Hunter Biden's Associates Viewed His Name as 'Currency,' Bragged About 'Pipeline' to Obama Admin
The fallout from The New York Post’s bombshell report last week about the emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop has riveted Republicans and sent former Vice President Joe Biden sprinting back to his basement bunker.
But new reporting from other sources could be making it more difficult for Biden to hide, as emails were unveiled Tuesday that show Hunter Biden business associates discussing how to “leverage” their “direct administration pipeline” into the Obama White House.
Beginning last week, Breitbart News editor and president of the Government Accountability Institute Peter Schweizer, along with the organization’s associate director of research, Seamus Bruner, started breaking a story independent of the Biden laptop revelations reported by the Post.
In a Breitbart article on Friday, Schweizer and Bruner released a series of emails from the computer of Hunter Biden’s former business associate, Bevan Cooney.
Cooney has granted them full access to his computer, which contains over 26,000 emails, including those exchanged with Biden and others during the period of their business association. I posted about their explosive revelations here on Monday.
In their article, Schweizer and Bruner explained that Cooney had been involved with Biden and their mutual associate, Devon Archer, in a 2016 bond fraud investment scheme that landed Cooney in prison.
Archer was convicted in the same case, however, a “federal judge vacated his conviction. But an appellate court overturned the lower court judge’s ruling, reinstating Archer’s conviction,” Schweizer and Bruner wrote.
Archer is currently awaiting sentencing, according to Fox News. Hunter Biden was never indicted in the scheme.
In the original Breitbart story, Schweizer and Bruner told readers that Cooney is understandably feeling bitter because he sits in jail while Biden remains free.
After reading Schweizer’s 2018 book, “Secret Empires,” Cooney contacted the author through investigative journalist Matthew Tyrmand and has since provided the password to his email account and full authorization to publish his findings to Schweizer.
Schweizer and Bruner wrote that “the emails offer a unique window into just how the Biden universe conducted business during the Obama-Biden Administration. These associates sought to trade on Hunter Biden’s relationship with, and access to, his father and the Obama-Biden White House in order to generate business.”
Schweizer’s team has been wading through the emails, a time-consuming task to say the least.
The biggest takeaway from Friday’s report was that, according to Schweizer and Bruner, Hunter Biden’s associates quickly arranged a November 2011 White House visit for a delegation of CCP-related business leaders and party officials which they allege included a meeting with then-Vice President Biden. Intermediaries had tried unsuccessfully on several occasions to set up such a visit.
Two years later, in December 2013, Hunter Biden and his business partners received a lucrative business deal with a Chinese-government funded investment fund.
On Tuesday, in a second Breitbart article, Schweizer and Bruner revealed a second batch of emails from Cooney’s laptop. These emails portray Biden’s associates, as a summary headline puts it, as “apparently viewing the Biden name as a form of ‘currency,’ and bragging that they had a ‘direct…pipeline’ to the Obama-Biden Administration.”
In one email, the associates compared Hunter Biden’s high tolerance for risk to that of their more risk-averse friend and sometime business partner, Chris Heinz. Heinz was the stepson of then-Secretary of State John Kerry. Schweizer and Bruner note that Heinz “was uncomfortable with some of their potential partnerships.”
A brief explanation of the “Rosemont” companies will help to better understand the emails. As recounted in an excerpt from “Secret Empires” published in March 2018 by the New York Post, “The trunk of the tree was Rosemont Capital, the alternative investment fund of the Heinz Family Office…
“The partners [Biden, Archer and Heinz] attached several branches to the Rosemont Capital trunk, including Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC, Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, and Rosemont Realty. Of the various deals in which these Rosemont entities were involved, one of the largest and most troubling concerns was Rosemont Seneca Partners.”
(Note: I did not find any evidence that Hunter Biden held an ownership stake in Rosemont Capital. A July 2015 report by Radient Analytics lists Heinz and Archer as each owning “more than 50% but less than 75%” of the company.
However, Schweizer wrote in the excerpt: “According to an email revealed as part of a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation, Rosemont described themselves as ‘a $2.4 billion private equity firm co-owned by Hunter Biden and Chris Heinz,’ with Devon Archer as ‘Managing Partner.'”)
