The Biden family offered their services to a huge, Chinese-government-linked energy consortium to expand its business around the world.
nypost.com
The Biden family offered their services to a huge, Chinese government-linked energy consortium to expand its business around the world. How do we know? Because of hundreds of emails documenting the deal found on Hunter Biden’s laptop, left in a Delaware repair shop in April 2019. In her new book, “Laptop from Hell,” New York Post columnist Miranda Devine tells the tale:
James Gilliar, a wiry, 56-year-old British ex-SAS officer, got to know Ye Jianming, the 40-year-old
chairman of CEFC, when they were both working in the Czech Republic.
CEFC was a Chinese conglomerate, one of the largest energy companies in the world.
Ye’s task was to spend $1.5 billion as quickly as possible to ensure the Czech Republic would become China’s “Gateway to the European Union,” a priority of President Xi Jinping.
To that end, Ye bought everything from a football team and a brewery to an airline, before being named “special economic adviser” to Czech President Milos Zeman.
Now he was looking for an influential partner to help with acquisitions in other locations around the world that had strategic significance for the Chinese state.
Gilliar had an idea who could help:
the Biden family.
Gilliar connected with Hunter Biden through trusted Biden family friend Rob Walker, a former Clinton administration official whose wife, Betsy Massey Walker, had been Jill Biden’s assistant when she was second lady.
“Hunter was great,” Gilliar wrote to Walker. “True sheikh of Washington.”
He emailed Hunter a few weeks later: “It has been made clear to me that CEFC wish to engage in further business relations with our group.”
Gilliar knew CEFC was the capitalist arm of President Xi’s Belt and Road Initiative to spread China’s influence — and debt traps — across the world. No Chinese company executed its goals more ardently than CEFC and its young chairman, who was dubbed the “Belt and Road billionaire” in the press.
Chairman Ye had built his provincial energy company into a Fortune 500 colossus virtually overnight, an achievement described by Chinese news agency Caixin as “another great enigma in the miraculous world of Chinese business.” He enjoyed the support of President Xi and was former deputy secretary general of the government’s propaganda arm, the China Association for International Friendly Contacts.
In a rare interview with Caixin at CEFC’s palatial marble headquarters in Shanghai’s upscale French Concession District, Ye was portrayed as a “hermit king” sitting on a golden chair in “a room that resembles a miniature Great Hall of the People.”
Uniformed staff members wearing earpieces glided by. “Most of them were young women wearing smart clothes and bright faces.”
Ye’s face was “as expressionless as a stone statue. Amidst the gilded surroundings, his canvas shoes had an eye-catching plainness. …
“In his public activities as a private entrepreneur, Ye Jianming is always walking alongside important foreign political figures. He has been photographed with world leaders such as Israeli President Peres, Turkish President Erdogan, Chadian President Déby, and European Commission President Juncker. He has met with the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, and the Prime Minister of Bulgaria held a feast to welcome him.”
In the winter of 2015, Chairman Ye and CEFC Executive Director Jianjun Zang, a.k.a. “Director Zang,” flew to Washington, DC. A meeting with Ye was scheduled in Hunter’s diary for December 7, 2015, in a week that was a swirl of back-to-back Christmas parties hosted by Joe and Jill at the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory.
One of his former associates, who spoke on condition of anonymity, believes that Hunter brought Chairman Ye to meet Joe at one of those parties. There is no indication of any such meeting on the laptop, but Hunter had a pattern of introducing business associates to Joe when they came to DC.
After a frustrating experience in another Chinese deal as a minority partner in private equity firm BHR, in which the payday would not come until the end of the fund’s life, Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden wanted more control of the CEFC partnership and a regular income stream.
Enter Tony Bobulinski. The naval officer-turned-wealthy institutional investor came highly recommended by Gilliar to build what they planned would be a world-class investment firm, called SinoHawk, named after Hunter’s late brother Beau’s favorite animal, the hawk.
In December 2015, Gilliar told Bobulinski he needed help structuring a Chinese joint venture for “one of the most prominent families in the United States.”
