Retired FBI Executive Charged with Concealing $225,000 in Cash Received from Former Intelligence Officer | OPA | Department of Justice
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Monday, January 23, 2023
Retired FBI Executive Charged with Concealing $225,000 in Cash Received from Former Intelligence Officer
Charles F. McGonigal Arrested in New York


Charles F. McGonigal, 54, a former FBI Special Agent in Charge of the New York Field Office, has been arrested on charges relating to his receipt of $225,000 in cash from an individual who had business interests in Europe and who had been an employee of a foreign intelligence service, while McGonigal was serving as Special Agent in Charge of FBI counterintelligence efforts in the New York Office. McGonigal retired from the FBI in September of 2018.

According to the nine-count indictment, unsealed today, from August 2017 and continuing through and beyond his retirement from the FBI in September 2018, McGonigal concealed from the FBI the nature of his relationship with a former foreign security officer and businessperson who had ongoing business interests in foreign countries and before foreign governments. Specifically, McGonigal requested and received at least $225,000 in cash from the individual and traveled abroad with the individual and met with foreign nationals. The individual later served as an FBI source in a criminal investigation involving foreign political lobbying over which McGonigal had official supervisory responsibility. McGonigal is accused of engaging in other conduct in his official capacity as an FBI Special Agent in Charge that he believed would benefit the businessperson financially.

McGonigal’s initial appearance in the District of Columbia has not yet been scheduled.

McGonigal is charged with concealing material facts and with six counts of making false statements, each of which carries a maximum penalty of five years of imprisonment. McGonigal is also charged with two counts of falsification of records and documents, each of which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years of imprisonment.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia, Assistant Director in Charge Donald Alway of the FBI Los Angeles Field Office and Assistant Director in Charge David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office made the announcement.

The FBI Los Angeles Field Office is investigating the case, with significant assistance provided by the FBI Washington Field Office.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Elizabeth Aloi and Michael Friedman for the District of Columbia and Acting Deputy Chief Evan Turgeon of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case, with assistance from the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs.

An indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

 

Now, alert forum readers will recall that McGonigal was the head of the FBI counterintelligence office in New York and was the agent who claimed that Trump's advisor George Papadopoulos was telling people he knew Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton, which information was fundamental to the FBI starting operation Crossfire Hurricane, the investigation into connections between Trump and Russia.
Charles McGonigal's Role in Trump-Russia Investigation (newsweek.com)

But there is a more insidious connection. That "individual who had business interests in Europe and who had been an employee of a foreign intelligence service" referenced in the Department of Justice news release is alleged to be none other than Chi Ping Patrick Ho, aka “Patrick C.P. Ho, who is just now serving 3 years for bribery. Mr. Ho, by the way, worked for CEFC, the Chinese energy company.
Former Head of Organization Backed by Chinese Energy Conglomerate Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for International Bribery and Money Laundering Offenses | OPA | Department of Justice
And? You ask?

Well, guess which "Chinese energy company" Hunter Biden was having such lucrative dealings with?

Yep.

BREAKING: Bombshell Connection Made Between Hunter Biden's $50k Rent Payments and China Energy Firm (trendingpoliticsnews.com)

"Earlier this week, we reported about how Hunter Biden made extremely high rent payments to his parents at their Wilmington, Delaware home.​

The story just took a turn.​

The monthly rent for Hunter Biden, which was $49,910, aligns with the rental deposit at the House of Sweden connected to the Biden family’s business venture with CEFC China Energy Co.

The $49,910 deposit corresponds with the amount of money recorded on a 2018 background check document discovered by the New York Post’s Miranda Devine."​

 

Just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to FBI corruption and criminal activity....

 

The connections require investigation.
Know who was one of McGonigal's bosses?
Peter Strozk.

Makes you go HHHMMM doesn't it?

Well, unless you're a despicable who doesn't want to know.

 

No doubt about it. Something smelly in the FBI. These special services have always had troubles like this.
A great, revealing book: Zero Fail, The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service by Carol Leonnig.

