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.

Biden in a Sunday social media post boasted that real wages, which reflect a worker's pay after accounting for inflation, are higher than before the pandemic. "That's Bidenomics," the Democrat said. Biden's claim, however, relies on data from February 2020, when real wages were just two cents lower than they are now. Over the next 11 months—from March 2020 to January 2021, when Biden took office—real wages rose, only to continuously decline under Biden. In total, real hourly wages have dropped more than 3 percent since Biden became president.

Biden is nonetheless insisting that his "Bidenomics" have clawed Americans out of a deep economic hole created by the coronavirus pandemic, a message that comes as he faces a difficult reelection campaign and abysmal approval ratings.

For now, Americans aren't buying it—just a third approve of the president's economic decisions, according to an Associated Press poll released in June. Many economists agree, contending that the U.S. economy is not in the shape Biden says it is.

Hillsdale College economics department chair Charles Steele, for example, told the Washington Free Beacon he "would be embarrassed" to brag about a two-cent jump in real hourly wages. "I'm reminded of when my wife and I each measured a course we were running and disagreed over where the half mile point was—by a distance of four feet. That's the kind of argument they are making," Steele said. "It is dishonest to pretend this shows 'Bidenomics' works. 'Bidenomics' has failed to match the economic growth of the Trump era."

EJ Antoni, a public finance economist at the Heritage Foundation, echoed Steele's rhetoric. Antoni told the Free Beacon that Biden is "either ignorant or intentionally deceptive" if he believes his economic policies have helped Americans.

"The administration seems to be implying that real earnings have clawed their way back up from depressed levels, but the opposite is true," Antoni said. "Real earnings are still down relative to when Biden took office."

Still, the White House defended Biden's Sunday claim, arguing that March 2020—when real wages were higher than they are now—is not an accurate portrayal of the pre-pandemic economy because the United States was already in a recession. As a result, the White House told the Free Beacon, the labor force was "substantially distorted" and did not reflect a "pre-pandemic normal."

That argument is "nonsensical," Antoni said. He noted that wage data are "gathered the week of the month containing the 12th," meaning the data for March 2020 would have been compiled before "government-imposed lockdowns and mass layoffs" plagued the U.S. economy.

"You can certainly consider March 2020 as pre-pandemic when it comes to wage data," Antoni told the Free Beacon. Using March 2020 as a pre-pandemic benchmark would mean real wages are not higher today than before the pandemic, as Biden claimed.

Biden is far from the only prominent Democrat to use misleading stats to pump up the economy. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) on Monday said the "Biden economy" has produced "declining inflation," adding that "extreme MAGA Republican haters are having a meltdown" as a result. Under Biden, however, inflation in 2022 reached a 40-year high. While inflation is now slowly coming down from those record levels, prices remain high. Nearly 60 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, according to a CNBC survey published in April.

For Job Creators Network president and CEO Alfredo Ortiz, Biden "is desperate to distract from the reality that average Americans have gotten poorer under his presidency."

"Over the course of his term, inflation has risen by approximately 16 percent, significantly faster than average wages," Ortiz told the Free Beacon. "In an attempt to sell 'Bidenomics,' Biden is making a series of misleading and false claims about Americans' wages. But as any consumer or small business can tell you, the reality is that 'Bidenomics' equals Bidenflation."

The post 'I Would Be Embarrassed': Economists Hammer Biden's Attempts to Spin Sky-High Inflation appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Kerry during a press conference said that while he went to China to "break new ground" on the communist nation's climate commitments, he was unable to do so. Kerry went as far as to admit that he made no demands of the Chinese, arguing that "nobody should be 'dictated to.'" He nonetheless argued that his trip was a success, as he held "very frank conversations."

"We did succeed in having long and very detailed meetings with a lot to catch up on," Kerry said. "We did have very frank conversations, but we came here to break new ground … and it is clear that we are going to need a little more work to complete that task."

Kerry's failure to return to the United States with any sort of climate agreement likely comes as an embarrassment to the Biden administration, which argued in the buildup to Kerry's trip that U.S.-China climate negotiations should not be derailed by political disagreements. During Kerry's time in Beijing, Xi poured cold water on the Biden administration's attempts at climate diplomacy—he did not meet with Kerry during the visit and on Tuesday said his nation's climate goals "will never be influenced by others."

In response to that statement, Kerry on Wednesday said he agrees that the United States should not make demands of the Chinese.

