During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News Channel’s Maria Bartiromo Hunter Biden and his business partner Devon Archer brought in $4.2 million in their business dealing with Ukraine according to an investigation headed by his committee.
Johnson accused former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, of lying during a 2019 Axios interview about his knowledge of Hunter Biden’s arrangements.
He also expressed his frustrations the media have shrugged off the findings amid a hotly contested presidential election.
Partial transcript as follows:
BARTIROMO: Your committee released this document this week.
Walk us through the most stunning parts of what we need to understand about this document, Senator.
JOHNSON: Well, let’s just start with Ukraine.
We found that Hunter and his partner Devon, their businesses raked in about $4.2 million — that’s about $140,000 a month, almost $1.7 million per year — for being on this board.
We also found out, through George Kent, that a $7 million bribe was paid to the prosecutor general’s office seven months after Hunter and Devon joined the board. And, of course, Hunter was put on the board supposedly for corporate governance and transparency.
We also found out that the national dealings extended way beyond Ukraine, for example, a $3.5 million payment made to Hunter Biden’s businesses by the former wife of the now-deceased mayor of Moscow. She’s a billionaire. That’s why we believe that she got her billions through corrupt practices when her husband was the mayor.
And then, of course, all of the business associates — associations that Hunter Biden, the millions in cash flow between China and Chinese nationals that had connections to the Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army.
And what — Maria, what is most frustrating is, the press has basically just dismissed it, saying, oh, there’s nothing new here, nothing illegal.
First of all, it’s not my job in Congress to prove illegality or to prosecute. We’re here to expose information that should be incredibly troubling to the American public, and yet the press just kind of shrugs and moves on.
BARTIROMO: Right. Well, they have obviously chosen a side on this.
Now, I want to show — run an interview with Joe Biden, because he was asked about this on ABC News. And we want to run it for you, because I want to get your reaction of how he addressed it. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: What’s your understanding of what your son was doing for an extraordinary amount of money?
JOSEPH BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don’t know what he was doing. I know he was on the board. I found out he was on the board after he was on the board. And that was it. And there’s nobody…
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: We don’t have a lot of time. Isn’t this something you want to get to the bottom of?
BIDEN: No, because I trust my son.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: Your reaction, Senator?
This is, of course, “Axios on HBO,” an interview which ran December 19.
JOHNSON: Well, I hate to say it, but Joe Biden is lying to the American public.
When he said in the tail end of 2019 that he never spoke to his son about his overseas business dealings, that was a lie. We know in testimony now from Amos Hochstein, who is the only people of we know of that actually spoke directly to the vice president about this glaring conflict of interests, the vice president then talked to Hunter, who then set up a meeting with Amos Hochstein to talk about this very subject.
We know that Hunter took a multihour plane trip over to China with his father, had a separate agenda, but, during that trip, then arranged for a handshake between one of his business partners, Jonathan Lee, and the vice president. What was all that about?
So I have never believed that the vice president never talked to his son Hunter. He’s still lying to the American public. And the mainstream media has to ask far tougher questions.
BARTIROMO: Yes, we have a graphic here of all of the international transactions that you were able to uncover, Senator.
And you mentioned the $3.5 million wire transfer from the wife of the former mayor of Moscow. You mentioned opened a bank account with a Chinese national, $100,000 global spending spree with James and Sara Biden, and then paid a non-residential woman who appeared to be linked to an Eastern European prostitution ring, human trafficking ring.
It’s pretty extraordinary, what you have come up with. But where will the accountability be? I mean, you just mentioned that the press is not making anything of it.
I want to go through this interview with William Barnett as well. This also was declassified this week. I have got the declassifications right here in front of me.
What struck you from this interview with Mr. Barnett, an FBI agent?
JOHNSON: Yes, primarily when he said that the — the special counsel office was completely upside down.
They already they wanted to get Trump. They already knew their theory of the case. And rather than have the evidence really guide the investigation, they basically just knew the evidence was there and it was just a matter of finding it. So, they had already come to their preconceived conclusion of this thing.
