EXCLUSIVE: A former business associate of Hunter Biden is pushing back against President Biden after he angrily claimed it was a “bunch of lies” that he interacted with his son’s foreign business associates.
Biden was pressed during a press conference on Wednesday about why he interacted with “so many” of his son and brother’s foreign business associates, but he denied having any such interactions, despite evidence to the contrary.
“I’m not going to comment. I did not, and it’s just a bunch of lies,” Biden responded. “They’re lies. I did not. They’re lies.”
One of Hunter’s former business associates reacted to Biden’s comments by telling Fox News Digital that his claim was “complete malarkey” and said there is “plenty of evidence” to refute his denial.
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President Biden has repeatedly defended his son Hunter amid a wave of legal troubles, saying multiple times that his son has done “nothing wrong” and that he is “confident” of that prior to the Justice Department’s appointment of a special counsel to further investigate the matter. ( George Frey, Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital has reported extensively on the mounting evidence contrasting Biden’s claim, including that Hunter’s former friend and longtime business partner Eric Schwerin visited the Obama White House and then-Vice President Biden’s residence dozens of times between 2009 and 2016.
Schwerin was the founding partner and managing director of Hunter Biden’s now-dissolved firm Rosemont Seneca Partners when he was appointed by then-President Obama to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, an independent U.S. government agency, in early 2015. Obama reappointed him to the commission in January 2017.
In addition to being a key player in facilitating Hunter Biden’s Chinese business deals, Schwerin was also intimately involved with handling the elder Biden’s finances. A person familiar with Schwerin’s role in handling the finances previously told Fox News Digital that Schwerin worked on Biden’s personal budget and helped coordinate with his tax preparers.
The individual also pointed to the frequency of Schwerin’s communications with Biden and his top aides and said it was “inevitable” Rosemont Seneca business came up in conversations.
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Biden also met with at least 14 of Hunter’s business associates from the U.S., Mexico, Ukraine, China and Kazakhstan over the course of his vice presidency, and was even photographed alongside Hunter giving some of them a tour of the White House’s Brady Briefing Room.
In a 2016 email to Miguel Magnani, a business tycoon and former Hunter associate from Mexico, Hunter admitted that he had “brought every single person [Miguel has] ever asked [him] to bring to the F’ing White House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration” and blasted him for going “completely silent.” Hunter also said he wanted Magnani to be at the plane with his parents when Biden landed in Mexico City.
In February 2016, Hunter emailed his Mexican business partner while en route to Mexico aboard Air Force Two and expressed frustration over apparent radio silence, saying, “I’d like to know why I’ve delivered on every single thing you’ve ever asked – and you make me feel like I’ve done something to offend you.” (Fox News)
Hunter had previously introduced Magnani to his father during a White House tour on Feb. 26, 2014. White House visitor logs show that Magnani and Magnani’s father, Miguel Aleman Velasco, visited the West Wing on Feb. 26, 2014, and Biden was later photographed with Hunter giving Velasco and Magnani a tour of the White House Brady Press Briefing room.
Additionally, in December 2013, Hunter traveled with Biden on a trip to Asia, which included a stop in China, and introduced him to his Chinese business partner Jonathan Li in the lobby of the hotel where the U.S. delegation was staying.
A closed-door interview over the summer with Hunter’s former business partner, Devon Archer, revealed that the elder Biden would also have coffee with Li during the visit. Less than two weeks later, Hunter would enter into a joint-venture called BHR Partners, a Beijing-backed private equity firm controlled by Bank of China Limited.
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US President Joe Biden departs Dublin Airport on Air Force One with his sister Valerie and son Hunter on April 14, 2023 in Dublin, Ireland. US President Joe Biden has traveled to Northern Ireland and Ireland with his sister Valerie Biden Owens and son Hunter Biden to explore his family’s Irish heritage and mark the 25th Anniversary of the Good Friday Peace Agreement. (Julien Behal/Irish Government via Getty Images)
The closed-door interview before House Oversight investigators also revealed that Hunter would use his dad as “defensive leverage” to send “the right signals” to his foreign business partners, while selling him as “the brand” that offered “capabilities and reach,” as well as a “unique understanding of D.C.” The transcript said Hunter put his father on speakerphone while meeting with business partners at least 20 times to sell “the brand.”
The elder Biden was also in attendance at a spring 2015 dinner at Washington, D.C.’s, upscale restaurant Cafe Milano, which included Burisma board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi. The Biden campaign tried to discredit the New York Post’s initial reporting on the controversial dinner in 2020 and said, “No meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place,” but Archer torpedoed that narrative.
Pozharskyi emailed Hunter the following day and said, “Thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.”
A top Burisma executive emailed Hunter Biden the day after the April 2015 Cafe Milano dinner to thank him for the “opportunity to meet” then-Vice President Biden. (Fox News)
A year earlier, Biden attended another dinner at Cafe Milano, according to a House Oversight memo, which included Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, former Kazakhstan Prime Minister Karim Massimov and Kazakh oligarch Kenes Rakishev. Earlier this year, Massimov was sentenced to 18 years behind bars for his reported role in an attempted coup.
The committee provided screenshots of bank records they say demonstrate that Baturina, the widow of former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov, wired $3.5 million to Rosemont Seneca Thornton on Feb. 14, 2014, a couple months before the dinner.
Fox News Digital also previously reported on how associates and top staffers at Hunter’s now-defunct company visited the Obama White House more than 90 times when he was vice president in the Obama administration.
Biden has repeatedly insisted that he had no knowledge of his son’s foreign business dealings and had no role in influencing them. He also repeatedly said he never spoke with his son about foreign business dealings, despite mounting evidence contradicting this claim.
Eric Schwerin (L), Hunter Biden (C) and President Joe Biden (R). (Fox News)
“First of all, I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their business, period,” Biden said in August 2019 during his campaign. “There wasn’t any hint of scandal at all when we were there. It was the same kind of strict, strict rules. That’s why I never talk with my son or my brother or anyone else, even distant family about their business interest, period.”
Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich pressed Biden earlier this year on whether he lied “about never speaking with Hunter about his business deals,” prompting the president to reply, “No.”
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Hunter’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, declared a few months ago that the first son “did not share” his business or his profits with his father, marking another notable shift in the narrative responding to allegations that link Biden to his son’s business dealings.
“I can tell you that Hunter did not share his business with his dad,” Lowell said at the time. “I can tell you that he did not share money from his businesses with his dad. And as the evidence out there, his dad, like all good parents, tried to help Hunter when Hunter needed that help.”
The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Fox News’ Jessica Chasmar and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
