IRS supervisory special agent Gary Shapley and IRS special agent Joseph Ziegler provided extensive evidence of Biden’s efforts to avoid paying nearly $1.6 million in taxes from 2014 and 2019.

Here are the main revelations from their testimony before the House Oversight Committee.

Hunter Biden ‘should have been charged’ with tax felonies.

Ziegler, who opened the Biden probe in 2018, testified that Hunter Biden "should have been charged with a tax felony," but that federal prosecutors and the Justice Department settled only for misdemeanor charges.

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failure to pay his taxes for 2017 and 2018. Ziegler and Shapley testified that prosecutors initially approved of felony charges for the tax years 2014 to 2019.

Shapley said that as recently as August 2022, prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware supported felony counts against Hunter Biden for the years 2017, 2018, and 2019.

The Hunter Biden tax probe began with payments to prostitutes.

Ziegler, a registered Democrat, testified that he opened a tax investigation of Hunter Biden in November 2018 after reviewing bank records that "identified Hunter Biden as paying prostitutes related to a potential prostitution ring." The records also showed Hunter Biden spent "lavishly" from his corporate bank account, a pattern that Ziegler said is a red flag for potential tax fraud.

According to Ziegler, Hunter Biden filed false tax returns that included improper deductions for "prostitutes, sex clubs, and his adult children’s tuition."

Hunter Biden deducted payments to his "West Coast assistant," who was actually a prostitute. Ziegler also said that Hunter Biden deducted a $10,000 payment he falsely described as a golf club membership.

"That was not a golf club membership—that was for a sex club payment," Ziegler said.

IRS agents were warned against interviewing Hunter Biden’s adult children.

Ziegler testified that the IRS investigators were prohibited from interviewing Hunter Biden’s adult children about suspicious payments they received from their father. Ziegler said prosecutors told him the interviews would "get us in hot water."

Ziegler said the stand-down order was "abnormal" and a "deviation from normal procedure." He testified the interviews would have helped investigators determine whether Hunter Biden’s deductions for payments to his children were for legitimate business purposes, or evidence of tax fraud.

Prosecutors blocked agents from investigating Hunter Biden’s infamous WhatsApp messages.

Ziegler said prosecutors handling the Biden probe blocked him from investigating an infamous Hunter Biden text message in which he invoked his father in a threatening text message to his partners at CEFC China Energy.

"I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father," Hunter Biden wrote in a July 30, 2017, message to a CEFC China Energy executive.

"I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction."

Ziegler said prosecutors declined to approve his request to obtain location data to see if Hunter was with his father when he sent the message. The IRS agent said the line of inquiry "simply wasn’t supported by the prosecutors."

The Washington Free Beacon reported that Hunter Biden was photographed at his father’s home in Delaware on the day of the message.

Foreign entities made seven-figure payments to Biden family.

Shapley and Ziegler revealed that foreign entities in China, Romania, and Ukraine paid the Biden family $17 million from 2014 to 2019.

CEFC China Energy, an energy conglomerate linked to the Chinese Communist Party, made a total of $6.7 million in payments to Hunter Biden and his consulting company. Ukraine’s Burisma Holdings paid $6.5 million to Hunter Biden and his associates. A Romanian businessman under investigation for bribery paid another $3.1 million to Hunter Biden and his associates.

According to Ziegler, Hunter Biden did not report any income from Ukraine’s Burisma in 2014, though he received more than $80,000 a month from the company.

The post The Major Revelations From the Hunter Biden Whistleblower Hearing appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Joe Ziegler, a special agent with the tax agency for 13 years, described himself as a "gay Democrat married to a man" and said he decided to come forward despite his personal politics because he believes "no one should be above the law regardless of your political affiliation." It was the first public appearance by Ziegler, who had previously given closed-door testimony to Congress under the alias "Whistleblower X."

Ziegler and his former IRS supervisor, longtime special agent Gary Shapley, said during the House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday that federal prosecutors blocked agents from asking about Joe Biden while questioning witnesses, tipped off the Biden presidential transition team about the investigators’ next steps, and delayed search warrants. Their testimony comes one month after Hunter Biden reached a plea deal with prosecutors on misdemeanor tax charges, which Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith (R., Mo.) described as a "sweetheart agreement."

Prosecutors "did not appear to follow the normal investigative process, slow-walked the investigation, and put in place unnecessary approvals and road blocks from effectively and efficiently addressing the case. A lot of times, we were not able to follow the facts," Ziegler said.

He said prosecutors repeatedly tried to block agents from following standard investigative procedures. At one point, Ziegler said Assistant U.S. Attorney for Delaware Lesley Wolf warned that he would be in "hot water" if he tried to interview President Biden’s adult grandchildren, who were named as part of false tax deductions made by Hunter Biden.

Ziegler said he was initially worried about revealing his identity, adding that some critics have accused him of being a "traitor to the Democratic Party." But he said he felt a "duty" to speak out.

"I equate this to the experience and feelings I encountered when coming out [as gay]," said Ziegler. "It was, honestly, one of the hardest things I ever went through."

Shapley said the Hunter Biden probe was "very different than any other case in my 14 years in the IRS. At every stage decisions were made that benefited the subject of this investigation."

"There should not be a two-track justice system depending on who you are and who you’re connected to," said Shapley. "In this case, there was, based on my experience."

The former IRS agents said the case against Biden should have automatically carried a felony charge under Department of Justice rules. They also noted that the four prosecutors assigned to the case recommended felony charges last August, but Biden ultimately only faced misdemeanor charges.

"In August of 2022, the assigned prosecutors, all four attorneys, agreed to recommend felony and misdemeanor charges for the 2017, ‘18, and ‘19 tax years," said Ziegler. "That didn’t happen here and I am not sure why."

He said the DOJ tax division policy states that cases "involving individuals who fail to file tax returns or pay a tax, but also commit acts of evasion and obstruction, should also be charged as felonies to avoid inequitable treatment."

Democrats avoided direct attacks on the whistleblowers’ credibility but accused Republicans of "hypocrisy" for holding the hearing.

"There seems to be a new level of hypocrisy here," said Rep. Stephen Lynch (D., Mass.), claiming that Republicans had "no interest" in investigating President Donald Trump’s public criticism of the DOJ during the prior administration.

Smith, the Republican Ways and Means Committee chairman, slammed Hunter Biden’s legal team for mounting a "vicious smear campaign to discredit these whistleblowers and discourage others from coming forward."

The post IRS 'Whistleblower X,' a Gay Democrat, Reveals Identity and Tells Congress He Was Blocked from Investigating Hunter Biden appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

"You are a stickler for the law. It reminds me of Les Mis and the famous person who wanted to get the person who had a sandwich," Khanna told whistleblower Gary Shapley, suggesting he is excessively committed to enforcing the law and self-righteous.

The comparison refers to the antagonist Inspector Javert, a central character in the novel Les Misérables and its musical adaptation. Javert pursues the protagonist, Jean Valjean, for breaking his parole after serving prison time for stealing a loaf of bread to feed a starving child. Javert lacks empathy for criminals and is obsessively devoted to returning Valjean to prison for the minor offense.

