The White House refused to comment Tuesday on the potential legal exposure for President Biden, first son Hunter and first brother James Biden after a US citizen was criminally charged for working as an unregistered agent of the same Chinese firm that paid the Biden family.
“What’s the White House’s take on potential [Foreign Agents Registration Act] liability for the first family and the president?” The Post asked White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan at a NATO summit in Lithuania.
“I’ve not seen that and cannot comment on it,” Sullivan deflected during a briefing.
Watch:
NYP’s @StevenNelson10: “[@SDNYnews] indicted…Gal Luft for violating the [FARA] by working w/o registration for…CEFC…[Hunter & Jim Biden] worked for the same firm w/o registration…What’s the WH’s take on…potential…liability…here?”
Jake Sullivan declines to comment. pic.twitter.com/KpftzpLCRf
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) July 11, 2023
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, who took reporter questions after Sullivan, did not provide additional comment or immediately respond to an emailed inquiry.
Gal Luft was charged Monday by the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office for allegedly violating FARA by accepting from CEFC China Energy at least $700,000 to his Maryland-based think tank, the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, in exchange for co-hosting conferences and attempting to influence a 2016 Donald Trump campaign adviser.
CEFC is a since-defunct cog in Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign and provided the Biden family one of its most lucrative foreign income streams.
Luft claims he provided the FBI with information in 2019 about the Biden family’s role in the operation.
Luft worked “to recruit and ‘educate’” a 2016 Trump campaign adviser, who was not identified by name, “so that [the adviser] would make public statements, at the request of LUFT and [CEFC leader Patrick Ho], which were in the interest of China,” according to the indictment, which charges Luft with additional crimes related to his work in other countries.
CEFC appears to have paid far more to the Biden family than to Luft — and both congressional Republicans and legal experts say the first son almost certainly violated FARA by failing to register as an agent of CEFC and other foreign employers.
Hunter Biden did not face any FARA charges in a probation-only plea deal announced last month for tax and gun charges.
The deal must still be approved by a judge.
Delaware US Attorney David Weiss has said his investigation is ongoing, leaving open the possibility of additional charges.
The Chinese government-linked CEFC sent roughly $5 million to accounts associated with Hunter Biden within 10 days of a threatening July 30, 2017, text message to a Chinese in which the first son invoked his dad and threatened payback if an agreement was not fulfilled.
An Aug. 2, 2017, email retrieved from Hunter’s abandoned laptop said that CEFC chairman Ye Jianming offered a three-year consulting contract with CEFC that was to pay $10 million annually “for introductions alone.”
Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski says he personally met with Joe Biden in 2017 about the CEFC venture, and a May 2017 email from another Hunter Biden partner, James Gilliar, penciled in a 10% cut of proceeds for the “big guy,” whom both Bobulinski and Gilliar have identified as Joe Biden.
An October 2017 email from Hunter Biden’s laptop identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas.
CEFC reportedly sent $100,000 to Hunter’s law firm Owasco on Aug. 4, 2017, less than a week after the threatening text message.
CEFC also wired $5 million to the firm Hudson West III on Aug. 8, 2017, according to a 2020 report by two Republican-led Senate committees.
That entity in turn paid nearly $4.8 million in “consulting fees” to Owasco over the following 13 months, the report said.
A Washington Post review of Hunter Biden’s laptop documents last year found that James and Hunter Biden received at least $4.8 million from CEFC in 2017 and 2018.
The Biden family’s CEFC relationship appears to have started around 2015 — the same year as Luft’s — when Hunter connected with Vuk Jeremic, a former foreign minister of Serbia and president of the United Nations General Assembly who was running for UN secretary-general, while his dad was vice president.
In his threatening July 30, 2017, message, Hunter wrote to CEFC employee Raymond Zhao that he was “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,” Hunter allegedly wrote.
“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.’”
The Biden crime mob, should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. These people are like slivering snakes infecting our government.
President Biden appears to be a dirty President,
His legacy is the worst President EVER.
Biden CRIME FAMILY, ABOVE THE LAW.
We have a LIAR FOR A PRESIDENT AND A AIRHEAD FOR A VP..
GOD HELP THE US OF AMERICA.
THEY CHARGED HIM TO DISCREDIT HIM SO THAT ANYTHING HE SAYS NOW WILL LOOK LIKE HE ONLY SAYING TO SAVE HIS OWN ARSE THINK ABOUT IT