ye to be “a shady character at all” and said the situation was “bad luck.” Although Hunter Biden didn’t consider Ye Jianming “a shady character at all,” he was such a swindler that when Chinese authorities detained him in early 2018, his wealth had mushroomed from $35 million in 2009 to $37 billion in 2016, a time period incidentally coinciding with Joe Biden’s vice presidency.

In an interview [6] with Axios late last year, Joe Biden pledged that his family wouldn't engage in any foreign business activities if he were elected president. “They will not be engaged in any foreign business, because of what's happened in the Trump administration,” the former vice president said. “No one is going to be seeking patents for things from China. No one is going to be engaged in that kind of thing.”

Once bitten, twice shy. If Joe Biden couldn’t keep a leash on his prodigal son’s illicit financial transactions spanning the entire globe during his term as the vice president, how could Americans trust that he wouldn’t abuse the authority for pecuniary gains if elected president?

In fact, after learning about the New York Post’s investigative journalism regarding Hunter Biden’s murky financial dealings with Ukrainian and Chinese oligarchs involving tens of millions of dollars in illicit kickbacks, President Trump wittily quipped: “The Biden family treated the vice presidency as a for-profit corporation, flying around the globe, collecting millions of dollars from China, Ukraine, Russia and other countries.”

Citations:

[1] Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad:

https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/

[2] Emails reveal how Hunter Biden tried to cash in big on behalf of family with Chinese firm:

https://nypost.com/2020/10/15/emails-reveal-how-hunter-biden-tried-to-cash-in-big-with-chinese-firm/

[3] Ye Jianming, Chinese oil tycoon, had business relations with James and Hunter Biden:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/business/cefc-biden-china-washington-ye-jianming.html

[4] GOP senators’ report calls Hunter Biden’s board position with Ukraine firm ‘problematic’:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-gop-report-calls-hunter-bidens-board-position-problematic-but-offers-few-specific-examples-it-changed-obama-administration-policy/2020/09/23/4b66d41e-fd44-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html

[5] Will Hunter Biden Jeopardize His Father’s Campaign?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/will-hunter-biden-jeopardize-his-fathers-campaign

[6] Biden promises restrictions on Hunter, family if elected:

https://www.axios.com/joe-biden-hunter-family-restrictions-impeachment-c13a3832-b501-43e9-8709-de6243c9d21d.html 

Hope Hicks: Femme Fatale who Infected Trump with COVID-19

Although Trump had known about Hope Hicks’ corona-positive diagnosis since Thursday, October 1, afternoon, and had already tested positive on his rapid test, though still waiting for the report of a more reliable PCR test, Trump presented the news as a total surprise in an interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity on Thursday evening.

“She did test positive. I just heard about this,” Trump said on air that evening. “And I just went out with a test, I’ll see — you know, ’cause we spend a lot of time — and the first lady just went out with a test also,” Trump added. “So whether we quarantine, or whether we have it, we don’t know.”

A few hours after the show, early Friday morning on October 2, Trump tweeted the positive results from his PCR test. “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”

Couple of hours before the momentous announcement, Trump had extended his warmest sympathies to the suspect who had most likely transmitted the virus to the president and the first lady: “Hope Hicks, who has been working so hard without even taking a small break, has just tested positive for Covid 19. Terrible! The First Lady and I are waiting for our test results. In the meantime, we will begin our quarantine process!”

In a cryptic message, likely implicating the deep state for Hope Hicks contracting the infection, Trump vaguely suggested that “people from the military or law enforcement” who he said were inclined to hug his team in a show of gratitude, might have infected her: “She’s a very warm person with them.”

Aaron Blake, writing for the Washington Post on October 2, gave a rather strange title [1] to his report: “Trump’s pre-spin seems to blame military, police interactions for coronavirus diagnosis.”

“So, I just went for a test, and we’ll see what happens. I mean, who knows? But you know her very well. She’s fantastic. And she’s done a great job,” Trumps said regarding Hope Hicks testing positive for COVID-19.

“But it’s very, very hard when you are with people from the military or … law enforcement, and they come over to you, and they want to hug you, and they want to kiss you, because we really have done a good job for them,” Trump added. “And you get close, and things happen.”

30-year-old femme fatale, Hope Hicks, is a political adviser serving as a senior counselor to President Trump since March. Hicks previously served as White House communications director from August 2017 until March 29, 2018. From January to August 2017, she was White House director of strategic communications.

