Hunter Biden Appears to Contradict Joe Biden’s Claims in Sworn Testimony

On Monday, congressional investigators finally got to examine Hunter Biden during a closed-door deposition before the House committees on the Judiciary and Oversight and Accountability. Hunter Biden’s testimony raised key questions about four aspects of the Biden family’s business, and whether it sold foreign oligarchs access (or the promise of access) to Joe Biden.

In general, Hunter Biden “could never really come to an answer” about what he did to earn millions of dollars “besides his last name,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.). “There is an illusory value” in any business value-added Hunter Biden brings to the table, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) pointed out Monday. “It is a mirage to believe that Hunter Biden was engaged in international business. This was a bribe masquerading as an international business transaction — nothing more, nothing less.” Also, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) commented, “His testimony, some of it, is in direct conflict with other witnesses.”

We found four moments that raise questions:

Joe Biden Met and Spoke with Hunter Biden’s Business Associates

After Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) accused the president of lying about interacting with his family’s business partners, President Joe Biden replied, “Tell him: Read the record of every single witness.”

When a New York Post reporter clarified, President Biden insisted, “I did not interact with their business partners!”

But Hunter Biden testified to Congress that his business partners met and spoke with his father. An oligarch from Kazakhstan named “Kenes Rakishev met my father,” admitted Hunter Biden under oath. Then-Vice President Biden also met with Burisma Corporate Secretary Vadym Pozharsky, said Hunter, confirming, “Vadym was at one of these dinners, yes.” Hunter Biden added, “I introduced my dad to Jonathan Li” after the First Son rode Air Force Two to Beijing with his father in 2013 but said it amounted to no more than a “rope line” introduction.

Hunter confessed, “My dad went and shook hands with Tony” Bobulinski and spoke with him on at least one occasion.

Former Biden business partner Devon Archer has testified:

• Joe Biden dined with Kenes Rakishev of Kazakhstan at Café Milano, a swank restaurant in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2014. In April 2014, Rakishev wired $142,300 to one of Hunter Biden’s shell companies, Rosemont Seneca Bohai, which Hunter Biden used to purchase a Porsche. The House Oversight Committee noted the check amounted to “the exact price of Biden’s sportscar.”
• Joe Biden also dined with Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina at Café Milano. In February 2014, Baturina transferred $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca, of which the Bidens kept $2.5 million. Despite the Biden administration’s aggressive financial discipline of Russian business figures, Baturina and her associates have escaped repeated rounds of sanctions.
• In the spring of 2015, Joe Biden had dinner with Burisma Corporate Secretary Vadym Pozharsky, again at Café Milano. Burisma famously began paying Hunter Biden $1 million a year to serve on its corporate board, despite having no knowledge of Ukraine or natural gas.
• Joe Biden met with Chinese business figure Jonathan Li in Beijing in 2013, took part in a phone call with him, and later wrote a college recommendation for Li’s daughter to get into Georgetown. On August 2, 2019, Li and Tan Ling wired $250,000 in the name of Hunter Biden — to Joe Biden’s residence.

Another Hunter Biden business partner, Rob Walker, testified that Joe Biden met CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming and nine other CEFC figures “at the Four Seasons [hotel] in a private room” around the time of a March 2017 transfer of $3 million — of which the Biden family received $1,065,692.

Their testimony that Joe Biden took part in his family’s “business” activities, and met with their associates, tracks with that of other former Biden business associates.

“I personally met with Joe Biden in Los Angeles in May of 2017 multiple times to discuss the broad contours of business dealings. The only reason why Joe Biden met with me privately during the Milken Institute Global Conference and seated me at his head table was because I was a business associate of the Biden family,” testified Tony Bobulinski, a former Biden business partner squeezed out of a multimillion-dollar deal by Hunter and James Biden.

“Joe Biden was more than a participant in and a beneficiary of his family’s business; he was an enabler, despite being buffered by a complex scheme to maintain plausible deniability,” said Bobulinki, under oath. “The Biden family business was Joe Biden, period.”

Hunter Biden confessed he had placed his father on speakerphone during meetings with business partners “maybe 10 or 20 times.”

As for official denials, “They’re lying,” said Bobulinski. “It’s a blatant lie. You have stacks of evidence that Joe Biden showed up at meetings, shook hands, participated in phone calls.”

