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'The American people have a right to know what Joe Biden and his family have been up to,' Pence said
By Tom Ozimek, October 24, 2020
Vice President Mike Pence said Friday that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden should “come forward and come clean” about alleged foreign funds that recent reports claim were being channeled to his family with the involvement of his son, Hunter Biden.
“Joe Biden ought to come forward, he ought to answer questions about the laptop, about Hunter Biden, about these foreign funds flowing in the direction of his family,” Pence told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in an interview on Oct. 23.
“The American people have a right to know what Joe Biden and his family have been up to,” the vice president said.
Pence was referring to recent explosive reports, based on a trove of documents found on a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and on statements made by his former business partner Tony Bobulinski, essentially claiming that the former vice president’s son was leveraging his relationship with his father to strike multi-million dollar deals with foreign entities.
“Now we learn it’s a lot deeper,” Hannity said in the preface to his question to Pence. “Now we see Hunter Biden and the Biden family business getting $3.5 million from an oligarch in Russia, the first lady of Moscow. We see wire transfers with a Kazakhstan oligarch. We see a billion-five deal with the Bank of China ten days after Hunter flies with his dad on Air Force 2 over to China—no experience in private equity,” Hannity continued.
“We have two of Hunter Biden’s associates and partners in jail,” Hannity said, adding, “Now we have a whistleblower here. We’re only 11 days out, the media is basically, you know, running interference for all things Joe Biden. Do you think the message is getting through that he sold access to his office like this?”
Pence replied by saying that the scandal has become a hot topic after President Donald Trump challenged Biden in the claims during Thursday’s debate, but then added, “Suddenly the media has lost any interest whatsoever in foreign impact or foreign efforts to influence people in American politics.”
Biden has repeatedly denied any claims of wrongdoing, has called the scandal a “smear campaign,” and during Thursday’s debate insisted “nothing unethical” went on.
During the debate, Biden was asked by the moderator: “Vice President Biden, there have been questions about the work your son has done in China and for Ukrainian energy company when you were Vice President. In retrospect, was anything about those relationships inappropriate or unethical?”
“Nothing was unethical,” Biden replied, and insisted that Trump administration officials who testified under oath during Trump’s impeachment hearings “said I did my job impeccably.”
“Not one single, solitary thing was out of line, not a single thing,” Biden insisted, adding, “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.”
It comes after the FBI on Friday requested an interview with Hunter Biden’s former business partner Tony Bobulinski, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said in a statement.
Tony Bobulinski Biden
Tony Bobulinski, who claims to have been an associate of Hunter Biden, speaks to reporters at a hotel in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 22, 2020. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)
Bobulinski said at a Thursday press conference that he met Joe Biden in May 2017 and spent one hour discussing a range of issues, including a deal with a Chinese energy conglomerate. This challenges the narrative that Biden has never discussed his son’s business dealings.
“I have heard Joe Biden say that he has never discussed business with Hunter. That is false. I have firsthand knowledge about this because I directly dealt with the Biden family, including Joe Biden,” Bobulinski said at the press conference. “On May 2, 2017, the night before Joe Biden was to appear at the Milken conference, I was introduced to Joe Biden by Jim Biden and Hunter Biden. At my approximately hourlong meeting with Joe that night, we discussed the Bidens’ history and the Biden family’s business plans with the Chinese, with which he was plainly familiar, at least a high level.”
“On numerous occasions, it was made clear to me that Joe Biden’s involvement was not to be mentioned in writing but only face to face. In fact, I was advised by Gilliar and [Rob] Walker that Hunter and Jim Biden were paranoid about keeping Joe Biden’s involvement secret,” Bobulinski said.
According to Bobulinski, Hunter Biden and his associates brought him into the deal in 2017 to serve as the CEO of SinoHawk LLC, a business entity created to formalize an investment partnership with Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC China Energy.
Bobulinski said that the 20 percent stake assigned to an “H” in an email that was part of a trove of documents found on a laptop hard drive and reported by the New York Post, was meant for Hunter Biden. Bobulinski added that the mention in the email of a 10 percent stake “held by H for the big guy” referred to equity to be held by Hunter Biden on behalf of his father, Joe Biden.
Shanghai-based conglomerate CEFC China Energy was China’s largest privately-held oil company before it was caught in Beijing’s crosshairs in 2018. The oil conglomerate made billions of dollars in Russia, eastern Europe, and parts of Africa, while its now-disgraced founder and chairman, Ye Jianming, fostered ties with high-level Chinese Communist Party officials.
Ye Jianming has been missing since early 2018 after he was placed under investigation by the Chinese regime for “suspected economic crimes” and detained. A state-owned enterprise took control of CEFC in March 2019, and the firm declared bankruptcy early this year, according to Chinese media Caixin.
The FBI responded to a query from The Epoch Times with the following statement, “We have no comment, in keeping with our standard practice of neither confirming nor denying the existence of an investigation.”
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