Hunter Biden Tinfoil issues

[old salt]

Helpful explainer on some of the documents from the IRS WB's, showing how Hunter tried (unsuccessfully) to clean up his tax mess before it became a campaign issue. He made things worse.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/ ... remedy-tax

The usual suspects will attempt to trash the source, even though links to the documents are provided.

Actually YOU are the source most people trash around here and with some cause BTW. Bloviating and wasting bandwidth day after day.
Please STFU already.

Comer loaned his brother $200,000. You know what that means.

The Hunter Biden and criminal Mike Flynn obsessions are, at this point, just a little weird. The one he relentlessly defends was a general, took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, and now sells -- literally -- a violent version of Christo-Fascism to the marketplace of the demented. Old Salt is buying.

No comment on the substance & evidence in the link. Just attack the messengers to divert from the substance.

Hah! You think I read anything you post on this thread? Please. Your dementia is yours to grapple with alone.

Old Soldier’s go to:
John F. Solomon is an American journalist who was a contributor to Fox News until late 2020.[1][2][3][4] He was formerly an executive and editor-in-chief at The Washington Times.[5]

He also played an important role in advancing conspiracy theories about unproven allegations of wrongdoing in Ukraine by Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Solomon's stories about the Bidens influenced Trump's fruitless attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into publicly launching an investigation into the elder Biden, an attempt that led to Trump's first impeachment.[4]

The allegations about the Bidens & Ukraine are no longer unproven.

What allegations?
A whole lot of the 'theories' and accusations have been disproven, thoroughly and credibly refuted, but what is "proven" that wasn't admitted long ago?

What part of the below has been "disproven, thoroughly and credibly refuted" ?

Do you reject the findings of the IRS WB's in their investigation, as well as the Congressional testimony of the accountant who Hunter hired in 2020 to try to clean up his mess ?

Yes

Thoroughly refuted.

Did Hunter do a bunch of things wrong? You betcha.

But all of the BS about the DOJ quashing Weiss' efforts to prosecute entirely refuted.

So, I repeat, what exactly has been proven that in any way that Joe or Garland did anything unethical or illegal?

I didn't ask about Joe or Garland. I asked about specific evidence against Hunter.
You are dodging my specific question with a dubious non-specific answer.

I will be even more specific. Do you reject the specific evidence I cited (reposted below) from the IRS WB's & the sworn testimony of the tax accountant Hunter retained in 2020 ? Weiss did not refute or debunk any of this evidence. Weiss just disagreed with the WB's about why he did not bring charges in DC & CA, None of the WB's evidence from their investigation was debunked or refuted.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/ ... e_vignette

As Joe Biden marched toward the presidency in 2020... , his son Hunter was scrambling behind closed doors to clean up a trail of his own delinquent taxes before they became an election scandal, according to once-secret IRS memos made public recently by Congress.

IRS agents would soon discover that the future first son was continuing to allegedly misrepresent his income and deductions to the very accountant he had hired to help, the memos show.

The documents... show that Jeffrey Gelfound, an Edward White & Company tax accountant hired by Hunter Biden, was a cooperating witness in the IRS criminal probe of the first son and is likely to be a key witness if the younger Biden is charged with tax crimes by Special Counsel David Weiss.

Gelfound also could become a witness of interest to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee as it digs deeper into the Biden family finances as part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry in Congress.

Buried in the mountain of 700 pages of IRS whistleblower documents released in September by the House Ways and Means Committee are interview reports, affidavits and case summary memos chronicling Hunter Biden’s efforts at the height of the 2020 presidential campaign to remedy his delinquent income taxes dating to 2014 and the income he made from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

Gelfound told agents the efforts in 2020 to pay off Hunter Biden tax debts became a priority because of fears the IRS and other tax authorities would place liens that would become public, a potential embarrassment for the Biden family.

"Yeah, if there was going to be media attention because they were going to lien," Gelfound told IRS agents in an April 2021 interview when asked whether erasing the tax debts had become prioritized.

In another later interview conducted by IRS agents in November 2021, Gelfound revealed that his firm signed an unusual representation letter with the younger Biden just days after the 2020 election, in which Hunter attested that the information that he provided was truthful. Gelfound told investigators that this was the first time he had ever seen a representation letter like it.

“Yeah, when would you typically sign the representation?” the IRS investigators asked Gelfound. “This is- any type of representation, it’s not standard,” Gelfound answered.

“When we typically prepare returns, there’s an engagement letter that’s different than this one,” Gelfound said, explaining to investigators why this representation letter was different. “[T]his is a first that I’ve seen and had a client sit down and sign a letter of this type,” he said.

Hunter Biden was specifically caught by his accountant misrepresenting income from a company he formed with former Chinese energy tycoon Ye Jianming, according to the IRS memos. Agents believed concerns about the accuracy of the information that Hunter Biden was providing may have spurred the accounting firm to require him to sign such a letter, according to an affidavit submitted to the Ways and Means Committee by one of the whistleblowers, Joseph Ziegler.

In a later interview with IRS investigators, Gelfound told the agents that Hunter Biden originally represented payments from Hudson West III, one of the limited liability companies tied to Hunter Biden, as loans made to him personally. Gelfound dug deeper, determined to classify the payments properly in his accounting of the younger Biden’s taxes, the memos show.

After a review of the provisions of the LLC, he found that Hunter Biden was owed a retainer fee and compensation from the company, meaning that Hunter had falsely classified income as loans. Hudson West III was a joint venture established by Hunter Biden and CEFC associate Gongwen Dong.

Gelfound said Hunter Biden did not push back when he explained what he had found, accepting the accountant's explanation and agreeing to remedy the mistake. It appears that Hunter Biden was confused about why this income should be classified as income rather than a loan, according to Gelfound.

Biden’s confusion may have stemmed from the fact that his Chinese partners had previously provided him payments in the form of loan on at least two separate occasions, in what Congressional Republicans argue were part of a Biden Family influence peddling scheme.