But her official designations don’t do justice to her immense clout in the White House and the Trump family. Maggie Haberman wrote an informative biographical account [2] of Hope Hicks in a February 2018 article for the New York Times:

“Ms. Hicks, 29, a former model who joined Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign without any experience in politics, became known as one of the few aides who understood Mr. Trump’s personality and style and could challenge the president to change his views.

“Her title belied the extent of her power within the West Wing — after John F. Kelly was appointed White House chief of staff, she had more access to the Oval Office than almost any other staff member. Her own office, which she inherited after the departure of another Trump confidant, Keith Schiller, was just next door.

“Most significantly, Mr. Trump felt a more personal comfort with Ms. Hicks than he has established with almost any of his other, newer advisers since coming to Washington. And for a politician who relies so heavily on what is familiar to him, her absence could be jarring …”

Haberman was clearly insinuating to the fact that Hope Hicks relationship with President Trump had not entirely been professional. She had occupied a special place in Trump’s heart with her attractive looks, beauty-pageant charisma and an intimate understanding of Trump’s psychological attitudes and mindset. Sky News posted a video [3] in 2018 in which Donald Trump was seen hugging and kissing Hope Hicks.

This fact also elucidates visibly tense moments Trump and Melania have had in their matrimonial life when Hope Hicks served as White House communications director until March 2018 when she had to quit the Trump administration because she spilled the beans on Trump’s 2016 election campaign when she was summoned by the House Intelligence Committee in February 2018.

Haberman adds in the report: “Ms. Hicks resignation came a day after she testified for eight hours before the House Intelligence Committee, telling the panel that in her job, she had occasionally been required to tell white lies but had never lied about anything connected to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election …

“Ms. Hicks’s first association with the Trump family was working with Mr. Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, on her personal apparel and licensing brand about six years ago. When Mr. Trump was planning his campaign in spring 2015, he told Ms. Hicks he was pulling her from Ms. Trump’s team to put her on his small political staff despite her lack of experience.

“In recent weeks, her personal life drew unwanted attention when it was reported that she had dated Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary who resigned under pressure over allegations that he had abused his two former wives.”

It’s pertinent to mention that Hope Hicks broke up with Rob Porter in December 2018. For two years between her resignation from the Trump administration in March 2018 to March 2020, she worked for Fox Corporation as its chief communications officer and executive vice president, drawing a million-dollar salary.

She was re-appointed senior counselor to President Trump in March, but it’s quite likely that she turned rogue and her loyalty to the Trump family was compromised during the intervening two years, and she colluded with Trump’s adversaries in the deep state and the rival political organization to thwart Trump’s re-election bid.

Writing for the Washington Post Friday, October 9, Sarah Ellison and John Dawsey note [4]: “Hope Hicks proximity to Trump drew her into myriad scandals, including the drafting of a highly misleading news release that misrepresented Donald Trump Jr.’s 2016 meeting in Trump Tower with a Russian lawyer. The Mueller Report would mention her name 183 times.

“The scrutiny drove her to the brink, colleagues say. Trump never wanted her to leave. A photo taken of the two before she departed was later compared to something out of a real-life Greek myth — the president appearing to reach for her as she walks away, her right hand behind her and still in his grasp …

“In June 2019, she was called back to Washington to testify again before the House Judiciary Committee regarding the Mueller investigation. In the hearing, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) referred to her three times as ‘Ms. Lewandowski,’ a slip that her allies say was a deliberate effort to evoke reports that had linked her in the early days on the campaign to Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.”

Since her name was mentioned “183 times” in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s “Russiagate” investigation, it’s obvious the national security establishment had a lot of compromising material on her that allegedly “drove her to the brink” where she had to make a choice between her political loyalty to her longtime patron and her career.

After returning to the White House in March, she even tried to sabotage Trump’s electoral campaign by giving politically misleading advices: “The quality of Hope Hicks advice is said to vary dramatically. She had Trump’s ear at the height of the racial-justice protests that roiled Washington in June, one of the small group of advisers who helped plan his walk across Lafayette Square from the Rose Garden to the fire-damaged St. John’s Church for the controversial photo op that was preceded by the violent dispersal of protesters from the vicinity by police in riot gear.”

In addition, the family of Hope Hicks has a political background. Her mother, Caye Ann (Cavender) Hicks, was an administrative aide to Ed Jones, a Democratic congressman from Tennessee.

