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A former business associate of the Biden family raised serious but unproven allegations against President Joe Biden in a closed House interview Tuesday, reviving claims he has made since 2020.
In recent years, Tony Bobulinski has seemed to be sharing his story with anyone who will listen, including the Trump campaign. However, his loftiest claims that Joe Biden was deeply involved in his son’s overseas dealings remain unsubstantiated and have been overturned by other key witnesses.
“Joe Biden was not only a participant in and a beneficiary of his family’s business,” Bobulinski told House Oversight Committee investigators on Tuesday, according to a copy of his opening statement provided to CNN. He said he was capable, albeit buffered by a complex plan to maintain his denial.
He also said he believes the multimillion-dollar business deals secured by Joe Biden’s son and brother were made possible “because Joe Biden was in high-level office.” “The Biden family’s business was Joe Biden,” he said, referring specifically to Joe Biden’s role in a lucrative deal proposal with a Chinese energy conglomerate.
CNN has not independently verified the underlying evidence that Mr. Bobulinski supports his claims. Bobulinski appeared in public during the final weeks of the 2020 campaign, after unsuccessfully promoting his content to reporters including the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal. . When the paper covered Bobulinski’s public remarks, the article revealed that the deal with China never came to fruition and that corporate records “do not show a role for Joe Biden.”
Bobulinski said in his opening statement Tuesday that he “met privately on a number of occasions” with Joe Biden in Los Angeles in May 2017 and “discussed the general outline of a business transaction.”
As the interview progressed, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, criticized Bobulinski’s credibility, saying Bobulinski had two “encounters” with Joe Biden. ” in a substantive business meeting.
“He met with President Biden twice in quick succession in May 2017, and it seemed very casual,” Raskin said. “Those can’t be called meetings. And by his own account, they didn’t include discussions about Joe Biden and business. So this person, who was described as mercilessly out of control, I think he is a capable witness.”
“He has not provided any testimony suggesting any criminal activity by President Biden. He has not provided any suggestion or evidence that President Biden was involved in Hunter Biden’s business,” Raskin said. added.
He said Tuesday that no federal officials, including the Justice Department, FBI or IRS, have contacted him for testimony since he first made the information public in 2020. He contacted the FBI for questioning in October 2020, but the FBI did not follow up, nor did the special counsel currently prosecuting Hunter Biden. , he said.
Mr. Bobulinski and another business associate connected to the president’s son recently poured cold water on Mr. Bobulinski’s claims in separate interviews with committee investigators.
Witness Rob Walker told House Republicans in January that he did not believe Bobulinski was a credible actor and would not consider working with him again. Walker called Bobulinski’s claims “stunning” and “nonsense.” He speculated that Bobulinski’s motives may have been “political.”
“I think he realized that Hunter was moving on without him and was probably a little angry, so I guess that added a little bit of fuel to Tony’s fire,” Walker added.
Walker said Bobulinski called him in October 2020 to discuss the possibility of Hunter Biden’s laptop, at which point the conversation was recorded or shared with Fox News. I remember that he didn’t reveal anything about it. In the recording, Walker reportedly said, “You’re going to bury us all, dude.”
Walker detailed in an interview with lawmakers in January that he was not worried about criminal charges, but rather that Bobulinski’s antics would make everyone involved look bad. Ta.
“I thought it was ridiculous that he would do that. He was trying to say something that didn’t make any sense, was stupid, and just embarrassed everyone.” Walker said.
Bobulinski’s claims also join a growing list of other Biden family business associates who have said that Joe Biden, both as a private citizen and as vice president, has no involvement in the family’s overseas business dealings. This is in complete contrast. Mr. Raskin had raised serious questions about Mr. Bobulinski’s credibility ahead of Tuesday’s press conference.
Republicans, who are trying to implicate the president in Bobulinski’s family’s overseas dealings as part of their impeachment inquiry, were quick to pounce on Bobulinski’s claims, with many praising him at Tuesday’s news conference.
But Democrats have accused Republicans of using Bobulinski’s allegations to paint the president as the central figure in an elaborate criminal operation, while special counsel Robert Hur’s final remarks painted an image of a forgetful commander in chief. They also questioned his ability to perform his duties based on the report.
“It’s a matter of picking a side,” said Democratic Representative Jasmine Crockett of Texas. “He’s either a criminal mastermind or he’s old and infirm. Or he’s neither.”
Perhaps the most convincing evidence Bobulinski has provided so far is a May 2017 email exchange he exchanged with Hunter Biden and several of his fellow business partners.
In the messages, they discuss equity agreements for future deals involving Chinese energy interests. One of the emails mentions the 10% stake Hunter Biden holds for his father, suggesting there could be “10 held by H for the big guys.”
House Republicans used the email to claim it proved their theory that Joe Biden was doing business with his son and that he was making millions of dollars from China.
But Hunter Biden’s lawyers countered that the stock breakdown proposed in the email was “not part of any agreement” and that the breakdown was actually proposed by Bobulinski. , countered that he had not received any response from Hunter Biden.
He will face a long-awaited interview before the Republican-run Senate Judiciary Committee just weeks before the 2020 election. But it was dropped when he met with FBI agents instead.
Federal prosecutors have not cited his material in the broader tax indictment against Hunter Biden, even though he provided the information to the FBI.
The Justice Department has long accused Hunter Biden of tax evasion and other financial crimes. (He has pleaded not guilty.) But prosecutors are not buying the Republican argument, which they say is a plot to spread the Biden family’s influence.
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