Former President Donald Trump’s assertions during the 2020 presidential campaign about the Biden family’s foreign business dealings have proven to be accurate.
Trump routinely criticized then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden about his son’s dealings with Ukrainian, Russian and Chinese associates when he was on the campaign trail, most notably at the presidential debates leading up to the November 2020 election. (RELATED: Trump’s DC Judge Worked For Law Firm That Employed Hunter Biden, Lobbied For Burisma)
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“China ate your lunch, Joe. And no wonder your son goes in and, wha—, he takes out billions of dollars. He takes out billions of dollars to manage. He makes millions of dollars. And also, while we’re at it, why is it — just out of curiosity — the mayor of Moscow’s wife gave your son three and a half million dollars,” Trump said to Biden during a September 2020 presidential debate, according to an official transcript from the Commission on Presidential Debates.
“That is not true,” Biden retorted.
“What did he do to deserve it? What did he do with Burisma?” Trump pressed.
“None of that is true,” Biden shot back.
“My son did nothing wrong at Burisma,” Biden said later in the debate.
” I think he did,” Trump retorted.
“He doesn’t want to let me answer, because he knows I have the truth. His position has been totally thoroughly discredited,” Biden claimed.
“By who?” Trump asked.
“By everybody. Well, by the media, by our allies,” Biden answered.
Trump and Biden continued clashing at the September debate over the Biden family’s business dealings despite moderator Chris Wallace’s efforts to shift the conversation.
“And he threatened Ukraine —,” Trump said.
“Sir,” Wallace interrupted.
” — with a billion dollars,” Trump said.
“That is absolutely not true,” Biden said, before Wallace moved the conversation to racial issues.
Trump made similar comments about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings at an October 2022 debate which took place after the New York Post’s reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop was censored by Twitter and falsely categorized as Russian disinformation. The Daily Caller News Foundation, The New York Times, The Washington Post and CBS News later verified the Hunter Biden laptop archive. (RELATED: Hunter Biden’s Lawyers Admit That His ‘Computer Data’ Is Real)
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“You got three-and-a-half million dollars. Your family got three-and-a-half million dollars and you know someday, you’re gonna have to explain — why did you get three-and-a-half?” Trump asserted, according to the official debate transcript.
“I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life,” Biden responded.
“Number two, I don’t make money from China, you do. I don’t make money from Ukraine, you do. I don’t make money from Russia. You made three-and-a-half million dollars, Joe, and your son gave you— They even have a statement that we have to give 10% to the big man. You’re the big man, I think. I don’t know, maybe you’re not. But you’re the big man, I think. Your son said we have to give 10% to the big man,” Trump said later in the debate.
“I carried out U.S. policy. Not one, single, solitary thing was out of line. Not a single thing, number one. Number two, the guy who got in trouble in Ukraine was this guy, trying to bribe the Ukrainian government to say something negative about me, which they would not do, and did not do, because it never, ever, ever happened. My son has not made money in terms of this thing about — what are you talking about — China. I have not had it. The only guy that made money from China is this guy. He’s the only one. Nobody else has made money from China,” Biden hit back.
“His son didn’t have a job for a long time, was sadly no longer in the military service, I won’t get into that. And he didn’t have a job. As soon as he became vice president, Burisma — not the best, not the best reputation in the world — I hear they paid him 183,000 a month. Listen to this, 183, and they gave him a $3 million upfront payment, and he had no energy experience. That’s 100% dishonest,” Trump followed up.
“Look, there are 50 former national intelligence folks who said that what this, he’s accusing me of, is a Russian plan. They have said that this has all the characteristics — four, five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him and his good friend Rudy Giuliani,” Biden said later on.
Joe Biden was citing a letter signed by 51 former intelligence officials which claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was part of a “Russian information operation” without evidence to back it up. One of the letter’s signatories, former CIA official Michael Morrell, testified to the House Judiciary Committee about how Biden Secretary of State Tony Blinken orchestrated the letter, which Morrell signed to help Biden defeat Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Trump’s assertions about Ukraine, China and Russia appear to be based on a Senate report released in September 2020 detailing Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings and the New York Post’s October 2020 reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop archive.
Trump made similar assertions on Twitter beginning in late 2019, before Biden won the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Trump tweeted on numerous occasions about the Biden family’s business dealings with Chinese, Ukrainian and Russian business partners. (RELATED: Hunter Biden Warned Devon Archer About FARA Violations Right Before Taking Burisma Board Seat, Emails Show)
Hunter Biden’s laptop is a disaster for the entire Biden family, but especially for his father, Joe. It is now a proven fact, and cannot be denied, that all of that info is the REAL DEAL. That makes it impossible for “50%, or 10%” Joe, to ever assume the office of the President!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2020
Hunter Biden’s consulting firm was wired $3.5 million by Russian oligarch Elena Baturina in February 2014 as part of a consulting agreement, the Senate report found. Baturina was married to former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and her net worth is estimated at $1.3 billion.
Hunter Biden’s former business associate, Devon Archer, testified to the House Oversight Committee Monday about how Joe and Hunter Biden dined with Baturina in the spring of 2014 at a cafe in Washington, D.C., according to a transcript of Archer’s testimony.
Trump’s statement about Biden threatening Ukraine with a billion dollars was based on what then-Vice President Biden told the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in September 2016 when Biden bragged about getting Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired in early 2016.
