{"id":14206,"date":"2024-01-18T01:46:33","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T01:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/18\/experts-bash-white-house-claims-of-shrouding-hunter-bidens-art-buyers-proved-as-abstract-as-his-art\/"},"modified":"2024-01-18T01:46:33","modified_gmt":"2024-01-18T01:46:33","slug":"experts-bash-white-house-claims-of-shrouding-hunter-bidens-art-buyers-proved-as-abstract-as-his-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/2024\/01\/18\/experts-bash-white-house-claims-of-shrouding-hunter-bidens-art-buyers-proved-as-abstract-as-his-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Experts bash White House claims of shrouding Hunter Biden\u2019s art buyers: \u2018Proved as abstract\u2019 as his art"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"paywall has-gated-overlay gated-article-body\">\n<div class=\"article-gating gated-overlay\">\n<div class=\"article-gating-wrapper\">\n<div class=\"article-gating-title\">Read this article for free!<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-gating-subtitle\">Plus get unlimited access to thousands of articles, videos and more with your free account!<\/div>\n<div class=\"message error hide\"><span>Please enter a valid email address.<\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"article-gating-legal\">By entering your email, you are agreeing to Fox News Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which includes our Notice of Financial Incentive. To access the content, check your email and follow the instructions provided.\n      <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Top legal and ethical experts weighed in on art gallerist Georges Berg\u00e8s\u2019 revelation of Hunter Biden\u2019s knowledge of his art buyers, saying the American people were \u2018misled.\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">Fox News Digital reached out to several legal and ethical experts on Berg\u00e8s\u2019 revelation during his closed-door, transcribed interview with the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees earlier this month.<\/p>\n<p>Berg\u00e8s told the committees that an agreement to shield the knowledge of Hunter Biden\u2019s buyers from him was not put in place for months after the White House\u2019s statement that a \u2018system\u2019 had been \u2018established\u2019 to do so.<\/p>\n<p>Hunter Biden\u2019s gallerist said that the first son knew the identities of approximately 70% of those buyers.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The White House effort was the ultimate example of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted,\u2019 George Washington University law professor and Fox News contributor Jonathan Turley told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The clear message given repeatedly to Congress and the public was that an ethical plan was in place to prevent such knowledge,\u2019 he continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The ethical claims of the White House proved as abstract as Hunter\u2019s art pieces,\u2019 Turley said. \u2018In reality, the breach had occurred long before the ethical\u00a0plan was implemented.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The testimony that Berg\u00e8s did not have interactions with the White House on the plan further\u00a0undermines these claims. Indeed, Berg\u00e8s admitted that he was reading these statements from the\u00a0White House with no knowledge of what they were referencing. Yet, Berg\u00e8s and the Bidens proceeded knowing that the public was being misled.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Former Bush administration ethics chief Richard Painter told Fox News Digital that the White House\u2019s \u2018whole arrangement of keeping the buyers secret was completely the wrong way to go.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Painter said the White House \u2018should have had nothing to do\u2019 with Berg\u00e8s, and that the \u2018best approach\u2019 for Hunter Biden would have been to \u2018not sell the art at all during his father\u2019s presidency and certainly not sell it at those prices.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018The worst option is what they chose, which is to keep it all, to say it\u2019s all going to be confidential, and Hunter Biden won\u2019t know and nobody will know,\u2019 Painter said. \u2018And this is exactly what I said happens, is that the word gets around.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Of course you find out who bought the art,\u2019 Painter continued. \u2018People hang the art on the wall.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018They don\u2019t stick it in closet,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n<p>Attorney Sol Weisenberg said that we \u2018don\u2019t know right now the full ethical implications, if any, of this latest White House falsehood regarding Hunter Biden\u2019s special privileges and ethical\/legal lapses.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It is simply another example of the Biden family\u2019s leisurely approach to influence peddling,\u2019 Weisenberg said. \u2018As a citizen, I would rather know who is buying the paintings and how much they are paying than operating under the false illusion that Hunter and the family are being kept in the dark about the source of this latest largesse.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Fox News Digital reached out to Berg\u00e8s and the White House for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Berg\u00e8s\u2019 interview with the committees came as part of the House Republicans\u2019 impeachment inquiry into President Biden.<\/p>\n<p>House investigators, during his interview, showed Berg\u00e8s a statement made by then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki on July 9, 2021.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018After careful consideration, a system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards,\u2019 she said. \u2018All interactions regarding the selling of art and the setting of prices will be handled by professional galleries, adhering to the highest industry standards. Any offer out of the normal court would be rejected out of hand.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Psaki added, \u2018The galleries will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration, which provides quite a level of protection.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>When pressed further, Psaki stressed that \u2018it would be challenging for an anonymous person who we don\u2019t know and Hunter Biden doesn\u2019t know to have influence \u2014 so that\u2019s a protection.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, Berg\u00e8s testified that at the time of the White House\u2019s July 2021 statement, he had an agreement with Hunter Biden which called for him, instead, \u2018to disclose to Hunter Biden who the purchasers of his art were.\u2019 Berg\u00e8s said that contract was agreed to in December 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Berg\u00e8s said that it was not until September 2021 that a new agreement with Hunter Biden was created. That agreement stated that \u2018the gallery will not disclose the name of any buyers of artist\u2019s artwork to artist or any agent of artist.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Berg\u00e8s stressed, though, that there was not a \u2018White House-involved agreement,\u2019 and that Hunter Biden did know the identities of approximately 70% of the buyers of his art. Meanwhile, Berg\u00e8s testified that he had spoken to President Biden both on the phone and in person.<\/p>\n<p>The art gallerist previously told Fox News Digital he \u2018never violated the agreement we had with Hunter Biden.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>\u2018If he knew the identities of some of the buyers \u2014 it\u2019s because they were his friends or by happenstance,\u2019 Berg\u00e8s said. \u2018My obligation to Hunter is to not disclose the buyers \u2014 which I haven\u2019t.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fox News Digital\u2019s Brooke Singman contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Read this article for free! Plus get unlimited access to thousands of articles, videos and more with your free account! Please enter a valid email address. By entering your email, you are agreeing to Fox News Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which includes our Notice of Financial Incentive. To access the content, check your <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":14207,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-14206","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}