Month: October 2020

In a day when half the US population remained transfixed by the ongoing revelations about the contents of Hunter Biden’s "laptop from hell" and the other half was doing everything in its power to ignore the news which the socials have conveniently been desperate to censor, a far less noticed but perhaps just as important investigative report authored by the unknown Typhoon Investigations, was released by Christopher Balding, Associate Professor at Peking University HSBC School of Business Shenzhen, China and also Bloomberg contributor  (which is odd considering the clear anti-Trump bias of the Bloomberg media empire) exposing Biden activities in China which "the press has simply refused to cover", and which reveals "how Biden was compromised by the Communist Party of China."

In a series of tweets around noon on Thursday, Balding said that he had really "not wanted to do this but roughly 2 months ago I was handed a report about Biden activities in China the press has simply refused to cover. I want to strongly emphasize I did not write the report but I know who did."

Some more background on the origins of the report from Balding’s website:

For two months I have worked on behalf of my colleague to ensure that this report helped others report on the documented evidence of Biden activities with regards to China. I want to emphasize a couple of things about my own involvement.

• First, I did not write the report and I am not responsible for the report. I have gone over the report with a fine tooth comb and can find nothing factually wrong with the report. Everything is cited and documented. Arguably the only weakness is that we do not have internal emails between Chinese players or the Chinese and Bidens that would make explicit what the links clearly imply.
• Second, I will not be disclosing the individual who did write this report. They have very valid reasons to fear for both their personal safety and professional risks. Throughout the years that I have known this individual we never discussed politics. I have never heard them criticize any political party other than the CCP. They are not a Republican.
• Third, it was my very real wish that the press would have reported on the documented evidence in this report and left me and the author entirely out of this situation. I did not vote for Trump in 2016 and will not vote for him in 2020. This information however is entirely valid public interest information that the press has simply refused to cover due to their own partisan wishes. I have serious policy differences with President Trump. I am pro-immigration. I would like to see more free trade efforts to shift trade away from China and into partner countries from Mexico to Vietnam and India. I believe that institution building in Asia is vital and America needs to take that lead. However, I cannot in good conscience allow documented evidence of the variety presented here go unreported by partisans who are simply choosing to hide information.
• Finally, I will not be answering any questions about the report. I had no wish to be involved in Presidential politics. I do not want to be on the news. I will not be answer any questions about who wrote the report. We need to return the focus to the known documented facts.

Upon review, this is how Balding summarized the report’s contents in his series of tweets:

Hunter Biden is partnered with the Chinese state. Entire investment partnership is Chinese state money from social security fund to China Development Bank. It is actually a subsidiary of the Bank of China. This is not remotely anything less than a Chinese state funded play.

Though the entire size of the fund cannot be reconstructed, the Taiwanese cofounder who is now detained in China, reports it to be NOT $1-1.5 billion but $6.5 billion. This would make Hunters stake worth at a minimum at least $50 million if he was to sell it.

Disturbingly, everyone on the Chinese side are clearly linked with influence and intelligence organizations. China uses very innocuous sounding organization names to hide PLA, United Front, or Ministry of Foreign Affairs influence/intelligence operations. This report cannot say Hunter was the target of such an operation or that China even targeted him. However, based upon the clear pattern of individuals and organizations surrounding him it is an entirely reasonable conclusion.

Finally, the believed Godfather in arranging everything is a gentleman named Yang Jiechi. He is currently the CCP Director of Foreign Affairs leading strategist for America, Politburo member one of the most powerful men in China, and Xi confidant. Why does this matter?

He met regularly with Joe Biden during his stint as Chinese ambassador the US when Biden chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Later he was Minister of Foreign Affairs when the investment partnership was made official in 2013. Importantly, the Taiwanese national listed MOFA institutions as the key clients in helping to arrange everything. Yang would clearly have known the importance of Hunter Biden and undoubtedly would have been informed of any dealings. Given that he is now the point person in China for dealing with the US this raises major concerns about a Biden administration dealing impartially with an individual in this capacity. These are documented facts from Chinese corporate records like IPO prospectuses and media. They raise very valid concerns about Biden linkages to China.

