[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 211 (Monday, December 14, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7457-S7458]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Biden Investigation
Mr. GRASSLEY. Madam President, for over a year, Senator Johnson and I
investigated the Biden family's financial dealings. For over a year,
the liberal media and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
falsely said that we were peddling Russian disinformation. They ginned
up any story they could to falsely portray our investigation in an
effort to delegitimize the report's findings. Even my colleague Senator
Wyden, with whom I have worked on many bipartisan investigations, said
the following:
This disinformation also became the basis of the Johnson-
Grassley investigation. The political nature of this
investigation has been clear all along. Bottom line: The
Johnson-Grassley investigation is baseless. It is laundering
Russian propaganda for circulation in the United States.
It seems the liberal media and Democrats have a very nervous tick.
Any time a Republican gets close to the truth and is about to serve
justice, the other side yells: ``Russian disinformation.'' Of course,
as we see now, that is a load of garbage.
As I have said on this floor several times before, our report was
rooted in information from U.S. Government agencies and a left-aligned
U.S. lobby shop that represented a corrupt Ukrainian gas company, and
by now, the American people know that it is really the Democrats and
liberal media that are connected to Russian disinformation. Just think
of the Steele dossier. It was infected with Russian disinformation and
paid for by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's
campaign.
The liberal media and those on the other side of the aisle were
scared of the facts. They were scared that the American people would
see the Biden family's deep and extensive link to foreign governments,
including the Communist Chinese Government.
And once Senator Johnson and I released publically our findings,
those same liberal outlets said the report repackaged old material and
that there wasn't really anything new to it.
[[Page S7458]]
They went into full Joe Biden protection mode, and they didn't even
try to hide it.
One Washington Post columnist said: ``Even after accepting
disinformation from Russian agents, Johnson and Grassley couldn't come
up with anything new or interesting on Hunter Biden.''
Well, we know today the Post should be ashamed that they said that.
POLITICO ran a story with this headline: ``GOP Senators' anti-Biden
report repackages old claims.''
And National Public Radio said about the New York Post Hunter Biden
stories: ``We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not
really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners' and readers'
time on stories that are just pure distractions,'' end of the NPR
quote.
Now, look at what Twitter and Facebook did to Hunter Biden news.
Simply said, they interfered in the election and gave the Biden
campaign a multimillion-dollar in-kind donation, courtesy of their
blatant and unforgiveable censorship.
So, my fellow Americans, let us never forget what Twitter and
Facebook did during the 2020 elections.
Now, let's fast forward to this very day. Now it is confirmed that
Hunter Biden is under criminal investigation, reportedly for his taxes
and financial dealings--the very fact pattern that we described in the
Johnson-Grassley report.
It shouldn't take Hunter Biden to confirm that he is under criminal
investigation before the mainstream press gets permission--from whom, I
don't know--to report the news. It is a complete outrage the way the
liberal media used its power to cover up facts relating to Hunter Biden
and the Biden family and, yet, ran story after story with false
information about the Russian investigation into Trump and the
credibility of the Steele dossier.
The recent news also shows that our report was not ``baseless''--that
is the word that shows up all the time--and it didn't ``repackage old
claims.'' That is another set of words that showed up quite regularly
as people were trying to distract the Johnson and Grassley report.
So quite the opposite--our report was well-founded, ahead of the
curve, and right on the money, in more ways than one.
Our report teed up the facts, but the mainstream press never stepped
up to the plate.
Some of the Nation's supposedly leading press outlets, with teams of
investigative reporters, were scooped by the Congress--the Johnson-
Grassley report. Now, of course, they are scrambling to chase the story
that they for so long ignored.
Now, it didn't have to be this way. We already did much of the heavy
lifting before issuing our report. The report made public information
that hadn't ever been known before. For example, it showed the
following: Hunter Biden and his associates and family members were
connected to Chinese nationals and Chinese companies linked with the
Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army. This includes the
CEFC China Energy Company Limited and that company's subsidiaries.
Records show that a company linked to the Communist regime sent
Hunter Biden's law firm millions of dollars.
Other records show that Hunter Biden opened a line of credit with a
Chinese national linked to the Communist regime and funded it with
approximately $100,000. Then he, James Biden, and Sara Biden went on an
extravagant global spending spree.
Still other records show that Hunter Biden, via his law firm, also
sent a million dollars to James Biden's consulting firm, the Lion Hall
Group. These transfers began less than 1 week after CEFC sent $5
million to a company called Hudson West III, a company linked to CEFC
and Chinese nationals associated with the Communist regime, which then
sent money to Hunter Biden's law firm.
When the bank contacted Sara Biden, who was associated with the
firm's bank account, she refused to answer their questions and provide
any additional documentation. According to the records that we have on
file, the bank submitted the account for closure.
Senator Johnson and I recently issued a supplemental to our report
that showed Hunter Biden's close business associate Rob Walker received
$6 million from a Chinese company linked to the Communist regime.
There is yet another link in the chain from the Biden family and
their associates to the Chinese Government.
The report also showed that State Department officials believed that
Hunter Biden's Burisma board membership created the perception of a
conflict of interest and was ``very awkward for all U.S. officials
pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine,'' end of quote from a
State Department official.
Secretary of State Kerry publicly denied knowing of Hunter Biden's
role on the Burisma board. We acquired evidence that shows that Kerry
did, in fact, know about that role.
In December 2015, instead of following U.S. objectives of confronting
oligarchs, Vice President Biden's staff advised him to avoid commenting
on Burisma's oligarch and instead say: ``I am not going to get into
naming names or accusing individuals.''
Joe Biden was running an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine, and he
pulled his punches while his son was on the board of Burisma.
Based on witness testimony, Burisma's owner allegedly paid a $7
million bribe to officials serving under Ukraine's prosecutor general
to shut the case against him. When he allegedly paid that bribe, Hunter
Biden was on the Burisma board.
These examples are just a sampling from the report that Senator
Johnson and I put out and just the tip of the iceberg with respect to
the Biden family's troubled ties to governments adverse to U.S.
interests.
These associations, and the millions of dollars that passed between
and among Hunter Biden, James Biden, and others, create criminal
financial, counterintelligence, and extortion concerns. That is why I
have written to the Justice Department about the risk that Hunter and
James Biden essentially served as agents of the Communist government
for purposes of their registering under the Foreign Agents Registration
Act.
After Hunter Biden publicly confirmed he was under criminal
investigation, liberal news outlets reported on concerns that his
financial associations could create criminal financial and
counterintelligence problems--something you heard from the Johnson-
Grassley report several weeks ago. That is what we said in September
2020, and we were roundly criticized for it.
And just over the weekend, a new email was made public that
reportedly says that Joe Biden and his brother were ``office mates''
with the very same Chinese nationals whom we wrote about in our report.
Those same individuals were the ones with links to the Communist regime
and that regime's military.
Based on all the facts known to date, Joe Biden has a lot of
explaining to do. I have run many oversight operations and
investigations during the course of my career. I am interested in the
facts, in the evidence, and in the truth. I learned a lesson a long
time ago when I first started my oversight focus; that is, no matter
how difficult the media or the other side of the aisle makes it to find
the facts, never give up. Keep working hard. The American taxpayers
deserve nothing less.
That is the attitude and approach that I have had my entire career,
and that is what I will take with me as I continue to look into the
Biden family matters and as I move to a leadership position on the
Senate Judiciary Committee.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.