Emails obtained by the New York Post that were purportedly from Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joe Biden, shed further light on his pursuit of lucrative deals connected to shady Chinese businessmen who have since been convicted of crimes in the United States or have disappeared in China.

Within a few hours of the piece publishing on Thursday, the New York Post link was swiftly blocked by Twitter, similar to the action taken by the social media giant on Wednesday in response to an article detailing emails showing an executive at the Ukrainian energy giant Burisma thanking Hunter Biden for setting up a meeting with his father — a meeting that Joe Biden’s campaign says did not occur as described by the outlet. The emails have not been independently obtained by the Washington Examiner, but the Biden campaign has not disputed their veracity, and the new emails fit Hunter Biden’s pattern of seeking deals in China. Hunter Biden’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.

One newly revealed email from James Gilliar, a member of the J2CR international consulting firm, to Hunter Biden, is dated May 13, 2017, and it discusses “expectations” of a yet-unclear deal while claiming that “we have discussed and agreed the following renumeration packages.” The email notes that “Hunter” would receive “850” (in context, this appears to mean $850,000) and lists him as “Chair / Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC” — the China Energy Fund Committee.

CEFC China Energy is a multibillion-dollar Chinese conglomerate founded by Ye Jianming, a Chinese Communist Party-linked business tycoon who has since disappeared in China but with whom Hunter Biden had attempted to work out numerous deals. The email goes on to say that “Hunter has some office expectations he will elaborate” and that “at the moment there’s a provisional agreement that the equity will be distributed as follows,” including “20” (likely 20%) for “H” (Hunter). The email also asks about “10 held by H for the big guy,” who is not identified. Gilliar adds that he is “happy to raise any detail with Zang if there is [sic] shortfalls” — a likely reference to Zang Jianjun, the former executive chairman of CEFC.

When Patrick Ho, one of Ye’s lieutenants, was charged by the Justice Department in 2017, the first call he made after his arrest was to Joe Biden’s brother James, who has said that he thought the call was meant for Hunter Biden. Ho was indicted under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act in the Southern District of New York for his role in a global money laundering and bribery scheme aimed at government officials in Africa. The Justice Department also accused Ho of helping with Iranian sanctions evasion and working to use the Chinese company’s connections to sell weaponry to Chad, Libya, and Qatar.

Ho immediately tried reaching out to the younger Biden for help because that summer, as investigators circled, Hunter Biden agreed to represent Ho as part of Biden’s efforts to work out a liquefied natural gas deal worth tens of millions of dollars with Ye. The vice president’s financier brother said he was surprised by the call from Ho but told the Chinese businessman how to get in touch with his nephew.

The lucrative deal Hunter Biden set up with CEFC China Energy fell apart when Ye disappeared after being detained by Chinese authorities in 2018. Ho was sentenced to three years in federal prison in March 2019 and was deported to Hong Kong in June after finishing a shortened sentence.

Another document obtained by the outlet includes an “Attorney Engagement Letter” from September 2017 between Biden as the attorney and Ho as the client, which the outlet said related to “matters related to U.S. law and advice pertaining to the hiring and legal analysis of any U.S. Law Firm or Lawyer.” The letter identified Ho as “Secretary General of China Energy Fund Committee” and noted that Ho agreed to pay Biden “the sum of $1,000,000.00 as a retainer at the time of the execution of this agreement.”

Another email obtained by the outlet, this one sent by Biden to Ye’s close associate Gongwen Dong (who is also linked to the Chinese Communist Party) on Aug. 2, 2017, referenced a deal that Biden says he set up with Ye. The alleged deal included $10 million per year for three years for “consulting fees based on introductions alone.”

“My Understanding is that the original agreement with the Director was for consulting fees based on introductions alone a rate of $10M per year for a three year guarantee total of $30M. The chairman changed that deal after we me [sic] in MIAMI TO A MUCH MORE LASTING AND LUCRATIVE ARRANGEMENT to create a holding company 50% owned by ME and 50% owned by him,” Biden wrote to Ye Jianming’s deputy. “Consulting fees is one piece of our income stream but the reason this proposal by the chairman was so much more interesting to me and my family is that we would also be partners inn [sic] the equity and profits of the JV’s investments. Hence I assumed the reason for our discussion today in which you made clear that the Chaireman [sic] would first get his investment capital returned in the profits would then be split 50/50. If you saying that is not the case then please return us to the original deal 10M per year a guaranteed 3 years plus bonus payments for any successful deal we introduce. Let’s discuss thank you.”

Kathleen Biden, Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, accused him in divorce filings of “spending extravagantly on his own interests … while leaving the family with no funds to pay legitimate bills.” The filing also discusses a “large” diamond, worth $80,000, that Biden claimed he no longer had. In a later interview, he said the diamond, which he claimed was only worth $10,000, was a gift from Ye.