Turning to the report itself, here is the 10-point summary of its findings:

Joe Biden’s compromising partnership with the Communist Party of China runs via Yang Jiechi (CPC’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission). YANG met frequently with BIDEN during his tenure at the Chinese embassy in Washington.

Hunter Biden’s 2013 Bohai Harvest Rosemont investment partnership was set-up by Ministry of Foreign Affairs institutions who are tasked with garnering influence with foreign leaders during YANG’s tenure as Foreign Minister.

HUNTER has a direct line to the Politburo, according to SOURCE A, a senior finance professional in China.

Michael Lin, a Taiwanese national now detained in China, brokered the BHR partnership and partners with MOFA foreign influence organizations.

LIN is a POI for his work on behalf of China, as confirmed by SOURCE B and SOURCE C (at two separate national intelligence agencies).

BHR is a state managed operation. Leading shareholder in BHR is a Bank of China which lists BHR as a subsidiary and BHR’s partners are SOEs that funnel revenue/assets to BHR.

HUNTER continues to hold 10% in BHR. He visited China in 2010 and met with major Chinese government financial companies that would later back BHR.

HUNTER’s BHR stake (purchased for $400,000) is now likely be worth approx. $50 million (fees and capital appreciation based on BHR’s $6.5 billion AUM as stated by Michael Lin).

HUNTER also did business with Chinese tycoons linked with the Chinese military and against the interests of US national security.

BIDEN’s foreign policy stance towards China (formerly hawkish), turned positive despite China’s country’s rising geopolitical assertiveness.

To simply the various opaque Chinese intermediaries, the report shows the transfer of Chinese state money to Hunter, via major Chinese financial SOEs.

The next chart shows how the Communist Party of China cultivated Hunter via Lian and multiple Chinese foreign influence organizations:

The third and final chart shows the relationships connecting US leaders with communist leaders in China and North Korea. While there is official state-to-state dialogue and relationships between US and Chinese leaders, just one or two levels below are connected business arrangements with their relatives and associates, who are always the personal recipients of Chinese state money.

The key section of the report begins on page 19, in which the anonymous author details how the Biden family was compromised by China:

The report also quotes from a 2019 National Review article detailing Hunter Biden’s financial links to China:

Late Summer 2006: Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden, purchase the hedge fund Paradigm Global Advisors. According to an unnamed executive quoted in Politico in August, James Biden declared to employees on his first day, “Don’t worry about investors. We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden.” At this time, Joe Biden is months away from becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and launching his second bid for president.

The unnamed executive who spoke to Politico charged that the purchase of the fund was designed to work around campaign-finance laws: "According to the executive, James Biden made it clear that he viewed the fund as a way to take money from rich foreigners who could not legally give money to his older brother or his campaign account. “We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash ready to invest in this company,” the executive remembers James Biden saying."

Incidentally, this same article also points out the following:

An outside audit of Paradigm by the firm of Briggs, Bunting & Dougherty finds a “failure to reconcile Investment Advisors reimbursement of fund expenses, failure to reconcile and review cash account on a timely basis, and failure to reconcile and review various other accounts on a timely basis.”

And while the National Review article does an exhaustive look into both Biden, Paradigm’s and Seneca Global Advisors, the real focus is on China, which concludes that its "research indicates the Biden family and associates went on to execute a string of business deals with China and the CPC for nearly a decade."

Fast-forwarding through the report, we learn about a curious entity called Thornton consulting:

Shortly after BIDEN was named as Obama’s running mate in August, HUNTER founded Seneca Global Advisors and the Beijing government approved the incorporation of Thornton Beijing – Solebury Thornton（Beijing）Consulting Co Ltd.