IRS whistleblowers Shapley and Joseph Ziegler testified before Congress Wednesday surrounding the agency's investigation into first son Hunter Biden, which they say was sabotaged by the Justice Department.

The whistleblowers allege that the DOJ shielded Hunter Biden and his father President Joe Biden from scrutiny, preventing prosecutors from filing felony charges and undermining the tax investigation.

"There were certain investigative steps that we weren't allowed to take that could have led us to President Biden," Shapley said when he came forward. "We needed to take them."

Hunter Biden agreed in June to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax crimes, a move that will likely keep him out of prison. The plea deal ended a five-year probe into Biden's taxes.

The post WATCH: House Dem Compares IRS Whistleblower to Villain From 'Les Mis' appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, alleges that Hunter Biden worked during the Obama administration as a foreign agent for "Ukrainian and Chinese principals and therefore was legally obligated to register as such." The Justice Department never "required Mr. Biden" to register as a foreign agent, even though the FBI took custody of Hunter Biden’s laptop, which contained evidence of his overseas business dealings, in November 2019, the lawsuit states.

American First Legal argues that Hunter Biden worked as a foreign agent during his time as a board member for Burisma Holdings Limited, a Ukrainian gas company that paid him $1 million a year. Emails obtained from the National Archives and Records Administration "confirm," according to America First Legal, that Hunter Biden "directly represented Burisma in its dealings with the Obama White House."

The lawsuit, which demands that Hunter Biden be required to register as a foreign agent, is the latest in a series of allegations that Hunter Biden received special treatment from the Department of Justice. Republicans have long contended that Hunter Biden violated the Foreign Agent Registration Act during his work with Burisma and CEFC China Energy, a Chinese energy conglomerate, but only received two misdemeanor tax-related charges and a gun charge that is expected to be expunged from his criminal record.

"The Attorney General has a non-discretionary duty to ensure that Hunter Biden registers as a foreign agent under FARA and provides the American people with transparency into his activities on behalf of foreign principals," America First Legal Vice President and General Counsel Gene Hamilton said in a statement.

The emails released by the National Archives and Records Administration show Hunter Biden communicating with one of his father’s senior staffers in May 2014 about his work at Burisma. Hunter Biden wrote that he is "of counsel … on matters pertaining to corporate governance, transparency, and expansion."

Just over two years later, a separate senior staffer in the Office of the Vice President sent an email to Hunter Biden indicating that both he and his father were on a phone call with then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. The contents of that conversation are unknown.

The Department of Justice earlier this month unsealed charges against former Biden business associate Gal Luft for, among other things, failing to register as a foreign agent for his work with CEFC China Energy. Luft said after his arrest earlier this year that the Justice Department was retaliating against him because he provided information about the Bidens to the Justice Department in 2019.

"Any other American would have been criminally prosecuted for failing to register as a foreign agent for this conduct—but not under Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice, which continues to go out of its way to help President Biden, his family, and his radical liberal allies," Hamilton said.

The post Justice Department Erred In Allowing Hunter Biden to Forgo Foreign Agent Registration, Lawsuit Alleges appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The supervisory special agent’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door interview on Monday corroborates key claims from IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley about the peculiarities surrounding the bureau’s investigation. According to the agent, who was identified by Shapley as Joe Gordon, the two planned to interview Hunter Biden in Los Angeles on Dec. 8, 2020, but were stymied at the last minute after FBI headquarters notified the Secret Service and the Biden transition team about their plans.

Gordon said that intervention meant Biden, who pleaded guilty earlier this month to misdemeanor tax charges, avoided ever having to meet face-to-face with law enforcement. Such an intervention from FBI headquarters was unprecedented in the course of Gordon’s career, he testified.

Those claims match with what Shapley told lawmakers in an interview in May. Shapley, an IRS supervisory special agent, said that the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware took unusual steps to slow down or block certain aspects of the investigation into Hunter Biden’s taxes and his foreign business dealings. Shapley also said that prosecutors prohibited investigators from inquiring into Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s business affairs.

Gordon’s testimony is the first time an employee of the Department of Justice has corroborated some of Shapley’s claims, fueling Republican criticism that Hunter Biden received special treatment from prosecutors. Senior Republican lawmakers previously blasted Hunter Biden’s charges—none of which will result in jail time—as a "sweetheart deal."

"The Justice Department’s efforts to cover up for the Bidens reveals a two-tiered system of justice that sickens the American people," said Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.), the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

Hunter Biden’s attorneys have tried to discredit Shapley as a disgruntled IRS employee. Abbe Lowell, one of Hunter Biden’s attorneys, called Shapley "biased" and "aggrieved." Chris Clark, who also serves on Hunter Biden’s legal team, has suggested that Shapley "committed a crime" by discussing Hunter Biden’s taxes.

Shapley, who will testify at a public hearing on Wednesday, alleged in his House testimony that prosecutors initially approved of felony tax charges against Biden, although those were never filed. He also called the case against Biden for tax evasion related to millions of dollars of income from foreign sources a "slam dunk." One of the ways Hunter Biden tried to evade taxes, Shapley said, was deducting payments he made to prostitutes and sex clubs from his taxes.

But those charges never came. Shapley testified that he and Gordon developed plans to interview Hunter Biden on Dec. 8, 2020. FBI agents planned to interview other Biden associates as part of their investigation as well, but Shapley said he was informed the night before the interview that someone at FBI headquarters "had notified Secret Service headquarters and the transition team about the planned actions the following day."

"This essentially tipped off a group of people very close to President Biden and Hunter Biden and gave this group an opportunity to obstruct the approach on the witnesses," Shapley said.

Shapley said Gordon was "clearly dejected" that someone had "interfered" with their plan to interview Biden. The two, according to Shapley, were later instructed to wait in a car outside Biden’s home until he called, but only heard from an FBI official who said that Biden’s lawyers refused to allow him to speak with the agents.

"We received a telephone call later that morning from Hunter Biden's attorneys, who said he would accept service for any document requests, but we couldn't talk to his client."

The post FBI Agent Confirms Agency Slow-Walked Hunter Biden Probe, Republicans Say appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

• Despite being an artist of underwhelming talent, Hunter has sold paintings for as much as $500,000 to anonymous buyers.

• President Biden refuses to acknowledge his granddaughter's existence and has reportedly instructed White House staff to do the same.

Rogue gallery: These are the paintings Hunter's daughter will receive in lieu of cash, according to documents recovered from an iPad the Washington Free Beacon exclusively found on the floor of the men's bathroom at Archibald's Gentleman's Club in Washington, D.C., several blocks from the White House. Enjoy!

1)

Context: An email recovered from Hunter's abandoned laptop said the "big guy" was to receive a 10 percent stake in a sketchy investment deal involving a Chinese energy firm in 2017.

2)

Context: Hunter has claimed to have "no recollection" of his sexual encounter with his daughter's mother, Lunden Alexis Roberts, but admits to cavorting with dozens if not hundreds (thousands?) of women who were "hardly the dating type."

3)

Context: Hunter Biden smoked copious amounts of crack cocaine.

