‘Swampy Influence Peddling’: Hunter Biden’s Business Partners Cast Harsh New Light on First Son’s Work With Foreign Energy Firm, but Insist President Biden Was Never Involved

Two of Hunter Biden’s closest business associates, Rob Walker and Mervyn Yan, have told House impeachment investigators that President Biden was not involved with their foreign business dealings, though they said that Mr. Biden did meet with one of his son’s Communist Chinese business associates once he had left office in 2017. The two men also disclosed that the younger Mr. Biden did consulting for the Chinese Communist Party-linked energy firm CEFC during his father’s vice presidency, but wasn’t paid until his father was a private citizen.“To be clear, President Biden — while in office or as a private citizen — was never involved in any of the business activities we pursued,” Mr. Walker said in his opening statement during a deposition before the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. “Any statement to the contrary is simply false,” he continued. “Hunter made sure there was always a clear boundary between any business and his father. Always. And as his partner, I always understood and respected that boundary.”Mr. Walker testified that he and the first son did consulting work together for CEFC while the elder Mr. Biden was serving as vice president. The chairman of the Oversight Committee, Congressman James Comer, says that because Messrs. Biden and Walker received a $3 million payment after the elder Mr. Biden left the vice presidency and met with a CEFC, then therefore the Bidens are guilty of “swampy influence peddling.” “Today’s interview confirmed Hunter Biden and his associates’ work with the Chinese government-linked energy company began over a year before Joe Biden left the vice presidency, but the Bidens and their associates held off being paid by the Chinese while Joe Biden was in office,” Mr. Comer said in a statement. “The Chinese company paid Hunter Biden and his associates $3 million shortly after Joe Biden left office as a ‘thank you’ for the work they did while Joe Biden was in office … This is the type of swampy influence peddling the American people want us to end.”Mr. Walker became a subject of the investigation in early 2023, when a series of bank records showed that he had been setting up limited liability companies that were used to take in foreign money that was later dispersed to members of the Biden family. Mr. Walker helped facilitate millions of dollars in payments to the president’s son and other relatives over the course of several years. Mr. Yan, who also worked with Messrs. Biden and Walker in consulting for CEFC, also told investigators he had never spoken to the president and they asked no favors from the White House during the Obama administration. Mr. Comer, though, says the fact that the younger Mr. Biden was even working in the energy sector is proof of influence-peddling activities. “Mervyn Yan admitted on the record the Bidens had no experience in the energy and infrastructure sectors and was not sure what they brought to the table,” Mr. Comer said. “His testimony raises many questions about the Bidens’ dealings with the Chinese government linked energy firm.”The top Democrat on the Oversight Committee who was in the room for these depositions, Congressman Jamie Raskin, said witness after witness has testified in depositions that they never spoke with the president about these business dealings. “According to Republican investigators, these transcribed interviews and depositions are supposed to be central to closing out 13 months of ‘clueless investigation’ into President Biden, and I think they are right: Every single witness called by House Republicans has refuted their increasingly desperate and outlandish efforts to smear President Biden,” Mr. Raskin said. The effort to impeach the president has slowed in recent months. In November, Mr. Comer told the Sun that he “had the votes” for impeachment and would push leadership to put it on the floor as soon as he won a deposition from the first son himself. But in mid-January, Mr. Comer hedged that assessment, telling the Sun that his job “was to investigate, not impeach” when he was asked if he still had the votes. After defying a congressional subpoena for weeks, Mr. Biden agreed to sit for a deposition on February 28. Mr. Raskin also told the Sun that “two or three” moderate House Republicans from Biden-won districts have groused to him that the impeachment inquiry is “embarrassing” and “a distraction” from the business of governing.

‘Swampy Influence Peddling’: Hunter Biden’s Business Partners Cast Harsh New Light on First Son’s Work With Foreign Energy Firm, but Insist President Biden Was Never Involved

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