Republican rants there’s a Chinese conspiracy behind the Democratic support of solar panels
WASHINGTON — Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) just found out that Democrats support green energy, but he believes it's all really about Hunter Biden.
According to the Republican lawmaker, the hearing with Twitter executives answered a lot of questions about Hunter Biden's business deals.
"One of the major social media companies was being influenced by the FBI," Donalds ranted. The idea comes from a misconstruing of the facts outlined in the so-called "Twitter Files." They're a set of selected documents and emails that justify conspiracy theories about corporations being too "woke."
When asked if the hearing was about Twitter or more about Hunter Biden, Donalds said that it's clear that the younger Biden had an ability to inject his influence around the globe. The question for us is are his business dealings setting the agenda for the Biden administration both domestically and internationally?"
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Donalds' evidence was from a New York Times report talking about the sale of a cobalt mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The mine was 70 percent owned by Chinese investors and the company that Hunter Biden was working for at the time facilitated the sale of the remaining 30 percent to other Chinese investors for $3.8 billion. Somehow, that story has been twisted into a conspiracy that the Biden family pocketed the $3.8 billion, which is false.
"Joe Biden has been pressing solar panels and battery technology very strongly," Donalds said, explaining that this proves Hunter Biden is driving the policy. "It was in the inflation reduction act, which did nothing for inflation and was really just the Green New Deal wrapped in the title."
Donalds said that Hunter Biden facilitated that sale "three or four years ago and now Joe Biden, who I didn't think knew anything about energy, frankly, is all gungho on solar panels and batteries? Why? And so, that's a direct correlation right there!"
One of the many speeches Biden made during the 2020 campaign was about his goal of being 100 percent clean electricity by 2035.
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Democrats have supported solar technology since President Jimmy Carter worked to get solar panels added to the roof of the White House around the time Donalds was born and 30-plus years before the cobalt mine deal. Carter has never been tied to Hunter Biden's cobalt mine deal.
Among the initiatives, Republicans attacked former President Barack Obama for was his investment in solar technologies early on in his presidency because one of the startup companies supported went bankrupt after a $500 million investment from the government. Biden was the one who announced the investment in solar in 2009. It was four years before the sale of the cobalt mine.
"This announcement today is part of the unprecedented investment this Administration is making in renewable energy and exactly what the Recovery Act is all about," said then-Vice President Biden. "By investing in the infrastructure and technology of the future, we are not only creating jobs today, but laying the foundation for long-term growth in the 21st-century economy."
In May 2014, the White House decided to put the solar panel's back up on the roof. They made a video about the installation with the Secretary of Energy talking about the clean energy of the future. At no point have Republicans argued that Obama was being influenced by Hunter Biden's cobalt mine deal.
Obama pushed another investment in 2016 as jobs in solar had increased "12 times faster than the rest of the economy."
During the 2020 campaign, Biden toured the Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative in Plymouth, New Hampshire while discussing green energy.
Donalds went on to rant to Raw Story about the government influencing Twitter, claiming that it could reach all the way to the CIA.