"We all agree that nobody should be 'dictated to,' and we're not doing that. That's why we had three days of intensive discussions," Kerry said. "And I think if you ask [Chinese officials] … they would tell you there was no dictation here, there was a clear exchange of ideas."

In addition to Xi's comments, the Chinese Communist Party used climate negotiations to threaten the United States during Kerry's trip. CCP-run propaganda rag Global Times on Monday warned that America must end its "crackdown" on China or risk losing "any kind of cooperation" on climate change.

"While Washington has long wanted to isolate climate change issues related to China, there is actually no way to separate bilateral cooperation on global warming from the broader context of China-U.S. relations," the state-run media outlet's editorial said.

Kerry worked to avoid angering Xi ahead of the trip. During a Thursday congressional hearing, he refused to call Xi a "dictator," saying that while Xi "wields enormous power as the leader of China," the Biden administration shouldn't get "tangled up in labels and names."

"Frankly, all of that is water off a duck's back," Kerry said.

The post John Kerry Leaves China Empty-Handed After Days of Climate Discussions appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

• Leqembi is the first new Alzheimer's treatment fully approved by the FDA in 20 years, and the first drug that slows progression of the cognitive disease.

• The FDA granted "accelerated approval" for Leqembi in January 2023, roughly three months after Biden attempted to converse with a dead congresswoman at a White House nutrition conference.

• The FDA is a federal agency housed within the Department of Health and Human Services, which is run by a presidential appointee. The timing of the drug's approval raises some troubling questions about government collusion and election interference.

SILVER ALERT: Biden's Bumbles Hit New Low

Why it matters: This is great news for Biden's reelection campaign. Leqembi has been shown to "modestly slow the pace of cognitive decline" in Alzheimer's patients, according to the New York Times.

• A modest reduction may well suffice. Biden, 80, just needs to remain minimally upright and competent until Election Day on Nov. 5, 2024.

• In phase 3 clinical trials, patients taking Leqembi experienced a 27 percent slower rate of decline compared with the placebo group.

• Side effects include brain swelling, seizures, and death.

Crucial context: Biden reportedly has been prone to violent temper tantrums since taking office, which is a common symptom of Alzheimer's and other forms of cognitive decline.

• Biden's cognitive decline was likely exacerbated by his failure to properly treat his longstanding sleep apnea, the Washington Free Beacon reported in June.

Bottom line: Biden should be resting comfortably at home, surrounded by friends and family. Not running for reelection.

The post COLLUSION? FDA Approves New Alzheimer's Drug Just in Time for Biden Reelection Campaign 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.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during her July trip to China "previewed" to Xi's government the administration's plans to limit investment into certain Chinese sectors, Bloomberg reported Monday evening. "The goal, in part, was to make sure it doesn't catch off guard America's biggest geopolitical rival," according to the outlet.

The revelation marks the latest example of Yellen's attempts to appease the Chinese while in Beijing. Beyond briefing Xi's government on the planned investment restrictions, Yellen declined to use tough-on-China language that has angered the Chinese Communist Party. The Treasury secretary refused during her trip to say that the Biden administration is working to "decouple" or "de-risk" from China's economy, instead arguing that the United States merely wants "diverse" supply chains. Yellen hoped that language would "allay China's concerns," according to the New York Times.

While China's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday condemned U.S. efforts to "place arbitrary curbs on normal technology cooperation and trade," the Biden administration's plans to restrict investment in China are more limited than expected. The restrictions, which should be unveiled by the end of August, only apply to new investments and include carveouts for China's biotechnology and energy sectors, according to Bloomberg. Yellen during a Monday interview touted the narrow scope of the restrictions, saying the administration's plans will not "affect U.S. investment broadly in China" or "have a fundamental impact on affecting the investment climate for China."

As a result, some China experts say the plans do not go far enough. American Enterprise Institute senior fellow Derek Scissors said that Yellen's "constant attempts to reassure" China are "bizarre," while American Foreign Policy Council senior fellow Michael Sobolik accused the administration of "pulling punches."

"The Biden administration should just be honest and say what they want: improved relations with a genocidal regime," Sobolik told the Washington Free Beacon. "This is how America loses the Cold War with China. One concession at a time."

The Treasury Department did not return a request for comment. News of its watered-down investment restrictions comes as another top Biden administration official, climate czar John Kerry, meets with Chinese leaders in Beijing to hold climate change talks.

