Auburnfan91

I wonder how many people realize the guy who's being charged for being a Chinese spy was dealing with the same exact Chinese company Hunter Biden received millions from?

To follow up on this, the IRS was NOT included in a meeting on October 23, 2020 that discussed the Joe Biden bribery allegations. I'll say it again, you're not going to find evidence if you're not allowed to investigate it. In this case the IRS wasn't even told about the Joe Biden bribery stuff, so of course they didn't investigate. DOJ briefed Hunter Biden team on Joe Biden allegations, but excluded IRS agents: Grassley The document contains allegations of a bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national By Brooke Singman | Fox News The Justice Department briefed federal prosecutors and agents on the team investigating Hunter Biden on a key FBI document containing allegations of a criminal bribery scheme involving Joe Biden in October 2020, but did not invite IRS agents to that briefing, Sen. Chuck Grassley charged. That accusation was leveled just weeks after IRS whistleblowers alleged that the entire federal investigation into Hunter Biden's business dealings was influenced by politics. The document in question is an FBI-generated FD-1023 form. The form, dated June 30, 2020, reflects the FBI's interview with a "highly credible" confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top executive of Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings over the course of several years, starting in 2015. Hunter Biden sat on the board of Burisma, and the executive alleged a $5 million payment was made to Hunter and $5 million to Joe Biden in exchange for influence over policy decisions. Grassley, R-Iowa, is now demanding answers from U.S. Attorney for Delaware David Weiss, who led the DOJ’s years-long investigation into Hunter Biden, on what steps were taken to investigate those allegations. "Based on information provided to my office from individuals aware of the meeting on October 23, 2020, Justice Department and FBI Special Agents from the Pittsburgh Field Office briefed Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf, one of your top prospectors, and FBI Special Agents from the Baltimore Field Office with respect to the contents of the FBI-generated FD-1023 form alleging a criminal bribery scheme involving then-Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden; however, the meeting did not include any IRS agents," Grassley wrote in a letter to Weiss. Biden administration officials have rejected claims from IRS whistleblowers that the investigation into Hunter Biden has been politicized, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said Weiss was "given complete authority to make all decisions on his own behalf." Grassley used his letter to press Weiss again on what steps have been taken to look into President Biden's son. "Potentially hundreds of Justice Department and FBI officials have had access to the FD-1023 at issue, which begs the question that I’ve been asking since the start of my oversight in this matter: what steps have the Justice Department and FBI taken to investigate the allegations?" Grassley wrote. "You, Attorney General Garland, and Director Wray have failed to answer." Grassley also highlighted IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley’s allegations against Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesely Wolf. Shapley claimed Wolf prevented investigators from seeking information about Joe Biden’s involvement in his son’s "criminal business arrangements" and said Wolf tried to "limit" questioning involving Joe Biden. Shapley also alleged that Wolf admitted that there was "more than enough probable cause" to obtain a physical search warrant for Joe Biden’s guest house, but prevented it from being issued due to "optics." Wolf also allegedly tipped off Hunter Biden’s legal team ahead of a planned search of his storage unit. "Did AUSA Wolf take similar proactive measures to frustrate any investigation into the FD-1023?" Grassley asked Weiss. "In light of AUSA Wolf’s alleged questionable and obstructive conduct during the course of your investigation, I’m seeking clarification from you with respect to your knowledge of these allegations and how you've handled them." In the FD-1023, the Burisma executive alleged that he kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with Joe Biden and Hunter Biden as an "insurance policy." Grassley gave Weiss until July 21 to provide information on what investigative steps were taken on the key allegations. Former Attorney General Bill Barr last month revealed that the FD-1023 form had been routed to Weiss. Sources told Fox News Digital that Weiss' team was briefed on the FD-1023 form in September 2020. Sources familiar told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source believes that the $5 million payment to Joe Biden and the $5 million payment to Hunter Biden occurred, based on his or her conversations with the Burisma executive. The Justice Department last month announced that the president’s son had entered a plea agreement that will likely keep him out of jail. Hunter Biden is set to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax, and to one charge of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of or addicted to a controlled substance. Hunter Biden is expected to make his first court appearance on July 26. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/doj-briefed-hunter-biden-team-joe-biden-allegations-excluded-irs-agents-grassley

If you read the whistleblower's testimony you'd find out that investigators were prohibited from using enforcement operations and were denied the ability to conduct investigative steps that could have ensnared Joe Biden, like the WhatsApp message. Investigators wanted to obtain a search warrant for Joe Biden's guest house in Deleware but were denied because of "optics". It's easy to say there's no evidence when you're not allowed to look at where a trail leads you.

