Commentary: Hard Evidence Warranting the Impeachment of Joe Biden

by James D. Agresti

 

In a staggering act of journalistic deceit, the New York Times is reporting that Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden without any “evidence of financial wrongdoing or corruption by the president.” Similar statements have been made by a massive array of media outlets and Democrat politicians.

In reality, overwhelming proof of Joe Biden’s corruption and wrongdoing has been found, including hard evidence like written records and corroborated testimonies from first-hand witnesses. Collectively, at least 12 sets of documented facts leave no reasonable doubt that Biden participated in his son’s illicit businesses deals, bribed foreign officials, and obstructed justice.

Moreover, no less than three major defenses of Biden are demonstrably false.

1) “Don’t Mention Joe”

Joe Biden claimed at least eight times that he had nothing to do with his son Hunter’s business dealings and never even spoke to Hunter about them. For example, he told a group of reporters on August 28, 2019:

I have never discussed with my son, or my brother, or anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses, period.

In May 2017, two of Hunter’s business partners exchanged several WhatsApp messages about the Biden family’s involvement in their dealings, and one of the partners wrote to the other:

Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u are face to face, I know u know that but they are paranoid.

2) “A Chairman’s Role”

In 2023, the business partner who was on the receiving end of the “Don’t mention Joe” message stated:

The American people don’t fully appreciate yet the key role Joe Biden played in the Biden family global influence peddling … I would equate it to a chairman’s role in a traditional business structure. 

3) “The Big Guy”

In May 2017, the same partner who wrote “Don’t mention Joe” sent an email to Hunter and two of their other partners in which he proposed how the “equity” of a joint venture with a Chinese energy company named CEFC would be “distributed.” 

He did by listing the initials of the people copied on the email and numbers that add up to 100 percent. The last one says, “10 held by H for the big guy?”

The only person copied on the email with the initial “H” is Hunter Biden, and a partner who received the email publicly stated that “the big guy” is “in fact a reference to Joe Biden” and the “email is genuine.”

CEFC was not an ordinary business but an effective arm of the Chinese government. In a 2018 voice recording, Hunter Biden described one of the company’s executives who directly paid Hunter $1,000,000 as the “spy chief of China.”

4) “Sitting Here With My Father”

On July 30, 2017, Hunter Biden sent a threatening WhatsApp message to a CEFC executive stating:

• “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled.”
• “Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight.”
• “If I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you,” the chairman, or another executive named Zhang, “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.”
• “I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

Four photographs prove that Hunter was at Joe’s house that day and took Joe’s cherished Corvette out for a spin.

One week later on August 8, a major corporate shareholder of CEFC wired $5 million to a company named Hudson West III, which had a bank account balance of zero just five days earlier. This company then funneled more than $4 million to companies associated with Hunter.

5) “His BROTHER”

Two and a half weeks after that $5 million wire, Hunter texted a CEFC executive about a meeting at New York City penthouse recently purchased by the chairman of CEFC, “My uncle will be here with his BROTHER who would like to say hello to the Chairman.”

The “uncle” was Jim Biden, who made $65,000 per month on this deal. The “BROTHER” was undoubtedly Joe Biden, as evidenced by Hunter’s use of ALL CAPS and the fact that Hunter invoked his father to threaten CEFC one month earlier.

6) The “Russian Disinformation” Lie

One week after the contents of Hunter’s laptop became public in October 2020, Joe Biden and Donald Trump had their last debate of the 2020 presidential election. During this nationally televised event aired by all major networks, Biden claimed he had a reputation “for honor and telling the truth,” Trump responded by pointing to Hunter’s laptop, and Biden replied:

There are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant. They have said that this has all the—four—five former heads of the CIA—both parties—say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend, Rudy Giuliani.

Trump responded, “You mean the laptop is now another ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax? You gotta be—Is this where you’re going?” Biden shot back, “That’s exactly what—exactly what was told.”

That isn’t even close to what the intelligence officials said. More importantly, the contents of the laptop have been widely verified as authentic, and evidence of this was clear from the start. 

