Hunter Biden appears to be connected to former FBI official Charles McGonigal, who was recently accused of taking secret cash payments from a former Albanian intelligence officer, among other serious violations.
In the fall of 2017, McGonigal, the former FBI’s counterintelligence chief in New York, received a $225,000 payment from a former Albanian intelligence officer known as Agron Neza, according to U.S. prosecutors. McGonigal has since been charged with taking the cash payment, conducting meetings with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, and trying to help a Russian oligarch from evading U.S. sanctions.
In turn, Agron Neza introduced McGonigal to the former Albanian prime minister’s adviser, Dorian Ducka, and a former member of the Chinese energy company named CEFC or CEFC China Energy Co, the New York Post’s Miranda Devine reported.
Ducka’s ties to CEFC have been linked in Albanian media by a photo of Ducka and the CEFC chairman Ye Jianming, the same person who gave Hunter a diamond worth an estimated $80,000 in 2017.
In an email thread discovered on Hunter’s laptop, Hunter and his business partners had a conversation about a person named “Dorian.” Miranda Devine reported:
Someone with the same unusual first name as Ducka appears in Hunter’s abandoned laptop in an email discussion about CEFC between Hunter and associates James Gilliar and Rob Walker.
“Dorian was a real help early on so we should consider how we include him,” Gilliar wrote in the May 13, 2017, email.
“No way we don’t do it,” replies Hunter, “and if majority says no I’ll take it out of my salary.”
Meanwhile, back in Albania, McGonigal launched investigations into about 12 political opponents of Albanian’s prime minister, according to Belind Kellici, a political opponent of the prime minister. The probes apparently were used to block the prime minister’s opponents from doing business with the United States, including debanking them from the U.S. banking system.
WASHINGTON, DC – FEBRUARY 08: House Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) is seen in front of a newspaper page with a photograph of Hunter Biden and his father President Joe Biden. (Photo by Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
The Washington Examiner’s John Schindler dubbed McGonigal’s alleged shady business dealings in Albania “a shakedown operation on wealthy Albanians for personal profit.”
McGonigal’s alleged corruption in Albania has recently made headlines in the country. Last week, protesters demanded the Albanian prime minister resign over his meetings with McGonigal. The New York Times reported that “McGonigal’s willingness to meet with the head of state in Albania, a country that has an American diplomatic presence, suggests he was not keeping his involvement there a secret from colleagues.”
McGonigal’s recent indictment by U.S. prosecutors for his alleged involvement in Albania for a “shakedown operation” has opened up new questions about why Albanians were allegedly paying McGonigal in 2017 — the same year Hunter’s emails appear to mention payments to the Albanian prime minister’s adviser.
The year 2017 appears to be a profitable year for the Biden family business. In 2017, Hunter was put on a $1 million retainer by CEFC chairman Ye.
An email thread from Hunter’s laptop in 2017 also shows a proposed percentage distribution of equity in a company created for a joint venture with CEFC, Hunter’s former business partner, Tony Bobulinski, the Biden family, and high-ranking members of the Chinese Communist Party.
The email sent on March 13, 2017, proposed a business venture including “10 held by H for the big guy.” Bobulinski confirmed “the big guy” was a reference to President Joe Biden.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
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