Rosemont Seneca Partners is an investment and advisory company co-founded in 2009 by Biden, Archer and Heinz. (An interesting bit of trivia about Devon Archer from the Financial Times: He is “a financier and former Abercrombie & Fitch model who attended Yale with Mr Heinz.”)
In Tuesday’s report on Breitbart, Schweizer and Bruner wrote:
“In October 2013, Hunter Biden’s associates (including Devon Archer) discussed which one of their corporate vehicles would be appropriate for a new deal they were working on. Archer noted their need to use a ‘Rosemont Seneca SPV’ (also known as a special purpose vehicle) because Rosemont Capital was too close to the Heinz family and because using an SPV could ‘bring Hunter into the mix.’ Archer explained his desire ‘to leverage Hunter more’ in a way that didn’t involve Heinz, who Archer called ‘much more risk averse.'”
Schweizer and Bruner discuss an Oct. 5, 2013, email from Cooney to Archer regarding the use of the Rosemont Seneca SPV. Cooney wrote “it would be good to put some honey in Hunter’s pocket.”
Archer replied, “Agreed. I also have more autonomy with that company as I own it with Hunter and he’s willing to take on risk…Hunter will work if we need him too [sic] as well.”
Schweizer and Bruner then brought another name into the story, Biden business associate Jason Galanis.
“Five days later, Biden’s business associate Jason Galanis confirmed to Archer that he had changed the corporate references in the proposal to include a Hunter Biden-controlled firm,” Schweizer and Bruner wrote. Archer answers, “Perfect. Let’s just keep to that. We get the Biden lift and stay out of Heinz panties.”
Schweizer and Bruner wrote: “Archer had noted he would use Rosemont Seneca Partners instead of Rosemont Capital, in which Heinz held a stake. Hunter Biden and Devon Archer’s Rosemont Seneca Partners would play a pivotal role in their future deals.”
To recap:
- As Schweizer and Bruner reported last week, in November 2011, Hunter Biden’s associates arranged for the Chinese delegation to visit the White House, which allegedly included a meeting with then-Vice President Joe Biden.
- Two years later, in December 2013, Schweizer and Bruner wrote, Rosemont Seneca Partners “finalized a deal with the Chinese government-backed investment vehicle, Bohai Harvest, to form Bohai Harvest RST, a new firm in which Hunter Biden would maintain a 10% equity stake and whose funds would grow to at least $1.5 billion.”
In spring of 2014, Biden and Archer became board members at the Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings.
That appeared to be the last straw for Heinz. In May 2014, Schweizer and Bruner wrote, Heinz “made moves to sever his formal business ties with Archer and Biden…Heinz emailed top aides of then-Secretary of State John Kerry, alerting them to the potentially compromising arrangement.”
Heinz wrote, according to Schweizer and Bruner, “Apparently Devon and Hunter both joined the board of Burisma and a press release went out today. I can’t speak to why they decided to, but there was no investment by our firm in their company.”
In a Nov. 4, 2014, email to Archer in which he copied Cooney, Scweizer and Bruner wrote that Galanis “discussed a draft pitch that he was preparing for possible investors…He also sought to emphasize their connections to the White House, specifically Vice President Joe Biden.”
Galanis wrote, “I wanted to focus on the ‘other currency’ we are bringing to the table…direct administration pipeline… maybe we should also remind of HB’s dad’s union relationships to justify the ask??”
Similarly, Schweizer and Bruner highlighted “a March 2015 draft investor pitch” in which “Biden’s associates wrote about the need to ‘leverage Hunter Biden Taft Hartley network.'”
“Taft Hartley is the law governing union pension funds, and Joe Biden has a long-established history of close relationships with union bosses, which Hunter Biden and Joe’s brother James Biden have reportedly sought to capitalize on in the past,” Schweizer and Bruner wrote.
“The presentation noted that the team ‘led by Archer and Biden’ would create ‘unprecedented opportunity for a firm at our scale,’ and referenced tapping finances from Chinese officials. In December 2013, as has been widely reported, Biden and Archer secured a $1 billion private equity deal financed by the Chinese government. Biden and his associates wanted to go back for even more Chinese money.
