Category Archives: Hunter Biden

Trump revokes security clearances for Biden, Harris and other political enemies

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In Friday memo, president also pulls clearances for Antony Blinken, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger and Letitia James

Donald Trump moved to revoke security clearances for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and a string of other top Democrats and political enemies in a presidential memo issued late on Friday.

The security-clearance revocations also cover the former secretary of state Antony Blinken, the former Wyoming representative Liz Cheney, the former Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger and the New York attorney general, Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump for fraud, as well as Biden’s entire family. They all will no longer have access to classified information – a courtesy typically offered to former presidents and some officials after they have left public service.

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Biden reportedly regrets ending re-election campaign and says he’d have defeated Trump

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President also regrets picking Merrick Garland for attorney general, as he was slow to prosecute Trump for January 6

Joe Biden regrets having pulled out of this year’s presidential race and believes he would have defeated Donald Trump in last month’s election – despite negative poll indications, White House sources have said.

The US president has reportedly also said he made a mistake in choosing Merrick Garland as attorney general – reflecting that Garland, a former US appeals court judge, was slow to prosecute Donald Trump for his role in the 6 January 2021 insurrection while presiding over a justice department that aggressively prosecuted Biden’s son Hunter.

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Biden library reportedly under threat by Democrats enraged by Hunter pardon

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Senior party figures consider withholding contributions to presidential library to express anger at pardon for son

Senior Democrats are reportedly considering withholding contributions to Joe Biden’s future presidential library amid a mounting backlash over his decision grant a blanket pardon to his son Hunter.

The threat has emerged as simmering anger among congressional Democrats – already building over the president’s insistence on seeking a second term before belatedly stepping aside as the party nominee in favour of Kamala Harris – has burst into the open over Sunday’s pardon, which Biden had previously vowed not to give.

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Top House Democrat calls on Biden to pardon ‘working-class Americans’

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Hakeem Jeffries calls for ‘high level of compassion’ towards people in prison after president pardoned son Hunter

The top Democrat in the US House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, has called on Joe Biden to pardon some “working-class Americans” after the president faced criticism for pardoning his son Hunter.

“During his final weeks in office, President Biden should exercise the high level of compassion he has consistently demonstrated throughout his life, including toward his son, and pardon on a case-by-case basis the working-class Americans in the federal prison system whose lives have been ruined by unjustly aggressive prosecutions for nonviolent offenses,” Jeffries said in a statement.

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Trump team signs agreement on background checks for nominees; lawyers push for hush-money case dismissal – as it happened

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Notre Dame Cathedral will reopen in Paris on Saturday with incoming US president Donald Trump set to attend the ceremony marking the resurrection of the Gothic masterpiece five years after a devastating fire.

The Republican confirmed Monday he had accepted an invitation from French president Emmanuel Macron to attend the grand re-opening of the 850-year-old edifice which was nearly lost to flames in April 2019.

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Special counsel defends prosecution of Hunter Biden as more Democrats signal discomfort with pardon – as it happened

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President-elect Donald Trump - as we reported earlier - responded angrily to Joe Biden’s pardon.

But he himself pardoned several allies and friends in own final days in office among the 70 people granted clemency in 2021.

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With his pardon of son Hunter, Joe Biden delivers a heartfelt hypocrisy

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The president and supporters argue Hunter Biden would never have been charged were it not for his name – and any father might have done the same. But this exercise of power also looks like a validation of Donald Trump

A loving act of mercy by a father who has already known much sorrow? Or a hypocritical political manoeuvre reminiscent of his great foe? Maybe both can be true.

Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday that he had pardoned his son Hunter, who is facing sentencing in two criminal cases, is likely to have been the product of a Shakespearean struggle between head and heart.

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Joe Biden’s statement on his decision to pardon Hunter – in full

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Joe Biden has issued ‘a full and unconditional’ pardon to his son Hunter Biden, in a reversal for the president

Joe Biden has issued a pardon for his son Hunter. Here is his statement in full:

Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted. Without aggravating factors like use in a crime, multiple purchases, or buying a weapon as a straw purchaser, people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form. Those who were late paying their taxes because of serious addictions, but paid them back subsequently with interest and penalties, are typically given non-criminal resolutions. It is clear that Hunter was treated differently.

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Hunter Biden offers unusual guilty plea in tax case in surprise back-and-forth

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US president’s son, who previously pleaded not guilty, seeks new plea deal wherein he would not admit to allegations

Hunter Biden offered to plead guilty to federal tax charges but avoid admitting any wrongdoing, in an unusual, last-minute legal maneuver that federal prosecutors quickly opposed.

The surprise back-and-forth unfolded on Thursday morning as the president’s only surviving son entered a Los Angeles courthouse for the start of his tax-avoidance trial.

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‘They want to slime him’: Hunter Biden lawyer attacks prosecutors in tax case

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Mark Geragos says special counsel guilty of ‘character assassination’ by trying to bring salacious details into trial

An attorney for Hunter Biden has accused prosecutors of wanting to introduce salacious details about partying and spending by Joe Biden’s son to smear his character in front of jurors at his upcoming trial on federal tax charges.

During a lengthy hearing in Los Angeles federal court, Hunter Biden’s lawyer said special counsel David Weiss’s team was intent on “character assassination” by seeking to bring in evidence of spending on things like strippers in the case alleging a scheme to avoid paying at least $1.4m in taxes.

