Our government doesn’t assume that every business investment
opportunity is good for our country, and so there are checks in place,
including something called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States (CFIUS). CFIUS is commissioned to review
“transactions involving foreign investment in the U.S. to determine
the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United
States.”

[WEEKLY UPDATE]

TOM FITTON: JW FILES LAWSUITS ON BIDEN UKRAINE-CHINA SCANDAL; JW
BATTLES IN COURT TO QUESTION CLINTON; TRUMP BOOTS CHINA FROM U.S. PORT

[[link removed]]


JUDICIAL WATCH FILES TWO MORE LAWSUITS ON BIDEN UKRAINE-CHINA SCANDAL

Our government doesn’t assume that every business investment
opportunity is good for our country, and so there are checks in place,
including something called the Committee on Foreign Investment in the
United States (CFIUS). CFIUS
[[link removed]]
is
commissioned to review “transactions involving foreign investment in
the U.S. to determine the effect of such transactions on the national
security of the United States.”

What does CFIUS know about Hunter Biden’s questionable overseas
ventures? The agency is playing its cards close to the vest. So we are
suing the State and Treasury Departments for information on CFIUS’
handling of investments in the U.S. by two companies tied to Joe
Biden’s son, Hunter Biden. The companies are Ukraine’s Burisma
Holdings and China’s Bohai Harvest RST (BHR).

We sued in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after
the departments failed to respond to June 24, 2019, FOIA requests for
CFIUS records related to investments by the Ukrainian company Burisma
Holdings LTD or any of its affiliated entities and records related to
investments by the Chinese company Bohai Harvest RST or any of its
affiliated entities (_Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State_
[[link removed]]
(No.
1:19-cv-02960)), (_Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of the Treasury_
[[link removed]]
(No.
1:19-cv-02961).

Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President Joe Biden, is reported to
be one of nine directors of BHR Partners, which was registered 12
days
[[link removed]]
after
the vice president’s son, in December 2013, flew to Beijing aboard
Air Force Two, while his father made an official visit as vice
president. Hunter Biden, then-chairman of the private equity firm
Rosemont Seneca, reportedly
[[link removed]]
signed
a deal with the Chinese government-owned Bank of China to set up the
BHR $1 billion joint venture investment fund.

In 2015, BHR Partners participated in a $600 million
[[link removed]]
buyout
of Michigan automotive-suspension-systems maker Henniges Automotive.
Henniges produces anti-vibration technologies which have important
military uses, particularly in military aircraft.

In April 2014, Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma Holdings, one
of the Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies. Hunter was
reportedly paid $50,000 a month to, in the words of a Burmisa news
release
[[link removed]],
“provide support for the Company among international organizations."
Biden has denied that was his role.

In 2015, Viktor Shokin, Ukraine’s prosecutor general, launched an
investigation into allegedly corrupt practices by Burisma. Shokin was
ousted in 2016. And in a widely distributed 2018 video
[[link removed]],
Joe Biden confirmed that he had successfully pressured the Ukrainian
government, under threat of withholding $1 billion in U.S. government
aid, to fire Shokin. (In September, we sued
[[link removed]]
the
State Department for records about the firing of Ukraine’s top
prosecutor after then-Vice President Joe Biden threatened to withhold
aid.)

The Commerce Department recently barred over two dozen Chinese
companies from doing business in the U.S., one of which is reported to
be Megvii Technology
[[link removed]],
an artificial intelligence company focused on developing facial
recognition technology
[[link removed]].
BHR Partners
owns a stake in Megvii.

Have no doubt: We will continue to press for information to get to the
bottom of this influence-peddling scandal involving Joe Biden and his
son. As Congress is obsessed with attacking President Trump, it is
again up to us to do the basic investigative work on this growing
scandal.


JUDICIAL WATCH BATTLES IN COURT TO QUESTION HILLARY CLINTON UNDER OATH

Here’s an update on the Clinton email deposition.

