Hunter Biden’s Pardon is Just a Symptom of the Government’s Long-standing Corruption Problem

The new Dept of Government Efficiency has a LOT of work to do!

The battle over the latest continuing resolution is a perfect example of the state of politics in America these days. The CR is just a symptom of the problem that has festered for years, and passing yet another CR merely kicks the can down the road.

A politician has only two real jobs: to get reelected and to collect sufficient donations to enable reelection. All other considerations – including the principles, tenets, morals, and ideological foundations – are negotiable in completing those two endeavors. The second job is where the real problem lies: the American political class has evolved a pay-to-play system that guarantees a steady stream of donations to any member of Congress who has been corrupted by the system (which is MOST of them!). In the final analysis, the main function of a member of Congress is TO SPEND MONEY. Why would they not spend taxpayer money to their own personal advantage if allowed to do so?

After all, it is the lobbyists on Capitol Hill who write most of the details in the various multi-thousand-page omnibus bills that have been passed into law over the past quarter century-plus. And the size of the bills makes it easier for Marxist activist staffers to inject politically-motivated provisions that most Americans would not support if voted upon separately, not to mention all of the absurd earmarks embedded that are used to buy off “yes” votes of various congressmen and senators.

The continuing refusal to meticulously audit the finances of federal agencies is also a main tactic used to hide the waste, fraud, and abuse (and covert money-laundering!) that was uncovered by the Grace Commission way back during the Reagan era. [The Grace Commission is described here; the full report can be found here.] Imagine the money-laundering and corruption that has been put on steroids since Congress essentially paid lip-service to the Grace Commission’s shocking report(s).

In 1990, Congress passed a law requiring all federal agencies to submit annual financial reports to congressional oversight committees. The Chief Financial Officers (CFO) Act of 1990 was enacted in to establish processes and procedures for “stricter” federal financial management within federal agencies. How has that worked out? The Libertarian website Reason reported on 18 November that the Dept of Defense failed its seventh audit in a row. Check out this quote that highlights the lack of teeth in the 1990 law:

The DOD is America's largest federal agency and has an annual budget of $824 billion. Until 2018, the department had never audited its finances—despite the fact that a law passed in 1990 requires federal agencies to prepare annual financial reports.

This highlights a major problem with almost all legislation passed since at least the Clinton administration (if not before): accountability, penalties for non-compliance, and enforcement clauses are either absent or have no teeth in them. As a result, and with the emergence of the Uniparty in recent years (the combination of free-spending Democrats and a Republican-In-Name-Only controlled opposition), the Democrats and Republicans merely take turns in fleecing US taxpayers.

One egregious example was the refusal of the US Senate to include audit provisions in Ukraine “foreign aid” back in July 2023 that would have provided regular oversight and auditing of all aid provided to Ukraine. Note the “Uniparty in action” in the bolded words from the New York Post article that reported the amendment’s defeat:

Forty-five Democrats — including every member of the Senate Armed Services Committee — voted down an amendment to establish an Office of the Lead Inspector General for Ukraine Assistance as part of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

It has long been suspected that US foreign aid to Ukraine has been laundered by successive corrupt governments and oligarchs through multinational banks to the pockets of Uniparty members and/or their relatives. Why else would 45 Democrats vote down an amendment that would audit Ukraine assistance? Shouldn’t audits be standard fare when billions in US taxpayer-provided funds are provided to foreign countries? What are they trying to hide?

Perhaps a whole house of cards built on decades of money-laundering of US foreign aid.

It could be argued that Joe Biden’s blanket pardon issued to his son Hunter (nepotism, anyone?) had more to do with hiding Ukraine shenanigans than the mundane tax evasion and gun charges brought against him. Could “the Big Guy” have been more concerned about saving his own bacon by undercutting any future Trump DoJ investigations into Ukraine?

Although the trail seems to have grown cold now – at least partially due to the possible misdirection of the tax and gun charge cases against Hunter – in 2020 The Federalist provided some very informed speculation about what may have been laundered through Joe and Jill Biden’s own S-corporation accounts in the years 2016-2019. S-corporations are governed by “state and federal financial privacy and disclosure laws, which require the consent of the filer to be released.” As a result, it is reasonable to impute that Joe and Jill’s S-corps – as well as Hunter’s! – may have been used to hide income from foreign sources; some of those foreign sources were documented by The New York Post here, here, here, and here.

