WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed Wednesday that House Republicans are spreading “inaccuracies and lies” about the Biden family’s dealings in China, echoing the president’s own vague Friday night denial — despite bank records showing more than $1 million was sent to three Biden relatives in early 2017.
Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy asked Jean-Pierre at her regular press briefing about the House Oversight Committee’s release of records showing that first son Hunter, first brother James and first daughter-in-law Hallie Biden received more than a third of $3 million sent by State Energy HK, an affiliate of CEFC China Energy, to Biden family business partner Rob Walker on March 1, 2017.
“[The] House Oversight [Committee] says they’ve got bank records showing a Chinese energy company paying three Biden family members through a third party. What were they paid for?” Doocy asked.
“Look, I’m just not going to respond to that from here. Look, we have heard from House Republicans for years and years and years how, how — the inaccuracies and lies when it comes to this issue,” Jean-Pierre said.
“And I don’t even know where to begin to even answer that question. Because, again, it’s been lies and lies and inaccuracy for the past couple of years and I’m just not going to get into it from here,” Jean-Pierre added.
Biden himself claimed “that’s not true” while leaving the White House on Friday night when asked about his three relatives getting money from China, according to subpoenaed bank records.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told The Post on Wednesday that Jean-Pierre was the one being “dishonest.”
“Jean-Pierre claims she doesn’t know where to begin when confronted with the facts of our investigation. She can start with the bank records we obtained showing a Chinese energy company paying members of the Biden family over $1 million through an associate,” Comer told The Post.
“Bank records don’t lie,” he added.
“The fact that President Biden and his press secretary continue to be dishonest with the American people about the Biden family’s shady business schemes is alarming. The House Oversight Committee will continue to pursue answers, transparency and accountability for the American people.”
Comer previously clapped back at Biden on Twitter, writing Wednesday morning, “Where are the fact-checkers?”
“President Biden says it’s ‘not true’ his family got $1 million from a Chinese energy company. @GOPOversight has the receipts,” Comer tweeted. “Numbers don’t lie, but [Biden] apparently does. Time for [Jean-Pierre] to correct the record.”
The White House did not respond to The Post’s request for examples of lies or inaccuracies referred to by Jean-Pierre.
Hunter Biden’s legal team last week broadly confirmed that the Biden family received more than $1 million in transfers from China just months after Joe Biden left office as vice president in early 2017.
The first son’s legal team told Fox News the money flowed to bank accounts “belonged to Hunter, his uncle and Hallie – nobody else,” referring to the fact that one recipient account was identified only as “Biden” without a first name.
Walker’s bank records show an earlier and smaller three-way division in 2015 of an international wire from an unknown source — with associate James Gilliar, Walker and Hunter Biden each getting $59,900 — Comer’s office said Thursday, suggesting the CEFC business relationship may have started while Biden was still vice president.
The Biden family had at least two major business ventures with Chinese government-linked companies during and after his vice presidency, though Joe Biden’s precise role in those enterprises remains murky, as is also the case with his relatives’ work with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakhstani and Mexican businesspeople.
The Post exclusively reported in October 2020 that Hunter’s abandoned laptop included a May 2017 email from Gilliar proposing that the “big guy” get 10% of the partnership with CEFC. A whistleblower, former Hunter Biden associate Tony Bobulinski, says that he personally met with Joe Biden in May 2017 to discuss the venture and both Bobulinski and Gilliar have identified Joe Biden as “the big guy.”
Hunter and James Biden ultimately received at least $4.8 million in 2017 and 2018 from CEFC — a since-defunct reputed arm of Beijing’s foreign-influence “Belt and Road” initiative — according to the Washington Post’s later review of laptop records.
At one point, CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming gave Hunter Biden a 3.16-carat diamond worth about $80,000.
Hunter referred to CEFC Vice Chairman Patrick Ho as the “f–king spy chief of China” in an email recovered from his laptop. Ho was convicted in 2018 on US charges for attempting to bribe African officials.
Evidence hinting at Joe Biden’s involvement in the CEFC venture includes an October 2017 email that identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas.
Hunter Biden in September 2017 asked for a new sign and more keys to an office he was renting in DC’s House of Sweden building.
The sign was to say, “The Biden Foundation and Hudson West (CEFC-US)” and the keys were for Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden, uncle James and a Chinese exec named Gongwen Dong. A spokeswoman for the property told the Washington Post, however, that the sign was never changed and the keys were not picked up.
In a separate Chinese business deal, Hunter Biden co-founded state-backed BHR Partners in 2013 within weeks of joining then-Vice President Biden aboard Air Force Two on an official trip to Beijing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Hunter introduced his father to BHR CEO Jonathan Li during the trip and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children.
The Journal reported that Hunter Biden’s “paid-in capital” to establish BHR Partners was $425,000, according to corporate registration records.
The company’s website says, “We work with China’s industrial leaders, state-owned enterprises, multinational corporations, as well as with start-up visionaries in their international mergers and acquisitions, domestic restructurings and pre-IPO financings.”
BHR has “unique mixed ownership,” the company says, and “combines the resources and platforms of China’s largest financial institutions (including Bank of China, China Development Bank Capital, Harvest Fund, Postal Savings Bank of China, China Life and the National Council of Social Security Fund) and the networks and know-how of our U.S.-based investment fund and advisory firm shareholders.”
In 2016, BHR Partners was influential in facilitating a deal in which a Chinese firm bought a Congolese cobalt mine from American and Canadian companies. Cobalt is an important material for making electric vehicle batteries.
One week after Joe Biden’s 2021 virtual summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping, Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said the stake in BHR had been divested. However, records don’t reflect a new holder of the 10% stake and neither Clark nor the White House has provided further information on the supposed transaction, such as the dollar amount or buyer’s identity.
Republicans say that the Biden family’s international business deals present conflicts of interest in foreign affairs and may even amount to corruption.
Republicans accuse Biden of being too soft on China on issues such as allowing a spy balloon to traverse US airspace and determining the origins of COVID-19, which killed more than 1 million Americans, and stopping fentanyl exports, which killed about 196,000 Americans from 2018 to 2021 alone.
Biden claims that he has “never spoken” with his son about “his overseas business dealings” and that “that “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses.”
There are many examples, however, of Joe Biden meeting with his relatives’ business associates and Hunter, who is under federal investigation for crimes including possible tax fraud and illegal foreign lobbying, wrote that he paid as much as “half” of his income to his father.
