A high-powered delegation of Chinese communist industrialists was able to gain access to senior Obama White House officials during a 2011 U.S. visit thanks to Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s principal business partner, newly disclosed emails show.
“Couldn’t confirm this with Hunter on line but we got him his meeting at the WH Monday for the Chinese folks,” Archer said in a November 2011 email to associates, first reported by Breitbart.
The emails show that the Archer-Hunter Biden team was using the White House and Hunter’s father, then-Vice President Joseph R. Biden, as springboards for lucrative deals in China that followed.
The emails were obtained by investigative reporter Peter Schweizer, who has chronicled what he asserts is a multi-million-dollar influence-peddling racket by Biden family members cashing in on Biden’s vice presidency.
Bevan Cooney, a former Hunter Biden business associate now in prison for bond fraud, provided Mr. Schweizer complete access to his Gmail account. Mr. Schweizer says there are thousands of messages to be assessed. Archer was convicted in the same case for swindling investors and is awaiting sentencing.
Mr. Schweizer authored the first look at the Cooney emails in a story published Friday at Breitbart, written with Seamus Bruner.
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Mr. Schweizer said he confirmed through government records the email accounts that a group of business tycoons and Chinese Communist Party members called the China Entrepreneur Club met with senior Obama officials on Nov. 14, 2011. The story said a club associate later said the delegation met with Vice President Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee now leading President Trump in polls.
In 2011, Hunter Biden and Archer were exploring business opportunities in China which would produce millions of dollars in payments from wealthy Chinese businessmen. Meanwhile, Vice President Biden was the Obama administration’s point man in expanding ties with the communist regime. He traveled there in 2013 and took Hunter along on Air Force Two.
The Cooney emails cache is separate from Hunter Biden emails obtained by the New York Post from Rudy Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal attorney. The owner of a Mac computer repair shop in Wilmington, Del, says a MacBook Pro laptop was left in April 2019 for repair and never retrieved. The shop owner eventually provided the hard drive to the FBI and Mr. Giuliani.
The Hunter Biden emails — whose authenticity have not been disputed by his attorney — show that Hunter set up a meeting with a Burisma Holdings executive and his father in 2015. The Ukrainian thanked Hunter Biden, then a Burisma board member, for the meeting, the emails show. The Biden campaign says such a meeting does not show up on his official schedule but there could have been a brief encounter with the former vice president.
The November 2011 China Entrepreneur Club (CEC) visit is additional evidence that the Hunter Biden network was using the vice presidency to gain favors inside the Obama administration.
Candidate Biden has steadfastly said he had no knowledge of his son’s far-flung business dealings. On the campaign trail on Friday he declined to comment about his son’s activities.
A Senate Republican report last week cited U.S. Treasury reports to show that Hunter Biden received millions of dollars from Burisma, after he won a board of directors seat three months after his dad became White House point man on Ukraine.
Hunter also received a $3.5 million wire transfer in February 2014 from a female Russian oligarch deemed corrupt by the U.S. The former vice president’s son also garnered millions in fees from Chinese billionaire Ye Jianming, since accused of bribery and not seen in public since 2018.
The Cooney-provided emails show that the November meeting happened based on ground work first done by Mohamed A. Khashoggi, who represented the CEC, Breitbart said.
He sent an October 2011 email to Gary Fears, an associate of Hunter Biden and Archer.
“A tour of the white house and a meeting with a member of the chief of staff’s office and John Kerry would be great,” Mr. Khashoggi said to Mr. Fears. Mr. Kerry at the time was Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman.
Mr. Khashoggi said the CEC visit would give access “for any deal in the future.”
Mr. Fears contacted Archer who days later met with Mr. Khashoggi.
Archer responded on Nov. 11, “Hunter is traveling in the UAE for the week with royalty so probably next week before he will be back in pocket.” His email was sent to Mr. Fears, Hunter Biden and Bevan Cooney.
A minute later, Archer confirmed that the White House-CEC meeting is on.
“Couldn’t confirm this with Hunter online but we got him his meeting at the WH Monday for the Chinese folks,” Archer said.
On Nov. 14, the day of the White House visit, Cooney emailed Mr. Fears: “Archer got the Chinese guys all taken care of in DC.”
Breitbart reported that subsequently the CEC secretary general Maggie Cheng said the 30-person delegation did meet with the vice president.
The China Entrepreneur Club is an exclusive list of who’s who in the country’s communist-industrial complex. Some hold senior positions in the ruling Communist Party.
Breitbart said party members include Wang Zhongyu, an engineer and diplomat; Ma Weihua, who heads China Merchants Bank; and Jiang Xipei, chairman of the Far East Holding Company.
The CEC issued a press release on Dec. 1, 2011 on its return to China summarizing its tour of America. The press release said the delegation stopped in Washington, but did not mention that it visited the White House.
An unverified CEC Twitter account says it joined in April and has 23 followers. The chairman is Jack Ma, a Communist Party member, multi-billionaire and co-founder of the technology giant Alibaba.
The Nov. 14, 2011 CEC White House visit was followed by stepped-up activity in China by Hunter Biden, Archer, and their Rosemont Seneca Partners.
“Hunter Biden and Devon Archer engaged in numerous financial transactions with Chinese nationals who had deep connections to the Communist Chinese government,” said the Senate Republican report spearheaded by Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley of Iowa and Homeland Security and Government Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
In 2011, at the time of the White House visit, Hunter Biden was networking with state-owned Chinese companies through the Boston firm Thornton Group.
At some point, Hunter Biden hooked up with Ye Jianming, chief of China Energy Co. He worked out a deal to receive $10 million a year for “introductions alone,” he said in an email published by the New York Post.
“The records acquired by the Committees show consistent, significant and extensive financial connections among and between Hunter Biden, James Biden, Sara Biden, Devon Archer, and Chinese nationals connected to the Communist regime and PLA as well as other foreign nationals with questionable backgrounds,” the Senate Republican report concluded.
James and Sara are Joe Biden’s brother and sister-in-law.
• Rowan Scarborough can be reached at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
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