Biden Overdose Awareness Week proclamation makes no mention of China fentanyl

 President Biden proclaimed next week Overdose Awareness Week on Friday, vowing “bold action” to address record-high drug deaths — but failing to name China as the primary exporter of smuggled fentanyl that’s responsible for the mounting toll.

“Every loss is a painful reminder that we must take bold action to end our Nation’s overdose epidemic. During Overdose Awareness Week, we reaffirm our commitment to beating this public health and public safety epidemic — in memory of all those we have lost and to protect all the lives we can still save,” Biden said in a statement.

The total number of US drug overdose deaths increased slightly last year to nearly 111,000, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Fentanyl is the primary cause, killing roughly 76,000 Americans in 2022, an increase from about 72,000 in 2021, according to CDC data.

Deaths are up dramatically under Biden, who rarely mentions that China is the leading producer of the potent synthetic opioid that’s mixed into drugs such as cocaine and counterfeit prescriptions, killing unwitting and disproportionately young users.

About 58,000 Americans died from fentanyl in 2020 during former President Donald Trump’s final full year in office, though that toll was up significantly from more than 37,000 in 2019 and about 32,000 in 2018.

China broke off counter-narcotics talks with the US in protest of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan last August.

The Wall Street Journal reported last month that the Biden administration is considering easing unrelated sanctions on Chinese officials in exchange for renewed cooperation.

Republicans generally are much more aggressive toward China on issues ranging from fentanyl deaths to the need for transparency on the origins of COVID-19 and are making it a campaign issue ahead of next year’s election.

The total number of US drug overdose deaths increased slightly last year to nearly 111,000, according to data from the CDC.

TNS

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, said Wednesday at the first Republican primary debate that “the Chinese are engaging in an act of war against us, killing our citizens. We better make that priority one in our conversations with China.”

The five-year US death toll from fentanyl is about 275,000.

By comparison, US officials estimate that about 190,000 Russian and Ukrainian troops have died in 18 months of intense fighting.

Trump, who is the top-polling Republican presidential candidate despite facing four criminal cases, has accused Biden of being beholden to Beijing due to a pair of business deals involving his son Hunter Biden and brother James Biden — and in which Joe Biden also allegedly was involved.

Trump claimed in a video published last week that Biden “was bribed and now he’s being blackmailed” by China.

“He’s petrified of China because they know exactly how much money has been given to him and they know exactly where it is. China has paid him a fortune,” said Trump, who routinely mentioned fentanyl’s source as president and claimed he pressured Chinese President Xi Jinping into adopting the death penalty for exporters.

Republican presidential candidate and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley said earlier this month, “Over the past few months, [Biden] sent three members of his administration to make nice with China and got nothing done on fentanyl,” referring to recent visits by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and climate envoy John Kerry.

Biden didn’t mention fentanyl during the public portion of his first in-person meeting with Xi last November and also didn’t mention it during the publicly aired portion of a virtual meeting with Xi in 2021.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is seeking the GOP presidential nomination, said that “the Chinese are engaging in an act of war against us, killing our citizens. We better make that priority one in our conversations with China.”

AP

Although Biden did not name China — or Mexico, through which much of the Chinese-sourced fentanyl is smuggled — his 820-word Overdose Awareness Week proclamation hails administration efforts to intercept the drug at the US border.

“My Administration is … disrupting the flow of illicit drugs by making it costlier to bring killer drugs into America; going after drug traffickers’ profits; and targeting their financial networks, supply chains, and delivery routes, including on the internet,” he said.

“We have strengthened coordination and information sharing among our intelligence and domestic law enforcement agencies to dismantle drug traffickers and their networks. So far, my Administration has seized more than 1.6 million pounds of drugs before they crossed the border and entered into our communities, including over 42,500 pounds of illicitly manufactured fentanyl.”

Fentanyl killed roughly 76,000 Americans in 2022, according to CDC data.

REUTERS

Biden added: “Drug overdose deaths leveled off in 2022 after sharp increases from 2019 to 2021. Now, we must double down on this work, which is why my proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024 requests a historic $46.1 billion for national drug control programs.”

House Republicans, meanwhile, are threatening to launch an impeachment inquiry as early as next month into Biden’s role in his family’s dealings in countries such as China during and immediately after his vice presidency.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) this month called on Biden to “give us his bank records” to show he wasn’t involved.

Biden has sought to brush off questions about financial conflicts of interest in China, claiming in March “that’s not true” when asked about three relatives — Hunter, James and daughter-in-law Hallie — receiving $1 million from a Chinese energy company in early 2017, according to subpoenaed bank records released by the Oversight Committee.

