WASHINGTON — Hunter Biden is scheduled to appear Wednesday morning for a closed-door deposition in the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden’s role in foreign business relationships.
It is unclear how the 54-year-old eldest son, who regularly connected his father with business partners in countries such as China and Ukraine, plans to respond to questioning by the House of Commons committee leading the investigation. Panel investigators are also looking into an alleged Justice Department cover-up aimed at protecting Joe Biden and Hunter Biden.
In a possible preview of his testimony, the eldest son gave a defiant five-minute speech outside the Capitol on Dec. 13, ignoring the initial subpoena and insisting his father was innocent of any wrongdoing. did.
“Let me be as clear as possible: My father was not financially involved in my business, nor was he involved as a lawyer or as an officer of the company. [Ukrainian energy company] “Burisma is not about partnerships with private Chinese businessmen, domestic or international investments, and certainly not as an artist,” Hunter said at the time.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also said at the time that Hunter ignored the subpoena, saying Joe Biden “certainly knew what his son was trying to say,” adding that the article was possible. Regarding gender, he said there was a possibility that Congress would obstruct the count against the president. impeachment.
President Biden repeatedly said during the 2020 campaign that he “never” discussed business with Hunter or the commander-in-chief’s brother James Biden as a candidate, and in December he had no interactions with their associates. “I didn’t,” he claimed – despite repeated evidence that he had done so.
Emails, witness testimony, and even photos show Joe Biden met with his son’s associates and other officials in Mexico, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine who participated in two business deals linked to the Chinese government. has been done.
Many of these interactions occurred while Joe Biden was vice president overseeing U.S. foreign policy towards these countries.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said Wednesday ahead of Hunter’s testimony that the eldest son’s deposition was not the final step in the investigation.
“This deposition is not the conclusion of the impeachment inquiry,” Comer said. “More subpoenas and witness interviews are expected.”
Comer said the committee’s investigation “unearthed documentary evidence that reveals Joe Biden was a ‘brand’ sold by his family to enrich the Biden family.”
“Joe Biden knew about these plans, participated in them, and benefited from them,” Comer said.
“Joe Biden attended dinner, spoke on speakerphone, appeared at a meeting, and had coffee with his son’s foreign business associates.”
Mr. Hunter’s deposition follows a transcript of an interview last week with his eldest son, James, who partnered with Mr. Hunter on many foreign transactions. That interrogation didn’t yield much new information.
Hunter may invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, citing pending tax evasion charges in Los Angeles and firearms charges in Delaware.
Hunter’s appearance in court comes amid uncertainty over the resolution of the inquest.
House Republicans hold a slim 219-212 majority, meaning they have little room to lose votes even if the articles of impeachment come to the floor for a vote. The party united in December to retroactively approve the inquiry after it began without a vote in September.
In a dramatic development in the investigation, the Justice Department on February 15 accused the United States and Israel of lying to the FBI about conversations with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky related to a $10 million bribe to the Biden family. Nationality Alexander Smirnov was indicted.
House Republicans fought the FBI last year for access to informant files containing these allegations, but they did not know Mr. Smirnov’s identity until he was criminally charged.
President Biden said on February 16 that the impeachment inquiry “should be halted” after the informant was revealed to be an alleged liar.
“It should be withdrawn. It was an outrageous effort from the beginning,” he said.
Evidence developed to date
Supporting evidence in the case comes from an IRS whistleblower who investigated the first family, files from Hunter’s discarded laptop, and testimony from business partners involved in various transactions.
Rob Walker, a former business partner of the Biden family, revealed on January 26 that he received $3 million from China’s state-owned CEFC China Energy in March 2017, shortly after Joe Biden met with CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming. of funds went to Biden. Four Seasons Hotel in DC.
Walker said the money, sent just weeks after Joe Biden left office as vice president, was a “thank you” for preliminary services to procure business opportunities in a relationship that began in 2015. Ta.
A May 2017 email written by Biden family associate James Gillier also asked “big man” Joe Biden for a 10% interest in a proposed joint venture with CEFC.
“I’m sitting here with my father,” the future president later told a China-based official in July 2017, according to records provided to Congress by IRS case officer Joseph Ziegler. He was summoned by his son with a threatening text message warning him. He identified a Democratic lawmaker who claimed his own team was repeatedly blocked from pursuing leads about President Biden.
What will an impeachment inquiry into the Biden family business scandal look like?
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday launched an impeachment inquiry into President Biden, giving Congress more power to obtain documents and testimony about Biden’s role in his family’s overseas business dealings while he was vice president.
House Republicans have already made a series of requests to executive branch agencies related to Joe Biden’s eldest son Hunter Biden and eldest son James Biden’s involvement in international transactions, many in September. A deadline has been set, which could lead to litigation soon.
