WASHINGTON — A newly surfaced document allegedly helps prove Hunter Biden was indeed working with Chinese state-linked CEFC China Energy while his dad was still vice president — as long suspected by Republicans leading the impeachment inquiry into reputed corruption by the president.
President Biden has repeatedly claimed his family never got money from China — despite his own alleged direct involvement in two different Chinese government-backed ventures.
“We anticipate working together on a number of opportunities in the US and abroad,” says the potentially damning March 22, 2016, letter that surfaced Tuesday and was addressed to CEFC Executive Director Jianjun Zang on Hunter’s letterhead about 10 months before his dad Joe left office as vice president.
“I believe we have presented a collection of projects that parallel the interests of you and your team and we look forward to discussing them in detail,” says the draft letter to Zang, which was distributed among Hunter and his partners Rob Walker and James Gilliar as an e-mail attachment.
“As we await your next visit to the United States, please continue to coordinate all matters with my confidant and trusted advisor, James Gilliar,” the letter says.
Walker provided the document to the House impeachment inquiry ahead of his Jan. 26 closed-door deposition — which also backed up some of what the letter suggests with other alleged evidence.
The e-mail was published Tuesday as part of his interview transcript.
It is unclear if the letter, presumably signed by Hunter, actually reached Zang and, if so, if any of the wording was revised.
E-mails indicate that an assistant to Hunter was due to dispatch the letter to the Chinese once approved.
Joe and Hunter Biden have not specifically confirmed or denied the start date of a CEFC relationship, but Hunter is expected to be grilled on that detail during his own deposition later this month.
On the hot seat during a closed-door session of the impeachment probeTuesday was another former Biden family associate, Tony Bobulinski.
He is one of the Republicans’ best hopes of confirming damning details about the president’s ties to his relatives’ Chinese government-linked relationships.
President Biden has said that in addition to his family never getting money from China, he had no interactions with his relatives’ business associates and that Hunter’s abandoned laptop was Russian disinformation — claims which were disproven.
Biden, then as vice president, interacted with first son Hunter and first brother James Biden’s patrons from Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan — as well as having coffee in 2013 with the CEO of an earlier Chinese state-backed Hunter Biden venture in China.
In his congressional testimony, Walker broadly defended the president from allegations of wrongdoing while also firming up key details in the Republican impeachment case, including saying the origins of the Hunter Biden-CEFC relationship dated to as early as 2015.
An investigator asked Walker, in reference to a different document, “it’s fair to say that by February of 2016 you, James Gilliar, and Hunter Biden had begun pursuing business with CEFC?”
“That is correct,” Walker replied.
“I do remember Zang being in DC,” Walker added. “He was in DC probably three or maybe four times.”
Walker also told investigators that Joe Biden, just weeks after leaving office as vice president, met with his son’s CEFC partners, including Chairman Ye Jianming, at the Four Seasons hotel in DC.
Joe Biden stopped by the meeting shortly before the Biden family received an initial tranche of more than $1 million from CEFC, Walker said.
The million-dollar haul to the Biden family, which was divvied up between Hunter Biden, his uncle James Biden and his sister-in-law Hallie Biden, according to bank records, was roughly one third of a $3 million transfer from a corporate subsidiary to Walker, who kept about a third and sent a third to Gilliar.
Gilliar insisted that the $3 million payday “had nothing to do with” Joe Biden’s stop-in at the DC hotel and that it was in fact payment for services provided during Biden’s vice presidency.
“The $3 million payment, then, was payment for the success that you…
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