 

The secret service was involved in the insurrection?
Now that's interesting.
Pure bullshit, but interesting.

 

BUT HUNTER BIDEN BUT HUNTER BIDEN BUT HUNTER BIDEN!!!!

I can see I am going to have to step in here and point out the scam we have going on here. If you do a search for "Deripaska" you won't find it until you get here. Which is beyond an accident because the McGonigal story is actually about Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Because that's who was paying Ex-FBI counterintelligence leader Charles F. McGonigal.

And the real question is if McGonigal. was working for Deripaska during the Russian investigation then was he also working to protect Trump? In other words a spy?




‘The Big Guy’: Ex-FBI Counterintel Chief Allegedly Received ‘Concealed Payments’ from Sanctioned Russian Oligarch Seen in Mueller Report
Adam KlasfeldJan 23rd, 2023, 4:17 pm
36 comments




Ex-FBI counterintelligence leader Charles F. McGonigal (left) was charged with receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (right).

A former FBI counterintelligence leader agreed to investigate the rival of a sanctioned Russian oligarch who figured prominently in the Robert Mueller investigation in exchange for “concealed payments,” federal prosecutors say.


Charles F. McGonigal, 54, worked in Russian counterintelligence, organized crime matters and counter-espionage during his more than 20-year career with the FBI.

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From 2016 until his retirement two years later, McGonigal served as the Special Agent in Charge (SAC) of the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI’s New York Field Office, and it was in that capacity that McGonigal crossed paths with — and got on the payroll of — sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.


Sanctioned before he was indicted, Deripaska emerged as a key figure in the Mueller report, in which his name appears at least 64 times. He was connected to former President Donald Trump’s ex-campaign chair Paul Manafort. Mueller alleged that Manafort instructed his deputy Rick Gates to share campaign information with suspected Russian intelligence operative Konstantin Kilimnik. Gates “expected” that information would be shared with Deripaska, according to the report.

Mueller’s report was released in March 2018.

Roughly a month later, the U.S. Treasury would announce sanctions against Deripaska, and McGonigal’s indictment indicates that he received an advanced warning of that development.

“Among other things, in 2018, McGonigal, while acting as SAC, received and reviewed a then-classified list of Russian oligarchs with close ties to the Kremlin who would be considered for sanctions to be imposed as a result of Russia’s 2014 conflict with Ukraine,” McGonigal’s indictment states.

The list showed that Deripaska would be designated for sanctions.


McGonigal was charged along with Sergey Shestakov, a former Soviet and Russian diplomat who later became a U.S. citizen.

“Among other employment, Shestakov worked as an interpreter for the federal courts and United States attorneys’ offices in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York,” their indictment states.

Prosecutors claim that the two of them investigated a rival Russian oligarch in return for concealed payments from Deripaska. In 2018, Shestakov connected McGonigal with Deripaska’s agent, according to the indictment.

Emails exchanged between McGonigal, Shestakov and Deripaska’s agent shield the oligarch’s name as “you know whom,” “the big guy,” and “the client,” prosecutors say.

“Business Intelligence Services”

In exchange for investigating the rival oligarch, Deripaska allegedly agreed to send money to McGonigal and Shestakov through shell companies, which didn’t list the defendants’ names on corporate paperwork, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors say that the contract called for a Cyprus corporation to pay a New Jersey corporation, held in the name of McGonigal’s friend. The contract provided for $51,280 upon its execution and $41,790 per month for “business intelligence services, analysis, and research,” the indictment states.

The FBI says it seized McGonigal’s electronic devices on Nov. 22, 2021.

Prosecutors claim McGonigal subsequently lied to authorities, telling the FBI that he had “no business” with Deripaska’s agent.


In the Deripaska case, McGonigal faces five charges: conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions, violating U.S. sanctions, conspiring to commit money laundering, money laundering and making false statements.

Deripaska also faces charges in the same court: the Southern District of New York. Between the two cases, McGonigal could receive over 150 years in prison, if convicted on all charges.

