Commentary
Many of the corruption allegations currently swirling around President Joe Biden have been around for years, dating back to his son Hunter Biden’s early trips to China with him on Air Force Two. But recently, there’s been a flood of new information that has come to light.
This includes allegations from two separate whistleblowers—one with the IRS involving the Hunter Biden criminal probe and another who’s alleging corruption and potential bribes on the part of Joe Biden. There are also allegations from Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) regarding flows of foreign money through shell companies to the Biden family.
The whistleblower accusations of corruption that describe a “criminal scheme involving then-Vice President Joe Biden and a foreign national relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions” potentially represent the biggest news.
But these allegations may be just the tip of the iceberg.
New Ukraine Revelation
On April 16, 2014, then-Vice President Biden met at the White House with Hunter Biden’s business partner, Devon Archer. Although it isn’t known what was discussed at that meeting, it appeared to have set many events in motion.One week later, on April 21, Joe Biden traveled to Ukraine, offering not only his political support but also $50 million in aid for Ukraine’s shaky new government. During Joe Biden’s Ukraine visit, on April 22, 2014, it was announced that Archer had suddenly joined the board of Burisma.
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (L) welcomes U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (R) prior to talks in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 21, 2014. Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
As it turns out, Hunter Biden had also joined Burisma’s board that same month, but, curiously, Burisma didn’t announce Hunter Biden’s appointment until May 12, 2014, after his father’s visit to Ukraine had concluded.
Another particularly interesting item within the timeline of events was a very curiously timed trip by Joe Biden on May 21, 2014, to Romania and the island of Cyprus—the first visit by a senior U.S. official in 50 years.
As it turns out, Cyprus is where Burisma’s headquarters happened to be located. No real explanation has been given for that trip other than a White House statement that noted Biden’s intention to provide “strong support for a comprehensive settlement to reunify the island as a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality.”
The timing of Hunter Biden’s appointment to the Burisma board doesn’t appear to be accidental. Nor for that matter does Joe Biden’s trip to Cyprus.
On May 12, 2014, the same day that Hunter Biden’s appointment was formally announced, Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi sent an email to both Hunter Biden and Archer, telling them, “We urgently need your advice on how you could use your influence to convey a message/signal, etc. to stop what we consider to be politically motivated actions.”
The “politically motivated actions” referenced by Pozharskyi were actually ongoing investigations into Burisma and its owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, who had reportedly been issued an unusually large number of permits in Ukraine to extract oil and gas during his time as minister of natural resources. In April 2014, the same month that Hunter Biden joined Burisma, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office opened an investigation into the company.
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Vitaliy Yarema speaks on the parliament floor after the parliament's vote in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 19, 2014. Sergie Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images
The Ukraine investigation began after UK authorities froze $23.5 million in assets belonging to Zlochevsky as part of a money-laundering investigation. But just eight months later, in December 2014, Ukrainian chief prosecutor Vitaly Yarema suddenly issued a letter to the London court stating that “there was no active case open on Zlochevsky.”
As a result, the frozen assets were released by the UK. George Kent, who was the deputy chief of mission in Kyiv at the time, later wrote an email in which he stated that he had been told by Ukraine’s deputy prosecutor general that Burisma had paid a $7 million bribe to end the investigation into Zlochevsky.
At the time of the alleged bribe payment, Hunter Biden was, according to Burisma itself, in charge of the company’s legal affairs.
Yarema resigned on Feb. 9, 2015. His replacement was Victor Shokin, a former prosecutor—brought out of retirement by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko—who was appointed the following day.
Initially, Shokin’s appointment was welcomed by U.S. officials, including Obama’s assistant secretary for European and Eurasian affairs, Victoria Nuland, who personally wrote to Shokin in June 2015, saying, “We have been impressed with the ambitious reform and anti-corruption agenda of your government.”
However, the support for Shokin appeared to have changed very quickly after Hunter Biden received another email from Burisma’s Pozharskyi on Nov. 2, 2015. Pozharskyi demanded that Biden produce “deliverables,” stating that the “ultimate purpose” was to “close down any cases or pursuits” against Burisma’s owner.
Pozharskyi, who had previously met Joe Biden at a dinner in Washington on April 16, 2015 (more on that later), appeared to be targeting Shokin, who had reopened the investigation into Zlochevsky that had been shut down by his predecessor. Shokin had also successfully sought an order from Ukrainian courts to seize Zlochevsky’s assets. Those assets were eventually seized on Feb. 2, 2016.
A woman leaves the offices of the Ukrainian General Prosecutor in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 2, 2019. Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Pozharskyi’s outreach must have worked. On the same day that Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden about deliverables, the younger Biden reached out to Amos Hochstein, Obama’s special envoy and coordinator of international energy affairs.
Hunter Biden met in person with Hochstein four days later, on Nov. 6, 2015. Hochstein later told congressional investigators, “[Hunter Biden] wanted to know my views on Burisma and Zlochevsky.”
