A new report claims that after one of Hunter Biden’s associates noticed him sitting next to a Chinese official at a Communist Party event, the associate asked for an introduction that Hunter Biden said he would be “happy” to make.
The catalyst for the request was a 2013 dinner in Beijing held in honor of then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to Fox News, which said it was basing its report on a review of emails.
The request came from James Bulger, the nephew of Boston crime boss James “Whitey” Bulger.
Bulger, who has never been linked to his uncle’s activities, was the chairman of Boston-based Thornton Group LLC. Thornton and Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca firm worked together in a joint venture called BHR Partners, which is under the control of the Bank of China Limited.
According to Fox, Bulger emailed Hunter Biden on July 22, 2014, seeking an introduction to Tung Chee-hwa, a billionaire who was then vice chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
“It is my understanding that during the trip to Beijing that you made with your father, President Xi [Jinping] hosted a welcome dinner. [A]t that dinner, you were seated right next to Mr Tung,” Bulger wrote.
“J and Andy believe it would be very helpful if you could please send a brief email to Mr Tung laying out that you are a partner and Board Member of BHR and that You would be grateful to Mr Tung if he could meet your local partners to discuss the Fund,” he said, referring to BHR CEO Jonathan Li and BHR committee member Andy Lu.
“Please let me know if you can introduce these two to Mr. Tung by email it is very important to our BHR [initiative] at this moment,” Bulger wrote.
But Hunter Biden had a hazy memory.
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“Happy to do this,” he wrote, “but I have no email address for Mr. Tung and he very well may have sat next to me but I don’t recall the two gentlemen’s names to my left and right. Regardless, I would suggest the team draft an email in Mandarin and English for my approval ASAP.”
Fox reported that the event Bulger referenced took place on Dec. 4, 2013, when then-Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao held a formal welcome for Joe Biden, who has always insisted he was not involved in his son’s business activities.
Bulger later worked with Hunter Biden to support a partnership between the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
In July of this year, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence warned that the CPAFFC was seeking to “directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote [China’s] global agenda.”
In 2015, Bulger portrayed the group as wanting to befriend local U.S. leaders.
“The US and Chinese government through their respective foreign ministries laid a broad framework that allowed for the creation of the US-China Governors Forum. … SLLF would like to set up a similar sort of arrangement but instead focus on exchange between the state-level legislative branch of each country rather than the executive branch,” he wrote in an email to Hunter Biden.
The Free Beacon reported that Bulger noted that the partnership could advance the business interests of Bulger and Hunter Biden.
The Bulger connection was once used by Hunter Biden when threatening a drug dealer. The threat was made after Hunter Biden, who was in drug treatment in Massachusetts at the time, did not get drugs he had paid for.
“Look up and see who I am and then look and see who my friends and associates are,” Hunter Biden texted the dealer in January 2019. He followed that up with the contact information for Bulger.