4)

Context: Hunter wrote eloquently about how good it feels to get high from crack cocaine in his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things. "The sensation is one of utter, almost otherworldly well-being," he explained. "You are at once energetic, focused, and calm. Blood rushes to every extremity; your skin ripples with what feels like bumblebees ... the sensation of being transported—at something like warp speed, as if riding bareback on a rocket ship—to some far-off, beautiful place."

5)

Context: Hunter once described his stepmother, Dr. Jill Biden, as a "selfish silly entitled c—t" who "wouldn't survive one class in a ivy [sic] graduate program."

6)

Context: The Secret Service still can't figure out who left a bag of cocaine in one of the most secure locations in the White House earlier this month.

7)

Context: Located a short walk from the White House, Archibald's is Hunter's happy place. He spent enormous sums of money at the gentleman's entertainment club over the years and wrote it off as a business expense on his taxes. Hunter was once admonished for smoking crack in one of the VIP rooms. Good times.

The post EXCLUSIVE: Here Are the Paintings Hunter Biden Gave His Daughter in Lieu of Child Support Payments appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Those were mainstream media narratives in the last week or so. As usual, I’ve got the receipts.

"We got it wrong."

"More People Actually Moved Out of Florida than New York or California in 2021" was briefly a headline on a prominent news site.

https://twitter.com/desantiswarroom/status/1678824963095031823

Then, Insider, formerly Business Insider, was forced to admit it had the numbers exactly backwards. Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis's freedom-loving approach to the COVID-19 pandemic actually helped make Florida the fastest growing U.S. state for the past two years.

"We Got it Wrong," read the corrected headline.

Give credit to Insider. CBS's 60 Minutes still won't acknowledge it was wrong about DeSantis’s handling of the pandemic.

https://twitter.com/BrentHBaker/status/1381404388690960387

"The leading theory remains that it was left by one of the hundreds of visitors"

After the Secret Service closed its investigation into who left a bag of cocaine in the White House, CNN scooped that it totally wasn't President Joe Biden's recovering crack addict son.

According to the report, which relied on two anonymous sources, "the leading theory remains that [the cocaine] was left by one of the hundreds of visitors who entered the West Wing that weekend for tours."

Not convinced? As the media have already explained: Back off!

MSNBC's @clairecmc: "Everybody needs to back off Joe Biden about this. He loves his son. Back off. It is OK for him to love his son & there’s nothing wrong with it. They have no evidence of any wrongdoing by Joe Biden & it infuriates me they’re using this .. against Biden" pic.twitter.com/r7Hj3hwt1m

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 20, 2023

"Militant co-conspirators with white conservatives."

"As the death of affirmative action showed, Asian American conservatives are active, militant co-conspirators with white conservatives," writer Promise Li argued in the Nation.

But we must be clear about one thing: Asian American anti–affirmative action activists have not been simply "used" by white activists and duped into this white supremacist policy. They are active, militant co-conspirators with white conservatives. They are building a key flank for the right wing across the nation, and the left must urgently recognize that right-wing politics precisely gain power by recruiting conservative ideologies among communities of color that overlap with, but retain distinct aspects from, white supremacy. ...

These Asian Americans are those who feel most at ease with the paradigm that Claire Jean Kim observes in her theory of "racial triangulation," which characterizes how Asian Americans have long been recruited into functioning as a "model minority" to reinforce the structural oppression of Black people and the privilege of white people. Despite the fact that they cannot fully assimilate into whiteness, certain Asian Americans do enjoy privileges in Kim’s framework. Indeed, as she wrote in The Nation, "It is the convergence of this nascent, conservative Chinese immigrant nationalism with an older, conservative white nationalism that is driving anti–affirmative action politics today."

The media's big tent of white supremacy just keeps getting bigger.

. @Erika_D_Smith wrote a columm on Larry Elder that went viral earlier in this election. It warns that Elder is the "Black face of white supremacy"https://t.co/YBXzicjMJ3

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) September 15, 2021

The Rise of Latino White Supremacy | The New Yorker https://t.co/wL7jJ3XRLd

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) May 30, 2023

"White House Takes a Victory Lap"

Joe Biden gloated after getting some of the best inflation numbers of his inflation-plagued presidency, and the media were here for it.

June's CPI shows inflation has dramatically plunged from its peak, suggesting the end of a crisis that dragged down Biden's approval rating and gave Republicans political ammunition for nearly two years. https://t.co/ucqFBOUXCc

— Axios (@axios) July 13, 2023

The resiliency of the US economy is defying expectations — and the odds of a 'soft landing" are improving, said Lael Brainard, President Biden’s top economic adviser https://t.co/NLoHrjvL2T

— CNN (@CNN) July 12, 2023

White House takes a victory lap after inflation report comes in cooler than expected https://t.co/Nuwd6SvRna

— CNBC (@CNBC) July 12, 2023

Adding context to the coverage would have just been a downer. So what if almost 7 in 10 Americans are unsatisfied with the economy and Biden's handling of it?

.@PuckNews' @WilliamCohan runs cover for the Biden economy: 'I don’t have an explanation for why people think it’s bad because objectively, it is good. It’s hard to imagine it could be much better ... People like being unhappy about a lot of things in America right now" pic.twitter.com/431SWhUfP4

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 13, 2023

That’s enough media for now. See you next week.

The post Drew's Receipts: Media Failures of the Week, July 15 appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

"It would seem that Mr. Trump is facing enough legal problems that he would not want to create any more liability," lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a cease-and-desist letter, pointing to the multiple charges Trump faces in New York and with the Department of Justice.

Citing the January 6, 2021, Capitol riots as evidence Trump's words have caused violence, Lowell said, "We are just one such social media message away from another incident."

Trump recently insinuated the cocaine found in the White House earlier this month, for which the Secret Service failed to name a suspect, could be Hunter Biden's.

"I’d bet they already know the answer, but just in case, it could be done in 5 minutes," Trump said on Truth Social. "Is it Crooked Joe and his wonderful son, Hunter? Release the findings, release the tapes. We can’t have a crackhead in charge of our Nuclear Arsenal!!!"

Hunter Biden agreed in June to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax crimes, a move that will likely keep him out of prison. The plea deal ends a five-year probe by the Justice Department into Biden's taxes.

An IRS whistleblower alleged that the Justice Department shielded Biden and his father from scrutiny, undermining the tax investigation.

Biden has received wide criticism in recent months for his role in his family's foreign business dealings.

Texts surfaced last month showing Hunter Biden invoking his father's name to threaten a Chinese businessman to pay up.

"Z if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang or the Chairman I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction," Hunter Biden told Henry Zhao, an official with the Chinese military intelligence-linked energy company CEFC China Energy in 2017. "I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father. I sure hope whatever it is you are doing is very very very important."

President Joe Biden denied any knowledge of the texts. "No, I wasn’t!" Joe Biden shouted at a reporter who asked in late June if he was with his son when the threat was sent. The Washington Free Beacon found that photos on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop place him at his father's house the day the messages were sent.

The post Hunter Biden’s Lawyer Demands Trump ’Cease and Desist’ From Mean Posts About Him appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Secret Service investigators were unable to identify the suspect even after reviewing visitor logs and surveillance footage of hundreds of individuals who entered the West Wing in the days leading up to the discovery of the cocaine in a cubby on July 2, two sources familiar with the investigation told CNN. It’s unclear from the report if the Secret Service interviewed Hunter Biden, a recovering crack addict rumored to be living at the White House, as part of its investigation.