The plan was to “build an investment firm like Goldman Sachs,” he wrote in a WhatsApp message, transcripts of which were obtained separately from the laptop.
“The family is the Biden family,” Gilliar would soon disclose. Joe, who had announced that he would not run for president in 2016, would be actively involved once he left office, and the Bidens expected billions of dollars of projects to flow through the company, Gilliar said.
He let Bobulinski in on the last piece of the puzzle in March 2016: The Bidens’ Chinese partner is CEFC, which has “more money than God,” he wrote. “This is the capital arm of one belt one road.”
At about this time, Bobulinski was introduced to Rob Walker, who told him he was “a proxy for Hunter Biden, Jim Biden and the Bidens around the world.”
Finally, in February 2017, Gilliar sent Bobulinski a WhatsApp message saying he wanted to introduce him to his “partner.”
“Who is your partner?” asked Bobulinski.
“Hunter Biden,” replied Gilliar.
Bobulinski was leery. “I understand you want me to … help drive things in the US, but Hunter is [already] here.”
Gilliar: “Money there, intent there … skill sets missing … We need to create the best deal platform in history, and they haven’t got a clue.” Bobulinski didn’t like the fact Hunter “was kicked out of US Navy for cocaine use.”
“But he’s super smart,” said Gilliar. “Just a lot of under achievers around them using their name. Has a few demons but u are used to those, right?”
Bobulinski asked: “Is he the decision maker or the Chinese?”
Gilliar: “New platform. Best discuss face to face but I’m the driver.”
Later, Bobulinski asked: “Ok who is putting up the $10MM [million]?”
Gilliar: “Joint vehicle — half us and then equally split — money is already in. Discuss more face to face.”
Three weeks after his father left office, in 2017, Hunter flew to Miami with Gilliar and Walker to meet Chairman Ye, who was there for the Miami International Boat Show.
They booked into the $700-a-night beachfront Nobu Hotel on Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, and scheduled lunch with the Chinese for Thursday in a private room set for 10 at the Bourbon Steak restaurant in the ritzy JW Marriott Turnberry Resort & Spa, where Ye was staying with his entourage.
But Hunter flew home the day before the lunch. He already had met with Ye, over a private dinner on Tuesday night, at which the CEFC chairman made him an offer too good to refuse: $10 million a year, for a minimum of three years, for “introductions alone,” as Hunter would later assert in an imperious email to CEFC executives.
Ye sealed the new alliance with a rich gift — a 3.16-carat diamond worth $80,000. Photographs of the stunning stone appear on Hunter’s laptop along with a grading report that lists it as a “round brilliant” of Grade F with prime “VS2” clarity and “excellent” cut.
The gift could not have come at a better time. Hunter was in the middle of an ugly divorce from Kathleen, and his office manager, Joan Peugh, had just sent him the latest in a series of overdue bills, a tax collection notice from the District of Columbia for $47,226.78.
Hunter would tell the New Yorker’s Adam Entous that he had flown to Miami to meet Chairman Ye purely for charitable purposes, hoping to secure a donation to World Food Program USA, the nonprofit on whose board he served and which he had used before as a cover for his foreign business activities.
Hunter said it was just chance that the altruistic encounter “turned to business opportunities” and claimed to be surprised when Ye gave him the diamond. He didn’t mention the happy coincidence that his business partners Gilliar and Walker were with him in Miami to clinch a business deal with CEFC.
But the diamond was just an appetizer.
Nine days after Hunter’s meeting in Miami with Ye, $3 million was wired into an account for Rob Walker’s company, Robinson Walker LLC, from State Energy HK Limited, a Shanghai-based company linked to CEFC, according to an inquiry by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.).
On March 1, another $3 million was wired to Robinson Walker by the same company. Both transactions were flagged by the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement network in a “suspicious activity report,” filed with the Senate committees as “Confidential Document 16.”
