Is Biden compromised by China?

OPINION:

Now that Hunter Biden’s laptop has been authenticated, a very troubling narrative is emerging: Credible evidence that President Biden is compromised by China.

The question remains: Was Joe Biden’s vice presidency (and now presidency) for sale, and was (is) he complicit in the scheme?

Hunter Biden — for all intents and purposes — is an unskilled, reckless, yet pompous man, who had millions of dollars flowing into his bank accounts from foreign countries for doing little to nothing other than having a powerful father.

In 2013, Hunter Biden hopped a ride to Beijing with his dad on Air Force 2. The elder Mr. Biden was meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, while the son was looking to secure a deal with Chinese financier Jonathan Li.

While in China, Mr. Li got a handshake from the then vice president; 10 days later Chinese officials approved the deal Hunter Biden was seeking.

While Joe Biden was in office, his son was wooing U.S. investments in Chinese firms. The New York Post revealed last week that Hunter Biden’s laptop had contacts for high-level Google executives — some of which would go on and serve in the Obama administration — and top U.S. officials for China policy.

Hunter Biden eventually struck gold when he landed a contract with CEFC China Energy Co., an oil-and-gas conglomerate tied to the Chinese Communist Party and the People’s Liberation Army, shortly after his father left office.

Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden, went right to work to structure a Chinese joint venture.

Their plan, according to partner and facilitator James Gilliar, was to “build an investment firm like Goldman Sachs,” in which Joe Biden would be actively involved once he left office. One of the joint ventures would be crafted by Tony Bobulinski, who met with Joe Biden for his sign-off at the Beverly Hilton in 2017.

As reported by the New York Post, Hunter Biden told his father that “Bobulinski had been ‘working hard’ on the Chinese deal and Joe said: ‘My son and my brother trust you emphatically, so I trust you.’”

Less than two weeks after meeting Joe Biden, Mr. Bobulinski incorporated SinoHawk Holdings LLC.

“It would be a global investment firm seeded with $10 million of Chinese money that would buy projects in the US and around the world ‘in global and/or domestic infrastructure, energy, financial services and other strategic sectors,’ said the contract he had drawn up,” according to the Post.

SinoHawk would be 50% owned by CEFC China Energy Chair Ye Jianming, and 50% owned by Oneida Holdings LLC, with 10% of that cut going to “the big guy,” whom Mr. Bobulinski identified as Joe Biden.

Hudson West III LLC was established to exclusively deal with CEFC investments.

Mr. Ye met with Hunter Biden in Miami three weeks after his father left the vice presidency. Mr. Ye offered Hunter Biden $10 million a year for a minimum of three years for “introductions alone,” as Hunter Biden would later write in an email to CEFC executives that was first reported by the New York Post.

Shortly after their conversation, Mr. Ye sent Hunter Biden a 2.8-carat diamond, worth $80,000.

The deal with CEFC, under Hudson West III LLC, would eventually pay the Bidens $4.8 million over the span of 14 months, The Washington Post reported.

A few weeks after he went into business with the CEFC executives, in fall of 2017, Hunter Biden requested changes to the fifth-floor office space he was renting and keys for his father, his uncle, his mother and Gongwen Dong, an executive tied to CEFC, according to The Washington Post.

Included in the CEFC monies was a $1 million retainer for Hunter Biden, “issued as part of an agreement to represent Patrick Ho, a CEFC official who would later be charged in the United States in connection with a multimillion-dollar scheme to bribe leaders from Chad and Uganda,” for oil leases and to help Iran evade international sanctions, according to the Post.

Federal agents at the time were monitoring Mr. Ho as a potential spy or agent for China.

Mr. Ye too found himself in hot water. In 2018, he was detained in China for unspecified economic crimes and hasn’t been heard from since.

The New York Times profiled Mr. Ye — whom Hunter Biden called his “partner” — in December of that year. After the article came out Joe Biden left a voicemail on his son’s phone saying: “I thought the article released online, it’s going to be printed tomorrow in the Times, was good. I think you’re clear,” according to reporting garnered from Hunter Biden’s laptop.

CEFC was dissolved in late 2018, as was Hudson West III.

Joe Biden announced in April 2019 that he would run for president.

Hunter Biden remains under federal investigation for possible tax fraud linked to his overseas business dealings.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre deflected Tuesday when asked about that voicemail and what it means regarding the president’s frequent claims that he had never spoken with Hunter about his overseas business dealings.

“I’m not going to talk about alleged materials from the laptop,” she non-answered.

Republicans must investigate. The president of the United States at the very least can be plausibly accused of selling U.S. government access to international foes. And at the very most, he could be compromised by Communist China.

• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.