Tag: Joe Biden

REPORT: Grassley Shut Out of Hunter Biden IRS Whistleblower Investigation

by Breck Worsham, posted in crime, law, news, politics

WASHINGTON– A top Senate Republican with a long history of advocating whistleblowers is being shut out from the Hunter Biden IRS whistleblower investigation by a Democratic Senate chairman despite the whistleblower wanting the GOP senator on the case.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), a member of the Senate Finance Committee and a co-chairman of the Whistleblower Protection Caucus,is being denied access to the investigation by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the Washington Examiner has learned.

Lawyers for the IRS whistleblower sent letters to Congress on April 19 and May 15 providing details about their client’s protected disclosures alleging wrongdoing related to the federal investigation into President Joe Biden’s son. The attorneys have gone out of their way in both letters to include Grassley despite the Iowa Republican not being a current chairman or ranking member for a committee with specific jurisdiction regarding the tax code, but he is a leader of a Senate caucus dedicated to protecting whistleblowers.

The IRS whistleblower’s legal team told the Washington Examiner on Monday, “Naturally, we addressed letters to Sen. Grassley because he is co-chair with Sen. Wyden of the Whistleblower Protection Caucus as well as a senior member and past chair of both the Finance and Judiciary committees. Also important, though, is that he is more trusted than any other public official by whistleblowers to give them air cover regardless of the political implications and keep fighting to protect them when others cut and run. What whistleblower wouldn’t want Chuck Grassley in on their case?”

Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code requires the chairman of congressional tax committees to grant access to sensitive tax return information, and Wyden has refused to provide that access to Grassley or his team.

Grassley spokesman Taylor Foy told the Washington Examiner the IRS whistleblower’s lawyers had “specifically included” Grassley “in their communications with Congress, so there’s no legitimate reason to exclude Grassley’s staff from participating in this investigation.”

The Grassley spokesman said that “Grassley and his investigations unit are subject matter experts on both whistleblower protections and the Biden family business controversies” and that “they also happen to be very familiar with the specific statutes protecting sensitive tax information.”

Grassley and Wyden are co-founders of the Whistleblower Protection Caucus, and the whistleblower’s attorneys are warning about “clearly retaliatory” action against their client.

The whistleblower’s attorneys said Wyden and Grassley have historically had a good relationship and should be able to cooperate — “unless partisanship is getting in the way.”

“Although our client is an IRS supervisor, his protected disclosures implicate the Justice Department, so the Judiciary Committees and others in Congress will need to have access to some version of the disclosures in order to give the Justice Department’s conduct in this case the public scrutiny that it deserves,” the legal team said in a statement to the Washington Examiner. “Our client’s interests and the country’s interests would be best served if Congress would resist the urge to be distracted by jurisdictional turf wars or playing partisan defense and offense.”

Grassley, a senior member and former chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, designated six Wyden staffers as agents under Section 6103 in 2019 related to a whistleblower complaint his office had received that year.

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), the ranking member on the Finance Committee, also received the IRS whistleblower letters, and the Washington Examiner learned that ranking member Crapo’s staff is not objecting to Grassley’s staff participating in the IRS whistleblower investigation, but Wyden is refusing to provide access to any Grassley staffers.

Wyden’s chief communications adviser, Ryan Carey, told the Washington Examiner that “the committee is handling this matter on a bipartisan basis according to its standard procedures governing legally protected taxpayer data” and insisted that “those procedures are designed both to protect taxpayer confidentiality and the integrity of any ongoing investigations.”

The IRS whistleblower’s legal team said last week that the IRS had removed the entire investigative team in the Hunter Biden tax evasion investigation at the request of the Justice Department, according to a letter attorneys Tristan Leavitt and Mark Lytle of Empower Oversight and Nixon Peabody, respectively, wrote to Grassley and multiple heads of the House and Senate last week.

Republicans have demanded an “urgent briefing and explanation” from IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel about the whistleblower’s claims.

Lytle also sent a letter to Grassley and the heads of multiple congressional committees in April, alleging politics and preferential treatment had been “infecting” decisions in the investigation. While the letters consistently do not name Hunter Biden, rather a “politically connected” subject, congressional sources have revealed the allegations involve the president’s son.

