Chris Lange, FISM News
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Revelations concerning Hunter Biden’s mysterious – and lucrative – foreign business dealings continue to emerge from a trove of information discovered on his laptop, some of which call to question his father’s continued claims that he knew nothing about them.
Text messages from Hunter Biden’s computer infamously left at a Wilmington repair shop, the authenticity of which has been confirmed by the Washington Post and the New York Times, indicate that the younger Biden was routinely on the hook for his father’s household expenses while Joe Biden was vice president. In one message, Hunter complained that he had to kick back nearly half his earnings to “Pop,” according to a New York Post report.
“I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years. It’s really hard, but don’t worry — Unlike Pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary,” the 52-year-old wrote to his daughter Naomi, now 28, in January of 2019.
A June 5, 2010, email titled “JRB Bills” sent to Hunter from business partner Eric Schwerin provides a glimpse into the kind of expenses the younger Biden was expected to pay related to the upkeep of Joe Biden’s lakefront home in Wilmington, Delaware. Among the included items are $1,239 in repairs to an air conditioner at “mom-mom’s cottage” and another $1,475 to a painter for “back wall and columns at the lake house.” The email goes on to list a $2,600 bill for fixing up a “stone retaining wall at the lake” and $475 “for shutters.”
In an email sent five days later, Schwerin acknowledged receipt of then-Vice-President Biden’s “Delaware tax refund check,” implying personal access to then Vice-President Biden’s bank accounts.
At the time, Schwerin was serving as president of Rosemont Seneca Partners, Hunter’s Chinese-linked investment firm.
The emails also show that the elder Biden occasionally reimbursed his son.
“I am depositing it in his account and writing a check in that amount back to you since he owes it to you. Don’t think I need to run it by him, but if you want to go ahead,” Schwerin wrote.
In a July 6, 2010, email titled “JRB Future Memo,” Schwerin told Hunter that he had been in discussions with the vice president about his personal finances, and that the elder Biden was eager to know how he could cash in when he left office.
“Your Dad just called me (about his mortgage) and mentioned he’d be out a lot soon and not really back until Labor Day … He could use some positive news about his future earnings potential,” Schwerin wrote.
The purportedly linked finances of Joe and Hunter Biden also extended into the younger Biden’s personal life, according to the report.
Hunter received several text messages from a former agent in May 2018 during an alleged drug and alcohol binge in Los Angeles after he transferred around $25,000 to an escort named “Gulnora.” The agent urged him to leave his hotel and reminded him that “this is linked to Celtic’s account.” “Celtic” was the elder Biden’s Secret Service code name during his vice presidency, the report said.
Hunter’s foreign business dealings have also raised counterintelligence concerns, including his connection to Patrick Ho, who was arrested in 2017 for bribing African leaders in exchange for energy contracts that appear to have benefited the Chinese government.
Ho’s indictment, and subsequent trial and conviction, revealed a complex web of Chinese influence peddling that included arms deals to countries in war zones in Africa and the Middle East, including the sale of rocket and grenade launchers, according to reporting by Yahoo News, which broke the story.
According to court documents reviewed by Yahoo, Ho and his boss, Ye Jianming, a billionaire oil tycoon with ties to the People’s Liberation Army, had entered into a business relationship with Hunter and his uncle, James Biden.
At the time of his arrest, Ho’s connection to the Bidens was unclear, but emails discovered on Hunter’s laptop purportedly expose a “high-dollar money trail that flowed from Chinese interests to Hunter and James Biden,” which is now the subject of an ongoing Justice Department criminal investigation.
“The documents show that over a 14-month period in 2017 and 2018, a Chinese firm, CEFC China Energy, which was founded by Ye and whose nonprofit wing was run by Ho, paid $4.8 million to an investment vehicle controlled by Hunter Biden,” the report states, after which Hunter’s firm transferred $1.4 million to James Biden’s consulting firm, according to bank records and a report released by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Hunter Biden, who is a lawyer, also signed a retainer agreement to represent Ho in September 2017, just two months before the Chinese businessman’s arrest. Grassley separately obtained bank records showing $1 million was paid to Biden in March 2018 for the representation, although it is not clear what work, if any, he did for Ho.
A May 11, 2018, audio recording of a phone conversation between Hunter and an unidentified woman found on his laptop indicates that the younger Biden was aware of Ho’s and Ye’s Chinese intelligence connections. During the phone call, Biden complained about getting a phone call from a New York Times reporter asking about his representation of Ho, according to a transcript of the call obtained by Yahoo News. Hunter referred to Ho as “literally the f***ing spy chief of China” to the woman.
In the same conversation, Biden also talked about phone calls he had gotten from his father concerning media inquiries into his business affairs and complains that Ye, whom he refers to as “my partner” and “the richest man in the world,” had recently gone missing in China and he was unable to get in touch with him.
None of the details about Hunter and James Biden’s business dealings with Chinese interests implicate President Biden in any wrongdoing, but the extent of the Biden family’s financial ties with Ho and Ye have raised new questions as to whether they were targets of a Chinese influence operation that represents a counterintelligence threat. The possible connection is particularly concerning in light of potential geopolitical implications amid Russia’s war on Ukraine and its close ties to China, coupled with heightened concerns over China’s intentions toward Taiwan.
“There’s no question that Chinese intelligence services look for every possible opportunity to get close to family members of high-ranking officials,” said Frank Figliuzzi, former chief of the FBI’s counterintelligence division. Figliuzzi, who has been skeptical about stories concerning Hunter Biden in the past, acknowledged that “the information we’ve learned is something that merits a review by the counterintelligence arm of the FBI.”
Hunter Biden is currently under federal investigation for alleged tax fraud and possible foreign lobbying violations.