Article is a compilation of data from a Daily Mail article, written by inosmi.ru editorial staff.
[ColonelCassad] The US Department of Justice is hiding 400 pages of confidential documents about the deals of the son and brother of US President Hunter and Jim Biden with China, Russia and Ukraine, The Daily Mail newspaper writes, citing American lawyer Kevin Evans.
Colorado attorney Kevin Evans sued the Justice Department in March after it failed to comply with his request to provide documents on the Bidens' business transactions. Evans requested materials under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
He requested information about "any relationship, communication, gift and/or reward in any form" between Biden and China, Russia or Ukraine. Evans said government lawyers admitted in court for the first time that there were at least 400 pages of "potentially important" documents.
Evans' attorney claims the Justice Department is now trying to shirk responsibility, saying they can't "neither confirm nor deny" the existence of any documents matching his request.
The Justice Department is trying to prevent the disclosure of 400 pages of confidential documents about the deals of Hunter and Jim Biden (brother of US President Joe Biden - Approx. InoSMI) with China, Russia and Ukraine, pretending that they do not exist.
Colorado lawyer Kevin Evans sued the ministry in March after it failed to comply with its request for Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reports on the Biden deals.
Evans, an expert on the Freedom of Information Act, requested documents relating to "any relationship, communication, gift and/or reward in any form" between the president's son Hunter or his brother Jim and China, Russia or Ukraine.
He said government lawyers first admitted in court that they had at least 400 pages of "potentially important" documents, but are now trying to shirk responsibility by saying they can't "neither confirm nor deny" the existence of any material. corresponding to his request.
Justice Department Attorney David Weiss is currently reviewing a criminal case against Hunter Biden with potential charges of money laundering, illegal lobbying and tax crimes in connection with overseas business transactions.
400 pages is not the only cache of Biden records that is being requested from the government.
As Business Insider reported this month, the National Archives and Records Administration is preparing to release hundreds of internal documents from the Obama White House containing information about Hunter's relationship with the controversial Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
Joe Biden was vice president at the time and was in charge of relations with Ukraine. His son served on the Burisma board of directors, earning $83,000 a month.
The Biden administration could veto the publication, but must decide by February whether to use executive privilege to shut them out of the public until 2029.
The submissions date back to 2014 and include 69 images and 260 emails that mention Burisma.
The next hearing on Evans' request will take place in January.
This Greenwood Village, Colorado lawyer said he filed his request under the Freedom of Information Act in November 2020 after reading about the Bidens' overseas business dealings and the Justice Department held his request for nearly two years before than he eventually sued them.
"They ended up producing about 60 pages of documents, but they are all letters from senators and congressmen asking about Hunter and letters from the Justice Department in response," he said.
"Then at the end of last year they said, 'Yes, we have these 400 pages of potentially relevant documents, but we need to review them.
' extensive search and found 400 potentially relevant documents."
Evans said the government hesitated for a few more months and then came up with a confusing new argument: they can't "neither confirm nor deny" the existence of any records.
Government agencies have legal precedent for statements like Evans's, allowing them to avoid disclosing information that could be detrimental to national security.
The precedent goes back to a 1975 Los Angeles Times article about a rescue ship secretly built by the CIA to salvage a sunken Soviet submarine.
The newspaper in question then filed a Freedom of Information Act request, and the agency replied that it could "neither confirm nor deny" that it had material on the USNS Hughes Glomar Explorer. The answer, upheld by the courts, became known as the "Glomar answer".
"I don't know how the hell they can now think that the Glomar precedent applies here as well," Evans said.
But the lawyer believes that the government will try its best to avoid disclosure of documents.
"I'm sure they will push for a simplified review of the FOIA privacy exceptions to avoid having to produce these documents," he said.
"But I don't think they will be able to pull it off in this case, especially when they have disclosed and officially documented the existence of potentially important documents.
"The problem is that the FOIA has become toothless. The courts do not respect the spirit of the law, they go out of their way to accept the position of the government than to force it to disclose sensitive material."
Emails from Hunter's laptop obtained by the DailyMail and whistleblower testimony confirm he was involved in a multi-million dollar deal with a Chinese oil giant with close ties to the Chinese government.
Bank records show that Hunter's Chinese business partners transferred $10 million to their joint venture.
And emails, text messages and whistleblower accounts suggest that Joe Biden knew about the deal and may even have been involved in it.
The most infamous example is a 2017 email from one of Hunter's business associates, James Gilliar, stating that Hunter will own a 10% stake in the deal on behalf of "Big Uncle" - a reference to his father.
Says Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin:
This topic will obviously be exaggerated by the Republicans until the 2024 elections.
Democrats using administrative resources will obviously sabotage this investigation.