Rep. Jim Banks: Did Biden Know His Son Was Sucking Millions from Chinese Communists?

Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) said Thursday that emails exposing some of Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China published this week by the New York Post raise questions about what his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, knew at the time and whether he was involved.

In the emails, Hunter Biden and his business associates discussed deals worth millions with China’s then-biggest energy company, including some that could implicate the former vice president.

Hunter Biden on August 2, 2017, sent an email that said then-chairman of CEFC China Energy Co., Ye Jianming, had sweetened the terms of an earlier, three-year consulting contract that would pay him $10 million annually for “introductions alone.”

He also referenced his family in that same email chain: “Consulting fees is one piece of our income stream but the reason this proposal by the chairman was so much more interesting to me and my family is that we would also be partners inn [sic] the equity and profits of the JV’s [joint venture’s] investments.”

Another email, sent from a business associate on May 13,2017, that discussed percentage of shares in a business venture to be split among four people, identified Hunter Biden as “H” and had a “20” next to it. It also said: “10 held by H for the big guy ?,” but did not specify who “the big guy” is.

“There are serious questions raised about where Joe Biden fits into all of this,” Banks said Thursday on a Trump campaign conference call. “When there’s discussion of Hunter facilitating ‘introductions’ for $10 million dollars, who is he expected to introduce to whom? Are they talking about Joe Biden?”

“When Hunter Biden was sucking every dollar out of the Chinese communists he could, what did Joe Biden know about it? Much of this occurred while Biden was vice president, or while he was considering his run for [president],” Banks said.

“According to today’s story, one of Hunter’s massive Chinese business deals contemplates Hunter holding an equity share of ’10 for the big guy.’ What we want to know today is Joe Biden the ‘big guy’?” he asked.

Banks also mentioned another part of the Post‘s story that cited a Senate Republican report about a company called “Hudson West III” that opened a line of credit in September 2017. Credits cards were issued against the account used by Hunter Biden, his uncle James Biden, and James’ wife Sara Biden, to purchase more than $100,000 “worth of extravagant items, including airline tickets and multiple items at Apple Inc. stores, pharmacies, hotels and restaurants,” according to the Senate report.

Banks asked, “What did Joe Biden know about this?” He added:

What do we know? Biden’s son Hunter accompanied his father on Air Force Two on a trip to China while his father was vice president. Hunter Biden came home with a $1.5 billion dollar investment for his firm from a Chinese state-controlled bank. And the obvious question for that episode is this — what did the Chinese want for their money while Hunter’s dad was the vice president of the United States?

Banks, a China hawk and Navy veteran, said it was not surprising to him that the former vice president would be “cozy” with the Communist Chinese.

“He has a decades-long record of being soft on China. Biden was a champion for most favored nation status for China, and supported their entry into the WTO. China’s entry into the WTO cost a loss of 60,000 American factories and 3.5 million American jobs,” Banks said.

“Biden opposed President Trump’s strong trade actions against China for their long history of ripping off America and he has said he would drop tariffs against Chinese products without expecting anything in return,” he added.

Banks, who said he was the son of a factory worker, called Trump the “first president in my lifetime to be tough on China.”

“He’s rightly stood up to China like no president before him. And he’s called out China for stealing technology, forcing the transfer of technology as the price of doing business in China, manipulating the currency, illegally dumping products like steel, which is very important in my district,” he said.

“And President Trump’s approach has worked, and now the U.S. and China have entered into Phase 1 of a trade deal and China is no longer ripping us off like they did before,” he said.

Banks recalled when Biden said on the campaign trail, “China’s going to eat our lunch? C’mon man.”

“That’s a quote that we will never forget. He was critical of the president’s life-saving China travel restrictions, calling them ‘xenophobic’ and ‘fear-mongering’ for two months before his campaign suddenly claimed that he supported them all along,” he said.

“He’s resisted holding China accountable for the global coronavirus pandemic, even when President Trump responded to China’s outrageous claim that the U.S. military was responsible for the virus outbreak,” he added.

“So if Hunter Biden made this much money when his dad was the vice president, imagine what kind of cash he’s going to pocket when his dad is in the Oval Office,” he said.

 

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