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Burisma, the Ukrainian-owned energy company where Hunter Biden landed a lucrative position as a board member during his father’s vice presidency, retained a New York law firm and registered as a foreign agent this week amid an ongoing Republican-led impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, according to a report.
The company retained the services of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, according to the federal government’s Foreign Agent Registration Act database, and appears to be registering for work done back in 2016, the report said.
On Friday, Natalie Winters with The National Pulse posted screenshots of the filings on the X platform, while repeating an allegation made in the past about Hunter by several Republican lawmakers.
BREAKING: Burisma, the Ukraine gas giant that paid Hunter Biden millions, just lawyered up.
The company and its founder retained the white-shoe law firm Cravath according to the Foreign Agent Registration Act database.
They're clearly terrified of a Biden impeachment inquiry. pic.twitter.com/KT4swYRDM5
— Natalie Winters (@nataliegwinters) January 5, 2024
🚨🚨🚨
The criminal law firm representing Burisma, the Ukraine gas giant paying Hunter Biden millions, just registered as a Foreign Agent for its work in 2016.
This proves once and for all Hunter Biden violated FARA.
The firm was trying to prevent an investigation from the… pic.twitter.com/V7sRcmqabV
— Natalie Winters (@nataliegwinters) January 5, 2024
“This proves once and for all Hunter Biden violated FARA,” she claimed, though it is not clear that is the case. “The firm was trying to prevent an investigation from the Obama admin and got meetings with high-level appointees including key anti-Trump impeachment witness Marie Yovanovitch. Hunter Biden was engaged in the same exact work. Will he get raided like Rudy Giuliani?”
The filing says: “In January 2016, Mr. Buretta [Burisma’s lawyer] was retained to represent Mykola Zlochevsky in connection with possible investigations by governmental authorities in the United States.”
“The representation thereafter broadened to include Burisma Holdings Limited, as well as governmental investigations in Ukraine, and continued until April 2017. The representation of Burisma was governed by the same engagement letter with Mykola Zlochevsky and included both registrable and non-registrable activities,” the filing adds.
In 2022, then-special counsel John Durham expanded his prosecutorial team by appointing Adam Small, whose official LinkedIn page said that he is a “Trial Attorney with experience prosecuting Espionage Act, trade secret/economic espionage, sanctions/export control, FARA, wire fraud, money laundering, cyber, and RICO offenses.”
His page says that he worked for the United States Department of Justice and “investigated and prosecuted crimes involving the Espionage Act, Foreign Agents Registration Act, export control, and state-sponsored cyber intrusions. Coordinate and supervise investigations of unauthorized disclosures of classified information.”
In September, the GOP-led House Weighs and Means Committee made public several crucial documents just hours before the chamber began its inaugural hearing in the impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden.
One document appeared to substantiate earlier speculations that, at least in the beginning, the FBI and IRS conducted an investigation into Hunter Biden for potential breaches of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), which mandates the disclosure of any lobbying efforts on behalf of foreign entities. In August 2020, Delaware Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa Wolfe communicated to agents, instructing them, “Please focus on FARA evidence only.”
In addition, the same email provided smoking gun evidence of how Justice Department prosecutors stopped agents from pursuing certain leads regarding cases involving Hunter Biden, including all mentions of Joe Biden. “There should be nothing about Political Figure 1 in here,” Wolfe noted as well.
USA Today reported in October: “While grappling with gun charges and a tax investigation, Hunter Biden faces potentially a third set of charges: His decision not to register as a “foreign agent” while working with companies in Ukraine and China.”
“The inquiry comes as the Justice Department recalibrates its enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, for people to report their work for foreign governments trying to influence U.S. policy,” the report added, noting further that an inspector general’s recent report found that enforcement of the law is “rare” and considered mostly of requesting offending parties to retroactively register as foreign agents.
“In this highly politicized atmosphere, Justice Department special counsel David Weiss is investigating whether Hunter Biden should have registered his overseas work,” the report continued. “Congressional Republicans argue Biden is getting preferential treatment as the president’s son. And one of Hunter Biden’s lawyers, Abbe Lowell, won the acquittal of another defendant charged with acting as a foreign agent.”