The report raises serious questions about the veracity of the Secret Service’s investigation. According to CNN, the Secret Service failed to determine what day the illicit substance was left at the White House. Hunter Biden was filmed at the building two days before the discovery of the cocaine.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates refused to rule out the possibility that the cocaine belonged to Hunter Biden last Thursday "because we have to be careful about the Hatch Act." Ethics experts scoffed at the suggestion that the Hatch Act, which prevents federal officials from engaging in political activity on taxpayer time, would prevent Bates from answering that question.

One source told CNN that investigators believe a visitor to the West Wing was responsible for leaving the cocaine in a cubby where people store phones during tours.

But the Washington, D.C., fire department initially said in a dispatch call the evening the cocaine was discovered that the substance was found in the "library" of the executive mansion, a room located in the living quarters of the White House. Four days later, NBC News reported that the cocaine was actually discovered at a different cubby near the West Executive entrance, an area near where Vice President Kamala Harris’s limo is parked.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green (R., Ga.) told reporters after a Thursday briefing with Secret Service officials that investigators were unwilling to drug test the 500 potential suspects they had identified during their investigation.

"Have they drug tested this list of 500 potential suspects that brought an illegal substance—the drug cocaine—into the White House," Greene told reporters, according to the Daily Mail. "Their answer was no, and that they're unwilling to do so."

The Secret Service has a history of intervening in criminal matters implicating the Biden family.

In 2018, Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law and lover, Hallie Biden, disposed of his .38-caliber handgun at a trash can across the street from a Delaware high school. As state police were probing the incident, Secret Service agents reportedly interviewed the owner of the store where Hunter Biden purchased the handgun just weeks prior. The store owner refused to provide paperwork to the agents fearing they were trying to conceal Hunter Biden’s involvement in the matter, sources told Politico. The Secret Service later denied any involvement in the matter.

Former Secret Service agent Konstantinos Gus Dimitrelos told the Washington Free Beacon that investigators had the tools at their disposal to determine who left the cocaine at the White House.

"It’s not like Disney World. People aren’t just coming in and out," Dimitrelos said. "There are cameras there. They could easily go back to the camera footage to see who had something coming out of their pocket that resembled whatever the package looked like."

Dimitrelos added that the Secret Service has the means to contact everyone who visited the White House in the days leading up to the discovery of the cocaine, noting that the Secret Service conducts a background check on everyone who enters the building.

"They’ve absolutely got everybody’s contact information. They can interview every single person," Dimitrelos said.

The Secret Service said in a statement Thursday that there was "insufficient DNA" and no fingerprints on the bag that could be used for "investigative comparisons."

"Without physical evidence, the investigation will not be able to single out a person of interest from the hundreds of individuals who passed through the vestibule where the cocaine was discovered," the Secret Service said. "At this time, the Secret Service's investigation is closed due to a lack of physical evidence."

Update 11:29 a.m.: This story has been updated to include a statement from the Secret Service.

The post Unsolved Mystery: Secret Service Throws In The Towel In White House Cocaine Investigation appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan unsealed charges this week against Luft, who claims to have given the FBI information in 2019 about the Biden family's Chinese business dealings. Assistant U.S. attorneys Catherine Ghosh and Daniel Richenthal, who conducted the interview with Luft in 2019, are the two lead prosecutors on his case, court records show. Both have contributed exclusively to Democrats. Ghosh made 35 contributions in the 2020 election cycle to Biden's campaign and the Democratic National Committee, according to campaign finance records. Richenthal contributed to the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign when he served in private practice, the records show.

The revelations come as IRS whistleblowers and Republicans question whether federal prosecutors, for political reasons, stymied investigations into Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings. IRS whistleblowers have alleged that Biden-appointed federal prosecutors in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., blocked requests to file tax charges against Hunter Biden in their jurisdictions. The whistleblowers also claim that investigators were prohibited from fully investigating the Biden family's foreign business ventures, including with CEFC China Energy.

The charges against Luft have already sparked allegations of a double standard in how the administration investigates the first family.

"The amazing thing is we don't prosecute foreign corruption and failure to register as a foreign agent when it's Hunter Biden. We do when it's somebody who specifically is accusing and says they have information about the wrongdoing of the Biden family," Rep. Darrell Issa (R., Calif.) said this week after Luft's indictment was unsealed.

Prosecutors charged Luft, the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act through his work for CEFC China Energy. He is accused of recruiting former CIA director James Woolsey on behalf of CEFC China Energy to write articles touting pro-Beijing policies. According to the indictment, Luft failed to register with the Justice Department for his work for a "Chinese foreign principal."

Hunter Biden has avoided similar charges, even though CEFC China Energy paid him nearly $6 million for business and legal consulting in 2017 and 2018. Joe Biden was also allegedly involved in his son's work for CEFC China Energy. Longtime Biden family friend Rob Walker told the FBI in December 2020 that Joe Biden and his son took part in a meeting with CEFC China Energy executives at the Four Seasons in Washington, D.C. That contradicts Joe Biden's claims to have no involvement in his son's business ventures.

Richenthal and Ghosh have investigated CEFC China Energy since at least 2017 when they handled the prosecution of Patrick Ho, a CEFC China Energy executive with ties to both Hunter Biden and Luft. Ho was indicted in November 2017 for attempting to bribe two African officials on behalf of CEFC China Energy. CEFC China Energy paid Hunter Biden $1 million to represent Ho in the case.

Richenthal asked the judge presiding over the Ho case to redact Biden’s name from emails introduced as evidence at trial, according to court transcripts.

"Our view is that the name of that individual is not relevant and could introduce a political dimension to this case that we don't think is worth dealing with," Richenthal said at Ho’s trial, referring to a December 2015 email in which Hunter Biden was invited to a dinner with CEFC China Energy chairman Ye Jianming.

Luft met with Richenthal, Ghosh, and four FBI agents in Brussels in March 2019, shortly after Ho was convicted at his bribery trial. Luft has said he told the prosecutors that CEFC China Energy paid Hunter Biden to use the Biden family’s connections to the FBI in order to find out whether CEFC China Energy and its chairman, Ye Jianming, were under investigation. Luft also said he told prosecutors that CEFC China Energy paid Hunter Biden to promote the Belt and Road Initiative, the Chinese government’s infrastructure investment initiative.

Prosecutors charged Luft with lying during the interviews in Brussels, which occurred on March 28 and 29, 2019, regarding his attempts to broker weapons sales on behalf of CEFC China Energy.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan did not respond to a request for comment.

The post Prosecutors of Biden Family Corruption Witness Gal Luft Donated to Joe Biden, Other Dems appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Tapper, who was booted off prime time last year due to poor ratings, justified smearing Roberts because she had retained a former Donald Trump aide as an expert witness in her lawsuit against Biden.

"We should point out, just for the sake of fairness," Tapper said, "that [the child's] mom, who you know had the incident with Hunter … has been caught up in some far-right folks, that Ziegler guy."