The DOJ Tax Division signed off the investigative team recommendations and presented it where it got stalled and the statute of limitations on the more serious charges for 2014 and 2015 were allowed to run out. Yeah, Hunter Biden is only a first time offender because he's never been held accountable for anything before. He gets it all dealt with in one fell swoop where he just gets misdemeanors and doesn't have to pay taxes for 2014. If Hunter Biden wouldn't have served time for the 2014 and 205 felony charges then why were they not included? Weiss won't explain why he didn't bring charges for 2014 or 2015. He's just denying that he couldn't bring charges.

The whistleblower was on the investigative team conducting the investigation of Hunter Biden's taxes. It was part of his job to know what the statute of limitations were because they send a report to the DOJ Tax Division to recommend charges that would be signed off on and then sent to the District Attorney to try and prosecute. This is from the whistleblower's testimony: Has the Tax Division denied sending or presenting a memo to the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C.? David Weiss, Matthew Graves, and Merrick Garland can deny claims all they want, if there was a memo from the Tax Division sent to the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. recommending charges for Hunter Biden's taxes in 2014 and 2015 then all their denials will be proven false.

Uhhh..... This is the crux of the IRS whistleblower's claims. The whistleblower explained that Weiss didn't or couldn't bring charges at the time so it allowed the statue of limitations to lapse for the potential felonies.

