Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist and The Epoch Times’ Editor-at-Large Roger Simon in-studio to comment on the pending federal investigation of Hunter Biden’s tax and foreign consulting work.
Leahy: We are joined in-studio by all-star panelist Roger Simon. Roger, there’s a story yesterday at the Washington Examiner.
Headline: “Hunter Biden and Department of Justice, headed by Merrick Garland, Was appointed by Hunter’s father, Joe.”
Simon: Yes.
Leahy: Could reach the settlement for a significant fine, according to reports. Let me just read the first couple of paragraphs here and get your reaction.
“The federal investigation into Hunter Biden appears to be coming to a head, according to a new report. Prosecutors examining Biden’s tax and foreign consulting work meant in recent weeks to discuss whether to move forward with a high-profile case.”
This is what The New York Times reported on Tuesday. The Justice Department, headed by Merrick Garland …
Simon: Yes.
Leahy: I don’t know if I mentioned, appointed by Hunter’s dad, Joe Biden.
Simon: I thought you meant appointed by Caligula.
Leahy: Really. (Chuckles) That’s good. Is expected to make a final decision on whether to bring criminal or civil charges or try to reach a settlement that could include a significant fine in the coming months against the president’s 52-year-old son.
Whatever the decision is, Attorney General Merrick Garland will have the final say. Let me just stop for a moment. Shouldn’t Merrick Garland recuse himself on this?
Simon: Yes. Half the government should. Here’s the sad thing is, they’ll do anything to hide from the public what really happened.
So that’s what that’s all about. And when I said the Caligula statement there, Joe Biden isn’t the worst president of all time. He’s the worst president since Caligula. (Leahy laughs)
Leahy: Boom!
Simon: I’m sorry to tell you, that’s the truth.
Leahy: Biden’s financial affairs, including millions of dollars’ worth of dealings and money transfers, tied to countries such as … Ukraine…
Simon: Really?
Leahy: … China, and Russia, have been under federal.
Simon: I thought that was all Trump? I got it wrong.
Leahy: Some of the files associated with a laptop believed to have belonged to Biden. Believed? It’s been verified.
Simon: Yes.
Leahy: Are being scrutinized for possible violations of tax money laundering and foreign lobbying laws. One of the emails on that said he had to give 10 percent to the big guy. I wonder who the big guy might be?
Simon: Caligula. I just want to say one thing about things reported by The New York Times, because I used to write for The New York Times. Anything you read in The New York Times is propaganda. That’s it!
Leahy: A grand jury in Wilmington, Delaware – that would be Delaware, the state that Joe Biden lives in, the state that Joe Biden represented in the United States Senate from 1972-74 to 2008 – has been gathering evidence in recent months.
A witness was even asked to identify the infamous “big guy” mentioned in discussions regarding a Chinese business deal involving Biden, the New York Post reported.
So, Roger, all of this money that went from Burisma, the Ukrainian national gas company that paid Hunter Biden for several years – what was it, like $80,000 a month?
Simon: I think it was a little bit less.
Leahy: $50,000 a month. Give or take a few.
Simon: A lot of money considering our economy is currently going into the tank, as everybody knows.
Leahy: I think it was like over two or three years.
Simon: The stock market is in panic.
Leahy: The stock market has been down dramatically, I think 10 or 15 percent over the past month. Here’s the thing to ask about this, to tie into Ukraine. So now the big deal is, clearly, Russia’s aggression is unwarranted.
No question about it. The invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin manufactured a reason to invade. The invasion is slogging along, not going that well, but still, thousands of Ukrainians have been killed.
Apparently, there’s a report that tens of thousands have been taken to, in essence, concentration camps inside of Russia. These are all potential war crimes of World War II-level variety going on.
Meanwhile, though, Putin has 6,000 nuclear warheads. It’s very different than Hitler in 1939 in that respect because Hitler didn’t have nuclear warheads at that time.
Simon: Yes. The V-2 [the world’s first long-range guided ballistic missile], that was it.
Leahy: Yes. But that didn’t even happen until after, or to the middle of, World War II. But here’s the thing: There was a vote in Congress yesterday that they jammed through, this bill that nobody read, but it was to give $40 billion in aid to Ukraine.
John Rose and three other members of the Republican delegation in the US House of Representatives from Tennessee voted against it. And his reasoning was, ‘After President Biden’s disastrous and deadly Afghanistan withdrawal, I have no confidence in the Biden administration’s ability to tactically disperse $40 billion in aid to Ukraine.’
Simon: Absolutely not. He’s 100 percent correct. In fact, it’s really kind of repellent that we gave that much money to the unsupervised Biden and administration of crackpots.
And I’ll tell you something, right now in the United States of America, there is a shortage of baby formula. That’s never happened in anybody’s lifetime.
Leahy: Well, it’s because of the actions of the CDC to shut down an Abbott Lab plant in Michigan. Apparently, there was some contamination there.
A couple of babies allegedly died because of it. But I think they controlled like 30, 40 percent of the supply of baby formula.
Simon: Everybody who’s been in the supermarket sees what a horrible situation we’re in right now. And instead, we’re giving all this money to Ukraine.
This is for the kind of ego of the people who are voting this money and they’re voting your money, not theirs. A little bit of theirs.
Leahy: Yes. I was watching Tucker Carlson last night and he said, okay, the American economy is falling apart. The border wall is not being built. Tens of thousands of illegal aliens are invading the country every month.
It’s going to be more. And the priority in Washington is to give $40 billion that we don’t have to Ukraine. The priorities seem to be off there, Roger.
Simon: Off is a small word for it. They’re nuts. We’re living in the strangest times and I’m not a kid anymore. I wish I were. I can’t remember anything like this. Not Vietnam, nothing.
Leahy: The situation in Ukraine, it seems to me that sitting from this studio here on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee, and without any military experience myself, it’s very hard for me to kind of judge that situation.
I will say that it’s an egregious invasion of a sovereign country by Russia. But the question is, what is the proper role of the United States, given the fact that Vladimir Putin has 6,000 nuclear warheads?
Listen to the interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Hunter Biden and Joe Biden” by Louise Palanker. CC BY-SA 2.0.