Even if Hunter lied to his father, Joe knew right away that incriminating information from the laptop was real because he personally participated in it. For example, the very first article about the laptop exposed an email that showed Joe met with one of Hunter’s business partners in April 2015. Despite multiple emails from the laptop proving the meeting happened, the Biden campaign and numerous media outlets cast doubt on this fact until a photo and testimony from one of the attendees confirmed it occurred.

Furthermore, the intel officials didn’t allege that the contents of the laptop were fake. Instead, they claimed that the release of the content had “the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” while admitting that “we do not have evidence of Russian involvement—just that our experience makes us deeply suspicious that the Russian government played a significant role in this case.”

That’s a far cry from Biden’s assertion that the laptop was a “bunch of garbage” and “nobody believes it.”

Even though Biden blatantly misrepresented on national television what these intel officials wrote, not one of them publicly corrected him. Nor did they correct the gaggle of major media outlets and so-called fact checkers who changed the phrase “Russian information” to “Russian disinformation.”

In short, the intel officials never had any evidence of Russian involvement and stayed silent as their words were twisted by Biden and the media. This reeks of a concerted and widespread disinformation campaign to hide the truth about Biden from the American people.

So does that fact that former acting CIA director Mike Morell admitted under oath that he asked his fellow intel officials to sign the “Russian information” statement:

• at the prompting of Antony Blinken, who is now Biden’s Secretary of State.
• because “I wanted him [Biden] to win the election.”

7) “My Guy”

In March 2014—while Joe Biden was vice president of the U.S. and acting as President Obama’s point man in Ukraine, Hunter and one of his business partners began courting business from a major Ukrainian natural gas producer named Burisma.

In an email to Hunter on March 6, the partner wrote:

Do some fishing around on this company. I am with the owner in meetings today and going to dinner together this evening. He’s obviously stressed but appears incredibly legit and great guy. Will call to debrief on opportunity….

That “obviously stressed” “great guy” was Nikolai Zlochevskyi, a notoriously corrupt oligarch who was under investigation by Ukrainian authorities and was on the verge of having his London bank accounts seized by British officials in a money laundering probe.

Hunter and his partner were granted access to Burisma’s corporate data within days, and shared a briefing about the company on March 18.

Less than a month later on April 12, the White House announced that Vice President Biden “will travel” to Ukraine “for meetings with government leaders and members of civil society” just 10 days later.

On the day after the announcement, Hunter sent an email to his partner claiming that Burisma needs to “know that we will not and cannot intervene directly with domestic policy makers” but that Hunter convinced “my guy” (obviously Joe) to visit Ukraine, and he might do a “really good thing” for Burisma.

Hunter also wrote that this business deal “could easily become very complicated” and made plans to communicate secretly via phones not linked to their names. Per the email:

• “The announcement of my guys upcoming travels should be characterized as part of our advice and thinking—but what he will say and do is out of our hands. In other words it could be a really good thing or it could end up creating too great an expectation. We need to temper expectations regarding that visit.”
• “The contract should begin now—not after the upcoming visit of my guy.”
• “We need to ask for long term agreement and across the board participation. This is a huge step for us that could easily become very complicated.”
• “Buy a cell phone from a 7/11 or CVS tmrw and ill do the same.”

Two days later on April 15, Burisma began making a series of payments totaling at least $3.3 million to a Delaware corporation that gave $708,312 directly to Hunter and $2.5 million to at least six different entities associated with Hunter.

When Joe Biden visited Ukraine one week later on April 22, he did a “really good thing” for Burisma by publicly promising Ukraine’s legislators that the U.S. would help the nation “pursue energy security.” This was a clear benefit to Burisma, which was the largest private natural gas producer in Ukraine.

