The younger Biden, who has been involved in businesses in both China and Russia for a number of years, said that he saw his business partner, Jonathan Li, when he and Joe Biden traveled to China six years ago. Joe Biden was vice president at the time.
Biden said that he also brought his father and Li together, allowing his business partner to shake hands with the then-vice president. It wasn’t clear how long the meeting lasted.
“How do I go to Beijing, halfway around the world, and not see them for a cup of coffee?” Biden told the magazine, attempting to defend what happened.
Li created a fund called BHR Partners in June 2013. Hunter Biden was an unpaid board member at the time of the December 2013 visit and took an equity stake in the fund after Joe Biden left the White House.
“Hunter’s meeting with Li and his relationship with BHR attracted little attention at the time, but some of Biden’s advisers were worried that Hunter, by meeting with a business associate during his father’s visit, would expose the Vice President to criticism,” the New Yorker reported.
A former senior White House aide added that Hunter Biden’s actions highlighted questions about whether he “was leveraging access for his benefit.”
Hunter Biden’s admission seemed to be in direct contrast with recent comments from his attorney, who claimed that Biden didn’t conduct business during the trip.
The discrepancy between the statements was first reported by the conservative Breitbart website.
Robert Weissman, the president of progressive watchdog group Public Citizen, called Hunter Biden’s actions concerning in an interview with ABC.
“At absolute minimum, there’s a huge appearance of conflict, and there’s every reason to think that the investors that he‘s working with want him partnering with them because he’s the son of the then-vice president and now presidential candidate,” Weissman said. “[Joe Biden] should have encouraged his son to not take these positions.”
Hunter Biden’s links to China and Russia have increasingly come into focus after his father announced he was running for president earlier this year.
The allegations were first raised in the book, “Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends,” by Peter Schweizer.
Published in 2018, the book states that a business deal that Hunter Biden completed in 2013 took place after his father was “very soft” on communist China.
