White House clings to Biden’s ignorance of Hunter’s deals despite mounting evidence

By Kerry Picket and Dave Boyer – The Washington Times

Updated: 4:56 p.m. on Thursday, April 7, 2022

The White House is still insisting that President Biden has never talked to son Hunter Biden about his far-flung foreign business dealings, despite new revelations depicting more complex and intertwined family financial relationships.

Press secretary Jen Psaki answered “yes” this week when asked by a reporter whether the president has refrained, to this day, from talking to Hunter Biden about the lucrative deals including China and Ukraine.

She also refused to comment on reports that the elder Mr. Biden wrote a recommendation for college admission in the U.S. for a son of one of Hunter Biden’s Chinese business associates.

And she dodged questions about whether the president would support the Justice Department appointing a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden’s dealings.

“The president has never had a conversation with the Department of Justice about any investigations into any member of his family,” she said. “They would make those decisions independently.”

But the connections between the president and his son’s enormously profitable business deals, which were largely ignored by the mainstream media before the 2020 election and suppressed on social media by Silicon Valley, are now getting fresh scrutiny.

Much of the information stems from liberal news outlets belatedly authenticating data from Hunter Biden’s laptop computer, which had been abandoned at a Delaware repair shop before the 2020 presidential election.

The computer, first reported by The New York Post in October 2020, contained texts, emails, financial documents and other files, including information about Hunter Biden’s lucrative international business deals. The Washington Times also obtained the hard drive and reported in January 2021 that the elder Mr. Biden had at least 10 opportunities to know about his son’s extensive foreign cash flow.

The information from the laptop includes a college recommendation letter for Brown University that the then-former vice president wrote in 2017 for the son of a Hunter Biden Chinese business associate, according to the book “Laptop from Hell,” written by Miranda Devine.

Hunter Biden also reportedly persuaded his father to write a recommendation for the business associate’s daughter.

Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, respectively the ranking Republicans on the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, have presented bank records showing Hunter Biden and the president’s brother, James Biden, receiving millions of dollars from companies connected to the communist Chinese regime.

The Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC and its executives paid $4.8 million to firms owned and managed by Hunter Biden and his uncle for 14 months, according to government records, court documents, newly released bank statements and documents from the laptop, Mr. Grassley noted.

Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski disclosed in October 2020 that Hunter Biden introduced him to Joe Biden in May 2017, reportedly describing Mr. Bobulinski to his father as “the one who’s helping us with the business we’re doing with the Chinese.”

Mr. Bobulinski identified Joe Biden as “the big guy” with a 10% share in a planned deal with CEFC China Energy, saying the former vice president told him, “keep an eye on my son and brother and look out for my family.”

Bank records released by the GOP senators this week indicate that James Biden’s company, the Lion Hall Group, received payments from a Chinese-financed consulting group in 2018, before his brother announced he was running for president.

Mr. Grassley said James Biden and Hunter Biden received monthly retainers — $100,000 to Hunter and $65,000 to James.

On Tuesday, Mr. Johnson also described a meeting the then-vice president had on April 16, 2014, with his son’s business partner, Devon Archer, at the White House.

The elder Mr. Biden made an official trip to Ukraine on April 21, and Hunter Biden joined the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma a month later. Burisma was under investigation for corruption.

Mr. Biden later demanded the Ukrainian prosecutor be fired and used the threat of cutting off U.S. aid to make that happen.

Hunter Biden was paid up to $83,000 a month to sit on the energy company’s board from 2014 to 2019, but his father disputed his actions to oust the prosecutor had anything to do with his son’s involvement in the firm.

Mr. Johnson has promised to reveal more information.

“The evidence is stunning and it is growing,” Mr. Johnson said. “These records show extensive connections between the Biden family and elements of the communist Chinese regime. We’re talking high-dollar transactions … We expect Democrats and the media to continue to use their power to smear us and cover up for the Bidens. But the truth has a power of its own, and we intend to continue to reveal the truth.”

In addition, hundreds of deleted gigabytes of digital content from Hunter Biden’s laptop are set to be released.

Jack Maxey is hiding in Zurich, Switzerland, and shelling out more information from Hunter Biden’s laptop, the Daily Mail first reported.

He and his information-technology experts claim they have discovered “450 gigabytes of deleted material.”

Mr. Maxey formerly co-hosted the podcast “The War Room” with Steve Bannon, an ex-adviser to President Trump.

Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor and Trump administration official, told The Washington Times that Hunter Biden “was using his father’s leverage for personal gain.”

“It’s an ethical violation for government employees to allow family members to benefit in that way and exert influence that’s against the law,” Mr. Patel said. “If he knowingly utilized his father to participate in that scheme, then [this father] is also a part of that conspiracy to perpetrate a fraud.”

In such cases, prosecutors typically pursue charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and mail fraud related to the transfer of illicit money through various bank accounts, he said.

The Times reached out to Hunter Biden’s attorney for comment but did not hear back.

The younger Mr. Biden is under federal investigation related to his taxes and foreign business deals, which have been raising eyebrows about ethical improprieties in Washington since his father was vice president under President Obama.

In 2010, when Hunter Biden was running his investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, he traveled to China and scored meetings with several major state-owned businesses.

He later became associates with Chinese banker Jonathan Li and his private equity fund Bohai Capital and attempted to attain a license for Bohai to do business in the U.S. for a year, but he was unable to do so.

However, Hunter Biden flew on Air Force Two in 2013 for his father’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. The New Yorker reported that Hunter Biden met with Mr. Li and introduced him to his father at the hotel. Bohai Harvest’s license to operate in the U.S. was approved 10 days after that introduction.

More recently, a witness who testified before the Hunter Biden grand jury was asked to name the “big guy” in Hunter’s proposed deal with CEFC, the Chinese energy conglomerate.

The “big guy” came from an e-mail exchange found in Hunter’s laptop that showed one of his business partners, James Gilliar, outlined the proposed percentage distribution of equity in a company created for a joint venture with CEFC China Energy Co.

The March 13, 2017, plan included “10 held by H for the big guy?”

Mr. Bobulinski has told The New York Post, “I have heard Joe Biden say he has never discussed his dealings with Hunter. That is false.”

In a 2019 text message to his daughter Naomi, Hunter Biden wrote, “I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years.”

“It’s ­really hard,” he wrote. “But don’t worry, ­unlike Pop [Joe], I won’t make you give me half your salary.”

Current White House chief of staff Ron Klain claimed last Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that the dealings of Hunter and the president’s brother are “private matters.”

“They don’t involve the president,” he said. “And they certainly are something that no one at the White House is involved in.”

However, Fox News reported that when Mr. Klain approached Hunter Biden in 2012 and asked him about raising $20,000 for a foundation that looks after the vice president’s residence.

He requested in his email that the younger Mr. Biden to “keep this low key” to prevent “bad PR.”

Mr. Klain was previously chairman of the nonprofit Vice President’s Residence Foundation after exiting Mr. Biden’s vice-presidential team in 2011.

In an email to Hunter Biden, Mr. Klain said he had to “tackle a piece of unpleasant business.”

“The tax lawyers for the VP Residence Foundation have concluded that since the Cheney folks last raised money in 2007 and not 2008, we actually have to have some incoming funds before the end of this fiscal year (i.e., before 9/30/12 – next week) to remain eligible to be a ‘public charity,’” wrote Mr. Klain, referring to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

— Rowan Scarborough contributed to this report.