Gal Luft, Israeli Professor Who Claimed Persecution by Biden, Speaks Out While Hiding
A key figure in the Biden family corruption probes has resurfaced, but there are questions.
Remember Gal Luft? He is the former Israel military officer and world-renowned energy security analyst who was arrested in Cyprus last February on an Interpol warrant on charges of international weapons trafficking — charges he has denied — before apparently slipping out of that island country, somehow, weeks later.
Although his present whereabouts are unknown, Mr. Luft has resurfaced, somewhere, and told a reporter for the New York Post that he is now living as a fugitive in an undisclosed location. At the center of his predicament, at least in his estimation, is the president’s son, Hunter Biden.
Shortly after his arrest, Mr. Luft tweeted, “DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim, and Hunter Biden,” adding, “Shall I name names?”
The question of where Mr. Luft is living is arguably less intriguing than why he is on the run. After a Larnaca court ordered his conditional release he posted bail; on March 28, Cyprus police then reported him missing. On March 29, they found his abandoned car north of Larnaca. As the Sun reported, police suspected that he tried to flee Cyprus from the Turkish-occupied northern section of the country.
In a call to the Post’s Miranda Devine from an undisclosed location, Mr. Luft said, “The chances of me getting a fair trial in Washington are virtually zero,” adding, “I had to do what I had to do.”
How did he do it? He would not say because, as he told the Post, he doesn’t want to get people in “trouble.”
An Israeli reporter with whom this correspondent spoke in recent weeks confirmed that logistically it is not particularly difficult to leave Cyprus surreptitiously, particularly in light of the Mediterranean island’s proximity to so many other places in the region. Yet the likelihood of any kind of official assistance from any given government for such an escape plan would be tiny because of the complicated layers of planning that would be necessary for any such getaway.
According to the Post, the five charges that had put him in the position of awaiting extradition to America from Cyprus — Mr. Luft is a dual national American-Israeli — included those relating to allegedly conspiring to sell Chinese products to Libya, as well as an alleged violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Mr. Luft told the Post that he “was charged for a thought crime,” elaborating that the arms allegations stemmed from some email correspondence dating back five years. “I was asked by a bona fide arms dealer, an Israeli friend, to inquire with a company I knew if they had an item and what would be the price of an item,” he explained, adding, “No follow-up, no money, no brokering activity.”
As to the genesis of what the highly regarded energy expert clearly perceives as bogus charges, Mr. Luft believes that the Biden family is implicated. He branded his extradition request as “politically motivated.”
The Post reported that it was in March 2019 that Mr. Luft met with four FBI officials and two Department of Justice prosecutors at the American Embassy at Brussels to provide information that Chinese state-controlled energy company CEFC had paid $100,000 a month to Hunter Biden and $65,000 to his uncle Jim, in exchange for their FBI connections and use of the Biden name to promote China’s Belt and Road Initiative around the world.
Vice President Biden announced his presidential bid less than a month after the Brussels meeting. And after the meeting, Mr. Luft claimed that everything he told the American officials was “corroborated” nine months later, when the FBI subpoenaed Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop.
According to the Post, “Despite the bombshell allegations Luft made in Brussels, he never heard from the FBI or prosecutors again until he was arrested in Cyprus.” He told the newspaper: “They were sitting on all the information. No new information was needed after they had the laptop plus my proffer yet they wasted another year and did nothing so … now there is a guy who can shed light on the cover-up and they arrest him.”
The Post reprinted a letter provided by Mr. Luft with details of the Brussels “proffer” meeting.
According to multiple reports, House Oversight Committee investigators wanted to interview Mr. Luft before he slipped off the radar.
“When it was clear the Republicans are going to win the House or the Senate, all of a sudden comes [Representative James] Comer and [Representative Jim] Jordan and the game is changing,” Mr. Luft said in his call to the Post. “There will be questions and subpoenas and investigations [so] they [the administration] have to discredit me.”
He added, “I didn’t want to get caught up in this game, but when they arrested me, I had no choice but to blow it up.”
Mr. Luft’s bombshell disclosures come at a time when a majority of Americans are convinced the Bidens have been involved in influence peddling and questions about it are leaving the White House speechless.
The president’s son Hunter, for his part, appears to be more preoccupied with his underwear than shedding any significant light on his alleged web of graft — at least of his own volition.