This study aims to answer a number of questions, including:
What’s in Vice President Joe Biden’s email?
During his time as vice president, Joe Biden used the pseudonyms “Robert L. Peters” and “Robin Ware” to communicate with his staff, leaving nearly 5,400 records on paper.
The House Oversight Committee requested these communications from the National Archives by Aug. 31, but officials told the Post the agency did not respond.
What do Hunter Biden’s bank records show?
Congressional Republicans are preparing to subpoena banks for accounts held by Hunter and James Biden, but have so far subpoenaed bank statements for some of them. is recieving.
The records could show whether any funds were transferred from foreign sources of Joe Biden’s relatives and whether those funds covered a significant portion of his spending. In the future, the House may also seek the president’s banking records.
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Within 10 days of the threatening messages, $5.1 million flowed into accounts associated with Hunter and James Biden, according to information in a 2020 report by a Republican-led Senate committee.
Hunter Biden and James Biden worked with CEFC on the company’s ultimately unsuccessful effort to get involved in the U.S. natural gas industry, the eldest son Biden acknowledged in his own testimony.
As part of a previous Chinese government-backed project, then-Vice President Joe Biden was also introduced by his son to BHR Partners’ incoming CEO Jonathan Lee, Hunter Biden’s former CEO, during a visit to Beijing in December 2013. I had coffee with my business partner Devon. Mr. Archer testified on July 31st.
During Hunter’s subsequent visit to China, Joe Biden greeted Li on speakerphone, Archer said. The vice president also wrote college recommendation letters for two of Lee’s children.
BHR Partners, which, like CEFC, was seeking foreign resources for China such as cobalt for electric vehicle batteries, was officially registered as a company within two weeks of the visit, the Wall Street Journal reported. Mr. Hunter continued to hold a 10% stake in the company through at least part of his father’s term as president.
Archer said Joe Biden, as vice president, had two separate encounters with his son’s regular customers, Kazakhs, Russians and Ukrainians, at Cafe Milano in Washington, D.C., in 2014 and 2015. He also attended the dinner party. Only one of those events is known from laptop files and pre-testimony witness cross-talk, and Archer dismissed claims that Joe Biden appeared only briefly.
Dinner guests included former Moscow first lady Elena Baturina, who transferred $3.5 million to companies associated with Hunter Biden in early 2014; He invested more than $100 million in Archers Rosemont Realty, which he was involved with.
House Republicans are scrutinizing President Biden’s decision to remove Baturina from a growing list of Russian business leaders facing U.S. sanctions over the two-year Russia-Ukraine war.
Convicted fraudster Jason Galanis told House investigators during a jailhouse interview Friday that Hunter had his father speak to Baturina on speakerphone at a rally in Brooklyn in May 2014. He said he was present at the time.
Kenneth Rakishev, the Kazakh businessman who bought Hunter a $142,000 sports car, also dined with Joe Biden and posed for a group photo with him.
Vadim Pozharsky, an adviser to the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma, paid Hunter up to $1 million a year starting in 2014, when his father was leading U.S. policy toward Ukraine after the anti-Russian uprising, but in 2015. The day after the dinner party in 2015, I sent Mr. Hunter an email to thank him. to him for a chance to meet his father.
Archer also claimed that Hunter Biden left a rally at the Four Seasons in Dubai in December 2015 to “call Washington D.C.” with Zlochevsky and Pozharskiy. Just before the vice president suddenly threatened to veto a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee to Kiev. He forced the removal of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin by seizing his assets from the owner of Burisma shortly before his removal.
Joe Biden also hosted the Vice Presidential Residence in November 2015, where he ushered Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and members of the wealthy Mexican Alemán family into the White House. Hunter Biden and his colleague Jeff Cooper courted them with an energy and technology pitch.
Joe Biden meets Cooper, Hunter, Slim, and Miguel Aleman Velasco and his son, Miguel Alemán Magnani, founder of the airline Interjet.
Hunter stayed for free at Aleman Magnani’s vacation home and helped set up meetings with Obama-Biden administration aides, including Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and the head of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Hunter later told Aleman Magnani in a message: “I brought everyone you ever asked me to the F’ing White House, the Vice President’s mansion, and the inauguration.” , who appear to have complained of a further lack of goodwill. Hunter and Cooper were listed as being on Air Force No. 2 plane with Joe Biden for an official visit to Mexico in 2016.
The eldest son was charged with firearms violations in Delaware and tax evasion in Los Angeles after declining a probation-only plea deal in July after the court required him to provide immunity for his past actions, including charges of violating foreign laws. He faces the possibility of prison time. Agent Registration Act, which may be related to his father.
His trial in Los Angeles is scheduled to begin June 20th.
The White House and Hunter Biden’s legal team did not respond to requests for comment.