Garrett Ziegler, who worked under Trump adviser Peter Navarro, has published a 600-page report on Biden's abandoned laptop. When Roberts was working with Ziegler in May, Biden's legal team appeared concerned about the former Trump aide's testimony and tried to have him disqualified as an expert, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

Biden and Roberts have since reached a settlement in the lawsuit.

President Joe Biden has refused to acknowledge Roberts's child as one of his grandchildren, leading even some liberals to criticize the president. In a New York Times column titled "It's Seven Grandkids, Mr. President," Maureen Dowd criticized the president for showing a "cold shoulder—and heart" by not acknowledging his granddaughter.

"Joe Biden's mantra has always been that 'the absolute most important thing is your family,'" Dowd wrote. "Callously scarring [his granddaughter's] life, just as it gets started, undercuts that."

The post WATCH: Jake Tapper Takes Shot at Mother of Hunter Biden's Unacknowledged Child appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

By a more than two-to-one majority, Americans believe the accusations against the president and his family, according to a poll conducted this month by Issues & Insights. Fifty-six percent of those polled said the bribery allegations are "likely" true while only 27 percent said they are "unlikely."

Thirty-nine percent of Democrats said the accusations are likely and 42 percent said they are unlikely.

The pollsters said in their analysis that of the 36 demographic and political categories, only two categories, Democrats and liberals, did not say in a majority or plurality that Biden is likely guilty.

The data come after reports have surfaced for months detailing allegations that Biden and his family, namely his son Hunter Biden, took money from foreign entities, including in China, Ukraine, and Romania.

Texts surfaced last month showing Hunter Biden invoking his father's name to threaten a Chinese businessman to pay up.

"Z if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang or the Chairman I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction," Hunter Biden told Henry Zhao, an official with the Chinese military intelligence-linked energy company CEFC China Energy in 2017. "I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father. I sure hope whatever it is you are doing is very very very important."

Biden denied any knowledge of the texts. "No, I wasn’t!" Biden shouted at a reporter who asked in late June if he was with his son when the threat was sent. The Washington Free Beacon found that photos on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop place him at his father's house the day the messages were sent.

Hunter Biden agreed in June to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax crimes, a move that will likely keep him out of prison. The plea deal ends a five-year probe by the Justice Department into Biden's taxes.

An IRS whistleblower alleged that the Justice Department shielded Hunter Biden and his father from scrutiny, undermining the tax investigation.

"There were certain investigative steps that we weren't allowed to take that could have led us to President Biden," whistleblower Gary Shapley said. "We needed to take them."

House Republicans probing the Biden family's foreign dealings said the plea deal with the Department of Justice will not impact their investigation into the Biden family's overseas business dealings.

The post Nearly 40% of Dems Say Biden Likely Took Foreign Money appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

But Beau Biden's life of public service probably wouldn't have been possible without his father's helping hand, which was so evident in the early years of Beau Biden's professional life that it generated scrutiny from a local Delaware newspaper in 1996. Both Beau Biden and his father were forced to answer questions about how the young lawyer earned a spot in a hyper-competitive Justice Department program that would serve as the springboard for his political career.

Today, the story of how Beau Biden got that job provides an awkward backdrop to his father's rage in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision outlawing affirmative action in higher education: The president has responded not just by attacking the decision and the Court, but also by taking aim at so-called legacy admissions and directing his Department of Education to look at how such practices "hold back" diversity and inclusion on college campuses.

"When a poor kid—maybe the first in their family to go to college—gets the same grades and test scores as a wealthy kid whose whole family has gone to the most elite colleges in the country and whose path has been a lot easier, well, the kid who faced tougher challenges has demonstrated more grit, more determination," President Biden said.

In 1996, Beau Biden was far from the ideal applicant for a prestigious Justice Department job that saw 4,000 applicants for only 163 spots. He graduated with a 2.69 GPA from a third-rate law school, Syracuse University, and his only prior job experience was clerking for a New Hampshire judge—who, coincidentally, served as a New Hampshire co-chairman of Joe Biden's failed 1988 presidential campaign.

Still, the Wilmington, Del., News Journal reported in 1996 that Beau Biden snagged a spot in "an entry-level program for lawyers at the Justice Department." The article does not name the program, but it seems to be the Attorney General's Honors Program, described by the Justice Department as "the nation's premier entry-level federal attorney recruitment program" for "high-caliber attorneys." Beau Biden's father at the time was the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department.

The arrangement raised eyebrows at the News Journal, whose reporters reached out to both Bidens to ask if favoritism played a role in Beau's new job. But the Bidens brushed them off. "I don't see any conflict," Joe Biden responded.

"Why would there be? The Justice Department is a gigantic department and he's qualified. At least they assumed he was," Joe Biden added.

Beau Biden struck a similar note. "Are you trying to say we should have been doctors?" he snapped at a News Journal reporter who pressed him about the fact that his brother, Hunter, was also pursuing a career in law.

After Hunter Biden passed the Connecticut bar exam, he took a job at MBNA, a Delaware-based bank. Months before Hunter Biden started working at MBNA, Joe Biden sold his home to the bank's chief marketing officer for $1.2 million—more than six times what Biden paid 20 years earlier. In 1996, Joe Biden's Republican opponent ran ads slamming the senator for his seemingly cozy relationship with the bank. The press had questions, too.

"Unfortunately, no matter where I went to work, some people would make an issue of it," Hunter Biden told the News Journal, when asked if his father helped him get the job.

With a degree from Yale Law—where he served as editor of the law review—Hunter Biden seemed qualified for the lucrative banking job. But how Hunter Biden ended up at Yale was a different story.

When Hunter Biden first applied to Yale Law School, he did so with the help of a powerful alumnus. In 1993, then-president Bill Clinton called then-Yale Law dean Guido Calabresi and urged him to admit Hunter Biden.

Hunter Biden was not initially admitted to Yale. But Calabresi, one of Clinton's earliest supporters, agreed to meet with the younger Biden, as the Chronicle of Higher Education reported in 2019. Calabresi suggested that Hunter Biden enroll in a different law school and apply for a transfer after one year.

Hunter Biden took Calabresi's advice and was accepted to Georgetown University, where Clinton had earned his undergraduate degree. After a year he applied for a transfer and was admitted to Yale Law. Shortly thereafter, Calabresi resigned his deanship to serve on the federal judiciary. The man who presided over his confirmation: then-senator Joe Biden. (Calabresi has since denied playing a role in Hunter Biden's admission to Yale Law.)

Both Hunter Biden's and Beau Biden's careers took off in the following years. The latter eventually parlayed his entry-level Justice Department position into a job as a federal prosecutor, followed by a stint as Delaware's attorney general. Beau Biden was widely held to be a shoe-in for the Delaware governor's mansion when he died from cancer in 2015.

As for Hunter, his extravagant lifestyle has been well documented for years. Before his descent into drug addiction, Hunter worked as a lobbyist and an investor, where he regularly took home seven-figure paychecks. His last-known residence was a $5.4 million home in Los Angeles.

A generation later, Joe Biden's view of the favors entitled to his own family members appears unchanged. Another poor student, Biden's granddaughter Maisy, was admitted to the University of Pennsylvania after her grandfather made a phone call to then-university president Amy Gutmann. Gutmann now serves as President Biden's ambassador to Germany.