On Nov. 22, 2015, less than three weeks after Pozharskyi’s email, Joe Biden demanded the removal of Shokin. After President Poroshenko failed to comply with the demands, Biden leveraged $1 billion in U.S. taxpayer loan guarantees to force Shokin’s removal. Shokin was finally removed by Poroshenko in March 2016, which Biden later famously bragged about.
As it turns out, there’s a fascinating postscript to this story that still needs further expansion and more details. Joe Biden got involved with Ukraine after Nuland had a conversation with then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, which was intercepted and leaked to the BBC.
In the call, Nuland, who’s now President Joe Biden’s undersecretary of state for political affairs, discussed the ouster of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and the installation of opposition leader Arseniy Yatsenyuk as prime minister. During their conversation, Nuland noted that then-national security adviser Jake Sullivan had informed her that “you need Biden,” and she concluded by telling Pyatt that “Biden’s willing.”
Biden was appointed as the Obama administration’s point man on Ukraine in February 2014. On Feb. 22, 2014, Yanukovych was removed as president of Ukraine and, three days later, Yatsenyuk, the candidate favored by Nuland, was installed as prime minister.
It was during this same time, on Feb. 14, 2014, that Russian businesswoman Elena Baturina wired a $3.5 million payment to Rosemont Seneca, Hunter Biden’s investment firm. Baturina is the former wife of the late Yuri Luzhkov, who was the mayor of Moscow.
Baturina also sent a series of payments between May 6, 2015, and Dec. 8, 2015, to Rosemont. The payments by Baturina are detailed in a September 2020 Senate report, but the full story behind Baturina’s payments to Hunter Biden has always been elusive and details are sparse.
Several things have always bothered me and “Truth Over News” co-host Hans Mahncke. How did the Bidens end up being involved with Burisma?
Why did Joe Biden make that curious trip on May 21, 2014, to Romania and Cyprus—the first visit by a senior U.S. official in 50 years—where Burisma’s headquarters just happened to be located?
Joe Biden shakes hands with Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta at the Victoria Palace, the Romanian government headquarters in Bucharest, on May 21, 2014. Daniel Mihailescu/AFP via Getty Images
Why did Baturina suddenly send the $3.5 million in early 2014 to Hunter Biden’s investment firm?
Further questions are raised by a short quote from a New York Post article that notes that Baturina met Hunter Biden “and his then-business partner Devon Archer for a drink in April 2014 at the Villa d’Este—a well-known haunt of Russian oligarchs overlooking Italy’s Lake Como.”
This detail struck me and my co-host as very strange. Why would Hunter Biden and Archer have had an informal meeting in Italy with Baturina at this particular moment in time—just as they joined the Burisma board?
That same article by the Post also adds a very small follow-on note, stating, “On the same trip, Hunter also met the Ukrainian–Russian oligarch owner of Burisma, Mykolai Zlochevsky.”
It’s this bit of information that brings us full circle to the May 12, 2014, email from Burisma’s Pozharskyi to Hunter Biden that we highlighted at the outset. Pozharskyi’s email opened with, “Following our talks during the visit to the Como Lake and our further discussions, I would like to bring the following situation to your attention.”
Pozharskyi then goes on to address Burisma’s legal issues. All of this leaves us pondering a multitude of issues—as these events surrounding Hunter Biden, Joe Biden, Burisma, and Baturina appear to be somehow interconnected.
Further connections present themselves via a dinner held at Cafe Milano on April 16, 2015—the same D.C. dinner attended by Pozharskyi that we referenced earlier.
We know from a series of March 2015 emails that Pozharskyi, who’s listed as “Vadym,” and Baturina, who’s listed as “Yelena and husband,” were both invited by Hunter Biden to attend that April 2015 dinner in Washington. Joe Biden made it a point to stop by for some period of time. While it remains unclear if Baturina actually ended up going to this dinner, the incredible coincidences of timing and overlap leave us in a position where we can’t help but wonder.
Was Baturina, along with her February 2014 $3.5 million payment to Hunter Biden’s firm, somehow connected to Joe Biden’s sudden involvement with Ukraine and his son’s sudden placement onto the board of Burisma?
And was her involvement then further connected to Joe Biden’s forced firing of the prosecutor who was actually making headway in investigating the owner of Burisma, Zlochevski? Although it’s too early to say with certainty, we have a strong feeling more will be revealed in this matter.
China Connections
As we mentioned at the start of all this, Hunter Biden’s connections to China go back to at least 2010.According to the previously mentioned September 2020 Senate report, sometime in 2015, his contacts with a Chinese businessman, Ye Jianming, began in earnest.
Hunter Biden, the son of U.S. President Joe Biden, attends his father's inauguration as 46th U.S. president at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on Jan. 20, 2021. Jonathan Ernst/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Ye was the founder of CEFC China Energy and a frequent figure in the Biden family’s financial dealings with China. Ye was also chairman of the board of CEFC’s subsidiary, the China Energy Fund Committee. Although CEFC reportedly remained a “private company” until state-owned enterprises assumed control of it in 2018, the company received financing from the China Development Bank, “hired a number of former top officials from state owned energy companies,” and had “layers of Communist Party committees across its subsidiaries.”