10% for the Big Guy

While trying to deflect indications that Joe Biden had anything to do with his business, Hunter Biden appeared to explain the exact methods by which he received and sheltered money for his father.

When asked about the infamous email showing that Hunter Biden was holding 10% of a multimillion-dollar business deal “for the big guy,” Hunter insisted, “I would have picked up the phone and said, ‘You’re out of your mind.’” But his attempts to undermine the credibility of the email appeared to backfire.

“The percentages were all wrong to begin with,” Hunter Biden told Rep. Matt Gaetz. “I would never go into a business partnership with my uncle in which I got 20% and my uncle got 10%. He would be my partner in it. That’s number one.”

“Unless your dad was getting 10%,” retorted Gaetz.

Blackmailing ‘the Wrong Person’ in China … but Getting Paid Anyway

Hunter Biden did not deny the smoking gun text pressuring a Chinese official with CEFC to send money for services rendered but tried to offer an alternate explanation. Hunter texted Chinese business partner Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017:

“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. All too often people mistake kindness for weakness, and all too often I’m standing over the top of them, saying, I warned you. From this moment until whenever he reaches me. It’s 9:45 a.m. here and I assume 9:45 p.m. there. So his night is running out.”

Zhao responded, “Copy. I will call you on WhatsApp.”

Hunter then replied, “Okay, my friend. I’m sitting here, waiting for the call, with my father. I sure hope whatever it is are you doing is very, very, very important.”

Zhao replied a second time, “Hi, Hunter. Is it a good time to call now? Hi, Hunter, Director did not answer my call, but he got the message you just mentioned.”

Hunter Biden replied that he was inebriated when he sent the text, that his father was not with him, and that he sent the message to the wrong person: to Henry Zhao instead of Raymond Zhao.

“The Zhao that this is sent to is not the Zhao that was connected to CEFC,” Hunter testified. “I, like an idiot, directed [the text] toward Henry Zhao, who had no involvement, who had no understanding or even remotely knew what the h**l I was even G**d**n talking about. Excuse my language.”

“My addiction is not an excuse, but I can tell you this: I am more embarrassed of this text message, if it actually did come from me, than any text message I’ve ever sent. The fact of the matter is, is that there’s no other text message that you have in which I say anything remotely to this. And I was out of my mind. I can also tell you this: My father was not sitting next to me.”

“My father had no awareness,” testified Hunter Biden.

Yet cell photo location data and photographs place Hunter Biden in Joe Biden’s Delaware home the day he texted Zhao. Two photos of Hunter Biden driving his father’s famous Corvette — the one in the same garage Joe Biden stored classified documents — alongside two young women from the same date appear on his abandoned laptop. Cell phone data embedded in the text also places Hunter Biden in close proximity to his father’s mansion the day of the text.

Regardless of whether Hunter Biden texted the right person, he does not contest the content of the text: He invoked his father and threatened to use his D.C. connections against the Chinese company unless it paid up.

And it worked. “The next day, I speak to a Raymond Zhao,” said Hunter. And records show the money began to flow.

Hunter’s Diamond

Some controversy swirls over a diamond given to Hunter Biden by CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming during a meeting at a Miami hotel on February 17, 2017. Hunter claimed the diamond was worthless and that giving new acquaintances diamonds is “commonplace” in Asian cultures.

In “China, in particular, and other parts of Asia, it’s commonplace to exchange gifts at the beginning of any relationship,” Hunter testified. He echoed testimony given a day earlier by his uncle and lifelong business partner, James Biden, that he gave the diamond to James, who had it appraised at a few hundred dollars. His uncle had the worthless stone thrown away.

That conflicts with the tale told by his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle Biden. Legal filings in her divorce proceedings place the value of the diamond, “on information and belief,” at “approximately $80,000.” A photo exhibit describes a diamond, presumably the diamond in question: 3.16 carats, excellent cut, color F, clarity VS2.

The filings further state Hunter said the diamond “had been returned to the entity that gave it to him.” That would mean he claimed he returned it to Ye Jianming or the CEFC, not his uncle’s Philadelphia diamond appraiser.

Enough contradictions entered the public record that House Republicans demand further research. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said the next phase will involve a public hearing to “clear up some discrepancies between some of the statements” made by witnesses at various hearings — “the sooner, the better.”