For at least seven years, many when his father was vice president, Hunter Biden pursued a lucrative deal to run a multi-million dollar investment company founded by a Chinese partnership.
Joe Biden claims he never spoke to Hunter about his actions, and never benefited from a group his family set up, but emails and text messages on Hunter Biden’s old hard drive – first published by The Post – show “the big guy”. ”Referred to repeatedly. A federal investigation into Hunter is underway and Republicans promise to continue to investigate how Hunter took advantage of his father’s name and what President-elect Biden knew about it.
“I’m not going to condone this,” said Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), Chairman of the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee, last week. “We keep digging.”
Based on information from the laptop and interviews, here’s what we know about the Chinese deal:
June 2009
As the Obama-Biden administration came halfway through its inaugural year, Hunter Biden, along with Christopher Heinz – the stepson of Obama’s future Secretary of State John Kerry – and Devon Archer, founded a former investment fund Rosemont Seneca Partners, an investment fund. Kerry advisor.
April 7-9, 2010
Hunter Biden visited China as a representative of Rosemont Seneca during his father’s second year of vice presidency. There, he received audiences with top executives of influential state-affiliated companies, including the Postal Savings Bank, China Investment Corp. and Founder Group. He was joined on the trip by James Bulger, the politically connected co-founder of the Thornton Group, an Asia-oriented financial services company.
2012
While Joe Biden was running for his second term as vice president, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer reached out to Chinese financier Jonathan Li, who led private equity fund Bohai Capital. The trio discussed a plan to partner in a new operation that would invest Chinese money in ventures outside the country. Eighty percent of the resulting company, Bohai Harvest, was controlled by Chinese state interests.
December 2013
When Chinese President Xi Jinping alerted the rest of Asia about an aggressive extension of his military claims to the East China Sea, Vice President Biden was sent to Beijing to try to ease tensions. The second son went with Air Force Two. While somber and demure Joe Biden held a five-hour marathon rally with Xi, Hunter joined Jonathan Li on what was then described as a social visit. The son even arranged for a handshake between Li and his father at the US delegation’s hotel – which, the New Yorker said, troubled some of the vice president’s advisers. Ten days later, the Chinese business license for Bohai Harvest – the company Hunter Biden and Devon Archer had been trying to launch for over a year – was approved.
2015
It was around this time that Hunter Biden’s relationship with Chinese tycoon Ye Jianming “began to build up,” according to a Senate report released in September. Ye, the founder of Chinese energy giant CEFC, served as the country’s unofficial energy liaison with Russia.
February 23 and March 1, 2017
A month after Biden left office, a total of $ 6 million in bank transfers was made from State Energy HK Ltd., a company controlled by Ye, to Robinson Walker LLC. That company was run by Rob Walker, a longtime business partner of Hunter’s who had worked with him in at least three other companies. Walker served in the administration of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – and his wife, Betsy Massey Walker, is reportedly a former member of Jill Biden’s personal staff of the future First Lady. The report by the Senate’s joint Finance and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committees said it was “unclear what the true purpose of these transactions is and who is the ultimate beneficiary.”
May 2-3, 2017
Venture capitalist Tony Bobulinski was recruited by the Bidens around this time to serve as CEO of Sinohawk Holdings, which he describes as a partnership between Ye’s CEFC and the Biden family. Bobulinski met Joe Biden twice at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, where the former would give a speech. Hunter, Bobulinski told The Post, “brings Joe up to me and introduces me, saying [Joe’s] the one who helps us with the business we do with the Chinese. “Biden replied,” I trust you. Good luck and work hard “- and added a second instruction the next morning:” Keep an eye on my son and [brother Jim Biden] and take care of my family. ”
Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any knowledge of his son’s business. In September 2020, he emphatically told reporters, “I have never spoken to my son about his foreign business dealings.”
May 11, 2017
James Gilliar, another of Hunter Biden’s business partners, spoke with Bobulinski about how Joe can “get involved” in a joint venture with CEFC. The two discussed ways of making the effort look like a “real family business” in a series of text messages The Post has seen. “Let’s set up the business, then tell H and family that there’s a lot at stake and get Joe involved,” Gilliar wrote. The texts were contained in a series of emails and documents released by Bobulinski.
May 13, 2017
Gilliar emailed Hunter Biden to outline reward packages for Hunter and five other people in an unspecified business venture. The email – found on the Hunter Biden laptop and debunked in a bombshell report from The Post – suggested stock shares were allocated to Biden family members, with a message that 10% would be in Hunter’s hands for the big guy – that Bobulinski was later definitively identified as Joe Biden. Three days later, Bobulinski says, plans changed: Joe Biden’s 10% share would instead go to his brother Jim.
