On Friday, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability released the full transcript of its interview with former Hunter Biden associate Tony Bobulinski as part of the impeachment inquiry and the ongoing investigations by the Oversight and Judiciary committees into the Biden family's influence peddling and other business activities.
Bobulinski was under oath, and it was made clear that he would be subject to criminal prosecution if he made any false statements to the committees.
"I want to be crystal-clear: From my direct personal experience and what I’ve subsequently come to learn, it is clear to me that Joe Biden was the brand being sold by the Biden family," he said in his opening statement. "His family’s foreign influence‑peddling operation, from China to Ukraine and elsewhere, sold out to foreign actors who were seeking to gain influence and access to Joe Biden and the United States Government."
He continued, "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. The only reason any of these international business transactions took place, with tens of millions of dollars flowing directly to the Biden family, was because Joe Biden was in high office. The Biden family business was Joe Biden, period."
In his testimony, Bobulinski alleged that the Chinese Communist Party, acting through the China Energy Company Limited (CEFC), a CCP-linked energy conglomerate, "successfully sought to infiltrate and compromise Joe Biden and the Obama-Biden White House." This effort began in late 2015, continued after Biden left office, and only ended in March 2018, coinciding with CEFC Chairman Ye's detention for corruption in China.
Bobulinski noted that "CEFC's aggressive approach to the Biden family happened" around the same time then-Vice President Biden announced he would not seek the presidency in 2016. "It is also not a coincidence that CEFC used the Biden family's weakest link, Hunter Biden, and the promise of large sums of money, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars initially and eventually the profits from investing billions of dollars in the United States and around the world."
He also spoke of how Hunter would brag about how easy it was to get access to his father, "And I was asking him, 'This doesn’t sort of make sense to me. I would think your dad has an army of lawyers around him that are putting a wall between you talking about stuff.' And he sort of just laughed it off. He was very emboldened, confident, that, you know, he had access to his father whenever, wherever he wanted. And the only reason why I give you that background is that was sort of the predicate to them then saying, 'Hey, my father’s coming in. Let’s get together with my father while he’s here.'"
His testimony continued by mentioning this personal meeting with Biden in May 2017 to discuss business. "The only reason why Joe Biden met with me privately during the Milken Institute Global Conference and seated me at his head table was because I was a business associate of the Biden family," Bobulinski testified.
He also spoke of a conversation with Joe Biden's brother, Jim Biden, at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles, where Jim spoke about the Chinese deal. "I distinctly remember looking at him when he was describing all of this, through the lens of a former Q security clearance holder and growing up all over the world, the son of a Naval officer, and asking him, 'This doesn't make sense to me. So just clarify for me, Jim, like, how are you guys doing this?' Right?"
"I'm a private citizen. I have been all over the world, I've invested in a variety of deals. My dad was a former Naval officer, but he wasn't a former Vice President of the United States. He wasn't a multi-decade-long Senator. And I was asking him, 'How are you doing it? It doesn't make any sense. Aren't you guys concerned that if Joe does run for President of the United States in the future that you guys are doing business directly with the Chinese?' [...] And so I'm asking him -- not from a criminal perspective. If I had criminal concerns at that point, I would have got up and walked out of there. My questions were focused on political headlines. 'How are you guys doing this? It makes no sense to me. Why would you take this risk to yourself, to your family's brand that Hunter screams about, and all that stuff?'"
Bobulinski continued, "And he looks at me and sort of chuckles and says, 'Plausible deniability.'"
He later disputed any assertion that Hunter invoked his father's name because he was on drugs. "It’s just so absurd," he said of those claims. "I met Joe Biden face‑to‑face. These guys were talking about having Joe Biden come to New York and sit face‑to‑face with Chairman Ye while we were formalizing this deal. And for every one of these guys to now have amnesia or, like, you know, claim that, 'Oh, Hunter wasn’t really talking about his father' is just absurd."
Bobulinski was later asked, "So anyone, any politician or any elected official who goes out and peddles that Joe Biden’s not involved with Hunter Biden’s business, they’re peddling false information, correct?"
"They’re lying," he replied. "It’s a blatant lie. You have stacks of evidence that Joe Biden showed up at meetings, shook hands, participated in phone calls, all the way back to last summer."
You can read the entire transcript here.
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