Ye, who told Caixin Global that his company “aims to serve the [Chinese] state’s strategy,” was on a mission to make inroads among powerful Democrats and Republicans, setting his sights on the former vice president’s son, who served on the board of World Food Program USA, a nonprofit organization that raises money for the United Nations World Food Programme. Biden said he hoped Ye would make a major donation to the fund but also offered to help Ye find investment opportunities inside the U.S.

Biden has said that he met Ye for the first time in Miami in 2017 and that two of Biden’s associates surprised him when they gave Ye some Scotch whisky valued at thousands of dollars. Ye sent a thank-you card and a 2.8-carat diamond to Biden’s hotel room. Biden says he handed the diamond off to his associates and that he doesn’t know what happened with it.

“What would they be bribing me for? My dad wasn’t in office,” Biden told the New Yorker. “I knew it wasn’t a good idea to take it. I just felt like it was weird.”

Biden negotiated a $40 million investment deal with Ye related to a liquefied natural gas project in Louisiana, though it fell apart.

The outlet also shared a photo it says was dated Aug. 1, 2017, showing a handwritten flowchart related to “Hudson West” divided “50” and “50” between “Hunter Biden” and “Chairman.” The Republican-led Senate homeland security and finance committees released a joint report on Biden in September alleging that he “opened a bank account” under the name of “Hunter West” with Dong “to fund a $100,000 global spending spree” with Joe Biden’s younger brother, James, and James’s wife, Sara. The report detailed shady foreign business dealings by Hunter Biden, his business partner Devon Archer, and others in the Biden family.

“In addition to the over $4 million paid by Burisma for Hunter Biden’s and Archer’s board memberships, Hunter Biden, his family, and Archer received millions of dollars from foreign nationals with questionable backgrounds,” the GOP Senate report alleged, also claiming that “Hunter Biden received a $3.5 million wire transfer from Elena Baturina, the wife of the former mayor of Moscow.”

“Hunter Biden had business associations with Ye Jianming, Gongwen Dong, and other Chinese nationals linked to the Communist government and the People’s Liberation Army,” the report read. “Those associations resulted in millions of dollars in cash flow.”

Joe Biden’s campaign denied the report that the former vice president met with Ukrainian businessman Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, saying “no meeting” like that happened after a New York Post report on Wednesday titled “Smoking-gun email reveals how Hunter Biden introduced Ukrainian businessman to VP dad” claimed that Hunter Biden introduced the two.

Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates told Politico that the New York Post “certainly never raised that Rudy Giuliani — whose discredited conspiracy theories and alliance with figures connected to Russian intelligence have been widely reported — claimed to have such materials” and that “we have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.”

Twitter justified its decision to block Wednesday article by the New York Post by saying, in part, that a 2018 policy “prohibits the use of our service to distribute content obtained without authorization” and that “we don’t want to incentivize hacking by allowing Twitter to be used as distribution for possibly illegally obtained materials.” Stories on President Trump’s leaked tax returns, surreptitiously recorded conversations with first lady Melania Trump, FinCEN files leaked from the Treasury Department, and numerous other examples have not been blocked by Twitter.

After the Biden campaign’s official denial, it was reported by Politico on Wednesday that former Biden senior advisers “said that while there was never an official meeting, it’s technically conceivable that Pozharskyi would have approached Biden on the sidelines of some broader U.S.-Ukraine event.”

Giuliani was a staunch defender of Trump throughout the impeachment process and worked with numerous sources inside the U.S. and abroad, including Ukrainian lawmaker Andriy Derkach and others, to push allegations that Joe Biden had abused his power in Ukraine.

Bill Evanina, who leads the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, released an intelligence assessment in early August warning that Russia is “using a range of measures to primarily denigrate” Joe Biden, and that Derkach “is spreading claims about corruption — including through publicizing leaked phone calls — to undermine” the former vice president. The Treasury Department announced sanctions against Derkach this summer, and there is no current evidence that the leaked emails from Hunter Biden were connected to Derkach or Russia.

The computer repair shop owner who allegedly came into possession of the younger Biden’s computer told the New York Post that he made a copy of the computer’s hard drive and provided it to a lawyer for Giuliani before handing it over to federal investigators. The outlet said former Trump adviser Steve Bannon alerted the outlet about the hard drive’s existence in September, and Giuliani handed over a copy of it on Sunday.

It is not yet known whether or not Pozharskyi ever met with Joe Biden, even informally, but it wouldn’t be the first time Hunter Biden arranged such a meeting. During a December 2013 trip to China in which the elder Biden as vice president was going to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Hunter Biden tagged along and set up a handshake between his father and Chinese businessman Jonathan Li, with whom Hunter Biden had set up a Chinese equity fund, the government-linked Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Company, earlier that year.

Documents from earlier this year seemed to show that the younger Biden still controlled a stake in that Chinese investment firm despite his promise to resign from the company’s board last year and a pledge from his father that no one in the family will have foreign business entanglements if he is elected in November.

 

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