Hunter and James Biden accused of lying to Congress by House GOP impeachment witnesses — and Republicans want Joe to talk next
First son Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden were accused of lying by a pair of House Republican impeachment inquiry witnesses during a Wednesday hearing — one of whom said he had put himself “at grave risk” by coming forward.
Tony Bobulinski accused his former business partners Hunter and James of “perjury” during depositions they gave last month about President Biden’s alleged past involvement in their overseas business.
Bobulinski explained that, while serving as the CEO of Sinohawk Holdings and as part of a partnership the Bidens sought with a Chinese state-linked energy firm, he “met with Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and Jim Biden at the Beverly Hilton in May 2017” — despite the first brother denying this meeting ever occurred.
The first son said, “My dad went and shook hands with Tony,” when asked about the exchange during his deposition, a transcript released by the Oversight panel shows, whereas James Biden’s transcript shows him saying the meeting had “absolutely not” happened — even after being presented with evidence of his texts with Bobulinski.
“Hunter Biden, in his own transcribed interview, confirmed that that meeting took place,” Bobulinski emphasized. “Hunter confirmed his uncle perjured himself in front of this committee.”
“The committee was so shocked by his perjury that they asked him the same question multiple times,” he added. “Each time he denied meeting with me and Joe Biden, after the committee showed him text messages confirming that.”
For nearly eight hours, Republicans rehashed evidence provided by Bobulinski and other witnesses about the president’s alleged involvement in his son and brother’s business affairs, along with bank records that showed millions of dollars flowing from foreign benefactors to first family members.
Democrats attacked the credibility of several of the witnesses who have been charged or convicted of crimes — and pointed to contrasting testimony from James and Hunter Biden as having undermined Republicans’ case.
Hunter Biden, 54, ignored the invitation to appear before the committee after having attended the deposition last month on Capitol Hill in DC.
Due to a mixup, Archer received his invitation without sufficient time to prepare, his attorney, Matthew Schwartz, claimed in a Monday letter to Oversight majority staff, which was obtained by The Post.
The session ended with a surprise post on X by Oversight chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), who said that he planned to call the president in to testify himself — a request a congressional committee hasn’t made since 1974, when President Gerald Ford was asked to explain his decision to pardon former President Richard Nixon.
“In the coming days, I will invite President Joe Biden to the House Oversight Committee to provide his own testimony and explain why his family received tens of millions of dollars from foreign companies with his assistance,” Comer said.
In Bobulinski’s opening remarks, he claimed that the first son lied about “important details concerning” a July 2017 shakedown text message he intended to send to an executive at the firm, CEFC China Energy, 10 days before $5.1 million was deposited in accounts linked to Hunter and James Biden.
Hunter, in his testimony on Feb. 28 to the Oversight Committee, denied that his father had ever “interacted” with business associates — and said he was “drunk and probably high” when he sent the message to the wrong Chinese associate before claiming his father was not sitting next to him at the time.
In his prepared remarks submitted to the committee, Bobulinski suggested there were further examples of perjury by Hunter and James Biden, and he hoped members would “hold them accountable.”
Asked directly by House Ways and Means chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) about every statement the first son made about his father not being involved in foreign business deals, Bobulinski called Hunter’s testimony “blatant lies.”
“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,” Bobulinski said, echoing testimony that ex-partner Devon Archer gave last year to the Oversight Committee.
“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.”
Jason Galanis, another former business associate, said Hunter Biden misled Congress about his father’s awareness and involvement in the influence-peddling schemes — adding that he believes he is “at grave risk” of harm as a result of his information.
That information includes potentially placing Joe Biden on the board of a Chinese government-connected financial firm after leaving the Obama White House — and a phone call the then-vice president had with the former mayor of Moscow and his wife, a Russian oligarch, in which he said: “Be good to my boy.”
“Our goal — that is, Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, and me — was to make billions, not millions,” Galanis said after Archer testified last year that Joe Biden spoke at least 20 times on the phone with his son’s foreign benefactors.
“The entire value-add of Hunter Biden to our business was his family name and his access to his father, Vice President Joe Biden.”
According to Galanis, his and Hunter’s private equity venture, Burnham Financial Group, sought a partnership with Harvest Fund Management, a $300 billion firm “connected to the Chinese Communist Party” and whose chairman Henry Zhao was the unintended recipient of Hunter’s text message in July 2017.
“Mr. Zhao was interested in this partnership because of the game-changing value add of the Biden family, including Joe Biden, who was to be a member of the Burnham-Harvest team post-vice presidency,” Galanis said.
He went on to read from an Aug. 23, 2014, email “drafted for Hunter Biden” that “reflects this understanding” and mentions “a board seat for a certain relation” that the then-second son and Archer allegedly discussed during a golf outing with Joe Biden.
“I’m certain that this phrase, ‘a certain relation of mine,’ refers to Vice President Biden. Devon told me about this golf course conversation shortly after it happened,” Galanis testified. “Ultimately, this paragraph was deleted from the final version.”
