Earlier, the DOJ announced a plea agreement with Mr. Biden, President Joe Biden’s son, whereby he would plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax crimes and would have a felony gun charge diverted.
During a July 26 hearing on his plea deal with the DOJ, Mr. Hunter Biden admitted to having received money from the Chinese energy firm CEFC. In exhibit 1 of his plea agreement, prosecutors went more in-depth on transactions between the first son, Chinese companies, and CCP affiliates.
Though past reporting had already divulged information about Mr. Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China, the document, signed by the younger Biden himself, means that he has now affirmed having received such income under penalty of perjury.
The exhibit attached to the plea agreement details how, despite lucrative streams of income from various sources, Mr. Hunter Biden failed to pay his income tax bill to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for years.
Biden Received Millions From Chinese Firm
First, the report details that Mr. Hunter Biden in 2017 received “just under $1 million from a company he formed with the CEO of a Chinese business conglomerate.”
The income flowed to Hudson West, a company Mr. Hunter Biden founded with Chinese businessman Ye Jianming in 2017.
That income came from CEFC China Energy Co. Ltd. (CEFC), an energy company founded by Mr. Ye for which Mr. Hunter Biden provided consultation and legal assistance. Mr. Ye and his company reportedly have close ties with the Chinese communist regime and the People’s Liberation Army.
In a 2020 Senate report on CEFC (pdf), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) condemned CEFC as “an extension of the Chinese government … that … intended to alter U.S. policy and public opinion to its benefit.”
Mr. Grassley said the goal of CEFC was “[to] expand cooperation in the international energy economy and contribute to the national development.”
“The Chinese government would be the principal beneficiary of those actions,” Mr. Grassley wrote.
CEFC became China’s largest privately held oil company before it was caught in Beijing’s cross hairs in 2018. Mr. Ye was placed under investigation in February 2018 for “suspected economic crimes” and subsequently detained. Mr. Ye’s current whereabouts are unknown.
That same year, according to the court filings, Mr. Hunter Biden also received $1 million in legal fees from Patrick Ho, a former CCP government official who worked with CEFC. Mr. Ho was sentenced to three years in U.S. federal prison for crimes related to his activities at CEFC in 2019.
The court filings also show that Mr. Hunter Biden in 2017 received additional income of $664,000 from “a Chinese infrastructure investment company.” According to information listed in a September 2020 report by Mr. Grassley and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), that company was likely CEFC Infrastructure Investment LLC, a CEFC subsidiary (pdf).
More Foreign Income
In 2018, court records show, Mr. Hunter Biden received additional income from CEFC and other foreign sources.
“Biden continued to earn handsomely … in 2018,” the plea agreement exhibit says.
The report lists $2.6 million received that year jointly in “business and consulting fees” from CEFC and the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, for which Mr. Hunter Biden served on the board of directors.
However, it does not distinguish the amounts received from each company. Payments from both companies likely flowed into Owasco, a legal and consulting firm owned by Mr. Hunter Biden.
According to previous testimony from Devon Archer, an associate of Mr. Hunter Biden’s, the younger Biden received roughly $83,000 a month, or just shy of $1 million per year, from Burisma, but court records contradict this claim.
These conflicting reports, and a lack of distinction between the two income streams in the court records, leave uncertain how much Chinese cash Mr. Hunter Biden received in 2018, but indicate that the figure may lie somewhere between $1.6 million and $2.1 million. This would bring the total amount received from Chinese companies and CCP affiliates in the document to between $4.2 million and $4.7 million.
In addition to CEFC and Burisma, Mr. Hunter Biden also admitted in the court record to having received $70,000 from a Romanian business and $48,000 from a multinational law firm where he worked.
He also confirmed having made $666,666 from his domestic business activities in 2017.
Meanwhile, the court filing notes, Mr. Hunter Biden “essentially ignored his tax obligations.”
Contradicts President’s Earlier Claims
The sworn court statement directly contradicts earlier statements from Mr. Joe Biden claiming that his son never made money in China.