Here, allow me to clarify that COVID-19 is a pandemic that could randomly infect anybody, but more than 90% fatalities in the US have occurred in people who were over 55 years old. Younger people, like Hicks, typically have robust natural immunity against the contagion, whereas Trump is 74 years old and was at a high risk because of his age.

Though Trump has miraculously survived the infection, and even boasted of developing “immunity against the virus” Sunday, at his age, corona-positive diagnosis was nothing less than an attempted assassination that could have incapacitated him for weeks if not to his outright demise.

Maggie Haberman further notes in the aforementioned New York Times article: “Ms. Hicks also had the ability to stop Mr. Trump from focusing on an issue he was angry about, and sometimes shield other members of the staff from Mr. Trump’s anger.

“While Ms. Hicks and Mr. John Kelly developed a functional, respectful relationship, he considered her access to the president to be a challenge to the command-and-control system he tried to enforce, according to several White House aides.

“Even those in the West Wing who did not like her approach feared her power, and worried about crossing her. Before leaving the White House in March 2018, she told colleagues that she had accomplished what she felt she could with a job that made her one of the most powerful people in Washington.”

Lastly, though the mainstream media cheered it as poetic justice that befell Trump for flouting safety precautions amid the coronavirus outbreak, it’s not simply about health risks posed to the president and the first lady due to contracting the infection. But the diagnosis has disrupted the entire electoral campaign of the Republican Party at a critical juncture in the weeks before the presidential elections.

Although “October surprises” are common in the electoral politics of the US, when elections are only weeks away in November and canvassing of electorate by political contenders reaches a crescendo, never in the entire political history of the US an “October surprise” has downright incapacitated a presidential contender running for re-election from electioneering for make-or-break weeks before the election.

Citations:

[1] Trump’s pre-spin seems to blame military, police interactions for coronavirus diagnosis:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/02/trumps-strange-pre-spin-his-coronavirus-diagnosis-it-came-military-police-who-want-hug-kiss-you/

[2] Hope Hicks to Leave Post as White House Communications Director:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/us/politics/hope-hicks-resign-communications-director.html

[3] Donald Trump seen hugging and kissing with top aide Hope Hicks in 2018:

https://news.sky.com/video/coronvirus-donald-trump-seen-hugging-and-kissing-with-top-aide-hope-hicks-in-2018-12087566

[4] Hope Hicks returned to the White House to pull Trump across the finish line:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/hope-hicks-job-coronavirus-trump-covid/2020/10/09/e73f97e6-0806-11eb-9be6-cf25fb429f1a_story.html 

Hunter Biden: Poster Boy for Cronyism in Corporate America

Although Hillary Clinton was regarded as “crooked,” as Donald Trump used to derisively taunt her in the run-up to the 2016 presidential elections, compared to explosive allegations leveled against Hunter Biden in the recently released interim report of the Senate Homeland Security and Finance Committees, she seems like a saint.

It’s noteworthy that the Johnson-Grassley report is simply an “interim report” pronouncing a declaratory judgment. Republican Rep. Jim Jordan on Thursday demanded answers from FBI Director Christopher Wray on what investigative steps the bureau had taken related to Hunter Biden’s business dealings in the wake of the Senate report.

Now it’s up to the FBI, the prosecution division of the Justice Department and the judicial system of the United States to further pursue the shocking allegations of financial corruption and moral turpitude leveled against the Biden family by the Senate committees.

Despite the clear guilt of the accused and gravity of offenses committed by the Biden family, one simply needs to pay attention to the news headlines during the last week to figure out the partisan slant of the mainstream media: The New York Times reported yesterday, “Republican Inquiry Finds No Evidence of Wrongdoing by Biden Family”; CNN gave the headline, “Senate GOP report attacks Bidens with previously aired allegations”; and The Politico broke the story, “GOP senators' anti-Biden report repackages old claims.”

It’s not surprising that these widely read news outlets are complicit in the atrocious crimes of the nefarious nexus between establishment Democrats and Republicans, and America’s national security establishment.

It’s worth pointing out that there is nothing wrong with having ideological affiliations, one could be liberal or conservative depending on upbringing, personal inclinations and cognitive bias, but strictly following partisan lines, whether Democratic or Republican, in news reporting makes a mockery of the entire process of accountability, checks and balances, and the pivotal concept of independent media acting as a watchdog of political abuse of authority.