China has tied those negotiations to further U.S. concessions. The CCP's flagship newspaper, the Global Times, said on Monday that America must end its "crackdown on China" and "mend the past frictions" with the communist nation or lose "any kind of cooperation" on climate change. Kerry on the same day praised the Chinese government, which is by far the world's top carbon emitter, for "doing an incredible job of building out renewables." Kerry also urged the United States and China to put aside "political issue[s]" and "come together to take action."

Florida Republican congressman Mike Waltz subsequently hammered the Biden administration for its willingness to "overlook" Chinese threats in an attempt to maintain "helpless" climate negotiations.

"The Biden administration are climate appeasers willing to overlook all the threats posed by the CCP in a helpless attempt to get China on board with their environmental priorities," Waltz told the Free Beacon. "Not only are they weakening American energy independence, but further enabling China's pollution by building green energy projects with Russian coal."

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Federal law prohibits agencies from awarding grants to companies with unpaid federal taxes. But Deployed Resources, a New York-based contractor that owes $585,075 in unpaid taxes, received $964 million in federal contracts this year to house illegal immigrants in North Carolina and Texas. That windfall comes as Deployed Resources cultivated ties to the Democratic Party.

Tom Ziemba, an executive at Deployed Resources and president of its sister company, Deployed Services, has contributed more than $34,000 to Democrats, and has consulted for various Democratic groups. His ex-wife, Julie Mason, served as chief of staff for Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband until June 2022. Mason joined Deployed Services earlier this year as executive vice president for communications.

"The federal government has numerous controls to ensure award recipients are lawful and ethical actors, but these appear to be disregarded amid the Biden administration’s humanitarian crisis at the border," said Pete McGinnis, the communications director for the Functional Government Initiative, a government watchdog group.

Contracts to Deployed Resources, awarded largely by the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Health and Human Services, ballooned from $147 million in 2020 to $944 million in 2022. The IRS filed tax liens against the New York-based company in October 2022 for unpaid taxes from 2020 and 2021, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

Deployed Resources is not the first Democrat-linked firm to score lucrative contracts from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The San Antonio-based Family Endeavors, which hired Biden transition adviser Andrew Lorenzen-Strait in early 2021, received a $579 million no-bid contract from the office in March 2021, the Free Beacon reported. The Office of Refugee Resettlement’s budget has quadrupled even as it lost track of more than 100,000 unaccompanied children. Nearly all of the new spending has gone to Deployed Resources, Family Endeavors, and one other contractor.

Deployed Services has received $335 million in contracts since 2021 to provide "direct care" services at the North Carolina facility operated by Deployed Resources. That includes $261 million in no-bid contracts since last year, a practice that Vice President Harris and other Democrats have decried.

McGinnis said the contracts have been awarded "without proper oversight, even after contract recipients were tagged with clear misconduct, including unpaid taxes."

"Sadly, these cartel-friendly policies appear dysfunctional at every turn," he told the Free Beacon.

In 2019, the Government Accountability Office found that Health and Human Services and four other agencies rarely complied with the regulations regarding contracts for companies with IRS debts. Federal contractors are required to disclose whether they have any unpaid debt. Agencies must either deny contracts for tax scofflaws or consider whether they should be suspected.

The Government Accountability Office criticized Customs and Border Protection in 2019 over a $12 million contract with Deployed Resources for a migrant housing facility in Tornillo, Tex. According to the report, the government paid Deployed Resources for 650,000 meals that were never ordered. The facility was designed to hold 2,500 migrants at a time, but only 68 stayed there on average per day.

Deployed Resources did not respond to numerous requests for comment. DHS and HHS did not respond to requests for comment.

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In a Monday letter sent to State Department acting inspector general Diana Shaw, a group of 17 senators, led by South Carolina Republican Tim Scott, demand the watchdog "conduct an independent investigation into whether State Department officials complied with all appropriate laws and regulations" when they removed Malley from his posting. The signatories say the State Department must clearly explain why Malley was only placed on unpaid leave after information about an FBI investigation into his actions spilled into the press.

"We were alarmed to learn that the U.S. Department of State has suspended Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley's clearance, is conducting an investigation into Malley's handling of classified information, and only recently placed Malley on leave without pay," the senators wrote.

The charges against Malley come as the Biden administration conducts secret diplomacy with Iran aimed at securing a new nuclear deal. The United States is reportedly prepared to give the cash-strapped Iranian regime access to billions of dollars in exchange for minimal restrictions on its nuclear program, which is closer than ever to developing an atomic weapon.

