WASHINGTON D.C. – Hunter Biden – Joe Biden’s son – is back in the spotlight after a document dump by Judicial Watch. And it’s very interesting.
According to documents received by Judicial Watch, through a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request, Joe Biden’s youngest son Hunter Biden, was provided secret service protection on more than 400 flights.
The documents show that Hunter Biden embarked on 411 domestic and international flights for which the federal government provided security.
These flights occurred between June 2009 and May 2014. Listed among the destinations were 29 foreign countries, including five visits to China alone between 2009 and 2014.
According to Judicial Watch’s February 7th FOIA request, they sought the following: Records reflecting the dates and locations of travel, international and domestic, for Hunter Biden while he received a U.S. Secret Service protective detail; please note whether his travel was on Air Force One or Two, or other government aircraft, as applicable and whether additional family members were present for each trip; time frame is 2001 to present.
The Secret Service records show that countries and territories visited by Hunter Biden, between June 2009 and May 2014, included:
- Ethiopia and India on June 14-22, 2009
- Argentina on September 14-17, 2009
- France and Spain on November 9-13, 2009
- Canada on February 12-15, 2010
- Dominican Republic on February 18-22, 2010
- Puerto Rico on March 20-27, 2010
- China on April 6-9, 2010
- Belgium, Spain, and the United Kingdom on May 5-8, 2010
- UK, Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, Ascension Island, U.S. Virgin Islands on June 6-13, 2010
- Denmark and South Africa on August 9-24, 2010
- Hong Kong, Taiwan and China on April 16-22, 2011
- Mexico on May 15-17, 2011
- Colombia, France, United Arab Emirates and France again on November 1-11, 2011
- UK and Russia on February 15-18, 2012
- Germany, France and UK on February 1-5, 2013
- UK and Ireland on March 20-22, 2013
- China on June 13-15, 2013
- Switzerland and Italy on July 26-August 7, 2013
- Japan, China, South Korea and the Philippines on December 2-9, 2013
- China and Qatar on May 7-14, 2014
The Secret Service did not indicate whether Hunter Biden’s travel was on private airliners or on Air Force One, Air Force Two or other government aircraft.
The records were also provided to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson in a request the senators sent to Secret Service Director James Murray on February 5, 2020.
These records were not made public.
In its cover letter to Grassley and Johnson, which was included in the records produced to Judicial Watch, the Secret Service maintained that the senators’ request was very time and labor intensive, and that they were only able to provide a limited amount of information by the senators’ imposed turnaround time of February 19.
“Given the Burisma-Ukraine-China influence peddling scandals, Hunter Biden’s extensive international travel during the Obama-Biden presidency, including at least 5 trips to China, will raise additional questions.” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
One of those five visits, in particular, has raised concerns.
In December 2013, Hunter Biden took a flight aboard Air Force Two with his father, Joe, to Beijing. The trip was part of an official state visit the then-vice president was making to the country amid escalating tensions between the United States and China over islands in the South China Sea.
Although it is unclear exactly what went on during the visit, Hunter Biden entered into a lucrative business arrangement shortly afterward. Only 12 days after the trip, Hunter Biden inked a multibillion-dollar deal with a subsidiary of the state-owned Bank of China.
As the Washington Free Beacon reported in March, Hunter Biden’s travel and Secret Service protection associated with the aforementioned travel cost U.S. taxpayers nearly $200,000 throughout his father’s time in the Obama administration.
It should be noted that during the last year and a half of the his father’s tenure, Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukranian energy firm, while his father was working with Ukraine policy.
Judicial Watch is seeking records through six lawsuits and dozens of FOIA requests related to Hunter Biden’s dealings with the Ukrainian Burisma Holdings and the Chinese BHR (Bohai Harvest RST) Partners.
It seems that this latest release of documents will only provide for more questions, and likely more FOIA requests from Judicial Watch, who is seeking to determine whether Joe Biden and his son acted properly during Joe’s time in the Obama Administration.
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Report: Hunter Biden’s “business” trips cost American taxpayers $194k for Secret Service protection
March 17, 2020 – Hey, it’s a good gig if you can get it. You know, being the son or daughter of a president or vice-president…at least for some of them.
We saw where Chelsea Clinton, with ZERO journalism experience was able to get a high-paying gig with NBC News a few years back as a “special correspondent.”
Now we’re finding out that Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden’s son Hunter, you know he of Burisma fame, cost taxpayers nearly $200,000 for Secret Service protection when daddy was vice president, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
According to USA.Spending.gov, which is a database that collects and reports on unclassified government spending, Biden’s trips cost taxpayers $193,696 for that Secret Service protection.
