The tangled web of professional influence peddling surrounding President Joe Biden is beginning to unravel as details about payments to the then-vice president’s family from foreign nationals anxious to purchase some political teeth continue to emerge.
Take, for example, the rousing speech Biden gave as vice president during a 2014 trip to Romania.
“Corruption is a cancer, a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy, diminishes the instinct for innovation and creativity; already-tight national budgets, crowding out important national investments,” Biden told Romanian civil society groups and students. “It wastes the talent of entire generations. It scares away investments and jobs.”
(Video: YouTube)
“And most importantly it denies the people their dignity,” the future president stated. “It saps the collective strength and resolve of a nation. Corruption is just another form of tyranny.”
Biden continued:
And corruption can represent a clear and present danger not only to a nation’s economy, but to its very national security. There are nations, and we’ve seen it recently, that exploit corruption to exercise malign influence and undermine the very sovereignty and independence of their neighbors.
In this way, corruption has become an instrument of foreign policy for some nations. When politicians can be bought, when courts can be manipulated, when the media becomes a tool of propaganda, there you will find a society that is susceptible to manipulation from the outside. There you’ll find a society that loses control of its own destiny — not only its political security, but its physical security and military readiness is also compromised.
“We’ve recently seen that in Ukraine,” Biden said in what now feels like a Nostradamus moment. “We saw how over a decade and a half of corruption, literally has hollowed out their military institutions and weakened that country’s very capacity to defend itself.”
“So fighting corruption is more than just good government,” he argued. “It’s self-defense. It’s a guarantor of your national sovereignty.”
Bank records produced by the GOP-led House Oversight Committee show that in 2016, Biden family members received more than $1 million from Gabriel Popoviciu, a Romanian real estate mogul who was later convicted of “accessory to aggravated abuse of power, and bribery” and sentenced to seven years in prison.
According to the Daily Mail, Popoviciu bribed a university official in order to get a great deal on a 550-acre plot of government-owned land. While Popoviciu was released in 2019 and has apparently fled the country, the land in question is still the subject of court cases.
The state has retaken the land, which is currently home to, among others, a large shopping mall, an IKEA outlet, and the US Embassy, according to Romania-Insider.com.
Following his bribery charge, the Daily Mail reports, “Emails leaked from Hunter Biden’s laptop show that he and ex-FBI director Louis Freeh worked for the grafting property mogul to try and get the case dropped.”
“They were hired to organize a propaganda campaign to plant positive stories in the media of how their client was being unfairly by the Romanian justice system,” the outlet explains.
The Daily Mail continues:
Emails show partners from law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, Christopher Boies and Michael Gottlieb, sought to set up meetings with the US Ambassador to Romania.
They discussed with Hunter Biden whether Washington’s envoy to the country would intervene in Popoviciu’s case.
Hunter brought in political heavyweight and family friend Louis Freeh to use his US law enforcement contacts for Popoviciu’s advantage.
He was offered a generous referral fee as a result.
According to the Daily Mail, Hunter and his colleagues also went to The Wall Street Journal and discussed a media campaign that would be favorable to Popoviciu’s cause.
The group was able to escape having to register with the Department of Justice (DOJ) under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) thanks to “various exemptions including those for lawyers of foreign defendants.”
In a September 2015 email, when Hunter was working at the law firm Boies Schiller Flexner, firm partner Chris Boies wrote to Hunter and his longtime business partner about Popoviciu.
“Let’s discuss when convenient…” Boies urged the duo. “One of my partners is best friends with the newly appointed Ambassador to Romania.”
In May 2016, when Popviciu was staring at an imminent conviction in a Romanian court, Hunter and his pals, including Michael Gottlieb, then an attorney at the firm, even contacted then-US Ambassador to Romania Hans Klemm in a desperate bid to stop the corruption conviction.
“I have reached out to Klemm and asked him to help us broker the meeting [with Romanian anti-corruption prosecutors],” Gottlieb told Hunter in a May 17, 2016, email. “We should put together a persuasive deck with all the procedural and substantive defects in the indictment / case against Gabs, and we should also probably put together the start of what would be a press strategy. And we’ll want to line up the big names to bring over.”
