During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden swore up and down that he never, ever talked to his son about his business dealings — whether they were in Ukraine, China, Mexico or elsewhere.
It’s not as if the denial was peppered with weasel-words, either: “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden said in September of 2019, according to USA Today. “Here’s what I know. Trump should be investigated.”
There’s not even a “c’mon, man” anywhere in there. Straightforward. Blunt. Granted, there were other times that Biden was less direct, but not because he was trying to work in some plausible deniability to his statement. Rather, it was because the future president was, unsurprisingly, completely incoherent.
This April 2020 interview published to Twitter by conservative activist and commentator Benny Johnson is a good example:
Joe Biden says his son’s business dealings in China do not make him vulnerable because:
They “were not anything what everybody that he’s talking about. Not even remotely.”
Whatever that means. pic.twitter.com/cPLsNFAp42
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 28, 2020
Yeah. What he said.
Hunter’s business dealings may, in fact, have “not anything what everybody that he’s talking about, not even remotely.” Whatever that means.
However — and here’s a stunner for you — it turns out Joe Biden absolutely talked to Hunter about his business dealings in China. And the evidence was all on Hunter’s poxed laptop.
According to a Monday report from the U.K. Daily Mail, Biden left a voice mail for his son in 2018 after The New York Times published an article about Hunter’s links with Chinese oil company CEFC, run by a convicted criminal Hunter referred to as the “spy chief of China.”
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(Here at The Western Journal, we’ve covered the implausibility of Joe Biden’s statements regarding his knowledge of Hunter’s shady business dealings, all with individuals and companies who wanted nothing more than his last name and access to his father. We’ll keep bringing America the facts. You can help us by subscribing.)
“Hey pal, it’s Dad,” Joe Biden said on the voicemail, according to the Daily Mail.
“It’s 8:15 on Wednesday night. If you get a chance just give me a call. Nothing urgent. I just wanted to talk to you.”
Specifically, however, he wanted to talk about CEFC.
“I thought the article released online, it’s going to be printed tomorrow in the Times, was good,” Biden said.
“I think you’re clear. And anyway if you get a chance give me a call, I love you.”
The audio is below:
I’m not sure what Joe Biden’s definition of “good” was, but the Times article was the opposite of that. The piece painted CEFC head Ye Jianming, then in the custody of Chinese authorities, as a kind of bumbling bribe-meister, spending lavishly to curry favor with politicos from the United States to North Korea to the war-torn African nation of Chad.
Hunter’s part in the deal didn’t exactly come across as kosher in the piece, either.
“An aide to Mr. Ye met the vice president’s second son, Hunter Biden, in Washington,” the paper reported. “Mr. Ye then met privately with Hunter Biden at a hotel in Miami in May 2017, according to people with direct knowledge of the meetings who were not authorized to speak publicly because the meetings were private. Mr. Ye proposed a partnership to invest in American infrastructure and energy deals, the people said.
“During this period, the vice president’s son was managing Rosemont Seneca Partners, an investment firm he formed with Chris Heinz, the stepson of John Kerry, the former secretary of state. Mr. Heinz said he has no knowledge of CEFC and ended his relationship with Rosemont Seneca in 2015,” the article continued.
“It is unclear whether Hunter Biden struck any business deals with CEFC or Mr. Ye. Through his attorney, Hunter Biden declined to comment.”
The authors went on to note that James Biden, Joe Biden’s brother and Hunter Biden’s uncle, got a call from one of Ye’s top aides, Patrick Ho, after Ho had been taken into U.S. custody.
“Federal agents who had monitored CEFC’s rise since at least the summer of 2016 had sprung into action, arresting Mr. Ho in New York on allegations that he had bribed African officials in Chad and Uganda. Days later, federal agents showed up at Mr. Ye’s luxury apartment building across from Central Park with a subpoena to interview Mr. Ye, said people familiar with the matter,” the Times reported.
“In a brief interview, James Biden said he had been surprised by Mr. Ho’s call. He said he believed it had been meant for Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son. James Biden said he had passed on his nephew’s contact information.”
Yeah, looks great. Hunter’s in the clear!
To the extent that this is a smoking gun, it certainly indicates that Biden père was familiar enough with Biden fils’ business dealings to say that the Times’ retelling of them painted Hunter in a positive light. Any other father, having heretofore no knowledge of his son’s globe-trotting business relationships before a piece appeared in The New York Times, would have left a voice mail inquiring (perhaps in somewhat stiffer language) what the hell was going on here.
No, one can be fairly sure Joe Biden knew what the hell was going on here. He also likely knew what the hell was going on in a lot of other places Hunter had business dealings, such as Mexico, Kazakhstan, and, of course, Ukraine, where, during Joe Biden’s vice presidency, Hunter Biden had a $50,000 a month job as a director of the energy company Burisma.
“Joe’s voicemail to Hunter about the Times article is the latest in an overwhelming body of evidence suggesting that he lied about not talking foreign business with his son,” the Daily Mail noted.
“In another example, the then-vice president attended a Washington, DC dinner with Hunter’s Ukrainian, Kazakh and Russian business associates in 2015.
“Joe also met another of Hunter’s Chinese business partners, Jonathan Li, when he took his son on a 2013 Air Force 2 trip to China, and entertained Hunter’s Mexican billionaire business partners Carlos Slim and Miguel Aleman Velasco at the White House and the VP’s official residence.”
The only plausible defense that Joe Biden has left is that he simply doesn’t remember all of this, because his brain now evinces all the functionality of a laptop that’s spent a not-inconsiderable amount of time in a soapy bathtub.
Whatever the case, it’s another sign he shouldn’t be in the White House in any capacity — except, perhaps, with a tour group. Any other explanation demands an answer to the question: How deep does this all go?