The stuff Hunter Biden didn't get indicted for by Byron York, Chief Political Correspondent June 26, 2023 01:10 PM THE STUFF HUNTER BIDEN DIDN'T GET INDICTED FOR. There's no doubt Hunter Biden had some serious tax problems. In the 2010s, he took in millions from shady overseas business dealings, trading on the name of his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, and had a history of filing his returns late with six-figure amounts of taxes due. There was also his lowlife, high-cost drug addict lifestyle in which he threw away hundreds of thousands of dollars on prostitutes and crack. He had personal financial problems most people don't share. Last week, Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay his taxes on time. Republicans quickly dismissed it as a sweetheart deal, and they were right. IRS investigators, who did the key work in the investigation, wanted to charge Hunter Biden with felonies. The Justice Department disagreed, choosing instead to reduce the charges to misdemeanors. But those two misdemeanors do not describe the full extent of Biden's tax transgressions. For the story, it's best to go to two transcripts released last week by the House Ways and Means Committee. The first was from IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who oversaw the Biden investigation. Shapley's testimony has received a good bit of attention, in part because he revealed a remarkable WhatsApp message from July 30, 2017, in which Hunter Biden pressured a Chinese business associate for money by threatening to have his father, by then the former vice president, use his influence to retaliate against the associate if the money was not delivered. Hunter Biden said his father was "sitting next to me" as he made the threat, which, if true, would mean that Joe Biden was not telling the truth when he repeatedly denied knowledge of his son's business affairs. That was big. But there is a second IRS whistleblower whose testimony was also released last week. This whistleblower, who is anonymous, was the lead case agent for the Hunter Biden investigation. As such, he had a detailed, hands-on knowledge of the evidence in the case. He is the IRS agent who would have testified against Hunter Biden had any case against him gone to trial. This agent — call him WB2, for whistleblower No. 2 — told House investigators a remarkable story. It started with Hunter Biden before his father became vice president, before becoming a crack addict. "Hunter Biden had had a lot of tax issues, even predating all this stuff," WB2 testified. "Back in 2002, he filed his Form 1040 late — filing and owing over $100,000 in taxes; 2003, owed more than $100,000 in taxes; 2004, late-filed and owed more than $20,000 in taxes; and then 2005, late-filed his personal return and owed over $100,000 in taxes." Fast-forward to 2014, when Joe Biden was vice president and a corrupt Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, put Hunter Biden on its board of directors. According to WB2, Burisma paid Hunter Biden $666,667 that year to do little or no work. Hunter Biden received the money, WB2 explained, and then moved it to a Chinese company run by one of his associates. That company then "loaned" the money to Hunter Biden. "So imagine this," WB2 said. "If you are an owner of a company and your friend tells you that, 'I want to pay my wages to your company, and you're going to loan the money back to me,' that's essentially what happened here. He took loans from that corporation ... and he didn't pay taxes on those loans. ... So essentially, for 2014, we found that Hunter didn't report any of the money he earned from Burisma." The problem, WB2 said, was: "You can't loan yourself your own income." A House Republican lawyer asked: "So none of this was taxed?" WB2 responded: "None of it was taxed." The lawyer said: "And to date, none of it has been paid or prosecuted?" WB2 responded: "So none of this has been paid or prosecuted. And I would also like to note that the statute [of limitations] has run out on these tax years or on the 2014 tax year." The year 2014 was not part of the misdemeanor charges against Hunter Biden. As far as the IRS and Justice Department are concerned, that's all over. In an extremely complex arrangement, Hunter Biden did pay some of his taxes on Burisma money in 2015. But then, in 2016, Hunter Biden did not file a personal return at all and did not pay the $581,713 he owed in taxes, according to WB2. Hunter Biden moved to California, entered his drug addict years, and did not file tax returns for 2017 or 2018, either. In 2019, he got sober and faced a child support case for a child he had had with a former stripper in Arkansas. He hired a new accountant and, in February 2020, filed his 2017 and 2018 returns, according to WB2. The 2018 return, WB2 said, contained false claims for deductions. "Some of the items that he deducted were personal no-show employees," WB2 said. "He deducted payments that were made to who he called his West Coast assistant, but she was essentially a prostitute. He made payments — there's an $18,000 wire that is made to one of these individuals, and on the wires, they say $8,000 in wage and $10,000 in golf — $10,000 golf club member deposit. And we know that that $10,000 went to pay for a sex club. He went to a sex club — and we've talked to the person that owned that sex club, and they confirmed that he was there. And the [sex club member] has to pay $10,000 ... so that was deducted on the tax return." Hunter