New York-based law firm Cravath, Swain & Moore registered as a foreign agent last week, eight years after it represented Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
Meanwhile, the eldest son, Hunter Biden, has never registered as a foreign agent, despite earning $80,000 a month as a director of Burisma from 2014 to 2019. This period overlapped with the last three years of his father, Joe Biden's tenure as Barack. He was vice president in the Obama administration and oversaw the administration's policy toward Ukraine.
of disclosureThe document, filed Thursday, shows that Thomas Buretta, a partner at Cravath Swain & Moore, said Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky's company faces “a potential investigation by U.S. government authorities.” The story stems from a meeting he held with Obama administration officials in 2016 to discuss the issue. state. ”
Cravath, Swain & Moore retroactively complied with the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) “after consulting with the Department of Justice regarding the scope of FARA,” the company said in a statement, according to Reuters.
FARA requires U.S. law firms and lobbyists to disclose certain work performed for foreign clients.
“Cravath filed a retrospective registration covering legal services provided to two former clients in March and September 2016,” the company added, referring to Zlochevsky and Burisma Holdings.
The law firm billed a Ukrainian oligarch and his company about $350,000 for services it provided in 2016, according to FARA filings.
“As part of this representation, Mr. Bretta met with three U.S. government officials in March 2016 and sent a letter to U.S. government officials in September 2016,” the filing states. has been done. “During these interactions, Mr. Buletta identified his clients and presented facts relevant to potential US and Ukrainian investigations, including information from UK proceedings in which the clients were involved.”
Mr. Bretta previously served as principal deputy assistant attorney general and chief of staff in the Justice Department's criminal division in the Obama administration, working with then-undersecretary of state Catherine Novelli, assistant secretary of state Amos Hochstein, and Justice Department official Bruce Swartz. I met with Mr. According to the filing. He also sent a letter to then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
The meeting between the law firm's partners and Obama administration officials took place just weeks before Ukraine's Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was ousted from his post.
An FBI whistleblower claimed that Joe Biden pushed for Shokin's ouster as vice president because prosecutors were investigating Burisma. The whistleblower claimed that Mr. Zlochevsky “bribed” the Bidens with $5 million each, in part to get Shokin in the can.
Biden boasted to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018 that during a December 2015 visit to Kiev, he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid to the former Soviet state unless Shokin was fired. .
“I looked at them and said, 'I'm leaving in six hours.' If the prosecutor doesn't get fired, we don't get any money…well, fuck it. He got fired,” Biden recalled. did.
Critics of Special Counsel David Weiss' long-running investigation into the president's son say the 53-year-old still violates FARA after Delaware federal prosecutors indicted Hunter Biden on tax crimes in December. It was also noted that he had not been indicted on any of the charges. — It could have something to do with his father.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said, “Unless U.S. Attorney Weiss investigates everyone involved in the Biden family's fraud scheme and influence peddling, President Biden's Justice Department will It's clear they're protecting Biden and the big shots,'' said House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.). Last month's statement.
Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), a member of the Oversight Committee, said: tweeted“The Department of Justice has discontinued FARA charges. The income is from foreign countries and the evidence is there.”
“The omission of FARA charges is a clear contradiction to other lawsuits involving Mr. Trump's associates,” George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley told the Post in December. Ta.
“There is no evidence that Mr. Weiss seriously pursued these allegations. As a result, the White House became further isolated from the scandal. If there were FARA charges, we would appoint a special counsel for the corruption scandal itself. “Indeed, this indictment itself is a tax evasion marvel, an indictment of tax evasion without addressing the corruption that creates the money itself,” Turley said. Ta.
Hunter Biden's FARA violations include convening a D.C. dinner in 2014 and 2015 attended by his father and officials from Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine, and inviting Mexican officials to the vice president's residence. This includes arranging meetings with Obama-Biden administration officials.