The IRS agent’s allegations also “involve failure to mitigate clear conflicts of interest in the ultimate disposition of the case” against Hunter Biden and “contradict sworn testimony to Congress by a senior political appointee.”

A source familiar with the whistleblower letter confirmed to the Washington Examiner that Attorney General Merrick Garland is the unnamed senior Biden official whose testimony before Congress is being challenged.

The IRS whistleblower attorneys also sent their letters to Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the committee’s ranking member; to Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, and Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), the committee’s ranking member; and Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), its ranking member.

Grassley and Wyden have clashed over investigations in the past, including when Wyden sought to undermine Grassley’s investigation into the shady foreign business dealings by Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s family, including in Ukraine and with Chinese intelligence-linked businessmen. Wyden claimed in 2020 that the Grassley evidence was a product of Russian disinformation, while Grassley argued his evidence was based on U.S. government records and interviews with Obama administration officials. Grassley said his investigation has since been corroborated by bank records.

Grassley said on the Senate floor in the summer of 2020 that “the hard truth is that it’s the Democrats who are engaged in a disinformation campaign, all because the facts don’t fit their political narrative” and that “their silence regarding the Steele dossier and fake Russia investigation yet public complaints about my legitimate oversight investigations is proof of that.”

Wyden claimed on Twitter in September 2020 that Grassley’s investigation with Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) in Biden family finances was “laundering Russian propaganda” and that Russian “disinformation” was “the basis” of the GOP investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden. Wyden further claimed on the Senate floor that the GOP report on Hunter Biden was part of “the spread of the spread of Russian propaganda.” Wyden also co-authored a lengthy September 2020 rebuttal claiming the Grassley-Johnson report “amplifies discredited allegations that are part of a known Russian campaign to interfere in the 2020 election.”

Grassley and Johnson denied all of this, and further evidence to buttress their 2020 report has emerged since then.

Grassley has also been deeply involved in whistleblower investigations related to Joe Biden’s son.

Whistleblowers told Grassley last summer that Timothy Thibault, the former FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office, “ordered closed” an “avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting” in October 2020, even though “all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants.”

The whistleblower disclosures made public by Grassley also alleged that FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten “opened an assessment, which was used by an FBI headquarters team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease” in 2020.

Grassley also sent an October letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray and others that said the FBI is in possession of “significant, impactful, and voluminous evidence” of “potential criminal conduct” by Hunter Biden related to his overseas business dealings with China and Ukraine.

Hunter Biden leaves after President Joe Biden awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 people during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, July 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
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Report: Hunter Biden’s Attorneys to Meet with Justice Department

by Breck Worsham, posted in crime, law, news, politics

WASHINGTON– Hunter Biden’s legal team is scheduled to meet next week with the U.S. attorney overseeing the investigation into the president’s son, according to reports.

The meeting was granted after Mr. Biden’s lawyers reached out for an update on the Justice Department probe that is believed to be focused on tax evasion and making false statements when purchasing of a gun.

At least one official from Justice Department headquarters is expected to attend the meeting with the U.S. Attorney in Delaware, David Weiss, according to CNN which cited multiple sources familiar with the matter.

Hunter Biden has been under investigation for several years but has not been charged. He has denied any wrongdoing.

The meeting is scheduled to occur amid increased pressure on President Biden and his son after an anonymous IRS whistleblower came forward this week with a letter to lawmakers alleging that the Biden administration is improperly handling the investigation into the president’s son and giving him preferential treatment.

‘GREAT PERIL’: Economic Expert Issues Dire Warning on Biden Economic Policies

by Breck Worsham, posted in economy, news, politics

WASHINGTON–Steve Moore, chief economist at FreedomWorks, issued a stern warning Monday that recent bank collapses may be “just the tip of the iceberg” of Biden’s failed economic policies.

In an appearance on Fox News, Moore told Harris Faulkner that the Biden administration’s spending caused the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, leading to financial problems for many major banks.

