A former U.S. attorney who urged the Justice Department to investigate allegations against President Joe Biden in 2018 says he was “stonewalled” when he tried to bring the allegations to the attention of the Department of Justice.
In 2018, former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins of Arkansas sought to interest the U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman of New York in a conversation with Ukrainian officials who said that Biden, during his time as vice president, was involved in Ukrainian issues concerning Burisma holdings, an energy company with which Hunter Biden was involved, according to Just the News.
At that time, Cummins wrote Berman that Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko believes “VP Biden (and Sec State Kerry) exercised influence to protect Burisma Holdings in exchange for payments to Hunter Biden, (business partner) Devon Archer, and Joe Biden.”
Cummins did not present the allegations as fact, noting in one email, “All I have been told is that the person who made the transfers was told that ‘one goes to Joe Biden.’ A little thin.”
However, he wrote Berman that the claim went that there was proof of money that went for the company to Joe Biden, who has denied any connection with any of Hunter Biden’s business ventures.
The only thing to happen from the effort to investigate the claim was that in December 2019, the Justice Department obtained Cummins’ phone records.
“I can’t really imagine a legitimate reason for the DOJ not to follow up on an offer like that. I felt like it was stonewalled,” Cummins said, according to the New York Post.
“It doesn’t make much sense to investigate the guy who brings you the allegation rather than the allegation,” he said.
Cummins said it was “perverse that you report an allegation of a pretty serious crime and they don’t investigate [it] but they were investigating you.”
At the time he contacted Berman, Cummins was a partner at the Washington-based lobbying firm Avenue Strategies, according to ABC.
Berman “was a little dismissive” on the phone, Cummins said, which led to a series of emails that never brought any response.
Cummins told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2019 that his job was to put information where it belonged, not conduct his own investigation.
“It’s basically a simple deal. Some people came to me with allegations. I tried to take them to the place I thought that something like that should be handled confidentially and professionally and officially. It didn’t work out, and I dropped it. I didn’t try to misuse the information and inject it into the general political debate,” he said.
Cummins said that he believed the facts presented to him were enough to trigger an investigation, and said it would be a “breathtaking double standard” if no investigation were conducted, given the scrutiny applied to former President Donald Trump.
“I had no qualms then; I have no qualms now. They came to me with allegations; they were purely that. They claimed to have evidence to back it up and wanted to have an audience with real law enforcement. I tried to make that happen, and I was unsuccessful,” he said.
Comer & Grassley will be holding a press conference on Wednesday 👀
Comer just sent a message to the DOJ:
“Do not indict Hunter Biden before Wednesday…
We know exactly what this family was doing…
Wednesday will be a very big day for the American people…”
LFG! pic.twitter.com/r6J2AdccDb
— TheStormHasArrived (@TheStormRedux) May 7, 2023
Last week, two top congressional Republicans — House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa — said they were seeking details on an allegation the FBI received in 2020 concerning the president during the years he was vice president.
“The information provided by a whistleblower raises concerns that then-Vice President Biden allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national. The American people need to know if President Biden sold out the United States of America to make money for himself. Senator Grassley and I will seek the truth to ensure accountability for the American people,” Comer said last week in a statement.
via westernjournal
