Shannon Bream: Burisma Allegations “Total Headache” for the White House

Shannon Bream, chief legal correspondent and Anchor of Fox News Sunday (check your local listings), host of the hit podcast Livin’ The Bream and Bestselling author joined the Guy Benson Show to talk the bombshell Hunter Biden hearings and the IRS Whistleblowers. Be sure to check out her latest book: THE LOVE STORIES OF THE BIBLE SPEAK: BIBLICAL LESSONS ON ROMANCE, FRIENDSHIP, AND FAITH.

Listen to the Full Interview:

Full Transcript:

Guy Benson: With us now is the great Shannon Bream, chief legal correspondent and anchor of Fox News Sunday. Check your local listings. I’ll be on the panel this weekend. She is a bestselling author most recently of The Love stories of the Bible Speak. Shannon, welcome back.

Shannon Bream: It’s great to be with you. And I’m so excited you’re with us Sunday.

Guy Benson: Can’t wait. Looking forward to it. But I’m also looking forward to much sooner this evening. You are filling in on Special Report. You’ve got a pretty big interview lined up. Tell us who you’re talking to and what you’re curious to discuss.

Shannon Bream: Yes. So, Joe Ziegler, who is the second IRS whistleblower who was whistleblower X for a while. We did not know his identity publicly until he came forward this week. And he wanted to make clear from the beginning he is not a partizan lifelong Republican. This is not a political hit job. He came out of the gate and said, Listen, I’m a Democrat, I am a member of the LGBTQ community. I’m married to a man. I am not here on some partizan GOP diatribe. That’s not what I’m about. But he said, I was raised to do the right thing. And what I saw is not something that any American should be okay with. And, you know, my questions are so many of the ones that we’ve heard. I mean, what exactly was he told by prosecutors? What lead was he not allowed to follow? What did he see that so concerned him that he’s willing to take this risk to his personal life, to his career, and really take a very frightening step to come forward publicly and make these accusations?

Guy Benson: Yeah, I think those are all important questions that might dovetail into other ones because there’s this swirl of controversy around the Bidens. The White House has said this whole thing is a waste of time. They won’t even answer questions on a lot of this stuff. They are trying to signal very clearly this is a non-story. Nothing to see here. Not worth your time. And with a lot of the media that seems to be working, they just aren’t covering this or aren’t covering it in any significant way. I have to ask you, though, Shannon, let’s play Cut 15. This was from the IRS whistleblower hearings earlier this week. This was the other whistleblower, Gary Shapley. We’ve known his identity for a while. Dan Goldman, a Democratic congressman, I guess, was trying to make a point that he thought was a gotcha. But I think it was a big backfire. Listen to this.

Dan Goldman You testified that he said to to that Hunter told his dad, according to Rob Walker, quote, I may be trying to start a company or try to do something with these guys. Now, let me ask you something that doesn’t sound much like Joe Biden was involved in whatever Hunter Biden was doing with the CFC. If Hunter Biden is telling him that he’s trying to do business with them, does it?

Gary Shapley No. But it does show that he he his father he was trying to do business and he…

Dan Goldman Well, that is true. Hunter Biden does try to do business. That’s correct.

Guy Benson: Well, that is correct. Except Joe Biden has said unequivocally on multiple occasions, Shannon, that he never had those types of conversations with his son. He said he never, ever discussed foreign business at all with Hunter or Jim Biden, his brother. And I could dredge up the clips. It was like three or four times he said that. And of course, there’s also reporting, not to mention testimony from Tony Bobulinski, who was one of these business associates of the Bidens, indicating that Joe Biden met with a number of these business associates in person over time on multiple occasions. And I’m just sort of amazed that Congressman Goldman thought that was a good idea to basically enter into the congressional record from the Democratic side, prove that Joe Biden has not been telling the truth about at least one element of this. And you would think, Shannon, that an interested, curious press would say, okay, if Biden didn’t tell the truth in this categorical denial about something related to this, you know, maybe there’s more to this story and we should get on it. That seems, at least to me, like something of a significant moment.

