WASHINGTON — President Biden has for years flatly denied interacting with his relatives’ foreign business associates — a contention further debunked this week as newly released photos show him meeting two of first son Hunter Biden’s business associates in China while he was vice president.
Biden, 82, was the focus of a rare House impeachment inquiry into whether he inappropriately enriched his family in countries where he held sway as vice president — with that probe ending shortly after he abandoned his re-election bid this summer with an August report concluding he abused his power.
The question of Biden’s degree of involvement in foreign dealings now is largely academic, as he and his family are no longer expected to play a significant role in American foreign policy following his retirement on Jan. 20.
The matter could present future credibility issues for Biden allies, however, such as top Oversight Committee Democrat Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who insisted in February that “there were no meetings with the president.”
A review of Biden’s public statements demonstrate a pattern of dishonesty as a mountain of evidence — including photos, emails and witness statements — showed that he did indeed interact with his family’s business partners.
The newly released photos show Biden as vice president shaking hands and posing with the incoming CEO of Chinese state-backed BHR Partner, Jonathan Li, and BHR’s managing director Ming Xue during a December 2013 official trip to Beijing. Hunter held a 10% stake in the firm, which sought out natural resources such as cobalt for China, through at least part of his father’s presidency.
The snapshots also show the elder Biden introducing his son to Chinese President Xi Jinping less than two weeks before BHR Partners was officially registered as a business.
‘I did not interact with their partners’
Biden directly denied that he interacted with first son Hunter and first brother James Biden’s business partners on March 1, 2024 — just two days after Hunter privately admitted in his impeachment inquiry deposition that his dad had engaged with his associates from China, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine.
“[House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson has accused you of lying repeatedly about your interactions with your son and brother’s business partners. What’s your response to him?” a reporter for The Post asked Biden on the White House lawn.
“Tell him to read the record of every single witness,” Biden at first replied, even though many witnesses in fact had described his interactions with those associates. “These guys got to stop this stuff.”
“But you did interact with their partners,” the journalist prompted.
“I did not interact with their partners,” Biden insisted.
“You didn’t have dinner or lunch or coffee?” The Post followed up, referring to inquiry witness testimony.
“No,” Biden said.
‘It’s just a bunch of lies’
Months before that exchange, Biden again flatly denied interacting with his son and brother’s associates — despite some of those meetings previously being on camera.
“There’s polling by the Associated Press that shows that almost 70% of Americans, including 40% of Democrats, believe that you acted either illegally or unethically in regards to your family’s business interests. Can you explain to Americans amid this impeachment inquiry why you interacted with so many of your son and brother’s foreign business associates?” a Post journalist asked.
“I’m not going to comment on that. I did not, and it’s just a bunch of lies,” the commander in chief claimed.
“You didn’t interact with any of their business associates?” the journalist pressed.
“I did not. They’re lies,” Biden said.
At the time, many of those interactions had been well-documented, including photos from a 2015 visit to Washington by a group of Mexican businessmen whom the uncle-nephew Biden duo were courting and a powwow the same year with a Kazakhstani businessman who bought Hunter a $142,000 sports car.
Ultimately, Hunter confirmed that he arranged two dinners at Washington’s Cafe Milano featuring his sitting-VP father and associates from Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine.
The first son also confirmed the meeting with BHR’s Li, for whom the elder Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for his children and greeted on speaker phone during a subsequent trip by Hunter to Beijing, according to former Biden family associate Devon Archer.
Joe Biden also allegedly attended a lunch in early 2017 with the chairman of CEFC China Energy shortly before an initial $3 million transfer to a group of Biden family associates, former associate Rob Walker testified. Hunter claimed that he could not recall that meeting. The firm later transferred $5.1 million within 10 days of a threatening text from Hunter to a China-based associate claiming he was “sitting here with my father” — with records confirming Hunter was at his father’s Wilmington, Del., home that day.
‘A Russian plant’
Biden brazenly dismissed documents from Hunter’s abandoned laptop showing his alleged involvement in foreign business relationships as a “Russian plant” during his final debate with then-President Donald Trump on October, 22, 2020.
The Post had reported days earlier on emails that indicated that Joe Biden as vice president dined on April 16, 2015, with Vadym Pozharskyi, board advisor to the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, at Washington’s Cafe Milano.
Hunter Biden joined the board of Burisma in early 2014 — with a salary of $1 million — as his father assumed control of the Obama-Biden administration’s policy toward Kyiv in the aftermath of an anti-Russian uprising that toppled the country’s Moscow-aligned leader, putting Burisma’s oligarch owner under greater scrutiny for alleged self-dealing as a government minister.
Another email had shown that a Biden family associate, James Gilliar, had penciled in a 10% cut for Joe Biden, using the alias the “big guy,” in May 2017 while a proposed joint venture was being developed with CEFC China Energy. Another associate in that deal, Tony Bobulinski, publicly said ahead of the debate that he met with Joe Biden about that business engagement.
“Joe, they’re calling you a corrupt politician,” Trump taunted his Democratic rival.
“Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, he’s accusing me of is a Russian plant. They have said that this has all the characteristics — four– five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani,” Biden claimed.
“You mean, the laptop is now another Russia, Russia, Russia hoax? You gotta be–” Trump interjected.
“That’s exactly what — That’s exactly what [it is],” Biden replied.
‘I’ve never spoken my son about his overseas dealings’
Biden issued a similarly sweeping denial on September 21, 2019, when asked about his interactions with Hunter as he sought out consulting business abroad.
“Mr. vice president, how many times have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings?” Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked Biden at a campaign stop.
“I’ve never spoken with my son about his overseas dealings. I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses, period,” Biden said.
“And what I will do is the same thing we did in our administration. There will be an absolute wall between personal and private and the government.”
Doocy followed up, “Do you stand by your statement that you did not discuss any of your son’s overseas business?”
“Yes, I stand by that statement,” Biden said.