“In the March 2015 draft investor pitch,” Schweizer and Bruner continued, “Biden’s associates outlined the plan to leverage family clout for more foreign cash. In a section outlining where investments would come from, Biden’s associates described capital flowing from ‘China>USA’ and ‘Former CCP [Chinese Communist Party]>USA.’ And the presentation also proposed more cross-border business deals involving ‘China SOE [State Owned Enterprises]’ and ‘Former CCP Energy.'”
I have no doubt the Schweizer team will unearth even more evidence of Hunter Biden’s grift.
On Friday, the same day Schweizer and Bruner’s report appeared on Breitbart, RealClear Investigations’ Paul Sperry published a report examining the progression of Hunter Biden’s career and its dependence on Joe Biden.
Since Hunter Biden’s college graduation, Sperry wrote, each position “came courtesy of the former six-term senator’s donors, lobbyists and allies.”
Sperry reported, “One document reviewed by RCI reveals that a Biden associate admitted ‘finding employment’ for Hunter Biden specifically as a special favor to his father, then a Senate leader running for president. He secured a $1.2 million gig on Wall Street for his young son, even though it was understood he had no experience in high finance. Many of his generous patrons, in turn, ended up with legislation and policies favorable to their businesses or investments, an RCI review of lobbying records and legislative actions taken by the elder Biden confirms.”
All of this is legal, if distasteful. However, as time went on, the Bidens continued to push their boundaries.
Last week we learned from the reports in the New York Post that the corruption went even deeper and may have involved the Democratic presidential nominee himself.
The emails found on Hunter Biden’s laptop point to a frightening possibility. Was it part of the Biden family plan for Hunter, flying under the radar, to quietly profit from his father’s powerful positions in government, keep a generous amount for himself and then “take care of” his family?
Remarkably, one of the emails, from 2017, indicates Joe Biden may have been slated to receive a 10 percent share in a new company established as part of a deal with CEFC, at the time, China’s largest private energy company. (CEFC was declared bankrupt in March, according to Caixin Global.)
If this is true, as one of the emails implies, then he has crossed the Rubicon indeed and some believe that makes him a counterintelligence risk.
Fox News’ Jeanine Pirro interviewed Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, a Republican, on “Justice with Judge Jeanine” on Saturday. Lankford is a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
Pirro asked Lankford: “Given what we already know about the Biden family ties and Hunter’s ties to a corrupt Ukrainian energy company without his having any experience in Ukraine in energy or even speaking the language, nothing other than his father’s last name, you know the issue for me is very simple.
“You serve on the Homeland Security Committee, are you concerned that there might be a national security risk should someone like Joe Biden be in the White House given the fact that the Biden families have received millions from Ukraine, Moscow, and now China and the Chinese Communist Government?”
(The relevant portion begins about the 1:20 mark in the video below.)
Questions are being raised about Hunter Biden’s dealings with a Chinese energy firm and social media censored the New York Post’s original story. Here to react is @SenatorLankford. pic.twitter.com/YJd5wCEsKU
— Jeanine Pirro (@JudgeJeanine) October 18, 2020
Lankford replied: “Right, that is what’s called counterintelligence risk. This is why, supposedly, Jim Comey sat down with, at that point, candidate Trump — President-elect Trump even, at that moment — to be able to say, ‘we have this information on the Steele dossier that we need to be able to make you aware of because it could be a counterintelligence threat.’
“We now know what Jim Comey knew at that time as well, that it was — the whole Steele dossier — was created by the Hillary Clinton campaign to be able to smear candidate Trump at that point.
“This is information that should be handled the same way by the FBI to say, ‘This is a counterintelligence risk.’ It’s a leverage point that the Ukrainians and that the Russians and that the Chinese would have on a then-president Biden for how much information they really have.
“And what we don’t know is what else is the information that they have? What else was going on with the family at that point that could be used as leverage against the vice president if he became president?
The mainstream media and the Big Tech companies are desperately trying to cover up or at least downplay the story. But if the allegations are true, a President Joe Biden who might be compromised by the Chinese government would represent a serious national security threat.
Was Biden aware of and perhaps even involved in the corruption? No one from his campaign has denied the emails obtained from the laptop were real — in fact, a Biden campaign surrogate on Sunday told a Fox News interviewer that the emails are “not inauthentic.” And the candidate himself has gone essentially underground in the critical two week period before Election Day.
I’m not alone in assuming it’s true.
Because for the Bidens, it’s always been a family affair.
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