The White House appeared Friday to have changed its story on President Joe Biden’s role in his family’s business affairs, claiming that Biden was “not in business” with his son, Hunter.
Previously, on the campaign trail in 2019-20, Joe Biden said: “I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period.” But that story appeared to change on Friday.
When reporters began asking the White House to respond to accusations by an IRS whistleblower that Joe and Hunter Biden were together when the latter pressured a Chinese contact to send money, the response changed:
The whistleblower, IRS supervising agent Gary Shapley, cited a WhatsApp message — one not sourced from Hunter Biden’s laptop — in which Hunter Biden allegedly told Chinese businessman Henry Zhao:
I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.
At the White House press briefing on Friday, Newsmax correspondent James Rosen asked White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre whether she stood by her own previous “reaffirmations” that Joe Biden had never discussed his family members’ business interests with them. She did not answer the question directly, but stated: “Nothing has changed.”
She referred most of the other questions to the White House counsel’s office.
In 2022, it was revealed that Joe Biden had left Hunter Biden a voicemail saying he thought a New York Times article about his son’s business interests was good, suggesting Joe Biden had lied about never discussing them.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.