H****r B***n and China: A timeline of his business ties to the Far East
https://nypost.com/article/h****r-biden-china-timeline-business-ties/# For at least seven years, many when his father was vice president, H****r B***n pursued a lucrative deal to run an investment firm founded by millions of dollars from a Chinese partnership.
Joe Biden claims he never spoke with H****r about his dealings, and never profited from any group his family set up, but e-mails and text messages found on H****r B***n’s old laptop hard drive — first published by The Post — show “the big guy” being referenced repeatedly. A federal investigation into H****r is ongoing, and Republicans vow to continue to probe how H****r profited off his father’s name, and what President-elect Biden knew about it.
“I’m not going to turn a blind eye on this,” Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) said last week. “We’ll keep digging.”
Based on information from the laptop and interviews, here’s what we know about the Chinese deal:
June 2009
As the Obama-Biden administration hit the halfway point of its inaugural year, H****r B***n co-founded Rosemont Seneca Partners, an investment fund, along with Christopher Heinz — the stepson of Obama’s future Secretary of State John Kerry — and Devon Archer, a former Kerry adviser.
April 7-9, 2010
H****r B***n visited China as a Rosemont Seneca rep during the second year of his father’s vice presidency. There he gained audiences with top officials of influential state-linked enterprises including the Postal Savings Bank, China Investment Corp., and Founder Group. He was joined on the trip by James Bulger, the politically connected co-founder of the Thornton Group, an Asia-oriented financial services firm.
2012
As Joe Biden ran for his second term as vice president, H****r B***n and Devon Archer made contact with Chinese financier Jonathan Li, who ran the private-equity fund Bohai Capital. The trio discussed a plan to become partners in a new operation that would invest Chinese cash in ventures outside the country. Eighty percent of the resulting company, Bohai Harvest, was controlled by Chinese state-owned interests.
December 2013
When Chinese president Xi Jinping alarmed the rest of Asia with an aggressive expansion of his military claims over the East China Sea, Vice President Biden was dispatched to Beijing to try to de-escalate tensions. The second son tagged along on Air Force Two. While a somber and subdued Joe Biden held a marathon five-hour meeting with Xi, H****r got together with Jonathan Li in what handlers at the time described as a social visit. The son even arranged for a handshake between Li and his father at the hotel of the American delegation — troubling some of the vice president’s advisors, according to the New Yorker. Ten days later, the Chinese business license for Bohai Harvest — the company that H****r B***n and Devon Archer had been trying to launch for more than a year — was approved.
Ye Jianming
2015
Around this time H****r B***n’s relationship to Chinese tycoon Ye Jianming “began to ramp up,” according to a Senate report released in September. Ye, the founder of Chinese energy giant CEFC, served as the nation’s unofficial energy liaison to Russia.
Feb. 23 and March 1, 2017
A month after Biden left office, a total of $6 million in wire t***sfers were made from State Energy HK Ltd., a company controlled by Ye, to Robinson Walker LLC. That company was controlled by Rob Walker, a longtime business partner of H****r’s who had collaborated with him in at least three other companies. Walker served in both Bill Clinton’s and George W. Bush’s administrations — and his wife, Betsy Massey Walker, is reportedly a former member of future First Lady’s Jill Biden’s personal staff. The Senate’s joint Finance Committee and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee report said it was “unclear what the true purpose is behind these t***sactions and who the ultimate beneficiary is.”
May 2-3, 2017
Venture capitalist Tony Bobulinski was recruited by the Bidens around this time to serve as CEO of Sinohawk Holdings, which he describes as a partnership between Ye’s CEFC and the Biden family. Bobulinski met twice with Joe Biden at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, where the former veep was set to give a speech. H****r, Bobulinski told The Post, “brings Joe over and introduces me, saying [Joe’s] the one who’s helping us with the business we’re doing with the Chinese.” Biden responded, “I trust you. Good luck and work hard” — and added a second instruction the next morning: “Keep an eye on my son and [brother Jim Biden] and look out for my family.”
Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any knowledge of his son’s business operation. In September 2020 he told reporters emphatically, “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”
Tony BobulinskiREUTERS/Tom Brenner
May 11, 2017
James Gilliar, another H****r B***n business associate, talked with Bobulinski about how to “get Joe involved” in a joint venture with CEFC. The two discussed ways to make the effort look like a “truly family business” in a series of text messages seen by The Post. “Let’s get the company set up, then tell H and family the high stakes and get Joe involved,” Gilliar wrote. The texts were contained in a tranche of emails and documents released by Bobulinski.
May 13, 2017
Gilliar emailed H****r B***n to outline remuneration packages for H****r and five other people in an unspecified business venture. The email — found on the H****r B***n laptop and exposed in a bombshell report by The Post — suggested equity shares were being assigned to Biden family members, with a note indicating that 10% would be held by H****r “for the big guy” — who Bobulinski later definitively identified as Joe Biden. Three days later, Bobulinski says, the plans changed: Joe Biden’s 10% share would be held in the name of his brother Jim instead.
Bobulinski voiced his doubts about the wisdom of Joe Biden’s involvement to Jim Biden, in light of his brother’s political stature.
“I remember saying, ‘How are you guys getting away with this? Aren’t you concerned?’” Bobulinski said in an interview with The Post’s Michael Goodwin.
“‘Plausible deniability,'” Jim Biden responded with a chuckle, Bobulinski recalled.
May 20, 2017
“Don’t mention Joe being involved, it’s only when u are face to face, I know u know that but they are paranoid,” Gilliar instructed Bobulinksi in an encrypted WhatsApp message thread. In response, Bobulinksi wrote, “OK they should be paranoid about things.” Later, Bobulinski added what seemed to be a warning about Joe Biden’s future political plans: “You need to stress to H, does he want to be the reason or factor that blows up his dad’s campaign.” The former veep was still two years away from announcing his third White House bid.
June 18, 2017
H****r B***n made an urgent request to Ye Jianming to wire him $10 million as seed money for a new venture, SinoHawk Holdings, according to an email obtained by The Post. In the missive he said he was extending “best wishes from the entire Biden family” and that “We are all hoping to see you here again soon, or in Shanghai.”
H****r B***n and China: A timeline of his business... (