Grassley: Chinese-Government Front Company Paid Biden for Work Done While He Was VP

S enator Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) says the FBI is in possession of information indicating that the Biden family began doing work on behalf of a Chinese-government front company while Joe Biden was vice president. Grassley further claims compensation for this work was intentionally delayed until Biden was out of office, after which the company paid the Bidens approximately $6 million, a percentage of which was slated to go to the then-former vice president as he planned his 2020 presidential run.

Grassley and Senator Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) have for years been investigating allegations that the Biden family monetized Joe Biden’s political influence, concentrating particularly on the family’s relationship with the Chinese company. Grassley made his latest allegations in a letter sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI director Christopher Wray, and Delaware U.S. attorney David Weiss (the Biden Justice Department prosecutor handling the Biden investigation) last Thursday. The letter, the existence of which was first reported by the Washington Examiner, says that FBI whistleblowers have come forward at Grassley’s urging to describe evidence the bureau is sitting on.

The Grassley letter makes much of Tony Bobulinski, the former naval-intelligence officer and businessman who was recruited by the president’s son and brother, Hunter and Jim Biden, along with some of their close associates, to build the structure of a partnership between the Bidens and CEFC — a corporate conglomerate that was, in essence, an arm of the regime of Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party. Two years ago, I outlined the Biden–CEFC dealings here.

Bobulinski, who alleges that the Bidens cheated him out of money owed to him from the CEFC venture, came forward in October 2020 — just weeks before the presidential election. He claims that he had more than one face-to-face meeting with Joe Biden about the deal. There is also documentary corroboration, found on Hunter Biden’s laptop, showing what the split was anticipated to be on the Biden end of the deal — with a 10 percent share reserved for “the big guy.” Bobulinski confirms what the context strongly implies: That the “big guy” is Joe Biden, whose name Bobulinski was admonished to avoid discussing in connection with the transaction.

Grassley writes:

The evidence within the FBI’s possession that I am referencing is included, in part, in a summary of Tony Bobulinski’s October 23, 2020, interview with FBI agents. In that interview, Mr. Bobulinski stated that the arrangement Hunter Biden and James Biden created with foreign nationals connected to the communist Chinese government included assisting them with potential business deals and investments while Joe Biden was Vice President; however, that work remained intentionally uncompensated while Joe Biden was Vice President. After Joe Biden left the Vice Presidency, the summary makes clear that Hunter Biden and James Biden worked with CEFC and affiliated individuals to compensate them for that past work and the benefits they procured for CEFC. [Emphasis added.]

Grassley elaborates that “a joint venture that would serve as a vehicle to accomplish that financial compensation” was made following a February 2017 meeting in Miami between Hunter Biden and CEFC officials. This appears to refer to Hunter’s meeting with Ye Jianming, the top CEFC official, then a protégé of China’s President Xi, who notoriously presented Hunter with a large diamond to seal their partnership. As I’ve previously detailed, in 2018, shortly after it became clear that CEFC was under foreign counterintelligence surveillance by the FBI, Ye was arrested in China, and he has not been seen since. The revelation of the surveillance came during the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act trial of CEFC executive Patrick Ho. Months earlier, Ye and CEFC had paid Hunter Biden a $1 million retainer to represent Ho as a lawyer, and when Ho was arrested, his first call was to Jim Biden. Ho, whom Hunter has referred to as “the f***ing spy chief of China,” was convicted and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.

Grassley adds that the business vehicle for the Biden–CEFC partnership was called “SinoHawk.” The senator says the report allegedly in the FBI’s possession relates that:

[SinoHawk] was owned 50 percent by Oneida Holdings LLC (Oneida) and 50 percent by Hudson West IV. According to the summary, Oneida was made of five evenly divided LLCs, one for each business associate – including Hunter Biden and James Biden. However, according to the summary, 10 percent of Hunter Biden’s interest was to be held for Joe Biden.

Embedded in Grassley’s letter is the signature block for the Oneida operating agreement, which was executed on May 22, 2017. It is signed by Hunter and Jim Biden as managers, their associates Rob Walker and James Gilliar as managing directors, and Bobulinski as a managing member.

Grassley’s letter states that Joe Biden met with his son and other business associates on May 2 and 3, 2017, and that the FBI has documentary corroboration of these meetings. Grassley asserts that the FBI should have opened a full field investigation of the Bidens’ interaction with CEFC, which certainly seems reasonable in light of the prosecution of Ho, the disappearance of Ye, the lavish funding the Bidens got from CEFC, and the revelation at Ho’s trial that CEFC figures were under foreign counterintelligence surveillance. After Ye’s arrest by Chinese authorities, the Xi regime allowed the conglomerate to go bust.

Grassley recounts that, although the SinoHawk venture (which had a variety of proposed objectives) failed, the Bidens still got paid. On that score, whistleblowers have reportedly told Grassley that the FBI is in possession of a second document, dated sometime in October 2020, which relates some relevant events.

In May 2017, for example, it is alleged that Hunter Biden “yelled at CEFC officials at a meeting for failing to fund the joint venture.” Two months later, in July, the funding had still not materialized, and “James Biden considered calling CECF officials and threatening to withdraw Biden family support from future deals.” In August, however, $5 million was wired from a CEFC-controlled company not to SinoHawk, but to an entity called Hudson West III. The entity then wired the funds to Owasco and Lion Hall Group, firms controlled by Hunter and Jim Biden, respectively. Evidently, this cut out Bobulinski and, perhaps, others on the Biden end of the SinoHawk venture. (The Hudson West III vehicle, its connection to Hunter Biden, and lavish sums transmitted through it and other “Hudson”-denominated entities are described on pp. 76–81 of a report by Senators Grassley and Johnson.)

Grassley’s letter includes somewhat-vaguer allegations regarding Hunter Biden’s business dealings with and exorbitant compensation by Burisma, the corrupt Ukrainian energy company owned by Mykola Zlochevsky. Hunter was on Burisma’s board while his father was vice president and running point on the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy. It has been reported to Grassley that the FBI possesses reports of communications with “non-government individuals” that relate to “potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden.” Those reports, Grassley says, “also indicate that Joe Biden was aware of Hunter Biden’s business arrangements and may have been involved in some of them.”

Grassley closes his letter by asking the Justice Department and FBI to provide various pertinent evidence said to be in their possession, including the Bobulinski interview (said to have occurred on October 23, 2020) and the other October 2020 document I referred to above, which is said to include “a timeline of events associated with Hunter Biden’s business associates, foreign and domestic.”

In other letters and public statements, Senator Grassley has asserted that politically motivated interference by FBI officials impeded the bureau’s investigation of Biden’s business dealings in the run-up to the 2020 election and caused derogatory information about the Bidens to be falsely dismissed as “Russian disinformation.” He recounts this history in his latest letter, and presses the question of whether David Weiss, the aforementioned federal prosecutor leading the investigation — which has been described as focusing only on Hunter Biden — “has performed his own due diligence on these and related allegations” involving President Biden, Jim Biden, and their other associates.

The claim that millions of dollars in CEFC payments to the Biden family in 2017 were, in part, meant to reward Joe Biden for using his influence to help CEFC while he was vice president is obviously explosive. President Biden has denied even discussing business with Hunter Biden, let alone being involved in his close relatives’ enterprise of using his political influence to make money from foreign regimes. Those implausible denials have not withstood scrutiny, but the degree to which the president may have profited is an open question — one that warranted an investigation it didn’t get prior to the 2020 election, and still warrants an investigation now.