8) The Informant’s Report

In June 2020—four months before any information about Hunter’s laptop became public—an informant reported to the FBI that he had multiple conversations with Zlochevskyi in 2015–2019, and Zlochevskyi said the following:

• The nation’s chief prosecutor (Viktor Shokin) was conducting an investigation that “would have a substantial negative impact” on his business, but Hunter “will take care of all of those issues through his dad.”
• He saved “recordings” and “documents” that prove he was “coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure the Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was fired.”
• It “costs 5 (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.”
• He “did not send any funds directly to the ‘Big Guy’,” and therefore, it will take investigators “10 years to find” the “illicit payments to Joe Biden.”

This is the fourth independent source which shows that Hunter and his partners tried to shroud Joe’s involvement in their dealings by referring to him as the “Big Guy,” “his BROTHER,” and “my guy.”

It is also the first of three independent sources that show Joe Biden had Shokin fired to protect the CEO of Burisma, which was paying Hunter a million dollars per year.

9) The Prosecutor’s Testimony

In September 2019, Shokin signed a sworn affidavit stating:

• “The truth is that I was forced out because I was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into Burisma Holdings, a natural gas firm active in Ukraine and Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, was a member of the Board of Directors.”
• The president of Ukraine “was emphatic that I should cease my investigations regarding Burisma. When I did not, he said that the US (via Biden) were refusing to release the USD $1 billion promised to Ukraine. He said that he had no choice, therefore, but to ask me to resign.”

Corroborating Shokin’s testimony, his office obtained a court order to seize some of Zlochevskyi’s properties—including his land, houses, and a Rolls-Royce Phantom—only two weeks before he was forced to resign.

White House phone logs show that Joe Biden talked to the president of Ukraine at least three times in the week surrounding Shokin’s dismissal. The phone log for the last of these calls states that Biden “commended President Poroshenko’s decision to replace Prosecutor General Shokin, which paves the way for needed reform of the prosecutorial service.”

Contrary to Biden’s claim that the prosecutor stood in the way of reform, the president of Ukraine complimented Shokin for implementing reforms that his predecessors had “been opposing for decades” and then listed the specific reforms. The president then said that he only asked Shokin to resign because he “failed to gain society’s trust.”

10) Half His Salary to Pop

In a January 2019 text, Hunter Biden wrote to his daughter that she needs “to figure out how you can support yourself I never give you another dime again. If you want to go to Pop that’s fine.” (Typos in the original.) Hunter then added:

I Hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family Fro 30 years. It’s really hard. But don’t worry unlike Pop I won’t make you give me half your salary. (Typos in the original.)

Other documents on Hunter’s laptop prove that Joe’s children, grandchildren, wife, and daughter-in-law all called him “Pop.” So did Joe’s assistant when communicating with the family.

This constitutes direct evidence that Joe demanded and received a share of Hunter’s dealings. 

Epitomizing the depths of denial about this issue, the Washington Post’s Philip Bump recently alleged in an interview there was “no evidence that Joe Biden acted on Hunter Biden’s behalf or that Joe Biden took money.” When the interviewer confronted Bump with the text of Hunter saying he gave half his income to his dad, Bump claimed, “I have no idea what that means,” became highly defensive, and ended the interview.

Regardless of whether Joe received any money from Hunter’s dealings, using the power of his office to illicitly enrich his family is still classic corruption.

11) Joe’s Aliases

Documents from Hunter’s laptop reveal that Joe had several email aliases, such as:

• Peter Henderson: [email protected]
• Robin Ware: [email protected]
• Robert L. Peters: [email protected]

The last of those addresses was a government account, as evidenced by the domain “pci.gov”.

On June 7, 2015, Kathy Chung, a government-paid assistant of then-Vice President Biden, sent an email to Joe’s government email alias and to Hunter with the subject line, “See below. These are all cell numbers.”

The email, sent to [email protected] and [email protected], contained the cell phone numbers of 25 high-level current and former government officials that wielded an enormous amount of power, such as:

• Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
• U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
• U.S. House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi
• U.S. Senator Joe Manchin
• U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch

Given that Chung was a federal employee who worked directly for VP Biden, there can be little doubt that Joe ordered her to give this information to Hunter. The fact that Chung sent this to Joe’s government alias strongly suggests that she wanted him to know she did what he asked without leaving an obvious record of it.