In September, Deripaska was indicted for allegedly violating those U.S. sanctions. Federal prosecutors say that Deripaska — along with his associates Olga Shriki and Natalia Mikhaylovna Bardakova — conspired to violate U.S. sanctions imposed on him and one of his corporate entities, “Basic Element.”

Deripaska’s girlfriend Ekaterina Olegovna Voronina was also charged with lying to Homeland Security agents when entering the United States in order to give birth to Deripaska’s child.

In a separate indictment in Washington, D.C., McGonigal stands accused of having requested and received at least $225,000 in cash from a foreign intelligence officer. That nine-count indictment charges the ex-FBI counterintelligence officer with concealing material facts, six counts of making false statements, and two counts of falsification of records and documents.


Read the Southern District of New York indictment below:


https://lawandcrime.com/high-profil...oned-russian-oligarch-seen-in-mueller-report/



Now we need to wonder why the OP would be making more logical fallacy leaps than a bullfrog focusing only on .....

...That "individual who had business interests in Europe and who had been an employee of a foreign intelligence service" referenced in the Department of Justice news release is alleged to be none other than Chi Ping Patrick Ho?


Well that is because the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska is a huge problem for the treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republican narrative that somehow it disproves the Trump/Putin collusion and is somehow connected to hunter Biden. Because part of what McGonigal was getting paid for was to get Deripaska off the sanctions list. But McGonigal sure wasn't the only one working very hard to do that.





This article is more than 3 years old
Trump lifts sanctions on firms linked to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska
This article is more than 3 years old
Democrats in Congress opposed move to lift restrictio

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/27/us-lifts-sanctions-oleg-deripaska-russia



McConnell Said No to Money for Miners, Yes to Russian-Backed Plant

LUMP IN THE STOCKING
The Senate majority leader worked to keep money out of Kentucky coal miners’ hands—even as he maneuvered to steer federal cash to an aluminum plant connected to a Putin ally.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/mitch...-miners-steered-funds-to-russian-backed-plant

Both Trump and McConnell AKA Moscow Mitch were working to help Deripaska. With one more twist. Naturally as soon as Trump lost the election the deal on the Kentucky aluminum plant fell through. But let's think about what if it didn't. Treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans falsely accused Hillary Clinton of selling 20% of our Uranium supply to Russia. None of that was true. But if the aluminum plant deal had gone through a Russian company would own 40% of the vast majority of US aluminum production.

So this is quite the scam we have going here stretching like Gumby to try and make this about Hunter Biden when its actually far more connected to Trump and Moscow Mitch.

 

But lets return to the FBI and Charles McGonigal.
One name to pay attention to is "Spectrum Risk Solutions".
This "consulting" firm was incorporated in 2018 and is owned by none other than Oleg Deripaska, the character who shares connections with McGonigal and Sergey Shestakov, and for making false statements and failing to register as a foreign agent.

Now, unlike stumbler, Shooter will try to keep this from filling an entire page with meaningless drivel and cut to the important parts. Forum members are encouraged to hit the links and read the entire article for themselves.

Feds eye Ex-FBI agent Charles McGonigal's links to Russia: report (nypost.com)

"........The November 2021 document obtained by Insider requests records and communications related to Spectrum Risk Solutions, a consulting firm. McGonigal helped another person “facilitate” an introduction between the firm and Deripaska’s aide, according to the report.
The grand jury document also requests communications that the unnamed subject of the subpoena had with McGonigal regarding other foreign countries, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Albania.........."​

The despicables would love to tie this scandal to Trump, but that ploy is getting a bit old.

Look at the facts. McGonigal and the Russians he has gotten into bed with are the foundation of the Steele Dossier, McGonigal's information is what started the FBI on Crossfire Hurricane, the name the FBI gave to it's investigation of Trump and the Russians, and it would take a leap larger than a "bullfrog" to think that McGonigal was a Trump "spy".
Charles McGonigal's Role in Trump-Russia Investigation (newsweek.com)

And the connection to Chinese energy company CEFC runs straight through Albania and its prime minister, Edi Rama, who McGonigal has close ties with.
Former FBI Official Charles McGonigal Under Scrutiny by Grand Jury for Russia Ties (businessinsider.com)

"......Two sources told Insider that McGonigal was close to Edi Rama, who has served as the prime minister of Albania since 2013. According to an email reviewed by Insider, McGonigal used his official FBI email account to try to arrange a meeting between Rama and an American firm the prime minister was thinking about hiring for an anti-corruption initiative. In the end, the FBI didn't give McGonigal approval for the meeting, and it never took place.