John Solomon, writing for a relatively obscure news outlet “Just the News,” published the entire charge-sheet [1] produced by the Senate committees against the Biden family:

“Perhaps the most explosive revelation was that the US Treasury Department flagged payments collected overseas by Hunter Biden and business partner Devon Archer for possible illicit activities.

“The so-called Suspicious Activity Reports of the Treasury Department flagged millions of dollars in transactions from the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, a Russian oligarch named Yelena Baturina, and Chinese businessmen with ties to Beijing's communist government, the Senate report said.

“In addition, State official George Kent, one of the Democrats' star impeachment witnesses, testified and wrote in contemporaneous memos that Hunter Biden's role on Burisma's board created the appearance of an ‘awkward’ conflict of interest that undercut US anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine being led by Vice President Joe Biden, the report said.

“Kent was so concerned that he canceled a State Department partnership with Burisma, reported the alleged Burisma bribe to the Justice Department, and tried to raise concerns directly to Vice President Joe Biden but was rebuffed, the report said, citing testimony and U.S. government records.

“In all, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer received more than $4 million from Burisma during a time when the firm aggressively lobbied the State Department to make long-standing corruption allegations go away, at times invoking the vice president's son’s name for pressure.

“In addition to the over $4 million paid by Burisma for Hunter Biden's and Archer's board memberships, Hunter Biden, his family, and Archer received millions of dollars from foreign nationals with questionable backgrounds, the report said.

“Kent's testimony and emails cited in the report paint a compelling portrait of the difficulties Joe Biden created by continuing to preside over Ukraine anti-corruption policy as Obama's vice president while his son served on the board of a company under investigation for corruption and run by an oligarch named Mykola Zlochevsky.”

A Washington Post report [2] further elaborates the nature of illicit financial transactions with foreign companies and nationals conducted by Hunter Biden during his father’s tenure as the vice president:

“The Senate GOP report suggests that while his father was vice president, companies associated with Hunter Biden received $3.5 million from Russian tycoon Yelena Baturina, who is the widow of former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov and is a member of Kazakhstan’s political elite.

“The records in the report also detail a number of transactions involving Ye Jianming, a Chinese oil tycoon who was taken into custody by Chinese authorities in 2018 after one of his top aides was convicted in a US federal court of bribing officials in Chad and Uganda for oil contracts.”

According to a December 2018 New York Times report [3], Ye Jianming had made inroads with Joe Biden’s brother James Biden, as well as Hunter Biden, as the Chinese tycoon sought to build influence in the United States. In early 2018, Hunter Biden was paid $1 million to represent Ye’s aide while he was facing the federal bribery charges in the United States.

In August 2017, a subsidiary of Ye’s company wired $5 million into the bank account of a US company called Hudson West III, which over the next 13 months sent $4.79 million marked as consulting fees to Hunter Biden’s firm, the report said. Over the same period, Hunter Biden’s firm wired some $1.4 million to a firm associated with his uncle and aunt, James and Sara Biden.

In a 2019 interview [4] with the New Yorker, Hunter Biden said he was working with Ye to identify investments in the United States, including a substantial liquefied natural gas investment in Louisiana. But he said the deal fell through after Chinese authorities detained Ye.

Hunter Biden told the New Yorker he did not consider Ye to be “a shady character at all” and said the situation was “bad luck.” Although Hunter Biden didn’t consider Ye Jianming “a shady character at all,” he was such a swindler that when Chinese authorities detained him in early 2018, his wealth had mushroomed from $35 million in 2009 to $37 billion in 2016, a time period incidentally coinciding with Joe Biden’s vice presidency.

In an interview [5] with Axios late last year, Joe Biden pledged that his family wouldn't engage in any foreign business activities if he were elected president. “They will not be engaged in any foreign business, because of what's happened in the Trump administration,” the former vice president said. “No one is going to be seeking patents for things from China. No one is going to be engaged in that kind of thing.”

Once bitten, twice shy. If Joe Biden couldn’t keep a leash on his prodigal son’s illicit financial transactions spanning the globe during his term as the vice president, how could Americans trust that he wouldn’t abuse the authority for pecuniary gains if elected president?

The most shocking revelations in the Johnson-Grassley report, however, are regarding Hunter Biden’s moral turpitude:

"There is extensive public reporting concerning Hunter Biden's alleged involvement with prostitution services. Records on file with the Committees do not directly confirm or refute these individual reports," investigators wrote. "However, they do confirm that Hunter Biden sent thousands of dollars to individuals who have either: 1) been involved in transactions consistent with possible human trafficking; 2) an association with the adult entertainment industry; or 3) potential association with prostitution. Some recipients of those funds are Ukrainian and Russian citizens.