The company was also reported to have had “intelligence ties” within China. In other words, the company was effectively controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.
CEFC was a large, fast-growing company with the backing of the Chinese regime, ranking No. 229 on the Global Fortune 500 list in 2016, with $42 billion in revenue. The company owned several thousand gas stations in Europe, many of which were purchased from Kazakhstan’s state oil company.
CEFC also owned a million-ton oil storage system in Spain and France that served as a major conduit that extended China’s connections with the world oil supply. CEFC was an integral part of the regime’s Belt and Road Initiative, which was designed to spread China’s influence and control across the world. Ye was dubbed the “Belt and Road billionaire” in the press.
In December 2015, Ye flew to Washington and met with Hunter on Dec. 7, 2015. One of Hunter Biden’s former associates even told the New York Post that Hunter brought Ye to a Christmas party in order to introduce him personally to his father, Joe Biden. Hunter Biden’s associations with Ye would continue into early 2018 when Ye was suddenly detained by the Chinese authorities and disappeared from public view.
In February 2017, Hunter Biden and Ye met at a hotel in Miami, where Ye reportedly offered the younger Biden $10 million a year for three years for “introductions alone.”
It was at this same meeting that Ye presented Hunter Biden with a 3.16-carat diamond with an estimated value of $80,000. Then, just “nine days later, on Feb. 23, 2017, State Energy HK Limited, a Shanghai-based company that was affiliated with CEFC China Energy, sent a $3,000,000 wire” to Robinson Walker, a company directly associated with another of Hunter Biden’s business associates, Rob Walker.
Another $3 million was sent on March 1, 2017. Although it isn’t yet known with precision what happened with the $6 million, it is known that Hunter Biden received regular payments from Walker’s company, along with more than $500,000 from Walker directly. Each of the $3 million wire transfers was flagged by the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network in a “suspicious activity report.”
A CEFC logo is seen at CEFC China Energy's Shanghai headquarters in Shanghai, China, on Sept. 14, 2016. Aizhu Chen/File Photo/Reuters
In August 2017, a new company named Hudson West III was officially formed. Hudson III’s primary purpose appears to have been nothing more than a vehicle to transfer money to the Bidens. Ye injected $5 million in capital into Hudson III through his LLC, the similarly named Hudson West V, which in turn was funded by CEFC China. Meanwhile, Hunter Biden contributed no capital to the new venture although he owned 50 percent of the new company.
The operating agreement of Hudson III stipulated that Hunter Biden would receive a $500,000 retainer and $100,000 per month. Joe Biden’s brother, James, would receive $65,000 per month. This newly formed entity also made large credit card payments for items purchased by the Bidens. The total payments made from Hudson III to Hunter Biden’s personal company, Owasco, totaled $4.8 million in just over one year.
In addition to the $65,000 per month paid to James Biden, payments also flowed to Lion Hall Group, a company he owned. Most of this money, about $1.4 million, appears to have been funneled through Hunter Biden’s company, which was funded in turn by the Hudson III joint venture—whose sole source of funds was various affiliates directly tied to Ye’s Chinese company, CEFC.
In November 2017, another payment from Ye’s CEFC was made to Hudson III—this time for $1 million. A few months later, Hunter Biden’s company was paid $1 million to represent Patrick Ho, a business associate of Ye’s. Ho would later be “charged and convicted of international bribery and money laundering offenses stemming from his work for the CEFC-backed China Energy Fund Committee.”
Hunter Biden would later refer to Ho in an email as “the [expletive] spy chief of China.” At the time of Ho’s arrest in the United States, his first call was to James Biden, who would later claim Ho’s call was intended for Hunter Biden.
After the formation of Hudson III, Hunter Biden hired a woman named JiaQi (Ja-Chi) Bao. Her involvement with Hudson III was far more extensive than initially thought. According to a letter sent by Comer, “Bao was also working for CEFC employees linked to the CCP.” Comer noted that Bao “appeared to be effectively running the joint venture under Hunter Biden’s name.”
When CEFC’s Ye was detained in China in March 2018, Bao sent Hunter Biden an email explaining that “Ye’s situation changed” and that Hunter Biden needed to take as much money as he could from Hudson West III because if he failed to do so, the money would become “nobody’s money.” At the time of Bao’s email to Hunter Biden, Hudson III still had about $3.5 million in the company’s account.
Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden attend the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, on April 10, 2023. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
It’s hard to know what to make of the sudden flood of revelations and disclosures.
Are these ongoing disclosures an outgrowth of Republican investigations into the Biden family’s convoluted financial dealings? Or are they tied to Biden’s announcement to run for a second term—perhaps a pre-emptive move by the DNC or the Obama faction to remove him as a candidate?
Only time will answer these questions, but one thing’s for sure: Nothing happens in our nation’s capital by accident.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
