‘Most damn­ing evi­dence’: Hunter Biden’s full par­don resur­faces decade of con­tro­ver­sies, ‘influ­ence-ped­dling’

Hunter Biden’s par­don from Pres­i­dent Biden on Sun­day doesn’t only apply to his tax and gun charges but gives him sweep­ing immu­ni­ty from pros­e­cu­tion dat­ing back ten years to the time Biden served as Vice-Pres­i­dent. 

Hunter Biden’s par­don applies to offens­es against the U.S. that Hunter Biden “has com­mit­ted or may have com­mit­ted” from Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 1, 2024 which encap­su­lates sev­er­al con­tro­ver­sies sur­round­ing the president’s son and his over­seas busi­ness deal­ings. 

BURISMA

Hunter Biden earned mil­lions of dol­lars serv­ing on the board of the Ukrain­ian ener­gy com­pa­ny Buris­ma after join­ing the com­pa­ny as legal coun­sel in the spring of 2014 before being ele­vat­ed to the Board of Direc­tors lat­er that year. 

Biden has claimed he “didn’t stand to gain any­thing” from the posi­tion, which he was appoint­ed to with­out any expe­ri­ence in the indus­try, but Repub­li­cans have long alleged that Hunter and his father engaged in influ­ence ped­al­ing through Buris­ma. 

HUNTER BIDEN PARDON WILL UNDERMINE PARTY’S ‘SELF-PROCLAIMED AUTHORITY’ ON RULE OF LAW: DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST

The Bidens were accused by Repub­li­cans of hav­ing “coerced” Buris­ma CEO Myko­la Zlochevsky to pay them mil­lions of dol­lars in exchange for their help in get­ting the Ukrain­ian pros­e­cu­tor inves­ti­gat­ing the com­pa­ny fired dur­ing the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion. 

“Why 2014?” Fox News con­trib­u­tor Andy McCarthy wrote on FoxNews.com this week. “Well, the most damn­ing evi­dence of the Biden fam­i­ly influ­ence-ped­dling busi­ness occurred in the last years of Joe Biden’s term as vice pres­i­dent – specif­i­cal­ly, 2014 through 2016. That, of course, is when the Buris­ma hijinks began. Indeed, Hunter’s board seat on the cor­rupt ener­gy company’s board was so man­i­fest­ly tied to his father’s polit­i­cal influ­ence that, as soon as Biden left office in 2017, Buris­ma slashed Hunter’s com­pen­sa­tion in half.”

In addi­tion to the more than $50,000 a month then-Vice Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s son received while serv­ing on Burisma’s board from April 2014 to April 2019, he was also appar­ent­ly receiv­ing lav­ish gifts from the company’s founder, accord­ing to emails from Hunter’s aban­doned lap­top that have been ver­i­fied by Fox News Dig­i­tal.

CHINA BUSINESS DEALINGS

The par­don from Pres­i­dent Biden also encap­su­lates the time­line of Hunter Biden’s con­tro­ver­sial busi­ness deal­ings in Chi­na which Repub­li­cans have sug­gest­ed also embod­ies part of the alleged influ­ence ped­al­ing scheme that was part of the failed effort to impeach Pres­i­dent Biden. 

HUNTER BIDEN’S CONFIDENT DEMEANOR IN UNEARTHED VIDEO RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT DAD’S PARDON PLANS

The Biden fam­i­ly net­ted sev­er­al mil­lion dol­lars from busi­ness deal­ings in Chi­na which began in the 2014–2016 years as part of Hunter Biden’s rela­tion­ship with two Chi­nese com­pa­nies, Bohai Har­vest RST invest­ment enter­prise and CEFC.

The House Over­sight Com­mit­tee told Fox News Dig­i­tal ear­li­er this year that it can “now con­firm Joe Biden met with near­ly every for­eign nation­al who fun­neled mon­ey to his son, includ­ing Russ­ian oli­garch Yele­na Batu­ri­na, Roman­ian oli­garch Kenes Rak­i­shev, Burisma’s cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Vadym Pozharsky, Jonathan Li of BHR, and CEFC Chair­man Ye Jian­ming.”

Biden attend­ed din­ners at Wash­ing­ton D.C. restau­rant Cafe Milano in Georgtown with Batu­ri­na, Rak­i­shev and Pozharsky in 2014 and 2015. Biden also met with Li of BHR in Chi­na in 2013. Biden met with Ye at the meet­ing in 2017, accord­ing to tes­ti­mo­ny from Hunter Biden’s ex-busi­ness part­ners Rob Walk­er and Devon Archer. 