This goldmine of influential contacts was given to Hunter while he was being paid by Burisma to lobby U.S. officials to protect Zlochevskyi from the law—as detailed below.

12) The Smoking Gun

The most damning evidence of Joe Biden’s criminality is a widely ignored email exchange which proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he engaged in bribery and obstructed justice.

In November 2015—seven months after Hunter and Joe dined with a Burisma executive at a restaurant near the White House—the same executive sent an email to Hunter and his partners in which he:

• told them to “proceed immediately” with getting “high-ranking US officials” to “visit” Ukraine and convince “the highest level of decision makers” to “close down” all “cases/pursuits against Nikolay” (Zlochevskyi’s informal first name).
• reminded them that closing down these criminal cases was the “true purpose” and the “ultimate purpose” of their “engagement” and “all our joint efforts.”
• identified the “President of Ukraine” and the “Prosecutor General” as two of their “key targets.”
• criticized a proposal they had sent to him because it was “lacking concrete tangible results that we set out to achieve in the first place” and did not “offer any names of top US officials” or “Ukrainian officials” to help “Nikolay” improve “his situation in Ukraine.”

Hunter’s partners discussed the email among themselves and plotted how to close the deal, writing, “Hunter, You need to” tell Burisma that we “deliberately” didn’t mention the names of the officials who end these criminal cases “to be on the safe and cautious side.”

Hunter then replied to Burisma, “Looking forward to getting started on this,” and Joe proceeded to do precisely what the emails stated, verbatim:

• Eight days later—or almost “immediately” after Hunter wrote that he was “getting started”—the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine announced that Vice President Biden will “visit” Ukraine within a month.
• During Biden’s trip in early December, he attacked the “key targets” named by Burisma, including “the highest level of decision makers” in Ukraine and the “Prosecutor General.” In Biden’s own words, he told Ukraine’s president and prime minister that he would withhold a U.S. billion-dollar loan guarantee unless the “state prosecutor” was fired. “If the prosecutor is not fired,” warned Biden, “you’re not getting the money.”
• In opposition to a State Department briefing for the trip which told Biden, “You will sign our third billion-dollar loan guarantee,” Biden withheld that money until after the president of Ukraine forced the chief prosecutor to resign several months later.
• The replacement prosecutor—who Biden called “solid”—agreed to “close down” all “cases/pursuits against” Zlochevskyi’s in exchange for him paying back taxes and penalties. This led the owner to praise the deal, saying that it would allow his company to increase “production” and “attract international companies to Ukraine.”

Defense # 1: Blue Star Strategies

Some have claimed that Joe Biden had nothing to do with the smoking gun emails because Hunter wrote to Burisma that a public relations firm called Blue Star Strategies would “deliver” what Burisma wanted. This was an obvious smokescreen and part of their agreement to not “mention Joe,” as proven by the following facts:

• When Hunter and his partners wrote to each other about how they would end the cases against Zlochevskyi, they said nothing about Blue Star. Instead, they said it would be handled by officials whose names they “deliberately” didn’t mention “to be on the safe and cautious side.” Furthermore, they said that Hunter needed to “deliver that message” to Burisma in order to “close” this deal.
• In the same exchange, the Burisma executive wrote that “we should disregard the wording” of the Blue Star proposal if Hunter and company “feel comfortable that they will deliver what in real terms we are talking about.”
• Blue Star didn’t carry out Burisma’s instructions—Joe Biden did.

Defense #2: Shokin Wasn’t Investigating Burisma

Another demonstrably false defense of Joe Biden is that Shokin wasn’t even investigating Zlochevskyi when Biden demanded his removal. This is disproven by the court order obtained by Shokin’s office to seize Zlochevskyi’s lands and houses two weeks before Shokin was forced to resign.

After spreading the “Shokin wasn’t investigating” falsehood far and wide, journalists have changed it to the far weaker claim that Shokin wasn’t prosecuting Zlochevskyi aggressively enough for his firing to benefit Zlochevskyi. For a prime example of this shift, the Washington Post’s lead “fact checker” reported in:

• 2019 that Shokin “was not investigating Burisma at the time.”
• 2023 that Shokin “failed to act” “aggressively against” Zlochevskyi.

