WASHINGTON – President Biden repeatedly denied on Wednesday that he had interacted with his brother’s foreign business associates – contrary to some of his closest allies – as the House of Representatives prepared to vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry.
The 81-year-old denounced as “lies” reports that he met or spoke with his son Hunter Biden and foreign contacts of James Biden’s brother on several occasions.
“I’m not. And it’s just a bunch of lies. They’re lying. I’m not. That’s a lie,” Biden said in response to a question from The Post.
The president was asked about a recent Associated Press poll that found that 68% of voters – including 40% of Democrats – believed Biden acted unethically or illegally with his family’s business dealings.
While running for president in 2019, Biden denied ever discussing business with his son or brother — but evidence has emerged of multiple relationships involving his family’s allies from China, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine, in addition to many of their own. American colleagues.
Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer revealed in Oversight Committee testimony released in August that Joe Biden attended two dinners at the DC Café Milano restaurant in 2014 and 2015 with Hunter clients from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including Vadym Pozharskyi, a board adviser director. Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings.
Burisma paid Hunter up to $1 million a year starting in April 2014 to serve on its board at the same time his father was leading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.
Archer also testified that Hunter Biden left a gathering at the Four Seasons in Dubai to “call DC” with Burisma owners Mykola Zlochevsky and Pozharsky in December 2015.
An FBI whistleblower file released in July by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says Zlochevsky complained in 2016 that he was “forced” to pay $10 million in bribes to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for the then-vice president’s help in ousting prosecutors Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Shokin, who was ousted from office in March 2016 after a sustained campaign by Joe Biden.
Claims of corruption have not been proven.
Joe Biden was also put on speaker phone while the vice president during about 20 business meetings with Hunter’s foreign allies, including French and Chinese nationals, Archer told the House Oversight Committee in a July 31 interview.
Following Archer’s closed deposition, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY), one of Biden’s staunchest defenders in Congress, insisted that his understanding was that the current president never talked business during those conversations — making the president’s repeated denials Wednesday all the more curious.
“There is jewelry. And there’s hello. And [they] talk about the weather or whatever the situation is,” the Manhattan and Brooklyn lawmaker noted at the time, “but it’s never any business.”
Meanwhile, a text message released in June by House Republicans directly accused Joe Biden of being involved in the destruction of Chinese government-linked businesses.
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who oversaw the Hunter Biden tax fraud investigation for more than three years, provided Congress with the message, in which Hunter wrote on July 30, 2017, that he was “sitting here with my father” and warned of the consequences if an agreement has been cancelled.
“I sit here with my father and we want to understand why the commitments that were made are not being fulfilled,” Hunter Biden wrote.
“Tell the director that I want to finish it now before it gets out of hand, and now that means tonight,” the now 53-year-old continued, warning he would “make sure that between the guy sitting next to me and everyone he knows and my ability to hold a grudge forever that you will regret not following my orders.”
“I’m sitting here waiting for a call with my dad,” said Hunter, who was at his father’s Wilmington, Del., home the same day as the message.
In the two weeks after the threat, $5.1 million flowed from CEFC to accounts linked to Biden — on top of more than $1 million transferred earlier in the year, according to a 2020 report by a Republican-led Senate committee.
Hunter and James Biden associate James Gilliar wrote in a May 2017 email that partners were considering a 10% cut for Joe Biden and an October 2017 email identified Joe Biden as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to buy US natural gas.
It was the Biden family’s second major venture in China — after the then-second son founded government-backed investment fund BHR Partners in 2013, just 12 days after Hunter joined then-Vice President Biden on Air Force Two for an official visit to Beijing.
Hunter introduced his father to BHR CEO Jonathan Li during a visit to the Chinese capital and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children.
The terms of Hunter Biden’s alleged release from BHR Partners remain unclear.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
