Former Kazakhstan intelligence chief Karim Massimov, whom Hunter Biden once described as his “close friend” and who once posed for a photo with Biden and his father, President Joe Biden, was arrested by Kazakh authorities last week on alleged suspicion of high treason.
Massimov’s arrest came Thursday, one day after he was fired from his post as chairman of the Kazakhstan National Security Committee. He was arrested amid nationwide violent protests sparked by, among other things, an increase in fuel prices. The unrest has resulted in thousands of arrests and dozens of deaths.
Hunter Biden, while serving on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, shared a close business relationship with Massimov during his second stint as Kazakhstan’s prime minister from 2014 through 2016, according to records from Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Breaking: this photo appears to have been taken at Cafe Milano showing then VP Joe Biden with two Kazakhstani guests from Hunter’s 2015 dinner to introduce his clients to dad. L-R – oligarch Kenes Rakishev, Hunter, Joe, PM Karim Massimov https://t.co/ywWPhL3T3f pic.twitter.com/WO5xAVOH02
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) May 28, 2021
Emails and texts from the laptop previously reported by the Washington Examiner show that Hunter Biden scheduled a meeting in 2014 with Massimov in Kazakhstan to discuss an energy deal with Burisma. Hunter Biden ditched his Secret Service security detail before departing from Paris to Kazakhstan to discuss the deal, the records show.
Emails among Hunter Biden, his Rosemont Seneca business partner and fellow Burisma board member Devon Archer, and Ukrainian Burisma official Vadim Pozharskyi show their desire to work out a deal with Massimov.
HUNTER BIDEN DITCHED SECRET SERVICE AS HE SOUGHT KAZAKHSTAN ENERGY DEAL
The following year, a Kazakh banker invited Hunter Biden to attend a “small breakfast” with Massimov at a Washington, D.C., hotel to discuss “several matters” with the prime minister, according to emails reported by the Daily Mail.
“Thank you for an amazing evening, wonderful company and great conversation. I look forward to seeing you soon and to many opportunities to work closely together,” the Kazakh banker, Marc Holtzman, wrote to Hunter after the April 2015 meeting.
Hunter Biden and his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, were pictured alongside Massimov and Kazakh businessman Kenes Rakishev, according to a photo posted on the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery’s website.
A Republican Senate report on Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings highlighted that Rakishev wired $142,300 to a company owned by Archer in 2014, the same day Joe Biden met with the Ukrainian prime minister and Ukrainian lawmakers to discuss Russia’s actions in the Crimean Peninsula. Rakishev wired the funds purportedly for a car. However, the Senate report said the timing of the transfer raises serious questions.
“Hunter Biden’s longstanding relationship with Archer and involvement in transactions with Rosemont Seneca Bohai, and the fact that the payment was timed perfectly with Vice President Biden’s visit to Kyiv to discuss U.S. sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Crimea, the April 22, 2014 payment from Rakishev to Rosemont Seneca Bohai raises serious questions,” the Senate report stated.
Archer, a friend of current Biden climate czar John Kerry’s stepson Christopher Heinz, was convicted in 2018 for securities fraud and conspiracy charges tied to the sale of $60 million in bonds from a development group related to Oglala Sioux tribe.
Hunter Biden described Massimov as his “close friend” in a 2016 email.
Until last week, Massimov led Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee, an intelligence and security agency that replaced the Soviet-era KGB in 1992 after the collapse and dissolution of the USSR. An announcement from the agency on Saturday said he had been arrested on Thursday after being removed the day before.
Large protests spread across the country last week, eventually engulfing Almaty, Kazakhstan’s largest city with a population of nearly 2 million. The country said that there were thousands of arrests, and there have been reports that dozens of protesters were killed.
Kassym-Jomart Tokayev requested help last week from the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and Russia and other countries in the alliance sent as many as 2,500 troops into Kazakhstan to assist with ending the protests and violence.
The CSTO is a Russian-dominated group, the members of which include Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.
Nikol Pashinyan, chairman of the CSTO and prime minister of Armenia, said last week that, following appeals from Tokayev, “peacekeeping forces” had been sent “for a limited period of time in order to stabilize and normalize the situation in that country.”
A statement released by the Kremlin last week said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a “lengthy conversation” with Tokayev, with the Kazakh leader allegedly providing details about the “stabilization” efforts in the country, with “gratitude” expressed for the help from CSTO and “especially” from Russia. The statement said Putin and Tokayev also “exchanged views on the measures taken to restore order in Kazakhstan.”
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Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that Russia’s military buildup on Ukraine’s border should not be looked at the same way as Russian forces going into Kazakhstan, though he still did provide a warning about it.
“On Kazakhstan, I would not conflate these situations. There are very particular drivers of what’s happening in Kazakhstan right now, as I said, that go to economic and political matters. And what’s happening in there is different from what’s happening on Ukraine’s borders,” Blinken told the press. “Having said that, I think one lesson in recent history is that once Russians are in your house, it’s sometimes very difficult to get them to leave.”
