All posts tagged "hunter biden"

Hunter Biden calls Melania Trump's bluff on $1 billion Epstein lawsuit

Hunter Biden refused to apologize to Melania Trump after she threatened to sue him for $1 billion over the claim that she was introduced to President Donald Trump by sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

In an interview earlier this month, Biden cited journalist Michael Wolff to suggest that Epstein had introduced Donald Trump to the future first lady. Attorneys for the Trumps demanded that Biden apologize and that the video be taken down.

"F— that. That's not gonna happen," Biden told YouTube host Andrew Callaghan this week. "The primary source was the interviews that Michael Wolff has been conducting, in which he has actually tapes of, I think, hours and hours and hours of interviews with Jeffrey Epstein directly."

"And I don't believe in guilt by association alone, but the connections have become — they're so glaringly obvious that I think they're trying to use other things to distract," he continued. "And I also think they're bullies, and they think that a billion dollars is going to scare me."

"The fact of the matter is that if they'd like to go, I have this to say to them, if they want to sit down for a deposition and clarify the nature of the relationship between Jeffrey Epstein, if the president and the first lady want to do that, and all of the known associates around them at the time of whatever time that they met, I'm more than happy to provide them the platform to be able to do it."

Biden speculated that it could cost over $1 million to fight the lawsuit.

Watch the video below or click the link.

GOP chair’s Biden subpoena turned against him on CNN over Epstein silence

CNN's Kasie Hunt pressed House Ways and Means Committee chair Jason Smith (R-MO) Tuesday on using his subpoena powers to light the fuse on the Jeffrey Epstein files instead of waiting an entire month until lawmakers are back from August recess.

Smith maintained that Americans don't care about the Epstein issue enough for him to take extraordinary steps to release the information.

But Hunt didn't back away.

"There are enough members of your conference who say they care about it, that [House Speaker Mike Johnson] says, 'Hey, we gotta go home early.'" She then asked if there was "any world" in which he would use the power of the subpoena "to learn more about Epstein's finances."

"That is not a common thing that I have utilized within the Ways and Means Committee," Smith said. "But if I felt like that it was a priority for Americans, then, of course. But, like I said, this has not been something that's been a driving force."

Hunt then turned the tables on Smith, saying, "But, you did use subpoena power with Hunter Biden."

"Exactly, we have the authority to use it," Smith said. "But that is the only time that I have used it."

He then reiterated that Epstein "is not the priority of the everyday American who's working 9 to 5, just trying to put food on their table, clothes on their backs, and gasoline in their cars. That is not their focus."

Smith used the subpoena power in December 2023 to require Hunter Biden to appear for a deposition in what he called "the Biden family influence peddling scheme."

Watch the clip below via CNN.

Hunter Biden tried to get U.S. to help Ukrainian firm's project in Italy: report

President Joe Biden's son Hunter tried to get assistance from the United States on a project in Italy by Burisma Energy, a Ukrainian company in which he had a financial stake, when his father was vice president, according to a New York Times report Tuesday.

Specifically, Burisma sought approval for a geothermal project in the Tuscany region, which led the then-vice president's son to ask around for favors from U.S. government officials.

According to records, only just released by the Biden administration, "Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he was a board member. Embassy officials appear to have been uneasy with the request from the son of the sitting vice president on behalf of a foreign company."

One official reportedly said, “This is a Ukrainian company and, purely to protect ourselves, U.S.G. should not be actively advocating with the government of Italy without the company going through the D.O.C. Advocacy Center.”

ALSO READ: Trump's insatiable ego is destroying the former president

There is no evidence that Joe Biden was aware of his son's effort, or assisted in any way.

Conservative never-Trump lawyer George Conway dismissed the news as overhyped in a post on X.

"HUGE EARTH-SHATTERING BREAKING NEWS: In 2016 Obama administration officials properly took no action on a request from Hunter Biden to the U.S. embassy in Italy that his father knew absolutely nothing about. Now I’m *definitely* not voting for Hunter. And — just to be on the safe side — I’m definitely *also* not voting for Joe Biden even though there is no evidence or suggestion he did anything wrong. I’m just going to have to find another candid— … oh, wait!"