Bobulinski expressed doubts about the wisdom of Joe Biden’s involvement with Jim Biden, in light of his brother’s political status.
‘I remember saying,’ How do you guys get away with this? Don’t you worry? Bobulinski said in an interview with Michael Goodwin of The Post.
“Plausible denial,” Jim Biden replied with a chuckle, Bobulinski recalled.
May 20, 2017
“Don’t say Joe is involved, it’s only when you’re in person, I know you know, but they’re paranoid,” Gilliar Bobulinksi instructed in an encrypted WhatsApp message thread. In response, Bobulinksi wrote, “Okay, they must be paranoid about things.” Later Bobulinski added what appeared to be a warning about Joe Biden’s future political plans: “You have to stress H if he wants to be the reason or factor blowing up his father’s campaign.” The former was still two years away from announcing its third White House bid.
June 18, 2017
Hunter Biden urged Ye Jianming to transfer him $ 10 million as start-up money for a new venture, SinoHawk Holdings, according to an email obtained by The Post. In the message, he said that he said “best wishes to the entire Biden family” and that “We all hope to see you back here or in Shanghai soon.”
Summer 2017
According to the Senate report, Hunter met with Ye in Miami to solicit donations for the World Food Program in the US. Over the dinner, they discussed details of helping the Chinese magnate find investments for CEFC in the United States. Then Ye sent him a 2.8 carat diamond as a thank you. “I just felt like it was weird,” Hunter later told The New Yorker – but he accepted the gem. The rock later became an apple of contention in divorce proceedings between Hunter Biden and first wife Kathleen Buhle.
August 1, 2017
A hand-drawn flow chart in the Senate report shows a ownership breakdown of an entity called ‘Hudson West’ with a 50/50 split between Biden and someone identified only as ‘chairman’. An email sent the next day strongly suggests that the ‘chairman’ in question was Ye Jianming – noting that although Hunter is said to have made $ 10 million a year ‘for introductions alone’, those previous terms were changed ‘ TOWARDS MUCH MORE DURABLE AND LUCRATIVE SCHEME. “
August 8, 2017
Ye’s CEFC has transferred $ 5 million to Hudson West. That same day, the company began a year-long series of payments to Owasco, Hunter Biden’s law firm, that would total $ 4.79 million, the Senate report found. Owasco then sent $ 1.4 million – divided into 20 different bank transfers – to the Lion Hall Group, a consulting firm controlled by James Biden and his wife Sara Biden.
September 21, 2017
Hunter Biden emailed the House of Sweden Washington office building with a request to produce a set of keys for the Rosemont Seneca offices for Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Jim Biden and Gongwen Dong – all of which, according to another email were described as ‘colleagues’. . Hunter Biden also noted that Gongwen Dong was an “emissary” to CEFC and Ye.
September 2017
Chi Ping Patrick Ho, a Ye Lieutenant, agreed to pay Hunter Biden a $ 1 million commission for “Counsel in matters related to US law and advice related to the recruitment and legal analysis of a US law firm. or attorney, “according to an attorney-engagement letter obtained by The Post.
December 2018
A federal jury in Manhattan convicted Ho of violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by bribing government officials in Africa. He was sentenced to three years in prison.
2018
The Justice Department is opening an investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax cases, business ties in China and Ukraine, and documents regarding his involvement with more than two dozen entities, according to a Dec. 13, 2020 report from the Associated Press. At least one email from 2017 did not reveal Hunter Biden’s $ 400,000 in revenue earned while on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
2018
Ye Jianming disappears in China amid suspicions of “economic crimes”.
April 12, 2019
Hunter Biden left a soggy laptop in a Delaware computer repair shop owned by John Paul Mac Isaac in search of repair. On the computer was a sticker from the Beau Biden Foundation, named after his deceased brother. Hunter Biden never returned for the machine, however, and Mac Isaac said that after repeated attempts to contact Hunter failed, he legally repossessed it under the terms of the repair contract.
April 25, 2019
Joe Biden has announced that he is running for president.
December 9, 2019
The FBI issued a subpoena for the Hunter Biden laptop after being made aware of its existence by Mac Isaac, who was “concerned” about what he saw on the hard drive. “I just don’t know… what to say,” Isaac explained months later. “I know I saw, I saw things. And I was concerned. I was worried someone might want to come and look for this stuff eventually and I wanted to get it from my store. Along with corporate emails, the device contained numerous explicit, homemade photos and videos of Hunter Biden having sex and doing what appeared to be drugs.