He grumbled, “Give me a break, man” in February when asked if his ability to manage the US-China relationship was “compromised.”

Hunter Biden co-founded state-backed Chinese investment fund BHR Partners in 2013 — just 12 days after he joined then-VP Biden aboard Air Force Two for an official trip to Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Hunter introduced his dad to BHR CEO Jonathan Li during the trip to China’s capital and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children. 

Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer told the Oversight Committee in a July 31 interview that Joe Biden had coffee with Li during the 2013 trip — rather than a mere handshake as previously reported — and that Hunter put his father on speakerphone with Li during a subsequent business trip to Beijing.

Hunter Biden held a 10% stake in BHR through at least part of his father’s first year in office and the status of his alleged divestment in late 2021 remains unclear.

The White House has refused to provide any transparency following an assertion by Hunter’s legal team that he no longer holds the shares.

Although Biden did not name China or Mexico, his Overdose Awareness Week proclamation hails administration efforts to intercept the drug at the US border.

AP

Purported internal BHR documents indicate Hunter’s “sugar brother” Kevin Morris, a wealthy Hollywood lawyer whom he met at a 2019 fundraiser, may have assumed control of the stake.

First brother James Biden and Hunter later launched a second business venture in China with another government-linked company, CEFC China Energy, which formed part of Beijing’s foreign-influence “Belt and Road” campaign.

Joe Biden allegedly met twice with his son and brother’s CEFC partners, and was referred to as the “big guy” and penciled in for a 10% cut in a May 2017 email.

“Over the past few months, [Biden] sent three members of his administration to make nice with China and got nothing done on fentanyl,” said former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (above).

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Two of Hunter Biden’s former associates in the venture, Tony Bobulinski and James Gilliar, have identified the president as the “big guy.”

Bobulinski alleges that he discussed the CEFC deal with Joe Biden, and an October 2017 email from Hunter Biden’s laptop identifies him as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas. 

The CEFC relationship appears to have started around 2015 when Hunter connected with Vuk Jeremic, a former foreign minister of Serbia and president of the United Nations General Assembly who was running for UN secretary-general.

About 58,000 Americans died from fentanyl in 2020 during former President Donald Trump’s final full year in office, according to reports.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection

“Drug overdose deaths leveled off in 2022 after sharp increases from 2019 to 2021. Now, we must double down on this work, which is why my proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2024 requests a historic $46.1 billion for national drug control programs,” said President Biden.

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IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, who investigated Hunter for three and five years, respectively, said in recent congressional testimony that Justice Department officials blocked them from investigating Joe Biden’s role in business dealings, despite communications directly mentioning him.

Shapley revealed a threatening July 30, 2017, WhatsApp message in which Hunter wrote he was “sitting here with my father” and threatened retribution if a deal was aborted, immediately preceding the transfer of $5.1 million from CEFC China Energy to Biden-linked accounts — on top of more than $1 million that was transferred earlier in the year.

Hunter also received a 3.16-carat diamond from CEFC founder Ye Jianming in 2017.

Hunter Biden wrote in emails retrieved from his former laptop that he had to give “half” of his income to Joe Biden, and the House Oversight Committee in May identified nine Biden family members who allegedly received foreign revenue.

https://nypost.com/2023/08/25/biden-overdose-awareness-week-proclamation-makes-no-mention-of-china/

Fired Ukraine prosecutor Viktor Shokin says he believes Bidens were bribed

 Former Ukraine prosecutor general Viktor Shokin says in a new interview set to air Saturday night that he believes — but lacks direct evidence — that President Biden and his son Hunter received bribes in exchange for forcing him out of office in early 2016.

“I do not want to deal in unproven facts, but my firm personal conviction is that, yes, this was the case. They were being bribed,” Shokin told Fox News host Brian Kilmeade in an excerpt of the interview released Friday.

“And the fact that Joe Biden gave away $1 billion in US money in exchange for my dismissal, my firing, isn’t that alone a case of corruption?” added the former top law enforcement officer in Kyiv.

Shokin is a central figure in the controversy over alleged Biden family influence-peddling, which could morph into a House impeachment inquiry as early as next month.

The former prosecutor is rarely seen in Western media and his perceived credibility — or lack thereof — could dramatically shape efforts to impeach and remove the president from office.

Shokin was dismissed by a vote of Ukraine’s parliament in March 2016 following intense pressure from then-Vice President Joe Biden.

His office had been investigating Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of natural gas company Burisma Holdings, which paid then-second son Hunter Biden up to $1 million per year as a member of the company’s board beginning in April 2014.

