The Bidens and Tony Bobulinski Joe owes the public a response about the family’s business.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-bidens-and-tony-bobulinski-11603927190?mod=opinion_lead_pos3
Joe Biden is asking voters to elect him on the strength of his character, honesty and judgment. Which is why Mr. Biden owes a response to new allegations about his son Hunter’s business deals.
Tony Bobulinski on Tuesday sat with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson to provide details of a 2016-17 business venture involving Hunter, Jim Biden (Joe’s brother), and CEFC China Energy, a conglomerate tied to the Chinese government. Mr. Bobulinski, a Navy veteran and financier, was recruited by Hunter and associates to serve as CEO, and the interview shed more light on hundreds of emails and documents he recently made public
Mr. Bobulinski said that in 2017 he twice met with former Vice President Joe Biden, as part of a Biden family effort at “wining and dining” him to “take on the CEO role.” He pointed to documents in which Hunter and others refer to Joe’s involvement in the deal, including an email from Hunter partner James Gilliar that proposed the “big guy” get 10% of the company equity, held in Hunter’s name. Mr. Bobulinski says “the big guy” is Joe. He also related a conversation in which he said Jim Biden said the answer to questions about Biden family involvement with foreign entities was “plausible deniability.”
Mr. Bobulinski sounded credible. He said he wants to clear his name of accusations that he was a tool of foreign election-meddlers, and he repeatedly declined opportunities to speculate or get partisan. He said he felt a duty to American citizens “to go on record and define the facts for them and let them do their own work, let them decide how they view those facts or not.”
Joe Biden was a private citizen at the time of these alleged meetings, and there is no evidence we’ve seen that he personally benefited from the China deal. But he hasn’t denied that the meetings took place, and the Bobulinski documents make clear that Mr. Biden hasn’t been honest about his knowledge of his son’s business affairs.
Here’s Mr. Biden in 2019: “I have never discussed with my son or my brother or anyone else anything having to do with their businesses. Period.” Yet Mr. Bobulinski says his two meetings with Joe were for the purpose of Hunter’s business and that it was “crystal clear” Hunter had briefed his father.
“There was no other reason for me to be in that bar meeting Joe Biden than to discuss what I was doing with his family’s name and the Chinese CEFC,” Mr. Bobulinski said.
Mr. Bobulinski says he was spurred to come forward to clear his family name after House Intelligence Chair Adam Schiff claimed his emails were “Russian disinformation.” He says he privately communicated to a Biden representative his desire that the Biden family set the record straight about the authenticity of the emails and texts—so that he didn’t have to go public. Instead, Mr. Biden—who Mr. Bobulinski said sat with him “face-to-face” and knows he “traveled around the world with his son and his brother”—also played the Russia card.
Whether Mr. Biden was an active participant, or simply lent his prestige so Hunter could close the deals, Joe Biden appears to have aided his son’s transactions with often shady characters in Ukraine, China, Kazakhstan and beyond. Mr. Biden might be forgiven for wanting to help a troubled son succeed, but to ignore the ethical and security risks attached to Hunter’s Chinese Communist partners is bad judgment.
Mr. Biden last year said his son is a “grown man” who makes his own decisions—a line that ignores the nature of Hunter’s deals. The Bobulinski material suggests the Chinese engaged Hunter not for his financial prowess, but for his connections and influence.
Nearly all of the press is ignoring this story, and Mr. Biden’s strategy is to ignore it as well and run out the election clock. But Mr. Bobulinski’s evidence is too detailed and credible to go away. Much of the campaign against Donald Trump as a threat to U.S. security has concerned his personal business interests, especially with foreigners. Mr. Biden should want to contrast himself by explaining his role in assisting Hunter’s business, and his rationale for doing so.
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