Hunter Biden arrives for impeachment testimony about dad’s role in foreign biz

WASHINGTON — Hunter Biden arrived Wednesday at a congressional office building to testify in the impeachment inquiry focused on his father President Biden’s role in an array of foreign business relationships with the first family.

Hunter, 54, did not speak to reporters as arrived before 10 a.m. for what’s expected to be a full day of questioning from the three House committees leading the investigation, which has also probed an alleged Justice Department coverup to shield Joe and Hunter Biden from criminal liability.

President Biden has repeatedly said that he “never” discussed business with Hunter or first brother James Biden and in December insisted he “did not” interact with their associates — despite evidence that he repeatedly interacted with associates from foreign firms that paid Hunter and James Biden millions of dollars during and immediately after his vice presidency.

Emails, witness testimony and even photos show Joe Biden met with his son and brother’s associates from two Chinese government-linked business deals and others from Mexico, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine.

Democrats argue that the inquiry should be called off — echoing President Biden, who requested an end to the probe after the Justice Department indicted a paid FBI informant for allegedly fabricating a bribery allegation against the Bidens.

“I think this is investigation is over at this point,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), urging Republicans to “fold up the tent.”

‘BIG GUY’ EVIDENCE

A series of prior witnesses have fingered the president as having a major role in lucrative business relationships.

Former Biden family business partner Rob Walker testified Jan. 26 that $3 million in funds from Chinese state-linked CEFC China Energy flowed to him in March 2017 — with about a third going to the Bidens — shortly after Joe Biden met CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming at DC’s Four Seasons hotel.

Walker said the money, dispatched just weeks after Joe Biden left office as vice president, was a “thank you” for preliminary services sourcing business opportunities in a relationship that began in 2015.

A May 2017 email written by Biden family associate James Gilliar penciled in the “big guy” — Joe Biden — for a 10% cut in a proposed joint venture with CEFC.

The future president was later invoked by his son in July 2017 in a threatening text message to a China-based associate warning he was “sitting here with my father,” according to records provided to Congress by IRS case agent Joseph Ziegler, a self-identified Democrat who alleged his team was repeatedly blocked from following leads regarding President Biden.

Within 10 days of the threatening message, $5.1 million flowed to accounts linked to Hunter and James Biden, according to information in a 2020 report by Republican-led Senate committees.

Hunter and James Biden worked with CEFC on ultimately unsuccessful efforts by the firm to get involved in the US natural gas industry, the first brother confirmed in his own testimony.

As part of a previous Chinese state-backed venture, then-VP Joe Biden also was introduced by his son and had coffee with Jonathan Li, the incoming CEO of BHR Partners, during a December 2013 trip to Beijing, former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer testified July 31.

Archer said Joe Biden later greeted Li on speaker phone during a subsequent trip by Hunter to China. The VP also wrote college recommendation letters for both of Li’s children.

BHR Partners, which like CEFC sought out foreign resources for China, such as cobalt for electric car batteries, was official registered as a company within two weeks of the visit, the Wall Street Journal reported. Hunter held onto a 10% stake in the firm through at least part of his father’s term as president.

Joe Biden as VP also joined two separate dinners at a DC’s Cafe Milano — in 2014 and 2015 — with his son’s Kazakhstani, Russian and Ukrainian patrons, Archer said. Only one of those meetings was known from laptop files and witness corroboration before his testimony, and Archer dismissed claims that Joe Biden only briefly appeared.

Dinner guests included former first lady of Moscow Yelena Baturina, who transferred $3.5 million to a Hunter Biden-linked entity in early 2014 and separately invested more than $100 million with Archer’s Rosemont Realty, with which Hunter Biden also was briefly associated.

House Republicans have scrutinized President Biden’s decision to leave Baturina off a growing list of Russian business leaders facing US sanctions over the two-year Russia-Ukraine war.

Convicted fraudster Jason Galanis told House investigators in a prison interview Friday that he was present for a Brooklyn gathering in May 2014 where Hunter put his father on speaker phone with Baturina.

Kazakhstani businessman Kenes Rakishev, who purchased Hunter a $142,000 sports car, also dined with Joe Biden and posed for a group photo with him.

Vadym Pozharsky, board adviser to Ukrainian gas company Burisma, which paid Hunter up to $1 million per year beginning in 2014 when his father led US policy toward Ukraine after an anti-Russian uprising, wrote Hunter an email the next day after the 2015 dinner thanking him for the opportunity to meet his father.

Archer additionally alleged that Hunter Biden stepped away from a gathering at the Four Seasons in Dubai in December 2015 to “call DC” with Zlochevsky and Pozharsky — shortly before the vice president abruptly threatened to deny a $1 billion US loan guarantee to Kyiv as leverage to force the ouster of Ukrainian prosecutor-general Viktor Shokin, who seized assets from Burisma’s owner shortly before he was fired.

In November 2015, Joe Biden also hosted at his vice president’s residence and gave a White House tour to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and members of the wealthy Mexican Aleman family, whom Hunter Biden and his associate Jeff Cooper courted with energy and technology pitches.

Joe Biden is pictured at the VP’s residence with Cooper, Hunter, Slim, Miguel Alemán Velasco and his son Miguel Aleman Magnani, the founder of the airline Interjet.

Hunter stayed for free at a vacation property owned by Aleman Magnani and helped set up meetings for him with Obama-Biden administration aides including Secretary of Transportation Anthony Foxx and the administrator of the Federal Aviation Authority.

The first son is facing potential prison time for gun violations in Delaware and tax fraud in Los Angeles after walking away in July from a probation-only plea deal over courtroom demands for assurances of immunity for other past conduct, such as alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which could implicate his father.

His Los Angeles trial is scheduled to begin June 20.