Four Bombshells Revealed in Peter Schweizer’s ‘Profiles in Corruption’

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Spencer Platt/Getty, HarperCollins

HANNAH BLEAU

22 Jan 20201,176

14:16

Breitbart News senior contributor and Government Accountability Institute (GAI) President Peter Schweizer’s latest investigative work, Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, contains a trove of egregious findings detailing the backgrounds and connections of a number of progressive leaders, including presidential hopefuls Joe Biden (D) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), both of whom have yet to address the reports.

Notably, the bestselling author’s book does not rely on anonymous sources. It is based on 1,126 hard sources, including corporate and financial documents and legal records, White House visitor logs, lobbyist disclosures, tax liens, and federal criminal trial records.

“Everything we do can be replicated,” Schweizer said during a Tuesday appearance on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily. “We follow the money. We follow the paper trail. So there’s no anonymous sources, and what we simply show you is who’s getting money, when, how, and in what context are they getting that money.”

Breitbart News has extensively detailed a number of the bombshells revealed in the New York Times bestselling author’s latest work.

Schweizer’s book, as Breitbart News has reported, has revealed:

1. James Biden’s firm received $1.5 billion in government contracts, despite having no experience, during the Obama administration 

As Schweizer revealed and Breitbart News detailed, the former vice president’s younger brother managed to land the role as the executive vice president at HillStone International, LLC in 2010, despite a stunning lack of experience in the international development industry. Kevin Justice, the president of HillStone International, was a “longtime Biden family friend,” as Schweizer notes.

Justice, as Breitbart News reported, “was setting out to pursue technology and construction projects in the Middle East” and was keenly interested in the “millions being given to government contractors for the rebuilding of war-torn Iraq—an endeavor Joe Biden was tasked to oversee by President Barack Obama.”

Once again, it appeared Joe’s connection to the White House played a significant part in his family member’s role:

It was likely with such projects in mind that Justice headed to the White House in November 2010. During the visit, the HillStone executive met with Michele Smith, a top aide to then-Vice President Joe Biden. Smith, a fellow Delaware native, was serving as the vice president’s liaison to “global government officials and business executives.”

Although the confines of that meeting have not been made public, the subsequent events seem to imply it was beneficial for both HillStone and the Bidens.

“Less than three weeks later, HillStone announced that the vice president’s brother James would be joining the firm as executive vice president,” Schweizer notes.

When announcing the hire, the company lauded James’s professional career as much as it did his political ties.

…

Six months after James joined HillStone, the firm received a contract to build more than 100,000 homes in Iraq. The deal, which was estimated to be worth upwards of $1.5 billion, was part of a larger $35 billion contract awarded to a South Korean company. At the time it went public, both HillStone and the Obama White House denied Joe Biden had played any role.

While HillStone backed out of the deal due to inexperience with such a vast project, “HillStone secured a $22 million construction contract for the U.S. State Department” in 2012.

2. Frank Biden is linked to projects receiving millions in taxpayer loans from the Obama Administration, despite having no experience. 

The former vice president’s youngest brother saw his business interests balloon with success during the Obama administration, purportedly benefitting from “millions of dollars in taxpayer loans to Caribbean nations.”

As Breitbart News detailed:

Frank Biden first set his sights on the region in 2009, as the Obama administration began to repair the U.S. relationship with Costa Rica. Tensions between the two countries flared under President George W. Bush, most notably on how to deal with drug trafficking.

When President Barack Obama entered the White House, he set out to mend fences in the region in hopes of inaugurating a new era of global cooperation. Leading the charge on that front was Joe Biden, who had long standing ties to the region from his tenure leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Shortly after the new administration took office, Frank Biden began scouting real estate opportunities in Costa Rica. A lawyer by training, Frank was undeterred by his lack of background in international development and decades old legal troubles at home.

As Schweizer notes, despite the professional and personal handicaps, business opportunities were plentiful for Frank, especially after his brother paid a visit to the country.

Schweizer writes, months after the visit:

Costa Rica News announced a new multilateral partnership ‘to reform Real Estate in Latin America’ between Frank Biden, a developer named Craig Williamson, and the Guanacaste Country Club, a newly planned resort. In real terms, Frank’s dream was to build in the jungles of Costa Rica thousands of homes, a world-class golf course, casinos, and an anti-aging center.

The Costa Rican government, knowing of Frank’s connection to the White House, was “eager to cooperate.”

Frank’s vision, however, would require Costa Rica to update its electrical grid. Despite having zero experience in the energy sector, Frank “entered into a partnership with the Costa Rican National Power and Light Company (CNFL) to build a solar power complex in the country’s northwest region.”

Again, Biden’s power and influence appeared to directly benefit a member of “the Biden 5”:

As Breitbart News explained:

In October 2016, the Costa Rican government signed a letter of intent with Sun Fund Americas to build a solar power facility in the country. The project, which involved a company called GoSolar, specifically earmarked more than $6.5 million in taxpayer-backed loans that had been approved in 2015 by the Obama administration’s Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC).

Having found Costa Rica fertile ground, Frank next turned his attention to other parts of the Caribbean, like Jamaica. Once again Frank’s business pivot coincided with a new development in brother’s political career.

The Obama administration had announced in June 2014 it was launching the Caribbean Energy Security Initiative (CESI) under the direction of Joe Biden. Officially, the program was meant to support energy sustainability projects in the region, with American tax dollars helping put together deals for local projects.

One of those projects was the building of a 20-megawatt solar power plant in Jamaica, for which OPIC had approved a $47.5 million loan. Around the same time that project was announced, Sun Fund Americas confirmed that signed a power “purchase power purchase agreement to build a 20-megawatt solar facility in Jamaica.”

