An Israeli think tank executive who served alongside Hunter Biden as an adviser to a Chinese energy conglomerate widely suspected of serving as a front for the Chinese Communist Party now says he provided the FBI with damning information about the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.
Gal Luft, the co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, says he provided information about Hunter Biden, his father, and his uncle, Jim Biden, to the Justice Department in March 2019. Luft served as an adviser to CEFC China Energy, a conglomerate that "aligned itself so closely with the Chinese government that it was often hard to distinguish between the two," according to CNN. The group, which donated at least $350,000 to Luft’s think tank, paid Hunter Biden at least $6 million in 2017 to procure energy investment deals in the United States.
Luft’s claims come as a former Hunter Biden business partner, Eric Schwerin, has started cooperating with the House Oversight Committee’s investigation of the Biden family’s foreign business dealings. Investigators have focused heavily on Hunter Biden’s work with CEFC China Energy. The Justice Department has investigated Hunter Biden since 2018 over his taxes and foreign business dealings, though the case appears to be focused on the first son’s unpaid taxes.
Luft’s threat to "name names" comes after his arrest in Cyprus on Feb. 16 on charges that he illegally sold weapons to Libya and China. Luft asserts that the United States is seeking his extradition as part of a "politically motivated" payback for his exposure of the Bidens.
"DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim & Hunter Biden," Luft said. An Israeli lawyer for Luft claims his client provided information about Hunter Biden to the FBI in 2019.
While Luft’s claims might otherwise be easily dismissed as a bluff, his connection to CEFC China Energy suggests he may know something about the Bidens. And an American lawyer for Luft has signaled he will provide information to Congress about Luft’s case.
"Dr. Luft is a whistleblower," Luft attorney Robert Henoch told the Washington Free Beacon. He asserts that prosecutors decided against pursuing Luft's information "and are instead targeting him with trumped-up and false charges."
"This unfortunately appears to be part of an attempt to discredit a witness with critical information about an ongoing congressional and DOJ investigation."
Henoch did not further elaborate on the information Luft has on Biden. But the lawyer recently told the Justice Department he plans to submit a letter to Congress that will detail statements that Luft gave to the Justice Department during an interview in Belgium, according to documents obtained by the Free Beacon.
Luft served as a liaison between CEFC China Energy and the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, a Washington think tank formed by former CIA director James Woolsey. Luft, who is co-director of the Institute, served as senior adviser to the China Energy Fund Committee, the think tank arm of CEFC China Energy. Ye Jianming, the former chairman of CEFC China, served as chairman of the board of trustees of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, according to a business prospectus created by one of Hunter Biden’s business associates. CEFC also donated at least $350,000 to the Institute, which has promoted China’s controversial Belt and Road infrastructure program.
Luft also forged close ties to Patrick Ho, a CEFC executive who was convicted in 2019 of trying to bribe African officials for oil rights on behalf of CEFC. Luft referred to Ho as a "close friend and colleague" in a letter in support of Ho, according to court documents.
Hunter Biden worked closely with Ye and represented Ho in his legal case.
Biden met with Ye at the Chinese businessman’s homes in New York and Miami. Ye, who is suspected of having ties to Chinese military intelligence, gave Hunter an $80,000 diamond in one of their meetings. Starting in 2017, CEFC began paying Hunter and his uncle Jim Biden to find energy investments for CEFC across the globe. Emails from Biden’s laptop show he and Ye discussed plans for CEFC to buy a liquified natural gas field in Louisiana. Biden told Ye in a November 2017 letter that the projects had "the benefit of being good for both the United States and China simultaneously."
Hunter worked for CEFC on another project that has intrigued investigators. The company paid him $1 million to provide legal services for Ho after he was indicted in the bribery case in October 2017. Hunter was not listed as an attorney of record for Ho, who he referred to privately as the "fucking spy chief of China."
Republicans claim that Biden’s deal with CEFC presented national security risks because of CEFC’s links to Chinese intelligence. They have questioned whether CEFC sought out Biden as part of an intelligence-gathering operation. Investigators are also looking into Joe Biden’s involvement in the CEFC deal. While the president has denied knowing anything about his son’s business deals, a former Hunter Biden associate, Tony Bobulinski, says he met with Hunter, Joe, and Jim Biden to discuss CEFC in California in 2017.
Republicans recently zeroed in on a former Serbian foreign minister, Vuk Jeremic, who made the first introduction between CEFC and Hunter Biden. Emails from Biden’s laptop show that Jeremic approached Biden in December 2015 to meet with CEFC to discuss potential business deals. Jeremic at the time was a consultant for CEFC. Biden later arranged a meeting for Jeremic and then-Vice President Biden’s national security adviser, Colin Kahl, to help Jeremic’s campaign for United Nations secretary general.
Jeremic has connections as well to Ho. He arranged the meetings with the two African officials who Ho attempted to bribe.
The White House and Justice Department did not respond to requests for comment.