Biden also "deducted expenses for hotel rooms for one of his drug dealers or what we believed to be one of his drug dealers," WB2 added. "There was a significant amount of expenses deducted related to his girlfriend at the time, Airbnbs related to her, hotel rooms. So he deducted a lot for the Chateau Marmont, and he actually was blacklisted and thrown out of the Chateau Marmont. We actually have ... photos of the rooms and the destruction that was done to the rooms." In those years, Hunter Biden was in full flight when it came to profiting from his father's name and influence. The money wasn't just coming from Ukraine. It was coming from all over the world. "Global income streams for everyone altogether, so it's for the period 2014 through 2019, our investigative years, so the total global transfers that Hunter and his associates would have received from Ukraine, Romania, and China was $17.3 million, approximately," WB2 said. But that was for everyone involved in the Hunter Biden enterprise. As for Hunter Biden himself, WB2 said: "Of this amount, for the period 2014 through ... the end of 2019 — that's when income stops coming in — it's $8.3 million. This is what Hunter would have received of that." That's the bottom line for Hunter Biden's foreign income during that period: $8.3 million. The IRS investigation began in 2018. "The investigation into Hunter Biden, code name Sportsman, was first opened in November 2018 as an offshoot of an investigation the IRS was conducting into a foreign-based amateur online pornography platform," Shapley told House investigators. By the time his father was the Democratic candidate for president, Hunter Biden owed a lot of unpaid taxes. By Shapley's estimation, the total owed was $2.2 million. Since 2014, Hunter Biden has sometimes failed to file his returns, has failed to pay tons of tax, and has fraudulently claimed deductions for payments to prostitutes. How could he get out of such a situation? One big step would be to pay off all his taxes and penalties. Many news accounts of the Hunter Biden story have noted that prosecutors are less likely to charge a person who has committed tax crimes if that person ultimately paid off his or her bill. The idea is that a jury would ask: Hey, this guy has paid what he owes, so why are you putting him on trial? Hunter Biden could put himself in an infinitely better position if he paid the IRS what he owed. But that was $2.2 million. Where could Hunter Biden get $2.2 million? Enter Kevin Morris. A wealthy Hollywood celebrity lawyer, Morris apparently met Hunter Biden at a political fundraiser in the 2019-20 period. And then, when Joe Biden was in the White House, Morris paid the younger Biden's tax bill. According to WB2, on his 2020 tax returns, Hunter Biden included a note: "The taxpayer received financial support from a personal friend totaling approximately $1.4 million. The parties agreed in 2020 to treat the support as a loan and later documented their agreement in a promissory note in the amount of $1.4 million, 5% interest. The promissory note requires periodic payments between 2025 and 2027. The promissory note was executed by both parties on October 13th, 2021. The taxpayer is treating this amount as a loan for tax purposes. The balance of the financial support is treated as a gift. No amount of the support is treated as a reported taxable event on this return." In later months, Morris gave his friend even more money — approximately $800,00 more, bringing Morris's total payoff of Hunter Biden's tax liabilities to the full $2.2 million owed. The Morris money would serve as a roadblock to those IRS agents who wanted to prosecute Hunter Biden. "The payment could make it harder for prosecutors to win a conviction or a long sentence for tax-related offenses, according to tax law experts, since juries and judges tend to be more sympathetic to defendants who have paid their bills," the New York Times reported in 2022. Of course, Hunter Biden did not actually pay his bills. Morris did. In WB2's testimony, a Republican lawyer asked about the Morris loans: "Has that transaction been investigated?" WB2 responded, "I'm no longer a part of an investigation related to that." As part of what the whistleblowers say is retaliation against them, top IRS officials removed both WB2 and Shapley from the Hunter Biden case. And now the matter has been resolved with two misdemeanor charges. The conclusion is deeply frustrating to IRS agents like WB2. Hunter Biden failed to file returns, failed to pay his taxes for several years, and falsely claimed deductions. WB2 also pointed out, more than once, that Hunter Biden's tax offenses occurred over a period of years, some of which he was on drugs and some of which he was not, meaning that not all of the violations can be attributed to Hunter Biden's being in a drug-induced haze, as some defenders suggest. The agents' conclusion is that just because Hunter Biden's new friend bailed him out — no repayments required until 2025 — does not mean Hunter Biden did not violate the tax laws repeatedly in the 2010s. At the end of WB2's deposition, a Republican lawyer asked this question: "If someone meets all the elements for a crime of willful evasion and are found to, in conjunction with that, owe a liability, and they pay off that liability years later when they've been caught, has a crime been committed?" WB2 answered simply: "Yes." https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/stuff-hunter-biden-didnt-get-indicted