Hunter Biden had a “general rule of thumb on business deals,” Galanis pointed out, “‘Say it, forget it. Write it, regret it.’”
The witness also noted two calls he was present for when Hunter Biden spoke with his father, once to ask for “a little help getting across the finish line” with “Henry Zhao and Harvest.”
Another May 4, 2014, phone call between Joe Biden and Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, Yuri Luzhkov, “stunned” Galanis, he added, and resulted days later in “a ‘hard order’ of $10-20 million in a Burnham investment banking client.”
“It was clear to me this was a pre-arranged call with his father meant to impress the Russian investors that Hunter had access to his father and all the power and prestige of his position,” the witness also said in his prepared remarks.
Like Bobulinski, who said James and Hunter had “a complex scheme to maintain plausible deniability,” Galanis believes that the president’s involvement was covered up by his family — and that Galanis himself has faced retaliation for speaking out.
Galanis, who revealed he is seeking home confinement after allegedly being sexually assaulted by prison staff, is currently serving a 14-year federal prison sentence for the plot, whereas Archer was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.
“Hunter Biden and Devon Archer’s company, Rosemont Seneca Bohai, received $15 million from the tribal bonds fraudulent scheme to be invested in the Burnham group,” Galanis said of the firm where Hunter served as vice chairman.
He added that he had submitted information to federal prosecutors in Manhattan “about Hunter’s culpability” — and the Justice Department “retaliated” against him afterward by denying his request for home confinement.
Oversight Democrats pointed to at least 20 statements from witnesses who testified to House committees leading the impeachment inquiry that the president was not involved in his family’s business ventures.
“With any luck, today marks the end of perhaps the most spectacular failure in the history of congressional investigations, the effort to find a high crime or misdemeanor committed by Joe Biden and then to impeach him for it,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), in his opening remarks.
Democrats — and some Republicans — have criticized the House impeachment effort for being unable to identify a high crime or misdemeanor committed by Joe Biden — but Bobulinski rattled off several during one exchange with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).
“Did you witness the president commit a crime?” the Bronx rep asked.
“Yes,” Bobulinski responded. “How much time do I have to go through it?”
“Corruption statutes, [Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act] and conspiracy, [Foreign Agents Registration Act] –” he began before getting cut off.
“RICO is not a crime,” Ocasio-Cortez retorted. “It is a ca-te-gor-y.”
“It’s a category of crimes that you’re then charged under,” Bobulinski replied.
Former President Donald Trump was charged under Georgia RICO statutes for his alleged interference in the 2020 election.
Federal prosecutors also indicated in a hearing last year that Hunter Biden may have committed violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, known as FARA.
Raskin also pointed to a witness-turned-fugitive from justice and a recently indicted FBI informant who both brought forward bribery allegations against Biden and his son.
The first, Gal Luft, was federally indicted for arms trafficking, operating as an unregistered lobbyist for China and conspiring to flout US sanctions on Iran.
The other, Alexander Smirnov, was federally indicted for making false statements — including about a $10 million bribe to Hunter and Joe Biden — and was revealed to have links to Russian intelligence.
“Both of the majority witnesses are frustrated, would-be business partners of Hunter Biden,” Raskin also said, “who tried to leverage the Biden name with the Biden ‘brand’ as they keep calling it, but they never got any business off the ground for reasons that will become painfully obvious to anyone watching the proceedings today.”
“Mr. Galanis was partners [sic] with Hunter Biden — that’s why he’s here. We have their partners,” Comer shot back at Raskin.
“You could’ve invited partners, but you invited, uh, this guy,” he added, gesturing to minority witness Lev Parnas.
Parnas, an ex-associate of Rudy Giuliani, said he had been tapped by the former New York City mayor and personal lawyer of President Donald Trump to “travel the globe, finding dirt on the Bidens” — but came up with nothing.
“I found precisely zero evidence of the Bidens’ corruption in Ukraine,” said Parnas, who was born in the country, without referencing any of the other allegations involving foreign business partners in China, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mexico.
Parnas was convicted in 2021 of conspiring with a Russian national to make political donations to obtain cannabis and marijuana licenses, among other charges, and was sentenced to 20 months in federal prison.
“Lev Parnas is not to be trusted, and it’s both irresponsible and intellectually dishonest for House Democrats to amplify a man who the U.S. attorney’s office refuses to use as a witness because they know he can’t be trusted,” Ted Goodman, a political adviser to Giuliani, told The Post.
“Parnas is desperate to generate headlines in order to sell his fledgling book, and Democrats on Capitol Hill are perfectly fine using a serial liar to protect Joe Biden.”
Republican panel members honed in on the millions of dollars that first family members raked in during and after Joe Biden’s time as vice president — despite “no credible evidence of the Bidens providing any work product,” according to chairman James Comer (R-Ky.).
“What is apparent, after over a year of investigation, is that the Bidens do not work in any traditional sense of the word,” Comer said. “They do not work as consultants. Or lawyers. Or advisers. The Bidens don’t sell a product or a service or a set of skills. The Bidens sell Joe Biden.”