The accounting firm's instinct to have Hunter Biden attest to the truthfulness of his information proved prescient. Gelfound later discovered, through his interviews with IRS investigators, that Hunter Biden misrepresented multiple tax deductions at the same time that Gelfound was helping to remedy Biden's delinquent returns, the memos allege.

Gelfound told investigators he was not aware that multiple payments Hunter Biden claimed as business deductions—including a $30,000 payment to Columbia University for his daughter, a payment to John Hancock for life insurance, and payments for his daughter’s rent—were, in fact, personal expenses, and therefore taxable, the memos show.

...Hunter Biden also claimed deductions for payments to an “escort” and classified them as business expenses. When Gelfound was asked about these deductions, he told investigators that he was unaware of the true nature of the payments. Hunter Biden had verified that these escort payments were business expenses, according to Gelfound.

When Ziegler provided these documents to the House Ways and Means Committee, he explained how they would be used in a building the tax case to provide evidence that Hunter Biden willfully violated tax law.

For example, the representation letter “would have been included as evidence of willfulness and knowledge for the 2018 felony charges, which includes [tax evasion] and [false return] charges,” Ziegler wrote in his affidavit to the committee. Evidence of Hunter Biden’s misclassified payment from Hudson West III would have been used as evidence for similar charges for both the 2014 and 2018 tax years, he added.

However, despite the evidence collected by investigators, Hunter Biden has not been charged with any felony tax crimes. Two misdemeanor tax charges that were part of plea deal this summer with Weiss' office were withdrawn when a judge rejected what some called a "sweetheart" plea deal.

In testimony this summer, the IRS whistleblowers accused the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office of allowing the statute of limitations to expire on Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes from before 2017. The statute of limitations on the tax violations uncovered by the IRS investigation for the 2014 and 2015 tax years expired in November 2022.

Ziegler and his supervisor Gary Shapley, another whistleblower and both Special Agents with long and distiguished careers, each told congressional investigators that the the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office and the Justice Department delayed their investigation by, among other things, requiring prior approval for interviews, shutting down investigative steps like search warrants for Joe Biden’s Wilmington home, and leaving felonies out of proposed plea agreements.

The years of tax violations for which the statute of limitations expired last year included the bulk of payments from Hunter Biden’s work with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

“[Hunter Biden] directed to have a portion of his Burisma income paid back to himself personally as ‘loans’, even though Devon Archer had deducted these payments on the Rosemont Seneca Bohai tax return,” Ziegler wrote in his affidavit to Ways and Means. “[Hunter] had essentially loaned himself his own income from Burisma, failing to report this income from Burisma on his 2014 tax returns and failing to pay the taxes on this income.” In Spring of 2014, a Ukrainian oligarch placed Biden on the Burisma Board of Directors and agreed to pay him $1,000,000 per year.

[Kismet]

The Saltine propaganda channel now in full swing. Still waiting for the latest from Faux News, Newsmax and National Review.

STFU, already.

[cradleandshoot]

I thought you were following this. Nice job.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-bi ... rcna123967

Old news home boy. So ask yourself this... David Weiss had all the authority he needed to prosecute. David Weiss did nothing with that authority. He sat on his hands and allowed the SOL to run out. The genesis of this problem was IRS agents frustrated by the lack of inaction on the part of David Weiss went public. They made credible accusations against David Weiss and the investigation still has a ways to go. You FLP folks have been opining ad nauseum about Weiss being a trump appointee. So that means using liberal logic that Weiss has to inherently be a pathological liar.

Yup, Weiss and two AG's and Garland have all thoroughly refuted the WB's 'story'.
That's a whole lot of Deep State conspiracy to say it ain't refuted.

It's actually pretty simple. Prosecutors like to prosecute cases they believe, with high confidence, they will win based on the evidence, and consistent with how they would treat any other defendant identified as doing the same acts. We'll learn later what drove various prosecutorial choices, but what we do know is that the WB's were flat wrong in their accusations that Weiss was prevented by Biden or Garland or the other AG's from bringing a case Weiss wanted to bring. Nope.

I disagree with your analysis 100%. How can you trust a prosecutor who was a trump appointee?? Y'all have been telling the world you can't trust trump people. This is where Weiss becomes the exception to your rule. I believe the whistleblowers are telling the truth. Weiss might not be lying but he sure is coming up way short in the truth telling department. Weiss claims he had the power to prosecute the case but sat on his hands waiting for the SoL to expire. There were allegedly comments made by Weiss when answering questions in the closed door meeting that tell the story. He refused to answer certain questions because he was not at liberty to discuss them at this time. Why is that the case? It was a closed door meeting with people who have top level security clearance. Why did Mr Weiss say was not at liberty to discuss certain issues? FTR there MD, Garland doesn't exactly come across as being a bastion of honesty and integrity.

[cradleandshoot]

The Saltine propaganda channel now in full swing. Still waiting for the latest from Faux News, Newsmax and National Review.

STFU, already.

How is that different than the Kismet propaganda channel? You believe everything MSNBC and CNN tells you chum dontcha?

[OCanada]

The only question is who os presenting fact amd truth. It certainly isn’t Fox per Fox. More integrity in his two media than in yours. But provide a smoking gun Or you could provide examples of when right wing media presented news contrary to Fox on issues it lost almost a billion on

[njbill]

It’s quite common for prosecutors to decide not to file federal criminal charges, even if there is some amount of evidence of criminal conduct. As I said last night, it happened with Trump and the Russian collusion case. Mueller didn’t think there was enough evidence to file charges as he did with respect to the obstruction of justice case. I disagreed with that, but it wasn’t my decision to make.

Garland has decided not to prosecute Trump on the obstruction of justice crimes Mueller concluded Trump committed. I disagreed with that as well.

