Biden says impeachment inquiry ‘should be dropped’ after FBI informant accused of lying
WASHINGTON — President Biden called on House Republicans to drop their impeachment inquiry after the Justice Department on Thursday criminally charged a paid FBI informant for allegedly lying about the Biden family accepting $10 million in bribes from a Ukrainian oligarch.
Biden, 81, flashed a broad smile when asked about the indictment against Alexander Smirnov, 43.
“He is lying and it should be dropped and it’s just been an outrageous effort from the beginning,” said Biden — even though many impeachment inquiry witnesses, documents and even photos link him directly to his relatives’ foreign business relationships during his vice presidency.
House Republicans made intense efforts to research Smirnov’s allegations last year but were unable to corroborate his claims about supposed conversations he had with Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of energy company Burisma Holdings.
Burisma Holdings paid first son Hunter Biden a salary of up to $1 million per year to serve on its board, beginning when then-Vice President Biden assumed control of US policy toward Ukraine in early 2014 in the wake of an anti-Russian uprising.
Impeachment investigators have separately uncovered evidence that Joe Biden routinely interacted with Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden’s foreign associates from a range of ventures that netted them millions of dollars during and immediately after his vice presidency.
Biden has repeatedly claimed that he “never” discussed business with Hunter or James Biden and in December claimed he “did not” interact with any of their foreign business associates.
Evidence indicates that Joe Biden interacted with Hunter and James Biden’s patrons from Russia, Mexico, Kazakhstan and Ukraine and from two separate Chinese government-linked ventures.
Testimony describing Biden as having a role in those relationships has come from witnesses with proven roles in Biden family ventures, including their former associates Devon Archer, Rob Walker and Tony Bobulinski.
Walker told House investigators in a Jan. 26 deposition that Joe Biden joined a meeting at DC’s Four Seasons hotel with CEFC China Energy chairman Ye Jianming shortly after leaving office as vice president — and shortly before his family received more than a third of a $3 million transfer in March 2017 from the Chinese state-linked firm as a “thank you” for preliminary work with the firm dating to as early as 2015.
Joe Biden, referred to as the “big guy” was penciled in for a 10% cut of a joint venture with CEFC, according to a May 2017 email written by another family business partner, James Gilliar, and Bobulinski testified this week that he spoke with Joe Biden twice the same month about the deal.
Hunter Biden warned a CEFC associate in a July 2017 email he was “sitting here with my father” and threatened retribution if a business deal was not executed, according to a text message provided to Congress by IRS whistleblowers. Within 10 days of that message, $5.1 million flowed to bank accounts associated with the Biden family, according to information in a 2020 report by Republican-led Senate committees.
Joe Biden allegedly was involved in most of Hunter and James Biden’s foreign dealings.
As part of an earlier venture in China, then-Vice President Biden had coffee in Beijing in 2013 with his son’s partner Jonathan Li, the incoming CEO of state-backed investment fund BHR Partners, Archer testified in July.
Hunter joined his father for that official trip to China and BHR was registered within two weeks of Air Force Two’s arrival, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Joe Biden later greeted Li on speaker phone and wrote college recommendation letters for his children, Archer testified. Hunter held onto a 10% stake in the firm, which sought to procure resources abroad for China, such as cobalt for electric vehicles, through at least part of his father’s term as president.
Also as sitting vice president, Joe Biden in 2014 and 2015 allegedly attended two dinners with his son’s Eastern European and Central Asian business partners at DC restaurant Cafe Milano, Archer testified.
The 2015 dinner was referenced in documents on Hunter’s abandoned laptop and featured Burisma board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi, who emailed the then-second son the next day thanking him for the opportunity to meet his father.
Dinner guests included former first lady of Moscow Yelena Baturina, who transferred $3.5 million to a Hunter Biden-linked entity in early 2014 and separately invested $100 million with Archer’s Rosemont Realty, with which Hunter Biden also was briefly associated.
Kazakhstani businessman Kenes Rakishev, who purchased the then-second son a $142,000 sports car, also dined with Joe Biden and posed for a group photo with him.
The impeachment inquiry has also studied an alleged Justice Department cover-up to shield Joe and Hunter Biden in a criminal investigation of alleged tax fraud and possible foreign lobbying offenses following claims by two IRS agents who worked on the case.