Hunter Biden and his international business dealings have been a years-long focus of investigation by House Republicans, who have tried to find evidence the elder Biden was involved in these schemes or laundered bribes through them. No such evidence has emerged, even though the GOP-controlled House pushed through an impeachment inquiry that appears to be headed nowhere.

As all this has been going on, Hunter Biden, who has suffered from substance abuse issues for much of his life, is facing prosecution for both tax offenses and unlawful efforts to obtain a firearm.

Romanian under criminal probe paid Hunter Biden in deal to sway U.S. policy: prosecutors

Prosecutors plan to introduce evidence at his tax-evasion trial that they said will show Hunter Biden took compensation from a Romanian businessman who sought to have federal agencies in the U.S. quash a criminal investigation against him in his country.

Special counsel David Weiss’ office wrote in a filing Wednesday obtained by NBC News that Biden entered into a verbal agreement with a business associate "purportedly to help a Romanian businessperson, G.P., contest bribery charges he was facing in Romania."

Prosecutors expect the associate will testify that the two lobbied and consulted together, that the Romanian businessman was under criminal investigation in that country and that the businessman sought to retain Biden and two business associates to try to "influence U.S. government agencies to investigate the Romanian criminal investigation of G.P., and thereby cause an end to the investigation of G.P. in Romania."

The business associate is also expected to testify that Biden was concerned their lobbying work could have "political ramifications" for his father, President Joe Biden. The associate and the Romanian businessman signed an agreement whereby the associate's legal entity would help manage real estate properties in Romania, but prosecutors said "that was not actually what G.P. was paying for."

Instead, the money was meant to "influence U.S. government agencies to investigate the Romanian investigation of G.P., and Business Associate 1 would pass approximately 1/3 to the defendant as his compensation and approximately 1/3 to Business Associate 2 as his compensation."

Biden's trial is expected to begin in September.

Prosecutors also said Wednesday they do not plan to introduce evidence or argue that Hunter Biden tried to "funnel money to Joe Biden," CNN reported.

Hunter Biden uses Judge Cannon's Trump dismissal ruling in bid to ditch criminal case

Hunter Biden's legal team filed a motion Thursday using Judge Aileen Cannon's recent ruling in Donald Trump's documents case.

On Monday, Cannon agreed to dismiss Trump's case in Florida over the theft of classified documents and other related charges under the guise that special counsel Jack Smith's appointment was unconstitutional. The whole case was dismissed because the special counsel funding was unconstitutional, the judge held.

Legal analysts warned that the decision was likely a gift to Hunter Biden when it was filed.

"I'm sure a lot of viewers are going, but what are you talking about? Special counsel Mueller was a special counsel, and that was upheld. Special counsel Rob Hur, who investigated the current sitting president, Joe Biden. He was able to do that. There is a current special counsel who has prosecuted Hunter Biden and is still prosecuting Hunter Biden," said former Justice Department prosecutor Andrew Weissmann.

Weissmann served on Mueller's team during the Russia probe.

Hur was appointed special counsel and funded in the same way as Smith.

"Mr. Biden brings this motion for lack of jurisdiction to challenge as unconstitutional the appointment and subsequent unlawful funding of these cases," the new filing from Biden says.

The legal team specifically mentions U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and Trump's motion to dismiss in the filing.

"Before trial, Mr. Biden moved to dismiss the indictment because the Special Counsel was improperly appointed in violation of a Department of Justice regulation and because he relied upon an appropriation that did not apply to the Special Counsel, but the motion Mr. Biden brings now is different and builds on recent legal developments," the Biden legal team continued.