I think Trump should be prosecuted for the obvious perjury crimes he committed on the witness stand recently in New York. Will he? I doubt it.

Now the Trumpists disagree with Weiss’ evident conclusion not to prosecute Hunter for the any tax crimes from the earlier years. C’est la vie.

The whistleblowers have obvious axes to grind. That really is indisputable. For starters, they violated all kinds of rules and regulations about publicly disclosing information during an ongoing tax investigation. They weren’t whistleblowers. The subject of their disclosures is not whistleblower stuff. Rather, they are simply run-of-the-mill leakers.

And they obviously don’t understand the DOJ processes. As Weiss has said multiple times, and has now testified, his investigation was not impeded. The whistleblowers evidently got twisted up about what happened. Not saying they are liars. They simply didn’t understand. Also, it’s pretty clear that they are disappointed that Weiss did not bring all of the charges they thought were warranted. Again, this type of situation is not at all unusual. Often times a prosecutor, who must weigh whether the evidence is sufficient to get a jury to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that crimes have been committed, decides not to file charges the investigators think should be brought.

To me, a big tell that the investigators were out to get Joe and were not simply straight down-the-middle Joe Friday types is that they wanted to go after Joe Biden in their investigation. 1000% wrong. Joe was not the subject of the investigation. They were investigating Hunter’s taxes. Possibly (though unlikely) Joe might have had some evidence relevant to the Hunter investigation, but that is not what the whistleblowers were trying to do. They were trying to go directly at Joe.

It remains to be seen whether Hunter is being treated unfairly, more severely than the average citizen, with respect to the tax issues. Hopefully he will be treated like the average person, not more leniently and not more severely. I have my doubts about that given the gun charges, which would not have been brought against anybody else in a similar situation.

[youthathletics]

When you come to a fork in the road, take it...seems to resonate. And in this case, like Mueller's, the deeper you dig the more unsettled the ground is around you. Sure, Prosecutors pick and chose winners....why is that? Exactly!

[Kismet]

When you come to a fork in the road, take it...seems to resonate. And in this case, like Mueller's, the deeper you dig the more unsettled the ground is around you. Sure, Prosecutors pick and chose winners....why is that? Exactly!

Well, you could argue that Orange Fatso should be given a pass merely because he's a politician and former President now matter what the evidence is. Would you support the same for any other politician or President with similar amounts of evidence?

[youthathletics]

When you come to a fork in the road, take it...seems to resonate. And in this case, like Mueller's, the deeper you dig the more unsettled the ground is around you. Sure, Prosecutors pick and chose winners....why is that? Exactly!

Well, you could argue that Orange Fatso should be given a pass merely because he's a politician and former President now matter what the evidence is. Would you support the same for any other politician or President with similar amounts of evidence?

It's called a theory of prudence, in short....are you sure you want the (proverbial) toothpaste out of the tube and do you want to responsible for squeezing the tube. You know, the ole "life is lIke a Box of Choc-o'-lets, ya never know what ur gonna get"

[a fan]

It remains to be seen whether Hunter is being treated unfairly, more severely than the average citizen, with respect to the tax issues. Hopefully he will be treated like the average person, not more leniently and not more severely.

You know of any boilerplate tax cases where the freaking Attorney General is directly handling...and making decisions....surrounding the case?

They have CLEARLY handled this differently. The only difference between me and TeamTinFoil, is that I'm not a D or an R, so I don't lose 100 IQ points when discussing this stuff, so I understand WHY Barr would step in and direct the case to Weiss and his DE office.

I have NO PROBLEM with our DoJ et. al. being more aggressive/thorough when the issue is POSSIBLY corruption in governance.

Old Salt and others here believe that you're not allowed to so much as investigate current politicians. It's an insane position that only a partisan and borderline fascist would hold: hands of my team, they can break all the laws they want.

Hard pass.

[Kismet]

When you come to a fork in the road, take it...seems to resonate. And in this case, like Mueller's, the deeper you dig the more unsettled the ground is around you. Sure, Prosecutors pick and chose winners....why is that? Exactly!

Well, you could argue that Orange Fatso should be given a pass merely because he's a politician and former President now matter what the evidence is. Would you support the same for any other politician or President with similar amounts of evidence?

It's called a theory of prudence, in short....are you sure you want the (proverbial) toothpaste out of the tube and do you want to responsible for squeezing the tube. You know, the ole "life is lIke a Box of Choc-o'-lets, ya never know what ur gonna get"

If the alternative, is totally looking the other way no matter what the evidence is, sadly yes.

Unprecedented possibly illegal behaviors may require appropriately unprecedented responses.

[MDlaxfan76]

Helpful explainer on some of the documents from the IRS WB's, showing how Hunter tried (unsuccessfully) to clean up his tax mess before it became a campaign issue. He made things worse.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/ ... remedy-tax

The usual suspects will attempt to trash the source, even though links to the documents are provided.

Actually YOU are the source most people trash around here and with some cause BTW. Bloviating and wasting bandwidth day after day.
Please STFU already.

Comer loaned his brother $200,000. You know what that means.

The Hunter Biden and criminal Mike Flynn obsessions are, at this point, just a little weird. The one he relentlessly defends was a general, took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, and now sells -- literally -- a violent version of Christo-Fascism to the marketplace of the demented. Old Salt is buying.

No comment on the substance & evidence in the link. Just attack the messengers to divert from the substance.

Hah! You think I read anything you post on this thread? Please. Your dementia is yours to grapple with alone.

Old Soldier’s go to:
John F. Solomon is an American journalist who was a contributor to Fox News until late 2020.[1][2][3][4] He was formerly an executive and editor-in-chief at The Washington Times.[5]

He also played an important role in advancing conspiracy theories about unproven allegations of wrongdoing in Ukraine by Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Solomon's stories about the Bidens influenced Trump's fruitless attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into publicly launching an investigation into the elder Biden, an attempt that led to Trump's first impeachment.[4]

The allegations about the Bidens & Ukraine are no longer unproven.