A representative for Rama said the prime minister's relationship with McGonigal was "a totally private friendly relationship of no public interest. We have no idea about any grand jury and no US authority has ever contacted us about it. There have never been meetings with firms, gifts, payments, travel reimbursements before or after Mr. McGonigal left his job........."
​

Another source for those who care .......
Ex-FBI Agent Who Probed Trump’s Russia Ties Is Under Investigation for Russia Ties (thedailybeast.com)

​

And Chinese energy company CEFC is the company Hunter Biden has had such lucrative dealings with. Among other links and issues demanding closer inspection is Hunter Biden's connection to all this. So, yeah, BUT HUNTER BIDEN BUT HUNTER BIDEN BUT HUNTER BIDEN!!!!

 

An interesting recap of Charles McGonigal
No, Charles McGonigal Likely Isn't Responsible for that Part of the Russian Investigation You Hate - emptywheel

".........McGonigal’s tie to Deripaska and the trajectory of his career would have put him in a position to tamper in other investigations. As noted above, he moved from Baltimore (overseeing matters involving the NSA during years when the materials that would be leaked as part of the Shadow Brokers operation were stolen), to a cyber/CI role in DC, to NYC. The overt acts described in his two indictments (SDNY, DC) only start in 2017, which would suggest he may not have sold out until then.
Except there’s a problem with that: The first overt act in the DC indictment is him asking for money. So it’s not clear when he got started.

August 2017: McGonigal first asks Albanian for money.

September 7, 2017: McGonigal travels to Albania.

October 5, 2017: McGonigal receives $80,000 in a parked car from the Albanian.

November 18, 2017: McGonigal conducts an interview in Vienna with the Albanian acting as translator; the FBI has no record of the interview. Then McGonigal flies to Albania and discusses business with the same witness.

November 25, 2017: McGonigal predicates an investigation into the lobbyist for a rival Albanian politician.

February 28, 2018: McGonigal formally opens investigation into rival Albanian relying on witnesses whose expenses were paid by his source.

March 4, 2018: McGonigal dines with Prime Minister of Albania.

April 27, 2018: McGonigal pitched by two people in Germany to get involved in Bosnian affairs, facilitates an introduction to US Ambassador to UN.

June to August 2018: McGonigal sets up arrangement whereby Bosnian-tied pharma company would pay Albanian $500K to broker UN ties.

Spring-Summer 2018: At Sergey Shestakov’s request, McGonigal sets up Deripaska’s agent’s daughter with an NYPD internship.

September 2018: McGonigal retires from the FBI.

There are a number of key investigations, including some in which Deripaska had tangential interest, on which McGonigal would have had complete visibility. Their compromise would present a grave threat to the country.

They’re not the ones left, right, and frothers are most concerned about though.

Given how DOJ has charged these two indictments (and given the charges they have yet to file), I suspect they will try to get McGonigal to plead to one side and cooperate in the other — in part to unpack everything he did before and after he left the FBI. But even if they do, they’re not going to tell us what he was up to.........."​

 

Now one thing that is already just laughable is treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans can not even feign any concern about anything Putin/Russia because they welcomed Putin/Russia with open arms to interfere in our elections and continue to support Putin even now.

But those who actually do care about the country should be concerned. Not the least of which being how high Putin/Russia was able to reach into our government.



The arrest of former FBI agent could call into question a lot of different cases: counter-intel expert

Sarah K. Burris
January 23, 2023



Vladimir Putin (AFP)


Former FBI agent Charlie McGonigal was charged on Monday with money laundering and violating Russian sanctions, leading to a lot of concern among other former FBI officials, said former assistant director for counter-intelligence Frank Figliuzzi.

Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, Figliuzzi confessed he was "distraught" and "angry," but he wasn't alone among those former Bureau colleagues. He explained that because of this case, they now must reexamine every case that McGonigal touched throughout his career in the New York field office.

"As early as several months ago, if not longer, there was some early reporting that Charlie, who had retired, had been doing some consulting that had gotten him sideways with some administrative regulations," said Figliuzzi. "When I first thought that, I thought, okay, he hasn't filled out a foreign agent's registration form or something like that. This can't possibly be much worse than that. And of course, it is much, much worse because it extends back to his time as an active-duty FBI executive in the largest FBI office in the nation."

His takeaway, emotions aside, is "the reach of the Russian government and adversarial intelligence services into our nation and our intelligence community."

He cited the two dozen Russians meddling in the 2016 election who were indicted. But clearly, there's far more.

"We've got Russians indicted here and there and sanctions and Ukraine. So, if there's people out there embracing Putin every day on certain platforms and saying, you know, Russia isn't that bad, they're our friend, this case is, again, a stark reminder that they get up every day trying to hurt us, trying to penetrate our intelligence community, and sometimes they get it right, and they succeed. and it appears, allegedly, that they may have done it here with Charles McGonigal," the former FBI official said.

What will ultimately cause more problems is that McGonigal's reach for cases is wide and it will likely mean a reexamination.

"The question remains why, and no, it's not a coincidence, although that was his expertise," he began explaining. "We're all wondering how far did this go back? He was a senior official in Washington. The Russians spot and assess and the Chinese spot and assess, but that wasn't his specialty. It was Russia. Did they identify him early on in his career? How much did he touch in his career that has to be looked at? What wasn't done in the New York field office? Because he nixed it and said no or, what was open and worked even when agents might have been scratching their heads saying I don't understand why we're working this. So, lots of work to be done here. As you correctly said, DOJ and the intel community don't always charge these cases, and they decided to do it here, decided to do it because of the gravity of the case and the evidence."

He went on to say that there are a lot of rules in place for FBI agents that demand reporting to an ethics board. For McGonigal, Figliuzzi explained that this activity began around the time that McGonigal was about to retire and was clearly preparing to "cash in."

See the full discussion below or at the link here.




https://www.rawstory.com/fbi-corruption-charlie-mcgonigal/

 

"Now one thing that is already just laughable is treasonous conservative/America Hating/Republicans can not even feign any concern about anything Putin/Russia because they welcomed Putin/Russia with open arms to interfere in our elections and continue to support Putin even now."
​

Another outrageous lie from the forum despicable propaganda publisher.

We keep thinking we've seen how low they will go, these despicables, and then they surprise and disappoint us again.

 

Ah yes. The deplorable/Russian connection. Lets review, shall we?
And take special note, the date of the first article, and how things have played out since.
HMMMMM??

Scandals Collide Dossier DNC Server Perkins Coie | National Review
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
October 25, 2017 1:44 PM
As Rich noted last night, we have learned finally, courtesy of the Washington Post, that Fusion GPS, the research firm that produced the notorious “Trump Dossier,” was funded by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. Of course, the Clinton campaign and the DNC always want layers of deniability and obfuscation – and let’s note that it has served them well – so they hire lawyers to do the icky stuff rather than doing it directly. Then, when the you-know-what hits the fan, outfits like Fusion GPS try to claim that they can’t share critical information with investigators because of (among other things) attorney-client confidentiality concerns.

Here, the Clinton campaign and the DNC retained the law firm of Perkins Coie; in turn, one of its partners, Marc E. Elias, retained Fusion GPS. We don’t know how much Fusion GPS was paid, but the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid $9.1 million to Perkins Coie during the 2016 campaign (i.e., between mid-2015 and late 2016).

A friend draws my attention to an intriguing coincidence.

In its capacity as attorney for the DNC, Perkins Coie – through another of its partners, Michael Sussman – is also the law firm that retained CrowdStrike, the cyber security outfit, upon learning in April 2016 that the DNC’s servers had been hacked.