And, Maria, if what you’re reporting is correct, it is incredibly disappointing that John Durham is not going to be reporting.
There would be nothing — what’s political is if he doesn’t report. We have had the deep — and I will call it the deep state, through these other investigations, prevent the American public from knowing what happened with the FBI’s corruption of their investigation, the corruption of the transition process, for about three-and-a-half years.
We have been prevented from getting documents because John Durham doesn’t want us to in any way, shape, or form affect his prosecution.
So, the bottom line, that means the American people might go to the polls with not — without knowing the full extent and all the detail of all the corruption, again, of that FBI investigation, and the corruption of the transition process.
BARTIROMO: Yes, it’s a very good point.
JOHNSON: I think John Durham, if he’s not going to — if he’s not going to prevent — present indictments, Attorney General Barr has to make available to the American public what they have already found out, or, at a minimum, prevent — provide those documents to people like me that have — these things are under subpoena.
John Ratcliffe has to declassify this information, so that we can make it public to the American public before the election. The political nature is if we don’t provide that information.
BARTIROMO: Well, there will be more declassifications, as far as I’m hearing, that there will be more declassifications potentially this week, that could be very important and telling for the American people.
But I agree with you. I have spent a lot of time, three-plus years, on this investigation and tried to seek out truth. I agree, the American people have a right to understand what took place here before they go to the polls. It’s very disheartening that now what I’m hearing…
JOHNSON: So, Maria — Maria…
BARTIROMO: … is that there will be no John Durham interim report, no indictments before the election.
JOHNSON: So, let me disagree a little bit with Chairman Graham, when he said he’s very pleased with the production out of the FBI.
I am not. Let me just give you one example. Here is a document we got from the General Services Administration. You can see that it’s an e-mail, and all — everything is presented, except for, at the very bottom, they redacted the mobile phone number of the person writing the e-mail.
Here is the exact same e-mail we got from the FBI. You see something different here? Everything is redacted. And that — we are supposed to get thousands of pages from our — I had to finally subpoena the FBI.
They are on their second extension. Everything is due by I think the 30th of September. And that’s the kind of information we get. It’s non-information.
We have to fight over redacting the same documents that we get from other agencies. So I am not happy at all with the document production we have gotten out of Director Wray and the FBI, not even close.
BARTIROMO: You know what?
I’m really glad you put up those documents, because this is something that I have heard from day one, for three-plus years. When Ratcliffe was in Congress, Nunes in Congress, yourself in the Senate, you have been demanding documents to ensure that you understood what took place.
And they will not get you the documents. They sit on documents and make it incredibly hard for you to prove the point that you know is to be — is true, and that is that it was a sham investigation into President Trump, and there’s a ton of wrongdoing here.
Do you think you’re going to get the documents? I mean, is this Christopher Wray? Why is Christopher Wray still in charge of the FBI, when he’s overseeing these agents sitting on things?
JOHNSON: His job should be to restore the credibility and integrity of the FBI. And the only way you do that is through exposure.
But the other point I have to make, Maria, when we finally do get these classified sections redacted — or unredacted, when they become declassified, you look at what information you have, and you have to ask yourself a question: What national security interest was at stake here? Why was this ever redacted?
The answer is almost always because it embarrassed the agency or it embarrassed a powerful person. That is not the reason to classify information. It’s certainly not the reason to keep the truth from the American public. And that’s all I have been trying to do, is, I have been trying to reveal the truth.
Another important point to make.
BARTIROMO: Yes.
JOHNSON: You know, I have been accused of peddling Russian disinformation.
BARTIROMO: Yes, you have.
JOHNSON: There’s no Russian disinformation in our 87-page report.
The press ought to report on it. And I’m calling on the press. You were duped. You were leaked false information. You should not protect those sources that leaked you false information.
It should be your journalistic duty to…
BARTIROMO: Yes.
JOHNSON: … to basically tell the American people who provided you false information that resulted in this two- or three-year national nightmare because of the false narratives that you carried the Democrats’ water on.
BARTIROMO: That’s right. Do your job, media.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
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