Kazakh businessman Kenes Rakishev inexplicably wired $142,000 to Hunter Biden in April 2014 so he could buy himself a sports car.
Mr. Rakishev sent the money around the same time then-Vice President Joe Biden dined with him at a Washington restaurant at Hunter Biden’s request.
The details of the gifted car were revealed by Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden’s, in four hours of testimony before House investigators last week and memorialized in a transcript.
Asked why Mr. Rakishev wired the money, Archer said it was for the vice president’s son to buy a pricey car. Archer said Hunter Biden at first purchased a Fisker electric car and then switched to a Porsche.
Archer did not know the reason for the payment.
“That’s a business matter between them,” Mr. Archer said.
Around the time Mr. Rakishev wired the payment, Hunter Biden arranged for his father to attend what would be the first of two dinners with his business associates in Washington.
The guest list at the first dinner, which Archer said took place in the spring of 2014, included several of Hunter Biden’s business associates. Mr. Rakishev was on the list.
Dinner guests also included Karim Massimov, then the prime minister of Kazakhstan, wealthy Russian real estate tycoon Yelena Baturina and possibly her husband, the late Yury Luzhkov, a former mayor of Moscow. Archer and another close family business associate, Eric Schwerin, attended the dinner.
The vice president entered the restaurant last and shook hands with the guests before dinner.
Archer, who is facing prison time on an unrelated securities fraud conviction, told House investigators that Vice President Biden had dinner with the group and engaged in conversations unrelated to business or his official duties.
“I don’t remember the conversation,” Archer told House investigators. “I just remember he came to dinner, and we ate and kind of talked about the world, I guess, and the weather, and then everybody left.”
Archer’s deposition is part of a broad House investigation of the Biden family business deals and whether Mr. Biden, as vice president, engaged in influence peddling with Hunter Biden and his business associates.
In addition to the dinners, Mr. Biden phoned into approximately 20 business meetings arranged by Hunter Biden and Archer, including meetings in Paris and Beijing.
The meetings and dinners contradict President Biden’s assertion that he did not participate in or know anything about his son’s business deals.
House investigators uncovered bank records showing that up to 10 Biden family members pocketed millions of dollars from the business deals, most carried out while Mr. Biden was vice president.
Around the same time as the dinner, Ms. Baturina wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, a company that Hunter Biden and Archer ran.
Archer said he believed that wire was some kind of “commission” and should have been directed to another firm he ran, Rosemont Realty, which did not involve Hunter Biden.
“It was not supposed to go there,” he said of the payment sent to Rosemont Seneca Thornton.
Hunter Biden’s Porsche made an infamous appearance on his discarded laptop computer.
The computer hard drive contained photos he took while driving the Porsche 172 mph outside Las Vegas. The president’s son was on his way to Vegas to smoke crack and party with prostitutes.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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