“I agree with the president that we don’t have an overall banking crisis. The system is sound, but I do think you have a lot of major banks that are in some trouble. And SVB, the Silicon Valley Bank, may just be the tip of the iceberg here,” Trump’s former White House adviser said of the current economic situation. “And I think it’s important for people to understand how this potential banking crisis happened. It’s not because there aren’t enough bank regulators, as Biden is trying to say. It’s because of the massive inflation and the trillions and trillions of dollars of borrowing that the federal government has done that has put our financial system in great jeopardy and great peril.”

“You can’t just keep doing this month after month, year after year, borrowing trillions and trillions of dollars. And so what happened, because of the Biden spending and debt policies, is that not only did inflation go up, but interest rates have gone up,” Moore added. “Harris, as you know, the Fed has had to raise interest rates eight or nine times, and they’re talking about more interest rate increases to come. And that’s caused a lot of financial problems for these big banks is the interest rates go up.”

Biden responded Monday to the economic crisis, stating that Americans can “feel confident” in their banking system after his administration’s response to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank last week.

“No losses will be borne by the taxpayers,” Biden said. “Instead, the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the deposit insurance fund. Because of the actions that our regulators have already taken, every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them.”

BIDEN’S AMERICA: Feds Again Hike Interest Rates and Signal More to Come

by Breck Worsham, posted in economy, news, politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve reinforced its inflation fight Wednesday by raising its key interest rate for the seventh time this year and signaling more hikes to come. But it announced a smaller hike than it had in its past four meetings at a time when inflation is showing signs of easing.

The Fed made clear, in a statement and a news conference by Chair Jerome Powell, that it thinks sharply higher rates are still needed to fully tame the worst inflation bout to strike the economy in four decades.

The central bank boosted its benchmark rate a half-point to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, its highest level in 15 years. Though lower than its previous three-quarter-point hikes, the latest move will further increase the costs of many consumer and business loans and the risk of a recession.

More surprisingly, the policymakers forecast that their key short-term rate will reach a range of 5% to 5.25% by the end of 2023. That suggests that the Fed is poised to raise its rate by an additional three-quarters of a point and leave it there through next year. Some economists had expected that the Fed would project only an additional half-point increase.

The latest rate hike was announced one day after an encouraging report showed that inflation in the United States slowed in November for a fifth straight month. The year-over-year increase of 7.1%, though still high, was sharply below a recent peak of 9.1% in June.

“The inflation data in October and November show a welcome reduction,” Powell said at his news conference. “But it will take substantially more evidence to give confidence that inflation is on a sustained downward path.”

In its updated forecasts, the Fed’s policymakers predicted slower growth and higher unemployment for next year and 2024. The unemployment rate is envisioned to jump to 4.6% by the end of 2023, from 3.7% today. That would mark a significant increase in joblessness that typically would reflect a recession.

Consistent with a sharp slowdown, the officials also projected that the economy will barely grow next year, expanding just 0.5%, less than half the forecast it had made in September.

In recent weeks, Fed officials have indicated that they see some evidence of progress in their drive to defeat the worst inflation bout in four decades and bring inflation back down to their 2% annual target. The national average for a gallon of regular gas, for example, has tumbled from $5 in June to $3.21.

Many supply chains are no longer clogged, thereby helping reduce goods prices. The better-than-expected November inflation data showed that the prices of used cars, furniture and toys all declined last month.

So did the costs of services from hotels to airfares to car rentals. Rental and home prices are falling, too, though those declines have yet to feed into the government’s data.

And one measure the Fed tracks closely — “core” prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs for a clearer snapshot of underlying inflation — rose only slightly for a second straight month.

Inflation has also eased slightly in Europe and the United Kingdom, leading analysts to expect the European Central Bank and the Bank of England to slow their pace of rate hikes at their meetings Thursday. Both are expected to raise rates by half a point to target still painfully high prices spikes after big three-quarter-point increases.

Inflation in the 19 countries using the euro currency fell to 10% from 10.6% in October, the first decline since June 2021. The rate is so far above the bank’s 2% goal that rate hikes are expected to continue into next year. Britain’s inflation also eased from a 41-year record of 11.1% in October to a still-high 10.7% in November.