What allegations?
A whole lot of the 'theories' and accusations have been disproven, thoroughly and credibly refuted, but what is "proven" that wasn't admitted long ago?

What part of the below has been "disproven, thoroughly and credibly refuted" ?

Do you reject the findings of the IRS WB's in their investigation, as well as the Congressional testimony of the accountant who Hunter hired in 2020 to try to clean up his mess ?

Yes

Thoroughly refuted.

Did Hunter do a bunch of things wrong? You betcha.

But all of the BS about the DOJ quashing Weiss' efforts to prosecute entirely refuted.

So, I repeat, what exactly has been proven that in any way that Joe or Garland did anything unethical or illegal?

I didn't ask about Joe or Garland. I asked about specific evidence against Hunter.
You are dodging my specific question with a dubious non-specific answer.

I will be even more specific. Do you reject the specific evidence I cited (reposted below) from the IRS WB's & the sworn testimony of the tax accountant Hunter retained in 2020 ? Weiss did not refute or debunk any of this evidence. Weiss just disagreed with the WB's about why he did not bring charges in DC & CA, None of the WB's evidence from their investigation was debunked or refuted.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/ ... e_vignette

As Joe Biden marched toward the presidency in 2020... , his son Hunter was scrambling behind closed doors to clean up a trail of his own delinquent taxes before they became an election scandal, according to once-secret IRS memos made public recently by Congress.

IRS agents would soon discover that the future first son was continuing to allegedly misrepresent his income and deductions to the very accountant he had hired to help, the memos show.

The documents... show that Jeffrey Gelfound, an Edward White & Company tax accountant hired by Hunter Biden, was a cooperating witness in the IRS criminal probe of the first son and is likely to be a key witness if the younger Biden is charged with tax crimes by Special Counsel David Weiss.

Gelfound also could become a witness of interest to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee as it digs deeper into the Biden family finances as part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry in Congress.

Buried in the mountain of 700 pages of IRS whistleblower documents released in September by the House Ways and Means Committee are interview reports, affidavits and case summary memos chronicling Hunter Biden’s efforts at the height of the 2020 presidential campaign to remedy his delinquent income taxes dating to 2014 and the income he made from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

Gelfound told agents the efforts in 2020 to pay off Hunter Biden tax debts became a priority because of fears the IRS and other tax authorities would place liens that would become public, a potential embarrassment for the Biden family.

"Yeah, if there was going to be media attention because they were going to lien," Gelfound told IRS agents in an April 2021 interview when asked whether erasing the tax debts had become prioritized.

In another later interview conducted by IRS agents in November 2021, Gelfound revealed that his firm signed an unusual representation letter with the younger Biden just days after the 2020 election, in which Hunter attested that the information that he provided was truthful. Gelfound told investigators that this was the first time he had ever seen a representation letter like it.

“Yeah, when would you typically sign the representation?” the IRS investigators asked Gelfound. “This is- any type of representation, it’s not standard,” Gelfound answered.

“When we typically prepare returns, there’s an engagement letter that’s different than this one,” Gelfound said, explaining to investigators why this representation letter was different. “[T]his is a first that I’ve seen and had a client sit down and sign a letter of this type,” he said.

Hunter Biden was specifically caught by his accountant misrepresenting income from a company he formed with former Chinese energy tycoon Ye Jianming, according to the IRS memos. Agents believed concerns about the accuracy of the information that Hunter Biden was providing may have spurred the accounting firm to require him to sign such a letter, according to an affidavit submitted to the Ways and Means Committee by one of the whistleblowers, Joseph Ziegler.

In a later interview with IRS investigators, Gelfound told the agents that Hunter Biden originally represented payments from Hudson West III, one of the limited liability companies tied to Hunter Biden, as loans made to him personally. Gelfound dug deeper, determined to classify the payments properly in his accounting of the younger Biden’s taxes, the memos show.

After a review of the provisions of the LLC, he found that Hunter Biden was owed a retainer fee and compensation from the company, meaning that Hunter had falsely classified income as loans. Hudson West III was a joint venture established by Hunter Biden and CEFC associate Gongwen Dong.

Gelfound said Hunter Biden did not push back when he explained what he had found, accepting the accountant's explanation and agreeing to remedy the mistake. It appears that Hunter Biden was confused about why this income should be classified as income rather than a loan, according to Gelfound.

Biden’s confusion may have stemmed from the fact that his Chinese partners had previously provided him payments in the form of loan on at least two separate occasions, in what Congressional Republicans argue were part of a Biden Family influence peddling scheme.

The accounting firm's instinct to have Hunter Biden attest to the truthfulness of his information proved prescient. Gelfound later discovered, through his interviews with IRS investigators, that Hunter Biden misrepresented multiple tax deductions at the same time that Gelfound was helping to remedy Biden's delinquent returns, the memos allege.

Gelfound told investigators he was not aware that multiple payments Hunter Biden claimed as business deductions—including a $30,000 payment to Columbia University for his daughter, a payment to John Hancock for life insurance, and payments for his daughter’s rent—were, in fact, personal expenses, and therefore taxable, the memos show.

...Hunter Biden also claimed deductions for payments to an “escort” and classified them as business expenses. When Gelfound was asked about these deductions, he told investigators that he was unaware of the true nature of the payments. Hunter Biden had verified that these escort payments were business expenses, according to Gelfound.

When Ziegler provided these documents to the House Ways and Means Committee, he explained how they would be used in a building the tax case to provide evidence that Hunter Biden willfully violated tax law.

For example, the representation letter “would have been included as evidence of willfulness and knowledge for the 2018 felony charges, which includes [tax evasion] and [false return] charges,” Ziegler wrote in his affidavit to the committee. Evidence of Hunter Biden’s misclassified payment from Hudson West III would have been used as evidence for similar charges for both the 2014 and 2018 tax years, he added.