The post Today, Joe Biden Rails Against Legacy Admissions. His Past Casts An Awkward Shadow. appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

According to federal prosecutors, CEFC China Energy funded a scheme to "recruit" former CIA director James Woolsey to pen articles for Chinese state-run media that promoted Chinese government initiatives. Prosecutors allege that CEFC China Energy ran the operation through Gal Luft, the co-director of a think tank Woolsey founded. Luft is charged with failing to register as a foreign agent for "work related to Chinese foreign principals." Luft, a dual Israeli and American citizen, disclosed earlier this year that he was under investigation, but claimed he was targeted because he provided the FBI with information about Hunter Biden’s work for CEFC China Energy in 2019.

The allegation that CEFC China Energy targeted a top American intelligence official for an influence operation is certain to add intrigue to the company’s dealings with the Biden family. The family's links to CEFC China Energy drew the attention of the Justice Department’s and FBI’s counterintelligence investigators, according to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who led the agency’s tax fraud investigation of Hunter Biden. Republicans have asserted that the family’s work with CEFC China Energy "posed counterintelligence and extortion concerns," in part because of CEFC China Energy’s alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence.

In some ways, CEFC China Energy’s approach to Biden is similar to its outreach to Luft. Prosecutors allege that Patrick Ho, a CEFC China Energy executive and leader of the company’s China Energy Fund Committee think tank, gave $350,000 to Luft’s think tank in 2015. The following year, Ho asked Luft to "recruit and ‘educate’" Woolsey so that he "would make public statements…which were in the interest of China." According to prosecutors, Luft wrote articles under Woolsey’s name for Chinese state media outlets that promoted China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the massive infrastructure project that Beijing has used to gain influence in foreign countries. CEFC China Energy paid Woolsey $6,000 per month, according to the indictment.

CEFC China Energy also made its first outreach to Hunter Biden in 2015, when his father was vice president. The father of a classmate of Hunter Biden’s daughter contacted Hunter Biden in October 2015, offering to facilitate a donation from CEFC China to a charity where Hunter Biden served as a director. The man, Scott Oh, also asked to discuss "investment opportunities" and "invitations for the B’s to speak in China," an apparent reference to the Biden family.

Weeks later, former United Nations official Vuk Jeremic, who served as a consultant for CEFC China Energy, contacted Hunter Biden to arrange a meeting with the company.

It is unclear what transpired between CEFC China Energy and the Bidens until 2017, when Hunter Biden formally struck a lucrative consulting deal with the company.

The exact nature of Hunter Biden’s work for CEFC China Energy has remained a mystery. He discussed potential energy mergers for CEFC China Energy and energy companies in Louisiana, but those deals fizzled. The company paid Hunter Biden $5 million from August 2017 through May 2018, according to bank records.

There is evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his son’s dealings with CEFC China Energy. Rob Walker, a longtime Biden family friend, told the FBI in December 2020 that Joe and Hunter Biden attended a meeting with CEFC China Energy officials at the Four Seasons in Washington, D.C. And Tony Bobulinski, a former Hunter Biden partner, has released text messages that indicate he met with Joe Biden in May 2017 to discuss a venture with CEFC China Energy.

Hunter Biden invoked his father in a threatening text message to CEFC China Energy executives on July 30, 2017, demanding payment as part of their business arrangement. The company wired Hunter Biden $100,000 days later, and would send him millions of dollars more over the ensuing months. In September 2017, Hunter Biden asked the building manager for his Washington, D.C., office to make a set of keys for his father and CEFC China executives, referring to them all as "office mates."

CEFC China Energy also paid Hunter Biden another $1 million to provide legal services to Patrick Ho, the CEFC China Energy executive who worked closely with Luft. Ho, who is described as Luft’s "co-conspirator" throughout the latest indictment, was indicted in November 2017 for attempting to bribe two African officials to purchase oil rights on behalf of CEFC China Energy. Ho’s meetings with the African officials were arranged by Vuk Jeremic, the CEFC China Energy consultant who contacted Hunter Biden about working with the firm in late 2015.

House Republicans have sought interviews with Jeremic, a former Serbian foreign minister, but he has declined the request.

The indictment provides other details about CEFC China Energy’s ties to the Chinese government, and covert activities aimed at helping Beijing.

According to prosecutors, Luft claimed that CEFC China Energy chairman Ye Jinming "has very close relations with President Xi Jinping." Hunter Biden met Ye numerous times, including at Ye’s house in Miami in February 2017, where Ye gave him an $80,000 diamond. Hunter Biden wrote a letter to Ye on June 1, 2017, offering "best wishes from my family and I."

"We are all hoping to see you here again soon, or in Shanghai," Biden wrote. He also touted "top relationships we have with the leaders both politically and economically in countries you are interested in expanding into."

Hunter Biden seemingly acknowledged concerns that CEFC China Energy was linked to the Chinese government. He referred to Patrick Ho as the "fucking spy chief of China" in audio recordings in 2018. In May 2017 text messages, Hunter Biden said that he wanted to avoid registering work for CEFC China Energy under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, the same law that Luft is now accused of violating.

Neither Hunter Biden nor Woolsey, who served as Clinton’s CIA chief until 1995, have been charged with any crimes related to their work for CEFC China Energy.

The post Hunter Biden's Chinese Partners Recruited Ex-CIA Director To Do Beijing's Bidding appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan accused Gal Luft of covertly working for China and attempting to facilitate arms sales to Iran, Libya, and Qatar. Luft, the co-director of the Maryland-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, was arrested in Cyprus on Feb. 17, but skipped bail while facing extradition to the United States. U.S. Attorney Damian Williams and Justice Department assistant attorney general for national security Matthew Olsen, both Biden appointees, announced the charges against Luft.

Luft said after his arrest earlier this year that the Justice Department was targeting him because he provided information about the Bidens to the FBI and Justice Department in 2019.

​​"DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim & Hunter Biden," said Luft, who met with FBI agents and Justice Department officials in Brussels.

Luft’s allegations come as IRS whistleblowers accuse the Justice Department of stymying an investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings. Hunter Biden entered a plea deal with federal prosecutors on misdemeanor tax charges for failure to pay taxes in 2017 and 2018. IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who worked on the investigation, said his team was prevented from fully investigating the sources of Hunter Biden’s income. Shapley also said that the FBI had national security concerns about Hunter Biden’s ties to CEFC China Energy, a Chinese energy conglomerate with extensive ties to Luft.

The Washington Free Beacon reported in March that Luft worked closely with CEFC China Energy, which gave his think tank $350,000 in grants. CEFC paid Hunter Biden at least $6 million in 2017 and 2018. The firm, which has suspected ties to Chinese military intelligence, gave Hunter Biden at least $5 million for business consulting, and another $1 million to provide legal services to Patrick Ho, a CEFC executive who was indicted for trying to bribe two African officials for oil rights.

