WASHINGTON – Former Biden family associate Tony Bobulinski strongly accused Joe Biden of being involved in his son and brother’s foreign dealings in China in testimony during the impeachment inquiry which was made public on Friday – hours after the Justice Department indicted FBI informant for allegedly falsely accusing the Bidens of accepting bribes from Ukraine.
“Joe Biden was more than a participant and beneficiary of the family business; he was an enabler, although he was protected by an elaborate scheme to maintain plausible deniability,” Bobulinski alleged of the president’s role in a business venture with Chinese state-owned CEFC China Energy.
Bobulinski said in his closed-door testimony in the House on Tuesday that Joe Biden was the brand” peddled by those close to him and that he lied repeatedly about not interacting with their partners.
The former Navy officer also revealed a text message indicating that the CEFC relationship began in 2015 while Joe Biden was still vice president – before resulting in transfers of millions of dollars shortly after his departure from his role as vice-president in 2017.
The testimony included a screenshot of a text message apparently sent to Bobulinski on December 24, 2015, from another associate, James Gilliar, which corroborated earlier testimony from Biden family partner Rob Walker that the CEFC firm had begun during the latter part of the Obama-Biden administration. .
“There will be a deal between one of the most prominent families in the United States and them, built by me, I think it will then be a great addition to their portfolios because it will give them a profile base in New York and then in Los Angeles, etc.,” he said. Gilliar’s alleged message read.
“For me, it’s obvious but culturally, they are different but intelligent so let’s see… Any entry ticket is small for them. An easier and better demographic than that of the Arabs who are a little anti-American after Trump.”
Bobulinski also reiterated his earlier claim that he briefly discussed the CEFC on two occasions with Joe Biden in May 2017, the same month as Gilliar. drawn in pencil with a 10% cut for the “large” — who Bobulinski said was clearly Joe Biden.
Walker — who associated himself with Gilliar, the Biden family and Bobulinski — said in his own testimony during the impeachment inquiry on Jan. 26 that the relationship with CEFC began as early as 2015 and was well advanced in February 2016, when a newly appeared email indicated that the group had “presented” to a CEFC the execution of “a set of projects which correspond to your interests and those of your team”.
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Weeks after Biden left office as vice president in March 2017, Walker received a $3 million wire transfer from a CEFC affiliate before forwarding it. more than a million dollars to the Bidens as a “thank you” for his previous work with the CEFC, he testified.
Joe Biden also met with CEFC President Ye Jianming shortly before this payment at the Four Seasons Hotel in DC, Walker also testified. Ye has since disappeared in China amid corruption allegations.
The future president was then invoked by his son in July 2017 in a threatening text message to a China-based associate, warning him that he was “sitting here with my father.”
In the 10 days following that message, $5.1 million was transferred to accounts linked to Hunter and James Biden, according to information in a 2020 report from Republican-led Senate committees.
“The Chinese Communist Party, through its surrogate, China Energy Company Limited, or CEFC, a Chinese energy conglomerate linked to the CCP, successfully sought to infiltrate and compromise Joe Biden and the government.
Obama-Biden at the White House,” Bobulinski said Tuesday. testimony of almost 300 pages.
“This process began in the fourth quarter of 2015 and continued until Joe Biden left office in January 2017, until March 2018, when CEFC Chairman Ye was arrested on corruption charges in China, only to no longer never be seen again. »
Bobulinski called on Congress to “thoroughly investigate possible violations by Joe Biden of the Foreign Agents Registration Act; anti-corruption and public integrity laws; the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO.
He insisted that there is “ample evidence that Joe Biden showed up to meetings, shook hands, participated in phone calls.”
Some of the former partner’s accusations were hackneyed, such as his allegations first raised in October 2020 that he spoke twice with Joe Biden in May 2017 at a conference in Los Angeles after being introduced by Hunter.
Hunter Biden reportedly told his father, “Hey, Dad, you know, this is Tony, who I, you know, I told you about, who I just told you about, and who helps us with, you know, the business which we are working on. the Chinese,” according to the testimony.
Bobulinski said: “I don’t believe at that point he made any reference to CEFC, but Joe knew exactly what he was talking about. And you educated me because I didn’t know that Joe Biden walked in and shook hands with President Ye, but when Joe Biden walked into the meeting with me, he clearly knew who the president was and who the CEFC was .
The next day, Bobulinski said, he and Joe Biden spoke again as he was leaving and he “distinctly” remembers Biden saying, “‘Hey, you know, keep an eye on my brother and my son, and thanks for what you’re doing, this kind of general discussion.
Bobulinski also pushed back on Democrats’ claims that he was an “abandoned” partner after Hunter, now 54, cut him out of the multimillion-dollar business relationship – responding at one point: “A defrauded business partner would be 100% accurate. »
He also denied falsely telling the FBI that he was present at a CEFC partners meeting in Miami. Lying to the FBI or Congress is a crime.
Bobulinski said under questioning from Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) that it was a “note-taking error made by a junior FBI agent.”
Goldman exclaimed at one point, “I think it’s crazy that you willingly show up for an interview and lie.” »
Bobulinski replied: “Because I didn’t do it. Because I didn’t, Mr. Goldman. I entered there voluntarily. And I can’t speak to the errors that both agents made in their notes.
The testimony was made public a day after a stunning turn in the impeachment inquiry: A paid FBI informant was accused of fabricating information about Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly receiving $5 million each in bribes -of wine from Mykola Zlochevsky, owner of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings.
Burisma Holdings paid Hunter a salary of up to $1 million a year starting in April 2014, as his father took control of U.S. policy toward Ukraine.
Alexander Smirnov, 43, was indicted by a California grand jury on two counts of making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record for statements he made to the FBI referenced in a Form FD- 1023 of June 2020 that House Republicans fought last year. to access reading.
The then-anonymous allegations were met with caution by some Republicans, who indicated they could not corroborate the information — but a lot of time was spent accessing the document and disseminating its allegations.
House Republicans were at one point investigating Burisma’s apparent creation of a bank account for Hunter Biden in Malta around the time of the alleged bribe and seized on the fact that the informant said that Joe Biden was referred to as the “big guy” — a nickname that was not known at the time Smirnov reportedly spoke with his FBI agent, as it was first reported about four months later by The Post in relation to the agreement with the CEFC.
Another curiosity was that the alleged bribes, which Smirnov said were paid in exchange for helping Joe Biden oust then-Attorney General Viktor Shokin, appeared to match publicly reported details of a another corruption case in Burma.
Ukrainian officials held a press conference in Kyiv on June 13, 2020 – 17 days before the FBI form was created – where they showed $5 million in cash allegedly offered as a bribe to end an investigation into Zlochevsky.
Officials said neither Joe nor Hunter Biden were suspected of involvement in the bribery scheme, and charges filed Thursday indicated Smirnov made up his own claim about the Bidens.
The criminal case against Smirnov was hailed as vindication by White House officials, who noted that President Biden last June dismissed Burisma’s corruption allegations as “malarkey. »
