By Steven Nelson
WASHINGTON — President Biden again denied Friday that he interacted with business associates of his brother James Biden and son Hunter Biden — despite Hunter himself confirming to Congress this week that his dad attended a pair of DC dinners as vice president with various foreign patrons.
The 81-year-old president blasted House Speaker Mike Johnson’s assertion that Biden is “lying” about those interactions amid the Republican-led impeachment inquiry into alleged corruption.
“Tell him to read the record of every single witness,” Biden told a Post reporter on the White House lawn as he departed to Camp David following his son’s Wednesday testimony in the impeachment inquiry.
“These guys have got to stop this stuff,” Biden added.
Biden snapped “No” to a follow-up question about whether he attended dinners and a lunch with his son and brother’s foreign business associates, as described in testimony.
Johnson (R-La.) responded on X: “Yet another lie from the President about his involvement in his family’s influence-peddling schemes. Here’s a reminder, Mr. President,” with a link to an Oversight Committee rundown of alleged interactions.
Biden previously claimed on Dec. 6 that “I did not” interact with his brother or son’s foreign partners, calling the suggestion “lies” when responding to an Associated Press poll that found 68% of Americans, including 40% of Democrats, thought he acted illegally or unethically in his son’s business dealings.
Emails, witness testimony and even photos show Joe Biden encountered his son and brother’s associates from two different Chinese government-linked business deals and others from Mexico, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine, in addition to many of their US business partners.
Hunter, 54, confirmed Wednesday that his dad did mingle with associates from Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine at two dinners at DC’s Cafe Milano restaurant in 2014 and 2015.
Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, which paid Hunter a $1 million annual salary beginning in 2014 as his father spearheaded US policy toward Kyiv, attended one dinner, Hunter acknowledged to the panels investigating his dad.
“I do believe that Vadym was at one of these dinners, yes,” the first son said, backing The Post’s initial October 2020 reporting on documents from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, which revealed a thank-you note from Pozharskyi for “giving an opportunity to meet your father” at the April 16, 2015, get-together.
Hunter confirmed the dinners also included Russian billionaire and former Moscow first lady Yelena Baturina, who reportedly transferred $3.5 million on Feb. 14, 2014, to a company jointly owned by Hunter and business partner Devon Archer, and Kazakhstani businessman Kenes Rakishev, who purchased Hunter a $142,000 sports car.
Joe Biden even posed for a photo with Rakishev.
“I believe that he probably had a Coca-Cola and a bowl of spaghetti,” Hunter said of his dad’s presence at one of the Cafe Milano gatherings — though other witnesses have described Joe Biden as having a full meal while in attendance.
“I don’t think I ever introduced him [Joe Biden] to her [Baturina]. I think that she was also at a dinner over the course of the time in which Devon was engaged with Yelena Baturina,” Hunter said in his deposition.
Hunter testified “I never received a dime from Ms. Baturina,” who has thus far avoided his father’s sanctions against Russia’s business elite over the two-year Kremlin invasion of Ukraine.
House Republicans have not established the precise flow of the $3.5 million, but say that $2.75 million was transferred to Rosemont Seneca Bohai, which Archer said was controlled on a 50-50 basis by himself and Hunter Biden.
Baturina separately invested more than $100 million with Archer’s Rosemont Realty, with which Hunter Biden also was briefly associated.
Joe Biden also allegedly interacted with the leaders of both of his family’s major ventures in China.
In bombshell testimony last month, former Biden family business partner Rob Walker testified that Joe Biden met CEFC China Energy Chairman Ye Jianming at DC’s Four Seasons hotel shortly before $3 million in funds from CEFC flowed to him in March 2017 — with about a third going to Hunter and James Biden.
Hunter Biden claimed he could not remember his father’s alleged attendance at an early 2017 lunch with Ye, whom James Biden allegedly described to IRS investigators in 2022 as a “protege” of Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The first brother testified last week that he “misspoke” on that point.
In his Wednesday testimony, Hunter confirmed that Joe Biden met in Beijing in December 2013 with his business partner Jonathan Li, the incoming CEO of Chinese state-backed BHR Partners.
Hunter joined his dad aboard Air Force Two for the trip to Beijing where Joe Biden met Li and BHR was registered within two weeks of the visit, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Archer told Congress on July 31 that Joe Biden and Li had coffee, though Hunter described it differently.
“There was a rope line, and Jonathan Li was in the lobby of the hotel where I was going to meet him for coffee,” Hunter testified.
“In that line I introduced my dad to Jonathan Li and a friend of his, and they shook hands and I believe probably took a photograph. And then my father went up to his room, and I went to have coffee with Jonathan Li.”