Both Hunter Biden and Luft worked closely with Ho, who was convicted on bribery charges. Hunter Biden referred to Ho as the "fucking spy master of China" in audio recordings in 2018. Luft submitted a letter of support for Ho at his federal trial. A former employee of Ho’s told the Free Beacon that he was frequently accompanied by Luft at CEFC’s offices in New York.

House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.), who is investigating the Biden family’s business ventures, has sought interviews with Luft. He said last week he plans to ask the FBI for documents related to Luft’s interviews with the FBI, which were conducted in Brussels.

Prosecutors charged Luft with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act and Arms Export Control Act. They allege he violated the foreign agent law by commissioning articles in Chinese state media from a former U.S. government official.

While the official is not identified in the indictment, Luft recently said that he paid former CIA director James Woolsey to write opinion articles for China Daily. Woolsey was a founder of Luft’s think tank and spoke at numerous events with Patrick Ho, the CEFC China Energy executive.

The post Justice Department Charges Think Tank Official Who Gave FBI Info on Hunter Biden appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

"Maybe Maureen Dowd should find something else to write about," cohost Whoopi Goldberg said on Monday. "This is not anybody’s business."

She added that talking about Biden's family is "unnecessary" and that we "need to know not almost anything [sic]" about politicians' families.

Dowd published a piece Saturday in the New York Times calling out Biden for refusing to acknowledge he has seven grandchildren.

"The president can’t defend Hunter on all his other messes and draw the line at accepting one little girl," Dowd wrote. "You can’t punish her for something she had no choice about. The Bidens should embrace the life Hunter brought into the world."

Four-year-old Navy Joan is the daughter of Hunter Biden and his former mistress Lunden Alexis Roberts, but the first family refuses to acknowledge the child, who was proven through a paternity test to be Hunter Biden's daughter.

Aides in the White House have been told that the family has six grandchildren, not seven, according to the Times. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to comment on Biden's seventh grandchild when asked by a reporter last week whether Biden acknowledges "this little girl as his granddaughter."

The post 'This Is Not Anybody's Business': 'The View' Hosts Slam Columnist Who Criticized Biden's Treatment of Grandchild appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Asked whether he could rule out the possibility that the drugs belong to Hunter Biden, White House spokesman Andrew Bates told reporters he couldn't comment "because we have to be careful about the Hatch Act," which prohibits federal officials from using their positions to engage in certain political activities that could influence elections.

The Biden administration, however, has repeatedly disregarded the law. Just weeks before Bates's comments, for example, the Office of Special Counsel determined that White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre broke the law by repeatedly slamming "MAGA Republicans" from the White House podium. The White House nonetheless said it had no plans to change its behavior and has continued using the term.

Bates’s Hatch Act excuse baffled ethics experts, who said it wouldn’t apply to questions about the discovery of cocaine in the White House over the weekend. The Hatch Act "has nothing to do with the question of the discovery in the White House," former White House ethics counsel Richard Painter told the Washington Free Beacon. "It’s completely irrelevant."

In response to a Free Beacon inquiry, the White House suggested that Bates cited the Hatch Act because the reporter who asked the cocaine question at one point mentioned former president Donald Trump. The question itself did not mention Trump—the reporter asked Bates if he was "willing to say" the drugs "don't belong" to the president or Hunter Biden.

Jean-Pierre is far from the only prominent Biden administration official to flout the Hatch Act since the president took office in January 2021. Jean-Pierre's predecessor, former Biden spokeswoman and current MSNBC anchor Jen Psaki, also broke the law when she endorsed Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, during a press briefing. Health and Human Services secretary Xavier Becerra similarly violated the Hatch Act in April when he endorsed Sen. Alex Padilla (D., Calif.) during a Congressional Hispanic Caucus gala. Becerra praised Padilla as "my brother, my friend and senator, and someone I will be voting for in a little bit more than a month," prompting an aide to exclaim, "No, no, you can't say that."

Jean-Pierre's continued use of the term "MAGA," meanwhile, came after the Office of Special Counsel warned the press secretary that doing so would be seen as "a knowing and willful violation of the law" that could result in "disciplinary action." Both Jean-Pierre and Bates went on to use the term in statements and memos. Jean-Pierre also defended the phrase, saying she merely used it "in the context of talking about [Republican] policies and talking about their values."

Former White House chief of staff Ron Klain was also found to have violated the Hatch Act last October after he retweeted a Democratic political action committee post promoting President Joe Biden and asking people to buy the group’s "Democrats Deliver" t-shirts.

"By retweeting this message, Mr. Klain used his official Twitter account to promote a partisan political group’s interests and, therefore, OSC has concluded that he violated the Hatch Act’s use of official authority prohibition," said the Office of Special Counsel in a letter to the America First Legal Foundation, which filed the complaint.

Biden administration officials have offered shifting stories about where the cocaine was initially found. The Washington, D.C., fire department on Sunday said the substance was discovered in the "library" of the executive mansion, but a Secret Service spokesman later said it was found in the West Wing. Days later, White House officials said the cocaine was actually found near the White House's West Executive entrance.

The various locations all come with different clues as to who may have brought the cocaine into the building. While the West Wing houses the daily work offices for Biden and White House staffers, the library is located in the White House living quarters below, where access is more restricted. The White House's West Executive Entrance, meanwhile, is near where the vice president's limo parks.

Hunter Biden, who was rumored to be living at the executive mansion earlier this spring, has publicly struggled with cocaine addiction for years. The president's son was booted from the U.S. Navy in 2014 after testing positive for the drug, which he blamed on a cigarette he said he bummed outside of a bar from "two men who told him that they were from South Africa." On Friday, not long before the substance's discovery at the White House, pool reporters saw Hunter Biden depart the residence with his father to travel to Camp David.

Update 9:15 p.m.: This piece has been updated to include comment from the White House.

The post Biden White House Didn’t Care About the Hatch Act—Until It Faced Questions About Hunter and Cocaine appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

• A second viable suspect has emerged as the Biden administration continues to revise its story regarding the location of the illegal drugs.

Crucial context: The White House initially claimed the cocaine was found in a highly trafficked area of the White House where "visitors taking tours of the West Wing are instructed to leave their cellphones." That was a lie.

• The drugs were actually found in a highly secure area of the White House "near the Situation Room," a place where "average people just can't get in" that also happens to be "where the vice president's vehicle is parked."

Who dunnit: The cocaine's proximity to Vice President Kamala Harris's vehicle raises some troubling questions in light of her history prosecuting drug cases as San Francisco district attorney.

The case for Kamala: Harris's political career was nearly upended by a cocaine-related scandal in 2010, when a California state judge ruled that Harris failed to share information she was required to disclose to defense attorneys.

• Weeks after one of Harris's top deputies in the San Francisco district attorney's office expressed concern about the reliability of a crime lab technician, the technician was busted for taking "cocaine from the lab, possibly tainting evidence and raising concerns about hundreds of cases."

• Harris had a moral and professional obligation to disclose this information to defense attorneys representing clients charged with drug-related offenses linked to the delinquent lab technician. She neglected to do so and was credibly accused of having "systematically violated defendants' civil and constitutional rights."

• After being reprimanded by the state judge, Harris was forced to dismiss roughly 1,000 drug-related cases, many of which had already resulted in convictions.