Interesting: Despite the patent importance of the physical server system to the FBI and Intelligence-Community investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, the Bureau never examined the DNC servers. Evidently, the DNC declined to cooperate to that degree, and the Obama Justice Department decided not to issue a subpoena to demand that the servers be turned over (just like the Obama Justice Department decided not to issue subpoenas to demand the surrender of critical physical evidence in the Clinton e-mails investigation).

Instead, the conclusion that Russia is responsible for the invasion of the DNC servers rests on the forensic analysis conducted by CrowdStrike. Rather than do its own investigation, the FBI relied on a contractor retained by the DNC’s lawyers.

The most significant pressing question about the so-called Trump Dossier is whether it was used by the FBI and the Obama Justice Department to get a warrant from the FISA court to conduct national-security surveillance on people connected to the Trump campaign. As I have previously pointed out, this would not be as scandalous as it sounds if (a) the Justice Department had a good faith basis to believe the people the Bureau wanted to surveil were acting as agents of Russia, and (b) the FBI first corroborated whatever information it took from the dossier before presenting it to the FISA court.

But it certainly is interesting that we are once again, in a case involving alleged Russian espionage, reviewing a situation in which the FBI relied on a contractor retained by the DNC’s and the Clinton campaign’s lawyers at Perkins Coie.

Meet one mastermind of the 2020 election scandal: Hillary Clinton’s lawyer – World Tribune: U.S. Politics and Culture, Geopolitics, Northeast Asia, China, Geostrategy-Direct, International Security, Corporate Watch, Media Watch

Meet one mastermind of the 2020 election scandal: Hillary Clinton’s lawyer
noted in a Nov. 3 analysis.

Since 2019, Perkins Coie has been paid at least $41 million for its political work by Democratic-affiliated organizations, according to Federal Election Commission records. Republican lawyers say that is likely just a fraction of what Perkins Coie has received, because it doesn’t include legal work for many left-wing nonprofits.

Elias was also a key player in the Russia collusion hoax. As the attorney for both the DNC and Clinton campaign, he helped bankroll research by Fusion GPS that created the bogus “Steele dossier” used by the FBI to obtain FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign during the 2016 race.

“There have been more lawsuits filed this year before the election trying to change election rules than I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve been doing election stuff for three decades,” Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told National Review. “What they’ve been trying to do is take advantage of COVID-19 to get the changes they’ve wanted for years into election rules.”

The goal of Elias was to “lower the bar a little bit in terms of what the requirements are,” lawyer Fritz Knaak told freelance journalist Margaret Menge in an October article for InsideSources.

Knaak represented Republican Sen. Norm Coleman in the bitterly contested 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race. Elias and Perkins Coie represented liberal challenger Al Franken, who won the election despite significant questions about illegal voting.

“Elias is the force behind an organization called Democracy Docket,” Menge noted. That group teamed up with progressive groups to file dozens of lawsuits in the weeks leading up to the Nov. 3 election.

According to Knaak, Elias learned a lesson in the contested 2008 Minnesota U.S. Senate race in which leftist Democrat Al Franken following a recount after Republican Norm Coleman had been declared the winner on election day. Franken’s victory gave Democrats the 60 votes they needed in the Senate to pass Obamacare.

“He was right there at the other table when all these things were being argued,” he says. “So they’re certainly keenly aware of what the various issues are and I think what he’s trying to do is minimize those obstacles, lower the bar.”

Among the states Democracy Docket has targeted: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.

In Pennsylvania, Elias filed suit to force county boards of elections to accept late ballots that don’t arrive for a full week after the election. He also sued to force officials to count late ballots without a postmark to prove they were cast by Election Day. Elias also sued to prevent county boards of elections from disqualifying ballots if the signatures don’t match those on file, and to prevent rejection of ballots that aren’t in the security envelope, and only inside of one envelope.

Republican lawyers say Elias’s self-righteous displays are part of a strategy to perpetuate the false disenfranchise-voter narrative. No one wants to disenfranchise millions of voters, they argue.

