OPINION:
Hunter Biden complained in a text message to his daughter that he had to spread his money around the entire Biden clan by dipping into his foreign cash hauls. His laptop computer, forgotten at a repair shop in 2019, shows that President Joe Biden’s brother James received at least $1.4 million from his nephew.
The laptop contents, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Times in 2020, provide a glimpse of the Hunter/James money connection. Hunter kept his uncle’s Lion Hall Group consulting firm, run with his wife Sara, on a monthly retainer. The Hunter text said he had to share half his salary with Joe.
Today, the evidence is clear. Hunter traded on his dad’s name to acquire Chinese money to invest and spend. Chinese communists were trying to buy influence in D.C. through the Biden family.
“There’s clearly a scheme here,” says Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa Republican.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware appears to be reaching a conclusion in its investigation of Hunter’s foreign business deals and federal tax returns. The New York Post reported that Hunter was forced to acquire up to $2 million from a Hollywood lawyer to pay back taxes to the Internal Revenue Service. A grand jury has been hearing evidence on his income and spending.
As for the president, he and brother James underscored their closeness by playing a round of golf in Delaware on Mother’s Day. After the round, the president went to the home of Hallie Biden, widow of Mr. Biden’s son Beau. After Beau’s death, Hunter and Hallie engaged in a romantic relationship.
Hunter and his uncle are also close. In May 2018, Lion Hall, located in Merion Station, Pennsylvania, billed Owasco, Hunter’s then-K Street law firm, $82,500, for what the invoice described as “monthly retainer for international business development.”
That August, Hunter sent an email to staff authorizing a $96,000 payment to James Biden. The following month, he OK’d another $95,000, the laptop hard drive copy shows.
Owasco was the Hunter money pot. Where did the funds come from? Hunter collected large sums from oligarchs in China, Russia and Ukraine. The financial wires came after then-Vice President Biden became the Obama administration’s diplomatic point man for China and Ukraine.
This was particularly the case for China, where the elder Biden traveled in 2011 and 2013, pledging in a speech to communist leaders he would integrate China into American centers of power.
President Barack Obama named him Ukraine viceroy in 2014 after the Russian invasion of Crimea. Hunter and his since-convicted business partner Devon Archer quickly won lucrative spots on the board of Burisma, an oligarch-run energy conglomerate. A Vladimir Putin-supervised oligarch wired Hunter $3.5 million the same month Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine.
It is possible the money for James came from a new stream of funding from China. On Aug. 8, 2017, a now-bankrupt Shanghai energy firm, China Energy Company Limited, wired $5 million to a bank account set up by Hudson West III, which was controlled by Hunter and Gongwen Dong, CEFC associate.
Over the next 12 months, Hudson sent consulting fees to Hunter’s Owasco firm totaling $4.8 million. CEFC was then led by billionaire Ye Jianming. When Chinese authorities disappeared Ye in 2018, Hunter complained in a message to a family member he had just lost his best source of money.
Some of the transfers were disclosed in 2020 in an extensive Senate staff report led by Republican Sens. Grassley and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. The senators’ main sources of information: suspicious activity reports filed by banks with the Treasury Department when they suspected illegal activity such as money laundering.
In September 2018, about the same time that Hunter was sending large sums to Uncle Jim, Hunter emailed a CEFC associate, Mervyn Yan, asking him to wire $295,000 to his Owasco account.
The Grassley-Johnson report proved to be a great source on the Bidens, or what a number of conservatives have come to call “The Biden Crime Family.”
James’ Lion Hall Group received at least nearly $1.4 million from Hunter’s Owasco law firm in 2017-18.
When James’ bank began questioning the reason for such large deposits, Sara Biden said it was for assisting Owasco with international clients. She refused to provide the bank with documentation.
James and Sara also cashed in on a wild $100K shopping spree compliments of Hunter and Gongwen Dong. The two opened a line of credit at Hudson West. James and Sara went shopping, spending $101,291 on travel, hotels, restaurants and Apple devices. The bank filed a SARs report.
Last month, Mr. Grassley took to the Senate floor to lay out new information about James Biden and China. He showed actual bank transactions between Chinese communist-connected tycoons and Hunter and James Biden.
“These new records show direct financial links between companies connected to the communist regime and James Biden through the Lion Hall Group,” Mr. Grassley said. “Today, we’ll add James Biden’s Lion Hall Group to the list of Biden family companies connected to the communist regime.”
Mr. Grassley said Hunter and James helped CEFC try to obtain a larger share of the global energy market while the president limits U.S. energy exploration.
There was media silence on the Grassley/Johnson report in 2020 and media silence on their floor speeches in April.
“Forget the facts, forget the evidence, forget investigative journalism,” Mr. Grassley said. “The liberal media wanted to provide cover for then-candidate Joe Biden. They did whatever they could to smear our investigation.”
Mr. Johnson joined his colleague on the Senate floor and asked, “Emails on Hunter Biden’s laptop, now in the possession of the FBI, refer to shared accounts or bills between Joe Biden and Hunter. Did Hunter ever give Joe Biden any money, gift or financial benefit from Hunter’s business dealings?”
Hunter Biden himself says that he did.
• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.
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