During the second general election presidential debate on Oct. 22, 2020, Mr. Joe Biden, then a candidate, was asked about his son’s foreign business ventures by debate moderator Kristen Welker.
“Vice President Biden, there have been questions about the work your son has done in China and for a Ukrainian energy company when you were vice president. In retrospect, was anything about those relationships inappropriate or unethical?” Ms. Welker asked.
“Nothing was unethical,” Mr. Joe Biden replied. “My son has not made money in terms of this thing about, what are you talking about, China? I have not had … the only guy who made money from China is this guy,” he said, referring to President Donald Trump.
“He’s the only one,” the elder Biden said. “Nobody else has made money from China.”
Other Claims About Biden’s Involvement
Some associates of Mr. Hunter Biden have insisted in comments to the press that Mr. Joe Biden was more involved in his son’s business dealings than he has publicly acknowledged.
In the weeks before the 2020 election, the New York Post published an email from Mr. Hunter Biden’s laptop, which has since been authenticated, detailing proposed payout packages and equity shares in Mr. Hunter Biden’s venture with CEFC and Mr. Ye.
The now-infamous email, written by Mr. Hunter Biden, states “10 held by H for the big guy?”
Tony Bobulinski, a former business associate of the younger Biden, later publicly confirmed that “the big guy” was a reference to Mr. Joe Biden, undercutting the elder Biden’s claims that he wasn’t involved with his son’s business dealings.
“In that email, there’s no question—the ‘H’ stands for ‘Hunter Biden,’ ‘the big guy’ for his father,” Mr. Bobulinski said.
“I have heard Joe Biden say he has never discussed business with Hunter. That is false.”
Mr. Bobulinski relayed the details of his years-long involvement with the Bidens, which he said began in 2015 when he was approached by one of Mr. Hunter Biden’s business associates about getting involved in a business deal concerning the Chinese firm CEFC Energy. Mr. Bobulinski was told at the time, when Mr. Joe Biden was still the sitting vice president, that other partners would include members of “one of the most prominent families in the United States.”
“On May 2, 2017 … I was introduced to Joe Biden by Jim Biden and Hunter Biden,” Mr. Bobulinski said.
During their hours-long conversation that night, he said, Mr. Joe Biden demonstrated a strong familiarity “at a high level” with Mr. Hunter Biden’s business dealings.
Mr. Bobulinski also indicated that Mr. Joe Biden was aware of the potential ethical concerns in being involved and said he quickly learned that Mr. Joe Biden wasn’t to be mentioned in writing or on the phone but only during face-to-face meetings.
Mr. Archer has also claimed that he witnessed the elder Biden having “casual conversations” with his son’s business associates on roughly 20 occasions. While these conversations never addressed business, Mr. Archer said, they were “powerful.”
“I don’t know if it was an orchestrated call-in or not,” Mr. Archer said. “It certainly was powerful though, because if you’re sitting with a foreign business person and you hear the vice president’s voice, that’s prize enough.”
Original Plea Agreement
The court filings were entered into the public record as part of a plea agreement that has faced scrutiny from Judge Maryellen Noreika, who oversaw the case.
Judge Noreika questioned the breadth of the deal, which would have granted Mr. Hunter Biden sweeping immunity from further prosecution in the future, including potential prosecution under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This level of immunity, Judge Noreika said during Mr. Hunter Biden’s hearing, was “nonstandard,” and she has deferred a decision on the deal to sometime in the future.
Judge Noreika indicated that the plea agreement proposed by DOJ prosecutors was unlike any she had seen, and suggested that Mr. Hunter Biden’s legal team and prosecutors were seeking to collude to protect the first son by cutting out judicial review of the deal.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the House, assisted by Mr. Grassley and others, have launched their own probes into the Bidens’ business dealings, alleging from their discoveries that the Bidens have made millions from foreign sources through the use of shell companies and other measures.
After the plea deal became public, Republicans harshly criticized it as an effort to undermine their investigations through the broad immunity the DOJ offered Mr. Hunter Biden.
Source: The EpochTimes
