USA 2024 Elections Thread

[grarpamp]

Corrupt Biden-Clinton Crime Family...


Key Player In Biden Documents Removal Was Caught Up In Bill
Clinton-Era Chinagate Scandal

Authored by Paul Sperry via RealClear Wire,

The custodian of Joe Biden’s vice presidential records, a key witness
in his classified documents probe, was caught up in another documents
scandal while working at the Commerce Department during the Clinton
administration, court records reveal.

Longtime Biden aide and gatekeeper Kathy S. Chung, who has been
interviewed by federal prosecutors and congressional investigators in
the Biden case, was part of a team sanctioned for withholding and even
destroying key documents in the federal case that sought sensitive
records from a central figure in the so-called Chinagate fundraising
investigation of the late 1990s, RealClearInvestigations has learned
exclusively.

A special prosecutor is now investigating whether Biden unlawfully
handled top secret materials in early 2017, when he tasked Chung with
removing boxes containing classified documents from the White House
and storing them at various private offices in D.C., including the
Chinatown neighborhood. Some of the highly sensitive papers also ended
up at his home in Wilmington, Del.

Noting that Chung came into Biden’s orbit through working with the
president’s son, Hunter, during the 1990s, congressional investigators
want to know if the Biden family dealings in China have anything to do
with the stockpiling of classified documents. They note that the
mishandling of White House papers took place during the 14-month
period in 2017-2018 when the Chinese were wiring almost $6 million in
payments to Hunter and his uncle Jimmy Biden without providing any
known legitimate services. They have expressed concern that the
payments, which were flagged by the U.S. Treasury Department, were
part of a Chinese intelligence-gathering operation.

Chung is central to the Justice Department’s investigation of Biden’s
breach of classified documents.

On Jan. 4, federal agents interviewed Chung while working with an
investigative team led by U.S. Attorney John Lausch, who was tasked to
conduct a preliminary probe of the security breach. Alarmed by what
his investigators reported back to him about Chung's role in the
possible illegal removal and retention of state secrets, Lausch urged
Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel. The
following day Garland complied, naming veteran federal prosecutor
Robert K. Hur to take over the criminal case as special counsel. Hur's
office reportedly has obtained more than 100 pages of documents from
Chung, including emails and text messages.

While Donald Trump and Mike Pence are also under investigation for
removing classified documents from the White House and storing them at
their private residences, GOP congressional investigators say
comparisons to Trump and Pence miss the point. In interviews with RCI,
they insisted that Biden's document scandal is potentially more
serious than just mishandling state secrets. They suspect it could
mushroom into a counterespionage case involving China and national
security, though the White House dismisses such speculation as
“baseless.”

Chung’s lawyer Bill Taylor did not return a request for comment. But
in an earlier statement, he scolded Republicans for “suggesting
someone is a traitor without any evidence."

Chung’s dual role – as an aide to Joe Biden when he was vice president
and a friend of Hunter Biden, who emails show received sensitive
information from Chung from his father’s office – further highlights
the murky ethics that exist between the Biden family’s public service
and business interests.

Hunter Biden and Chung have a long history dating back to their days
working together at the Commerce Department during Bill Clinton’s
presidency. It was there that Chung – a longtime Democrat working in
the federal bureaucracy – became a witness in a case involving
convicted Chinagate fundraiser Jian-Nan “John" Huang, who was a top
Commerce official.

In 1993, President Clinton named Huang, a China-born banker friend
from Little Rock, deputy assistant secretary of international economic
affairs at Commerce, where he was responsible for Asian trade matters.
Within a month, Huang was given a top secret security clearance and
received twice-weekly intelligence briefings by CIA analysts. At the
same time, it was later revealed, he was meeting regularly with
Chinese diplomats and other officials tied to Beijing.

Watchdog group Judicial Watch sought documents concerning Huang’s
access to trade secrets and his trips to China. Chung was one of the
administrators responsible for producing such documents under the
Freedom of Information Act.