"The records note that it is a documented fact that Hunter Biden has sent funds to nonresident alien women in the United States who are citizens of Russia and Ukraine and who have subsequently wired funds they have received from Hunter Biden to individuals located in Russia and Ukraine. The records also note that some of these transactions are linked to what 'appears to be an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring," the footnote added.

The revelations don’t come as a surprise, though, because the previously stated New Yorker interview [4] of Hunter Biden in July last year serves as a scathing indictment of his moral depravity: “Hunter Biden has struggled for decades with alcohol addiction and drug abuse; he went through an acrimonious divorce from his first wife, Kathleen Buhle Biden; and he had a subsequent relationship with Beau’s widow, Hallie. He was recently sued for child support by an Arkansas woman, Lunden Alexis Roberts, who claims that he is the father of her child.”

An August 21 article [6] from the Business Insider further illustrates Hunter Biden’s rockstar lifestyle: “Hunter Biden's tumultuous personal life became tabloid fodder during and after his father's time with the administration. He sparked confusion when he, then 44 years old, enlisted in the Navy Reserves in 2012, less than two years before reports broke that the Reserve discharged him in 2014 after he tested positive for cocaine.”

Despite Hunter Biden’s publicly acknowledged despicable vices, including substance abuse, extramarital affairs and financial corruption, the mainstream media seems to be giving credit to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for helping his son get through rough phases of life. Had Eric or Donald Trump Jr. been in his place, would the media still have been as sparing and sympathetic or would it have crucified Donald Trump for being a bad influence over his children?

Notes:

[1] Senate report slams Bidens for conflicts of interest:

https://justthenews.com/accountability/russia-and-ukraine-scandals/senate-report-slams-bidens-conflicts-interest-flags

[2] GOP senators’ report calls Hunter Biden’s board position with Ukraine firm ‘problematic’:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-gop-report-calls-hunter-bidens-board-position-problematic-but-offers-few-specific-examples-it-changed-obama-administration-policy/2020/09/23/4b66d41e-fd44-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html

[3] Ye Jianming, Chinese oil tycoon, had business relations with James and Hunter Biden:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/12/business/cefc-biden-china-washington-ye-jianming.html

[4] Will Hunter Biden Jeopardize His Father’s Campaign?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/07/08/will-hunter-biden-jeopardize-his-fathers-campaign

[5] Biden promises restrictions on Hunter, family if elected:

https://www.axios.com/joe-biden-hunter-family-restrictions-impeachment-c13a3832-b501-43e9-8709-de6243c9d21d.html

[6] Meet Hunter Biden, the often scandal-plagued middle child of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden:

https://www.businessinsider.com/hunter-biden-life-scandals-ukraine-involvement-with-trump-giuliani-2019-9 

‘October Surprise’: Trump Incapacitated from Electioneering

“October surprises” are a common occurrence in the electoral politics of the US when elections are only weeks away in November and canvassing of electorate by political contenders reaches a crescendo. But never in the entire political history of the US an “October surprise” has downright incapacitated a presidential contender running for re-election from electioneering for make-or-break two weeks.

President Trump announced the shocking news of having contracted COVID-19 infection on Friday at his official Twitter timeline: “Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER!”

Half an hour later, First Lady Melania Trump confirmed the news and said they will be quarantining for two weeks at the White House: “As too many Americans have done this year, @potus & I are quarantining at home after testing positive for COVID-19. We are feeling good & I have postponed all upcoming engagements. Please be sure you are staying safe & we will all get through this together.”

Couple of hours before the momentous announcement, Trump had named the suspect who had likely transmitted the virus to the president and the first lady: “Hope Hicks, who has been working so hard without even taking a small break, has just tested positive for Covid 19. Terrible! The First Lady and I are waiting for our test results. In the meantime, we will begin our quarantine process!”

30-year-old femme fatale, Hope Hicks, is a political advisor serving as a senior counselor to President Trump since March. Hicks previously served as White House communications director from August 2017 until March 29, 2018. From January to September 2017, she was White House director of strategic communications.

But her official designations don’t do justice to her immense clout in the White House and the Trump family. Maggie Haberman wrote an informative biographical account [1] of Hope Hicks in a February 2018 article for the New York Times:

“Ms. Hicks, 29, a former model who joined Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign without any experience in politics, became known as one of the few aides who understood Mr. Trump’s personality and style and could challenge the president to change his views.