Biden publicly claimed credit for forcing out Shokin by threatening to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees.

Shokin was dismissed by a vote of Ukraine’s parliament in March 2016 following intense pressure from then-Vice President Joe Biden.

NurPhoto via Getty Images

“I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,’” Biden said at an event hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018. “Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”

An FBI informant file released publicly last month said that Zlochevsky claimed in 2016 that he was “coerced” into paying $5 million apiece in bribes to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for Shokin’s ouster.

Congressional Republicans are demanding to know what the FBI and Delaware US Attorney David Weiss’ office did to investigate after receiving that information in June 2020. 

In a second clip of Kilmeade’s interview with Shokin, the former prosecutor claimed that Joe Biden was responsible for Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which occurred in early 2014, before Hunter Biden joined Burisma.

“Everybody knows that it was because of Joe Biden’s actions that Russia was able to claim Crimea without firing a single shot, which of course eventually led to a full-scale war that is currently underway,” Shokin said.

The full explanation of Shokin’s claim was not immediately clear.

Biden did play a significant role in the Obama administration’s early efforts to “reset” relations with the Kremlin, but his focus on Ukraine grew after the annexation of Crimea.

Democrats say that investigations of Biden’s alleged role in his family’s foreign business dealings amount to a political smear and impeached then-President Donald Trump in late 2019 for pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation of the Biden family.

Democratic impeachment managers argued that Trump was wrong to perceive corruption in Shokin’s ouster and said that his removal was a widely sought goal of the US and Western European countries.

An FBI informant file released publicly last month said that Mykola Zlochevsky claimed he was “coerced” into paying $5 million in bribes to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for Shokin’s ouster.

WireImage

They also argued that Shokin was not actively investigating Burisma when he was fired.

However, in the past few weeks, there have been significant developments in the storyline.

This week, purported internal Obama-Biden administration emails published by Just the News indicate officials were surprised that Biden was pushing for Shokin’s ouster as a condition of US aid.

Biden publicly claimed credit for forcing out Shokin by threatening to withhold $1 billion in US loan guarantees.

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“Yikes. I don’t recall this coming up in our meeting with them on Tuesday,” National Security Council aide Eric Ciamarella wrote in a Jan. 21, 2016, email, adding that “we were super impressed with the group” from Shokin’s office that visited DC.

Former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer, who also joined Burisma’s board in 2014, told the House Oversight Committee in an interview on July 31 that Burisma added Hunter to its board so that “people would be intimidated to mess with them … legally.”

Archer confirmed that Joe Biden attended an April 2015 dinner in Washington with Burisma board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi and that Hunter stepped away from a December 2015 meeting in Dubai to call his father, joined by both Pozharskyi and Zlochevsky. 

Archer said he was unfamiliar with any alleged bribes and speculated Zlochevsky may have been thinking of salaries paid to himself and Hunter Biden.

Archer told journalist Tucker Carlson in a subsequent interview that Shokin was a “threat” to the company and ran Zlochevsky out of Ukraine shortly before his removal.

“He was a threat. He ended up seizing assets of [Zlochevsky] — a house, some cars, a couple of properties. And Nikolai actually never went back to Ukraine after Shokin seized all of his assets,” Archer said.

Shokin’s office won a court order to seize Zlochevsky’s property on Feb. 2, 2016, the Kyiv Post reported at the time. Shokin was fired on March 29.

The elder Biden spoke on the phone four times in February and March 2016 with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and once with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk as he pushed for Shokin’s ouster.

In another clip of Kilmeade’s interview with Shokin, the former prosecutor claimed that Joe Biden was responsible for Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Fox News

Within Burisma, Archer said that executives told board members that Shokin was “already taken care of,” which he interpreted as meaning his threat was blunted.

“That was the narrative that was fed to the board,” Archer told Carlson. “We were told that [his ouster] was bad. We don’t want a new prosecutor, Shokin was taken care of.”

But Archer said it wasn’t possible to take such remarks at face value and that in retrospect he doubts they were the complete picture.

“This is not like, you know, checkers — it’s multiple dimensions here,” Archer said. “In this particular case, it’s pretty high stakes and pretty sophisticated.”

“It was kind of pounded into our heads” that Shokin’s ouster was not desired, Archer added. “Obviously as I look back, in the rearview it doesn’t paper as well.”

https://nypost.com/2023/08/25/fired-ukraine-prosecutor-viktor-shokin-says-he-believes-bidens-were-bribed/

NeuroPace upped to Equal Weight from Underweight by Morgan Stanley

Target to $6 from $5

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