There is “strong evidence” that Hunter Biden’s business activities in Ukraine amount to “criminal misconduct,” Tom Fitton, the president of the government watchdog group Judicial Watch, recently said, echoing President Donal Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
In an interview with One America News (OAN), Fitton added that the scandal surrounding the dealings of the former vice president’s son in Ukraine “is not going away,” Real Clear Politics noted over the weekend.
Fitton’s comments came in response to OAN asking him about the ongoing Bidens-Ukraine investigation spearheaded by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI).
Referring to the probe, Fitton told OAN:
This is the sort of basic investigative work that frankly the Department of Justice should also be doing as well given the strong evidence of criminal misconduct by at least Hunter Biden. … The Democrats have failed to distract sensible people from the in your face corruption that has emerged. The evidence that emerged wasn’t misconduct about President [Donald] Trump, but problems with Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine were at the center of the Democrats’ failed effort to impeach and remove Trump.
The infamous July 25 call during which Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the Biden’s activities in Ukraine, namely Hunter’s dealings with the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, helped drive the impeachment probe.
While his father was in charge of U.S. policy towards Ukraine as the former VP, Hunter began serving on Burisma’s board of directors despite having no experience in energy matters, prompting allegations that he was using his father’s position for financial gain.
Individuals from inside and outside the Obama administration warned of a conflict of interest stemming from Hunter’s position within Burisma while his father was in charge of Ukrainian policy.
In 2015, then-VP Biden’s office rebuffed concerns raised by an official from the U.S. State Department that Burisma was corrupt.
VP Biden has boasted about the fact that he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to Ukraine if the Eastern European country did not fire its top prosecutor in 2016, who was investigating Burisma.
Hunter served on Burisma’s board of directors from April 2014 to April 2019, getting paid a lucrative $83,000 per month, more than the average executives who sit on major corporate boards.
Fitton told OAN:
There’s no evidence it was a legitimate business relationship that Biden had [with Burisma]— the background or capability to serve on the board … the payments were out of the ordinary and extraordinary suggesting some other improprieties. And now we have Giuliani with documents, some of which are from court cases here in the United States that suggest the money that he was receiving, in part, was laundered. This Biden scandal is not going away.
D&A Investigations, a Florida-based firm hired by a woman in Arkansas as part of a paternity case against Hunter, claimed late last year to have “lawfully” obtained documents implicating the former VP’s son in a multi-million dollar money laundering and counterfeiting scheme involving Burisma.
Giuliani recently told Fox News that he has found “the smoking gun” of the GOP’s Bidens-Ukraine investigation, noting that there are witnesses ready to “name names.”
The former VP and his son have denied any wrongdoing related to Ukraine.
A CIA “whistleblower” filed a complaint accusing Trump of leveraging U.S. aid during the July 25 call to push Zelensky to investigate the Bidens, an allegation denied by the U.S. president and his Ukrainian counterpart. Some news outlets have found that the so-called “whistleblower” is friendly with the Democrats.
The “whistleblower’s” complaint triggered the failed impeachment efforts against President Trump, with Democrats arguing that Trump’s request for an investigation of the Bidens was part of an effort to get dirt on his political rival — White House hopeful Joe Biden.
Even after Trump’s acquittal on the two articles of impeachment approved by House Democrats — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — Democrats have continued to use Joe’s presidential bid to argue against any investigation of his son’s activities in Ukraine.
GOP Sens. Grassley and Johnson, however, are moving forward with their Bidens-Ukraine probe, seeking documents from federal government entities including the Departments of Treasury, State, and Justice, as well as the FBI and the National Archives.
The Republican lawmakers are also seeking documents from Blue Star Strategies, a lobbying firm employed by Burisma.
Democrats may not be able to use Bidens’ presidential run to try to shield the former VP and his son from the Republicans’ investigation for long. Joe Biden has lost his status as the front-runner for the nomination to be the Democrat presidential candidate.