Well.... The email and now this. Going to have to do more than say 'nuh-uh' to refute the whistleblowers claim.

This IRS Email Corroborates Whistleblower's Claims About Biden DOJ Interference in Hunter Probe Chuck Ross June 23, 2023 A senior IRS official corroborated a whistleblower's bombshell allegation that Biden Justice Department officials meddled in the Hunter Biden tax probe, according to internal IRS emails released this week. Whistleblower Gary Shapley's boss confirmed Shapley's account of a key meeting that occurred on October 7, 2022, between IRS agents and DOJ prosecutors handling the Biden probe. After the meeting, Shapley wrote to his boss, Darrell Waldon, that U.S. attorney David Weiss indicated he was prohibited from bringing charges against Biden in Washington, D.C. Weiss said that he requested special counsel status but that Justice Department headquarters had denied that request. "Weiss stated that he is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed," Shapley wrote. Waldon, who attended the meeting with Shapley, signed off on his subordinate's characterization of the meeting. "Thanks, Gary. You covered it all," Waldon wrote. The email is powerful evidence supporting Shapley's claims that the Biden Justice Department interfered in the investigation into the embattled first son and that, contrary to statements from Attorney General Merrick Garland and others, Weiss could not operate freely. Hunter Biden this week agreed to a plea deal on two misdemeanor charges for failure to pay taxes in 2017 and 2018. Shapley testified, however, that IRS investigators and Weiss's office initially sought felony tax evasion charges against Biden for the years 2014 to 2018. Shapley detailed Biden's schemes to evade taxes, including deductions for payments he made to prostitutes and a Los Angeles sex club. Shapley's email also opens Garland to congressional scrutiny. A 10-year IRS veteran, Shapley told Congress that Weiss's statements conflicted with Garland's testimony that the prosecutor had full authority over the Biden investigation. "The Hunter Biden investigation … is being run by and supervised by the United States attorney for the District of Delaware," Garland testified at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on April 26, 2022, referring to Weiss. "He is in charge of that investigation. There will not be interference of any political or improper kind." "I believe this to be a huge problem—inconsistent with DOJ public position and Merrick Garland testimony," Shapley wrote in his Oct. 7, 2022, memo. According to Shapley, Weiss disclosed that he went to Matthew Graves, the Joe Biden-appointed U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., in early summer 2022 to request to file charges in that jurisdiction. But according to Shapley, Weiss said the request was rejected. "Biden-appointed [U.S. attorney] said they could not charge in his district," Shapley wrote. Weiss said that he had requested special counsel authority to charge a case in Washington but that "Main DOJ denied his request and told him to follow the process," according to Shapley. Shapley wrote that in mid-September 2022, Weiss asked newly appointed prosecutor E. Martin Estrada to charge Biden in California. That decision was pending at the time, but Estrada, another Biden appointee, ultimately rejected the request. Weiss's office declined to comment on Shapley's allegations. The U.S. attorney's offices in Washington and California did not respond to requests for comment. The Justice Department said in a statement that Weiss "has full authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges as he deems appropriate." https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/this-irs-email-corroborates-whistleblowers-claims-about-biden-doj-interference-in-hunter-probe/