“With Elias, it’s not actually about the voters,” said Christopher White, senior associate counsel with the RNC. “It’s about getting this narrative going that makes him money, gets turnout juiced up, and creates chaos and the opportunity for even more litigation after the election.”

 

Hunter Biden rent conspiracy theory shared by conservative lawmakers

Bill MCCARTHY, AFP USA
Wed, January 25, 2023 at 8:54 AM MST


US Republicans and conservative influencers claim a background screening form allegedly filled out by Hunter Biden shows he paid President Joe Biden $50,000 per month to live at their Delaware home. This is false; the payments and dates listed on the form correspond with the younger Biden's lease of office space in Washington DC, and claims that his father charged him rent are unproven.
"Was Joe Biden really paid $50,000 a month by Hunter for a house that’s worth comparatively very little. Who actually owns the house?" said former president Donald Trump in a January 17, 2023 post on Truth Social, his social media platform. "This is just the beginning of one of the greatest political and money laundering Scams of all time."

Trump echoed a narrative that had dominated conservative media and politicians in the days prior, spurred on by high-profile figures such as Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Some lawmakers vowed to investigate whether Hunter Biden paid his father $50,000 per month to live at their family home, where Joe Biden's personal lawyers uncovered classified documents from his time as vice president.


Screenshot from Truth Social taken January 24, 2023


The January 17 post was one of several that Trump, who faces a potential rematch against Biden in the 2024 race for president, posted about the supposed rent payments.

The rumor started when a pro-Trump Twitter account uploaded a photo of a "background screening request" that Hunter Biden allegedly filled out and signed in 2018. The picture came from largely unverified data stored on the hard drive of a laptop Hunter Biden left at a computer repair shop in 2019, the contents of which were leaked online by a former Trump White House aide.

The photo circulated widely online after New York Post writer Miranda Divine, the author of a book on Hunter Biden's laptop, shared it.

Headlines from sites such as Breitbart and the Daily Caller attracted thousands of readers. Posts from figures such as Donald Trump Jr, commentator Dinesh D'Souza and Congresswoman Lauren Boebert spread across platforms.


Screenshot taken January 24, 2023 of the January 16, 2023 episode of "Tucker Carlson Tonight"

Some claimed money laundering was in play. Others, piggybacking off another anonymous Twitter account, suggested the form implicated Joe Biden in tax fraud.

"Hunter Biden paid his dad $50,000 a MONTH in rent for the home that housed classified documents. During the same time frame, @joebiden only claimed less than $20,000 in rent payments PER YEAR," said Newsmax host Carl Higbie in one such post, referencing the president's publicly available tax returns.

But the document shared online does not show Hunter Biden paid his father to stay at their Delaware home. The $49,910 listed under "monthly rent" matches quarterly payments he made to the House of Sweden in Washington DC, which -- in addition to housing the Swedish and Icelandic embassies -- provides office space.

"I can confirm that Hunter Biden paid $49,910 in quarterly rent for an office space in House of Sweden," Maria Uggla, a press officer for Sweden's National Property Board, told AFP in an email.

The form
At the center of the claims is a background check screening form that Hunter Biden supposedly signed July 27, 2018.

The document includes the younger Biden's name and the address of his father's Delaware home under instructions that say: "Write Name as it appears on your Driver's License."

Beneath a section titled "Current Residence," Hunter Biden's firm Owasco PC is listed under "company name." The $49,910 figure appears under "monthly rent."


Photo taken from Twitter on January 24, 2023 that shows a form Hunter Biden allegedly filled out

AFP could not independently verify the authenticity of the document. But screening forms on the website of the background check company, Applycheck, contain a similar logo, layout and set of questions.

AFP reached out to the company, Hunter Biden's attorney and the White House for comment, but no responses were forthcoming.

Emails allegedly sent and received by Hunter Biden in summer 2018 -- which, according to the Washington Post, come from a part of the laptop hard drive that could not be verified as authentic -- suggest an assistant filled out the form.

