Multiple federal investigations of Hunter Biden’s shady foreign business dealings are threatening to cast a long shadow over his father’s White House tenure, even with Joe Biden’s inauguration still nearly a month away.
While the full scope of the federal government’s inquiries has not been made public, allegations claim President-elect Joe Biden’s son scored privileged investment opportunities, millions of dollars, and a diamond estimated to cost $80,000 by leveraging access to the Biden name.
Hunter Biden acknowledged the existence of one federal inquiry earlier this month, when in a statement issued by his father’s transition team, he said he was the subject of an investigation by the U.S. attorney in Delaware. Biden said he is “confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.”
According to a subsequent Politico report, “investigators in Delaware and Washington were … probing potential money laundering and Hunter Biden’s foreign ties.”
The story suggests these investigations go further than Hunter Biden’s statement indicated and include an inquiry by the Southern District of New York’s securities fraud unit into his finances, as well as a criminal investigation by the Western District of Pennsylvania involving a hospital business with ties to Joe Biden’s brother, James Biden.
However, the full scope of the government’s scrutiny into the president-elect’s son’s sprawling dealings remains under wraps, leaving open the potential for further revelations.
There is nothing to suggest that Joe Biden is under investigation. However, numerous cases paint Biden’s family as seeking to make use of its political connections, the resulting investigations into which could tarnish his presidency.
Republicans have vowed to continue the inquiries.
“I’m not going to turn a blind eye on this,” Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson last month told Fox News. “We’ll keep digging.” Johnson chairs the Senate committee that issued the latest report on Hunter Biden.
The investigation could be harmful to an incoming president seeking to make a clean break from the conflicts of interest of his predecessor, even if Hunter Biden is found not to have breached any laws.
Last year, Joe Biden told reporters that “no one in my family will have an office in the White House, will sit in on meetings as if they are a Cabinet member, will, in fact, have any business relationship with anyone that relates to a foreign corporation or a foreign country.”
Hunter Biden, who at the time was under fire from Republicans for his overseas business affairs, issued a statement through his lawyer agreeing “not to serve on boards of, or work on behalf of, foreign owned companies.”
He had already cut ties with a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, where, as a board member, he earned $50,000 a month.
Hunter Biden’s business relationships intensified in the lead-up to and following then-Vice President Biden’s departure from office in 2017, as detailed in hundreds of emails shared with the Washington Examiner before Election Day, U.S. Senate investigations, and media reports.
Hunter Biden helped CEFC China Energy co-chairman Ye Jianming “on a number of his personal issues (staff visas and some more sensitive things),” according to a text message sent by Biden to a business partner, which appeared in a November report issued by Republican senators.
According to the Senate’s September report, a CEFC-linked firm wired $5 million to a bank account associated with Hunter Biden’s business interests before disbursing most of the sum to a Biden-linked account over the year that followed.
“At least one of the matters investigators have examined is a 2017 gift of a 2.8-carat diamond that Hunter Biden received from CEFC’s founder and former chairman Ye Jianming after a Miami business meeting,” CNN reported.
Biden’s ex-wife Kathleen estimated the diamond’s value at $80,000, according to a court motion.
Large sums were also transferred to the consulting firm of James Biden.
Before then-Vice President Biden left office, Hunter began working with Romanian real estate tycoon Gabriel “Puiu” Popoviciu in 2016 as he faced an investigation amid U.S. pressure to curtail public corruption, according to the New York Times.
In a viral video seized on by President Trump, a Chinese academic last month suggested that Beijing’s ties to Wall Street and dealings with Hunter Biden could help it exert greater influence under Joe Biden.
“Trump has been saying that Biden’s son has some sort of global foundation. Have you noticed that?” Di Dongsheng, a professor at Renmin University, said. “Who helped build the foundations? Got it? There are a lot of deals inside all these.”
While the video has since been deleted, clips remain online.
While the CEFC business effort had largely petered out by the time of the letter, Hunter Biden said he intended to step down later that year from the board of a Chinese private equity company, Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management, in which he held a large stake.
Hunter Biden acquired a 10% stake in the firm in 2017 based on a 2013 valuation, or $420,000, according to the statement, even as the firm acquired assets in excess of $1 billion. Of Biden’s stake, “at least a third was provided in the form of loans from other [Bohai Harvest RST] principals,” people familiar with the situation told the Wall Street Journal.
Biden’s statement said he “has not received any return on his investment” in BHR but did not make any claims to divest of his holdings.
Corporate filings in China suggest he hasn’t, according to the Wall Street Journal.
On Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said he wants a full-throated investigation into all of Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings to “see if it’s compromised” his father’s foreign policy.
Hunter’s international work “doesn’t pass the smell test,” Graham told Fox News. “His business associates and their business activities were flagged by banks, not some right-wing group, all over the country … because it could be a part of a money laundering scheme. I want somebody to look at that.”
He added: “I can promise you that what I’m asking for needs to be done. We’re not going to give the Democrats a pass.”
