President Biden is seen in newly uncovered photos meeting with Hunter Biden’s Chinese business associates in China while he served as vice president, bringing further scrutiny to his claim he ‘never’ discussed business with his son.
The photos, obtained by conservative-leaning America First Legal through litigation against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), appear to show then-Vice President Biden introducing his son to Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-Vice President Li Yuanchao. Other photos show Joe Biden posing with Hunter’s business associates from BHR Partners, including Jonathan Li and Ming Xue.
‘These images shed light on the connections between then-Vice President Biden, Hunter and his Chinese business associates, and Chinese government officials including President Xi Jinping,’ America First Legal said in a press release this week. ‘Lawyers and representatives for President Biden and President Obama delayed NARA’s release of these photographs, as they did with other records, until after Election Day.’
‘These photos corroborate the House Oversight Committee’s investigative findings that Hunter Biden arranged for his father to meet with Jonathan Li and other BHR executives during the 2013 China trip, where ‘Mr. Li sought— and received — access to Vice President Biden’s political power, including, for example, preferential access to then-U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus … a condition of Hunter Biden and his associates participating in the BHR deal,’’ America First Legal wrote.
America First Legal also wrote that, according to the committee’s investigation, ‘the Biden Family benefited from their business dealings with BHR.’
Hunter Biden was asked earlier this year by the House Oversight Committee about his meetings while traveling to Asia with his father.
‘When we returned from an event to the hotel, there was a rope line, and Jonathan Li was in the lobby of the hotel where I was going to meet him for coffee,’ Hunter Biden said at the time. ‘In that line, I introduced my dad to Jonathan Li and a friend of his, and they shook hands and I believe probably took a photograph. And then my father went up to his room, and I went to have coffee with Jonathan Li.’
Hunter Biden added that he didn’t tell his father ‘anything’ about who Li was.
Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any role in his son’s businesses.
‘I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,’ Joe Biden said on the presidential campaign trail in 2019.
But emails sent to and from Hunter Biden have cast doubt on that, including a 2017 email obtained by Fox News that shows Hunter requesting keys for Joe and Jill Biden, along with his uncle, Jim Biden, for space he planned to share with an ’emissary’ to the chairman of a now-bankrupt Chinese energy company.
In another 2017 email also obtained by Fox News, Biden wrote to the same Chinese energy company’s chairman extending ‘best wishes from the entire Biden family,’ and urging the chairman to ‘quickly’ send a $10 million wire to ‘properly fund and operate’ the Biden joint venture with the company.
Devon Archer, a former business partner and longtime friend of Hunter Biden, sat for hours before the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door hearing last year and contradicted the president’s claim, saying Hunter put his father on speakerphone while meeting with business partners at least 20 times.
Archer described how Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell ‘the brand.’
The photos drew strong criticism on social media in light of President Biden’s frequent claims he never discussed business with his son.
‘Astonishing,’ Red State writer Bonchie posted on X.
‘These photos are incredibly damning and speak volumes,’ author and journalist Peter Schweizer posted on X.
‘It is such a disgrace that only through litigation, and only at the conclusion of the Biden administration is its corruption by ties to the Chinese Communist Party fully coming into focus,’ Real Clear Politics editor Benjamin Weingarten posted on X.
‘The Biden Crime Family Christmas card just dropped,’ GOP Rep. Eric Burlison posted on X.
‘China has the Bidens in its back pocket,’ Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton posted on X.
The newly unearthed photos of the Bidens meeting with Hunter’s Chinese business associates renews scrutiny of an email exchange previously reported by Fox News Digital. The 2014 email exchange reveals Hunter Biden once said he would be ‘happy’ to introduce his business associates to a top Chinese Communist Party official to discuss potential investments after that official allegedly sat at Hunter’s table during a 2013 dinner in Beijing to welcome his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Hunter’s 2014 email exchange with James Bulger referred to the same China trip referenced in the America First Legal press release.
Bulger, who goes by ‘Jimmy,’ served as the chairman of Boston-based Thornton Group LLC, a firm that joined forces with Hunter’s now-defunct Rosemont Seneca to launch its joint venture with Chinese investment firm Bohai Capital to create BHR Partners shortly after the Bidens traveled to China. BHR Partners is controlled by Bank of China Limited.
In the 2014 email, Bulger asked Hunter to introduce BHR CEO Jonathan Li and Andy Lu, who was a BHR committee member, to ‘Mr. Tung,’ which refers to C.H. Tung, a former governor of Hong Kong and billionaire who served as vice chairman of the CCP-linked Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, to discuss ‘BHR investment targets’ and ‘fundraising.’
The email alleged Hunter sat next to Tung at the December 2013 dinner welcoming Vice President Joe Biden to Beijing. Fox News Digital previously reached out to the White House multiple times requesting the seating chart for the Beijing dinner, specifically Hunter’s table, but it did not respond.
‘It is my understanding that during the trip to Beijing that you made with your father, President Xi hosted a welcome dinner,’ Bulger wrote. ‘[A]t that dinner, you were seated right next to Mr Tung, therefore J and Andy believe it would be very helpful if you could please send a brief email to Mr Tung laying out that you are a partner and Board Member of BHR and that You would be grateful to Mr Tung if he could meet your local partners to discuss the Fund.
‘Please let me know if you can introduce these two to Mr Tung by email it is very important to our BHR intiative [sic] at this moment.’
Hunter responded that he was ‘happy’ to fulfill the request but said he couldn’t recall the names of the gentlemen who sat next to him at the dinner.
It appears that the Beijing ‘welcome dinner’ hosted by President Xi that Bulger was referencing in his initial email occurred during the evening of Dec. 4, 2013, after then-Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao met with Joe Biden earlier in the day to discuss strengthening U.S.-China relations.
President Biden pardoned his son earlier this month for any crimes potentially committed dating back to 2014.
‘Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,’ Biden wrote in a statement at the time. ‘From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.
‘There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,’ the 82-year-old father wrote. ‘In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.’
Fox News Digital has previously reached out to the White House about why the pardon was so broad but did not receive a response.
‘Even while President Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter, for anything and everything ‘he has committed or may have committed or taken part in’ going all the way back to the year 2014, more evidence comes out each day showing how his family leveraged Joe Biden’s even longer career in public office for private gain,’ America First Legal Counsel Michael Ding said in a statement.
‘America First Legal will not stop fighting to uncover the full story of the Biden Family’s corruption.’
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, Hunter Biden’s legal team and the Chinese businessmen in the photos but did not receive a comment.
Fox News Digital’s Jessica Chasmar Brooke Singman, and Tyler Olson contributed to this report