Malley quietly had his security clearance revoked sometime earlier this year, but that information was kept hidden from Congress until late last month, when Malley himself confirmed he was on extended leave. Congressional leaders in both chambers have now initiated investigations into the matter and suspect the Biden administration may have intentionally tried to hide the investigation into Malley's apparent mishandling of classified information.

For at least a month, the State Department would only say that Malley was on extended leave for personal reasons, but later changed his status once the investigation became public. Malley's official biography has now been scrubbed from the State Department's website, and his image removed from the Iran envoy's Twitter page, the Washington Free Beacon reported last week.

Scott and his colleagues want to know exactly when Malley was informed his security clearance had been revoked and when he turned in "all 'department-issued credentials that provide logical or physical access to classified systems or designated classified spaces.'" This information will help the senators determine if the investigation into Malley began earlier than publicly known.

The lawmakers also ask the State Department, "On what date did the State Department place Special Envoy Malley on leave without pay? Why did the State Department make the decision to do so on this date rather than on the date on which Malley's clearance was suspended?"

The House Foreign Affairs Committee, led by Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), is running its own investigation into the Malley scandal. The State Department is stonewalling the probe, telling McCaul last week that it "is not in a position to provide further documents or information related to this personnel-security clearance matter."

The State Department also will not answer press questions about the situation, only telling the Free Beacon that Malley "remains on leave" and that "we have nothing further to share at this time due to privacy considerations."

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• 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.

Government-run propaganda rag Global Times on Monday lamented the "continuing U.S. crackdown on China's technological development," adding that if America does not "mend the past frictions" with China, the communist nation will not cooperate on climate.

"If the U.S. continues its crackdown on China, escalating tensions and hostility between the two sides, it is unlikely to be conducive to any kind of cooperation, including on climate change," Global Times said in its editorial. "While Washington has long wanted to isolate climate change issues from its other political and trade policies related to China, there is actually no way to separate bilateral cooperation on global warming from the broader context of China-U.S. relations."

The CCP's threat comes as Kerry, who serves as President Joe Biden's climate czar, spends four days in China to "engage with [Beijing] on addressing the climate crisis." Kerry on Monday praised the Chinese government for "doing an incredible job of building out renewables" and urged the United States and China to put aside "political issue[s]" and "come together to take action." Those comments, GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley argued on Monday, show why Kerry "might be the worst member of Joe Biden's admin."

Kerry "wants America to ignore the fact that China is preparing for war, spying on us, hacking our govt, & infiltrating our institutions so he can make nice with [Chinese president] Xi Jinping on climate change," Haley tweeted.

Kerry, whose office did not return a request for comment, is not the only Biden administration official to travel to China in recent weeks. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen from July 6 to 9 held talks with China's top economic officials—talks that saw Yellen water down tough-on-China language that has angered the CCP. Yellen, for example, refused during her trip to say that the United States is working to "decouple" or "de-risk" from China's economy. Instead, Yellen argued that America merely wants "diverse" supply chains, language that the top Biden administration official hopes will "allay China's concerns," according to the New York Times.

Kerry has long expressed regret that the "climate issue has gotten mixed up into all the other tensions that exist between our countries." "They've kind of pulled back a little bit, expressing the feeling that all we're doing is bashing them and bashing them," Kerry said in March, nearly one year after then-House speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip to Taiwan prompted China to suspend U.S. climate talks.

Kerry last week said he hopes that his trip to China will prompt the communist nation to cut back on coal, given that China burns more coal than the rest of the world combined and is by far the world's largest carbon emitter. But China has pledged to limit its coal consumption before, only to build record numbers of new coal plants.

In 2014, for example, China said it would work to lower emissions by capping its annual coal consumption at 4.2 billion tons by 2020, a move that then-U.S. president Barack Obama said "shows what's possible when we work together on an urgent global challenge." In 2021, China exceeded that figure by more than a billion, consuming a whopping 5.24 billion tons of coal. One year later, Xi approved the equivalent of two new coal power plants per week.

Still, Kerry has cited Xi's word as proof that China is making progress on climate change. The Biden climate official in 2021 lauded Xi for using the term "climate crisis" for the first time, arguing that the rhetoric showed the Chinese president was ready to "do something" to save the planet.