But the department was sanctioned for withholding and even destroying
key documents in the federal case ‒ Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S.
Department of Commerce, et al ‒ in which Huang was listed as the
lead defendant. After U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ruled
Commerce's search “grossly inadequate” and “unlawful,” Chung and her
superiors were ordered to conduct another search. Still, Chung came up
short in producing Huang-related documents from the computer of her
boss, Melissa Moss, in the Office of Business Liaison, according to
her sworn declaration in the case, a copy of which was obtained by
RCI. A Clinton appointee like Hunter Biden, Moss worked with Huang on
controversial Asian and other foreign trade junkets for Democrat
donors. She came to Commerce from the Democratic National Committee,
where she had served as finance director.

“In performing this search, I was assisted by an employee of the
Computer Help Desk who informed me that some documents could not be
opened,” Chung told the court in the 1999 affidavit, which was never
uploaded to PACER, the electronic federal court records system. (After
several requests to the court, Leayrohn King, a records clerk for the
U.S. District Court for D.C., provided RCI a copy of Chung's
declaration and commented that it was odd that it was missing from
PACER. The court has since made it available in the online docket
system.)

Chung, who now works as a top aide to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin,
was not directly accused of wrongdoing. But lawyers for Judicial Watch
complained her department was covering up for Huang, whom they
suspected was trading government secrets and access to China.

While Chung remained at the Commerce Department, Huang left to work
for the Clinton reelection effort. He raised almost $3 million for the
DNC and Clinton in 1996, half of which was later found illegal or
improper and returned because the donations came from foreign sources,
many of them tied to Beijing.

The Justice Department, through a specially appointed task force,
investigated Huang as a possible “agent of influence” for China. In
1999, Huang pleaded guilty to a felony violation of campaign finance
laws for arranging illegal foreign donations. Even though the felony
charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison, he was
sentenced to one year of probation and agreed to cooperate with
prosecutors in their investigation of several co-conspirators.

After Hunter Biden left the Commerce Department in 2001, where he
served as executive director of e-commerce policy, he joined a K
Street law firm founded by William Oldaker, a major political donor of
his father. Records obtained by RCI show lawyers for Oldaker, Biden &
Belair LLP represented another boss of Chung at the Commerce
Department in the ongoing FOIA case, which wasn’t settled until 2004.

A decade later, Hunter recommended his father hire Chung as his
personal assistant in the Office of Vice President, according to
emails found on his abandoned laptop. Starting in July 2012, Chung was
responsible for overseeing then-Vice President Biden’s office affairs,
including handling his briefing books and scheduling his travel
abroad. She handled the details for Hunter Biden's controversial 2013
trip to Beijing with the vice president, during which Hunter met with
Chinese investment partners and arranged for his father to shake one
of their hands. Emails show Chung also invited Hunter to attend a 2015
lunch with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the State Department.

In January 2017, as Biden moved out of the White House, Chung helped
pack 13 boxes with files from his office cabinets and store them at a
transition office nearby, according to a partial transcript of Chung’s
recent deposition taken behind closed doors at the Capitol. Around
July 2017, Chung reloaded the boxes in her car and moved them to a
private office that she leased in the Chinatown neighborhood of
Washington, before they ended up early the next year at the
China-funded Penn Biden Center in D.C., according to the transcript.

The boxes turned out to contain dozens of highly classified documents,
including ones so secret they could only be viewed in a Sensitive
Compartment Information Facility, or SCIF. Yet they were found last
year in an unlocked storage room at the center that required no key to
access. (The White House initially claimed, falsely, they were stored
in a “locked closet.”) Prosecutors are investigating the chain of
custody of those loosely stored intelligence papers to determine
whether any were copied or passed through foreign hands.

Chung, who held a Top Secret security clearance and had experience
handling and identifying classified documents, told congressional
investigators she was unaware the boxes contained classified material
– even though some of the file folders in the boxes were emblazoned
with cover sheets stating they contained secret government documents.
She insisted she never noticed any classified papers or saw any
classified markings, even though she unpacked the boxes when she
relocated them to the center and then re-packed them last summer at
the request of Biden’s lawyers.

