WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, signalled this month that he planned to open a new front in his attacks against former Vice President Joe Biden — work done by Biden’s son Hunter Biden for a wealthy Romanian business executive facing corruption charges.
Hunter Biden, who is a lawyer, was retained by the business executive, Gabriel Popoviciu, in 2015, while his father was vice president, to help try to fend off charges in Romania being pursued by anti-corruption prosecutors. In 2016, Popoviciu was convicted on charges related to a land deal in northern Bucharest, the Romanian capital.Around the time of the 2016 conviction, Hunter Biden recruited Freeh to assist on the case, according to four people familiar with the effort.
Hunter Biden also served as a board member of a Ukrainian energy company owned by an oligarch who had been battling accusations of corruption at the same time that Joe Biden — now a leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidate — was pressing the Ukrainian government to step up its anti-corruption efforts. Hunter Biden was paid as much as $50,000 a month for his role on the board.
Popoviciu’s hiring of well-connected Americans seemed to be an effort to leverage “the importance to the Romanian government of the U.S.-Romanian bilateral” relationship “to influence and possibly overcome his political challenges in Romania,” said Heather Conley, who was a deputy assistant secretary of state in the bureau of European and Eurasian affairs from 2001 to 2005.
“Well, I think what Biden did, and his son — and now, I guess, they’re finding also Romania; that just came out today. Or some other country. And I’m sure there are more than that,” the president said. Hunter Biden agreed to work for Popoviciu at a time when Popoviciu was being targeted by an anti-corruption campaign that had been championed by Joe Biden and other Western leaders.
At one point, Hunter Biden approached Mark Gitenstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Romania during President Barack Obama’s first term, to discuss the possibility of referring the Popoviciu case to Freeh, according to someone familiar with the conversation. Popoviciu hired both firms, according to four people familiar with the arrangements. Popoviciu could not be reached for comment.Freeh’s firm started work for the Romanian businessman in July 2016, shortly after Popoviciu was initially convicted by a Romanian court.
What horseshit. Biden isn’t ethical because his son collected bribe money instead of him. Biden is the corrupt one. He sold his office. You ignore the timing of these transactions rather conveniently. Hunter Biden isn’t the issue.
'work'.