(New York Post) A newly surfaced document allegedly helps prove Hunter Biden was working with Chinese state-linked CEFC China Energy while his dad was still vice president — as suspected by Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry into reputed corruption by the president.
President Biden has repeatedly claimed his family never got money from China — despite his own alleged direct involvement in two different Chinese government-backed ventures.
“We anticipate working together on a number of opportunities in the US and abroad,” says the potentially damning March 22, 2016, letter that surfaced Tuesday and was addressed to CEFC Executive Director Jianjun Zang on Hunter’s letterhead about 10 months before his dad Joe left office as vice president.
“I believe we have presented a collection of projects that parallel the interests of you and your team and we look forward to discussing them in detail,” says the draft letter to Zang, which was distributed among Hunter and his partners Rob Walker and James Gilliar as an e-mail attachment.
“As we await your next visit to the United States, please continue to coordinate all matters with my confidant and trusted advisor, James Gilliar,” the letter says.
Walker provided the document to the House impeachment inquiry ahead of his Jan. 26 closed-door deposition — which also backed up some of what the letter suggests with other alleged evidence.
The e-mail was published Tuesday as part of his interview transcript.
It is unclear if the letter, presumably signed by Hunter, actually reached Zang and, if so, if any of the wording was revised.
E-mails indicate that an assistant to Hunter was due to dispatch the letter to the Chinese once approved.
Joe and Hunter Biden have not specifically confirmed or denied the start date of a CEFC relationship, but Hunter is expected to be grilled on that detail during his own deposition later this month.
On the hot seat during a closed-door session of the impeachment probeTuesday was another former Biden family associate, Tony Bobulinski.
He is one of the Republicans’ best hopes of confirming damning details about the president’s ties to his relatives’ Chinese government-linked relationships.
President Biden has said that in addition to his family never getting money from China, he had no interactions with his relatives’ business associates and that Hunter’s abandoned laptop was Russian disinformation — claims which were disproven.
Joe Biden as vice president interacted with first son Hunter and first brother James Biden’s patrons from Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan and Ukraine — and had coffee in 2013 with the CEO of an earlier Chinese state-backed Hunter Biden venture, according to laptop evidence, photos and witness statements.
In a court filing Tuesday, the Justice Department said it provided Hunter’s legal team in a gun case with a “complete and identical” copy of the infamous laptop retrieved by the FBI in 2019 from a Delaware repair shop and first reported by The Post.
Hunter’s reps and Democrats have yet to use that cache to support their claims that some publicly reported evidence against the president may have been doctored.
In his congressional testimony, Walker broadly defended the president from allegations of wrongdoing while also firming up key details in the Republican impeachment case, including saying the origins of the Hunter Biden-CEFC relationship dated to as early as 2015.
Here is Hunter Biden’s letterhead being used for a draft letter to CEFC Director Zang. 👇 pic.twitter.com/A5VCTG163O
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) February 13, 2024
An investigator asked Walker, in reference to a different document, “it’s fair to say that by February of 2016 you, James Gilliar, and Hunter Biden had begun pursuing business with CEFC?”
“That is correct,” Walker replied.
“I do remember Zang being in DC,” Walker added. “He was in DC probably three or maybe four times.”
Walker also told investigators that Joe Biden, just weeks after leaving office as vice president, met with his son’s CEFC partners, including Chairman Ye Jianming, at the Four Seasons hotel in DC.
Joe Biden stopped by the meeting shortly before the Biden family received an initial tranche of more than $1 million from CEFC, Walker said.
The million-dollar haul to the Biden family, which was divvied up between Hunter Biden, his uncle James Biden and his sister-in-law Hallie Biden, according to bank records, was roughly one third of a $3 million transfer from a corporate subsidiary to Walker, who kept about a third and sent a third to Gilliar.
Gilliar insisted that the $3 million payday “had nothing to do with” Joe Biden’s stop-in at the DC hotel and that it was in fact payment for services provided during Biden’s vice presidency.
“The $3 million payment, then, was payment for the success that you had previously shown them. Do I have that right?” an investigator asked.
“From the opportunities that we had shown them, yes,” Walker said.
‘BELT AND ROAD’ AND THE BIDENS
The CEFC venture fueled one of the most explosive corruption allegations against Joe Biden in 2020 when communications appeared to show the Democratic nominee getting a cut from the Chinese government-linked partnership, which sought to procure resources abroad for China.
A May 2017 e-mail from Gilliar, recovered from Hunter’s laptop, penciled in Joe Biden, nicknamed the “big guy,” for a 10% cut that was to be “held by H,” though evidence has not confirmed that the president ever received that slice.
An October 2017 e-mail also named Joe Biden as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas.