A federal court will soon rule on whether Hillary Clinton and her top
aide can be questioned under oath by our lawyers about her email and
Benghazi controversies. The court has already granted us additional
discovery and is now considering Clinton’s objections, filed
on September 23
[[link removed]],
to being questioned. We filed our response to Clinton on October 3
[[link removed]]
(_Judicial
Watch v. U.S. Department of State_
[[link removed]]
(No.
1:14-cv-01242)).

The court previously ordered discovery into three specific areas:
whether Secretary Clinton’s use of a private email server was
intended to stymie FOIA; whether the State Department’s intent to
settle this case in late 2014 and early 2015 amounted to bad faith;
and whether the State Department has adequately searched for records
responsive to our request. The court specifically ordered
[[link removed]]
Obama
administration senior State Department officials, lawyers and Clinton
aides to be deposed or answer written questions under oath. The
court ruled
[[link removed]]
that
the Clinton email system was “one of the gravest modern offenses to
government transparency.”

On August 22, 2019, the court then ruled
[[link removed]]
that
Clinton and Mills had 30 days to oppose being questioned in person
under oath by us related to former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton’s use of a private email server. Additionally, we were
granted seven new depositions, three interrogatories and four document
requests. In granting the additional discovery, U.S. District Court
Judge Royce C. Lamberth commented: “I’ll tell you everything
they’ve discovered in this period raises serious questions about
what the hell the State Department’s doing here.”

Clinton’s lawyers, in opposing the request to question her, argued
that she’s already answered all important questions about her emails
and Benghazi. We reject this, noting her answers about her email use
raise additional, important questions:

Judicial Watch should be permitted to directly question Secretary
Clinton about her motives, thoughts, and efforts regarding the
“convenience” she relies upon in justifying her use of a secret,
private server and email address in direct violation of federal
records laws and State Department policies.
Clinton also suggests that her emails would have been captured by
State Department records systems, which is contradicted by Tasha
Thian
[[link removed]],
a retired senior State records official, we recently questioned:

According to Ms. Thian’s testimony, there are at least six occasions
Secretary Clinton was or should have been fully informed of federal
records management, including email records, and compliance
responsibilities. Yet Secretary Clinton’s actual understanding of
her obligations with respect to official State Department records is
completely absent from the record.
Thian implied that it was inconceivable that Clinton was not aware of
her obligations regarding federal records and email management:

I don’t understand why she would come up with this statements that
she was allowed – or how she would save record email by emailing
another employee’s account. She had resources there aplenty. So it
just doesn’t make sense to me.
[Even before taking office, Secretary Clinton] knew we had a process.

Additionally, Clinton’s former Chief of Staff Huma
Abedin, testifying
[[link removed]]
on
whether Clinton understood that FOIA applied to the clintonemail.com
system, stated that we “would have to ask Mrs. Clinton.”

Hillary Clinton is now joking about her emails even as she seeks to
avoid being questioned on this serious scandal. The court has found
that this email use and cover-up are no joking matter.

Last month, the State Department, under court order, finally provided
[[link removed]]
us
a previously hidden email
[[link removed]],
which shows top State Department officials used and were aware of
Hillary Clinton’s email account.

Our discovery over the last several months found many more details
about the scope of the Clinton email scandal and cover-up:

* John Hackett, former Director of Information Programs and Services
(IPS) testified
[[link removed]]
under
oath that he had raised concerns that former Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton’s staff may have “culled out 30,000” of the
secretary’s “personal” emails without following strict National
Archives standards. He also revealed that he believed there was
interference with the formal FOIA review process related to the
classification of Clinton’s Benghazi-related emails.
* Heather Samuelson, Clinton’s White House liaison at the State
Department, and later Clinton’s personal lawyer, admitted
[[link removed]]
under
oath that she was granted immunity by the Department of Justice in
June 2016.
* Justin Cooper, former aide to President Bill Clinton and Clinton
Foundation employee who registered the domain name of the
unsecure clintonemail.com server that Clinton used while serving as
Secretary of State, testified
[[link removed]]
he worked with Huma Abedin, Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, to
create the non-government email system.
* In the interrogatory responses
[[link removed]]
of
E.W. (Bill) Priestap, assistant director of the FBI
Counterintelligence Division, he stated that the agency found Clinton
email records in the Obama White House, specifically, the Executive
Office of the President.
* Jacob “Jake” Sullivan, Clinton’s senior advisor and deputy
chief of staff when she was secretary of state, testified
[[link removed]]
that
both he and Clinton used her unsecure non-government email system to
conduct official State Department business.
* Eric Boswell, former assistant secretary of state for diplomatic
security during Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, testified
[[link removed]]
that
Clinton was warned twice against using unsecure BlackBerry’s and
personal emails to transmit classified material.

