Tony Bobulinski said Tuesday night that he met with former Vice President Joseph R. Biden in a darkened Beverly Hills bar for an hour to discuss a new business venture with Hunter Biden and James Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee’s son and brother.
Mr. Bobulinski said Hunter Biden had recruited him to run an investment company, Sinohawk Holdings, that would be a family affair with Chinese billionaire and Communist Party-connected Ye Jianming.
Hunter Biden wanted Mr. Bobulinski to meet the elder Mr. Biden in May 2017 to size up the person who would run a family business.
“They were putting their entire family legacy on the line,” Mr. Bobulinski told Tucker Carlson during an exclusive interview in Los Angeles, which aired on Fox News Channel.
His account flies in the face of the Democratic presidential nominee, who has repeatedly said he had no role in Hunter Biden’s far-flung business ventures in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere, dealing with oligarchs and communists.
“They were wining and dining me and presenting the strength of the Biden family,” Mr. Bobulinski said.
Just out of office, Mr. Biden was in Los Angeles for a speech at an economic conference as he started to plan for a presidential run.
“He’s got to get some rest because he speaking at a conference in the morning,” Mr. Bobulinski quoted Hunter as saying.
The next morning, Mr. Bobulinski had a brief chat with the former vice president.
“He asked me to keep an eye on his son and his brother,” Mr. Bobulinski said.
He said that when Joseph Biden at the Oct. 15 presidential debate called the Hunter Biden story Russian disinformation, he wanted to stand up and yell that Mr. Biden was lying.
It was “absolutely disgusting. … He knows. He sat face to face with me,” Mr. Bobulinski said.
“I was hoping the Bidens would do the right thing,” he said by stop tying him to Russian intelligence.
The scandal began when Hunter Biden left his laptop at a Wilmington, Delaware, repair shop in April 2019 and never picked it up, making it the legal possession of the shop owners.
Those owners eventually turned over the hard drive to the FBI and provided a copy to Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney.
Rep. Adam B. Schiff, California Democrat, responded by calling the laptop Russian disinformation — without presenting evidence — and other Democrats joined in.
Mr. Bobulinski said he was so offended by being linked to Russia that he told a Biden family associate, Rob Walker, that he would speak out publicly unless Mr. Schiff retracted.
“You’ll bury all of us,” Mr. Walker responded, according to a recording.
Mr. Bobulinski told Mr. Carlson that “I had to go on record because they chose to mar up my name.”
He said former Navy SEALs are now protecting his family.
Asked about Hunter and James Biden’s business acumen, Mr. Bobulinski, a wealthy entrepreneur, said, “They have the Biden name and are able to set up meetings. … The only qualifications they had was the Biden name.”
Mr. Bobulinski said that eventually the Chinese reached a deal and $10 million was supposed to be sent to a U.S. bank from Mr. Ye’s energy firm, CEFC.
Of that, $5 million was a loan to the “BD” family, documents show. The other $5 million was to capitalize Sinohawk.
The money did not show up.
Then Hunter Biden informed Mr. Bobulinski he had become the personal attorney for Mr. Ye, who was doing a billion-dollar Russian energy deal.
A Sept. 23 Senate report shows that $5 million did flow from Mr. Ye to Hunter Biden, who sent $1.3 million to James Biden, his uncle and an adviser to Joe Biden.
The transaction was disclosed in a U.S. Treasury Department suspicious activity report (SARS) that could be evidence of criminality.
“I think the American people should be demanding that this is investigated,” Mr. Bobulinski said.
Mr. Bobulinski burst onto the scene earlier this month with a sharply worded statement contradicting Mr. Biden’s long-claimed statements about his ignorance of his son’s dealings.
He held a press conference on the eve of last Thursday’s presidential debate and met with the FBI on Friday. He has provided his cache of documents to a Senate committee about his joint investment firm, Sinohawk Holdings.
It was the joint Senate Sept. 23 report on Hunter Biden’s financial links to Mr. Ye and other Chinese industrialists that prompted Mr. Bobulinski to become a whistle-blower.
He said he learned for the first time that Hunter Biden was withdrawing money and sending millions of dollars to a shell company in New York.
Republican Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, respectively the chairmen of the Homeland Security and Finance Committees, accused the younger Biden in their report of cashing in on his father’s powerful role as vice president.
“What I’ve come forward with is a piece of that puzzle that Senators Johnson and Grassley didn’t have,” Mr. Bobulinski said.
“I expect the parties have destroyed and gotten rid of information,” he added.
Among the leaked messages is a discussion among partners with Hunter Biden on how to divvy up stakes in an emerging investment.
One email from partner James Gilliar to Mr. Bobulinski and Hunter Biden talked of giving a 10% share to “the big guy.”
Mr. Bobulinski said, “Hunter Biden called his dad ’the big guy’ or ’my chairman,’ and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing.
“I’ve seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about his business. I’ve seen first-hand that that’s not true, because it wasn’t just Hunter’s business, they said they were putting the Biden family name and its legacy on the line,” he said last week.
• Rowan Scarborough can be reached at rscarborough@washingtontimes.com.
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