Laptop, Ukraine & Biolabs: New Hunter Biden Scandals Threaten to Axe Joe's Possible 2024 Bid
12:00 GMT 25.03.2022 (Updated: 12:44 GMT 13.04.2023)
© AP Photo / Charles DharapakVice President-elect, Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., left, stands with his son Hunter during a re-enactment of the Senate oath ceremony, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2009, in the Old Senate Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington
© AP Photo / Charles Dharapak
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American observers don't rule out that Team Clinton is likely to exploit re-emerging Hunter Biden scandals to bring forward Hillary's candidacy for the 2024 presidential race after the November midterms. However, both dynastic political families have skeletons in their closets, says Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel.
"Having run and lost twice, Hillary Clinton and her team are more likely to try orchestrating a 'Draft a Savior for the Democrat Party' movement and then, reluctantly accept this mantle once it becomes clear that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not viable as standard-bearers and as opponents against the eventual Republican ticket in 2024," says Wall Street analyst and investigative journalist Charles Ortel.
Joe Biden's odds of winning a potential re-election bid are waning: the president's approval rating plummeted to 40% this week, according to a Reuters-Ipsos poll. At the same time, the survey indicated that 54% of Americans disapprove of the president's work amid skyrocketing inflation and US-Russia tensions over Moscow's special operation to de-militarise and de-Nazify Ukraine.
To complicate matters further, scandals surrounding his son, Hunter, are continuing to hunt Joe Biden. Thus, the New York Times suddenly acknowledged last week that a trove of bombshell documents discovered on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop almost a year and a half ago were "authentic." The story was first broken by the New York Post in October 2020.
Following the release of the NYT's article former Attorney General Bill Barr on 21 March told Fox News that Joe Biden "lied to the American people" during a presidential debate when he called The Post’s exposure of Hunter's emails "a Russian plant."
On top of this, Jack Maxey, a political activist and former Steve Bannon podcast co-host, who provided several mainstream media with copies of a hard drive from Hunter's laptop, vowed earlier this week to make the content of the device public. After that Maxey was banned by Twitter. However, on 24 March, in an interview with American journalist Chase Geiser, Maxey said that he is in Switzerland releasing an indexed version of the laptop.
Hunter Biden, Ukraine & Biolabs
However, Hunter Biden's scandals are not limited to the infamous laptop. On 20 March, Dmitry Rogozin, former deputy chairman of the government of the Russian Federation and incumbent director general of Russian space agency Roscosmos, suggested on Twitter that Joe Biden has resorted to the arming of Ukraine in order to "burn down all possible evidence of his family's corruption" in the Eastern European state. Following the 2014 coup in Ukraine, Hunter Biden had served on the board of directors of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma despite having no experience in the energy business.
Rogozin also tweeted that Russian law enforcement authorities "might be interested in thoroughly investigating" the Biden family's alleged misdeeds in Ukraine to understand the American elite's motives and reasons behind the US-backed coup d'etat in Kiev in February 2014.
Meanwhile, on 24 March, Chief of Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defence Troops Major General Igor Kirillov told journalists that Hunter Biden's Rosemont Seneca investment fund participated in the financing of the Pentagon's military biological programme in Ukraine. Kirillov noted, citing a trove of documents obtained by the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD), that Rosemont Seneca maintained "close ties" with the US defence contractors, including Metabiota and Black & Veatch (B&V), which reportedly supplied equipment for Pentagon bio-labs across the world.
Following Kirillov's briefing, Sergei Tsekov, Russian senator and former head of the Supreme Council of Crimea, called for a parliamentary investigation into Hunter Biden's apparent participation in the Pentagon's military biological programme in Ukraine. Washington continues to deny that it has ever been involved in the development of bioweapons in Ukraine. However, Victoria Nuland, US under secretary of state for political affairs, admitted under oath that there are some "biological research facilities" in Ukraine apparently overseen by the US.
© AP Photo / Carolyn KasterDemocratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talks with Jake Sullivan, a former staff member for her at the State Department, during a break in testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015
Democratic presidential candidate former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton talks with Jake Sullivan, a former staff member for her at the State Department, during a break in testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2015
© AP Photo / Carolyn Kaster
Team Clinton's Skeletons: Clinton Foundation
While Team Clinton may indeed capitalise on scandals haunting the Biden family, Hillary and Bill have as many skeletons in their closet as the Bidens, Ortel notes.
The Clintons' major problem is their charities which have never been properly organised and managed, according to the Wall Street analyst, who suspect that the Clinton Foundation is mired in a huge charity fraud. Ortel has been investigating the foundation for several years and believes that it was used as a "vehicle" for enrichment and pay-to-play schemes by the Clintons.
The Clinton family has recently announced the revival of its Global Initiative, which is seen by some observers as yet another signal that Bill and Hillary are returning to big politics. Still, the Clinton Global Initiative appears not to be operating lawfully, according to Ortel.
s"Under U.S. law, only organiations may, in fact, be tax-exempt," the Wall Street analyst says. "The 'Clinton Global Initiative' was launched by November 2004 in New York, where its supposed parent – The William J. Clinton Presidential Foundation – did not bother to register as required by strict New York laws (witness lawsuits against Trump Foundations by NY Attorney Generals)."
Ortel notes that after holding meetings that arguably served as business development and political advancement forums from 2005 through 2008 in New York and then in Hong Kong during the Obama-Bush transition, the parent and a new "Clinton Global Initiative, Inc." tried but failed to reorganise and to operate lawfully from September 2009 through 2013.
"So, whatever 'CGI' the Clintons believe they might launch again is radioactive, unless NY and federal authorities remain in the tank protecting the Clintons at all costs," the Wall Street analyst warns.
Special Counsel Durham and Spygate Probe
There is yet another problem on the Clintons' horizon, namely Special Counsel John Durham "spygate" investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe. Two indictments released by the special counsel late last year indicate that the Hillary Clinton campaign played a significant role in peddling uncorroborated information about Trump's alleged ties with Russia's Alfa Bank and the Kremlin.
Both claims turned out to be bogus. What's more, at least one participant of the anti-Trump fishing expedition, named Tech Executive-1 in Durham's court filings, bragged that he was offered a position in the Hillary Clinton administration should she won.
Even though Hillary Clinton continues to portray the Durham investigation as a right-wing conspiracy, the American public is unlikely to "fall for yet another Clinton family ruse," concludes Charles Ortel.