“You remember last year I was authorized to say we’d do the second tranche of a billion dollars. And he didn’t fire his chief prosecutor. And because I have the confidence of the president, I was there, and I said: I’m not signing it. Until you fire him, we’re not signing, man,” Biden told CFR. Biden made similar comments at a January 2018 event with CFR when he was out of office.
When Shokin was fired, Hunter Biden was being paid $83,000 a month as a board member of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, another detail confirmed by Archer’s testimony. Archer also testified about a dinner Joe Biden attended a dinner with Burisma executive Vadim Pozharskyi and how the Biden family “brand” prevented Burisma from going out of business.
One of Hunter Biden’s former business partners, James Gillar, called Joe Biden “the big guy” in emails first reported by the New York Post. Another former business associate, Tony Bobulinski, confirmed to the outlet the “big guy” moniker was referring to Joe Biden.
Likewise, Archer confirmed to the House Oversight Committee “my guy” was a nickname Hunter Biden used to describe his father in an April 2014 email. (RELATED: Devon Archer Appears To Confirm Hunter Biden’s Involvement In Ukrainian Oligarch’s Visa Scheme)
Ep. 13 Part 2. Devon Archer pic.twitter.com/R1sxSuPrKq
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 4, 2023
Archer told Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson it was “categorically false” to say Joe Biden was not aware of his son’s business dealings, referencing a personalized letter Biden sent him in 2011. In the same interview, Archer said Shokin was a “threat” to Burisma’s business and recalled a purported raid on Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky’s property overseen by Shokin’s office.
In addition, Hunter Biden received payments from a Chinese firm, CEFC China Energy, whose chairman, Ye Jianming, was linked to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People’s Liberation Army (PLA), according to the senate report.
IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley testified to the House Ways & Means Committee about a threatening text Hunter Biden allegedly sent a CEFC associate with Joe Biden in the room. Shapley provided a transcript of former Biden business associate Rob Walker’s interview with the FBI where Walker said Joe Biden met with CEFC officials in May 2017, shortly after his vice presidency concluded.
The House Oversight Committee revealed in late June a text allegedly sent by Hunter Biden on Aug. 3, 2017 to a CEFC associate about how the Bidens are “the best” at assisting his boss. The next day, Owasco P.C., one of Biden’s shell companies, was paid $100,000 by CEFC, the committee disclosed.
🚨BIDEN FAMILY COVER-UP🚨
In a WhatsApp exchange dated 8/3/2017, Hunter Biden tells CEFC associate Gongwen Dong, aka Kevin:
“The Biden’s are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman wants from this [partnership].”
CEFC is a CCP-linked Chinese Energy Company. pic.twitter.com/ZzRvpMeuNn
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) June 27, 2023
On Aug. 8, 2017, Hudson West III, a business entity formed by Hunter Biden and a CEFC business partner, was wired an estimated $5 million, the Senate report found.
Hunter Biden earned about $1 million from Hudson West III in 2017, according to his guilty plea agreement with Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors which fell apart in court. Biden admitted during his late July court appearance he made $664,000 from CEFC in 2017, court transcripts show.
IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler testified to the House Oversight Committee that Hunter Biden and his business associates took an estimated $17 million from Chinese, Ukrainian and Romanian business interests. The Oversight Committee released a memo in May 2023 outlining more than $10 million in alleged payments from foreign companies to Biden family members.
Two months prior, the House Oversight Committee released a memo showing Walker took $3 million from a Chinese energy company and allegedly sent $1.3 million worth of payments to Biden family members. Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer, Chair of the House Oversight Committee, said in July more bank records would be released showing Hunter Biden’s alleged dealings with Russian business partners.
The White House said President Biden “was not in business with his son” when Shapley’s testimony was publicized, a shift from Biden denying any knowledge of his son’s business dealings. (RELATED: IRS Whistleblower Says Hunter Biden’s Attorneys Made ‘False Statements’ And ‘Threatened’ Prosecutors)
“Any verifiable words or actions of my client, in the midst of a horrible addiction, are solely his own and have no connection to anyone in his family,” Hunter Biden’s lawyer said in the wake of Shapley’s testimony.
Hunter Biden was charged by the DOJ in June with two tax misdemeanors and a felony gun charge. Both IRS whistleblowers accused prosecutors of slow-walking and obstructing the Hunter Biden case based on their knowledge of the investigation.
The president’s son was expected to plead guilty to the tax charges and sign a diversion agreement for the gun charge, until a disagreement with the DOJ about the immunity clause hidden inside Biden’s diversion agreement caused Biden’s plea deal to implode. The DOJ investigation into Hunter Biden is still ongoing and
“He confirms President Biden was not involved in his son’s business,” White House spokesperson Ian Sams tweeted about Archer’s testimony. Sams told multiple media outlets the investigation into Hunter Biden’s business dealings is an “evidence-free wild goose chase” following Archer’s testimony.
The day after Devon Archer’s testimony to the House Oversight Committee, Trump was indicted by Special Counsel Jack Smith for charges related to his efforts to contest the 2020 presidential election results. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges Thursday at an arraignment in Washington, D.C. He continues to lead the 2024 Republican presidential primary by wide margins.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Jack Moore contributed to this report.