The Biden’s con­nec­tions with Chi­nese com­pa­nies con­tin­ued into 2017.

Joe Biden, on May 3, 2017, spoke at the con­fer­ence, host­ing “A Con­ver­sa­tion with the 47th Vice Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States Joe Biden.” 

Just days after the May 2, 2017, meet­ing, the now-infa­mous May 13, 2017, email, which includ­ed a dis­cus­sion of “remu­ner­a­tion pack­ages” for six peo­ple in a busi­ness deal with a Chi­nese ener­gy firm. The email appeared to iden­ti­fy Biden as “Chair / Vice Chair depend­ing on agree­ment with CEFC,” in a ref­er­ence to now-bank­rupt CEFC Chi­na Ener­gy Co.

WHO ELSE MIGHT BIDEN PARDON AFTER HE SPARED HUNTER FROM SENTENCING?

The email includes a note that “Hunter has some office expec­ta­tions he will elab­o­rate.” A pro­posed equi­ty split ref­er­ences “20” for “H” and “10 held by H for the big guy?” with no fur­ther details.

Tony Bob­u­lin­s­ki, who worked with Hunter Biden to cre­ate the joint-ven­ture Sino­Hawk Hold­ings with Chi­nese ener­gy com­pa­ny CEFC, and said he met with Joe Biden in 2017, pro­vid­ed “unshake­able” tes­ti­mo­ny behind closed doors at the House Over­sight and Judi­cia­ry Com­mit­tees ear­li­er this year and claimed that Pres­i­dent Biden was the “big guy” ref­er­enced in the mes­sages. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, Hunter Biden demand­ed $10 mil­lion from a Chi­nese busi­ness asso­ciate to “fur­ther the inter­est” of his joint-ven­ture with CEFC in 2017, say­ing that the “Bidens are the best I know at doing exact­ly” what the chair­man of the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty-linked firm want­ed, accord­ing to a What­sApp mes­sage House Over­sight Com­mit­tee.

FARA

Hunter Biden’s over­seas ties have also sparked spec­u­la­tion that he vio­lat­ed pub­lic dis­close laws under the For­eign Agents Reg­is­tra­tion Act by not reg­is­ter­ing as a for­eign agent. 

The Jus­tice Depart­ment indi­rect­ly revealed that Hunter Biden was still under inves­ti­ga­tion for a poten­tial vio­la­tion of FARA dur­ing his first court appear­ance in July of last year, in which his “sweet­heart” plea deal col­lapsed.

When asked by fed­er­al Judge Maryellen Nor­ei­ka of the U.S. Dis­trict Court for the Dis­trict of Delaware whether the gov­ern­ment could bring a charge against Hunter Biden relat­ed to FARA, the DOJ pros­e­cu­tor replied, “Yes.”

“Look for Jim Biden to be par­doned next,” author Peter Schweiz­er post­ed on X this week. “Remem­ber: the fam­i­ly was still under inves­ti­ga­tion under FARA as the par­don comes down. Might have impli­cat­ed Joe.”

ROMANIA

The Repub­li­can-led House Over­sight Com­mit­tee has scru­ti­nized the Biden fam­i­ly’s alleged busi­ness deal­ings in Roma­nia dat­ing back to 2015. 

“On Sep­tem­ber 28, 2015, Vice Pres­i­dent Biden wel­comed Roman­ian Pres­i­dent Klaus Iohan­nis to the White House,” the House Over­sight Com­mit­tee’s web­site state’s. 

“With­in five weeks of this meet­ing, a Roman­ian busi­ness­man involved with a high-pro­file cor­rup­tion pros­e­cu­tion in Roma­nia, Gabriel Popovi­ciu, began deposit­ing a Biden associate’s bank account, which ulti­mate­ly made their way into Biden fam­i­ly accounts. Popovi­ciu made six­teen of the sev­en­teen pay­ments, total­ing over $3 mil­lion, to the Biden asso­ciate account while Joe Biden was Vice Pres­i­dent.  Biden fam­i­ly accounts ulti­mate­ly received approx­i­mate­ly $1.038 mil­lion.”