The email exchange indicates Biden asked the assistant to help complete the form as he enquired about a rental property in the greater Los Angeles area of California. Citing an anonymous source, the Washington Post reported it had confirmed the assistant pulled the document together.

Rent for office space
Regardless of who jotted down the $49,910 figure, there is no evidence Hunter Biden paid his father that much in rent. In fact, the number appears to correspond to the younger Biden's payments for office space.

From March 2017 to February 2018 -- the "move in date" and "move out date" written on the background screening form -- Hunter Biden leased space at the House of Sweden for quarterly payments in that amount, Uggla of Sweden's National Property Board confirmed.

Uggla said another email shared online, in which the House of Sweden's general manager mentioned a $49,910 security deposit to Hunter Biden, appears to be authentic.

Corporate records show Owasco, which Hunter Biden controlled at the time, was registered to a Los Angeles address before its dissolution in 2021. But Rosemont Seneca Advisors, another venture of his, was registered at the House of Sweden's address in Washington.

Some who said the background screening form showed Joe Biden collected rent from his son later walked back their claims.

The Daily Caller retracted its report, while Breitbart published an update. Devine, the New York Post journalist, posted a series of tweets warning against jumping to conclusions.

"The rent may refer to the $50k rent he paid for his office at House of Sweden," she said in a January 16 tweet.

Hunter Biden, who for years struggled with addiction, remains under a federal investigation related to his prior overseas business dealings. House Republicans, in charge of the chamber for the first time since 2018, have vowed to launch further probes involving the president's son.

AFP has debunked other misinformation about Hunter Biden here and here.



https://www.yahoo.com/news/hunter-biden-rent-conspiracy-theory-155419805.html

 

Ah. Stumblers post confirms a key part of the article Shooter posted near the top of page 1.

"The monthly rent for Hunter Biden, which was $49,910, aligns with the rental deposit at the House of Sweden connected to the Biden family’s business venture with CEFC China Energy Co."
​

Oh, and by the way, stumbler, the links about AFP debunking stories about Hunter Biden are broken.

 

Where is your source for that? I can find nothing even close to that. And in fact this is what I am finding.


In a separate indictment, McGonigal is also charged with accepting $225,000 while working at the FBI from a person who had business interests in Europe who had been an employee of Albania's foreign intelligence service.



https://www.newsweek.com/trump-charles-mcgonigal-russia-arrest-sanctions-1775988

 

https://nypost.com/2023/01/25/kids-...fbi-agent-charles-mcgonigal-tied-to-oligarch/

Read the article. McGonigals kids and Hunter Bidens kids attended the same school.

Not good enough?
McGonigal was a supervisor agent in the Ho investigation. Ho is/was connected to CEFC.

 

As always just total dishonesty and games, The question remains where is your source for this?


That "individual who had business interests in Europe and who had been an employee of a foreign intelligence service" referenced in the Department of Justice news release is alleged to be none other than Chi Ping Patrick Ho

 

Well, as usual you divert and obfuscate.
You've been given the connection from McGonigal to Hunter Biden.
Deal with it.

 

Oh, and this just in ...........
Charges Against Hunter Biden Imminent After 'False $30,000 Tax Deduction' (radaronline.com)

"......... Also shocking is newfound evidence connecting Hunter to Chinese oil tycoon Ye Jianming, whom Hunter allegedly did business with in 2017.​

Jianming reportedly asked Hunter for help with the FBI and Justice Department over concerns his associate, Patrick Ho, was under investigation for bribery and money laundering.

Ho ultimately signed a retainer agreement with Hunter in September 2017 for $1 million, but two months later Ho was taken into FBI custody and sentenced to three years in federal prison for his role in an international bribery and money laundering scheme.

Ye was also arrested shortly thereafter by Chinese authorities over allegations of corruption.

Weiss’ allegedly imminent charges against Hunter also come as House Republicans prepare to launch a series of investigations into both Hunter and President Biden over the first son’s allegedly illegal overseas business dealings with foreign countries like China, Ukraine and Russia."​

 

Radaronline is described as "an entertainment and gossip website".... ala National Enquirer. Excellent reference.