However, despite the evidence collected by investigators, Hunter Biden has not been charged with any felony tax crimes. Two misdemeanor tax charges that were part of plea deal this summer with Weiss' office were withdrawn when a judge rejected what some called a "sweetheart" plea deal.

In testimony this summer, the IRS whistleblowers accused the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office of allowing the statute of limitations to expire on Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes from before 2017. The statute of limitations on the tax violations uncovered by the IRS investigation for the 2014 and 2015 tax years expired in November 2022.

Ziegler and his supervisor Gary Shapley, another whistleblower and both Special Agents with long and distiguished careers, each told congressional investigators that the the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office and the Justice Department delayed their investigation by, among other things, requiring prior approval for interviews, shutting down investigative steps like search warrants for Joe Biden’s Wilmington home, and leaving felonies out of proposed plea agreements.

The years of tax violations for which the statute of limitations expired last year included the bulk of payments from Hunter Biden’s work with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

“[Hunter Biden] directed to have a portion of his Burisma income paid back to himself personally as ‘loans’, even though Devon Archer had deducted these payments on the Rosemont Seneca Bohai tax return,” Ziegler wrote in his affidavit to Ways and Means. “[Hunter] had essentially loaned himself his own income from Burisma, failing to report this income from Burisma on his 2014 tax returns and failing to pay the taxes on this income.” In Spring of 2014, a Ukrainian oligarch placed Biden on the Burisma Board of Directors and agreed to pay him $1,000,000 per year.

I think ggait answers quite thoroughly and well about the prosecutorial choices that get made all the time.

As I'd said originally:

"Did Hunter do a bunch of things wrong? You betcha.

But all of the BS about the DOJ quashing Weiss' efforts to prosecute entirely refuted.

So, I repeat, what exactly has been proven that in any way that Joe or Garland did anything unethical or illegal?"

I have no idea what exactly Hunter did wrong, illegal, etc, but I'm not surprised by anything in particular. My hunch though is that much of the allegations about him are either full on BS or they're exaggerated and twisted to seem worse. Some others might well be accurate, but difficult to prove in court.

And some matters may well be better resolved through cooperation, re-payment, etc.

But I don't really care about Hunter's activities; if he's guilty of something, I'm fine with holding him accountable as would occur with anyone else, no more, no less.

All that is really relevant beyond the normal course of justice is whether Joe is implicated in some substantial way. The "WB's" allegations about interference in the investigation and prosecution have been thoroughly refuted and debunked.

Which means that everything the "WB's" claim is suspect, should be viewed as potentially motivated by something more than justice.

It's also quite clear why you're chewing on this bone. MAGA.

[a fan]

Helpful explainer on some of the documents from the IRS WB's, showing how Hunter tried (unsuccessfully) to clean up his tax mess before it became a campaign issue. He made things worse.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/ ... remedy-tax

The usual suspects will attempt to trash the source, even though links to the documents are provided.

Actually YOU are the source most people trash around here and with some cause BTW. Bloviating and wasting bandwidth day after day.
Please STFU already.

Comer loaned his brother $200,000. You know what that means.

The Hunter Biden and criminal Mike Flynn obsessions are, at this point, just a little weird. The one he relentlessly defends was a general, took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, and now sells -- literally -- a violent version of Christo-Fascism to the marketplace of the demented. Old Salt is buying.

No comment on the substance & evidence in the link. Just attack the messengers to divert from the substance.

Hah! You think I read anything you post on this thread? Please. Your dementia is yours to grapple with alone.

Old Soldier’s go to:
John F. Solomon is an American journalist who was a contributor to Fox News until late 2020.[1][2][3][4] He was formerly an executive and editor-in-chief at The Washington Times.[5]

He also played an important role in advancing conspiracy theories about unproven allegations of wrongdoing in Ukraine by Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Solomon's stories about the Bidens influenced Trump's fruitless attempt to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into publicly launching an investigation into the elder Biden, an attempt that led to Trump's first impeachment.[4]

The allegations about the Bidens & Ukraine are no longer unproven.

What allegations?
A whole lot of the 'theories' and accusations have been disproven, thoroughly and credibly refuted, but what is "proven" that wasn't admitted long ago?

What part of the below has been "disproven, thoroughly and credibly refuted" ?

Do you reject the findings of the IRS WB's in their investigation, as well as the Congressional testimony of the accountant who Hunter hired in 2020 to try to clean up his mess ?

Yes

Thoroughly refuted.

Did Hunter do a bunch of things wrong? You betcha.

But all of the BS about the DOJ quashing Weiss' efforts to prosecute entirely refuted.

So, I repeat, what exactly has been proven that in any way that Joe or Garland did anything unethical or illegal?

I didn't ask about Joe or Garland. I asked about specific evidence against Hunter.
You are dodging my specific question with a dubious non-specific answer.

I will be even more specific. Do you reject the specific evidence I cited (reposted below) from the IRS WB's & the sworn testimony of the tax accountant Hunter retained in 2020 ? Weiss did not refute or debunk any of this evidence. Weiss just disagreed with the WB's about why he did not bring charges in DC & CA, None of the WB's evidence from their investigation was debunked or refuted.

https://justthenews.com/accountability/ ... e_vignette

As Joe Biden marched toward the presidency in 2020... , his son Hunter was scrambling behind closed doors to clean up a trail of his own delinquent taxes before they became an election scandal, according to once-secret IRS memos made public recently by Congress.

IRS agents would soon discover that the future first son was continuing to allegedly misrepresent his income and deductions to the very accountant he had hired to help, the memos show.

The documents... show that Jeffrey Gelfound, an Edward White & Company tax accountant hired by Hunter Biden, was a cooperating witness in the IRS criminal probe of the first son and is likely to be a key witness if the younger Biden is charged with tax crimes by Special Counsel David Weiss.