The post US Must End Its 'Crackdown' on China or Lose Climate Cooperation, CCP Warns Amid Kerry Trip appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Department of Energy expense reports show that Brinton, who uses "they/them" pronouns, was on a taxpayer-funded business trip when he swiped luggage with contents worth $3,670 in plain view of security cameras at the Harry Reid International Airport on July 6, 2022, according to records obtained by the Functional Government Initiative watchdog group and shared with the Washington Free Beacon. The records show Brinton had traveled to Las Vegas to visit the Nevada National Security Site, a facility tasked with maintaining and modernizing America's nuclear weapons arsenal.

Brinton's visit to the site came just 18 days after he became President Joe Biden's deputy assistant secretary for spent fuel and waste disposition at the Department of Energy. The reasons behind Brinton's visit to Las Vegas are unclear. He departed the city three days later, on July 9. The total cost of Brinton's trip was $1,951.50.

The former government official's Las Vegas luggage heist came at the height of his budding criminal career. He would later steal another woman's suitcase, with contents worth $2,325, from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport on Sept. 16.

That theft marked Brinton's downfall. Minnesota authorities in October charged Brinton with felony theft, and in December the disgraced official was charged in the Las Vegas theft.

"It's outrageous that tax dollars transported Brinton to and from the scene of a crime, putting the American public unwittingly at the wheel of the getaway car," Functional Government Initiative spokesman Peter McGinnis told Fox News, which first reported the records. "Senior officials committing petty crime while on the clock is a clear indication that something is dysfunctional in the personnel procedures."

Brinton narrowly escaped prison time in both cases. He was ordered in April to pay $3,671 to the woman whose suitcase he stole from the Harry Reid International Airport. Also in April, a Minnesota court ordered Brinton to undergo a mental health evaluation, enter an adult diversion program, and write a letter to the victim of his Minneapolis-St. Paul heist.

The Department of Energy in December dismissed Brinton from his six-figure post as deputy assistant energy secretary.

The extent of Brinton's cross-country crime spree may yet be unknown.

The disgraced former Biden administration official was charged in May in connection to a third heist, this time of a Tanzanian fashion designer's baggage. The arrest came after the designer, Asya Khamsin, posted tweets that show Brinton wearing her custom outfit and jewelry from a bag she lost at a Washington, D.C., airport in 2018.

The post 'Genderfluid' Ex-Biden Official Sam Brinton Stole Luggage While on Taxpayer-Funded Trip appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Biden, 80, might have accidentally wandered off to join the riots in Paris had his numerous handlers and nursemaids not repeatedly told him where to go. Efforts to control the president's public statements were often thwarted by his cognitively impaired brain.

For example, Biden praised NATO as "the 30-second free standing, have free 30 free," whatever the hell that means. He fell down some stairs, bumbled around London with King Charles III, a.k.a. "Sausage Fingers," and took off his shirt to soak up some rays on the beach. It was disturbing.

Have a great weekend!

BIDEN SENIOR MOMENT ARCHIVE:

WATCH: Biden's Senior Moment of the Week Vol. 1

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The post WATCH: Joe Biden's Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 51) appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Those Democrats are talking to "possible replacement presidential candidates," according to the report, and urging them to "get ready." They say that "time is already running out" for Biden, who has officially announced his candidacy but hasn't named a campaign finance director, hired any on-the-ground staff in competitive states, or even opened a campaign headquarters.

What CNN called the "persistent sense" that Biden isn't running will likely heighten on Saturday, when the president is required to disclose the fundraising for the first few months of his campaign. It's already clear, the report found, that "multiple big donors aren't locking in," while "grassroots emails are sometimes bringing in just a few thousand dollars."

"Almost two dozen current Biden aides, top Democratic operatives and donors, and alumni of other recent campaigns" are worried about the Biden reelection campaign, CNN reported.

Biden's polling numbers, which have been underwater for two years, in June hit an all-time low of 35 percent. Nearly 60 percent of Democrats say they want the party to run another candidate, a Washington Post poll found in April.

Recent polls have found Biden either running even with or losing to Republican frontrunners Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, according to FiveThirtyEight.

The president's unpopularity has led some Democrats to embrace primary opponent Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has consistently polled at around 20 percent against Biden. Kennedy's candidacy was bolstered last month by an Economist/YouGov poll that showed him with a net 19-point favorability rating. Biden, by contrast, has a net 9-point unfavorability rating.

Democrats' rush to find alternatives to Biden comes as the party seeks to avoid running Vice President Kamala Harris, whose poll numbers are even lower than Biden's. "Kamala Harris can't win" a general election, one Capitol Hill Democrat told New York magazine last year. Another alternative, California governor Gavin Newsom, is dead-set on running if Biden bows out, sources close to Newsom told the Wrap last year. Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, meanwhile, have already launched or relaunched super PACs.

