Why Did Jack Smith ignore Biden family scandals when he was head of DOJs Public Integrity Section, tasked with investigating political corruption?In May 2014, the Obama/Biden White House was scrambling to deflect questions related to Hunter Biden’s new gig as a board member at Burisma, the compromised Ukrainian energy conglomerate; the news came just a few weeks after Vice President Joe Biden visited Kiev and promised Ukrainian leaders that the U.S. was “ready to assist” the country’s efforts to accelerate natural gas exploration. (At the time, Burisma was Ukraine's biggest natural gas producer.)The day after Burisma issued a public statement boasting about their latest hire, White House press secretary Jay Carney ducked questions about the younger Biden during a May 13, 2014 briefing:Reporter: On another subject, Hunter Biden has now taken a position with the largest oil and gas company--holding company in Ukraine. Is there any concern about at least the appearance of a conflict there--for the Vice President’s son to take a-Carney: I would refer you to the Vice President’s office. I saw those reports. Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family are obviously private citizens and where they work does not reflect an endorsement by the administration or by the Vice President or President. But I would refer you to the Vice President’s office.Kendra Barkoff, a Biden spokeswoman, offered the same talking points in a terse statement to the media. “Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer. The vice president does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company."During a State Department briefing later that day, Jen Psaki smirked away one question about the vice president's son, insisting it was of no concern to the agency.Nevertheless, major news outlets here and around the world continued to raise the improper, if not brazenly pay-to-play, nature of the arrangement. “Vice President Joe Biden's youngest son Hunter Biden has joined the board of directors of Ukraine's largest oil company at a time that the U.S. is urging Ukraine to develop energy independence from Russia and just days after the vice president visited Ukraine,” ABC News reported in May 2014, noting the fortuitous timing of the announcement.“The appointment of the vice president's son to a Ukrainian oil board looks nepotistic at best, nefarious at worst,” Adam Taylor, Washington Post foreign affairs reporter, surmised in a May 14, 2014 article. “No matter how qualified Biden is, it ties into the idea that U.S. foreign policy is self-interested. [You] have to wonder how big the salary has to be to put U.S. soft power at risk like this.”And despite Psaki’s spin, State Department officials soon after expressed concern about the “perception of a conflict of interest,” even taking those concerns to Vice President Joe Biden’s office in early 2015.But one person in official Washington seemed uninterested in the shady deal between a corrupt international gas company operating in a notoriously unstable country and America’s most troubled nepo-baby:Jack Smith.Smith—appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland last year to take over DOJs dual investigations into Donald Trump for alleged mishandling of classified documents and the events of January 6—was named chief of the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section, or PIN, in August 2010.Operating within the criminal division, PIN maintains broad purview over public corruption investigations on the federal, state, and local level including cases tied to “a government official…or someone associated with such an official,” according to the office’s annual report.Smith held that powerful position until February 2015—meaning Hunter Biden’s years-long board position with Burisma ultimately resulting in a $4 million windfall for the vice president’s son began right under Jack Smith’s nose.This is certainly contrary to what the public has been told about Jack Smith. The news media, “legal experts” in particular, insist Jack Smith is a no-nonsense federal prosecutor with unmatched integrity and devotion to the rule of law. Smith, according to his former DOJ colleague Andrew Weissmann, is a “consummate professional” and a “skilled and fast prosecutor who does not let the grass grow under his feet."So, what happened? How did the keen-eyed, apolitical Smith and his 30-plus lawyers miss what was happening just blocks from their DOJ offices?Perhaps Smith truly bought Burisma’s spin that the company selected Hunter based on his “expertise” in foreign policy and the law. Or perhaps Smith believed Hunter Biden when he said he would consult Burisma on matters relating to “transparency, corporate governance, and responsibility.”
Maybe Smith was too busy prosecuting Republican governor Bob McDonnell and his wife at the time—a case later overturned by the Supreme Court—that he missed the international headlines of how a British government agency had seized $23 million in assets belonging to Burisma’s owner amid suspicions of money laundering the very same month Hunter was appointed to the board.Maybe Smith was just a tender heart who thought Hunter quickly turned over a new leaf. After all, Hunter had been discharged from the Naval reserves just three months before the Burisma appointment was announced. Hunter’s misadventures were among the worst kept secrets in Washington but maybe Smith was still reeling from his unsuccessful prosecution of former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards to pay attention to Biden family gossip.And it wasn’t just the Burisma gig that somehow evaded Smith’s attention; Hunter made his overseas business dealings well known. He, along with fellow nepo-baby Christopher Heinz, stepson of then-Senator John Kerry, launched Rosemont Seneca in 2009. “Over the next seven years, as both Joe Biden and John Kerry negotiated sensitive and high-stakes deals with foreign governments, Rosemont entities secured a series of exclusive deals often with those same foreign governments,” investigative reporter Peter Schweizer wrote in his 2018 book. (Schweizer also noted that the private-equity firm did not open an office in New York City, the financial capital of the world, but in Washington, D.C., “just two miles from both Joe Biden’s office in the White House and his residence at the Naval Observatory.”)Multiple deals were cut as Smith led the government’s most powerful “public corruption” unit. And some of the most lucrative arrangements were with Chinese businesses tied to the Chinese Communist Party, partnerships that just happened to coincide with Hunter’s trips to China with his father. “[The 2013 trip to China] was a triumph for Hunter, who walked away with his first big deal in China—the Bohai Harvest Rosemont investment partnership,” Miranda Devine wrote in her 2021 book, “Laptop From Hell.” Devine explained the deal was consummated on December 16, 2013, “twelve days after he flew into Beijing on Air Force Two. Hunter officially became a shareholder and member of the BHR board.”Smith probably missed the July 2014 article in the Wall Street Journal touting the private equity partnership with the vice president’s son aimed at enriching the CCP. “The funds are raising a combination of yuan and U.S. dollars. The effort is the latest example [of] private equity pushing boundaries in an area that China hopes will help drive the country's economic transformation.”Now, perhaps there was nothing untoward about Hunter Biden’s sudden interest and success at global private equity. But surely the use of Air Force Two to conduct personal business—Hunter accompanied his father on 70 overseas trips including six trips to China on Smith’s watch—should have caught someone’s attention at DOJs “public integrity” unit, no?The answer, of course, is no.Was Smith asleep at the switch or intentionally ignorant or once again doing the dirty work of the Democratic Party? Smith have put a stop to the Biden family international shakedown nearly a decade ago--why didn't he? At what risk did he put the country by turning a blind eye to this egregious level of influence peddling in nations hostile to American interests?As Smith eagerly prepares to sign his name to another criminal indictment against Donald Trump for the events of January 6, Hunter Biden’s plea deal with Smith’s employer is falling apart along with further confirmation of how the younger Biden hauled in millions from countries such as China and Ukraine by leveraging his last name to support himself, his addictions, and his family—including, quite possibly, his father as well.All of this could have been halted in its tracks long ago. And the person primarily responsible for letting it get to this point is none other than Jack Smith.
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