"On July 1, 2024, in Trump v. United States, which concerned former President Donald Trump's immunity claims with respect to an indictment brought by a different special counsel, Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion raising a more fundamental antecedent question of whether the special counsel was validly appointed under the Appropriations Clause," said the filing. "Guided by Justice Thomas' opinion, Judge Cannon dismissed an indictment against President Trump earlier this week because the special counsel was unconstitutionally appointed."

Thomas' concurrence didn't have any additional signers other than himself, but it was enough that Cannon cited it three times in her ruling to dismiss the Trump case.

Smith has already filed an appeal of the decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and it's unknown if Biden would do the same to the court overseeing his district. If the two districts disagree, the case could be sent to the Supreme Court, but it likely won't be heard for some time.

Read the filing here.

Giuliani lost his law license — but not his honorary degrees from these five universities

Rudy Giuliani may have lost his New York state law license this week for undermining the “integrity of this country’s electoral process” and misconduct that “cannot be overstated,” a Manhattan appeals court ruled.

But at one of New York state’s most notable colleges, Giuliani’s honorary law degree from the Syracuse University College of Law is still safely in the hands of the former New York City mayor and Donald Trump lawyer — for now, the school confirmed to Raw Story.

Syracuse University spokeswoman Sarah Scalese explained that the school’s University Senate voted in March to “recommend the university revoke Rudy Giuliani’s honorary degree” and “the Chancellor referred the Senate’s recommendation to the Board of Trustees for its consideration.”

ALSO READ: NRA no longer 'human rights group' on Google

But since then, the status of Giuliani’s degree, awarded in 1989, appears to remain unchanged. Scalese did not respond to a follow-up question on whether the Syracuse University Board of Trustees, which includes notable alumni such as ESPN’s Mike Tirico,and powerful business people such as Goldman Sachs Managing Director Jeffrey M. Scruggs, has taken any action at all toward revoking Giuliani’s honorary degree.

Syracuse University is not alone in continuing to honor Giuliani.

Four other schools — Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.; The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina; St. John Fisher University in Rochester, N.Y.; and Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, Md. — have likewise declined to strip Giuliani of honorary degrees they awarded him in the years following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

The Citadel has been particularly strident in its defense of the honorary degree it bestowed upon Giuliani in 2007, with internal school emails and documents obtained by Raw Story last year detailing how school officials decided to close ranks, protect themselves and deflect Giuliani-related scrutiny.

Representatives from each school did not respond to phone and email requests from Raw Story inquiring about whether their schools intend to keep honoring Giuliani.

In November, The Citadel’s spokesman, Zachary Watson, declined to answer Raw Story’s questions, saying the school had nothing to say “at this time” about Giuliani’s honorary degree.

At the time, Giuliani spokesman Ted Goodman praised The Citadel for not canceling Giuliani’s honorary degree.

“The Citadel, which stresses the importance of honor, duty and respect, is a national treasure and certainly a place any young student should consider when deciding on where to pursue an education,” Goodman added.

Giuliani’s crushing troubles

Getting disbarred is just the latest indignity for Giuliani, who is beset with a host of other legal and ethical issues, as well.

Among them: 13 felony charges related to his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, nine felony charges in Arizona related to his alleged role in a fake electors scheme, status as “co-conspirator 1” in one of former President Donald Trump’s federal indictments and the pending loss of his law license in Washington, D.C.

Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy after being ordered to pay $148 million because a civil jury found him liable for defaming two Georgia election workers.

Rudy Giuliani mugshot (image via Maricopa County Sheriff's Office).A mugshot of Rudy Giuliani released by the Maricopa County, Ariz., Sheriff's Office on June 10, 2024. (Image via Maricopa County Sheriff's Office).

Meanwhile, an ex-employee is accusing Giuliani of sexual assault. The IRS says Giuliani owes massive back taxes. A motley cast of detractors, ranging from his former lawyers to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, are suing the former New York City mayor and Trump attorney over a variety of alleged misdeeds.

That’s been sufficient cause for the University of Rhode Island, Drexel University and Middlebury College to rescind honorary degrees they had once given Giuliani.

