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Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings appeared to reduce Hunter Biden's salary after his father's vice presidency concluded and former President Donald Trump took office, according to a new indictment.
Burisma hired Hunter Biden to sit on the company's board in spring 2014 and began paying him more than $80,000 per month while then-Vice President Biden ran the Obama administration's Ukraine policy, bank records show. His salary dropped significantly beginning in March 2017, according to a
new indictment leveled against Hunter Biden by a grand jury in California Thursday for
numerous tax related charges.
"In or around April 2014, the Defendant joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings Limited," the indictment reads. Hunter Biden lacked experience in the energy industry and Ukraine affairs prior to his position with Burisma.
"Burisma agreed to pay the Defendant an annual salary of approximately $1,000,000, to be paid in monthly disbursements. In March 2017, Burisma reduced his compensation to approximately $500,000 a year but he continued to serve on the board of directors until in or around April 2019. As a result, he received a total of approximately $1,002,016 in 2016, $630,556 in 2017, $491,939 in 2018, and $160,207 in 2019," the indictment adds.
Hunter Biden appeared to not report his 2014 Burisma income on his 1040 tax form, the indictment explains. His money from Burisma in 2014 went to a shell company he formed with another business associate and Burisma board member who is not named in the indictment.
© Jonathan Ernst/ReutersHunter Biden arrives at federal court to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges of willfully failing to pay income taxes in Wilmington, Del., July 26, 2023.
"The Defendant did not report his income from Burisma on his 2014 Form 1040. All the money the Defendant received from Burisma in 2014 went to a company, hereafter 'ABC', and was deposited into its bank account. ABC and its bank account were owned and controlled by a business partner of the Defendant's, Business Associate 5. Business Associate 5 was also a member of Burisma's Board of Directors," the indictment asserts.
Hunter Biden and former business associate Devon Archer created a holding company in 2014 for the Burisma money, according to
bank records released by the House Oversight Committee and testimony from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler.
© Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch TimesWhistleblowers Gary Shapley (L), IRS supervisory special agent, and Joseph Ziegler (R), IRS Criminal Investigator, swear before the Full Committee on Oversight and Accountability at a hearing about the Biden Criminal Investigation at the U.S. Congress in Washington on July 19, 2023.
"All right. So essentially for 2014, we had found that Hunter didn't report any of the money he earned from Burisma. So the reason why this is important is because Hunter set it up this way, to not โ to essentially earn the money through his friend's corporation and then have his friend pay him back half of the money as loans, quote, unquote, loans," Ziegler
testified to the House Ways and Means Committee in June.
Archer joined Burisma's board in spring 2014 right before the company hired Hunter Biden. He owned the holding company and paid taxes on the income he and Hunter Biden brought in from Burisma, until Hunter Biden redirected his portion of the money to his Owasco P.C. business account, according to the indictment.
© Tucker Carlson TonightThen-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter (R) golfing in 2014 in the Hamptons with Devon Archer (L), who served on the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings with Hunter.
"Because he owned ABC, Business Associate 5 paid taxes on income that he and the Defendant received from Burisma. Starting in November 2015, the Defendant directed his Burisma Board fees to an Owasco, PC bank account that he controlled," the indictment says.
Archer
testified before the House Oversight Committee in July and described how the
Biden family "brand" protected Burisma from scrutiny. He recalled Joe Biden speaking with his son's business associates around 20 times and described a dinner Joe Biden
attended in spring 2015 alongside Burisma executive Vadim Pozharskyi.
In addition, Archer told lawmakers about an instance where Hunter Biden "
called D.C." on Burisma's behalf after pressure from company executives at the firm's December 2015
board meeting. He was unable to confirm whether then-Vice President Biden was on the other end of the phone call.
Burisma hired lobbying firm Blue Star Strategies in November 2015 and
the firm sent the company Joe Biden's talking points for his upcoming trip to Ukraine, according to an internal
memo released in September by the Ways and Means Committee.
Eric Schwerin (left) and the Bidens (right)
Blue Star and Hunter Biden's former business associate Eric Schwerin
celebrated a "victory lap" the next year when it appeared Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky was going to be let off by Ukrainian authorities, emails released by the Ways and Means Committee show.
Mykola Zlochevsky
The lobbying firm
disclosed its relationship with Zlochevsky in a May 2022 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)
form listing $60,000 worth of payments for Blue Star's work. In addition, Blue Star conducted
lobbying for the
Ukrainian prosecutor who let off Zlochevsky,
internal State Department emails show.
© Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP PhotoU.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves speaking at a press conference in April 2023.
The statute of limitations expired for the 2014-15 tax years after Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia
Matthew Graves declined to partner with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss on the case,
Weiss confirmed when he testified in November before the House Judiciary Committee, according to a transcript reviewed by the Daily Caller.
IRS whistleblowers Shapley and Ziegler have testified about potential Burisma related charges in the 2014-15 tax years under D.C.'s jurisdiction rather than the Central District of California, where Biden was indicted Thursday for his alleged tax issues. The whistleblowers were the first ones to disclose Graves' conduct and the expiration of the statute of limitations.
Former President Donald Trump took office in January 2017 after he defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Shortly after his father's vice presidency concluded, Hunter Biden and his business associates received $3 million from Chinese energy firm State Energy HK, an account connected to Chinese company CEFC, the indictment lays out.
Hunter Biden himself received $1 million of the CEFC funds and redirected a portion of the money to another business associate. The indictment outlines additional income Hunter Biden received from
Hudson West III, his joint business venture with CEFC associates, after his income from Burisma dried up. He made a total of $2.3 million in 2017 alone, even with the reduced salary from Burisma, the indictment states.
Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in prison for an assortment of felony and misdemeanor charges in California related to his failure to pay taxes in a timely manner. The Biden family and its business associates hauled in more than
$24 million from foreign sources over a five year period concluding in 2019, a House memo from September shows.
"Based on the facts and the law, if Hunter's last name was anything other than Biden, the charges in Delaware, and now California, would not have been brought," Hunter Biden's attorney Abbe Lowell said in a
statement. His client is also facing federal gun charges in Delaware to which he plead
not guilty in October.
House Republicans are also seeking to have Hunter Biden appear for a closed-door deposition Dec. 13 in front of the Oversight Committee.
Lowell offered to have Biden testify publicly instead of showing up for the deposition, a proposal GOP lawmakers
quickly rejected.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan
have threatened to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of congress if
he defies a subpoena from the Oversight Committee and fails to attend the deposition.
Comer, Jordan and Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith are leading
the impeachment inquiry into President Biden based on his son's foreign business dealings and the
IRS whistleblower allegations of
special treatment during the Hunter Biden investigation.
The White House
has called the inquiry "illegitimate" and said Joe Biden was "
not in business" with his son. The president himself
has said Archer's testimony is "not true" and
denied ever meeting with his son's business associates, despite an
abundance of evidence to the contrary.
House Republicans
are weighing a floor vote to officially authorize the
impeachment inquiry and strengthen its legal standing.
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