In total, between 2009 and the end of the Obama administration, Frank Biden’s Caribbean projects benefited from more than $54 million in U.S. taxpayer loans.

3. Hunter Biden’s firms scored business deals with people and entities tied to the governments of Russia, China, and Kazakhstan, and those deals “reportedly scored him hundreds of millions of dollars.”

While it is now well known that Hunter had unconventional business links to Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma, Profiles in Corruption details how the former vice president’s son, along with his business partner, Devon Archer, used their involvement with the Burnham Financial Group to “make foreign deals with governments and oligarchs.”

Schweizer’s revelation, via Breitbart News:

One of those oligarchs included Nurlan Abduov, the associate of another Kazakh oligarch, Kenges Rakishev. Rakishev is the son-in-law of the former vice prime minister of Kazakhstan, Imangali Tasmagambetov. Tasmagamvetov was also formerly the defense minister, and is now the Kazakh ambassador to Russia.

According to the book, an account Hunter regularly received funds from showed money arriving from a firm run by Rakishev in 2014.

The book also reveals Burnham’s deals with two Chinese companies, Kirin Global Enterprises Limited and Harvest Global Investors:

Kirin Global Enterprise Limited was an investment vehicle run by Xiangyao (or Yaojun) “Larry” Liu and Guo Jianfeng, according to Schweizer. “Very little is known about Kirin or its two principals, other than the fact that they invest heavily in mainland Chinese real estate,” he writes. Harvest Global Investors was a Chinese investment firm linked to the government in Beijing.

Burnham also had a financial relationship with Russian Oligarch Yelena Baturina, a billionaire with extensive political connections in Moscow and links to Russian organized crime, according to Schweizer. Archer said Baturina invested $200 million into “various investment funds” with which he was involved.

Burnham also got wrapped up in a $60 million fraudulent bond scheme to rip off union pension funds and the poorest Indian tribe in America, the Oglala Sioux, Schweizer writes.

In May 2016, Archer was arrested in New York and charged with “orchestrating a scheme to defraud investors and a Native American tribal entity of tens of millions of dollars.”

Some of the targeted were government employee or labor union organizations that had supported Joe Biden in the past. Biden has long described himself as a “union man.”

Although Hunter Biden was not charged, Schweizer writes, “his fingerprints were all over Burnham.” The legitimacy that his name and political status as the vice president’s son lent to Burnham was brought up repeatedly during the trial, he writes.

Hunter’s deals are part of an established pattern with the Biden family, using Joe’s influence and position to enrich themselves, Profiles in Corruption demonstrates.

4. Elizabeth Warren’s son-in-law, with whom she is close, produced a film backed by the Iranian government.

Profiles in Corruption blows the lid off many of Warren’s little-known corporate and international ties. One of those connections is directly tied to her son-in-law, Sushil Tyagi, husband of her daughter Amelia.

While Tyagi remains a largely mysterious figure, he is close to his mother-in-law. Warren and her husband even served as witnesses for a power of attorney corporate document he filed in India in December 2009. However, Tyagi “has been involved in a series of curious—even troubling—business ventures around the world,” as Schweizer reveals.

One of those questionable ties involves his production company Tricolor Films, which produced a film directed by Iranian filmmaker Majid Majidi, titled The Song of Sparrows. As Schweizer reveals, the film’s chief investors were “funded and controlled by the Islamist Iranian government.”

Schweizer writes:

The full credits of the film, for some reason, seem to also have been scrubbed from the internet. We obtained a copy by using the Wayback machine and made a startling discovery: the movie’s chief investors included none other than the social deputy of the State Welfare Organization (SWO) of Iran (SWO-“معاونت اجتماعی سازمان بهزیستی کشور”) as well as the Cultural and Artistic Organization of Tehran. (“سازمان فرهنگی و هنری شهرداری تهران”)

These two investors in the film might appear at first glance to be innocuous cultural organizations—but they are not. Both are funded and controlled by the Islamist Iranian government.

The Cultural and Artistic Organization of Tehran states: “This organization was founded in 1996 and [does] its activities under the supervision of a board of trustees composed of various cultural institutions such as IRIB and Islamic propaganda organization.”

Breitbart News reported on this revelation:

The Cultural and Artistic Organization of Tehran’s page promotes cultural events such as one for school children entitled “The Seal of Hostages,” attended by several top Iranian officials, according to the book.

Another event is the inherently antisemitic Quds Day on the last day of Ramadan. The organization also arranges marches, as well as organizes posters and other materials, for Quds Day. Its site says, “A new plan for the destruction of Israel will be launched, and the Quds Cultural Radio station will be located at the Radio Station. Also, the ‘I love the fight against Israel’ is distributed among the people.”

Schweizer notes, “Quds Day typically features massive crowds organized by the Iranian government chanting ‘death to America’ and burning effigies, with full media coverage.”

He writes Tyagi’s The Song of Sparrows has film credits that read like “who’s who of prominent Iranian government institutions.” For example, there is a thank-you to the “Iranian Revolutionary Guards Air Force.”

Tyagi also produced another film directed by Majid Majidi, but very little is known about it.

“Would Sushil Tyagi’s international business ties ever influence Warren’s decision making?” Schweizer asks. “That is hard to know. What can be known is that his businesses could stand to benefit from her advocacy and proposed policies.”

Schweizer’s book also contains blockbuster revelations on Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti (D).

Check Breitbart News for forthcoming updates on Schweizer’s jolting investigative book.