Both of these arguments are belied by the email Burisma sent to Hunter one month before Joe demanded the firing of Shokin. Again, the Burisma executive told Hunter and company to “proceed immediately” with getting “high-ranking US officials” to “visit” Ukraine and convince “the highest level of decision makers” to “close down” all “cases/pursuits against” Zlochevskyi while identifying the “Prosecutor General” as one of their “key targets.” 

If the Prosecutor General (i.e., Shokin) wasn’t creating a problem for Zlochevskyi, there would be no need for Burisma to send that email demanding immediate action from Hunter.

Independently confirming the evidence from Hunter’s laptop, an informant reported to the FBI that Zlochevskyi directly told him that Shokin’s investigation “would have a substantial negative impact” on his business, but Hunter “will take care of all of those issues through his dad.” Again, this was documented in writing months before any of the contents of Hunter’s laptop became public. 

 Defense # 3: Everyone Wanted Shokin Gone

A common refrain of the media is that “everyone” wanted to get rid of Shokin, and Biden was simply carrying out their wishes. For example:

• the Wall Street Journal reported that “Anders Aslund, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC” said, “Everyone in the Western community wanted Shokin sacked” and “the spokesman for this was Joe Biden.”
• the Financial Times reported in 2019 that an unnamed adviser to the Ukrainian government said, “Everyone was pushing for Shokin’s resignation, not just Biden.”
• Rolling Stone reported in 2019, “Pretty much everyone recognized Shokin had to go.”
• The Washington Post reported in 2019 that Pavlo Klimkin, “the Ukrainian foreign minister from 2014 until Aug. 29, 2019,” said that “the firing of Shokin was universally urged by Ukraine’s benefactors.” 

Beyond that fact that Burisma funded the Atlantic Council, Hunter’s Blue Star associates were on the Atlantic Council, and Klimkin was terrified of losing U.S. support for Ukraine, all of those claims were made four years after Biden demanded Shokin’s removal.

Demolishing those unsupported claims from questionable sources, there is a written record of praise for Shokin and his office around the time when Biden demanded his firing in December 2015:

• In August 2015—less than four months before Biden demanded the firing of Shokin—the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published a “rigorous” assessment of the “extent and quality of reforms in Ukraine” by “an independent team of Ukraine-based scholars.” They reported, “Ukraine has adopted a package of anticorruption laws and established a set of institutions to fight corruption. The general prosecutor’s office has been the agency most active in this agenda.”
• In December 2015—less than two weeks after Biden demanded the firing of Shokin—the Europeans Union’s Commission to the Council and the European Parliament published its sixth progress report on Ukrainian institutions, which states:
  • “The progress noted in the fifth report on anti-corruption policies, particularly the legislative and institutional progress, has continued.”
  • “On 30 November, the General Prosecutor appointed the head of the specialised anti-corruption prosecution.”
  • “It is also important to highlight that the Prosecutor Office brought charges and began criminal investigation into webmoney agents suspected of money laundering.”

The only written records of people condemning Shokin around the time when Biden called for his removal were Biden’s underlings and political allies. Moreover, the loudest of them have a history of backroom dealings and double-talk. This includes:

