Democrats Say US Senate Hunter Biden Probe Rooted In Russian Disinformation - Statement

The Republican Senate probe into Hunter Biden's transactions with foreign officials in Ukraine and Russia earning him millions of dollars was rooted in a Russian disinformation effort to reelect President Donald Trump and undermine US security, two Democratic senators said in a release on Wednesday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 23rd September, 2020) The Republican Senate probe into Hunter Biden's transactions with foreign officials in Ukraine and Russia earning him millions of Dollars was rooted in a Russian disinformation effort to reelect President Donald Trump and undermine US security, two Democratic senators said in a release on Wednesday.

"The Chairmen's investigation is the result of Russian attempts to influence the 2020 presidential election and benefit President Trump's reelection by denigrating Vice President Biden and manipulating US political institutions to aid in efforts to weaken US democracy and national security," Senators Gary Peters and Ron Wyden said in the release.

The Republican report on Hunter Biden uncovered no evidence despite extensive investigation into wrongdoing by his father, then vice president and now Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, the release said.

Peters and Wyden noted that the investigation has included more than 50 hours of transcribed interviews of ten witnesses and reviewed thousands of pages of documents from Federal agencies. However, the finding do not support the premise that Hunter Biden's position on the board of Burisma created a conflict of interest that impacted United States foreign policy, the release said.

US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel has released a summary of 16,000 pages of State Department documents that, he said, undercut the Senate Republican "smear" against Biden.

Earlier on Wednesday, two Senate committees announced in a press release announced that the Republican-led probe uncovered evidence that Hunter Biden conducted "millions of dollars" worth of questionable transactions with foreign individuals, including with the wife of the former Mayor of Moscow Yuri Luzhkov.

The months-long investigation by the two Senate committees uncovered questionable transactions that included a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the then-mayor of Moscow, to Biden in February 2014, the release said.

The Republican probe also found that Biden gave money to women from Russia and other Eastern European countries who appeared to be linked to either prostitution or human trafficking and uncovered evidence of "millions of dollars in questionable transactions" between Biden and his business associates Ye Jianming, Gongwen Dong and other Chinese nationals linked to their government and the People's Liberation Army.

Hunter Biden was a board member at Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Ukraine's former Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin led an investigation into the firm, but the probe was subsequently closed and Shokin was dismissed under pressure by Joe Biden.

From: Martin Sieff - [email protected]