At least 20 highly classified papers marked at the Top
Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information level were found at the
center, which the FBI searched earlier this year. The materials
reportedly covered Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom, among other
foreign countries.

Chung helped Biden research his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad.” It’s
not known if Biden or Chung referenced any of the materials from the
boxes for his book, which was published in November 2017 and revealed
insider accounts of Biden’s various roles in U.S. foreign policy,
including Ukraine. Biden listed Chung first among people he
acknowledged for their contributions: “Thank you for all of this, and
more, to Kathy Chung.”
Overlapping Scandals?

Hunter first made contact with Chinese executives with CEFC China
Energy, a suspected front for Chinese intelligence, in 2015. Emails
found on Hunter’s abandoned laptop show a CEFC adviser arranged a
private Washington dinner in December 2015 with Hunter and then-CEFC
Chairman Ye Jianming, who reportedly has ties to the Chinese military.

In an email Chung sent to Hunter Biden that same year, she included a
list of personal cell phone numbers for high-profile Washington
officials, including then-White House chief of staff Denis McDonough,
then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and several Cabinet secretaries,
as well as Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and a number of powerful
senators and members of Congress.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer speculated that Hunter
may have been trying to "prove his worth to these people that were
paying these enormous sums of money to him,” in part by “showing them
he had cell numbers for powerful individuals.”

Chung continued her dealings with Hunter Biden after she left the
White House. On Feb. 2, 2017, shortly after Chung packed up Biden’s
White House files, Hunter emailed Chung to ask her to “come work with
me ... so that I can make everyone money.” The next year, messages
found on Hunter’s laptop show Chung sent Biden family members a link
to an encrypted messaging app called Signal and urged them to install
it on their electronic devices.

Later in February 2017, Hunter received an $80,000 diamond from Ye,
who left the rare gem with a thank-you note at Hunter's hotel room
after they met in Miami. In an interview with The New Yorker magazine,
Hunter admitted taking the expensive stone, though he says he doubts
it was meant as a bribe.

Comer said he is investigating whether the Bidens' Chinese partners
“had access to the classified documents found.” He noted that Hunter
Biden, in 2017, planned to share office space in D.C. with another one
of his Chinese partners, Gongwen “Kevin" Dong, who was the CEFC money
man who signed off on the wire payments to the Bidens.

“This level of access and opportunity raises questions about who had
access to the classified documents,” Comer said.

In November 2017, another Biden partner from China ‒ CEFC’s Patrick
Ho ‒ was arrested by FBI agents on charges of bribery and money
laundering. According to federal documents obtained by RCI, the FBI
raided CEFC's D.C.-area offices shortly after Ho’s arrest and searched
them for evidence. The FBI had been "electronically monitoring” Ho as
a suspected Chinese spy under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
wiretap warrant, the documents further reveal.

Within months of learning his Chinese partner had been arrested,
property records show Hunter terminated the lease on his own D.C.
office and closed the facility, where he'd made keys for both Dong and
his father, Joe Biden, according to emails found on his abandoned
laptop. That same month – February 2018 – the former vice president
opened a D.C. office for the China-funded Penn Biden Center, where
Hunter maintained access.

It’s not known if any White House records were stored at Hunter's
Georgetown office or transferred from there to the Penn Biden Center
about four miles away. The center is hosted by the University of
Pennsylvania, which has received several million dollars from
anonymous Chinese sources since opening the center. But Hunter's
arrangement with his Chinese benefactors clearly raised
counterintelligence alarms at the FBI, which began monitoring their
communications. For whatever reason, the Bidens were never prosecuted
as unregistered foreign agents and their own offices were never
raided. Biden’s unauthorized removal and storage of classified
intelligence went unnoticed – until after the 2022 congressional
elections.