Hillary Clinton said things in those missing emails that she
doesn’t want the world to know. Well, we’re curious.

TRUMP BOOTS CHINESE COMMUNISTS OUT OF U.S. PORT

As the coup cabal assaults the rule of law in Washington, there has
been some important, positive news for our national security. Consider
our reclaiming of a major U.S. port from a Chinese Communist company.
Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the story
[[link removed]].


Under a long-term deal sealed by the Obama administration, a Chinese
Communist company was set to control the second-busiest container port
in the United States. In an unreported Trump administration victory,
the Communists are out after a drawn-out national security review
forced a unit of China-based COSCO Shipping Holdings Co. (Orient
Overseas Container Line—OOCL) to sell the cherished container
terminal business, which handles among the largest freight of imports
into the U.S.

It all started with a 40-year container terminal lease
[[link removed]]
between
the Port of Long Beach in southern California and Hong Kong. The Obama
administration proudly signed the agreement in 2012 giving China
control of America’s second-largest container port behind the nearby
Port of Los Angeles. One of the Trump administration’s first big
moves was to get the Communists out of the Port of Long Beach. After a
national security review and federal intervention, the Long Beach
terminal business, which handles millions of containers annually, is
finally being sold to an Australian company called Macquarie
Infrastructure Partners. That essentially kills China’s decades-long
contract with the Obama administration.

The deal never should have been signed in the first place considering
the facility’s size, significance and the national security issues
associated with a hostile foreign government controlling it. The
southern California port is the premier U.S. gateway for trans-Pacific
trade, according to its website
[[link removed]],
and handles trade valued at
more than $194 billion annually. It is one of the few ports that can
accommodate the world’s largest vessels and serves 140 shipping
lines with connections to 217 seaports around the world. The facility
encompasses 3,200 acres with 31 miles of waterfront, 10 piers, 62
berths and 68 post-Panamax gantry cranes. In 2018, the Long Beach port
handled more than 8 million container units, achieving the busiest
year in its history.

Removing Chinese Communists from this essential port is a tremendous
feat and a huge victory for U.S. national security. You’d never know
it because the media, consumed with the impeachment debacle, has
ignored this important achievement. The only coverage of the finalized
transfer is found in Long Beach’s local newspaper, which published a
brief article
[[link removed]]
omitting
important background information on the Trump administration’s work
to take back the terminal from the Communists. The story makes it seem
like a regular business transaction in which “a Chinese state-owned
company, reached a deal to sell the terminal, one of the busiest in
the port, for $1.78 billion.” The piece also quotes the Port of
Long Beach’s deputy executive director saying that the transaction
process was intricate and involved one of “our most valuable port
assets.” Buried at the bottom of the article is a sentence
mentioning that the U.S. government, which regulates mergers for
antitrust and security reasons, stepped in and required COSCO to sell
its rights to the container terminal.

In the last few years China has bought cargo ports throughout the
world, including in Latin America, the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean
Sea. Chinese-owned ports are located in Greece, Italy, Spain and other
European locations. In sub-Saharan Africa there are dozens of existing
or planned port projects funded or operated by China, according to
a study
[[link removed]]
that
highlights the threat the Chinese investments present to U.S.
influence in the region. One troubling analysis
[[link removed]]
points
out that “COSCO’s commercial expansion has created leverage for
Beijing — leverage that has already resulted in countries that host
COSCO ports adopting China’s position on key international
issues.”
Until next week,





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