Within hours of the release of the special counsel’s report finding that President Biden “intentionally retained and disclosed classified materials” as a private citizen, President Biden rushed to the White House podium and accused former “Mr. blamed the staff.
“I take responsibility for not seeing exactly what my staff was doing,” the president claimed.
Like Biden, these staffers are avoiding criminal charges. who are they?
Special Counsel Robert Hur, without naming names, narrowed the suspects down to two former aides, an “executive assistant” and “assistant chief of staff 3.”
He said that when Biden left the White House in January 2017, they collected more than 180 classified records, totaling more than 600 pages, and packed them into 15 boxes.
gatekeeper
The documents say the officials in question are Kathy S. Chan, who worked with Hunter Biden at the Commerce Department, and Cathy S. Chan, who worked for him at Rosemont Seneca Partners, a key pass-through for foreign wire transfers. She has been identified as Anne Marie Muldoon (maiden name Parson). Hunter Biden.
Chong and Muldoon were two of the most important people in Joe Biden’s office suite. They were the gatekeepers who controlled the front office adjacent to his west wing office and kept his confidential documents in filing cabinets and safes.
Mr. Biden implicitly trusted them, having come to visit them at the recommendation of his son Hunter.
In effect, it was Hunter who placed them in secret posts within the White House, where they had unfettered access to “the most highly classified, classified and compartmentalized materials recovered during the investigation,” Herr said. stated in the report.
And they continued to communicate with Hunter throughout his tenure at their father’s office and supported his overseas business plans, according to Hunter’s discarded laptop and emails obtained from the National Archives.
Recommendation
Mr. Hunter gave the White House job to Mr. Chung, an old colleague at the Commerce Department, in 2012. The year before, Mr. Hunter had flown with the vice president to Beijing on Air Force Flight 2 to secure lucrative investment deals with the Chinese. Chong booked the trip, records show.
In May 2012, an executive assistant position opened up in his father’s office, so Hunter suggested an old friend take the position.
He described the job as replacing the “primary gatekeeper for the vice president.” [and the] the conduit that everyone goes through to get there [Joe Biden]In addition, Hunter’s email to Chung said she would handle “all personal matters” for the vice president.
That, after all, meant acting as custodian of all Biden White House records, including classified materials. Excited to have been considered for the position, which requires a top-secret security clearance, Ms. Chong emailed Mr. Hunter, saying, “Thank you for calling and thinking of me,” and asked for an interview. I responded.
“I met with my dad again and he officially offered me the job,” she enthused in an email to Hunter on June 13, 2012. “I can’t thank you enough for thinking of me and getting me through this.”
Then, in mid-2014, Hunter recommended Muldoon to be Chong’s assistant. At the time, she was working as Hunter’s aide at Rosemont Seneca. Her husband, Mike Muldoon, also worked for Rosemont Seneca Hunter several years ago.
family business
Records show that Chong and Muldoon were still arranging international travel for Hunter Biden and his Rosemont partners while working in Vice President Biden’s office. They sent and received hundreds of emails with Hunter and Rosemont.
The National Archives recently released portions of Vice President Biden’s records show that between July 2012 and April 2015, the most recent data available, Rosemont Seneca worked in the vice president’s office. It was included in a whopping 921 e-mails generated from . “Hunter Biden, James Biden, and Their Foreign Business Deals.”
Records show that Mr. Chong and Mr. Muldoon, among other things, have been photographed at the White House, including a signed photo of Joe Biden, a letter from the vice president to his associates, and several state dinners and lunches with foreign leaders. It has been revealed that he complied with Hunter’s request for tickets to the event.
For example, in September 2015, Chung emailed Hunter and invited him to a lunch hosted by Biden with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
According to Secret Service visitor records, in August 2016, after Bulger and Hunter founded BHR Partners, an investment fund managed by state-run Bank of China, Muldoon was hired by James Bulger (notorious Irish mobster Whitey) in the West Wing.・He was escorted by Bulger’s nephew.
A month after Chong oversaw the deletion of secret vice presidential documents in 2017, Hunter Biden tried to poach her to work directly.
“Work with me so I can make money for everyone,” he wrote.
At the time, Mr. Hunter was being courted by a Chinese businessman who ended up paying Mr. Hunter and other members of the Biden family $6 million for unspecified services.
Chung said he was interested in Hunter’s offer, but ultimately he was offered a job at Joe Biden’s new digs at the Penn Biden Center in Washington, D.C., where Hunter had VIP access. He remained on as an assistant.
Lawyers “discover” Biden’s classified documents for the first time amid concerns about his own liability after the Justice Department raided former President Donald Trump’s Florida home and seized boxes of classified documents It was there that it happened.
cozy relationship
Heo said Chung never realized that the records he packed and unpacked contained classified documents, and that he kept them in unlocked cabinets and closets in Biden’s office. Heo reportedly told Mr. Heo that he had kept it in his possession.
But on January 3, 2017, a few weeks before she and Muldoon packed Biden’s records into boxes, they received an email from the National Security Council warning them not to pack any classified information and warning them not to pack any classified information into the box. He warned that “records only” could be removed from the White House. Hoa pointed out that towards the end of his administration, he intended to ultimately prosecute one or the other, even for gross negligence.
Chong’s lawyer, who currently serves as a top aide to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, did not respond to requests for comment. Attempts to reach Muldoon were unsuccessful.
The issue of Hunter Biden’s cozy relationship with these aides may come to light during Hill’s testimony on March 12th. Lawmakers will press him on whether to investigate whether Hunter or his uncle Jim had access to stolen White House documents, the people said.
The House Oversight Committee last week subpoenaed the attorney general for Xu’s investigative files, including recovered classified documents relating to Ukraine and China, as part of a joint impeachment inquiry.
“We are concerned that President Biden may have been in possession of classified documents related to certain countries involved in his family’s overseas business dealings,” the committee said in a statement.
Sperry is a senior investigative reporter at RealClearInvestigations. Follow him on X: @paulsperry_