On October 21, 2007 LIN, LAKIS and ARCHER visited HNA Group in Beijing, this time with ARCHER, acting as COO of Rosemont Solebury Capital, and had dinner with Chen. On the same day, the Thornton delegation also met with officials from PKU.

HNA, which was originally an airline carrier, is of course best known for becoming a major Chinese conglomerate which in 2015-2016 was the most acquisitive Chinese company involved in a flurry of multi-billion global M&A, including US electronics distributor Ingram Micro, CIT Group’s aircraft leasing business, a 25% stake in Hilton, a 5% stake in Deutsche Bank, and is widely regarded as backed by or ultimately owned by Wang Qishan, then former vice premier (2008 – 2013).

Wang is currently China’s Vice-President and a close aide of Xi. According to the report:

"HNA has allegedly used various methods to bribe targets in the past, including hosting parties and supplying targets with young women. It is unknown if Thornton representatives were targeted in this manner at Chen’s dinner, but if any nighttime entertainment was provided, it was probably recorded by HNA/Chinese intelligence (as is commonplace in China)."

The following day a Thornton/Rosemont Solebury/SLLF delegation, including LIN, ARCHER, and LAKIS, met with Peng Fang, Director General of the NPC’s Foreign Affairs Committee

Update (1235ET): The hits just keep on coming for the Bidens.

Fox News has obtained text messages from former Hunter Biden business partners Tony Bobulinski and James Gilliar expressing concern that Hunter may ‘blow up his dad’s campaign.’

"U need to stress to H, does he want to be the reason or factor that blows up his dad’s campaign, things need to be done right and protective of that fact," Bobulinski wrote to Gilliar.

May 20, 2017 text from Tony Bobulinski to business associate James Gilliar about Hunter “U need to stress to H, does he want to be the reason or factor that blows up his dad’s campaign, things need to be done right and protective of that fact.” obtained by #FoxNews pic.twitter.com/KRbJf3AWLj

— Mike Emanuel ?? (@MikeEmanuelFox) October 22, 2020

Meanwhile, Sean Davis of The Federalist has obtained an email to Hunter Biden’s business partner from a top Chinese official on July 26, 2017 – two months after the above text exchange – which appears to show a $5 million interest-free loan proposal to the Biden family.

Less than two weeks later, on August 8, 2017, $5 million was wired from a CEFC-affiliated investment vehicle to a Delaware LLC, which spent the next year transfering nearly $4.8 million directly to Hunter Biden’s firm, according to Senate investigators. https://t.co/Byyo3FNp3T pic.twitter.com/8XHHVTuFml

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 22, 2020

*  *  *

Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski has confirmed that an email published in the New York Post‘s  bombshell exposé is indeed genuine – something the Biden camp hasn’t disputed, and that the "Big Guy" described in one of those emails is none other than Joe Biden himself. Bobulinski also says Joe Biden was lying when he said he and Hunter never discussed business dealings.

"My name is Tony Bobulinski. The facts set forth below are true and accurate; they are not any form of domestic or foreign disinformation. Any suggestion to the contrary is false and offensive. I am the recipient of the email published seven days ago by the New York Post, which showed a copy to Hunter Biden and Rob Walker. That email is genuine.’ -New York Post

Bobulinski issued the statement late Wednesday, affirming that, contrary to Joe Biden’s claims that he never discussed business dealings with Hunter, the former Veep actually profited from his son’s dealings, which were undertaken with the full support of the Biden family. 

Bobulinski claims cash and equity positions and 10% stakes in dealings were set aside for "the big guy," – aka Joe Biden. 

Bobulinski said: "I’ve seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about business" – "I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not true."

"I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not true, because it wasn’t just Hunter’s business, they said they were putting the Biden family name and its legacy on the line."

A source with direct knowledge says Tony Bobulinski has provided all relevant Hunter Biden documents, including conversations from Hunter himself about leveraging the family name in business deals with communist China, to congressional investigators.