Many economists think the Fed will further downshift to a quarter-point rate hike when it next meets early next year. Asked about that Wednesday, Powell said he has yet to decide how large he thinks the next hike should be. But having raised rates so fast, he said, “we think the appropriate thing to do now is to move at a slower pace. That will allow us to feel our way.”

Powell downplayed any notion that the Fed might decide to reverse course next year and start cutting rates to support growth, as Wall Street investors are expecting.

“I wouldn’t see the committee cutting rates until we’re confident that inflation is moving down in a sustained way,” he said.

Cumulatively, the Fed’s hikes have led to much costlier borrowing rates for consumers as well as companies, ranging from mortgages to auto and business loans. They have sent home sales plummeting and are starting to weigh down rents on new apartments, a leading source of high inflation.

Fed officials have said they want rates to reach “restrictive” levels that slow growth and hiring and bring inflation down to their target range. Worries have grown that the Fed is raising rates so much in its drive to curb inflation that it will trigger a recession next year.

The policymakers have stressed that more significant than how fast they raise rates is how long they keep them at or near their peak.

“It’s far more important to think what is the ultimate level,” Powell said Wednesday.

Powell’s biggest focus has been on services prices, which he has said are likely to stay persistently high. In part, that’s because sharp increases in wages are becoming a key contributor to inflation. Services companies, like hotels and restaurants, are particularly labor-intensive. And with average wages growing at

With many service-sector employers still desperate for workers, Powell said pay growth may remain above what’s consistent with the Fed’s 2% inflation target.

“We have a long way to go,” the Fed chair said, “to get to price stability.”

___

AP Business Writer David McHugh contributed to the contents of this report.

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the state of his American Rescue Plan from the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 5, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

FRAUD IN CHIEF: Biden’s Cancer Charity Spent Over $3.7 Million on Staff Salaries Over Two Year Time While Distributing ZERO in Research Grants, Says Report

by Breck Worsham, posted in crime, health, law, news, politics

WASHINGTON (New York Post) — A cancer charity started by Joe Biden gave out no money to research, and spent most of its contributions on staff salaries, federal filings show.

The Biden Cancer Initiative was founded in 2017 by the former vice president and his wife, Jill Biden, to “develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes,” according to its IRS mission statement. But it gave out no grants in its first two years, and spent millions on the salaries of former Washington, DC, aides it hired.

The charity took in $4,809,619 in contributions in fiscal years 2017 and 2018, and spent $3,070,301 on payroll in those two years. The group’s president, Gregory Simon, raked in $429,850 in fiscal 2018 (July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019), according to the charity’s most recent federal tax filings.

Simon, a former Pfizer executive and longtime health care lobbyist who headed up the White House’s cancer task force in President Barack Obama’s administration, saw his salary nearly double from the $224,539 he made in fiscal 2017, tax filings show.

Danielle Carnival, former chief of staff for Obama’s cancer initiative, the Cancer Moonshot Task Force, took home $258,207 in 2018.

The charity spent $56,738 on conferences and $59,356 on travel that year. The following year, the travel expenditure swelled to $97,149, and the nonprofit spent $742,953 on conferences, tax filings show.

But under grants distributed, it listed zero.

Simon had said the main point of the charity was not to give out grants, and that its goal was to find ways to accelerate treatment for all, regardless of their economic or cultural backgrounds.

Biden headed up the Cancer Moonshot Task Force when he was veep after his son Beau died of a brain tumor in 2015. After he left office, the Biden Cancer Initiative sought to continue such efforts to provide “urgent” solutions to treating cancer, according to a 2017 press statement announcing its launch.

The Bidens stacked the board with leading oncologists and celebrity cancer survivors, including musician Jimmy Gomez from the Black Eyed Peas.

After only two years, the charity “paused” its operations when Joe Biden and his wife stepped down for his presidential run.

Although the organization is still officially active, according to the IRS, Simon said in a 2019 interview that without the Bidens at the helm, the charity lost its edge.

