WASHINGTON — A key Biden family associate revealed new details Friday about Joe Biden’s alleged involvement in foreign business dealings — saying the future president met in 2017 with the head of a Chinese government-linked company that had paid millions to his son Hunter Biden and his brother James Biden. .
Rob Walker signaled in a prepared opening statement that he intended to assert that Biden, 81, did nothing wrong with regard to his relatives’ overseas businesses, only to provide startling new evidence, the Post has learned.
Walker testified in his deposition as part of the House impeachment inquiry into the president that shortly after Joe Biden left office as vice president, he attended a meeting attended by about 10 people involved in CEFC China Energy – including the company’s chairman, Ye Jianming, a source familiar with Walker’s testimony said.
The meeting at the luxury Four Seasons Hotel in D.C. was previously described by Walker — without naming Ye as a participant — in an FBI interview released by the House Ways and Means Committee.
Walker described Joe Biden’s appearance at the FBI as a lunch between Hunter and his CEFC associates.
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Joe Biden “said hello to everyone” then “literally sat down.” I don’t even think he drank the water. I think Hunter said, uh… “Maybe I’m trying to start a company,” ah, or I tried to do something with these guys and could you… and (I) think he was like “if I’m here”…. and he would show up,” Walker told the office.
White House spokesmen, Walker’s lawyer Edward McAndrew, and a representative for the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, did not immediately dispute that Walker had named Ye as a participant during his interview on Friday.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a statement Friday evening: “Today we learned that Joe Biden met with now-departed CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming as Hunter Biden and his associates received $3 million from a Chinese. entity controlled by CEFC. Evidence continues to reveal that the Bidens sold the “Biden brand” to enrich the Biden family.
A second source familiar with Walker’s testimony, however, said Joe Biden’s appearance was described as innocent by Walker.
“Walker told the committee that he thought Joe Biden stopped by briefly because Joe Biden just wanted to lay eyes on his son who was clean and sober,” the second person said.
Walker distributed to Hunter, James and his first daughter-in-law Hallie Biden millions of dollars from China and Romania during and immediately after Joe Biden’s vice-presidency.
In a brief opening statement, Walker indicated he would support the Biden family’s denials of influence peddling.
“President Biden – whether in office or as a private citizen – has never been involved in any of the business activities we have engaged in. Any assertion to the contrary is simply false,” Walker said in his remarks.
“In business, the opportunities we pursued together were varied, valuable, well-founded and well within the bounds of legitimate business activities,” the statement added.
But Republicans came with questions to Walker about services provided in exchange for these lucrative businesses — following statements from other former Biden family associates that Joe Biden was indeed in communication with his family associates and that his relatives were indeed selling access.
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Walker’s best-known role in the Biden family’s businesses was distributing more than $1 million to Hunter from corrupt Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu between November 2015 and May 2017 – even then that Vice President Biden was outraged about corruption in this country – and to transmit more than $1 million to Hunter, James and Hallie Biden from a CEFC affiliate starting in March 2017.
In each case, Walker received about $3 million from the foreign party, then appeared to keep a third of the amount for himself before giving a third to the Bidens and another third to his partner James Gilliar.
One of the potentially most important questions concerned exactly when the relationship with the CEFC began — since the money began flowing in less than two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency.
The first source familiar with Walker’s deposition said he said the $3 million was compensation for serving while Biden was still vice president — which amounted to a “thank you” for what he said. past work.
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It’s unclear exactly when Joe Biden allegedly met Ye – although this would be his third alleged meeting with an associate involved in CEFC.
Former Biden family associate Tony Bobulinski previously claimed to have met the current president twice through the business.
Before the second and final presidential debate of 2020, Bobulinski said in a press conference: “On May 2, 2017, the day before Joe Biden appeared at the Milken Conference, I was introduced to Joe Biden by Jim Biden and Hunter Biden. . During my approximately hour-long interview with Joe that evening, we discussed the history of the Bidens (and) the Biden family’s business plans with the Chinese, whom he obviously knew, at least at a high level.”
Later, Bobulinski told then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson that he met with Joe Biden again the next day.
“We were backstage in a cramped space and he asked me to walk him to the car…He kind of asked me to keep an eye on his son and his brother,” Bobulinski told Carlson.
Later in May 2017, an email written by Gilliar pencil sketch of Joe Biden for a 10% discountwith the Biden family associate using the nickname “the big guy” for the then-former vice president.
Joe Biden’s potential retaliation was threatened in a July 2017 text message from Hunter to a CEFC associate based in China, in which Hunter wrote that he was "sitting here with my father," according to a message posted by IRS whistleblowers.
In the 10 days following that text message, $5.1 million was transferred to accounts linked to the Biden family, according to a 2020 report from Republican-led Senate committees.
Photos from Hunter’s Abandoned Laptop Exhibition he was at his father’s house in Wilmington, Del., the day he wrote the threatening message, but IRS whistleblowers say the Justice Department blocked them from obtaining cellphone location data to prove whether Joe Biden was actually there.
An email from October 2017 named Joe Biden as a participant during a call regarding CEFC’s attempt to purchase American natural gas.
The Romanian company, meanwhile, is one of the Biden family’s least-studied controversial foreign transactions and is a rare case where there is no evidence of direct interaction by Joe Biden with the paying individual his relatives.
Critics of the Biden family have noted, however, that there is smoke which alludes to Joe’s potential involvement.
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For example, Hunter Biden referred Popoviciu to former FBI Director Louis Freeh to challenge a corruption case against him — and Freeh called Hunter in July 2015, just two hours before Hunter met his father, according to records from his laptop.
Hunter flew to Romania on November 15, 2016 for a two-day trip to represent Popoviciu before the National Anti-Corruption Directorate. Two days after returning, Hunter planned a “breakfast with dad.”
The source familiar with Walker’s testimony said that when asked what services Hunter Biden provided to Popoviciu, the associate responded that Hunter had traveled to Romania to meet with then-U.S. Ambassador, Hans Klemm, shortly after his confirmation to the Senate in 2015.
Lobbying U.S. officials on behalf of foreign employers can amount to a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act – although that law has a five-year statute of limitations.
Other business partners of the Biden family have described a range of connections between Joe Biden and his family connections.
Former Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer said in July that Joe Biden was on speakerphone at about 20 foreign business meetings and that the sitting vice president had dinner twice at Georgetown with his son’s Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakh clients.
Archer further testified that Joe Biden had coffee during a 2013 visit to Beijing with one of Hunter’s colleagues, the new CEO of Chinese state-backed BHR Partners Jonathan Li, before greeting Li on the phone at a later meeting and writing college recommendation letters for Li’s children.