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 22, 2020

What’s more, Bobulinski was admonished at one point for mentioning Joe Biden in communications:

Holy shit??? https://t.co/qGuS5mK7Sf

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 22, 2020

According to Bobulinski, he was the CEO of Sinohawk Holding, a holding company partnership between now-bankrupt CEFC China Energy Co. and the Biden family. He said the Chinese weren’t in partnership for any kind of commercial purpose: they were there to pay for "influence" in the US. 

"I realized the Chinese were not really focused on a healthy financial ROI. They were looking at this as a political or influence investment. Once I realized that Hunter wanted to use the company as his personal piggy bank by just taking money out of it as soon as it came from the Chinese, I took steps to prevent that from happening"

In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, Joe Biden has labeled Hunter Biden’s emails as a "smear" campaign against him, and Democrats like Adam Schiff have accused these reports of being linked to a Russian intelligence operation, even though intelligence officials have said there’s no evidence that this is true.

Here is Bobulinski’s statement in full (emphasis ours):

My name is Tony Bobulinski. The facts set forth below are true and accurate; they are not any form of domestic or foreign disinformation.  Any suggestion to the contrary is false and offensive. I am the recipient of the email published seven days ago by the New York Post which showed a copy to Hunter Biden and Rob Walker. That email is genuine. 

This afternoon I received a request from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs and the Senate Committee on Finance requesting all documents relating to my business affairs with the Biden family as well as various foreign entities and individuals. I have extensive relevant records and communications and I intend to produce those items to both Committees in the immediate future. 

I am the grandson of a 37 year Army Intelligence officer, the son of a 20+ year career Naval Officer and the brother of a 28 year career Naval Flight Officer.  I myself served our country for 4 years and left the Navy as LT Bobulinski.  I held a high level security clearance and was an instructor and then CTO for Naval Nuclear Power Training Command.  I take great pride in the time my family and I served this country.  I am also not a political person. What few campaign contributions I have made in my life were to Democrats. 

If the media and big tech companies had done their jobs over the past several weeks I would be irrelevant in this story.  Given my long standing service and devotion to this great country, I could no longer allow my family’s name to be associated or tied to Russian disinformation or implied lies and false narratives dominating the media right now.

After leaving the military I became an institutional investor investing extensively around the world and on every continent. I have traveled to over 50 countries.  I believe, hands down, we live in the greatest country in the world.

What I am outlining is fact.  I know it is fact because I lived it.  I am the CEO of Sinohawk Holdings which was a partnership between the Chinese operating through CEFC/Chairman Ye and the Biden family.  I was brought into the company to be the CEO by James Gilliar and Hunter Biden.  The reference to “the Big Guy” in the much publicized May 13, 2017 email is in fact a reference to Joe Biden.  The other “JB” referenced in that email is Jim Biden, Joe’s brother.

Hunter Biden called his dad ‘the Big Guy’ or ‘my Chairman,’ and frequently referenced asking him for his sign-off or advice on various potential deals that we were discussing. I’ve seen Vice President Biden saying he never talked to Hunter about his business. I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not true, because it wasn’t just Hunter’s business, they said they were putting the Biden family name and its legacy on the line.

I realized the Chinese were not really focused on a healthy financial ROI.  They were looking at this as a political or influence investment. Once I realized that Hunter wanted to use the company as his personal piggy bank by just taking money out of it as soon as it came from the Chinese, I took steps to prevent that from happening.

The Johnson Report connected some dots in a way that shocked me — it made me realize the Bidens had gone behind my back and gotten paid millions of dollars by the Chinese, even though they told me they hadn’t and wouldn’t do that to their partners.

I would ask the Biden family to address the American people and outline the facts so I can go back to being irrelevant — and so I am not put in a position to have to answer those questions for them. 

I don’t have a political ax to grind; I just saw behind the Biden curtain and I grew concerned with what I saw. The Biden family aggressively leveraged the Biden family name to make millions of dollars from foreign entities even though some were from communist controlled China.

God Bless America!!!!

