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--:-- Host: John Bickley: Welcome to an extra edition of Morning Wire. I'm John Bickley, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Wire, and I'm here with my co-host Georgia Howe. Today, we're exploring the growing investigations into corruption involving Joe and Hunter Biden. Joining us is Peter Schweizer, president of the Government Accountability Institute and host of The Drill Down podcast. Peter, thanks for coming on.
--:-- Peter Schweizer: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: Now, Peter, you've spent years researching the Bidens and the family's business dealings. You say the legacy media has shown no interest in covering the Biden family corruption even now. First, in broad terms, what is the media missing?
--:-- Peter Schweizer: They're missing a couple of things. First, they are misinforming people by saying, well, Joe Biden didn't get paid, so there's nothing to see here. The reality is, is that most bribery cases don't involve the politician directly getting paid. It's usually done by a family member, a spouse, or an adult child. So they kind of create this confusion by saying, because there's no evidence so far that Joe Biden directly got paid, there's no crime. And that's simply not the case.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: That's a great point. What's the second thing they're missing?
--:-- Peter Schweizer: The second thing that they've done is they've obscured the fact of how unusual what the Biden family did actually is in the larger context. I mean, we all know that politicians and their family members have, you know, different commercial deals or businesses they're involved in. In the case of the Bidens, this business was created out of whole cloth shortly after Joe Biden became vice president of the United States. And there's no discernible actual business. You know, they don't own any real estate. They don't have any intellectual property. They don't have any skills or services that they offer. They are really in the business of collecting funds from overseas oligarchs. And then it gets distributed to the family.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: Let's first lay out the case against Hunter Biden. First, he was investigated by the U.S. attorney in Delaware. That's David Weiss. They had reached a plea agreement that many called a sweetheart deal. Can you lay that out and why this deal suddenly collapsed?
--:-- Peter Schweizer: Yeah. I mean, this is the example of where you've got a criminal defense attorney doing his job, which is aggressively defending his client, Hunter Biden. And then you have a prosecutor who's not doing his job, which is to aggressively pursue the truth and justice. There were several things that were clear-cut to the letter violations of the law. One of those being the Foreign Agents Registration Act, FARA. Sounds like a technical law, but there are plenty of people, dozens in recent years, who have gone to jail for this. And the law is very clear. It says if you represent a foreign corporation or government to any U official and that U official can be your dad as vice president and you don't register with the Department of Justice, that's a violation of the law and you can go to jail. And as I said, lots of people have.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: David Weiss, the prosecutor, has been investigating that for five years, took no action. He ended up settling on some of the tax cases and the gun charge and gave highly favorable agreements with the Biden team on this. But that plea deal was blown up by the judge who said, this does not look right to me. And that has prompted now Merrick Garland to create a special counsel, the U.S. attorney that was investigating. It's now a special counsel. And there are actual prosecutions that are taking place.
--:-- Peter Schweizer: Although I would point out, John, those prosecutions are not, in my mind, on the major issues and crimes and problems, but are focused really on the minor charges in the Hunter Biden case.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: That's a complaint that Republicans have made a lot. Can you expand on that a bit? Which charges is Weiss focusing on now as special counsel and which ones is he leaving out?
--:-- Peter Schweizer: He's focusing on the tax charges, which are tax evasion. Again, these seem pretty clear-cut, according to the IRS whistleblowers and the information that's come out. Hunter Biden not only failed to pay taxes, he evaded taxes by claiming that income was actually a loan when it was not. You don't pay taxes on loans, obviously. That was to the tune of millions of dollars. So he's focused on tax charges. What has not been pursued are the Foreign Agents Registration Act's violations that we talked about earlier, which are clear-cut and can lead to serious jail time. And then the large looming issue in my mind, which is the allegations of a bribery or conspiracy to bribery. And I think the evidence there is growing. That involves not only Hunter, of course, but his father's vice president of the United States.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: Now that Weiss has been appointed special counsel, he has more autonomy and authority. Do you have confidence that he'll thoroughly use that authority in this role?
--:-- Peter Schweizer: Yeah. The question always when you look at officials is, is there heart in it? And there's not a lot of evidence that David Weiss's heart is in this. Again, he's had five years. There was little movement. There was this sweetheart deal. There were all sorts of allegations that came out from whistleblowers that his office was actually tipping off Hunter Biden and his team when there were search warrants that were going to be issued and other actions they were taken. So I think even with enhanced power, it's doubtful that we're going to see Weiss pursue this with the vigor that you want a prosecutor to.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: Now, Congress can play a role here. We've seen since the Republicans took the majority in the House that they are getting aggressive about this, effectively trying to do the job that they feel like the DOJ is not doing. We've got Jim Jordan and James Comer. They've been using subpoena power to bring evidence of the Biden family corruption to light. Are they making progress? And what are the most significant pieces of evidence that they uncovered?
