White House docs the latest to expose scheme to obstruct investigations of alleged Biden corruption

Substantial evidence gathered over the past four years demonstrates that the federal government, along with congressional and private-sector partners, attempted to shield the Biden family from revelations regarding its foreign business endeavors and Hunter Biden's unlawful actions. 

Memos released Thursday by the White House Government Transparency Task Force revealed a new chapter in the saga. They show that the FBI and State Department moved in September 2020 to keep Ukrainian witness Andrii Telizhenko from meeting with Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who were investigating Biden family business in Ukraine and China, Just the News first reported yesterday. 

Kept the witness away, smeared him, then punished him

On Sept. 8, 2020, the FBI's Foreign Influence Task Force began preparing a request to revoke Telizhenko's visa, only to find the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv had already done so. 

The Department of the Treasury later sanctioned him for election interference, though the CIA had assessed he was, at most, possibly an “unwitting” participant, even though an August 2020 FBI memo showed that Russia had banned him, listed him as a spy, and that he had rebuffed Russian recruiters.

The memos show that the government alleged that Telizhenko was spreading "false claims" that Hunter Biden's service on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings had impacted U.S. policy fighting corruption in Ukraine, as well as repeating that Joe Biden had changed U.S. policy when he withheld $1 billion to force the firing of Ukraine's chief prosecutor who was investigating Burisma.

Both claims turned out to be accurate. 

Evidence made public in the years after the 2020 election shows that contrary to assertions of spreading "disinformation," America's top diplomats in Kyiv wrote in internal emails that they believed Hunter Biden's presence on the Burisma board had "undercut" U.S. anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine. The documents also show that State Department officials had recommended giving Ukraine the loan guarantees and keeping the prosecutor in place before Biden reversed course in what has now become known as Biden's "audible."

An "audible" is a term used in American football whereby a spontaneous verbal instruction changes the predetermined play, or completely scraps it for something else.

Fifty-one former intelligence officials and the laptop

This effort appears to fit a broader pattern in matters related to the long-running and varied investigations into Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. Time and time again, both current and ex-government officials appeared to shield the Biden family from scrutiny. 

In October 2020, 51 former intelligence officials signed a letter suggesting Hunter Biden's laptop bore the hallmarks of a Russian information operation. Organizer Michael Morell, a former acting CIA director, later admitted the goal was to give the Biden campaign a debate “talking point.” The assessment allowed then-candidate Joe Biden to parry criticisms of his son’s business dealings while he was running for president.

The House Judiciary Committee said in a 2023 statement that the letter was drafted by Morell, following outreach from Antony Blinken, then a senior advisor to Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign and later secretary of state.

However, the laptop — which contained significant evidence of Hunter Biden’s business dealings in both Ukraine and China — had already been obtained and verified by the FBI in December 2019, according to the IRS investigators. The laptop became evidence in the federal tax investigation of the younger Biden.

Agents blocked from probes relating to "the big guy"

The IRS investigators leading the probe into Hunter Biden, Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, turned to Congress after they claimed they faced resistance and interference from supervising prosecutors about certain lines of inquiry. 

Specifically, they told Congress that the prosecutors barred questions about Joe Biden. “We weren't allowed to ask about 'Big Guy,'” Shapley said. One of Hunter Biden’s ex-business partners said that the “Big Guy” is a reference to Joe Biden. 

During the investigation, the Justice Department repeatedly interfered with search warrants and interviews with key witnesses or targets, including Hunter Biden himself. They were also initially blocked from access to the Hunter Biden laptop, which the IRS investigators believed contained important evidence.   

The IRS investigators also believed there was enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden for unpaid taxes on Burisma income from 2014 and 2015, but the statute of limitations expired after prosecutors declined to bring the charges. 

A 2023 plea deal collapsed amid the whistleblowers' disclosures, and Hunter Biden was eventually convicted on gun charges and pleaded guilty to tax charges in 2024 before his father pardoned him despite repeatedly telling the nation that he would not grant such a pardon.

Both whistleblowers also claimed that they faced retaliation for their protected disclosures to Congress. After Shapley first brought his concerns to Congress, his investigative team was removed from the case.

Shapley previously told Just the News that Hunter Biden was treated more favorably than other subjects he had investigated in his 13-year career. "I believe in what we're doing, when we're treating people fairly. And, you know, it just didn't happen in this particular case," he said.

Operation "Round River" designed by FBI to call all evidence "Russian disinformation"

The same FBI task force that moved against Telizhenko was running a broader operation at the time. Declassified records the White House released in August show that in December 2019, as the House impeachment was underway, analysts in the Foreign Influence Task Force's Russia unit launched an operation codenamed "Round River" that flagged evidence against the Bidens as Russian disinformation. 

The group gathered “any/all derogatory information previously reported by confidential human sources (CHSs) on Joseph Biden corruption” and other Ukraine topics “to red flag the reporting as Russian disinformation,” according to a 2025 summary by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, reported The Washington Times.

The DNI summary said that “the Round River team did not corroborate any of the allegations of the 'Ukraine narrative.'” Nonetheless, that narrative lingers, particularly in legacy and social media. A Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that despite the report's findings, almost half of Americans think Trump colluded with Russia, and a 2019 YouGov poll showed that at least 48% of all voters polled disagreed with Trump's denial of Russian collusion.