IRS Whistleblower Docs Show DOJ Obstructed Hunter Biden Probe To Protect President By: Jordan Boyd June 22, 2023 "Hunter should have been charged with several tax felonies and misdemeanors for evading taxes on millions of dollars of his income." The U.S. Department of Justice choked an IRS investigation and charging recommendations for Hunter Biden because it didn’t want to damage his father Joe Biden’s presidential chances, say whistleblower documents released today. IRS whistleblower testimonies made available by the House Ways and Means Committee show Hunter should have been charged with several tax felonies and misdemeanors for evading taxes on millions of dollars of income but was ultimately given a sweetheart deal by the DOJ to protect his father. “These payments are just a fraction of the total, but they provide insight into a world of wealth and influence that no ordinary American would recognize. And what plea deal did Mr. Biden just receive? A slap on the wrist for charges that have put other Americans behind bars. As I said, the federal government is not treating all taxpayers equally,” Committee Chairman Jason Smith said during a press conference on Thursday. Earlier this week, the DOJ announced plans to charge the president’s youngest son with two federal misdemeanor counts for failing to pay his taxes and one federal felony charge for illegally possessing a gun while addicted to illicit drugs. A carefully orchestrated plea deal between the DOJ and Hunter means the younger Biden will only face probation — not jail time — for the two misdemeanor tax charges. If a judge accepts the deal, Hunter will also avoid the maximum of 10 years in jail and a $250,000 fine that comes with a felony gun charge because the DOJ doesn’t plan to prosecute. “When the American people read these transcripts, I think you’ll see a level of criminality that I don’t think anybody expected to see,” Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., said at the press conference on Thursday. LaHood also emphasized that “it is not a coincidence of the timing of what happened this week.” “This could have been done a long time ago. It wasn’t,” he added. Deliberate Obstacles At Every Turn “I am blowing the whistle because the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office, Department of Justice Tax, and Department of Justice provided preferential treatment and unchecked conflicts of interest in an important and high-profile investigation of the President’s son, Hunter Biden,” IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley said in his testimony. Accumulating evidence shows exactly what Shapley alleged: the DOJ gave Hunter Biden “preferential treatment,” “slow-walked the investigation,” and “did nothing to avoid obvious conflicts of interest.” The IRS first began investigating Hunter in 2018 in connection to a “foreign-based amateur online pornography platform.” When the FBI confirmed it was Hunter’s laptop in November 2019, the IRS asked to look at laptop materials to seek evidence for potential tax crimes, but FBI officials choked its attempts to sift through the materials. By April 2020, Shapley, the supervisor of the Hunter case, was armed with affidavits to seek search warrants for the laptop and planned to conduct approximately 15 related interviews with potential witnesses. Instead of granting the IRS permission to execute any of these tools, DOJ officials dragged their feet, effectively denying them, he said. Shapley says that’s because this was the same month President Joe Biden “became the presumptive Democratic nominee for President.” By June 2020, Shapley raised red flags about this cross-agency stifling to his supervisor, who decided the IRS should ultimately submit to the DOJ’s stifling of their investigation into Hunter. For the next two years, Shapley and his team uncovered new evidence of Biden corruption but could not act on it because of DOJ resistance. In one such case, Shapley’s team uncovered a message from Hunter’s WhatsApp to a Chinese communist party official Henry Zhao. The angry text shows the younger Biden, “sitting here with my father,” demanding a presumably financial “commitment” be fulfilled “before it gets out of hand.” Shapley said this message indicated the IRS should “search the guest house at the Bidens’ Delaware residence where Hunter Biden stayed for a time.” Assistant United States Attorney Lesley Wolf agreed that “there was more than enough probable cause for the physical search warrant there” but blamed “optics” as the reason for the eventual denial. In addition to obstructing key steps in the IRS’s investigation into Hunter, DOJ prosecutors also overlooked concerns about ethics and tried to remove Hunter’s name from “electronic search warrants, 2703(d) orders, and document requests.” At one point, investigators began looking into potential violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act but were once again stifled by a lack of approval from the DOJ. A surprise IRS interview in December 2020 was similarly spoiled by the FBI which “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, noting that the IRS only got one “substantive” interview out of 12 — with Biden family associate Rob Walker. The IRS tried several times over the course of the years-long investigation to charge Hunter with the information they had but the DOJ disapproved of doing so near the 2020 election because it would hurt Biden’s presidential chances. When the IRS and U.S. Attorney David Weiss began to expand their potential charges to include Hunter’s financial behavior in 2014 and 2015, Shapley said the D.C. U.S. attorney refused to allow it. “The purposeful exclusion of the 2014 and 2015 years sanitized the most substantive criminal conduct and concealed material facts,” Shapley warned. A second whistleblower confirmed that anytime investigators tried to follow agency protocols and go public, “there were always times to where we were always on an impending election cycle.” “It was always the election being brought up,” the whistleblower, whose name was redacted, said in his testimony. The IRS finally recommended felony tax evasion charges for 2014, 2018, and 2019 and misdemeanor tax charges for 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 in January 2022. The DOJ made it clear that it did not concur with the recommendation. As evidenced by the DOJ’s charges made public this week, only two of the five tax misdemeanor counts landed. None of the felony charges the IRS suggested would be announced or prosecuted. As Shapley noted in his testimony, “The only win for me is to not be fired or arrested or retaliated against.” Instead, Shapley said, “Since October 2022, IRS CI has taken every opportunity to retaliate against me and my team” including passing him over for a promotion “for which I was clearly most qualified” and sending threats that were “suppressing additional potential whistleblowers from coming forward.” Even after IRS senior officials heard that Weiss and the DOJ were “acting improperly” they apparently granted a DOJ demand to remove the entire team from the Hunter Biden investigation. https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/22/irs-whistleblower-docs-show-doj-obstructed-investigation-into-his-son-to-protect-joe-biden/

