The former business partner of Hunter Biden, who has said the infamous “big guy” email is a reference to President Joe Biden, was never asked by prosecutors to testify before the federal grand jury in Delaware.
Tony Bobulinski, a former Navy veteran and business partner of Hunter and James Biden, reached out to U.S. Attorney David Weiss multiple times through his lawyer to alert the Delaware federal prosecutor that he was willing to speak to the grand jury, a representative for Bobulinski told the Washington Examiner, but Weiss did not return their phone calls nor ask him to appear.
HUNTER BIDEN’S ATTORNEY ATTEMPTS TO DISCREDIT IRS WHISTLEBLOWERS IN 10-PAGE LETTER
The latest revelation, first reported by CBS News, comes on the heels of IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley who said investigators were limited by federal prosecutors in exploring Joe Biden’s potential links to the Chinese business pursuits of Hunter and James Biden. Shapley’s transcribed interview also included a portion of a Dec. 8, 2020, recorded conversation in Arkansas between an FBI agent and Hunter Biden business associate Rob Walker in which Walker said Joe Biden had made an appearance at a meeting regarding efforts by Hunter Biden, Walker, and others to set up a lucrative deal with since-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC.
Walker told the FBI, “We were at the Four Seasons and we were having lunch and he [Joe Biden] stopped in, just said hello to everybody. I don’t even think he drank water. I think Hunter Biden said, ‘I may be trying to start a company or try to do something with these guys and could you?’ And I think he [Joe Biden] was like, ‘if I’m around,’ and he’d show up.”
The FBI agent then asked, “So you definitely got the feeling that that was orchestrated by Hunter Biden to have like an appearance by his dad at that meeting just to kind of bolster your chances at making a deal work out?”
“Sure,” Walker replied.
Shapley said, before the interview with Walker, “we had obvious questions like who was H, who the big guy was, and why this percentage was to be held separately with the association hidden.” But the whistleblower said Delaware assistant U.S. attorney Lesley Wolf “interjected and said she did not want to ask about the big guy” and stated she did not want to ask questions about “dad.”
Bobulinski worked with Hunter Biden in 2017 to create a business dubbed SinoHawk to establish a joint venture with CEFC, but millions of dollars were instead soon sent by CEFC to accounts linked to Hunter Biden.
The so-called “big guy” email, which publicly emerged in October 2020, detailed an attempted business deal between the Chinese company and Hunter Biden. The email referenced “10 held by [Hunter Biden] for the big guy.”
The email is from businessman James Gilliar to Hunter Biden and others, dated May 13, 2017, and it discusses “expectations” of a potential deal and its “renumeration packages.” The email notes that “Hunter” would receive “850” ($850,000) and lists him as “Chair/Vice Chair depending on agreement with CEFC.”
The email goes on to say “the equity will be distributed” with “20” (20%) for “H” (Hunter Biden). The email also points to “10” for “Jim” (James Biden).
Bobulinski was one of the email recipients, and said in October 2020 that “the big guy” is “a reference to Joe Biden.” Bobulinski said Hunter Biden “called his dad ‘the Big Guy’ or ‘my chairman,’ and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals.”
“I’ve seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about his business,” Bobulinski said. “I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not true because it wasn’t just Hunter’s business, they said they were putting the Biden family name and its legacy on the line.”
Joe Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said at the time that the now-president “has never held stock in any such business arrangements nor has any family member or any other person ever held stock for him.”
CEFC is a since-defunct multibillion-dollar Chinese company founded by Ye Jianming, whom Hunter and James Biden had attempted to work out numerous deals with and from whose company the duo ultimately received millions of dollars.
Texts provided by Bobulinski indicate that Joe Biden met with him, Hunter, and James Biden as the president’s son and brother pursued a potentially lucrative deal with CEFC. The meeting appears to have taken place on the night of May 2, 2017, in Los Angeles.
Timothy Thibault, the former FBI assistant special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office, allegedly “ordered closed” an “avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting” in October 2020, even though “all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants.”
Bobulinski is reportedly concerned that Thibault worked to bury the information he provided to the FBI in October 2020.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told Weiss, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and FBI Director Christopher Wray last October that “based on recent protected disclosures to my office, the FBI has within its possession significant, impactful, and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden and James Biden.”
Grassley said the evidence “is included, in part, in a summary of Tony Bobulinski’s October 23, 2020, interview with FBI agents.”
Grassley said, in that interview, Bobulinski “stated that the arrangement Hunter Biden and James Biden created with foreign nationals connected to the communist Chinese government included assisting them with potential business deals and investments while Joe Biden was Vice President; however, that work remained intentionally uncompensated while Joe Biden was Vice President.”
The Iowa Republican added, “After Joe Biden left the Vice Presidency, the summary makes clear that Hunter Biden and James Biden worked with CEFC and affiliated individuals to compensate them for that past work and the benefits they procured for CEFC.”
Grassley said the summary stated that “Hunter Biden, James Biden and their business associates created a joint venture that would serve as a vehicle to accomplish that financial compensation, and that arrangement was made sometime after a meeting in Miami between Hunter Biden and CEFC officials in February 2017.”
The senator said, “According to the summary, 10 percent of Hunter Biden’s interest was to be held for Joe Biden.”
Republicans have scrutinized Hunter Biden’s partnership with Ye and his top lieutenant, Patrick Ho, who was sentenced to three years in prison in March 2019 for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The case against Ho revealed that some evidence had been obtained through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Hunter Biden struck a $1 million legal retainer agreement with Ho following his arrest. In 2018, the president’s son referred to Ho as the “f***ing spy chief of China.”
“The FBI has within its possession a different document, dated in October 2020, but referencing events that occurred years before. That document indicates that in May 2017 — approximately three months after the joint venture was hatched in Miami and the same month it was officially formed — Hunter Biden yelled at CEFC officials at a meeting for failing to fund the joint venture,” Grassley also wrote. “That same document notes that as of July 2017 the money still had not been transferred and James Biden considered calling CEFC officials and threatening to withdraw Biden family support from future deals.”
Grassley has said in floor speeches and financial reports that CEFC Infrastructure Investment wired $5 million to bank accounts for Hudson West III in August 2017, with the money then transferred to Hunter Biden’s firm, Owasco, and James Biden’s firm, Lion Hall Group, in 2017 and 2018.
Hunter Biden’s threatening messages invoking “my father” in the summer of 2017 resulted in a swift agreement being signed between him and a Chinese Communist Party-linked company, with millions of dollars flowing to Biden family accounts.
Earlier this month, WhatsApp messages between Hunter Biden and key intermediaries with CEFC were revealed by an IRS whistleblower and made public by Congress this month.
Hunter Biden sent messages on July 30, 2017, in which he leveraged his father’s name and threatened CEFC executives unless a lucrative deal was worked out with its chairman Ye Jianming.
The newly released messages provide key context to previously discovered foreign bank transactions involving Hunter Biden. Within days after the president’s son name-dropped his father in a text threat, Hunter Biden and his associated businesses soon received an estimated $5 million in payments from CEFC in 2017 and 2018, with Chinese payments quickly beginning to roll in, according to banking findings from a 2020 Senate report.
Joe Biden denied on Wednesday being in the room when the message was sent.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Hunter Biden reached a plea deal on federal charges related to tax crimes and the illegal purchase of a handgun, Weiss’s office revealed in a court filing last week.
The IRS whistleblower claims detailing the politicization and slow-walking of the Justice Department investigation were made public on Thursday, including allegations that Weiss had sought special counsel status from the DOJ and sought to file charges in California and in Washington, D.C., but was repeatedly denied.
