Hunter Biden’s Chinese business partners paid him more than $250,000 during the summer of 2019 in wires addressed to President Joe Biden’s Delaware home, according to bank records obtained by the House Oversight Committee that were publicized on Tuesday.
The two wires were addressed to Biden’s house in Wilmington, Del., by individuals associated with the Chinese private equity firm BHR Partners, in which Hunter Biden held a 10 percent stake at the time. Biden received the first payment of $10,000 on July 26, 2019, from BHR venture partner Xin Wang. One week later, Biden received a second wire of $250,000 from BHR CEO Jonathan Li. Joe Biden falsely claimed during an October 2020 debate with then-President Donald Trump that his son never made any money from business dealings in China.
The payments were sent months after Biden launched his presidential campaign in April 2019 and were addressed to the same home where he improperly stored a number of classified documents from his time as vice president. Hunter Biden lived at the home in 2018 and 2019, according to his driver’s license and other government records located on a copy of his abandoned laptop.
This is not the first time Biden used his father’s home as a base of operations for his Chinese business dealings. Two years prior, in July 2017, Hunter Biden claimed in threatening text messages to an official at Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC Energy that he was sitting next to his father. Biden was photographed at his father’s home that same day, the Washington Free Beacon reported.
Nor is this the first time Joe Biden was associated with Li, the BHR CEO. Hunter Biden introduced his father to Li during a trip to Beijing in December 2013, where the trio shared a cup of coffee. Joe Biden then wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s son and daughter in January 2017.
"Bank records don’t lie but President Joe Biden does," said House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) on Tuesday. "Joe Biden’s abuse of public office for his family’s financial gain threatens our national security. What did the Bidens do with this money from Beijing?"
The payments were first reported by Fox News.
BHR Partners is co-owned by the Beijing-controlled Bank of China and manages $2.1 billion in assets. Hunter Biden obtained his 10 percent stake in the company with a $420,000 investment in October 2017 through his personal company, Skaneateles LLC.
Records from Biden’s abandoned laptop suggest he reaped a lucrative return on his investment in the Chinese firm. His former business partner Eric Schwerin advised him in 2019 that his stake in BHR had grown to an estimated $894,000.
The stake is now controlled by Hollywood super lawyer Kevin Morris, according to records reported by the Free Beacon. Morris is known within Biden’s inner circle as his "sugar brother" for financing the first son’s lavish lifestyle and loaning him over $2 million to help pay overdue taxes. It is unclear if Biden handed over his piece of BHR as payment to Morris.