Shannon Bream: Well, in you know, a number of Republicans have sent a letter over to White House counsel asking questions about whether there has been a shift in what the White House message has been on whether or not the president had conversations with Hunter. You know what? Ian Sams is one of the spokespeople over at the White House, has said he was not in business with Hunter. And that, to them seems like a shift. And that may be trying to race against some further potential, you know, revelations in this case. So they’ve asked the White House to clarify for them. You know, it was, as you said, never, ever and never had conversations. Was it evolved to now saying he wasn’t in business with Hunter, which is it is different. Was that inadvertent? What exactly was meant by that? And you’re right. I mean, there are these allegations about conversations and stopping by to say hello to people. How much of that was actually, you know, in order to help with business? You have this 1023 forum, you know, that’s come out. That’s a press release that raises a lot of those questions, too.

Guy Benson: Well, that’s millions of dollars now. And at least the allegation in that form from an FBI confidential informant, some of. They used a lot. Someone that they trusted. That person said in multiple conversations over time with various officials at Burisma, that Ukrainian company. They just said openly they were pressured to bring Hunter Biden on and to put him on the payroll, that a very generous amount of remuneration in order to essentially be a conduit to his dad, to use that influence to effect things within Ukraine to help the company. And one of the big things that they wanted was to be clear of certain investigations from the government. They wanted a prosecutor fired, it seemed, and that prosecutor did get fired. And Joe Biden publicly subsequently bragged about having an instrumental role in the firing of that Ukrainian prosecutor. I mean, again, I said at the opening of the show in the last hour, there are a lot more questions that need to be answered. And I’m not taking anything at face value. But when you start to at least follow some of these breadcrumbs, then you look at what is alleged in that FBI document, Shannon, that would conceivably lead directly to the president. It’s not just about some personal failings or foibles or, you know, unsavory stuff that Hunter Biden was doing in his personal life. This could be a lot bigger than that.

Shannon Bream: It could. It’s a total headache for the White House on many levels, but especially in the middle of a reelection campaign. And more of what that confidential human source made, the allegations that they made in that FBI document, which, again, are unverified. You know, but what they said was essentially, yes, Hunter Biden was round did not, according to their recollection of conversations with these Burisma executives. They didn’t think a lot of Hunter’s intellect. He wasn’t there. They claim, you know, according to conversations from the source, that it wasn’t about him, that he had the intellect and the savvy to get them where they needed to go, but that he was on the board because his dad was going to be the one that was going to help.

Guy Benson: Which has been, I mean, obvious to everyone all along, in my view, at least speaking for myself, that was always the whole play here. It’s not like Hunter Biden was some special savant genius who understood, you know, in the weeds intricate details of energy policy in Ukraine that they just had to have him. If it were Hunter Smith with the same resume, it’s just like who? There’s no chance he’s on the payroll. But the last name is Biden. There are quotes attributed to these Burisma executives in the FBI document saying that he was here to help us with any problems through his father. Now, that all would need to be verified and corroborated, but I was making this point earlier at the margins. It does seem like some of the details are pointing kind of in the same direction, including the fact that Hunter had email traffic with the CFO of Burisma on that infamous laptop. He was communicating with this man. No one is disputing the fact that they were in touch and they were, quote unquote, working together. So it’s not like this is being invented out of whole cloth. They absolutely had this relationship. And now we also know, at least according to testimony released yesterday, Shannon, this is another prong of this whole thing. This is testimony that was released by the House Judiciary Committee Republicans that FBI sources were saying that they had possession of that Hunter Biden laptop well before it became a big controversy in the 2020 election cycle. And they knew that it was real and it was authentic. The FBI knew these things. That’s what these people have now inside. The FBI told under oath Republican investigators. And that leads to other questions, right, because the Biden campaign famously decided to call it all Russian disinformation. The media went along with that. A lot of big tech companies went along with it and censored the so-called disinformation. You had the 51 former intelligence officials writing the letter to sort of launder the whole thing and make it seem like, oh, this really could be Russia. And at the time, at least allegedly, according to these statements of FBI officials, under oath. The FBI had the laptop, knew it was real. And as this whole thing played out, including the president on the debate stage, then candidate Biden citing the disinformation lie, the FBI just sat on its hands and did nothing. Didn’t correct the record, didn’t say, well, actually we haven’t. We think it is authentic. They just kept their mouth shut. That’s another, I would say, potentially very bad luck for the FBI in all of this.

