Biden Denies Being in Room With Son When WhatsApp Message Was Sent

President Joe Biden delivers remarks during a joint press conference with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the White House in Washington on June 22, 2023. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

President Joe Biden denied being in the room with his son Hunter Biden when a text message was sent demanding payment from a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official and businessman.

“How involved were you in your son’s Chinese shake-down text message? Were you sitting there? Were you involved?” a reporter asked Biden.

“No, I wasn’t,” Biden said.

“Were you?” the reporter repeated.

“No!” Biden replied again.

On June 22, the House Ways and Means Committee unveiled bombshell whistleblower allegations claiming that the IRS and Department of Justice (DOJ) had given Hunter Biden “preferential treatment,” interfering in the investigation to shield Hunter Biden from having search warrants or charges pressed against him.

According to testimony by Gary Shapley, an official at the IRS, he and his fellow investigators—while looking into a felony tax fraud case into Hunter Biden—were able to “authenticate” a July 30, 2017, WhatsApp message sent from Biden to Henry Zhao (pdf). The Epoch Times has not been able to independently verify the message.

Zhao, also known as Zhao Xuejun, is the president and CEO of Beijing-based investment firm Harvest Capital Management and also head of the firm’s Chinese Communist Party cell. Zhao’s firm participated in the establishment of a Shanghai-based investment firm called BHR Partners, that Hunter Biden had also helped set up.

Hunter was an unpaid board member of BHR until April 2020 and held a 10 percent stake in the company but was divested as of November 2021, according to his lawyers.

In a message, Hunter Biden appears to demand payment from Zhao.

“I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” the younger Biden wrote, according to Shapley’s testimony. He then expressed the wish to “resolve this before it got out of hand.”

“Now means tonight,” Biden said, warning that if anyone other than Zhao, “Zhang, or the chairman” tried to reach out about the matter, “I will 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.”

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

Shapley alleged in his testimony that the DOJ stalled criminal action against Biden both before and after the 2020 election, refusing to allow the execution of a search warrant for evidence at an estate owned by then-candidate Joe Biden.

The whistleblower said that messages like the above made it clear that the IRS needed to search Joe Biden’s guest house, where Hunter had stayed for a while. But in a September 2020 meeting, Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf told IRS investigators “there is no way” a search warrant for evidence would ever get approved and that optics was a primary consideration. At the time, Joe Biden was a candidate in the 2020 presidential election.

The IRS ultimately recommended three charges against Hunter Biden in regards to $2.2 million of unreported income from foreign sources: a felony attempt to defeat or evade tax charges, making felony fraudulent or false statements, and willful failure to file returns, supply information, or pay tax—serious charges that could land an American, if convicted, in prison for years.

But reportedly, U.S. Attorney David Weiss—the lead prosecutor in the case—told Shapley that the decision to press these charges against Hunter Biden did not lie with him, suggesting directives from higher-ups at the DOJ.

Attorney General Merrick Garland has denied these charges, saying that Weiss had full authority as a U.S. attorney to press whichever charges he saw fit.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland delivers remarks during a meeting with U.S. attorneys at the Justice Department in Washington on June 14, 2023. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, have mostly sidestepped questions about the allegations. All 18 Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee voted against releasing the whistleblower allegations to the public.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre also refused to comment on the matter when pressed on the allegations by several reporters at a June 23 press conference.

Biden’s denial comes as Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has claimed that the president has “officially lawyered up” in the aftermath of the discovery.

At the same time, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has been investigating foreign income the president and his son received during the 2010s, including when Biden was still vice president.

Bobulinski’s Claims

The claims made by Shapley are the latest in a line of allegations surrounding the Bidens’ foreign business dealings.

In the weeks before the 2020 election, the New York Post published an email from Hunter Biden’s laptop, which has since been authenticated, detailing proposed payout packages and equity shares in a Biden venture with a now-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate.

The now-infamous email, written by Hunter Biden, states, “10 [percent] held by H for the big guy?”

Tom Bobulinski, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, later publicly confirmed that “the big guy” was a reference to the elder Biden.

“I am making this statement to set the record straight about the involvement of the Biden family—then-Vice President Biden, his brother Jim Biden, and his son Hunter Biden—in dealings with the Chinese,” Bobulinski said in a press conference in October 2020.

“I have heard Joe Biden say he has never discussed business with Hunter,” Bobulinski said. “That is false.”

Before moving into his claims about the Biden family’s business dealings, Bobulinski insisted that he could corroborate everything he was saying. To demonstrate the point, Bobulinski gestured to several of his old cell phones spanning the 2010s, which Bobulinski said had never been held by anyone but him.

Tony Bobulinski, former associate of Hunter Biden, speaks to reporters at a hotel in Nashville, Tennessee, on Oct. 22, 2020. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

“I’m a patriot and a veteran,” Bobulinski said. “To protect my family name and my business reputation, I need to ensure that the true facts are out there.”

Bobulinski then relayed the details of his years-long involvement with the Bidens, which he said began in 2015 when he was approached by one of Hunter Biden’s business associates about getting involved in a business deal concerning the Chinese firm CEFC Energy. Bobulinski was told at the time, when Joe Biden was still the sitting vice president, that other partners would include members of “one of the most prominent families in the United States.”

“On May 2, 2017 … I was introduced to Joe Biden by Jim Biden and Hunter Biden,” Bobulinski said.

During their hours-long conversation that night, Bobulinski said, the elder Biden demonstrated a strong familiarity “at a high level” with the younger Biden’s business dealings.

Bobulinski then turned to the May 13, 2017, email referencing “the big guy.”

“In that email, there’s no question—the ‘H’ stands for ‘Hunter Biden,’ ‘the big guy’ for his father,” Bobulinski confirmed.

Bobulinski also indicated that the elder Biden was aware of the potential ethical concerns in being involved and said that he quickly learned that Joe Biden was not to be mentioned in writing or on the phone but only during face-to-face meetings.

Following this statement, Bobulinski turned his documents and communications with the Bidens over to the FBI.

Earlier this week, the Justice Department announced that Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and admitted to illegally possessing a gun despite being a drug user, moves that will likely see Hunter avoid jail time.