Chung, who worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign, was grilled on Capitol
Hill about her access to and handling of classified information in
April. She gave sworn testimony to the House Oversight Committee for
roughly four hours behind closed doors.

Comer suggested earlier this year in a Fox News interview that his
investigators were looking into possible ties between Chung and the
Chinese Communist Party. Fox host Maria Bartiromo asked if Chung was
"reporting back to the CCP about any of” the former vice president’s
documents, and Comer replied, “We’re looking into that.”

Added Comer, "We’re looking into at least three different people that
Hunter Biden was directly involved with that have very close ties to
the Chinese Communist Party.”
Ties to Chinese Communists

Comer noted that when Chung was in the White House, she fed Hunter
Biden sensitive information on U.S. political leaders that he said
Beijing would covet. In her April 4 interview with House Oversight
investigators, Chung denied having a relationship with the CCP,
according to excerpts of her testimony released by Democrats earlier
this month.

Chung also insisted she never shared classified information with
anyone who wasn't cleared to read it, which ostensibly would include
Hunter Biden. Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the Oversight
panel, said Comer was spreading falsehoods based on a “bigoted
conspiracy theory.”

House investigators want to know what the Chinese got for the massive
payments they wired to President Biden’s son, brother, and several
other family members. Were they using their contacts with the Bidens
to gather U.S. intelligence? Were any White House records stored at
Hunter’s Georgetown office, where his Chinese partners had access?

In a recent letter to Hunter Biden, Comer requested, under threat of
subpoena, that the president’s son provide any documents in his
possession designated “classified” government property, along with any
communications with Dong, Ho, Ye, and other CEFC officials.
Separately, he has asked the University of Pennsylvania for a list of
people who had keycard access to the Penn Biden Center. He also
requested administrators turn over the visitor logs for the center.

“It is imperative to understand whether any Biden family members or
associates gained access to the classified documents while stored at
the Penn Biden Center,” Comer said.

According to emails found on Hunter’s laptop, Joe Biden was a silent
partner in the CEFC deal that netted his son and brother millions. The
documents show Hunter claiming that 10% of the Chinese payments were
set aside for “the big guy.” Former partner Tony Bobulinski has
confirmed that “the big guy” was Joe Biden.

CEFC is the capitalist arm of Chinese President Xi’s “Belt and Road
Initiative” to spread China’s influence around the world while
gobbling up oil and gas rights. China has sought to influence powerful
officials, particularly to gain access to U.S. energy markets, which
are heavily regulated.

Among the classified documents Biden reportedly had removed from the
West Wing are sensitive compartmented briefings about Iran, where
Beijing has been injecting billions of dollars in direct foreign
investment to extract cheap oil.

“It would be reasonable to suspect that Ye and his associates intended
to use their contacts with Jim [Biden] and Hunter to gather
intelligence” about such critical foreign countries, said Ben
Schreckinger, author of “The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s
Fifty-Year Rise to Power.”

Bobulinski says the Chinese weren’t looking to make a “healthy” return
on investment, but rather were partnering with the Bidens "as a
political or influence investment.” He noted the CEFC partners were
Chinese intelligence and understood the value of the Biden name.

In a May 2017 email, Jimmy Biden provided Hunter, Bobulinski, and
other partners a list of friendly American political contacts whom
they could exploit to advance the proposed joint venture with their
Chinese partners. Among the “key domestic contacts” were Democratic
Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York; then-Democratic New York Gov. Andrew
Cuomo; former Democratic Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe; and
then-Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California, who would go on to
become Biden’s vice president.

Republicans have slammed Biden for being soft on China. When Beijing
flew a giant spy balloon across the continental U.S. and collected
highly sensitive data from U.S. military sites, Biden did not order
Defense Secretary Austin to shoot down the spycraft for several days,
and only after public outcry.

In July 2021, Biden named his trusted aide Chung a top assistant to
Austin, where she has access to sensitive Pentagon information. The
Pentagon and White House declined to answer questions about the level
of Chung’s access to classified military intelligence and the extent
of her role in handling such material.