That amount, according to the report is nearly four times the recorded bill for security of all four of Donald Trump’s adult children—combined.
During Biden’s term as VP, little Hunter visited more than 10 countries, including China, Qatar, and South Africa.
Among the bills, which numbered 28, some were taxpayer payments to a “miscellaneous foreign contractor” or a “miscellaneous foreign awardee,” of which the cost of Secret Service protection was also included.
The totals for Biden far exceeded that of the Trump family, which the database acknowledges amounts to about $40,000.
Hunter Biden has never held a government position.
Typically Secret Service costs for the first lady is higher, and Michelle Obama and Melania Trump are no exception. However, these are typically official trips and First Ladies are considered to be representatives of their husband’s administration. Hunter Biden held no such role.
Several members of Congress have been scrutinizing Biden’s financial connections to the government related to his excessive travel. Earlier this year, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) requested Hunter Biden’s travel records from the secret service in order to examine “potential conflicts of interest posed by the business activities of Hunter Biden and his associates.”
Unfortunately the database did not contain his records relative to his time in Ukraine, however it did contain information on trips to China in 2013 and 2014, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
In addition to Biden’s time on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company, he also served on the board of Chinese private equity company BHR Partners, and organized a “meet-and-greet” between his father and BHR CEO Jonathan Li on Dec. 4, 2013, according to the New Yorker.
Hunter Biden was forming a private equity fund that was looking to raise a substantial sum of money, including from China, according to NBC News. Although Hunter Biden admitted he met with Li, a spokesman said that it was a social visit.
In an amazing act of timing, the Chinese business license that brought the new fund into existence was issued ten days after the trip, with Hunter Biden a member of the board. Isn’t that weird? Hmmm.
According to Hunter Biden’s spokesman, he wasn’t initially an “owner” of the company and never was paid for serving on the board. He said that Hunter Biden didn’t receive an equity interest in the fund until 2017, after Joe Biden had left office. Yet another amazing coincidence.
Hunter Biden’s participation in that trip has raised questions about why Joe Biden didn’t do more to make sure that Hunter’s overseas business interests didn’t conflict with his official position as vice president, or avoid potential conflicts of interest.
Of course, Quid Pro Joe had an answer; “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” he said.
During the week, Hunter Biden was not at his father’s side during the week, showing up at times to various events with his father and disappearing during others. The White House did not provide details about what Hunter was doing when they were not participating in the vice president’s public events.
Several former White House officials who traveled with Biden on the trip told NBC News that they were unaware of any business relationship Hunter Biden had in China and were unaware of his private schedule while in the country.
The database shows that Hunter visited China on at least two other occasions, once both before and after the December 2013 meeting. Biden stayed in China for one to two weeks in June 2013 and March 2014, which cost American taxpayers nearly $13,000.
The trips that Biden took to the Philippines are filed under “WFP,” or World Food Program USA, a non-profit group.
However, while Hunter Biden was playing nicey-nice with himself having pictures taken with children struck by disaster in the Philippines, he and his Secret Service also availed themselves of stays at the St. Regis Doha in Qatar, a luxury hotel that cost taxpayers roughly $11,000.
The expenditure records provide very little details of the exact purpose of Biden’s trips. Sean Moulton, a senior policy analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, said that the government database is far from complete because the Secret Service tends to hold back information for security reasons.
He also said that it is unknown why Hunter Biden’s security details were so much more expensive compared to peers, other than the fact that for some reason he seemed to travel more frequently, even though he held no government position.
Moulton said that many of Biden’s Secret Service expenditures are categorized as “miscellaneous,” which he says shows a “frustrating lack of transparency.”
“Sometimes there are security concerns for recipients of USA money that require keeping them anonymous to protect them from possible reprisals from those unhappy with our country,” he said in an email.
“But too often the convention used for convenience because agencies may not have all of the information required to be reported for each foreign contractor.”
While there are no solid indications that Hunter Biden had connected his activities in China to his father’s role as vice president, just as with Burisma and Ukraine something smells like a rat. According to Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security advisor at the time:
“It just wasn’t something that was on any of our radar screens. Hunter’s presence didn’t really factor into anything the vice president and the team were thinking about from a policy of diplomacy perspective.”
Of course, the Biden’s are used to using the Secret Service for personal benefit. While serving as vice-president, Joe Biden charged the Secret Service rent for agents stationed in his Wilmington, Del., property, costing taxpayers over $171,000 between 2011 and 2017.
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