Upon Rhode Island University relieving Giuliani of his honorary degree, President Marc Parlange concluded that Giuliani had “encouraged domestic terrorist behavior.”

Giuliani aided “an insurrection against democracy itself,” Middlebury President Laurie L. Patton declared.

Drexel admonished Giuliani for “undermining the public’s faith in our democratic institutions and in the integrity of our judicial system.”

Goodman this week said Giuliani will appeal his disbarment to New York state’s highest court.

Joe Biden’s son Hunter sues Fox News for airing ‘revenge porn’

President Joe Biden’s son Hunter is suing right-wing Fox News for airing nude images of him in a miniseries that he claims amount to “revenge porn,” court documents showed Monday.

“The Trial of Hunter Biden” was made up of six episodes published in 2022 on Fox Nation, the conservative broadcaster’s online platform owned by the family of media mogul Rupert Murdoch.

A dramatized version of a criminal trial, the series contained a warning the proceedings were fiction, depicting the first son being prosecuted for graft — accusations that have been made for years by Donald Trump supporters who point to Hunter Biden’s past business ties with Ukraine and China.

The accusations have never led to legal action.

But the series integrates real images of Biden, “depicting him in the nude, depicting an unclothed or exposed intimate part of him, as well as engaged in sex acts,” the complaint alleges.

“Fox published and disseminated these intimate images to its vast audience of millions as part of an entertainment program in order to humiliate, harass, annoy and alarm Mr. Biden and to tarnish his reputation.”

The images originated from a laptop that Hunter Biden dropped off at a computer repair shop, but which he never collected.

Its contents have been circulating ever since, and are the subject of widespread conspiracy theories as well as embarrassing fodder for the political opposition.

“This entirely politically motivated lawsuit is devoid of merit,” Fox News said in a statement.

“Mr. Biden did not complain about (it) until sending a letter in late April 2024. The program was removed within days of the letter, in an abundance of caution.

“Consistent with the First Amendment, Fox News has accurately covered the newsworthy events of Mr. Biden’s own making, and we look forward to vindicating our rights in court.”

Hunter Biden was convicted by a jury in June of illegal possession of a firearm in a federal trial that again brought to light his years of addiction to alcohol, cocaine and crack cocaine, apparent in many of the images discovered on the laptop.

In September he will face a separate tax fraud case, a trial that is likely to distract from his father’s presidential campaign.

Experts reveal surprising beneficiary of Supreme Court's gun violence decision

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that protective orders can keep guns out of the hands of people accused of domestic violence, and at least one expert feels that could help a major figure in a separate case — Hunter Biden.

That's according to Eric Ruben, a professor at SMU's Dedman School of Law and a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, and Peter Tilem, a criminal defense lawyer and former Manhattan gun prosecutor, who both spoke to Politico for a story published on Friday.

The legal team for President Joe Biden's son was closely monitoring the case United States v. Rahimi heading into Friday's decision, the outlet reported.

“Since the Founding, the Nation’s firearm laws have included regulations to stop individuals who threaten physical harm to others from misusing firearms,” the court’s majority opinion read.

The case marked the high court’s first major gun ruling since 2022, which established a new standard for determining if gun regulations are constitutional. On Friday, the Supreme Court overturned an appellate court's decision that found the Second Amendment protects domestic abusers’ right to own guns.

As Politico noted, the provision in question is a "sister provision" to one that bans drug-users from having guns. The Biden team had hoped — it turns out, unsuccessfully — that the court would've struck down the sibling provision.

ALSO READ: ‘They could have killed me’: Spycraft, ballots and a Trumped-up plot gone haywire

That didn't happen, but Hunter Biden may get a small assist from Chief Justice John Roberts.

Writing in his majority opinion, Roberts said the court was only allowing the removal of guns from people who a judge first deemed a danger to others. He notably avoided scenarios that don't involve a judge's danger determination.

“[W]e reject the Government’s contention that [Zackey] Rahimi may be disarmed simply because he is not ‘responsible,’” Roberts wrote. “'Responsible’ is a vague term. It is unclear what such a rule would entail.”