The president could also face a challenge from Democratic senator Joe Manchin (W.Va.), who has not ruled out a third-party presidential bid. The centrist group "No Labels" is floating Manchin as its candidate, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

The post Top Dems Prepare Replacement for Biden appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Malley’s biography is no longer featured on the State Department's official web portal, hinting that the official may no longer be employed even as the department maintains that Malley is "on leave" from his posting for undisclosed reasons. The Iran envoy’s official Twitter page also no longer features Malley’s image, which is now replaced with a photograph of acting special envoy Abram Paley, who has taken on Malley’s duties.

Malley has been missing in action for months, but was formally placed on unpaid leave late last month after news broke of an investigation into his mishandling of classified information. Malley’s security clearance was revoked while the FBI reportedly probes the matter.

The investigation into Malley has fueled speculation across Capitol Hill as the Biden administration secretly negotiates a revamped version of the 2015 nuclear accord with Iran. Malley was leading these talks until he quietly went on extended leave earlier this month.

House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul (R., Texas) pressed the State Department for answers earlier this month, but his investigation is being stonewalled, the Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday. The State Department informed McCaul that it is "not in a position to provide further documents or information related to this personnel-security clearance matter."

The response drew outrage from McCaul, who is currently working on ways to compel the State Department into coming clean about Malley’s actions. Lawmakers say they are particularly concerned by the Biden administration’s attempts to keep Malley’s security clearance issues a secret. News of the investigation only became public after it leaked to the press.

"Congress deserves to know exactly why the U.S. Special Envoy to Iran had his security clearance suspended, was then suspended from his position, and now, according to news reports, is being investigated by the FBI," McCaul told the Free Beacon earlier this week. "This is a person whose mission is to negotiate with the Islamic Republic of Iran—nothing could be more serious than this."

The State Department continues to duck questions about Malley, or even confirm that he is under investigation, despite Malley himself confirming that his security clearance was revoked.

"Rob Malley remains on leave," a State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon. "We have nothing further to share at this time due to privacy considerations."

The post Now You See Me, Now You Don't: State Department Removes Embattled Iran Envoy’s Bio from Website appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Federal agencies are using only a quarter of their available office space due to the growing number of government workers working from home, a federal watchdog revealed Thursday.

The Government Accountability Office cited remote work as a reason for the massive underutilization of office space it found in its investigation of 24 federal agencies. All agencies reviewed reported that their in-office workforce does not meet pre-pandemic levels, and not a single one utilizes more than 49 percent of the space it uses taxpayer money to rent and buy.

Some agencies reported usage as low as 9 percent, Rep. Scott Perry (R., Pa.) revealed in a Thursday hearing on the report.

"Low building utilization has significant costs, both to the government and to the American taxpayer," said David Marroni, acting director of the Government Accountability Office’s physical infrastructure team. "Every dollar an agency spends on unneeded space is a dollar that can’t be used for other priorities."

Government agencies embraced remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic, with no safeguards in place to ensure employees were working. Many agencies reported having no mechanism for checking whether their remote employees were working, and a quarter of federal health employees did not check their emails.

The Biden administration has encouraged remote work as a "major opportunity" to advance its climate agenda. In January, several federal agencies released a plan that claimed the COVID-19 pandemic "highlighted major opportunities" to reduce carbon emissions and energy usage through "remote work and virtual interactions."

Perry revealed in the hearing that the General Services Administration, which manages office space for the federal government, was "leading the charge," with its headquarters having one of the lowest office utilization rates.

Nina Albert, commissioner of the GSA’s Public Buildings Service, said at the hearing that she couldn’t tell the congressmen how many employees in her division were working in person.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R., Wis.) said her inability to answer the question was "completely unacceptable" and called her testimony "a pile of gobbledygook."

"I’m a retired Navy SEAL," he said, "I knew where all my people were at all times, and I managed folks in three different combat zones simultaneously, and I could tell you within a ten-meter square where they were at—in combat. And you can’t tell me where administrative personnel are located in the country, and we’re giving you how much money?"

"If this was a private portfolio, at some point, we’d just close the doors and have to forgo those buildings," said Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R., Ore.).

She added that she felt requests for more funding were effectively saying "we want more money to waste money."