Gelfound also could become a witness of interest to the House Oversight and Accountability Committee as it digs deeper into the Biden family finances as part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry in Congress.

Buried in the mountain of 700 pages of IRS whistleblower documents released in September by the House Ways and Means Committee are interview reports, affidavits and case summary memos chronicling Hunter Biden’s efforts at the height of the 2020 presidential campaign to remedy his delinquent income taxes dating to 2014 and the income he made from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.

Gelfound told agents the efforts in 2020 to pay off Hunter Biden tax debts became a priority because of fears the IRS and other tax authorities would place liens that would become public, a potential embarrassment for the Biden family.

"Yeah, if there was going to be media attention because they were going to lien," Gelfound told IRS agents in an April 2021 interview when asked whether erasing the tax debts had become prioritized.

In another later interview conducted by IRS agents in November 2021, Gelfound revealed that his firm signed an unusual representation letter with the younger Biden just days after the 2020 election, in which Hunter attested that the information that he provided was truthful. Gelfound told investigators that this was the first time he had ever seen a representation letter like it.

“Yeah, when would you typically sign the representation?” the IRS investigators asked Gelfound. “This is- any type of representation, it’s not standard,” Gelfound answered.

“When we typically prepare returns, there’s an engagement letter that’s different than this one,” Gelfound said, explaining to investigators why this representation letter was different. “[T]his is a first that I’ve seen and had a client sit down and sign a letter of this type,” he said.

Hunter Biden was specifically caught by his accountant misrepresenting income from a company he formed with former Chinese energy tycoon Ye Jianming, according to the IRS memos. Agents believed concerns about the accuracy of the information that Hunter Biden was providing may have spurred the accounting firm to require him to sign such a letter, according to an affidavit submitted to the Ways and Means Committee by one of the whistleblowers, Joseph Ziegler.

In a later interview with IRS investigators, Gelfound told the agents that Hunter Biden originally represented payments from Hudson West III, one of the limited liability companies tied to Hunter Biden, as loans made to him personally. Gelfound dug deeper, determined to classify the payments properly in his accounting of the younger Biden’s taxes, the memos show.

After a review of the provisions of the LLC, he found that Hunter Biden was owed a retainer fee and compensation from the company, meaning that Hunter had falsely classified income as loans. Hudson West III was a joint venture established by Hunter Biden and CEFC associate Gongwen Dong.

Gelfound said Hunter Biden did not push back when he explained what he had found, accepting the accountant's explanation and agreeing to remedy the mistake. It appears that Hunter Biden was confused about why this income should be classified as income rather than a loan, according to Gelfound.

Biden’s confusion may have stemmed from the fact that his Chinese partners had previously provided him payments in the form of loan on at least two separate occasions, in what Congressional Republicans argue were part of a Biden Family influence peddling scheme.

The accounting firm's instinct to have Hunter Biden attest to the truthfulness of his information proved prescient. Gelfound later discovered, through his interviews with IRS investigators, that Hunter Biden misrepresented multiple tax deductions at the same time that Gelfound was helping to remedy Biden's delinquent returns, the memos allege.

Gelfound told investigators he was not aware that multiple payments Hunter Biden claimed as business deductions—including a $30,000 payment to Columbia University for his daughter, a payment to John Hancock for life insurance, and payments for his daughter’s rent—were, in fact, personal expenses, and therefore taxable, the memos show.

...Hunter Biden also claimed deductions for payments to an “escort” and classified them as business expenses. When Gelfound was asked about these deductions, he told investigators that he was unaware of the true nature of the payments. Hunter Biden had verified that these escort payments were business expenses, according to Gelfound.

When Ziegler provided these documents to the House Ways and Means Committee, he explained how they would be used in a building the tax case to provide evidence that Hunter Biden willfully violated tax law.

For example, the representation letter “would have been included as evidence of willfulness and knowledge for the 2018 felony charges, which includes [tax evasion] and [false return] charges,” Ziegler wrote in his affidavit to the committee. Evidence of Hunter Biden’s misclassified payment from Hudson West III would have been used as evidence for similar charges for both the 2014 and 2018 tax years, he added.

However, despite the evidence collected by investigators, Hunter Biden has not been charged with any felony tax crimes. Two misdemeanor tax charges that were part of plea deal this summer with Weiss' office were withdrawn when a judge rejected what some called a "sweetheart" plea deal.

In testimony this summer, the IRS whistleblowers accused the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office of allowing the statute of limitations to expire on Hunter Biden’s alleged tax crimes from before 2017. The statute of limitations on the tax violations uncovered by the IRS investigation for the 2014 and 2015 tax years expired in November 2022.

Ziegler and his supervisor Gary Shapley, another whistleblower and both Special Agents with long and distiguished careers, each told congressional investigators that the the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office and the Justice Department delayed their investigation by, among other things, requiring prior approval for interviews, shutting down investigative steps like search warrants for Joe Biden’s Wilmington home, and leaving felonies out of proposed plea agreements.

The years of tax violations for which the statute of limitations expired last year included the bulk of payments from Hunter Biden’s work with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.

“[Hunter Biden] directed to have a portion of his Burisma income paid back to himself personally as ‘loans’, even though Devon Archer had deducted these payments on the Rosemont Seneca Bohai tax return,” Ziegler wrote in his affidavit to Ways and Means. “[Hunter] had essentially loaned himself his own income from Burisma, failing to report this income from Burisma on his 2014 tax returns and failing to pay the taxes on this income.” In Spring of 2014, a Ukrainian oligarch placed Biden on the Burisma Board of Directors and agreed to pay him $1,000,000 per year.

I think ggait answers quite thoroughly and well about the prosecutorial choices that get made all the time.

As I'd said originally:

"Did Hunter do a bunch of things wrong? You betcha.

But all of the BS about the DOJ quashing Weiss' efforts to prosecute entirely refuted.