THE FEDS TO THE RESCUE?

To gain access to ill-gotten gains, money-launderers must literally “move money” through shell corporations and multinational banks to avoid traceability and criminal prosecution. The US Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) has a mission of monitoring significant financial transactions that could be direct evidence of money-laundering.

The FinCEN derives its authority through enforcement of the Bank Secrecy Act of 1970, which was originally passed “to prevent financial institutions from being used as tools by criminals to hide or launder their ill-gotten gains.”

The law requires banks and other financial institutions to provide documentation, such as currency transaction reports, to regulators. Such documentation can be required from banks whenever their clients deal with suspicious cash transactions involving sums of money in excess of $10,000. The Act grants authorities the ability to more easily reconstruct the nature of the transactions.

Two key tools are used to track large and/or suspicious financial transactions: the Currency Transaction Report (CTR), and the Suspicious Activity Report (SAR). CTRs are standard reports by banks and other financial institutions of all transactions over $10,000. SARs are filed when banks and other financial institutions suspect suspicious activity in a given account. The SAR initiates an investigation by the FinCEN, with a goal of identifying bank customers who are involved in money laundering, fraud or terrorist funding. Banking customers are not required to be informed that CTRs are filed (the CTR is common knowledge and common practice), but a SAR is filed if a customer is informed and then declines to complete the transaction.

Here is the kicker: there are three categories of "exempt persons" who are not required to report CTRs:

• Any bank in the United States.

• Departments or agencies that fall under federal, state, or local governments, including any organization that exercises government authority.

• Any corporation whose stock is traded on the NYSE, Nasdaq and American Stock Exchange (excluding stocks listed on the Emerging Company Marketplace and under the Nasdaq Small-Cap Issues heading)

That “exempt persons” loophole likely means that a lot of financial transactions of greater than $10,000 made by customers like the Bidens, their business associates, and other members of the US political class through the exempted categories are simply not reported to the FinCEN. And are SARs ever initiated by multinational banks doing business with and for US politicians?

One would think that, between the FinCEN and the DoJ’s statutory requirement to prosecute violators of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), some of these crooks would have been making the news over the last decade. Alas, no Uniparty member ever seems to be held to account for corruption by the thoroughly politicized US Dept of Justice (except for an occasional high-profile prosecution like that of New Jersey Democrat Senator Bob Menendez). Toss in Hunter Biden’s blanket pardon, and the Biden family is nearly home free.

CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

The US government wastes money hand over fist with impunity. The Grace Commission proved that in the 1980s, and only cosmetic changes were made to correct the waste, fraud, and abuse. The US Dept of Defense has failed seven consecutive annual audits. Earmarks are still used to buy the votes of members of Congress, who wish to reward their donors/constituents with pork-barrel projects. Omnibus bills and continuing resolutions are used to hide the corruption. FBI enforcement of corruption laws is spotty at best.

Furthermore, the US political class has purposely ensured that financial accountability of US federal agencies is weak to nonexistent. Coupled with the political corruption of the US Dept of Justice, US taxpayers continue to be bilked out of billions of dollars without meaningful audits and oversight being conducted. No US foreign aid dispensed has ever been audited. And it appears that FARA will be watered down by proposed rule changes just announced on 20 December:

The Justice Department’s proposed rule would make changes to key regulations, including those relating to the commercial exemption, the exemption for persons whose activities do not serve predominantly a foreign interest, and the exemption for persons qualified to practice law. The proposed rule also would modernize regulations relating to labeling informational materials in light of the significant technological changes that have occurred since the regulations were last amended more than a decade ago.

Biden family corruption and bribery have been in the news for years. Hunter Biden has been linked to financial transactions with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals. Somehow, these actions did not rise to the level of a federal prosecution, but he was charged on unrelated tax evasion and gun charges – probably as misdirection. His father gave him an unprecedented blanket pardon for any potential criminal activity dating from 2014 (!), which includes the timeframe during which Hunter Biden received tens of thousands of dollars from the Ukraine company Burisma. The US Senate refused to approve an amendment that would have managed and audited foreign aid to Ukraine.

Joe Biden’s blanket pardon protected more than just his son. He is covering for his whole family, as well as other Uniparty members who made bank in Ukraine over the last decade.

Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and the rest of Trump’s new Dept of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have their work cut out for them!

The end.