By Steven Nelson. Media: Nypost
WASHINGTON — A key Biden family associate revealed new details Friday about Joe Biden’s alleged involvement in foreign business relationships —saying the future president met in 2017 with the leader of a Chinese government-linked company that paid millions to his son Hunter Biden and brother James Biden.
Rob Walker signaled in a prepared opening statement that he intended to claim that Biden, 81, did nothing wrong in connection to the overseas ventures of his relatives, only to provide stunning 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 that included about 10 people involved with CEFC China Energy — including the firm’s chairman, Ye Jianming, a source familiar with Walker’s testimony said.
The encounter at DC’s ritzy Four Seasons hotel was previously described by Walker — without naming Ye as a participant — in an FBI interview that was released by the House Ways and Means Committee.
Walker described the Joe Biden appearance to the FBI as a drop-by of a lunch between Hunter and his CEFC associates.
AFP via Getty Images
Joe Biden “said hello to everybody” and then “literally sat down. I don’t even think he drank water. I think Hunter said, um… ‘I may be tryin’ to start a company,’ ah, or tried to do something with these guys and could you … and [I] think he was like ‘if I’m around’….and he’d show up,” Walker told the bureau.
Spokespeople for the White House, Walker’s attorney Edward McAndrew and a representative of the House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, did not immediately dispute that Walker named Ye as an attendee during his Friday interview.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a Friday night statement, “Today we learned that Joe Biden met with the now-missing Chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, as Hunter Biden and his associates received $3 million from a Chinese entity CEFC controlled. Evidence continues to reveal the Bidens sold the ‘Biden Brand’ to enrich the Biden family.”
A second source familiar with Walker’s testimony said, however, that Joe Biden’s appearance was described as innocent by Walker.
“Walker told the Committee that he believes Joe Biden briefly dropped by because Joe Biden simply wanted to lay eyes on his son who was in and out of sobriety,” the second person said.
AP
Walker distributed to Hunter, James, and 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 signaled that he would back up Biden family denials of influence-peddling.
“President Biden — while in office or as a private citizen — was never involved in any of the business activities we pursued. Any statement to the contrary is simply false,” Walker was to contend in his remarks.
“In business, the opportunities we pursued together were varied, valid, well-founded, and well within the bounds of legitimate business activities,” the statement added.
But Republicans came armed with questions for Walker about what services were provided in exchange for the lucrative ventures — following statements from other former Biden family associates that Joe Biden was indeed in communication with his family’s associates and that his relatives were effectively selling access.
AP
Walker’s best-known role in the Biden family enterprises was distributing more than $1 million to Hunter from corrupt Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu between November 2015 and May 2017 — even as VP Biden railed against corruption in that country — and passing on more than $1 million to Hunter, James and Hallie Biden from a CEFC affiliate beginning in March 2017.
In each case, Walker received about $3 million from the foreign party and then appeared to keep one-third of the amount for himself before passing a third to the Bidens and another third to partner James Gilliar.
One of the most potentially significant lines of questioning pertained to when exactly the CEFC relationship started — as the money began to flow less than two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency.
The first source familiar with Walker’s deposition said that he testified the $3 million was compensation for duties performed while Biden was still vice president — amounting to a “thank you” for that past work.
AFP via Getty Images
When exactly Joe Biden allegedly met Ye is unclear — though it would be his third purported encounter with a CEFC-involved associate.
Former Biden family associate Tony Bobulinski previously alleged that he met the now-president twice in connection with the enterprise.
Ahead of the second and final presidential debate of 2020, Bobulinski said at a press conference: “On May 2, 2017, the night before Joe Biden was to appear at the Milken conference, I was introduced to Joe Biden by Jim Biden and Hunter Biden. At my approximately hour-long meeting with Joe that night, we discussed the Bidens’ history [and] the Bidens’ family business plans with the Chinese, with which he was plainly familiar, at least at a high level.”
Later, Bobulinski told then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson that he met again with Joe Biden the next day.
“We were backstage in a cramped space and he asked me to walk with him out to the car … He sort of asked me to keep an eye on his son and brother,” Bobulinski told Carlson.
Later in May 2017, an email written by Gilliar penciled in Joe Biden for a 10% cut, with the Biden family associate using the nickname “the big guy” for the then-former VP.
Joe Biden’s potential retribution was threatened in a July 2017 text message from Hunter to a China-based CEFC associate, in which Hunter wrote he was “sitting here with my father,” according to a message released by IRS whistleblowers.
Within 10 days of that text message, $5.1 million was transferred to accounts linked to the Biden family, according to a 2020 report by Senate Republican-led committees.
Photos from Hunter’s abandoned laptop show he was at his dad’s Wilmington, Del., home on the day he wrote the threatening message, but the tax enforcement whistleblowers say the Justice Department blocked them from getting cellphone location data to prove whether Joe Biden was actually there.
An October 2017 email referred to Joe Biden as a participant on a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas.
The Romania venture, meanwhile, is one of the least-studied of the Biden family’s controversial foreign dealings and is a rare case where there’s no existing evidence of Joe Biden directly interacting with the individual paying his relatives.
Biden family critics have noted, however, that there is smoke that hints at Joe’s potential involvement.
AP
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 was scheduled to meet with his dad, according to laptop records.
Hunter flew to Romania on Nov. 15, 2016, for a two-day trip to represent Popoviciu before the National Anticorruption Directorate. Two days after his return, Hunter had a “breakfast with dad” on his schedule.
The source familiar with Walker’s testimony said that, when asked what services Hunter Biden provided to Popoviciu, the associate replied that Hunter flew to Romania to meet with then-US Ambassador Hans Klemm shortly after his Senate confirmation in 2015.
Lobbying US officials on behalf of foreign employers can amount to a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act — though that law has a five-year statute of limitations.
Other Biden family business partners have outlined an array of Joe Biden’s links to his family dealings.
Former Hunter Biden associate Devon Archer testified in July that Joe Biden was on speakerphone for about 20 foreign business meetings and that the sitting VP dined twice in Georgetown with his son’s Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakhstani patrons.
Archer further testified that Joe Biden had coffee during a 2013 visit to Beijing with one of Hunter’s colleagues, incoming CEO of Chinese state-backed BHR Partners Jonathan Li, before later greeting Li on the phone during a subsequent meeting and writing college recommendation letters for Li’s children.