So, I repeat, what exactly has been proven that in any way that Joe or Garland did anything unethical or illegal?"

I have no idea what exactly Hunter did wrong, illegal, etc, but I'm not surprised by anything in particular. My hunch though is that much of the allegations about him are either full on BS or they're exaggerated and twisted to seem worse. Some others might well be accurate, but difficult to prove in court.

And some matters may well be better resolved through cooperation, re-payment, etc.

But I don't really care about Hunter's activities; if he's guilty of something, I'm fine with holding him accountable as would occur with anyone else, no more, no less.

All that is really relevant beyond the normal course of justice is whether Joe is implicated in some substantial way. The "WB's" allegations about interference in the investigation and prosecution have been thoroughly refuted and debunked.

Which means that everything the "WB's" claim is suspect, should be viewed as potentially motivated by something more than justice.

It's also quite clear why you're chewing on this bone. MAGA.

He's chewing on this bone for the same reason that RepublicanVoters are......they're desperate to ignore that their party has completely fallen apart.

We have Republican lawyers that are now convicted Felons...and Old Salt and the R's here don't comment or notice. They don't care.

But Hunter Biden? Pages of their attention goes to that.

And then they play dumb, and pretend that 'someone else' is the reason we they keep nominating Trump.

They don't want to hear that it's them and their nonstop conspiracy theories that's keeping Trumpism alive and well.


Until we see multiple pieces in the National Review that blames Republican voters and their advocates for why they keep nominating Trump? The Republican party will continue to be a party devoid of ideas for goverance, and filled with toddler-logic and theories about the moon landing and flat Earth.

[cradleandshoot]

I thought you were following this. Nice job.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/joe-bi ... rcna123967

Old news home boy. So ask yourself this... David Weiss had all the authority he needed to prosecute. David Weiss did nothing with that authority. He sat on his hands and allowed the SOL to run out. The genesis of this problem was IRS agents frustrated by the lack of inaction on the part of David Weiss went public. They made credible accusations against David Weiss and the investigation still has a ways to go. You FLP folks have been opining ad nauseum about Weiss being a trump appointee. So that means using liberal logic that Weiss has to inherently be a pathological liar.

Yup, Weiss and two AG's and Garland have all thoroughly refuted the WB's 'story'.
That's a whole lot of Deep State conspiracy to say it ain't refuted.

It's actually pretty simple. Prosecutors like to prosecute cases they believe, with high confidence, they will win based on the evidence, and consistent with how they would treat any other defendant identified as doing the same acts. We'll learn later what drove various prosecutorial choices, but what we do know is that the WB's were flat wrong in their accusations that Weiss was prevented by Biden or Garland or the other AG's from bringing a case Weiss wanted to bring. Nope.

https://thefederalist.com/2023/11/10/da ... ter-biden/

Nobody has refuted diddly squat MD. You should be intelligent enough to see that for yourself. David Weiss now that he has officially been granted SC status can't say diddly jack chit about an ongoing investigation. Do you think IYO that David Weiss led a stellar and flawless investigation into HB?? Is there a chance he might have succumbed to the pressure put on him by the DoJ?? Do you think the WB were lying or just fed up with the incompetence of the Weiss investigation? SC Weiss is now protected enough by the DoJ rules that he no longer has to explain anything to anyone about his decision making process. Pretty god damn convenient for him is it not? A good way for Garland to make sure he keeps his damn mouth shut to cover up for their incompetence investigating this case.

[cradleandshoot]

just for chits and giggles.. would a newly elected trump pardon HB? They both have first hand experience about what it is like to have the justice department come down on you like a ton of bricks.

[cradleandshoot]

[Share Article via Email
Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss testified on Tuesday that before his appointment as special counsel earlier this year, a top Justice Department official gave him special attorney authority in May of 2022 to proceed with charges against Hunter Biden in Washington, D.C., or California. That testimony would have been an explosive twist in the House’s investigation into the DOJ’s obstruction of the Hunter Biden case — but for the fact that Weiss soon after contradicted himself, saying he had instead been promised special attorney authority. That Weiss can’t keep his story straight is telling of a bigger scandal.

On Tuesday, the Delaware U.S. attorney, who is doing double duty as special counsel, sat for an interview with the House Judiciary Committee, a transcript of which The Federalist has reviewed. While much of the interview consisted of Weiss refusing to answer the House’s questions under the guise of protecting an ongoing investigation, he did respond to questions about his charging authority.


More Obfuscation
The House focused on whether Weiss had sought what is called Section 515 special attorney authority from the Department of Justice. Under Section 515, a U.S. attorney for one federal district may bring criminal proceedings in another district “when specifically directed by the Attorney General.” Thus, if Weiss had been granted special attorney status under Section 515, he could have brought criminal charges against Hunter Biden in a California federal district court or in the District of Columbia, even though he was the U.S. attorney for Delaware.

IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley previously testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that during a meeting on Oct. 7, 2022, Weiss had told the team investigating Hunter Biden that he had previously asked the DOJ for “special counsel authority” but was told to follow the process. While on Tuesday Weiss testified that he had not requested special counsel authority prior to seeking a special counsel appointment in August of 2023, Weiss said that he had asked the DOJ about the possibility of obtaining “special attorney” authority under Section 515.

According to Weiss, in February of 2022, he reached out to then-Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General John Carlin to ask about obtaining Section 515. “I would have reached out because we were looking to bring certain portions of our investigation to either D.C. or L.A. at that time,” Weiss explained. But rather than grant Weiss Section 515 authority, Carlin told Weiss to follow the process, which entailed seeking the agreement of the Biden-appointed U.S. attorneys to partner in a prosecution of the president’s son.

The D.C. U.S. attorney later refused to partner with Weiss, sending him to California to request that the U.S. attorney there partner on the case. However, according to Weiss, before he spoke with the California U.S. attorney, he spoke again with Carlin in early May, telling the associate deputy AG that D.C. had decided against joining the investigation.