--:-- Peter Schweizer: I think Congress has done a very good job of methodically moving forward, not finger-pointing, just gathering evidence and forensic evidence. So these are bank records and documents. And what you're looking for is a pattern of behavior that relates to financial transactions and actions taken by Joe Biden himself. And I think there's been some very good progress made here.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: Just to take one slice of it, for example, this Ukrainian prosecutor, here's what we know is fact. 2014 Hunter Biden gets a million-dollar-a-year deal with Burisma this Ukrainian energy company. Joe Biden certainly knows about that. It's public. In November of 2015, Burisma executives email Hunter Biden and say, your one deliverable that we want from you for the money we're paying you is that you get this Ukrainian prosecutor fired. This is in black and white in the email.
--:-- Peter Schweizer: That was in November of 2015. We know in December of 2015, based on Hunter Biden's business partner, Devin Archer's testimony, in December of 2015, Hunter Biden and Burisma executives get on the phone and talk to then Vice President Joe Biden and say, this prosecutor needs to be fired. We want the heat taken off. And then we know in March of 2016, three months later, the prosecutor is actually fired, and that Joe Biden later on takes credit. The famous video of him saying, you know, I threatened that they weren't going to get the billion dollars until they fired the prosecutor.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: If you look at that, all of those have elements of, in my mind, bribery. You have Hunter Biden, a family member being paid. Joe Biden knows about it. We have a specific request that the people paying ask for and want, which is the prosecutor fired. It's in black and white. We then know based on testimony that Hunter Biden and those the company executives paying him asked Joe Biden for a specific action. And that specific action was taken by Joe Biden. And he takes credit for doing it. That to me warrants a serious look by prosecutors. And that a lot of that comes simply by the work that this congressional committee is doing.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: You mentioned the Devin Archer testimony. Was that damaging to President Biden? Was he able to actually tie him directly to his son's business dealings?
--:-- Peter Schweizer: I think it was. Yes, it was. Devin Archer's testimony was very helpful. Remember, of course, with Archer and with the other business associates, none of them had been given any grant of immunity. So they're probably not going to come out and explicitly say anything that could theoretically implicate them. But his testimony was powerful in a couple of levels. Number one, clearly showed that his father was aware of Hunter's business ventures, who his partners were. He communicated with them. He met with them. He sent a very nice note to Devin Archer saying, I'm glad you're in business with my son. Let me know how I can be helpful.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: And then there were the specifics of the phone call that Hunter and Burisma executives made from Dubai to Joe Biden, his vice president of the United States, saying we want to get the prosecutor fired and pointing out that really Joe Biden was sort of the product. It was the appearance or the belief that Hunter Biden had access to his father which he certainly did that they were selling. And that in and of itself shows that there was really no underlying business I would argue beyond the fact that they had access in Joe Biden's ear and as vice president of the United States, of course, enormously powerful.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: Now, in your podcast, The Drill Down Podcast, you point out another financial discrepancy of Joe Biden. You say he has an LLC named Celtic Capri, and on his 2017 and 2018 tax returns, he said he earned $12.6 million in income. Then when he ran for president on his financial disclosure, he said he only earned $7.4 million during that same time frame. What accounts for that $5 million gap?
--:-- Peter Schweizer: Yeah, that's the mystery. I mean, that's the $5 million question. It appears both forms were filled out by the same people, part of Team Biden. And so how did $5.2 million magically disappear. And why were you claiming that income on your IRS taxes? And now in 2019, when you fill out this form, when you're running for president, you claim that income is not there. They've offered no explanation. Certainly, you could theorize that when he filled out his tax returns, there was no real public discussion of any of the Biden family forum dealings. In 2019, when he was filling out this form for disclosure and the $5.2 million evaporated, there was attention being brought to bear on the Biden's financial commercial dealings. So it could be they're hiding it. It could be some massive error, but I doubt it's an error because this really represents 40 percent of his income during those years. It's hard for me to believe that you're overstating your income to the IRS of all people by 40 percent.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: Do you think there will be substantial action taken in terms of these allegations, whether it be from David Weiss or from Congress?
--:-- Peter Schweizer: I wouldn't bank on it from David Weiss because I think that it's already pretty clear he's tipped his hand what his motivation or lack of motivation is in this case. I think with Congress, they're taking the right approach. You need to have the impeachment inquiry. You need to gather more information. But the pattern of information that's emerging is pretty clear. And I think as the particulars emerge, we are going to be moving very close to an impeachment. I don't think with the makeup of the Senate, the politics of the Senate, you're going to get a conviction. But this could be a major problem for Joe Biden in 2024. And I think it's one other piece that leads a lot of people to speculate that Joe Biden may not actually be the Democrat candidate in 2024, maybe because of age, maybe because of this other issue that he is going to pass the baton to somebody else. But we will see at the end of the day.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: My view has always been you need to let the voters, the American people, see what the commercial entanglements of all our elected officials are, whether their name is Trump, Biden, or whatever. And people are finally starting to get a sense of that with the Bidens. And I think that's healthy for the country. I think we all welcome more transparency.
--:-- Peter Schweizer: I think we all welcome more transparency.
--:-- Host: John Bickley: That was Peter Schweitzer, president of GAI and host of The Drill Down podcast. And this has been an extra edition of Morning Wire.
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