John Kirby walks out when asked about Hunter Biden’s message to Chinese businessman

I wrote about the Whats App message last night. In case you missed it, Hunter Biden was staying in the guest house of his father’s Delaware home in 2017. We know he was there on the specific day he sent this message because there are photos of him in Joe Biden’s car that day. Here’s the message Hunter sent one of his Chinese business associates from Biden’s home:

I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.

Today, John Kirby got a question from Newsmax’s White House Correspondent James Rosen about that text message. Kirby, whose title is Coordinator for Strategic Communications at the National Security Council in the White House, refused to answer (beyond a single no) and then walked out.

Chaos ensues in the White House briefing room after @JamesRosenTV asks Biden spokesman John Kirby about the explosive whistleblower allegations in the Hunter Biden criminal investigation.

Kirby refuses to comment and walks out of the room. pic.twitter.com/YTXU8saNLi

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 23, 2023

Unfortunately for White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, Rosen’s colleagues were also interested in the answer to his question and they spent several minutes trying to get her to answer them. I’ve included the full video below but all Jean-Pierre would say is that her colleague at the White House Counsel’s office had already answered the question.

I don’t think it takes a lot of insight to recognize that the goal here is to avoid a) saying anything that might generate news and b) say anything from the White House podium that could wind up in a campaign ad even if it’s not news. Their plan is to say nothing. So has the White House Counsel’s office already given an answer to questions about this text message as Karine Jean-Pierre claimed repeatedly. CNN says not really.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, pressed repeatedly on the issue, referred questions to the White House Counsel’s Office, insisting the matter had been addressed.

Ian Sams, a spokesman for the counsel’s office, said in an email that Joe Biden hadn’t been in business with his son. But he did not specifically provide information about Joe Biden’s whereabouts when Hunter texted the Chinese businessman on July 30, 2017.

“As we have said many times before, the President was not in business with his son,” he wrote. “As we have also said many times before, the Justice Department makes decisions in its criminal investigations independently, and in this case, the White House has not been involved.”

But neither said definitively whether Joe Biden was with Hunter when the text was sent.

Asked whether Joe Biden had been involved in coercive business dealings by his son, Jean-Pierre said: “I appreciate the question. I believe my colleague at the White House counsel has answered this question already, has dealt with this, has made it very clear. I just don’t have anything to share outside of what my colleagues have shared.”

Saying “the President was not in business with his son” is not an answer. Was Biden there? Was he home that day? Was he sitting with Hunter? Did he know Hunter was using his name and connections to threaten people? You don’t have to be in business with someone to participate in a threat they are making. Even if Joe Biden didn’t know then, what does he think about it now? These are all very legitimate questions. Nothing coming out of the White House today came close to answering them.

As for the claim that the DOJ makes independent decisions about its investigations, that claim was also directly challenged by the whistleblower I wrote about last night. Gary Shapley said he and others involved in the investigation were explicitly told by Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss that both Washington DC and California had refused to allow him to bring any charges against Hunter for financial crimes that happened in those jurisdictions. This is from Shapley’s statement:

From March 2022 through October 7th, 2022, I was under the impression that, based on AG Garland’s testimony before Congress and statements by U.S. Attorney Weiss and prosecutors, that they were still deciding whether to charge 2014 and 2015 tax violations.

However, I would later be told by United States Attorney Weiss that the D.C. U.S. Attorney would not allow U.S. Attorney Weiss to charge those years in his district. This resulted in United States Attorney Weiss requesting special counsel authority from Main DOJ to charge in the District of Columbia. I don’t know if he asked before or after the Attorney General’s April 26th, 2022, statement, but Weiss said his request for that authority was denied and that he was told to follow DOJ’s process.

That process meant no charges would ever be brought in the District of Columbia, where the statute of limitations on the 2014 and ’15 charges would eventually expire.

Hunter was given special protection and now they have no explanation for why it happened. Stay tuned because Beege has a post coming up about Merrick Garland’s failure to answer questions about all of this earlier in the day. Here’s the briefing cued up to a follow-up question which Jean-Pierre dodged.