Using the document as a source, the Grassley-Johnson report of Nov. 18, 2020, says: “At the time of the transfers, State Energy HK Limited was affiliated with CEFC China Energy, which was under the leadership of Ye Jianming. In the past, State Energy HK Limited transferred funds to at least one company associated with Hunter Biden’s business associate, Gongwen Dong …
“These transactions are a direct link between Walker and the communist Chinese government and, because of his close association with Hunter Biden, yet another tie between Hunter Biden’s financial arrangements and the communist Chinese government.”
The Senate report concluded it was “unclear what the true purpose is behind these transactions [$6 million from CEFC] and who the ultimate beneficiary is.”
We know from the laptop that Hunter received regular payments from Robinson Walker. One document lists $56,603.74 from Robinson Walker as income for Rosemont Seneca Advisors, between June and December 2017.
Rob Walker paid at least $511,000 to Hunter’s firm Owasco in 2017, according to an email from Hunter’s tax accountant, Bill Morgan.
Walker told Bobulinski his role in CEFC was “being a surrogate for H [Hunter] or Jim when gauging opportunities, i.e. digging around in Texas on high speed rail with some of my republican friends … or hitting new countries and contacts abroad where things are lukewarm, but not hot enough for H to close or too odd for H to be present …”
On March 5, 2017, Page Six broke the news that Hunter and his brother’s widow, Hallie, were an item.
When Hunter didn’t show up for a scheduled meeting three days later in New York, Gilliar told Bobulinski it didn’t matter: “In brand he’s imperative but right now he’s not essential for adding input to business.”
It was at this point that Gilliar explained to Bobulinski that the Chinese involved in CEFC were “intelligence so they understand the value added” of the Biden name.
Bobulinski remained troubled by Hunter’s scandals, and Gilliar, who was in Australia with Director Zang looking for acquisitions, was worried he might pull out. So he arranged for him to meet Hunter the following month at the Chateau Marmont, in Bobulinski’s hometown of LA.
They met by the hotel pool in April and spoke for two hours while Hunter chain-smoked. Bobulinski found him respectful and polite. Hunter boasted that he had his father’s ear and could bypass his advisers.
Hunter told Bobulinski how the joint venture vehicle should be structured and expressed caution about US laws, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which prohibits businesses paying bribes to foreign officials. He appeared to conflate that law with the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a 1938 anti-spying law that requires anyone acting as a lobbyist for a foreign power to register with the US government as a foreign agent.
“No matter what, it will need to be a US company at some level in order for us to make bids on federal and state funded projects,” Hunter wrote later.
“Also, we don’t want to have to register as foreign agents under the FCPA which is much more expansive than people who should know choose not to know.
“Regardless we should have a … company called CEFC America, and ownership should be 50 me 50 them. We then cut up our 50 [percent] in a separate entity between the 4 of us.”
Hunter seemed focused, but Bobulinski was puzzled about Uncle Jim’s frequent meddling in CEFC business.
For instance, in April 2017, Jim pulled strings at New York’s elite Horace Mann School to get Director Zang’s daughter Rouqi fast-tracked for entry, although she ended up enrolling in another school.
Jim also wrote a letter on behalf of CEFC to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo requesting a meeting. “We intend to discuss potential projects and investments in New York.” He listed the other attendees as Hunter, Chairman Ye, Director Zang, and an unnamed “Member of the Royal Family of Luxembourg.”
“What is the deal w Jim Biden as he wasn’t part of the discussion but now seems a focal point?” Bobulinski asked Gilliar. “What role does Jim see himself playing?”
“Consultant is what he’s offered as [far as] I know,” Gilliar replied. “He [Hunter] brought in Jim simply to leverage getting more equity for himself and family in the final hour, that is evident.”
In another WhatsApp message, Gilliar told Bobulinski: “With H [Hunter’s] demons, could be good to have a backup, he [Jim] strengthens our USP [unique selling point] to Chinese as it looks like a truly family business, and I like the dude.”
With the deal progressing, Hunter told Bobulinski it’s time for the next step.
“I want Dad to meet you,” he said.