“[M]y recollection,” Weiss continued, was “that John Carlin at that time said, ‘look, if you decide to proceed in D.C., you have the authority to do so, and you have the authority under 515, to bring whatever charges you deem appropriate.”

Now, had he stuck with that story, that would have been something — because for the last half-year or so, Weiss and Attorney General Merrick Garland have been playing the ridiculous lawyers’ game: It depends on what the meaning of “have” is. But not long after claiming Carlin told him he had “the authority under 515,” Weiss changed his story again, as this exchange shows:

House: Okay. You’ve said in your letters and you reiterated again today that you were assured that you would be granted 515 authority if it proved necessary. At what point would you need to formally go through the process to obtain Section 515 authority?

Weiss: I would execute on that authority at the time we were ready to bring the charges, to file.


House: Okay. And, accordingly, if you were not ready to bring charges, you would not formally go through the process to obtain 515 authority. Is that correct?

Weiss: That’s correct.

So we are back again to where we were before, which is that Weiss did not have the authority to charge Hunter Biden in D.C. or California. That directly conflicts with what Garland told Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, during a hearing on March 1, 2023, when the head of the DOJ expressly stated that “the U.S. attorney in Delaware has been advised that he has full authority … to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it’s necessary.”

“Has full authority” is clearly not the same thing as “will be given full authority” or “has been assured he will be given full authority.”


Why the Word Games?
The constantly changing storylines and knots in which Weiss and Garland are willing to tie themselves rather than admit the truth — that Weiss did not have ultimate charging authority in the Hunter Biden investigation — should make Americans pause to consider why.

Why have we been playing some six months of word games? Why are Garland and Weiss sticking with the ridiculous claim that there are no inconsistencies in their explanations, when they could merely acknowledge the situation? Namely, Weiss didn’t have the authority to charge Hunter Bidden in California or D.C., but had assurances that he would be given that authority if he asked.


There are two reasons Weiss and Garland refuse to acknowledge the obvious. First, it would require them to concede that they misled Congress and the American public about Weiss’s independence.

For months the attorney general assured the country that politics played no role in the Hunter Biden investigation because Weiss was a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney with ultimate authority over the case. To now admit that wasn’t quite accurate would be a concession that Garland misled both Congress and the public.

Second, if Weiss were to concede he still needed to obtain authority to charge Hunter Biden in California, he would be confirming whistleblower Gary Shapley’s version of the meeting on Oct. 7, 2022. According to Shapley’s notes, Weiss said he did not have authority to charge Hunter Biden in California but “he would have to request permission to bring charges in CA from the Deputy Attorney General/Attorney General.”

And if Shapley’s version of the meeting is accurate, it’s likely the rest of the obstruction to which he testified is too. No wonder Weiss and Garland continue to play ridiculous word games.

[njbill]

You guys really are a riot. I guess on one level I can understand your disappointment with the way things are turning out (Weiss can and will bring any charges against Hunter he deems appropriate at the appropriate time), but why don’t you wait to see what charges Weiss brings against Hunter?

You have already browbeat him into bringing gun charges of the type that would never have been brought against anybody else. Maybe your browbeating will prompt him to bring inappropriate tax charges as well.

Treat Hunter like an average citizen. If the average citizen did what Hunter did, then file the charges that would be brought against the average citizen. If lesser or no charges would be filed against the average citizen, then treat Hunter the same way. Why do you guys want Hunter to be treated more severely than the average citizen? It really is not a good look.

You guys simply don’t understand how the government process works (possible) or you do and are intentionally trying to mischaracterize what is going on.

I frankly don’t think Weiss should have testified at all given that the investigation is ongoing. But he did. He declined to answer certain questions, not because he is a special counsel or a special attorney or anything of the sort, but because he is in the middle of an investigation. He would have been under the exact same restrictions if he had simply been acting as Delaware USA.

Citing right wing news articles that focus on immaterial minutiae of DOJ procedures and that mischaracterize some things and get other things wrong (many apparently intentionally) don’t help your case.

[old salt]

Come on bill. Give us a break. We've been waiting 5 years to see if & what charges Weiss will bring.

It's not that complicated. Hunter either filed & paid his taxes or he did not. Why let the SOL run on that ?

All the legal pettifoggery from Weiss & Garland is just a dodge to run out the clock & avoid giving a straight answer.

If Weiss did not intend to prosecute, why did he ask for section 515 authority & then ask the DC & CA US Atty's to take or join the prosecution ?

In their Oct '22 meeting, Weiss thought he could baffle the IRS guys with BS. Why didn't he just level with them about why he let the SOL run & what he felt was strong enough to prosecute.

The WB's are not leakers. They followed the WB law & went public. Leakers stay anonymous.

[old salt]

The "WB's" allegations about interference in the investigation and prosecution have been thoroughly refuted and debunked.

Which means that everything the "WB's" claim is suspect, should be viewed as potentially motivated by something more than justice.

. ...the WB allegations have been denied by Weiss, not "thoroughly refuted and debunked". Weiss contradicts himself in his excuses.
See the breakdown of his word games in cradle's post above.

[old salt]

Old Salt and others here believe that you're not allowed to so much as investigate current politicians. It's an insane position that only a partisan and borderline fascist would hold: hands of my team, they can break all the laws they want.

That's a willfull misrepresentation on your part. There's a standing DoJ policy on conducting cases which could influence the outcome of an election during the latter stages of a campaign.
https://www.govexec.com/oversight/2022/ ... on/377514/

We have Republican lawyers that are now convicted Felons...and Old Salt and the R's here don't comment or notice. They don't care.

They were representing Trump, not the GOP. Many (R)'s rejected them & Trump's election claims.
They're as whacked out as the Dem lawyers trying to keep Trump off the ballot in your state, based on the 14th Amendment.