The post Federal Agencies Using Just 25 Percent of Their Office Space, Watchdog Reveals appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Who said it: Heather Boushey, an economic adviser to President Joe Biden, during a Monday sit-down with CNBC. Boushey argued that Biden's American Rescue Plan couldn't have been the "real cause" of inflation because prices in the United States did not rise higher than "other countries that did not have the same policies." Instead, Boushey said, the "global pandemic" caused equal inflation in the United States and abroad.

Why it matters: Sky-high inflation meant the average U.S. household in 2022 had to spend an extra $8,600 in typical household expenses, according to an estimate from Joint Economic Committee Republicans. Biden's reelection chances in 2024 will in large part hinge on the president's ability to convince voters that the American economy is nonetheless thriving—or at least that the nation's economic woes are not the administration's fault. Just one in three U.S. adults approve of Biden's handling of the economy, according to an Associated Press poll published in June.

Context: Biden and his top officials have long balked at Republican criticisms that American Rescue Plan spending caused consumer prices to rise. Instead, they argue, corporate greed and pandemic-driven supply chain disruptions were the "real" catalysts. After Democrats passed the plan in March 2021, Biden repeatedly dismissed claims that the stimulus spending raised consumer prices. "There's nobody suggesting there's unchecked inflation on the way—no serious economist," Biden said in July 2021. Nearly a year later, Biden told the Associated Press, "The idea that [the American Rescue Plan] caused inflation is bizarre."

Analysis: Prior to the American Rescue Plan's passage, Biden's own Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, urged administration officials to scale back the bill over fears it would exacerbate inflationary pressures. Economist Larry Summers, who served in both the Clinton and Obama administrations, echoed Yellen's concerns. Summers questioned the American Rescue Plan's size and later called the measure the "least responsible macroeconomic policy" in decades.

"There is a chance that macroeconomic stimulus on a scale closer to World War II levels than normal recession levels," Summers wrote in a February 2021 column for the Washington Post, "will set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation, with consequences for the value of the dollar and financial stability."

During the 2008 recession, the Obama administration provided around 55 million Americans with roughly $13.75 billion in direct payments. Meanwhile, the American Rescue Plan provided around 168 million Americans with approximately $401.5 billion in direct stimulus payments. Once that spending set in, core inflation in the United States skyrocketed, prompting members of Biden's own party to acknowledge the plan's inflationary impact. During a June 2021 town hall, Rep. Kim Schrier (D., Wash.) said Biden's stimulus spending resulted in "a lot more people buying things," which she said would "cause prices to go up." In October, meanwhile, then-House majority whip Jim Clyburn (D., S.C.) said that "all of us knew" the stimulus spending would lead to "rising costs."

"Any time you put more money into the economy, prices tend to rise," Clyburn said.

Boushey's argument that America's inflation did not exceed price hikes seen in other nations also falls flat. A March 2022 report from economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found that U.S. core inflation from early 2021 onward grew at a higher rate than the average price hikes seen in nine other wealthy countries, including France, Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom. "These differences in inflation readings cannot be explained by measurement issues," the report said. It went on to argue that "fiscal support measures," such as the American Rescue Plan, "may have contributed to this divergence by raising inflation about 3 percentage points by the end of 2021."

Printing money leads to inflation—and everyone knows it.

The post FACT CHECK: Biden Admin Says Its Stimulus Spending Didn't Spike Inflation 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.

Under the White House’s proposed rule change, a London-based group called the Science Based Targets Initiative that is funded by the Democratic Party’s main dark money network would be responsible for approving the carbon emissions reduction plans of large federal contractors.

The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) is a fee-based service that helps companies set emissions reduction targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and verifies their progress. But its foreign status and murky financial background raise questions about the Biden administration’s decision to outsource its vetting process to the group. Critics say the proposal would give SBTi enormous veto power over American defense contracts and access to potentially sensitive data about U.S. military suppliers.

"I think Americans will be upset when they realize the Biden administration is trying to put a bunch of unelected bureaucrats and a climate activist group—headquartered in London—in charge of long-term planning for our national defense contractors," said Travis Fisher, a senior energy research fellow at the Heritage Foundation.

The rule change is expected to impact 671 large contractors across multiple federal agencies, and steer an estimated $1.2 million in mandatory fees to SBTi each year, according to the proposal, which is still awaiting approval from government administrators.

Although SBTi publicly launched in 2015, the organization didn’t officially exist until June 26, when it filed incorporation papers in London, according to United Kingdom business records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. The group is not registered in the United States. SBTi didn't respond to a request for comment.

