Posted on 02/13/24
| News Source: Washington Times
The Chinese Communist Party “successfully sought to infiltrate and compromise” then-Vice President Joe Biden and the Obama-Biden White House through a lucrative business deal with Biden family members, a former top associate of the family told lawmakers Tuesday.
Tony Bobulinski, who emerged four years ago with claims that Mr. Biden played a role in his son Hunter’s business deals, told House lawmakers in a closed-door interview Tuesday that the CCP used the energy firm CEFC to make inroads into the Obama White House through the Bidens.
He said CEFC began working with Mr. Biden’s son beginning in 2015 through Mr. Biden’s exit from the White House in January 2017, at the end of his second term as vice president. According to GOP lawmakers, CEFC paid Hunter Biden $5 million in 2017 and 2018.
The energy firm, which has ties to the CCP, hired Hunter Biden and James Biden, the president’s brother, to help seek inroads into the U.S. energy market.
In an opening statement provided to The Washington Times, Mr. Bobulinski, a former Biden family associate, contradicted Joe Biden’s claim that he knew nothing about his son’s business transactions.
“Joe Biden was aware of the CEFC transaction, enabled it and had a constitutional responsibility and obligation to the American people to shut it down before it began,” Mr. Bobulinski told the panel.
Mr. Bobulinski said Mr. Biden’s immediate family members, including Hunter Biden and James Biden, “were enriched to the tune of tens of millions of dollars from some of our most dangerous adversaries,” including the CCP and operatives from Russia, Ukraine, Romania and Kazakhstan.
Mr. Bobulinski is one of more than a dozen witnesses House lawmakers have interviewed behind closed doors as they conduct an impeachment inquiry into President Biden’s involvement in his son’s business deals.
Mr. Bobulinski said he met with Mr. Biden in Los Angeles in May 2017 “multiple times to discuss the broad contours of our business dealings.”
He said the Biden family business “was Joe Biden, period.”
House lawmakers say bank records show the Biden family raked in more than $20 million through foreign business deals that, according to witnesses, were leveraged by selling Joe Biden’s influence.
Democrats disputed the claim and sought to discredit Mr. Bobulinski ahead of his testimony, citing his “refusal to engage with Democratic staff,” and “mysterious ties to the Trump campaign,” as well as personal financial issues and contradictions to his statements.
In a letter to House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky Republican, the panel’s ranking member, Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, said Mr. Bobulinski has provided cherry-picked information and has no evidence that Mr. Biden participated in his son’s business deals, according to past statements.
“Mr. Bobulinski conceded he never discussed business dealings with Joe Biden,” Mr. Raskin wrote to Mr. Comer. “Instead, Mr. Bobulinski explained that his conclusion from his two short meetings with Joe Biden was that Joe Biden simply had a ‘high-level’ awareness of his son’s business venture.”