A member of Popoviciu’s legal team who wished to remain anonymous claims the connected group never followed through with their plan.
“All of the ideas discussed in this email, including the preparation of a deck and press plan, were never implemented or executed,” the source said. “All of this was being discussed as part of a potential strategy, which depended entirely on scheduling a meeting with the Romanian Government on the case. But that meeting was never scheduled, and never happened, because the Romanian Government declined.”
The Bidens made millions from China, Romania, and other foreign countries providing what seems to be no services other than access and influence.@GOPoversight released Biden family bank records yesterday and delivered the facts.
We aren't done yet. @SeanHannity @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/PyDFGwSonf
— Rep. James Comer (@RepJamesComer) May 11, 2023
Still, after Gottlieb complained to Hunter about a Politico article that supported the Romanian prosecutors, Hunter suggested reaching out to a family friend for help: former FBI director Louis Freeh.
“Is now the time to begin to assemble a more high profile team that can speak to the injustice here,” Hunter reportedly wrote Gottlieb. “Who do we have at the firm that can speak with authority about anti-corruption.”
“Mike I was going to reach out to Judge Freeh and if you can think of others of that stature I think now is the time to read them into the situation and see if they are willing to help,” the future first son wrote. “Ambassador Gittenstein mentioned names like former US Atty Patrick Fitzgerald.”
The following week, Gottlieb confirmed that he had been in touch with the ambassador, but he didn’t want to discuss the details in an email.
“Hans called me to discuss a development that is best relayed over phone,” he reportedly wrote to Hunter. “Can we connect either tonight or first thing tomorrow? Bottom line is that we should proceed with requesting the meeting.”
“Where are we meeting?” Hunter asked Gottlieb in an email titled, “Re Meet with H. Klemm.”
The meeting did take place, but according to the source on Popoviciu’s legal team, “at no point did we ever ask the U.S. Ambassador (or anyone else at the Embassy) to make any statement about the case, or to intervene in any way.”
The U.S. team merely explained to Popoviciu’s foreign representatives “the reality that the U.S. Embassy, and U.S. Ambassador, would not intervene with the Romanian Government regarding a pending anti-corruption prosecution,” the source said. “The legal team was always attentive to limiting any ‘ask’ to the U.S. Embassy to be the making of an introduction to the relevant Romanian Government officials, or the provision of advice about Romanian law or protocol.”
But in a June 18 email from Hunter Biden to Freeh, Hunter wrote that he had become “very close to the client personally” and believed Popoviciu was “being very badly treated by a suspect Romanian justice system.”
The Daily Mail continues: “Days later the ex-FBI director had signed a retainer with Popoviciu and described in an email a plan to ‘intervene with the special Romanian anti-corruption prosecutor’ and even launch a propaganda campaign in the US.”
On July 8, 2016 — two weeks after Popoviciu was ultimately sentenced — Freeh was still on the job.
He even offered to send Hunter a referral payment for landing him the gig with Popoviciu.
“I would also like to make a small payment to you for this referral — and for your continuing work on this matter,” Freeh told Hunter. “This is a standard practice. It’s strictly your call as I don’t know your relationship with the client. We would just need your bank information in order to make a remittance.”
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
Melissa Fine is the former executive editor of Casino Player, Strictly Slots, and Poker
Digest magazines. She is a UCLA graduate, news junkie, and dedicated Stargate SG-
1 fan. Melissa currently lives with her dog and two cats in a tiny town in the Sierra
Nevada foothills.
- ‘Finally!’ Anti-Israel students at Yale hauled out of university encampment in zip ties - April 22, 2024
- ‘Little to no accountability’: House Intel report finds CIA failed to properly handle sexual assaults within - April 22, 2024
- Trump’s strategic VP pick: Who would ‘woo Democrats’ and who would ‘turn out Republicans’ - April 22, 2024
Comment
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.