“We tried to power through but it became increasingly difficult to get the traction we needed to complete our mission,” he told the AP in July 2019.

Neither Simon nor Biden could be reached for comment.

The New York Post’s Isabel Vincent contributed to the contents of this report.

PRESS RELEASE: FAIR Reveals Illegal Aliens Released Into the U.S. Under Biden Will Cost American Taxpayers an Additional $20.4 Billion a Year

by Breck Worsham, posted in crime, law, news, politics

WASHINGTON– According to a new cost analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), providing for the needs of illegal aliens who entered the country under President Biden adds an additional $20.4 billion annual burden on American taxpayers. This figure is in addition to the well over $140 billion a year cost burden taxpayers are already bearing to provide benefits and services for the longer-term illegal alien population.

The Biden administration has willingly released approximately 1.3 million illegal aliens into the country’s interior after removals and Title 42 expulsions are accounted for. Add to this figure approximately 1 million “gotaways” according to FAIR’s sources within U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and it can be safely estimated that approximately 2.3 million illegal aliens successfully entered the country’s interior after President Biden took office.

Based on the most recent comprehensive cost study, FAIR conservatively estimates that each illegal alien costs American taxpayers $9,232 per year.

“Even in an age in which trillion dollar spending packages are considered modest, the additional $20.4 billion the Biden Border Crisis has heaped onto the backs of American taxpayers is still staggering,” noted Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “$20.4 billion could address some very important needs of the American public, instead of covering the costs of the surge of illegal migration triggered by this administration’s policies.”

The $20.4 billion that taxpayers will spend this year, on just the illegal aliens who have entered the country in the last year and half, could cover the cost of:

  • Providing every homeless veteran in America $50,000 per year for a decade. This would effectively end veteran homelessness.
  • Giving every family in America earning $50k or less a grocery voucher of roughly $410.
  • Providing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to more than 7 million additional needy families.
  • Funding and expanding the entire National School Lunch Program.
  • Hiring more than 315,000 police officers to combat rising crime across the country.
  • Hiring of 330,000 new teachers, which would easily end the long-standing teacher shortage in America.
  • Construction of nearly the entire Southern Border Wall (which could prevent millions more illegal aliens from entering).

“According to another new report, 35 percent of U.S. families with a full-time worker struggle to meet their basic needs. These are the people President Biden pledged to champion. Instead, he is choosing to divert an additional $20.4 billion away from their needs, in order to fund a radical open borders agenda with no end in sight,” concluded Stein.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis addresses the media over the ongoing border crisis.

TRUMP: Declare Me Rightful Winner or Redo ‘Fraud’ 2020 Election

by Breck Worsham, posted in law, news, politics

WASHINGTON (Breitbart)– President Donald Trump argued Monday that he should be declared the winner of the 2020 election, citing fraud and election interference by the FBI.

The former president pointed to reports that the FBI worked to bury the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop on social media right before the 2020 election.

“This is massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country,” Trump wrote on social media.

Trump said the FBI purposefully tried to stop him from winning the 2020 election.

He proposed two solutions.

“REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!” Trump wrote.

It is unclear how a presidential election would be declared fraudulent and redone through the court system, and unclear whether it is even permissible by the Constitution.

Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan that the FBI warned his company of an imminent “dump” of “Russian propaganda” putting them on “high alert” right before the Hunter Biden laptop story broke in the days before the 2020 election.

The FBI did not deny Zuckerberg’s story.

Facebook censored the story as disinformation right before the 2020 election although it ultimately proved to be factual.

“Yeah. I mean, it sucks. I mean, it turned out after the fact, I mean the fact-checkers looked into it, no one was able to say it was false, right?” Zuckerberg admitted to Rogan. “So basically it had this period where it was getting less distribution.”

Breitbart’s Charlie Spiering contributed to the contents of this report.

(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on October 30, 2020 shows Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden delivers remarks on Covid-19 at The Queen theater on October 23, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware and US President Donald Trump addresses supporters during a Make America Great Again rally as he campaigns in Gastonia, North Carolina, October 21, 2020. (Photos by Angela Weiss and SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS,SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)