Fox News Dig­i­tal report­ed last year that Pres­i­dent Biden’s ambas­sador to the Euro­pean Union offered advice to Hunter Biden in 2016 on a Roman­ian “client” who was on tri­al for cor­rup­tion at the time.

OTHER OVERSEAS BUSINESS DEALINGS

Repub­li­cans in Con­gress have tak­en issue with Hunter Biden’s busi­ness pres­ence in oth­er coun­tries includ­ing Kaza­khstan and Rus­sia. 

In 2014, accord­ing to the House Over­sight Com­mit­tee, a Kaza­khstani oli­garch “used his Sin­ga­pore­an enti­ty, Nova­tus Hold­ings, to wire one of Hunter Biden’s Rose­mont Seneca enti­ties $142,300. The very next day—April 23, 2014—the Rose­mont Seneca enti­ty trans­ferred the exact same amount of mon­ey to a car deal­er­ship for a car for Hunter Biden.”

Also in 2014, the com­mit­tee has alleged that the Biden fam­i­ly and its asso­ciates received $3.5 mil­lion from Rus­sia in pay­ments from Batu­ri­na, Rus­si­a’s rich­est woman. 

TAX AND GUN CHARGES

Pres­i­dent Biden’s par­don of his son means that he will not face pun­ish­ment after being con­vict­ed ear­li­er this year of mak­ing a false state­ment in the pur­chase of a gun, mak­ing a false state­ment relat­ed to infor­ma­tion required to be kept by a fed­er­al­ly licensed gun deal­er, and pos­ses­sion of a gun by a per­son who is an unlaw­ful user of or addict­ed to a con­trolled sub­stance.

In his tax case, Hunter faced anoth­er tri­al regard­ing three felony tax offens­es and six mis­de­meanor tax offens­es regard­ing the fail­ure to pay at least $1.4 mil­lion in tax­es. As jury selec­tion was about to kick off in Los Ange­les fed­er­al court in Sep­tem­ber, Hunter entered a sur­prise guilty plea. 

“Set­ting aside the fact that Pres­i­dent Biden repeat­ed­ly stat­ed he would not par­don his son, what I find most trou­bling is the sweep­ing nature of this par­don,” Alas­ka GOP Sen. Lisa Murkows­ki post­ed on X. 

“Not only is Hunter Biden receiv­ing clemen­cy for mul­ti­ple felony offenses—for crimes of which he was con­vict­ed and plead­ed guilty to—he is also being grant­ed immu­ni­ty from any crimes he ‘has com­mit­ted or may have com­mit­ted’ over a more than ten-year peri­od. This deci­sion makes a mock­ery of our jus­tice sys­tem. Every­one must be held account­able for their actions under the law.”

Both Pres­i­dent Biden and Hunter Biden have long denied any alle­ga­tions of impro­pri­ety or alle­ga­tions of influ­ence ped­dal­ing and in his state­ment par­don­ing Hunter, Pres­i­dent Biden argued that his son was only pros­e­cut­ed because of his last name.

“Today, I signed a par­don for my son Hunter,” Biden wrote in a state­ment. “From the day I took office, I said I would not inter­fere with the Jus­tice Department’s deci­sion-mak­ing, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selec­tive­ly, and unfair­ly, pros­e­cut­ed.”

The pres­i­dent went on to claim that his son was “treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly” by pros­e­cu­tors.

“With­out aggra­vat­ing fac­tors like use in a crime, mul­ti­ple pur­chas­es, or buy­ing a weapon as a straw pur­chas­er, peo­ple are almost nev­er brought to tri­al on felony charges sole­ly for how they filled out a gun form,” Biden added. “Those who were late pay­ing their tax­es because of seri­ous addic­tions, but paid them back sub­se­quent­ly with inter­est and penal­ties, are typ­i­cal­ly giv­en non-crim­i­nal res­o­lu­tions. It is clear that Hunter was treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly.”

Biden also ref­er­enced his son’s bat­tle with addic­tion and blamed “raw pol­i­tics” for the unrav­el­ing of Hunter’s plea deal.

“There has been an effort to break Hunter – who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unre­lent­ing attacks and selec­tive pros­e­cu­tion,” the 82-year-old father wrote. “In try­ing to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me – and there’s no rea­son to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Fox News Dig­i­tal’s Brooke Singman, Jes­si­ca Chas­mar, and Emma Colton con­tributed to this report