House GOP releases Tony Bobulinski transcript calling Biden dirty — as DC reels after FBI informant charged
WASHINGTON — Former Biden family associate Tony Bobulinski steadfastly accused Joe Biden of being involved in his son and brother’s foreign dealings in China in impeachment inquiry testimony that was released publicly Friday — hours after the Justice Department charged an FBI informant for allegedly falsely accusing the Bidens of taking bribes from Ukraine.
“Joe Biden was more than a participant in and a beneficiary of his family’s business; he was an enabler, despite being buffered by a complex scheme to maintain plausible deniability,” Bobulinski claimed about the president’s role in a business venture with Chinese state-linked CEFC China Energy.
Bobulinski said in his closed-door House testimony Tuesday that Joe Biden was the “brand” hawked by his relatives and that he’s lied repeatedly about not interacting with their partners.
The former Navy officer also unveiled a text message indicating that relations with CEFC began in 2015 when Joe Biden was still vice president — before it culminated in millions of dollars in transfers shortly after he left office as VP in 2017.
The testimony included a screenshot of an apparent Dec. 24, 2015, text message to Bobulinski from another associate, James Gilliar, which corroborated prior testimony from Biden family partner Rob Walker that the CEFC venture began during the final stretch of the Obama-Biden administration.
“There will be a deal between one of the most prominent families from US and them constructed by me, I think this will then be a great addition to their portfolios as it will give them a profile base in NYC then LA, etc,” the alleged message from Gilliar read.
“For me, it’s a no-brainer but culturally they are different but smart so let’s see… Any entry ticket is small for them. Easier and better demographic than Arabs who are a little anti-US after Trump.”
Bobulinski also repeated his prior claim to have briefly discussed CEFC twice with Joe Biden in May 2017, the same month that Gilliar penciled in a 10% cut for the “big guy” — who Bobulinski says was clearly Joe Biden.
Walker — who partnered with Gilliar, the Biden family and Bobulinski — said in his own impeachment inquiry testimony on Jan. 26 that the CEFC relationship began as early as 2015 and was well underway by February 2016, when a newly surfaced email indicated that the group had “presented” to a CEFC execute “a collection of projects that parallel the interests of you and your team.”
Weeks after Biden left office as vice president in March 2017, Walker received a $3 million bank transfer from a CEFC affiliate before forwarding more than $1 million to the Bidens as a “thank you” for prior work with CEFC, he testified.
Joe Biden also met CEFC chairman Ye Jianming shortly before that payment at the Four Seasons hotel in DC, Walker also testified. Ye has since gone missing in China amid corruption allegations.
The future president was later invoked by his son in July 2017 in a threatening text message to a China-based associate warning he was “sitting here with my father.”
Within 10 days of that message, $5.1 million was transferred to accounts linked to Hunter and James Biden, according to information in a 2020 report by Republican-led Senate committees.
“The Chinese Communist Party, through its surrogate, China Energy Company Limited, or CEFC, a CCP-linked Chinese energy conglomerate, successfully sought to infiltrate and compromise Joe Biden and the
Obama-Biden White House,” Bobulinski said in the Tuesday testimony spanning nearly 300 pages.
“This process started in the fourth quarter of 2015 and continued through when Joe Biden left office in January 2017, through March 2018, when CEFC Chairman Ye was detained for corruption in China, never to be seen again.”
Bobulinski called on Congress to “thoroughly investigate, with respect to possible violations by Joe Biden of the Foreign Agents Registration Act; anticorruption and public integrity statutes; the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO.”
He insisted that there is “stacks of evidence that Joe Biden showed up at meetings, shook hands, participated in phone calls.”
Some of the former partner’s accusations were well-worn, such as his allegations first raised in October 2020 that he spoke twice with Joe Biden in May 2017 at a conference in Los Angeles after being introduced by Hunter.
Hunter Biden allegedly told his father, “Hey, Dad, you know, this is Tony, who I, you know, told you about, just told you about, and helping us with, you know, the business we’re working on with the Chinese,” according to the testimony.
Bobulinski said, “I don’t believe at that moment he referenced CEFC, but Joe knew exactly what he was talking about. And you’ve educated me because I wasn’t aware that Joe Biden had walked in and shook hands with Chairman Ye, but when Joe Biden walked into the meeting with me, he was clearly aware who the chairman was and who CEFC was.”
The following day, Bobulinski said, he and Joe Biden spoke again as he was leaving and he “distinctly” remembers Biden saying, “‘Hey, you know, keep an eye on my brother and my son, and thank you for what you’re doing,’ that general kind of discussion.”
Bobulinski also fended off Democrats’ claims that he was a “jilted” partner after Hunter, now 54, cut him out of the multimillion-dollar business relationship — at one point replying, “A defrauded business partner would be 100 percent accurate.”
He also denied incorrectly telling the FBI he was present at a Miami meeting of CEFC partners. Lying to either the FBI or Congress is a crime.
Bobulinski said under questioning by Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) that it was a “note-taking error by a junior FBI agent.”
Goldman exclaimed at one point, “I think it is crazy that you would go into a voluntary interview and lie.”
Bobulinski retorted, “Because I didn’t. Because I didn’t, Mr. Goldman. I walked in there voluntarily. And I can’t speak to mistakes that the two agents took in their notes.”
The testimony was released one day after a stunning twist in the impeachment inquiry as a paid FBI informant was accused of fabricating information about Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly receiving $5 million apiece in bribes from Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of natural gas company Burisma Holdings.
Burisma Holdings paid Hunter a salary of up to $1 million per year beginning in April 2014 as his dad assumed control of US policy toward Ukraine.
Alexander Smirnov, 43, was indicted by a California grand jury on two felony counts of making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record for statements he made to the FBI referenced in a June 2020 FD-1023 form that House Republicans last year battled for access to read.
The then-anonymous allegations were greeted with caution by some Republicans, who noted they could not corroborate the information — but significant time was dedicated toward accessing the document and distributing its allegations.
House Republicans were at one point looking into the apparent creation by Burisma of a bank account for Hunter Biden in Malta around the time of the supposed bribe and seized upon the fact that the informant said Joe Biden was referred to as the “big guy” — a nickname that was not known at the time Smirnov allegedly spoke with his FBI handler because it was first reported about four months later by The Post in connection to the CEFC deal.
In another curiosity, the alleged bribes, which Smirnov allegedly said were made in exchange for help from Joe Biden ousting then-Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin, seemed to parallel publicly reported details of a different Burisma corruption case.
Ukrainian officials held a press conference in Kyiv on June 13, 2020 — 17 days before the FBI form was created — where they showed off $5 million in cash allegedly offered as a bribe to end an investigation of Zlochevsky.
The officials said neither Joe nor Hunter Biden were suspected of involvement in that bribe case and the charges filed Thursday said Smirnov made up his own claim about the Bidens.
The criminal case against Smirnov was hailed as vindication by White House officials, who noted that President Biden last June dismissed the Burisma bribery claims as “malarkey.”