Shannon Bream: Yeah. And it lines up with what that IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley had said in some of the emails and documents that he released in connection with his testimony before the House, you know, saying that they knew before the election in 2020, the FBI knew that it was a legitimate document or it was a legitimate laptop. They had done outside matches in sourcing through iCloud, you know, identifiers and, you know, Apple numbers and all these kinds of things. So that’s what he’s saying as well. Like we knew before the election that this thing was not fake. And yet, you know, you’ve got to hold on the stories on Twitter, the lock of the New York Post account. You get the letter from the dozens of former intel officials saying this looks like Russian disinformation when the FBI, by numerous accounts knew that that was not the case.

Guy Benson: Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, we have the Republican frontrunner for President Donald Trump, with potentially more legal trouble coming his way. There’s this target letter that was revealed this week by Trump himself. I guess it had happened a few days prior with Jack Smith, the special prosecutor in the case. He had already indicted Trump on multiple counts involving the classified documents and alleged obstruction. We’ve talked about that here. I think a lot of those charges are quite serious and substantive. There’s also the component of January 6th where it looks like a prosecution and charges are coming on that front as well, in addition to possible charges coming out of Georgia later on this summer. I mean, Shannon, there’s just a swirl of everything. And we found out that just today the Trump appointed federal judge on the existing federal prosecution, again, this woman was appointed by Trump himself. She has now set a trial date for the Mar a Lago piece of this case for May of next year, which would be sort of smack dab in the middle of the primary season. But after a lot of the big ones and after Super Tuesday, but leading into the summer and the conventions, I mean, that is in the heart of an election year, a potential trial for Donald Trump. It looks like this is what’s going to happen in the middle of that election year. And he could at that point potentially be the Republican nominee for president. I mean, there is a lot coming down the pike on the Trump side of this stuff.

Shannon Bream: Absolutely is. You’re right. So the federal trial, we think, will land in May, although I predict there’s so much that happens with pretrial motions and wrangling that it could very easily get past the 2024 election. There’s just so much happens that happens in a trial of that scale. I think a lot of people are skeptical that it would actually happen in May. Anything’s possible. But before you even get to that, remember, you’ve got the E Jean Carol state trial, you’ve got the Alvin Briggs State trial up in New York. Those are coming down the pike before you even get to the federal trials. If there is an additional federal indictment on the January 6 issue, that adds an end, as you said, in Georgia, whether you get charges now that any of that combination for any defendant would be a ton. I mean, it’s a lot of money. It’s a lot of legal teams. It’s a ton of preparation for depositions, for testimony, for all kinds of things. But to be doing all of that at once and running for president is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. So while politically, in the short term, it seems to be a boost to the president, it definitely fits with his campaign line in his stump speech out there that “they’re after me. This is a witch hunt. They’re piling on because they can’t beat me at the ballot box.” He will continue to get bolstered, apparently in the polls and fund raising with each new indictment as he predicted he would. But the fact is, on the back end of that, there is serious legal trouble. And with that federal case, there are potential decades in jail if convicted. That’s a big if. There’s a long way to go. And he’s presumed innocent. But, I mean, if I if I were the typical defendant out there would be very worried about these things piling up.

Guy Benson: Yep. And the trial could start in the middle of the election. And even if it gets pushed with various appeals, the spectacle of that trial, at least that trial plus others, would be hanging over the whole election, that that’s also a reality here, regardless of the exact timing of it. Shannon Bream very quickly, what’s on tap this weekend on Fox News Sunday? You’ve got the whistle blower interview tonight on Special Report. You’re filling in Sunday morning. I’m on the panel. Who else you got?

Shannon Bream: We’ve got Vivek Ramaswamy with us. You know, a few months ago, people didn’t know who he was. They can pronounce his name. And he’s leapfrogged all of these household GOP names in the polls. We get brand new exclusive polls on Sunday morning just for you on our panel out of Iowa and South Carolina. Critical early states. So how is that they doing those? Also, you know, he stirred up some controversy with comments he’s made about birthright citizenship, about how he would end things in Ukraine and Russia. So we’re going to is going to dig into his record. We’ve got a legal panel also, Jonathan Turley and Tom Dupre are going to join us on the multiple legal issues we have as well.

Guy Benson: All right. We’ll be watching. I’ll be physically there. Looking forward to it. Shannon Bream, chief legal correspondent and anchor of Fox News Sunday. Check those local listings. Shannon, always appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Shannon Bream: My pleasure. See you Sunday.