The DOJ is using a sleight of hand in the indictment if you pay close attention. They talk about Trump having classified documents but when you look at wording of the indictment it becomes more obvious this is a political prosecution. For those who may not know, even when a document has been declassified they do not remove the classification markings. So whether a document is classified or declassified, it will still have the classification markings. This is a point that people should be aware of because it allows the DOJ to frame everything as 'classified documents'.

National Security records were not part of the DOJ's subpoena from May 2022.

There's a reason the DOJ resisted a special master to review the classified records. Just like with the FISA warrants in the Russiagate hoax, they want to control what classified records the court can access in order to bolster their case. A special master would have severely damaged the DOJ's case.

Grassley: Burisma executive who allegedly paid Biden has audio recordings of conversations with Joe, Hunter Biden was allegedly paid $5M by a high-level Burisma executive as part of a bribery scheme By Brooke Singman | Fox News Sen. Chuck Grassley said Monday that the Burisma executive who allegedly paid Joe Biden and Hunter Biden kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them as an "insurance policy," citing the FBI FD-1023 form that the bureau briefed congressional lawmakers on. Grassley, R-Iowa, revealed from the Senate floor Monday what was said to be a redacted reference in the FBI-generated FD-1023 form alleging a criminal bribery scheme between then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national that involved influence over U.S. policy decisions. Fox News Digital exclusively reported on the contents of the form last week. The FD-1023 form, dated June 30, 2020, is the FBI's interview with a "highly credible" confidential source who detailed multiple meetings and conversations he or she had with a top Burisma executive over the course of several years, starting in 2015. Fox News Digital has not seen the form, which is redacted, but it was described by several sources who are aware of its contents. Grassley said the FD-1023 has a redacted reference that the Burisma executive possesses fifteen audio recordings of phone calls between himself and Hunter Biden. According to Grassley, the FD-1023 also states that the executive possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between himself and then-Vice President Joe Biden. Grassley, from the Senate floor, slammed the FBI for not complying with the House Oversight Committee’s subpoena, saying Congress "still lacks a full and complete picture with respect to what that document really says." "That’s why it’s important that the document be made public without unnecessary redactions for the American people to see," he said. "Let me assist for purposes of transparency." "The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them," Grassley continued. "17 total recordings." "According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses 15 audio recordings of phone calls between him and Hunter Biden," Grassley said. "According to the 1023, the foreign national possesses two audio recordings of phone calls between him and then-Vice President Joe Biden." Grassley said the recordings were "allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot." "The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden," Grassley said. Grassley demanded answers on "what, if anything has the Justice Department and FBI done to investigate?" "The Justice Department and FBI must show their work," Grassley said. "They no longer deserve the benefit of the doubt." The FBI brought the document to Capitol Hill last week after House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer subpoenaed it last month. The FBI briefed Comer and committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, D-Md., on the form in a SCIF on Capitol Hill, but did not turn over the document. Comer threatened to hold FBI Director Christopher Wray in contempt of Congress. The FBI made a further accommodation and later brought the form to a secure setting on Capitol Hill for all Oversight Committee members to view, but the document is still not in the committee's possession. A source familiar told Fox News Digital on Monday that the FBI did not redact the section of the FD-1023 referencing the audio recordings when showing the document to solely to Comer and Raskin, but did so for the full committee briefing. The source said Grassley and Comer had already seen the form, even prior to the FBI sharing it with Congress. Fox News Digital was exclusively briefed on the contents of the form last week. Sources told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source told the FBI that the Burisma executive was speaking with the confidential source to "get advice on the best way to go forward" in 2015 and 2016 in gaining U.S. oil rights and getting involved with a U.S. oil company. According to the FD-1023 form, the confidential human source said the Burisma executive discussed Hunter’s role on the board. The confidential human source questioned why the Burisma executive needed his or her advice in acquiring access to U.S. oil if he had Hunter Biden on the board. The Burisma executive answered by referring to Hunter Biden as "dumb." The Burisma executive explained to the confidential source that Burisma had to "pay the Bidens" because Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin was investigating Burisma, and explained how difficult it would be to enter the U.S. market in the midst of that investigation. The confidential source further detailed that conversation, suggesting to the Burisma executive that he "pay the Bidens $50,000 each," to which the Burisma executive replied, it is "not $50,000," it is "$5 million." "$5 million for one Biden, $5 million for the other Biden," the Burisma executive told the confidential human source, according to a source familiar with the document. A source familiar said according to the document, the $5 million payments appeared to reference a kind of "retainer" Burisma intended to pay the Bidens to deal with a number of issues, including the investigation led by Shokin. Another source referred to the arrangement as a "pay-to-play" scheme. Sources familiar told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source believes that the $5 million payment to Joe Biden and the $5 million payment to Hunter Biden occurred, based on his or her conversations with the Burisma executive. The confidential source said the Burisma executive told him he "paid" the Bidens in such a manner "through so many different bank accounts" that investigators would not be able to "unravel this for at least 10 years." The document then makes reference to "the Big Guy," which, has been said to be a reference to Joe Biden. The Burisma executive told the confidential source that he "didn’t pay the Big Guy directly." Sources said the Burisma executive appears to be at a "very, very high level" of the company. One source familiar suggested the confidential source could be referring to the head of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, but said the name of the Burisma executive is redacted in the document. Biden has acknowledged that when he was vice president, he successfully pressured Ukraine to fire prosecutor Viktor Shokin. At the time, Shokin was investigating Burisma Holdings, and at the time, Hunter had a highly-lucrative role on the board receiving thousands of dollars per month. The then-vice president threatened to withhold $1 billion of critical U.S. aid if Shokin was not fired. The confidential source, according to the sources familiar with the FD-1023 form, told the Burisma executive he should "get away" from the Bidens and said the executive should "not want to be involved" with them. A source familiar with the document told Fox News Digital that the confidential human source goes on to detail a later conversation with the Burisma executive following the 2016 presidential election. The confidential source asked the Burisma executive if he was "upset" that Donald Trump won. The source said the Burisma executive told the confidential source that he was "an oracle," referring to his or her advice to "get away" from the Bidens due to fears of potential investigations into their dealings. The White House has maintained that President Biden has never been involved in his son's business dealings and has never discussed them with him. And it has noted that removing Shokin was administration policy at the time. Hunter Biden is currently under federal investigations for his "tax affairs." The investigation began in 2018 and was prompted by suspicious foreign transactions. The White House declined to comment, pointing to a statement by Joe Biden Thursday calling the allegations "a bunch of malarky." https://www.foxnews.com/politics/grassley-burisma-executive-who-allegedly-paid-biden-has-audio-recordings-of-conversations-with-joe-hunter

NARA can only engage in a civil procedure, not criminal. That's literally what the Presidential Records Act is for. It's a law specifically for Presidents and former Presidents. How can a civil procedure escalate to espionage charges for a former President? Just because they had to play hard ball to recover documents, which are copies btw, they're bringing unprecedented criminal charges against a former President.

