New Twist in the Hunter Biden Saga: A White House Meeting for Elite Chinese Group The younger Biden’s associates reportedly arranged a 2011 meeting with then-VP Joe Biden, and got the entourage ‘all taken care of in DC.’ By Andrew C. McCarthy
J ust imagine if something like this happened during the Trump administration, and ask yourself what the media-Democrat complex would be saying.
In November 2011, an elite group of Chinese Communist Party members and billionaire cronies of the repressive regime in Beijing secured a meeting in the White House, said to be with Vice President Biden and other Obama administration officials, through Hunter Biden’s associates.
News of the meeting has been broken by Peter Schweizer and Seamus Bruner. Schweizer, who has spent years tracking Washington’s web of money, influence and access, is the author most recently of Secret Empires: How the American Political Class Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends, which focuses on the Biden family — among other intriguing money trails on both sides of the political aisle.
Schweizer and Bruner have obtained the cooperation of Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Bevan Cooney, who is serving a federal prison sentence for a fraud scheme. Another Hunter Biden business partner, Devon Archer, was also convicted (and has had his conviction reinstated by the Second Circuit federal appeals court after a trial judge in the Southern District of New York set it aside). Hunter Biden was featured in the evidence but not charged.
Cooney has given the investigative journalists access to his email account, which contains years of correspondence with Biden, Archer, and others. The authors have begun writing reports published at Breitbart, and Schweizer has also been interviewed about it on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program. Obviously, those are very pro-Trump venues, so it is worth noting that solid reporting Schweizer did on the Clinton Foundation (the subject of his book Clinton Cash) was closely examined and relied on by the New York Times (see “Cash Flowed to Clinton Foundation Amid Russian Uranium Deal”).
Based on Cooney’s emails, the authors report that in November 2011, Hunter Biden’s business associates arranged meetings at the Obama White House for a delegation of the “China Entrepreneur Club.” Established in 2006, the CEC is led by high officials of the Chinese Communist Party, some government officials (including diplomats), and billionaire business executives with close ties to the regime.
This visit to the White House is said to have included a meeting with then–Vice President Biden. In discussions among themselves, Hunter Biden’s associates reportedly made it clear that they anticipated cashing in on business prospects that were expected to arise from providing the Chinese contingent with high-level access to the Obama administration.
According to the Schweizer/Bruner report, the CEC had struck out trying to get meetings with top Obama officials until they contacted Hunter Biden’s associates, through an intermediary named Mohamed Kashoggi.
In an October 19, 2011, email, in which he described the CEC visitors as “China Inc.,” Kashoggi told Hunter’s associate, Gary Fears (an intriguing figure in his own right), that helping the group “could be a good opportunity for Patty to have potentially outstanding new clients.” It is not clear to whom “Patty” refers.
Kashoggi elaborated that he understood “people are hesitant” but that “a group like this does not come along everyday.” The CEC contingent was hoping for “a tour of the white house and a meeting with a member of the chief of staff’s office and John Kerry.” (Kerry, of course, was the senator who then chaired the Foreign Relations Committee, and he would become Obama’s second-term secretary of state. He is Vice President Biden’s longtime friend, and Devon Archer was an adviser to his 2004 presidential campaign. Archer was the college roommate of Kerry’s stepson, Christopher Heinz, who was a partner of Archer’s and Hunter Biden’s in Rosemont Capital.)
Kashoggi stressed to Fears that the CEC’s “mandate” was “to let the U.S. know that the Chinese ‘private sector’ [scare quotes in original] is ready and willing to invest in America.” He thus observed the opportunity to leverage government policy and lucrative business: Cultivating the CEC would be “a soft diplomacy play that could be very effective.” Simultaneously, Kashoggi “would be with them all the time and we would have good access to them in the future.”
Kashoggi added that he was seeking other opportunities to introduce the elite Chinese group to other Washington eminences; but CEC’s “biggest priority,” Kashoggi stressed, was “to see the White House, and have a senior US politician, or senior member of Obama’s administration give them a tour.” Consequently, Kashoggi told Fears, “if your friend in D.C. can help, we would be extremely grateful.”
D.C., of course, was where Hunter Biden and Devon Archer had set up shop.
Fears passed Kashoggi’s email along to Archer on November 5, urging him to reach out to Kashoggi about facilitating a meeting. Fears suggested that Archer accompany the CEC contingent to the White House and told him to “get guys for the potash deal” — a reference to a potash mine deal that Archer was working on. Archer did reach out to Kashoggi and sent him a proposal regarding potash mining.
Interestingly, on November 11, Archer sent Fears two emails in quick succession because he wanted to leave Hunter out of the second one.
In the first, on which Hunter Biden and Bevan Cooney were copied, Archer replied to Fears, confirming that he had met with Kashoggi, that it had gone well, and that it seemed “like there is a lot to do together down the line.” Though Kashoggi did not appear to be “a fit for the current Potash private placement,” Archer anticipated that “he’s a good strategic relationship as the mine develops.” Archer encouraged Fears and Cooney to meet with Kashoggi in Miami. He also explained that Hunter had not been able to call Fears because “Hunter is traveling in the UAE for the week with royalty.”
A minute later, Archer sent a one-line email to Fears and Cooney (omitting Hunter), in which he stated, “Couldn’t confirm this with Hunter on the line, but we got him [presumably, Kashoggi] his meeting at the WH Monday for the Chinese folks.”
Since Fears plainly had no hesitation in trying to discuss the CEC visit with Hunter, it is clear that Archer was not keeping secrets from Hunter. To the contrary, with Hunter overseas and thus more vulnerable to having communications intercepted, Archer evidently was taking pains not to connect Hunter in writing to the arranged visit of the elite Chinese group to the Obama White House, where Hunter’s father, the vice president, would end up meeting with the group. (Note that Archer discussed only mining business, not the White House visit being arranged for Chinese dignitaries, in the email on which Hunter was included.)
The White House meeting occurred on Monday, November 14. In an email, Cooney informed Fears that Archer “got the Chinese guys all taken care of in DC.”
Based on interviews with Cooney, the emails, and a review of the White House visitor logs, Schweizer and Bruner relate that the delegation was logged in as guests of Jeff Zients, the deputy director of Obama’s Office of Management and Budget. The Chinese visitors got high-level access, including a personal meeting with Vice President Biden. According to the authors, this was an “off-the-books” meeting, not recorded in the official White House logs. It was later memorialized in a CEC publication (here, at page 53) by CEC Secretary General, Maggie Cheng. The CEC’s anticipated itinerary for the U.S. trip also indicates meetings at the Commerce Department with Secretary John Bryson, and at the State Department with Robert Hormats, the under secretary for Economic, Energy, and Agricultural Affairs.
Schweizer and Bruner point out that the information they are developing is separate from the stories broken by the New York Post based on a review of emails from a laptop believed to have belonged to Hunter Biden. The two threads, however, appear to weave together. Hunter and Archer later formed the Bohai Harvest RST (BHR) investment fund backed by lavish Chinese government funding. The arrangement was being negotiated when Hunter accompanied his father on Air Force Two for a 2013 trip to China. BHR eventually made investments in a ride-sharing company said to be closely connected to Liu Chuanzhi, the CEC chairman — a former Communist Party delegate who was among the leaders at the 2011 White House visit.
Peter Schweizer has stated that more reporting based on information from Bevan Cooney is in the offing.
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