And therein lies a potential boost for Hunter Biden: The federal law that bans drug-users from having guns "doesn’t necessarily make them a credible threat to the physical safety of an intimate partner or anyone else," Tilem said. That leaves the door open for Biden's team to argue the drug-user prohibition may be unconstitutional altogether.

'Zealot' ex-Trump aide dealt another blow in Hunter Biden's laptop hacking case

A California federal judge has refused to dismiss a computer fraud case against a former Trump White House aide accused of hacking into Hunter Biden's laptop and posting its contents online.

Judge Hernán Vera of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California — a President Joe Biden appointee who donated to Biden's 2020 campaign — denied in a court filing Thursday policy analyst Garrett Ziegler's attempt to throw out the case. Ziegler was accused of unlawfully accessing, manipulating, and damaging Hunter Biden's data without his authorization or consent.

Now-convicted felon Hunter Biden sued Ziegler in September on a federal claim for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. He also brought a pair of state claims for violating the state's Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act.

Vera found that Hunter Biden "sufficiently alleged the necessary elements of his claims for [sic] under federal and state computer fraud statutes."

In the lawsuit, Hunter Biden accused Ziegler of being a "zealot who has waged a sustained, unhinged and obsessed campaign" against Hunter and the Biden family for over two years.

"While Defendant Ziegler is entitled to his extremist and counterfactual opinions, he has no right to engage in illegal activities to advance his right-wing agenda. Yet that is precisely what Defendant Ziegler and his so-called 'nonprofit research group,' Defendant ICU, d/b/a/ Marco Polo, have done and have asserted they will continue to do in the future," the lawsuit said.

Biden said Ziegler's team of volunteers and independent contractors spent countless hours accessing, tampering with, manipulating, and otherwise damaging computer data that they did not own, and that they claim to have obtained from "hacking" into Biden's iPhone data and from "scouring a copy of the hard drive" of what they purport to be Biden's former laptop.

ALSO READ: ‘They could have killed me’: Spycraft, ballots and a Trumped-up plot gone haywire

Ziegler, who previously worked for former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, had argued that Vera ought to be kicked off the case due to his donation to the campaign of Hunter's father of "at least $1,600." A federal judge in California determined that Vera did not need to step aside.

Rudy Giuliani's legal woes lighten as Hunter Biden ends data hacking lawsuit: report

Rudy Giuliani has one less lawsuit to stress about.

President Joe Biden's 54-year-old son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted of lying about buying a revolver in 2018 while hooked on crack, has agreed to squash a civil lawsuit he brought against former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Giuliani's former lawyer Robert Costello, Reuters reported.

Last year, Hunter blamed Giuliani and Costello of being hackers by violating computer fraud and data access laws, alleging they manipulated data from his "devices or storage platforms."

He claimed they violated his rights by trying to breach his electronic devices.

“Plaintiff has demanded Defendants Giuliani and Costello cease their unlawful activities with respect to Plaintiff’s data and return any data in their possession belonging to Plaintiff, but they have refused to do so,” the complaint read. “Defendants’ statements suggest that their unlawful hacking activities are ongoing today and that, unless stopped, will continue into the future, thereby necessitating this action.”

ALSO READ: Republicans weaponizing ignorance is a dangerous game

The scheme, according to the lawsuit, amounted to a “total annihilation” of Hunter Biden's rights, as well as a violation of federal and state computer privacy laws.

Attorneys for all three parties came to a deal filed in Manhattan federal court, under which Biden agreed to drop the lawsuit and each must pay their own legal fees.

Hunter's lawsuit initially sought more than $75,000 in damages as well as reimbursement of his attorneys’ fees and other penalties.

Giuliani has been riddled with legal and money woes.

He filed for bankruptcy last year after he was ordered to pay $148 million to a mother-daughter Georgia election workers that he defamed by falsely accusing them of committing fraud following Trump's 2020 presidential election defeat.