WASHINGTON — President Biden repeatedly denied Wednesday that he had interacted with his relatives’ foreign business associates — contradicting some of his closest allies — as the House of Representatives prepares to vote on authorizing an impeachment inquiry.
The 81-year-old denounced as “lies” reports that he met or spoke with son Hunter Biden and brother James Biden’s overseas contacts on multiple occasions.
“I did not. And it’s just a bunch of lies. They’re lies. I did not. They’re lies,” Biden said in response to a question from The Post.
The president had been asked about a recent Associated Press poll finding that 68% of voters — including 40% of Democrats — believe Biden acted unethically or illegally with regard to his family’s business dealings.
While a candidate for president in 2019, Biden denied ever even discussing business with his son or brother — but evidence has emerged of an array of contacts involving his family’s associates from China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine, in addition to many of their American colleagues.
Former Hunter Biden business associate Devon Archer revealed in Oversight Committee testimony released in August that Joe Biden attended two dinners at DC’s Café Milano restaurant in 2014 and 2015 with Hunter’s patrons from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings.
Burisma paid Hunter up to $1 million per year beginning in April 2014 to serve on its board at the same time his dad led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
Archer also testified that Hunter Biden stepped away from a gathering at the Four Seasons in Dubai to “call DC” with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky and Pozharsky in December 2015.
An FBI informant file released in July by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says Zlochevsky complained in 2016 that he was “coerced” into paying $10 million in bribes to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for the then-vice president’s help in ousting Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin, who was removed from office in March 2016 after a sustained campaign by Joe Biden.
The bribery claim has not been proven.
Joe Biden also was put on speakerphone while vice president during roughly 20 business meetings with Hunter’s foreign associates, including French and Chinese nationals, Archer told the House Oversight Committee in a July 31 interview.
Following Archer’s closed-door deposition, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), one of Biden’s staunchest defenders in Congress, insisted that his understanding was the now-president never talked business during those conversations — making the president’s repeated denials Wednesday all the more curious.
“There were niceties. And there was a hello. And [they] talked about the weather or whatever it was,” the Manhattan and Brooklyn lawmaker stated at the time, “but it was never any business.”
Meanwhile, a text message released in June by House Republicans directly mentions Joe Biden as being involved in the shakedown of a Chinese government-linked business.
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who supervised the Hunter Biden tax fraud investigation for more than three years, provided Congress with that message, in which Hunter wrote on July 30, 2017, that he was “sitting here with my father” and warned of consequences if a deal was aborted.
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter Biden wrote.
“Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” the now-53-year-old went on, warning he would “make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.”
“I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father,” reiterated Hunter, who was at his father’s Wilmington, Del., home on the same day as the message.
Within two weeks of that threat, $5.1 million flowed from CEFC to Biden-linked accounts — on top of more than $1 million transferred earlier in the year, according to a 2020 report by Republican-led Senate committees.
Hunter and James Biden’s associate James Gilliar wrote in a May 2017 email that partners were considering a 10% cut for Joe Biden and an October 2017 email identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas.
That was the Biden family’s second major venture in China — after the then-second son cofounded state-backed investment fund BHR Partners in 2013, just 12 days after Hunter joined then-Vice President Biden aboard Air Force Two for an official trip to Beijing.
Hunter introduced his dad to BHR CEO Jonathan Li during the trip to China’s capital and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children.
The terms of Hunter Biden’s alleged divestment from BHR Partners remain unclear.