More Hot Water for Hunter Biden: Chinese Ex-Client Demands Return of $1 Million
Editor’s Note: Our readers responded strongly to this story when it originally ran; we’re reposting it here in case you missed it.
Maybe Hunter could part with some more of his famous paintings?
A former Chinese government official, businessman and Hunter Biden client who spent three years in a U.S. prison for bribery on a grand international scale threatened to sue President Joe Biden’s troubled son, New York Post columnist Miranda Devine reported on March 3.
It appears $1 million doesn’t go far when it comes to Hunter.
The Chinese client is Patrick Ho, a one-time secretary of home affairs for Hong Kong and a top executive for the now-defunct Chinese energy giant CEFC.
Ho was arrested in November 2017 after landing at New York’s JFK airport, as CNN reported after Ho’s conviction in 2018.
Many Americans might remember that upon his arrest, Ho called James Biden, the now-president’s brother. That was apparently a mistake — James Biden told The New York Times in December 2018 that the call was intended for his nephew.
Ho and Hunter finally hooked up, though, and Ho paid Hunter a $1 million retainer for “counsel to matters related to U.S. law and advice pertaining to the hiring and legal analysis of any U.S. law firm or lawyer,” according to documents found on Hunter’s laptop.
And, according to Devine, Ho wants that money back on the grounds that Hunter did nothing for him. And he gave Hunter seven days to respond.
It should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with Hunter Biden’s story that he could be accused of taking $1 million and giving nothing in return.
The Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter $50,000 a month to sit on its board when the energy business wasn’t his field and he doesn’t speak Ukrainian, remember. For Hunter, getting richly paid for nothing is just part of having his father’s name.
But the demand coming when it did — just after both Hunter Biden and James Biden had been forced to testify before House Republicans conducting an impeachment probe of President Joe Biden — only helped to heat things up.
It also only added to the already considerable legal problems Hunter is facing. After the collapse of his sweetheart deal in August, Hunter faces considerable tax charges, as well as a firearms charge.
As much as the establishment media is trying to avoid giving attention to the corrupt family in the White House, developments like this keep returning to the spotlight.
On Feb. 20, in fact, House Oversight Committee James Comer, a Kentucky Republican, wrote Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding the contents of Ho’s iPad that was seized by Justice investigators.
“In the years immediately preceding Mr. Ho’s trial and during his trial, Hunter Biden was closely connected to both Mr. Ho and CEFC. Mr. Biden’s business relationship with CEFC is lengthy and well-documented, and resulted in Mr. Biden receiving millions of dollars without providing an identifiable product or service,” Comer wrote.
“Additionally, Mr. Ho paid Hunter Biden $1 million to serve as his legal counsel, though it is not clear what work Mr. Biden actually performed — especially since Mr. Biden is not a licensed attorney in New York — aside from hiring another law firm to represent Mr. Ho.”
Recommending another attorney, according to Devine, was in fact all Hunter Biden did for that $1 million.
“Hunter didn’t visit Ho, 74, even once in jail, Ho has told friends bitterly,” Divine wrote.
And now, Ho wants his money back.
In a way it’s not surprising Hunter wasn’t rendering legal services to Ho, who was convicted in 2018, according to the 2019 DOJ news release announcing his 3-year sentence for bribing the presidents of Uganda and Chad. (The crime came under U.S. jurisdiction because Ho was acting on behalf of the U.S.-based non-governmental organization the China Energy Fund Committee.)
The year 2018 was a big crack-binging time for Hunter, among other things, when he bought at least one gun illegally, when he was having a very public affair with his brother’s widow (an affair that started when Hunter was still married to his first wife).
Is it any wonder he ignored a man who was a client? He was busy destroying his life — and everyone else’s life around him.
It was also the year a one-time Washington, D.C., stripper Hunter had impregnated gave birth to a daughter.
Hunter tried for years to deny the girl’s parentage. Joe and Jill Biden — doting grandparents to the grandchildren they acknowledge — have tried to pretend she doesn’t exist.
The girl’s mother, Lunden Roberts, wanted her daughter to have Biden’s last name, in addition to child support, but agreed to give up on the name demand in return for some of Hunter Biden’s notorious paintings, as the New York Post reported in June.
(She’s apparently convinced they’re going to be worth something someday. Her judgment about art must be as acute as her taste in men.)
Maybe Hunter can try the same thing with Ho.
How many of Hunter’s paintings will it take to repay $1 million?
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