Key details from Hunter Biden’s congressional testimony earlier this year are now in doubt thanks to documents provided to congressional investigators by two IRS agents who came forward last year with allegations of misconduct in the first son’s tax case.
IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler turned over documents to the House Ways and Means Committee on Wednesday that appear to show that Hunter Biden downplayed the extent of the foreign-influence peddling schemes he participated in while his father was vice president and in the years after his father left office.
Hunter’s Threatening Text Message
In one case, the first son appears to have lied about the circumstances surrounding a threatening text he sent a Chinese business partner. He also appears to have misled lawmakers regarding his knowledge of a holding company used to receive payments from Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
“New documents provided by the whistleblowers show that Hunter Biden repeatedly lied to Congress in his February deposition to distance his involvement in what should be considered a clear scheme to enrich the Biden family,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R., Mo.) said on Wednesday.
During his appearance before the committee, Hunter was asked about a text message in which he appeared to use his proximity to his father, then-vice president Joe Biden, to compel payment from a Chinese business partner, Raymond Zhao of CEFC, a Chinese energy conglomerate with which Hunter was trying to establish a joint venture.
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” Biden texted Zhao, according to documents turned over to the committee by Shapley, the IRS whistleblower.
Asked about the message, Hunter insisted under oath that he was not actually sitting with his father when he sent it. He further explained that, because he was intoxicated at the time, he sent the message to the wrong person in his contacts, not the Chinese energy conglomerate executive he meant to message.
“I would say two things about this message. The first thing is this. Is that the Zhao that this is sent to is not the Zhao that was connected to CEFC,” Hunter testified. “Which I think is the best indication of how out of my mind I was at this moment in time.”
“Again, I don’t — my addiction is not an excuse, but I can tell you this: I am more embarrassed of this text message, if it actually did come from me, than any text message I’ve ever sent,” he added, while insisting his father was not sitting next to him at the time.
Images from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop archive first reported by the Washington Free Beacon place the younger Biden with his father on the day of the text.
Contrary to Hunter’s testimony, Ziegler provided a sworn affidavit and text messages showing that Hunter did in fact send the message to the correct Zhao in July 2017, and that he continued to send Zhao threatening text messages about their proposed joint venture for months afterwards.
After making the threat, Hunter raised the possibility to Zhao of cutting his other business partners out of the proposed deal. In August 2017, Hunter and his uncle James Biden created Hudson West III, a joint venture with CEFC for exploring U.S. liquid natural gas deals. None of the deals came to fruition, but the Bidens came away with millions from CEFC nonetheless.
The additional text messages were recovered by Ziegler through a search warrant for Biden’s Apple iCloud server obtained in late 2019 during the criminal probe into Hunter Biden’s taxes.
While he repeatedly denied during his testimony that his father was involved in his business dealings, other newly released text and WeChat messages between Hunter and a different CEFC associate show Hunter repeatedly referring to his father during conversations about potential meetings. Hunter repeatedly referenced Joe Biden in messages to former CEFC associate Kevin Dong, referring to him as “BROTHER” in relation to his uncle James Biden, who was also involved in the deal. On WeChat, Hunter used the code name “Hudson” and suggested his father wanted to meet his Chinese business partner.
The new text messages appear to corroborate an extensive collection of evidence and testimony indicating that Joe Biden was at the very least tangentially involved in Hunter’s influence-peddling schemes.
Former Biden business partner Rob Walker testified in February and recalled Joe Biden attending a meeting alongside his son and CEFC associates soon after Joe’s vice presidency concluded. CEFC wired Walker $3 million through its State Energy HK account right after Joe Biden left office, bank records show. Walker distributed roughly $1 million of the funds to Hunter and James Biden.
Tony Bobulinski, another former business associate, has testified that he discussed the CEFC negotiations with Joe, Hunter, and James Biden in May 2017. When he testified in February, Hunter Biden confirmed his father talked to business partners on speakerphone and met multiple foreign-business associates. Bobulinski accused Hunter and James of lying under oath at the start of his public testimony in March. Both Bidens have disparaged Bobulinski and painted him as a disgruntled former business partner upset with how the CEFC negotiations played out.
The meetings between Joe Biden and his son’s business associates are core to the impeachment inquiry and House Republicans’s assertions that Joe Biden assisted his son with his foreign business endeavors.
Hunter Distanced Himself from Burisma Payments
During his February testimony, Hunter also minimized his role in setting up a holding company to receive lucrative payments from Burisma, insisting that he had no role in the company despite documentary evidence that he served as “acting corporate secretary” of the firm and used the Burisma proceeds wired to the company’s account to buy a Porsche.
Emails disclosed by Ziegler indicate Hunter agreed to have Burisma send his $80,000 monthly payments to Rosemont Seneca Bohai. The House Oversight Committee released bank records last year that show Biden used the Bohai account in 2014 and 2015 to receive payments and a wire from Kazakh oligarch Kenes Rakishev, which Hunter used to buy a Porsche.
In April 2014, Hunter’s assistant sent the owner of a car dealership a document referring to Hunter as the acting corporate secretary of the Rosemont Seneca Bohai account in order to secure approval for Hunter to purchase the car.
Former business associate Devon Archer testified last year that he set up the account for himself and Biden to take in the Burisma payments, and said Hunter was a “corporate secretary” of the account. However, Archer also said Biden had no official position and said they had a 50-50 “handshake” deal.
The new evidence directly contradicts Hunter Biden’s claim he had no role with Rosemont Seneca Bohai and outsourced the Porsche purchase to Archer.
“I own the porsche free and clear,” Hunter Biden told an automotive executive in July 2014, the emails demonstrate. Federal investigators interviewed Biden’s ex-wife Kathleen Buhle and she recalled the Kazakh clients giving Hunter a framed picture of a luxury car they were going to give him, according to a memo by Ziegler and another IRS agent.
Moreover, Hunter Biden denied assisting his clients with attempts to immigrate to the U.S. and obtain visas. The emails shared by Ziegler include communications related to Hunter and his business associates’s attempts to obtain a U.S. visa for Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky, who was facing significant legal issues in Ukraine.
The Burisma dealings during Joe Biden’s vice presidency and Hunter’s attempts to use his influence to benefit his foreign clients reflect the apparent influence peddling at the heart of Hunter Biden’s business transactions. Hunter Biden and the White House have dismissed the impeachment inquiry and said Joe played no part in his son’s dealings.
Special counsel David Weiss is prosecuting Hunter Biden on nine federal tax charges for failing to pay more than $1 million of taxes over a four year period. The tax case is scheduled to go to trial later this year after Hunter Biden’s criminal trial for three federal gun charges related to a firearm purchase he made while addicted to hard drugs.
Biden has pleaded not guilty to all the charges. He is also suing the IRS for alleged illegal disclosures by Shapley and Ziegler. The pair come forward last year with allegations the Justice Department gave Hunter Biden special treatment by slow-walking the tax case and obstructing investigative steps.
Last fall, Shapley and Ziegler provided the Ways and Means Committee with a trove of documents to substantiate their initial testimony. In December, they testified again and Ziegler gave more documents to support their allegations.
The whistleblowers have asked to intervene in the IRS lawsuit to defend themselves.