by John Solomon and Steven Richards
Federal agents gathered evidence during the 2016 election that Hunter Biden had used access to his father on an official government trip to Beijing aboard Air Force Two to connect prospective Chinese business partners with then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to a massive cache of documents recently turned over to Congress and obtained by Just the News.
“They got to meet Dad. All very good. Talk later,” Hunter Biden wrote in a December 2013 email confirming how he connected his Chinese associates with his father in a Beijing hotel after the vice president had met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The younger Biden also bragged in his emails that his father was so enamored with China’s communist leader that “I think they are in love with each other,” the emails showed.
“They all most kissed on departure,” Hunter Biden wrote in one of the emails seized by federal agents.
The previously nonpublic communications were among 3.3 million pages of emails, bank records, and corporate memos that FBI, IRS, and Securities and Exchange Commission agents collected in 2015 and 2016 with subpoenas during a criminal investigation into a fraudulent bond scheme involving a Native-American tribe.
The younger Biden wasn’t charged in that case, though several of his business partners were. But agents in that probe did gain extensive access to Hunter Biden’s bank files, corporate records, and communications, including some that were not located on the first son’s now infamous laptop that would be seized by the FBI in 2019 and become a subject of political controversy a year later.
The evidence, recently secured by the House Oversight Committee in the impeachment probe of President Joe Biden, shines new light on how Hunter Biden sought to cash in on his family’s famous name overseas — sometimes in the vapor trail of his father’s official duties. It also substantiates impeachment inquiry testimony from former Hunter Biden business associates Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, lawmakers told Just the News.
“The only reason Joe Biden wanted to kiss President Xi was because state-affiliated companies were about to line his family’s pockets with foreign wires and lucrative business opportunities,” said House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who is leading the current impeachment inquiry.
“This is another example of the same formula demonstrated through our Committee’s investigation into the Biden Family’s influence peddling operation: Hunter Biden sets up meetings with the foreign businessman, Joe Biden meets them at Hunter’s direction, and the Biden family receives substantial payments in return. Rinse and repeat,” Comer added.
Biden has consistently denied any involvement with Hunter’s Chinese business associates, and an incurious U.S. media refused to delve into it. For his part, Hunter Biden called the issue part of the “Trump attack machine.” Pro-Biden media outlets like Politico parroted the White House’s line that the laptop was part of a “Russian Disinformation” scheme.
Another lawmaker who launched one of the earliest investigations of the Biden family’s business dealings said the new evidence was shocking for another reason: it divulges how much government agencies knew about the Biden family’s various foreign business exploits long before they became a controversy during the 2020 presidential election.
“I was always suspicious that the FBI, the Department of Justice had walled Hunter Biden off of that Indian fraud prosecution to protect him and protect Joe Biden,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told Just the News on Thursday. “I think that was maybe the first sign of corruption way back in 2013.”
“The FBI apparently had some, at least reasonably incriminating or suspicious evidence against Hunter, and they buried it, and they’ve kept it buried until just was revealed right now,” he added.
Abbe Lowell, lawyer for Hunter Biden, did not respond to email and text message requests for comment.
Hunter Biden’s trip aboard Air Force Two has been known for years. But the new documents divulge fresh details about what happened on that 2013 trip, Hunter Biden’s observations of his father’s ties to China, and the fact that federal law enforcement has known for years that Hunter Biden was connecting his father to the foreigners he was soliciting for business, something the Biden family originally denied.
The first son admitted in his deposition to the House Oversight Committee in February that Joe Biden in fact met with his Chinese partners.
Just the News obtained several emails from the federal investigation’s repository showing that Hunter Biden arranged the meeting in Beijing in 2013 with Chinese-based partner Jonathan Li and his father right after the then-vice president finished meeting with Xi. The meeting was not impromptu, but rather set up in advance, the emails showed.
“I arrive around 12- head to embassy then great hall for arrival ceremony. Staying at St. Regis- I will touch base when I land,” Hunter Biden wrote to Li on Dec. 4, 2013.
“Hope I can see u this time!” Li replied.
“Yes – we will make it work- lets plan on you guys coming over to St. Regis around 7:30 tonight. I don’t know exactly when I’ll be back but it should be around then- and I’d like to introduce you to my Dad. Also I am here until 4PM tmrw- again not sure what I am going to attend with Dad but will have better idea by tonight,” Hunter informed his partner, seemingly eager to arrange the meeting.
Li agreed to join Hunter Biden at his hotel and said he would bring two of his associates, the emails show.
“Meetings are running late- which means dinner w/ X will be pushed back so I think it is more likely that I will be back to hotel around 8:30 now. I’ll keep you updated,” Hunter Biden informed Li after some time had passed.
“No problem. We are having dinner in a restaurant beside your hotel. You hotel is closed, so you need to have someone to meet us when you are back,” Li replied.
Later than same evening, Devon Archer emailed Hunter Biden to ask if the Bidens had met with Li.
“Did you end up meeting Jonathan?” Archer asked.
“Yes- and they got to meet Dad. All very good. Talk later,” Biden replied, confirming the meeting between Li and the vice president took place.
“[G]reat! have a good day over there,” Archer wrote back.
“Dinner w/ Xi was pretty amazing. They (Xi and JRB) were supposed to spend 2hrs together. It stretched to 7hrs. I think they are in love with each other. They all most kissed on departure,” Biden wrote, describing the meeting between his father and President Xi Jinping, who had been chosen for the role earlier that year.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden repeatedly denied having any interactions with his son’s business associates. Joe Biden has continued to maintain these denials as president, even recently after his son confirmed several meetings with business partners.
“I did not interact with their partners,” Biden told reporters in March.
“I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their business, period,” he said on the campaign trail in August 2019.
But, his own son contradicted the president’s denials when he appeared before the House Oversight Committee for his deposition earlier this year as part of the ongoing impeachment inquiry into his father.
“When we returned from an event to the hotel, there was a rope line, and Jonathan Li was in the lobby of the hotel where I was going to meet him for coffee. In that line I introduced my dad to Jonathan Li and a friend of his, and they shook hands and I believe probably took a photograph. And then my father went up to his room, and I went to have coffee with Jonathan Li,” Hunter Biden told investigators, describing the meeting which was chronicled in the emails.
“I was working with Jonathan on a potential that he had an idea for creating a private equity fund based in China to do cross-border investments,” the younger Biden explained.
The new evidence makes clear that the FBI and other law enforcement knew as early as 2016 that Hunter Biden planned for his father to meet Li, with whom he was worked to establish a new fund.
Biden, Li, and Archer had signed a memorandum of understanding to form a new venture in November 2013, the month before Vice President Biden’s official trip to China. Twelve days after the Bidens met with Li, the joint venture—BHR Partners—was officially registered in the country, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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John Solomon is an award-winning investigative journalist, author and digital media entrepreneur who serves as Chief Executive Officer and Editor in Chief of Just the News. Steven Richards joined Just the News in August 2023 after previously working as a Research Analyst for the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) in Tallahassee, Florida. He is a two-time graduate of Florida State University with a Masters in Political Science and a B.S. in International Affairs.
Photo “Hunter and Joe Biden” by Louise Palanker. CC BY-SA 2.0.
