Hunter Biden Has Been Invited To Testify On Cobalt Mining And His ‘Expertise’ On Electric Vehicle Batteries By House Republicans

On Tuesday, April 5, the committee will hold a hearing. According to a letter from a top House Republican, House Republicans have asked Hunter Biden to appear before Congress later this week. In a letter to House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, Ranking Member James Comer wrote, “House Committee on Oversight and Reform Republicans urge Hunter Biden’s presence and testimony.” Federal officials are also seeking grand jury information on Hunter Biden’s overseas earnings, according to reports. Hunter Biden, President Biden’s son, is being investigated by the federal government for possible tax, money laundering, and foreign lobbying offenses stemming from his overseas business dealings.

The criminal probe into Biden, which originated in 2018, is apparently heating up, with investigators from the United States Attorney’s Office in Delaware seeking grand jury testimony about the first son’s foreign income, including from Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings Ltd., where Biden served on the board of directors. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that prosecutors had questioned one of Biden’s acquaintances about his drug and alcohol misuse in 2018. Hunter, who has categorically denied any misconduct, has yet to be charged with a felony in connection with the inquiry.

His foreign business dealings were first reported in a Senate Republicans report in September 2020, but have gained traction in recent days as media outlets such as The Washington Post and The New York Times come around to authenticating thousands of emails from Biden’s infamous abandoned laptop after dismissing the scandal, and the New York Post’s original reporting, in the run-up to the 2020 election. Treasury records obtained at the time by Iowa Senator Charles E. Grassley, a senior Republican on the Senate Finance and Judiciary committees, revealed “potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh, and Chinese nationals,” according to the Senate Republican report released in 2020.

According to the Journal, prosecutors are looking into payments made by Burisma to Biden through a firm named Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC. From April 2014 through April 2019, Biden got around $50,000 per month as a member of Burisma’s board of directors. According to the Journal, Burisma engaged Blue Star Strategies, which “included Hunter Biden’s name in a request for a State Department meeting in early 2016 and then cited him again during the meeting as part of an effort to bolster Burisma’s reputation in Washington.” As a consequence, prosecutors are investigating whether Biden or Blue Star Strategies should have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which mandates notification of lobbying or public relations activities to the Justice Department, according to the New York Times.

The younger Biden’s Burisma activities were the subject of a phone discussion between then-President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in 2019, which served as the foundation for Trump’s first impeachment, for which he was subsequently acquitted. Hunter Biden said in October of that year that accepting the Ukrainian post was “bad judgment.” Hunter Biden’s “multimillion-dollar” financial links to the Chinese energy corporation CEFC China Energy were detailed in a long piece published by The Washington Post on Wednesday.

“Over the course of 14 months, the Chinese energy conglomerate and its executives paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle, according to government records, court documents and newly disclosed bank statements, as well as emails contained on a copy of a laptop hard drive that purportedly once belonged to Hunter Biden,” The Washington Post said that no proof has been uncovered that President Biden “personally benefitted from or was aware of the transactions with CEFC,” which all occurred after he left office as vice president.

“But the new documents — which include a signed copy of a $1 million legal retainer, emails related to the wire transfers, and $3.8 million in consulting fees that are confirmed in new bank records and agreements signed by Hunter Biden — illustrate the ways in which his family profited from relationships built over Joe Biden’s decades in public service,” the Post reported.

CEFC’s founder has “deep” links to the Chinese Communist leadership, according to the Senate Republican investigation, and is also financially tied to President Biden’s brother, James Biden. According to the 2020 report, “the records acquired by the Committees show consistent, significant, and extensive financial connections among and between Hunter Biden, James Biden, Sara Biden, Devon Archer, and Chinese nationals connected to the Communist regime and People’s Liberation Army, as well as other foreign nationals with questionable backgrounds.”

According to the Journal, federal authorities are also looking for papers related to Hunter Biden’s 2014 purchase of a Fisker sports vehicle with monies from Rosemont Seneca. According to assertions made in the Senate Republicans’ report and substantiated by the Journal, a business acquaintance of Biden from Kazakhstan sent $142,300 to Rosemont Seneca during the time. According to the Senate Republican investigation, the monies came from a Singapore corporation run by Kazakhstan banker Kenes Rakishev, whose father-in-law was the mayor of the capital city of Astana at the time, and the aim was “For a Car.”

According to the Senate Republican report, the wire transaction took place on the same day that then-Vice President Biden spoke to Ukrainian parliamentarians in Kyiv about Russia’s operations in Crimea. “Given Rakishev’s close ties to Kazakhstan’s political leadership, the tense political situation, Hunter Biden’s long-standing relationship with Archer and involvement in transactions with Rosemont Seneca Bohai, and the fact that the payment coincided with Vice President Biden’s visit to Kyiv to discuss U.S. sanctions against Russia for the invasion of Crimea, the April 22, 2014, payment from Rakishev to Rosemont Seneca Bohai raises “It’s puzzling why Novatus Holding, a foreign firm that doesn’t trade with cars, would buy a $142,300 automobile for Rosemont Seneca Bohai.”

According to the Senate Republican report, Hunter Biden and his business associate, Devon Archer, a former adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry, had a financial relationship with Elena Baturina, a Russian billionaire who allegedly received illegal construction contracts from her husband, former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov. The report said Baturina wired $3.5 million to a Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC bank account in 2014 and an additional $242,000 to the bank account in 2015.  The report alleged that Biden was a co-founder of the Thornton group, a claim Biden’s lawyer denied in 2020, saying, “Hunter Biden had no interest in and was not a ‘co-founder’ of Rosemont Seneca Thornton, so the claim that he was paid $3.5 million is false.”

The Journal, the Post, and the Times did not disclose whether the Senate Republican report’s Russia claims were part of the current federal probe. On Tuesday, April 5, the committee will hold a hearing titled “It’s Electric: Developing the Postal Service Fleet of the Future.” Biden’s alleged experience in cobalt mining, according to Comer, helped him obtain a negotiation stance with Chinese authorities. “Mr. Biden is well positioned to advise the Committee on difficulties relating to African cobalt mining – a commodity that is vital in the manufacture of electric cars,” Comer wrote. In the midst of an active FBI investigation, the Ranking Member also wrote the letter to a counsel representing Biden.

The New York Times reported in November 2021 that Hunter Biden was “part-owner of a venture engaged in the $3.8 billion purchase by a Chinese conglomerate of one of the world’s biggest cobalt resources.” In 2013, Biden and two American partners joined Chinese authorities to form a private equity venture that helped Chinese-controlled enterprises fund cobalt mining activities. According to the article, Biden and his American partners owned 30% of the company. According to the New York Times, the mining agreements included a $2.65 billion purchase of a cobalt mine by Chinese business China Molybdenum from American corporation Freeport-McMoRan. “It’s unknown how China Molybdenum picked the business,” the paper said, noting that China has denied dealing with Biden on purpose.