President Joe Biden in 2019 appears to have agreed to pay for his son’s legal fees relating to dealings with a Chinese firm that has ties to the Chinese Communist Party, according to newly reported emails.
An email dated Jan. 17, 2019, with the subject line “Hunter’s bills” and greeting “Hello VP team,” shows Hunter’s then-assistant Katie Dodge telling bookkeeper Linda Shapero that Joe Biden agreed to pay Hunter Biden’s bills incurred in 2018 and 2019, including one relating to the restructuring of one of Hunter’s business ventures. The emails were obtained by The Daily Mail and reportedly from Hunter’s laptop.
“I spoke with Hunter today regarding his bills. It is my understanding that Hunt’s dad will cover these bills in the short-term as Hunter transitions in his career,” Dodge wrote.
Dodge’s email attached a spreadsheet detailing the bills Hunter Biden owed from 2018 to 2019. One of the last items on the spreadsheet was more than $28,000 in legal fees owed to law firm Faegre Baker Daniels for “BHR Restructuring.”
BHR likely refers to Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management (BHR Partners), an investment firm backed by major Chinese state financial institutions such as the Bank of China and the China Development Bank Capital.
Rosemont Seneca Partners, a U.S. investment and advisory firm Hunter Biden co-founded, became one of the shareholders of BHR, which was incorporated in Shanghai in 2013. Hunter gained an unpaid board seat on BHR as a result. He sat on the board until April 2020.
Hunter held a 10 percent stake in BHR but divested as of November last year, according to his lawyer.
The president has repeatedly denied ever discussing or being involved with Hunter’s business dealings. “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Joe Biden said in 2019 during a Democratic Party fundraiser.
However, some GOP lawmakers are skeptical of the veracity of such claims.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said the new email proves that the president has not been truthful.
“President Biden has lied repeatedly to the American public, but the media is not calling him [out] on it,” Johnson told Fox News on April 27. “One thing that’s going to be on the ballot in November is truth versus lies and distortion.”
The younger Biden is currently subjected to a federal probe into his tax payments and involvement in international dealings, including those conducted while his father was vice president.
A 2020 Senate report found that there was “potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals,” while Joe Biden was vice president during the Obama administration.
The report pointed out how Hunter Biden made “questionable transactions” with Chinese nationals connected to the Chinese regime and military.
Peter Schweizer, author of the book “Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win,” recently told The Epoch Times that Hunter Biden’s business dealings, especially those connected to China, should raise “alarm bells.”
The author likened Hunter’s deals to a hypothetical scenario where Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan’s family was receiving millions from Russian businessmen connected to the KGB during the Cold War.
“That’s what happened here. All we’re doing is replacing the KGB with the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS). It’s the exact same story and it ought to be setting off the exact alarm bells,” he said, referring to the Chinese regime’s top intelligence agency.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House and the law firm referenced in the email, now known as Feagre Drinker, for comment.
Reporting from The Epoch Times.