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Hunter Biden sought US government help for Ukrainian company Burisma

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Biden wrote to then US ambassador to Rome on behalf of the energy firm while his father was vice-president

Hunter Biden lobbied the US government for help in securing a lucrative energy contract in Italy while his father Joe Biden was vice-president, newly released documents show.

A tranche of previously undisclosed documents now made public under a Freedom of Information Act (Foia) request reveals that the president’s son wrote to the then US ambassador to Rome, John Phillips, in 2016 seeking assistance on behalf of the Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, of which he was a board member.

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Hunter Biden requests new trial after conviction in gun case

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Lawyers for president’s son say Delaware court did not have jurisdiction over case when it proceeded to trial

Lawyers for Hunter Biden have filed a motion requesting a new trial, arguing that a Delaware court did not have jurisdiction over the case when it proceeded to trial.

Biden, the eldest living son of the US president, was found guilty earlier this month on three felony counts related to a handgun purchase while he was a user of crack cocaine.

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Republicans push conspiracy theories after Hunter Biden verdict: ‘A fake trial’

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Rightwing politicians repeat unfounded theories that gun trial verdict is a ‘distraction’ from worse Biden crimes

Republicans responded to Hunter Biden’s conviction on Tuesday of lying about his drug use to buy a gun by doubling down on conspiracy theories that many senior party figures have been using to try and damage his president father.

Despite the fact that Joe Biden’s son could now face a hefty jail sentence, Donald Trump’s election campaign and its surrogates repeated unfounded attack lines that the conviction was part of a conspiracy to deflect attention from more serious crimes and represented the use of the Department of Justice (DoJ) as a political weapon.

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Judge rejects defense efforts to dismiss Hunter Biden’s federal gun case

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President’s son argued he was being prosecuted for political purposes as he faces charges he lied about drug use to buy weapon

A federal judge in Delaware refused Friday to throw out a federal gun case against Hunter Biden, rejecting the president’s son’s claim that he is being prosecuted for political purposes as well as other arguments.

The US district judge Maryellen Noreika denied defense efforts to scuttle the prosecution charging Hunter Biden with lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days.

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Trump Georgia case: judge says he hopes to have decision on whether to disqualify Fani Willis in two weeks – as it happened

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The judge overseeing the criminal case over Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents has described the prosecution’s proposed schedule for getting to trial as “unrealistic”.

Federal prosecutors for special counsel Jack Smith have proposed a 8 July start date, while attorneys for Trump have suggested that he stand trial on 12 August.

That has to come into the equation, to some extent, on scheduling.

Yeah, certainly he would be somebody that I would very much consider.

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Ex-FBI informant charged with lying about Bidens arrested again

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Alexander Smirnov, who claims to have Russian intelligence links, taken into custody after meeting at lawyers’ offices in Las Vegas

The former FBI informant who is charged with lying about a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family was again taken into custody in Las Vegas, two days after a judge released him, his attorneys said.

Alexander Smirnov was arrested during a meeting on Thursday morning at his lawyers’ offices in downtown Las Vegas. The arrest came after prosecutors appealed the judge’s ruling allowing 43-year-old Smirnov, who holds dual US-Israeli citizenship, to be released with a GPS monitor ahead of trial. He is charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record.

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Hunter Biden lawyers say prosecutors confused photo of sawdust for cocaine

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President’s son claims use of picture shows prosecutors’ evidence against him shouldn’t be taken at face value

Lawyers for Hunter Biden have claimed that a picture government prosecutors are using to support a tax fraud case against him shows neatly arranged lines of sawdust from a carpentry shop – and not cocaine as the government contends.

Joe Biden’s son is facing tax evasion charges for failing to disclose millions in foreign income and a charge for failing to disclose he was a drug addict on gun licensing forms. He claims that use of the picture shows that prosecutors’ evidence against him should not be taken at face value.

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FBI informant who lied about Bidens’ Ukraine ties had contact with Russians – prosecutors

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Prosecutors reveal alleged ties to Russian intelligence-affiliated persons to urge US judge to deny Alexander Smirnov’s release

A former FBI informant charged with making up a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company had contacts with officials affiliated with Russian intelligence, prosecutors said in a court paper on Tuesday.

Prosecutors revealed the alleged contact as they urged a judge to keep Alexander Smirnov behind bars while he awaits trial. He’s charged with falsely reporting to the FBI in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and the president $5m each in 2015 or 2016. The claim has been central to the Republican impeachment inquiry in Congress.

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FBI informant charged with lying about Bidens’ role in Ukraine business

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Alexander Smirnov falsely said executives linked to energy firm Burisma paid Joe and Hunter Biden $5m each in 2015 and 2016, prosecutors say

An FBI informant has been charged with lying to his handler about ties between Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company.

Alexander Smirnov falsely told FBI agents in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5m each in 2015 and 2016, prosecutors said on Thursday.

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Hunter Biden to appear before House Republicans for private deposition

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Agreement ends months of defiance from president’s son, who had insisted on testifying publicly

Hunter Biden has agreed to appear before House Republicans for a private deposition next month, ending months of defiance from the president’s son, who had insisted on testifying publicly.

The House oversight committee announced on Thursday that the two parties have come to an agreement for Hunter Biden to sit for a deposition on 28 February.

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