Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and senior editor-at-large at Breitbart News, advised the Senate to call on Hunter Biden to testify about business dealings in China and Ukraine, offering his recommendation in a Wednesday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak.
The Senate should call Hunter Biden to testify before a committee regarding his business dealings in China and Ukraine, advised Schweizer.
“We need to begin at the headwaters of this whole story, which is the simple question: He was brought on the board of the Burisma corporation, he was brought on to do regulatory compliance — which of course he had no background in, [and] he had no background in Ukraine — what precisely was he being paid to do, and why was he hired by Burisma?” asked Schweizer. “That’s the first question that needs to be asked.”
Schweizer continued, “I think it is not unreasonable at all for the Senate to ask Hunter Biden to come in and testify. Why did you get a billion-dollar-plus deal with the Chinese government — a kind of deal that Goldman Sachs and nobody else got — even though he had no background in private equity and no background in China? These are very simple and basic questions that need to be asked.”
LISTEN:
“The Chinese are not going to toss around deals that size without expecting something in return,” stated Schweizer. “Especially if somebody that’s not qualified to get that deal, and a Ukrainian oligarch is not going to spend what according to bank record was $3.1 million into this account over a 14-month period for nothing. They’re expecting something in return, and that’s what Hunter Biden needs to be asked by a Senate committee to explain.”
During his vice presidential tenure, Joe Biden pressured Ukraine to dismiss its top prosecutor — who was pursuing a corruption investigation of an energy company upon whose board Hunter Biden sat — by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees.
When asked by the Associated Press about a possible “conflict of interest” related to foreign policy towards Ukraine in the event that he is elected president, Joe Biden did not deny that his son’s business dealings with Burisma Holdings shaped his policy.
Schweizer recalled, “One of Hunter Biden’s business partners, a guy named Devon Archer, joined the board of Burisma at the same time that he did, and we know for a fact that the day before they joined the board of Burisma, Devon Archer visited the White House and met with Joe Biden. We don’t know what they discussed, but that’s one heck of a coincidence for that to happen.”
Government officials who shape foreign policy should not have foreign financial ties or business relations presenting conflicts of interest between their public responsibility and fiscal welfare, advised Schweizer.
“With Donald Trump in the White House, his children — those that are not in government, and certainly those that are in government — cannot and should not do big deals with foreign entities, because it’s inappropriate and they’re going to try to curry favor,” remarked Schweizer.
Schweizer went on, “That means you don’t want Don Jr. going off to Beijing and cutting deals. The Trump family committed to that and said, ‘We are going to do no major foreign deals while I’m president,’ and the indications are that they’ve stuck to that. Now, think about this for a second. That’s the standard everybody wanted to hold the Trumps to, and I think that’s a good standard. If they had broken that, if Don Jr. had gone and done a hotel deal in China, you could at least say, ‘Well, he’s been in the hotel business for awhile. It makes sense he’s going to get a hotel deal.’ In the case of Hunter Biden, this is suddenly a new business that he’s gone into.”
Schweizer continued, “We need to have consistency. If it is unacceptable — as I believe it is — for the Trump family to do large foreign deals — especially with foreign governments — while Donald Trump is in the White House, it is absolutely inappropriate for Hunter Biden to do the same thing, especially on top of the fact that he was never in these businesses until his father became vice president of the United States.”
Schweizer said, “It is mind-boggling to me that so many in the media, and certainly those in the Democratic Party, want to be so wildly inconsistent on this issue and kind of explain it away and say, ‘Well, because you can’t prove that Hunter Biden talked to his dad about something while he was getting all this money, then everything is okay.’ That was certainly not the standard for the Trumps, and we need to be consistent on this, because it’s an important issue whoever is doing these kinds of deals while family members are in positions of power.”
China regularly seeks to procure influence in other governments via “sweetheart deals” with family members of high-level officials, explained Schweizer.
“Increasingly, the Chinese and others are doing exactly the same thing in the United States,” noted Schweizer. “They’re learning, or believe, that if you do sweetheart deals with the family members — if you do a sweetheart deal with Hunter Biden — you’re going to get favorable treatment or access to the vice president of the United States at that time, Joe Biden.”
U.S. federal law does not prohibit family members of high-level politicians from being employed by foreign companies, including those owned wholly or in part by foreign governments.
Schweizer explained, “If you do a deal with Chinese princelings, like J.P. Morgan did a few years ago, and get caught, you will be brought up on charges under the Foreign Corruption Practices Act, and in fact J.P. Morgan was, and they paid a hefty fine. I think it was something like $100 million, because they had hired the children of Communist Party officials, given them competitive internships, solely for the purpose of getting access to their parents. Our federal government said, ‘That’s illegal. It violates the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and you’re paying a fine.'”
“Here’s the crazy part, “continued Schweizer. “If Chinese firms hire Hunter Biden — if Chinese firms hire the family members of prominent American politicians — it’s not against the law. It’s not against our federal law. That’s how crazy and backward this is, and this is why it needs immediate attention. The fact that you can do these deals and have your family members do these deals and it’s not illegal when it’s illegal for American companies to the do the same thing overseas indicates that we have a major ethical problem in the nation’s capital, and I would argue it’s chiefly because the very politicians getting these deals are the politicians that write these ethics rules.”
Schweizer has previously described the aforementioned phenomenon of U.S. official monetizing political influence abroad as part of “the new corruption.”
“You have layer upon layer of these complex financial deals that Hunter Biden is involved in, and these are deals benefiting the Chinese national security state,” stated Schweizer. “Some of them are surveillance technologies, some of them are companies like CGN, and then there are investment deals that he’s involved in that involve buying high-tech companies in the United States that have dual-use technologies, in other words, technologies that have civilian and military applications.”
Schweizer asked, “Is that something, really, that the son of a sitting vice president ought to be involved in? I certainly don’t think so.”
Free trade theory can help explain how domestic politicians are compromised by foreign states’ influence, said Schweizer.
“Look at the premise or philosophy behind free trade, and I consider myself a free trader,” began Schweizer. “The premise behind free trade is that as countries trade between each other, they start to form commercial bonds and common interests. They start to have greater interactions, and they start to see things in a more similar light. That’s the theory behind it. Well, if those sorts of commercial ties influence countries, according to that theory, they certainly influence political elites. The notion that Joe Biden’s family is making a lot of money because of the beneficial business deals they’ve received from the Chinese government, that is going to absolutely influence and affect the manner in which Joe Biden interacts with China. It just can’t not have that effect, and that is precisely the approach that the Chinese take.”
Joe Biden’s familial financial ties to China amount to a conflict of interest given his pursuit of the presidency, assessed Schweizer.
“As far as I’m concerned, with the commercial relationships that the Biden family has with the Chinese, there is no way that that is not going have a dramatic effect on Joe Biden’s perceptions about China [and] in negotiating with the Chinese,” determined Schweizer. “I think we see a tilt in his attitude already by those comments he made on the campaign trial last week, that we have nothing to worry about, [and] they are not any threat or challenge to us.”
“Mansour asked, “Can we trust Joe Biden in negotiating with the country that is posing an existential threat … to the future of our country?”
Schweizer replied, “I certainly don’t think you can.”
On May 1, Biden dismissed China as a geopolitical threat to America. He mocked concerns of China’s political ascendance as a foreign policy challenge, saying, “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man.”
Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot channel 125 weeknights from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern or 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.