• Geoffrey Pyatt, who:
  • was appointed by President Obama in 2013 to be the State Department’s Ambassador to Ukraine.
  • was appointed by President Biden in 2022 to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources.
  • helped VP Biden’s communications director craft talking points about Hunter working for Zlochevskyi merely one week before Joe demanded Shokin’s firing. This included telling Joe to answer to question, “Do you think Zlochevsky is corrupt?” by saying “I’m not going to get into naming names or accusing individuals.”
  • considered Zlochevskyi to be corrupt and publicly said so just three months before he helped formulate Biden’s evasive answer to that question.
• Victoria Nuland, who:
  • was Hillary Clinton’s State Department spokesperson.
  • was appointed by President Obama in 2013 to be an Assistant Secretary of State.
  • was chosen by President Biden in 2023 to be the Acting Deputy Secretary of State.
  • was instrumental in creating the Obama administration’s false talking points about the slaughter of U.S. citizens in the 2012 Benghazi terror attack.
  • was copied on at least two emails that plotted Joe’s replies to questions about Hunter’s relationship with Burisma.
• Daria Kaleniuk, who:
• is a member of the World Economic Forum, a hotbed of elitists who push left-wing agendas like global governance and socialist corporatism.
• leads the Ukrainian “Anti-Corruption Action Center,” which was mainly funded by the Obama/Biden administration and Democrat megadonor George Soros.
• played a key role, along with Soros, in forming the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, which investigated Burisma for years without securing a conviction.
• defended Joe Biden in 2019 by claiming that “Shokin was fired not because he wanted” to investigate Burisma but “because he failed that investigation”—without mentioning that Shokin was the chief prosecutor for less than a year.
• claimed in 2023 that there was little chance of convicting Zlochevskyi “from the very beginning” because laws for “illicit enrichment” required too much evidence to prove bribery.
• is commonly portrayed as an unimpeachable source by the media without revealing any of her political ties or shifting stories.

Most importantly, the Biden camp’s criticism of Shokin occurred after Hunter and company began lobbying the State Department to protect Burisma while cloaking their actions with attorney-client privilege. This is proven by the following emails exchanged one month after Burisma began paying Hunter:

• On May 12, 2014, a Burisma executive wrote to Hunter, “We urgently need your advice on how you could use your influence to convey a message / signal, etc. to stop what we consider to be politically motivated actions” against “N. Z.” (Nikolai Zlochevskyi) by a party “represented in the government by the General Prosecutor” and another person. 
• One day later, an attorney at the law firm where Hunter worked instructed the Burisma executive to email her “directly with all communications related to the current politically motivated attacks” and “include in the ‘Subject’ line of the email ‘Attorney-Client Communication: Privileged & Confidential’ as I have done above. This will help protect as confidential our communications about such important and sensitive issues.”
• The attorney also wrote to the Burisma executive, “I recommend that you authorize me to take the following actions to begin communicating” on your company’s “behalf with the U.S. government.” The actions she offered to take included these and others in the same vein:
• “Contact the Bureau of Energy and Ukraine Desk officials at the State Department to introduce them to” your company and “explain” the “current situation, which will include the issues you’ve emailed me about today.”
• Reach out to “Carlos Pascual, the top US energy diplomat,” who is “Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs at State.”
• Engage “a key U.S. registered lobbyist” named “David Leiter,” who was “Secretary of State Kerry’s Chief of Staff when Kerry was in the U.S. Senate.” 

Tellingly, the State Department never called for of the resignation of Biden’s “solid” prosecutor who dropped all criminal charges against Zlochevskyi, even though:

• he was convicted and imprisoned for embezzlement, abuse of office, and illegal surveillance before he was even appointed chief prosecutor. 
• was forced to resign by the current president of Ukraine (Volodymyr Zelensky) for failing to prosecute anyone of note during his three-year tenure.

In short, Hunter Biden launched an effort to protect Zlochevskyi by lobbying Joe’s political allies and subordinates, especially those in the State Department. These efforts failed to stop Shokin, so Burisma grew impatient and told Hunter to act “immediately.” Hunter then enlisted Joe, who did exactly as Burisma directed.

Conclusion

The U.S. Constitution states that the president “shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

At least 12 sets of documented facts prove that Joe Biden engaged in actions that accord with textbook definitions of bribery, extortion, abuse of power, and obstruction of justice. Furthermore, no less than three major defenses of Biden are littered with half-truths and outright falsehoods.

Because Biden’s illicit dealings involved foreign corporations and governments like China and Ukraine, he is vulnerable to international blackmail. Given that he is now the president of the most powerful nation in the world, this poses a serious danger to Americans and all of humanity.

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James D. Agresti is the president of Just Facts, a research institute dedicated to publishing facts about public policies and teaching research skills.