All of which will likely be "muted" in tonight’s highly anticipated debate.

Senate investigators have demanded that Hunter Biden turn over a mountain of evidence following bombshell emails and text messages which appear to show he and his business partners engaging in an international influence-peddling scheme while his father was Vice President of the United States, according to CBS News’ Catherine Herridge – who brought receipts as usual.

NEW: Senate Investigators seek Hunter Biden records, according to October 21 letter, addressed to team of lawyers. Deadline October 23. “According to recent reports that published emails allegedly from your client’s laptop, the Committees have identified your client as an pic.twitter.com/ChIhs14Ogq

— Catherine Herridge (@CBS_Herridge) October 22, 2020

"According to recent reports that published emails allegedly from your client’s laptop, the Committees have identified your client as an individual involved in one or more of these business arrangements or financial transactions," reads a Wednesday letter from Sens. Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley. 

"As part of the ongoing efforts to validate and verify the information in those emails, the Committees request that your client provide all records related to any of your client’s business dealings—including, but not limited, to bank records, wire transfers, account balances, gifts, business transactions, travel records—with Joe Biden, James Biden, Ye Jianming, Chi Ping Patrick Ho, Zang Jian Jun, Gongwen Dong, Mervyn Yan, Gabriel Popoviciu, or any other associates regarding CEFC China Energy Co. Ltd or any other transactions related to business in Romania, China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Czech Republic, or any other countries."

Biden’s lawyers have until Friday to comply.

Over the last week, alleged emails, text messages and compromising photographs from Hunter Biden’s laptop and his former business partners reveal that Joe Biden was directly involved in Hunter’s business dealings, and appears to have directly profited from them.

The deals span several countries, from Ukraine – where Joe was ‘introduced’ to a representative from energy giant Burisma before strong-arming the Ukrainian government into firing their chief prosecutor who was investigating the company, to China, where a top Chinese official offered the Biden family a $5 million "interest-free" loan, to Russia, where Hunter took $3.5 million from the former mayor of Moscow’s ex-wife.

Less than two weeks later, on August 8, 2017, $5 million was wired from a CEFC-affiliated investment vehicle to a Delaware LLC, which spent the next year transfering nearly $4.8 million directly to Hunter Biden’s firm, according to Senate investigators. https://t.co/Byyo3FNp3T pic.twitter.com/8XHHVTuFml

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) October 22, 2020

Meanwhile, Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski – who will be at tonight’s debate – confirmed that an email published in the New York Post‘s  bombshell exposé is indeed genuine – something the Biden camp hasn’t disputed, and that the "Big Guy" described in one of those emails is none other than Joe Biden himself. Bobulinski also says Joe Biden was lying when he said he and Hunter never discussed business dealings.

"My name is Tony Bobulinski. The facts set forth below are true and accurate; they are not any form of domestic or foreign disinformation. Any suggestion to the contrary is false and offensive. I am the recipient of the email published seven days ago by the New York Post, which showed a copy to Hunter Biden and Rob Walker. That email is genuine.’ -New York Post

Bobulinski issued the statement late Wednesday, affirming that, contrary to Joe Biden’s claims that he never discussed business dealings with Hunter, the former Veep actually profited from his son’s dealings, which were undertaken with the full support of the Biden family. 

Meanwhile, @SenRonJohnson and @ChuckGrassley just announced that Bobulinski will be informally interviewed by them tomorrow as part of their Hunter Biden investigation. https://t.co/q7U5mdFUnN

— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) October 22, 2020

Bobulinski claims cash and equity positions and 10% stakes in dealings were set aside for "the big guy," – aka Joe Biden. 

And guess who’s turning over his electronic devices and business records to the FBI?

BREAKING: Tony Bobulinski will announce that he will turn his electronic devices and records of business dealings with Hunter and Jim Biden over to the FBI

— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) October 22, 2020

If Trump doesn’t call Biden ‘Big guy’ at tonight’s debate, it will be a missed opportunity.