Here’s a dozen times Joe Biden played a role in son Hunter’s business dealings
By Emily Crane, Miranda Devine, Steven Nelson and Bruce Golding
April 6, 2022
1. Joe “recommends”
The latest example emerged Wednesday, when it was revealed that Hunter Biden got his dad to write a recommendation letter to Brown University for the son of a powerful Chinese business associate, Jonathan Li.
“Jonathan, Hunter asked me to send you a copy of the recommendation letter that he asked his father to write on behalf of Christopher for Brown University,” Hunter Biden’s then-business partner, Eric Schwerin, wrote to Li on Feb. 18, 2017, in an e-mail first revealed by Fox News.
Schwerin told Li the “original” was being shipped by FedEx to university president Christina Paxson “directly at Brown.”
Li is the CEO of the Chinese investment firm BHR Partners and in 2013 established a subsidiary — Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co., known as BHR — where Hunter Biden was a founding board member and held a 10% equity share through a company called Skaneateles LLC.
After the White House refused to say whether the first son remained a part owner after resigning from the board in 2019, Hunter Biden’s lawyer finally told The New York Times that Hunter “no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly, in either BHR or Skaneateles.”
Hunter Biden also arranged for his dad to write a letter to Georgetown University — Hunter’s alma mater — on behalf of Li’s daughter, but neither child got into the elite institutions, The Post understands.
During Wednesday’s White House briefing, press secretary Jen Psaki said, “I have no confirmation of any recommendation letter the president wrote —when he was a private citizen, by the way, and not serving in public office.”
4. Air Force 2 trip
In December 2013, Hunter and his daughter, Finnegan Biden, traveled to China on Air Force Two with then-Vice President Joe Biden during an official, six-day trip to Asia. Joe Biden met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other officials — and was also introduced to Li by his son in the lobby of the hotel where the American delegation was staying.
5. Half his salary?
In a 2019 text message to his daughter Naomi, Hunter Biden bitterly wrote, “I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years.” He added, “It’s really hard. But don’t worry, unlike Pop [Joe], I won’t make you give me half your salary.”
Meanwhile, White House chief of staff Ron Klain was revealed this week to have hit up Hunter Biden for help raising $20,000 for the foundation that maintains the vice president’s official residence.
As vice president, Joe Biden met with Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer in April 2014, around the same time that Archer joined the Burisma board and shortly before Hunter Biden did so, according to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
A photo that surfaced more than five years later reportedly shows Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Archer posing with golf clubs on a course in the Hamptons in August 2014.
In February, Archer was sentenced to one year and one day in prison in an unrelated bond-fraud scheme that targeted the impoverished Oglala Sioux tribe of American Indians.
7. Meet the Ukrainians
Vadym Pozharskyi, a Burisma exec and adviser to its board, sent Hunter Biden an April 17, 2015, e-mail that said, “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.”
8. Meet the Kazakhs
One day earlier, Joe Biden attended a dinner at Washington DC’s Cafe Milano with some of his son’s business associates from Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan.
An unverified photo apparently shows the Bidens posing between two of the guests who attended that night, Kazakhstani banking oligarch Kenes “Kenges” Rakishev and Karim Massimov, a former prime minister of Kazakhstan.
9. Meet Bobulinski
Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski revealed in October 2020 that he spoke with Joe Biden in May 2017 after being introduced by Hunter, who reportedly described Bobulinski as “the one who’s helping us with the business we’re doing with the Chinese.”
According to Bobulinski — who has identified Joe Biden as “the big guy” with a 10 percent share in a planned deal with CEFC China Energy — the former vice president told him, “Keep an eye on my son and brother and look out for my family.”
10. Getting an office
E-mails show that in September 2017, Hunter Biden asked for a new sign and additional keys to an office he was renting in Washington DC’s House of Sweden office building, which is home to the Swedish Embassy.
The sign was to say, “The Biden Foundation and Hudson West (CEFC-US)” and the keys were for his father, stepmother Jill Biden, uncle James Biden and a Chinese executive named Gongwen Dong
The building manager wrote back, “We are very excited and honored to welcome your new colleagues!” but a spokeswoman for the Swedish agency that oversees the property told The Washington Post that the sign was never changed and the keys were not picked up.
11. Meet the Mexicans
In 2015, then-Vice President Joe Biden hosted a group of his son’s Mexican business associates at the vice president’s official residence and posed for a photo with Hunter Biden and a group of possible business partners, including Mexican billionaires Carlos Slim and Miguel Alemán Velasco.
12. Quid but no quo?
In 2016, e-mails indicate that Hunter Biden messaged Velasco’s son from Air Force Two, which was en route to Mexico for an official visit. Hunter complained to the younger Velasco that he hadn’t received reciprocal business favors after “I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing White House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration.”