by Steven Richards
Hundreds of documents and records set to be included as exhibits in Hunter Biden’s California tax trial are designed to prove he violated U.S. tax law, but also include significant evidence previously reported by Just the News and others showing how the younger Biden received millions from foreign sources and which pointing to Joe Biden’s involvement in those deals.
The list, submitted in court by Special Counsel David Weiss, includes several tax documents to bolster the focus of his case, namely, that Hunter Biden’s wrongdoing is centered on tax violations.
Yet, some of the entries point to the first son’s other ethical problems that go beyond tax crimes and which spurred the congressional impeachment inquiry into his father. The documents Weiss will submit to the court hint at the allege foreign influence peddling scheme and may even provide direct references to Joe Biden himself.
Many of the documents listed in the filing relate to Hunter Biden’s complex and problematic tax situation. Several records including tax returns, filings, and expense reports are included. However, the list also references to email evidence, previously identified by Just the News and others, that indicate a wider scheme by Hunter Biden to peddle his family name—and even benefit his father directly.
One such email, titled “Email from Tony Bobulinski to Robert Biden CC Rob Walker re: Expectations,” deals with the proposed equity split in Hunter Biden’s first attempt to secure a venture with CEFC China Energy, the now-defunct Chinese energy conglomerate connected with Chinese Communist Party.
This email was first published by the New York Post in October 2020 after it was obtained from an alleged copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop. It memorialized a discussion among Hunter Biden and his business partners hammering out the details of a proposed joint venture with Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy. The proposal contained the tentative equity split among the partners and one of the entries was revealing.
“10 held by H for the big guy ?” the email reads. Though who the “big guy” is is not explained further in the email. Hunter Biden’s former business partners, including Tony Bobulinski and Devon Archer have both confirmed that the term was often used as a reference to Joe Biden.
Now the email, which includes a purported reference to President Biden himself, is set to become part of the official court record in his son’s trial.
The trial, while focused primarily on the first son’s alleged tax violations, may also raise his lucrative financial relationships with unsavory foreign characters. Several documents in the exhibit list relate to the now-defunct Hunter Biden entity Hudson West III, which he formed in partnership with Ye Jianming, the multibillionaire head of CEFC China Energy. Ye has disappeared and is reportedly under investigation in his native China, according to CNN.
According to the list, the exhibits will provide insight into how this company was formed—as a direct partnership between Chairman Ye Jianming and Biden family members, including Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden.
One email cited in the filing, shows Hunter Biden directing Hudson West III employee Mervyn Yan to wire him “$295,000.00” in September of 2018 as the company was winding down following Ye’s disappearance in China.
Other exhibits include the corporate documents from the enterprise, such as the “Amended and Restated Limited Liability Company Agreement” previously released publicly by Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley. That document showed the Chinese network covered the full $5 million capital contribution for the enterprise without any contribution from Hunter Biden.
CEFC China Energy—the now-defunct company—was one of the central focuses of the House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden’s work with the company began while his father was still vice president and IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler indicated that payments to the Biden family in 2017 may have been for services rendered earlier in 2016, Joe Biden’s last year in office during the Obama administration. The House Oversight Committee last year also traced funds from the energy company directly into Joe Biden’s bank accounts.
From 2017 to 2019, Hunter Biden would receive over $5 million from the CEFC and CEFC-connected entities, according to his plea deal with the Justice Department, which was thrown out by the judge presiding over the first son’s firearms case in Delaware.
A portion of this money, $1 million, was paid to Hunter Biden in exchange for his legal representation of CEFC official Patrick Ho, who was subsequently arrested in the United States. Weiss’ exhibits list includes the docket of that court case.
Ho was convicted of violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act and money laundering, was also accused in the trial of conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran and of helping to broker illicit arms deals with Arab countries while he was funded by Ye’s energy company.
In a famous audio message found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, Hunter Biden called Ho “the f**king spy chief of China.” Though this shocking claim is not confirmed by any outside sources, it shows that Hunter Biden thought that Ho was connected to Chinese intelligence in some significant way.
The exhibits may also reference Hunter Biden’s efforts on behalf of Burisma to influence official U.S. policy. These broader efforts were chronicled by Just the News and show the younger Biden helped the Ukrainian energy company to hire Democrat-aligned public relations firm Blue Star Strategies to work the fallout from a Ukrainian government investigation into the company and shift official U.S. government policy.
The firm organized meetings with State Department and U.S. Embassy officials to try and “close down” the investigation into the gas company and its founder, Mykola Zlochevsky, Just the News reported.
Weiss’ filings reference Blue Star Executives Sally Painter and Karen Tramontano, who worked for Burisma during this period, organizing several meetings with State Department officials. The firm retroactively registered as a foreign agents after it came under scrutiny by the Department of Justice.
“Beginning in November 2015 and continuing through the relevant period of 2016, Blue Star Strategies, registrant, was working on behalf of Burisma Holdings Limited (Burisma), a Ukrainian energy company, to further its commercial interests,” Blue Star wrote in its FARA report.
“Mr. Zlochevsky was a principal of Burisma at that time. Registrant was asked in 2016 to help schedule meetings with U.S. Government officials so counsel for Mr. Zlochevsky could present an explanation of certain adverse proceedings in the U.K. and Ukraine involving Mr. Zlochevsky,” it continued.
Around the same time Blue Star was organizing these meetings, Hunter Biden reached out to one of his father’s trusted advisers, Amos Hochstein, who would join the trip to Kyiv in December 2015. Emails show Hochstein had met with Burisma back in 2014 shortly after Hunter Biden joined the firm’s board.
The campaign was successful, according to Blue Star executive Painter who celebrated in an email to Hunter Biden associate Eric Schwerin in 2016.
“We won and in less than a year. Yea!!!!” she wrote in the email, which was provided to Congress by the IRS whistleblowers.
Information revealed to Congress by the IRS whistleblowers showed that their investigative team and Weiss’ Delaware U.S. Attorney’s Office were looking in to potential violations of FARA by Hunter Biden. Yet, Weiss has not charged Hunter Biden with any violations related to this law.
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Steven Richards joined Just the News in August 2023 after previously working as a Research Analyst for the Government Accountability Institute (GAI) in Tallahassee, Florida. He is a two-time graduate of Florida State University with a Masters in Political Science and a B.S. in International Affairs.
Photo “Hunter Biden” by C-SPAN.