Before its incorporation, SBTi was a partnership co-managed by five activist groups, including the "We Mean Business Coalition," a front group for a $900 million left-leaning dark money organization called the New Venture Fund. The off-the-books arrangement allowed SBTi to operate without filing financial disclosures for nearly a decade.

In 2015, the New Venture Fund, which promotes Democratic policies through an array of unincorporated shell organizations, helped launch and fund SBTi through the We Mean Business Coalition.

"Since its inception, [the We Mean Business Coalition] has been funding SBTi and mobilizing business towards science-based targets. One of our earliest milestones was reaching 150 corporate commitments to SBTi in 2016," said the We Mean Business website, where it also described itself as a "project of the New Venture Fund."

SBTi's connection to the New Venture Fund could raise questions about its political leanings. The New Venture Fund is facing scrutiny over its charity status, after the Free Beacon reported this week on a trove of internal documents and whistleblower allegations that indicate the group engaged in prohibited political activities during the 2020 elections. The documents also show that the liberal network maintains a high level of involvement in groups that it funds.

SBTi has also faced criticism from former allies over potential conflicts of interest and lack of transparency. Bill Baue, a sustainability expert who served on SBTi’s technical advisory board until 2020, described its operations as "ad hoc and haphazard" and compared the group’s leadership to the "Keystone Cops."

Baue said the organization doesn’t appear to have any procedures in place to address financial conflicts, ethics issues, or proper governance. When he voiced these issues internally, and later, in a formal complaint, he said leadership brushed him off and refused to respond.

SBTi would be "operating in a quasi-regulatory stance" under the Biden administration’s proposed rule change, Baue told the Free Beacon. "And yet it doesn’t have the kind of checks and balances or transparency for such an organization…certainly there’s reason to be concerned."

These issues could add to objections already raised by lawmakers and U.S. businesses. The American Bankers Association submitted a public comment criticizing the rule change in February, saying it "hands practical regulatory powers to non-governmental organizations" without verifying the "suitability of these organizations" to carry out the work. BP questioned the legality of the rule, saying it "effectively appoint[s] a third-party arbiter to determine which companies are eligible to be major contractors."

House Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R., Okla.), who sent a letter to the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council in March warning that the proposal could have "detrimental consequences for our national security and mission readiness," is looking into holding hearings on the matter, sources told the Free Beacon.

The idea for SBTi first took shape in 2013 during a meeting between climate activists and researchers at the Washington, D.C.-based offices of the World Resources Institute, a well-established environmental nonprofit funded by many of the left’s top benefactors, including the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and George Soros’s Open Society Institute.

SBTi didn’t register as a stand-alone entity for eight years after its launch. Instead, it was staffed and co-managed by five activist groups: the New Venture Fund’s We Mean Business Coalition, the World Resources Institute, the Carbon Disclosure Project, the World Wildlife Fund, and the UN Global Compact.

Because of this arrangement, SBTi was not required to file public financial records disclosing its income, spending, salaries, and other information. The We Mean Business Coalition was also able to avoid filing such disclosures until 2021, when it spun off from the New Venture Fund and registered as a stand-alone nonprofit group.

Parker Thayer, a researcher at the Capital Research Center watchdog group, said this lack of transparency is common for projects associated with the New Venture Fund.

"The New Venture Fund is a dark money titan from the left that specializes in creating the appearance of broad public support" through unregistered front groups, said Thayer. "[They] allow the left to create the image that numerous organizations support their cause when in reality it’s all a one-man puppet show."

SBTi has also faced internal complaints. Baue said he was dropped from the technology advisory committee without explanation in 2020 after he expressed concerns that SBTi was using a weak methodology for setting emissions reduction targets. That method was created by one of SBTi’s parent groups, the World Wildlife Fund, which Baue said raised questions about "conflicts of interest and self-dealing."

"The effect is that [SBTi] monopolized the marketplace by removing any competition" from independent measurement standards, he said.

Baue added that SBTi’s validation service—in which it charges companies a fee to approve their emissions reduction targets and plans—also poses a conflict of interest, because it could give the group a financial incentive to weaken its standards in order to attract more paying clients.

"If you’re the standard-setter and you’re also making money from the validations there’s at least a temptation to water down your standards in order to continue to have a flow of validation revenue," said Baue.

The post Biden Proposal Would Give Foreign Climate Group Veto Power Over U.S. Military Contracts appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.