Mounting evidence: Kamala's former lover, Willie Brown, went out of his way to defend a wealthy San Francisco coke dealer indicted for trafficking hundreds of kilos of the illegal substance.

• While serving as speaker of the California state assembly in the mid-1980s, Brown appeared in court as an attorney for Lester "White Boy" Smith, a Ferrari salesman and notorious suburban drug dealer. Smith was arrested for attempting to buy 220 pounds of cocaine from undercover officers.

• Smith faced a potential life sentence, but Brown pleaded for leniency and requested a four-year prison term for the "model young man" who "made a stupid mistake." Smith was subsequently arrested again for dealing drugs after his release on $3 million bail. He was ultimately convicted and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

• Harris dated Brown from 1994 to 1995, shortly before he was elected mayor of San Francisco. Brown admitted to boosting Harris's career by appointing her to highly compensated positions on California state commissions. "I certainly helped with her first race for district attorney in San Francisco," Brown wrote in a 2019 op-ed, the same year he was honored with a Washington Free Beacon Man of the Year award.

Bottom line: Harris has a problematic history when it comes to cocaine. She occasionally cackles like a cokehead. The drugs were found near her vehicle. Coincidence?

Be smart: It was definitely Hunter's cocaine.

Go deeper: Dr. Sebastian Gorka explains why.

The post Was Hunter Framed? Second Suspect Emerges in WH Cocaine Scandal appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

The drugs were reportedly discovered in a restricted part of the White House, and on a day when public tours were not offered. To most people, this would suggest the drugs belonged to someone senior in the Biden administration or in the Biden family.

But those theories are too simple for the media, who have instead suggested that a White House visitor carried the cocaine past heavy security, at considerable personal risk, only to leave the drugs behind.

The powdery substance discovered by Secret Service at the White House on Sunday is confirmed to be cocaine. A leading theory by law enforcement officials is that the bag of cocaine was brought in by an individual on a tour of the West Wing, CBS News' @weijia reports. pic.twitter.com/IEXQvnmMGK

— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 5, 2023

• The Washington Post: "Cocaine Found in White House Near Where Guests Enter West Wing":

Jean-Pierre added that Biden was briefed on the matter, and she stressed that many outsiders set foot in the area where the cocaine was found." This is a heavily traveled area of the campus of the White House," she said. "It is where visitors to the West Wing come through." Law enforcement officials cautioned that because the area where the cocaine was discovered is so highly trafficked, it may be difficult to determine who was responsible for bringing the drug into the White House.

• The New York Times: "Secret Service Investigating Who Brought Cocaine Into the White House":

The small plastic envelope was found in an area of the West Wing that visitors and staff members often pass through during the day. When staff members want to bring relatives or friends on tours of the West Wing, they usually do so at night and on the weekends. A person familiar with the investigation said that the baggie was found near an area where guests are screened for security and leave their phones in small cubbies. The Secret Service would not say where exactly the substance was found in the lobby or whether the agency was working with the White House to review guest logs. People familiar with the investigation say that the area is frequented so often by so many groups of people that it may be hard to find the person who left the baggie.

Curiously absent from these reports is any mention of the fact that President Joe Biden's son, Hunter, who has struggled with cocaine addiction, is reportedly living in the White House. Nor do the stories note that Hunter Biden was photographed alongside his father on the West Wing balcony the day the baggie was found.

But the press doesn't seem interested in finding a culprit. In fact, they've simply declared that we'll never know who brought the drugs.

• NBC News: "Lab Test Confirms White Substance Found at The White House is Cocaine":

It is unclear how long the bag was in the White House. The blurry timeline and the number of people who walk through the area where the cocaine was found could make it difficult to determine who was responsible, an official familiar with the investigation said.

• CNN: "Lab Tests Show Substance Found at White House Was Cocaine":

The Secret Service, the official said, is doing "everything possible" to try and identify who brought what the official described as a "dime-sized bag" into the West Wing. The official noted that identifying the culprit may be difficult because of the size of the bag and the number of people who would have had access to the area.

The whole situation is just silly anyway, per CNN:

CNN jokes about cocaine being found in Joe Biden's West Wing.
"I want to know blow-by-blow who was responsible for this." - Sara Sidner while snickering.
"There is no 'too soon' ... It's an illicit drug at the White House. Why can't you have a little bit of fun?" - Kate Bolduan pic.twitter.com/mtR6VEPH6M

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 5, 2023

And nothing new.

I'm going to venture that Hunter Biden is not the only person who has stepped foot into a White House to have once used cocaine. In fact — you may wanna sit down for this — Barack Obama dabbled with it earlier in his life

— Sam Stein (@samstein) July 5, 2023

The post Cocaine in the White House: Nothing To See Here! appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Who said it: Politico, citing an unidentified law enforcement official "familiar with the investigation."

Context: One of the most secure buildings in the world was temporarily evacuated Sunday following the discovery of a small bag of cocaine on the premises. The Secret Service said Wednesday an investigation is underway to find the culprit. But an anonymous source with knowledge of the probe is working the press to temper public expectations that the fugitive will ever be found.

The discovery of the illicit substance at the White House could have serious implications for President Joe Biden, especially if the cocaine was found in the "library" of the executive mansion, as the Washington, D.C., fire department said in a Sunday dispatch call. The library is located in the living quarters of the White House, where Hunter Biden, a recovering drug addict, is rumored to be living.

Though Joe Biden and his scandal-plagued son were not at the White House on Sunday, Biden spokesman Andrew Bates refused to deny Thursday that the cocaine belonged to Hunter Biden. "I don’t have a response to that because we have to be careful about the Hatch Act," he said. No provision in the Hatch Act, which prevents federal officials from influencing elections on taxpayer time, would prevent Bates from answering that question.

The Secret Service offered a second version of events on Wednesday, saying in a statement the cocaine was discovered in a highly trafficked cubby area in the West Wing where visitors store their phones during tours of the building. And on Thursday, NBC News reported a third version of events, that the cocaine was actually found in a different White House cubby near the West Executive entrance, an area near where the vice president’s limo is parked.

The unidentified law enforcement officer quoted by Politico said it would be "very difficult" for the Secret Service to identify the source of the cocaine because the West Wing cubby area is "a bit of a thoroughfare. People walk by there all the time."

Analysis: Konstantinos Gus Dimitrelos, a former Secret Service agent, scoffed at the suggestion that law enforcement officials lack the ability to identify the individual who brought cocaine into the White House.

"It’s not like Disney World. People aren’t just coming in and out," Dimitrelos told the Washington Free Beacon. "There are cameras there. They could easily go back to the camera footage to see who had something coming out of their pocket that resembled whatever the package looked like."

Contacting White House visitors is not a heavy lift for the Secret Service, Dimitrelos added. Anyone who takes a tour of the West Wing undergoes a Secret Service background check weeks before arriving at the White House, he said.

"They’ve absolutely got everybody’s contact information. They can interview every single person," Dimitrelos said.

The Secret Service has the ability to determine who left the cocaine at the White House on Sunday. What remains to be determined is whether the service has the will to use the investigative tools at its disposal to find the culprit.

The post FACT CHECK: The Secret Service Can't Determine Who Brought Cocaine to the White House appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.