That's fine. I don't expect you to agree. The political system has to be fixed. It's not going to be reformed by just accepting one side prosecuting the other for something the prosecuting side is guilty of to.

I'm proposing both sides being held to the same set of rules. You're acting as though this is a one time instance of someone doing something wrong and not being punished. This is a pattern of one side getting to bend the rules repeatedly while the other side is being put through the legal ringer for the same type of thing. You can't have a system like that and have everyone be okay with it.

No, if there is a two tiered system then you don't wager or hope the other side faces similar consequences sooner than later. If you don't fight for fairness then you're never going to get it.

I want fairness whether I like somebody or not. I don't want selective prosecution. If it's not criminal when somebody they like does it, it shouldn't be criminal when somebody they don't like does it.

https://amgreatness.com/2022/08/18/report-2012-clinton-sock-drawer-tapes-case-could-have-significant-legal-bearing-on-mar-a-lago-raid/ Ten years ago, a U.S. District Court judge ruled there was no provision in the Presidential Records Act that would compel the National Archives to seize records from a former president. The 2012 case has “direct relevance” to the FBI’s decision to raid Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, and could impact upcoming legal battles, according to Just the News. In her Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration opinion, Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Washington D.C. rejected the conservative watchdog’s suit to force the Archives to seize hours of audio recordings that former president Bill Clinton made during his presidency with historian Taylor Branch. She noted that any challenge to a former president’s handling of records is the responsibility of the National Archives (NARA), and any enforcement mechanism initiated by them and the attorney general would be a civil procedure, and have no criminal penalty. Jackson also said “the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office.” The audio tapes in question were kept in Bill Clinton’s sock drawer at the White House, according to Branch, who wrote about the interviews in his chummy 2009 book, The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President. “Finding room for the tapes wasn’t hard because Clinton “had a lot of socks,” Branch said in an appearance at the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas in 2007. Some legal experts believe the case could have “significant impact over the FBI search of Melania Trump’s closet and Donald Trump’s personal office,” Just the News reported. In her ruling, Jackson made declarations that they believe have direct relevance on the FBI’s decision to seize Trump’s handwritten White House notes and files from his Mar-a-Lago residence—namely, a president’s discretion on determining what are personal vs. official records, and his his right to declassify or destroy records at will. “Under the statutory scheme established by the PRA, the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President’s term and in his sole discretion,” Jackson wrote in her March 2012 decision against Judicial Watch. The judge made clear that presidents have the right to destroy any records they want during their tenure and their only responsibility is to inform the Archives. “Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records,” she added. Jackson’s full ruling can be read here. She said it was unreasonable to force NARA to seize tapes a president has concluded were personal. “Because the audiotapes are not physically in the government’s possession, defendant submits that it would be required to seize them directly from President Clinton in order to assume custody and control over them,” Jackson wrote. “Defendant considers this to be an ‘extraordinary request’ that is unfounded, contrary to the PRA’s express terms, and contrary to traditional principles of administrative law. The Court agrees.” ___________________________________________ In 2012 a U.S. District Court judge ruled the President has sole discretion to choose which documents are personal records and which are Presidential records. Trump claiming documents as personal records has now caused new legal theories to be crafted in order to charge him criminally. Clinton took whatever audiotapes he wanted and the NARA didn't lift a finger to object or legally challenge him to recover the tapes after he left office.

You can disagree all you'd like but the President does have the authority to declassify. Whether you think it's good or bad, The authority vested to the President by the Constitution is the source of the authority to declassify.

Since 'we' own the documents then why can't we see them?

These are criminal charges. What Trump did wasn't illegal. So by definition Trump is innocent of the charges yes.

The President has the ultimate authority to declassify and retain documents. Pretty wild that the President is given the Commander in Chief title and has the unilateral authority to launch nuclear weapons but suddenly now having classified documents and retaining them is grounds for Obstruction and Espionage that started from a non-criminal engagement over the Presidential Records Act. Political Midwits that detest Trump: This isn't political. It's about protecting democracy because Trump is a 'national security threat' like we've been saying since 2016 by parroting the same politicized National Security State officials that spied on Trump's campaign and investigated him over proven lies of Russian collusion. Also Midwits: Hillary wasn't charged because she cooperated herp derp..... So by that argument had Trump just cooperated and returned all the documents as requested then he wouldn't have been charged. That would mean it wasn't illegal for him to possess the documents in the first place. This isn't about Trump being 'above the law'. It's about creating new legal theories meant to criminalize Trump's conduct.