Hunter Biden fires back after PI claims secret bank records 'verify' $156M counterfeiting scheme
Hunter Biden's attorneys fired back Monday after a private investigation firm again attempted to stage a highly unusual intervention in
his ongoing child-custody dispute in Arkansas, this time claiming its
investigators have lawfully obtained access to Biden's bank account
records and confirmed his involvement in a massive, $156 million
"counterfeiting scheme."
In a motion to strike,
Biden's legal team unconditionally denied the unverified claims, and
called the effort by the Florida-based D&A Investigations another
obviously bogus "scheme by a non-party simply to make scandalous
allegations in the pending suit to gain media attention without any
material or pertinent material."
D&A claimed in its most recent filing Dec.
27 with the court in Independence County, Ark., that it has provided
attorneys for Lunden Alexis Roberts, who was seeking custody over the
child she said Hunter Biden fathered, "access to [Hunter Biden's] bank
account records subject of known felonies including fraud and
counterfeiting." D&A was seeking to be added as a party to the case,
claiming it could support Roberts' accusations and prove that Biden was
involved in illegal activity while dodging discovery quests.
D&A
alleged that the "bank account records bear exhibit identifier(s) known
by [Hunter Biden] as the subject of criminal investigation(s) both
adjudicated and ongoing, of which he is a party to." The firm also
claimed the bank records "provide the source and destination bank
account numbers of Burisma Holdings Limited, PrivatBank, Bank of China,
[Hunter Biden's] business partners, Rosement Seneca Bohai," and others.
Speaking
to Fox News late Monday, D&A claimed the FBI and Justice Department
have been investigating PrivatBank, the Ukrainian natural gas company
Burisma, Biden and others since April 2019 -- and that the investigation
remained open. The FBI did not return a request for comment from Fox
News.
The
bank records "verify the counterfeiting scheme accumulating
$156,073,944.24 with an average account value (monthly balance) in the
amount of $6,785,823.66." Burisma, the filing claimed, financed
"Atlantic Council (Ukraine) and associated rogue operatives from the
[U.S. State Department], FVEY, and CrowdStrike in Ukraine, suing
PrivatBank."
Hunter Biden held a lucrative role on the board of
Burisma while his father oversaw Ukraine policy as vice president,
prompting even career State Department officials to flag a possible conflict of interest. CrowdStrike
is a cybersecurity company that Trump said possessed the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) server that was hacked during the 2016 campaign
-- a claim that fact-checkers repeatedly have said was wholly invented.
Biden's
attorneys did not immediately respond to Fox News' requests for comment
late Monday. But, the lawyers told the court that D&A's motion to
intervene was riddled with falsehoods and clearly procedurally improper,
and that Arkansas law required that intervening parties share some
common issue with the existing case.
D&A had not even
attempted to explain how its latest filing complied with the law,
Biden's team said, noting that the latest motion to intervene simply
outlined a series of accusations with no legal or factual support.
The
court has not yet ruled on Biden's latest motion to strike. Shortly
after Biden's team filed, an individual in Jerusalem, Joel Caplan, filed his own bizarre motion to intervene,
saying he has lost money in the "China hustle." After saying his
investments were "basically robbed" overseas, Caplan ended his motion by
telling the court, "Thank you for your time!"
This photo obtained exclusively by Fox News showed Devon Archer,
far left, with former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, far
right, in 2014. Joe Biden has denied ever discussing his son's overseas
business dealings; Archer served with Hunter Biden on the board of
Ukraine-based Burisma Holdings.
D&A was the same firm that worked with the
defense team of Casey Anthony, a Florida woman acquitted of murdering
her child in a highly publicized trial in 2011. Anthony later accused the private investigator of smearing her for media attention.
And, D&A's website is full of head-turning and unsubstantiated claims,
including that CNN anchor Jake Tapper was a "propaganda actor" for
Netflix. The website also called Democrats' impeachment efforts against
Trump a "sham."
The legal saga began last week. D&A asserted in a Dec. 23 "Notice of Fraud and Counterfeiting and Production of Evidence" filed
with the Arkansas court that the 49-year-old Biden was the subject of
multiple criminal probes and "established bank and financial accounts
with Morgan Stanley et al" for Burisma for a "money laundering scheme."
The court quickly struck that filing, saying it had violated state procedural rules which required that intervening parties raise a claim that shared a "question of law or fact in common" with the existing case.
Then,
the firm told Fox News to expect another filing soon -- and asserted
its investigators have found that the intelligence community
whistleblower at the center of the Democrats' impeachment of President
Trump accompanied Joe Biden when he traveled to Ukraine in early 2016 and, by his own admission, pressured the country's government to fire its top prosecutor by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid.
The whistleblower's attorney, Mark Zaid, did not respond to Fox News' request for comment on D&A's claims, which Fox News has not independently verified. Zaid previously has acknowledged that
the whistleblower had "contact" with presidential candidates of both
parties, amid reports that he had a "professional working relationship"
with one of the Democrats seeking the White House in 2020.
Zaid openly declared that a "coup has started" against the administration all the way back in 2017, and promised that impeachment would result.
D&A's
incendiary claims highlighted some unanswered questions that could
arise in a possible GOP-led impeachment trial in the Senate. Most
notably, after leaving the vice presidency, Joe Biden attended a
conference at which he discussed a previously unreported meeting in
Ukraine for the first time.
"I said, 'I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars,'" Biden boasted at the conference.
"I said, 'You’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here
in --,' I think it was about six hours. I looked at them and said, 'I’m
leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting
the money.' Well, son of a b----. He got fired, and they put in place
someone who was solid at the time."
The prosecutor, Viktor Shokin,
was fired in March 2016, and had widely been accused of corruption
himself. However, publicly available records showed that Joe Biden did not officially travel to Ukraine in 2016.
Meanwhile,
in her filing in the case, the 28-year-old Roberts claimed Hunter Biden
has "had no involvement in the child's life since the child's birth,
never interacted with the child, never parented the child," and "could
not identify the child out of a photo lineup."
DNA tests allegedly confirmed "with scientific certainty" that Hunter Biden was the biological father of Roberts' baby, according to court documents filed in November.
Joe Biden tangled with a Fox News reporter when asked about that development.
"I'm
wondering if you have a comment on this report, and court filing, out
of Arkansas, that your son Hunter just made you a grandfather again,"
Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked.
"No, that’s a private matter and I have no comment," Biden fired back before attacking the reporte
"Only you would ask that," Biden said. "You're a good man. You're a good man. Classy."
Hunter Biden reportedly is expecting a child with his wife Melissa Cohen Biden, whom he married this past May. Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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