“Her title belied the extent of her power within the West Wing — after John F. Kelly was appointed White House chief of staff, she had more access to the Oval Office than almost any other staff member. Her own office, which she inherited after the departure of another Trump confidant, Keith Schiller, was just next door.

“Most significantly, Mr. Trump felt a more personal comfort with Ms. Hicks than he has established with almost any of his other, newer advisers since coming to Washington. And for a politician who relies so heavily on what is familiar to him, her absence could be jarring …”

What Haberman was insinuating to was the fact that Hope Hicks relationship with President Trump had not entirely been professional. She had occupied a special place in Trump’s heart with her attractive looks, professional charisma and an intimate understanding of Trump’s psychological attitudes and mindset.

This fact also elucidates visibly tense moments Trump and Melania have had in their matrimonial life when Hope Hicks served as White House communications director until March 2018 when she had to quit the Trump administration because she spilled the beans on Trump’s 2016 election campaign when she was summoned by the House Intelligence Committee in February 2018.

Haberman adds in the report: “Ms. Hicks resignation came a day after she testified for eight hours before the House Intelligence Committee, telling the panel that in her job, she had occasionally been required to tell white lies but had never lied about anything connected to the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election …

“Ms. Hicks’s first association with the Trump family was working with Mr. Trump’s eldest daughter, Ivanka, on her personal apparel and licensing brand about six years ago. When Mr. Trump was planning his campaign in spring 2015, he told Ms. Hicks he was pulling her from Ms. Trump’s team to put her on his small political staff despite her lack of experience.

“In recent weeks, her personal life drew unwanted attention when it was reported that she had dated Rob Porter, the White House staff secretary who resigned under pressure over allegations that he had abused his two former wives.”

It’s pertinent to mention that Hope Hicks broke up with Rob Porter in December 2018. For two years between her resignation from the Trump administration in March 2018 to March 2020, she worked for Fox Corporation as its chief communications officer and executive vice president, drawing a million-dollar salary.

She was reappointed senior counselor to President Trump in March, but it’s quite likely that she turned rogue and her loyalty to the Trump family was compromised during the intervening two years, and she colluded with Trump’s adversaries in the deep state and the rival political organization to thwart Trump’s re-election bid.

In fact, the family of Hope Hicks has a political background. Her mother, Caye Ann (Cavender) Hicks, was an administrative aide to Ed Jones, a Democratic congressman from Tennessee.

Here, allow me to clarify that COVID-19 is a pandemic that could randomly infect anybody, but more than 90% fatalities in the US have occurred in people who are more than 55 years old. Younger people typically have robust natural immunity against the contagion, whereas Trump is 74 years old and is at high risk both because of his age and because he is considered overweight.

Maggie Haberman further notes in the New York Times article: “Ms. Hicks also had the ability to stop Mr. Trump from focusing on an issue he was angry about, and sometimes shield other members of the staff from Mr. Trump’s anger.

“While Ms. Hicks and Mr. John Kelly developed a functional, respectful relationship, he considered her access to the president to be a challenge to the command-and-control system he tried to enforce, according to several White House aides.

“Even those in the West Wing who did not like her approach feared her power, and worried about crossing her. Before leaving the White House in March 2018, she told colleagues that she had accomplished what she felt she could with a job that made her one of the most powerful people in Washington.”

Finally, though the mainstream media is cheering it as poetic justice that befell Trump for flouting safety precautions against the outbreak, it’s not simply about health risks posed to Trump and Melania due to contracting the infection. Hopefully, they would recover within weeks. But the diagnosis has disrupted the entire electoral campaign of the Republican Party at a critical juncture weeks before the presidential elections.

Rumors are already swirling if Trump would be able to perform his functions as the president or whether he would delegate official duties to Vice President Mike Pence. Even if re-elected, if his health condition deteriorates and he is incapacitated from running the office of the president, then who would be appointed president?

All such perplexing and dispiriting speculations would obviously have a demoralizing effect on the electorate and the Republican voter turnout is expected to be low, and undecided voters might even vote for definitive choice, Joe Biden, instead of doubtful option, Donald Trump, in the upcoming presidential elections slated for November 3.

Citations:

[1] Hope Hicks to Leave Post as White House Communications Director:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/28/us/politics/hope-hicks-resign-communications-director.html