Hunter’s China Work Began In 2015 Immediately After VP Biden’s Christmas Party, Bobulinsky Testifies

 A decorated military veteran who was in business with Hunter Biden told Congress that contrary to assertions by Democrats, the work with a Communist Party of China-linked company began while Joe Biden was in power, not immediately after, according to a transcript of his testimony released Friday.

Tony Bobulinski told members of Congress in the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden that soon after he became CEO of a venture in early 2017 involving Chinese firm CEFC, Hunter screamed angrily that the firm owed him $20 million for previous work, which would have occurred while Joe Biden was vice president.

Democrats have argued that “work was once Joe Biden was a private citizen,” Bobulinski said, but “that’s a lie.”

He said that a third investor, James Gilliar, revealed an arrangement between the Biden family and the Chinese company in a message on December 24, 2015, immediately after he was with Joe Biden at the then-vice president’s Christmas party. “There will be a deal between one of the most prominent families from US and them constructed by me [sic], I think this will then be a great addition to their portfolios,” the message said.

Bobulinski said he immediately knew which family Gilliar was talking about because Gilliar was “in D.C. to attend the Vice President’s Christmas party in December 2015. So I could just generally put the pieces of the puzzle together, and I was operating under the impression that he was talking about the Biden family.”

Emails show that Gilliar floated a 20% stake for Hunter, 10% for Joe Biden’s brother Jim, and 10% “held by H for the big guy,” referring to Joe. When the deal was finalized, Jim’s portion had risen to 20%, with no mention of Joe. It made little sense for Jim to be receiving such a large cut of what was expected to be a multi-billion dollar business given that Bobulinski was doing all the work, he said.

The Chinese were to provide $10 million in start-up cash used to hire bankers who would then identify investment opportunities to make money, he said. But Hunter viewed the start-up cash as a “piggy bank” to immediately take out of for himself.

He said that Gilliar and the Bidens were secretive about their history with CEFC, but it soon became clear that it did not begin with Bobulinski’s involvement in 2017 when they began arguing about a $20 million that was owed to them, a sum that could not be related to the 2017 $10 million deal.

“Hunter and I were directly across from Director Zang and Zhao, and Hunter starts — I don’t mean just raising his voice — just yelling at Director Zang, ‘you owe my family money. Why haven’t you paid the $20 million we’ve discussed? When is it coming?’” Bobulinski testified under oath. “What’s he talking about when he says ‘we have been shorted’? He’s talking about the fact that they were expected to get paid $20 million by CEFC for the work they had done previously … this started back in 2015. Numerous people — Rob Walker stated it himself,” he said, referring to a fourth investor.

Messages also showed that their Chinese business partner would meet with Vladimir Putin if he could get approval from Chinese President Xi. Gilliar wrote in a message that Hunter was only useful for his last name and the signal it sent to the Chinese, saying “in brand he’s imperative, but right now he’s not essential for adding input to business.”

Bobulinski and Hunter met with Joe Biden in a meeting that had no reason to occur if it was not about the CEFC work, Bobulinski testified. Hunter said “‘Hey, Dad, you know, this is Tony, who I, you know, told you about, just told you about, and helping us with, you know, the business we’re working on with the Chinese,’” he said.

A dispute occurred when the Bidens wanted equal voting shares that would allow them to override Bobulinski, while Bobulinski thought as CEO he should have more weight. Hunter messaged that his father had blocked the idea of diluting the Bidens’ voting shares, saying “my chairman gave an emphatic no.”

Joe Biden also met with CEFC chairman Ye Jianming, and joined numerous business calls. Bobunksi said that although they did not discuss business in detail, in the world of high finance, such displays of power are part and parcel of business development, with top operators routinely shaking hands at a meeting and then leaving, with their appearance serving to show that the lower-level operators have the backing of the powerful person.

The Bidens later cut Bobulinski out of the deal by copying documents he had made and creating a side deal, which entailed submitting fraudulent documents to a bank, Bobulinski said.

Hunter “took proprietary information from Oneida Holdings and SinoHawk and stole that information and reproduced it. So they took the SinoHawk holding — it’s called fraud — same exact serial numbers in the lower left-hand corner. That should put every lawyer’s mouth on the floor that’s in here,” Bobulinski said.

Around that time, Hunter told the Chinese that Joe Biden was demanding that the Chinese pay Hunter directly. “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” he wrote. “I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

Bobulinski said that as Donald Trump was impeached for exploring whether Joe Biden was involved in unsavory international deals, and Joe Biden angrily said he never discussed business with his son, Bobulinski, a former naval officer with the highest security clearance, wondered with the other business partners whether they had a duty to set the record straight.

A diplomat named Lincoln Bloomfield, who served as Assistant Secretary of State under George W. Bush, was dispatched to convince the partners to stay quiet before the election, Bobulinski alleged for the first time. “James and Rob Walker introduced him to me in October 2020, with the interest of him sort of coaching me and the other parties involved through not coming forward and what it would mean.”

Bloomfield plays in a band with now-Secretary of State Tony Blinken, and immediately after his alleged effort, a letter from 51 intelligence operatives appeared relying on their credentials to suggest, falsely, that any discussion of Hunter’s business dealings was Russian information, he said.

“That letter wasn’t instigated because of the laptop. That letter was instigated because they knew that I was coming out public on Monday, because I had that discussion with Rob Walker,” he said.

Bloomfield did not return a request for comment.

Bobulinski said before the election, he told his story in the Wall Street Journal, but the article quoted Gilliar saying, “I would like to clear up any speculation that former Vice President Biden was involved with the 2017 discussions about our potential business structure. I am unaware of any involvement at anytime of the former Vice President.” Bobulinski said, however, that he “had numerous discussions with him, and they were of the impression that Joe Biden was going to win the election. And they were concerned that, if the truth came out about this, that it could alter the election. And I believe it did.”

Walker testified to Congress in January that no one responded to the “10% held by H for the big guy” email, but Bobulinski said “Hunter responded to it numerous times. He was aware of the contents. He was arguing over the contents of the email, and not once did anybody else that was on the email chain go, guys, “Who is the ‘big guy’ that we’re talking about?”

Walker also testified that he did not know who the “big guy” was and that Joe Biden was not involved, even though messages show Walker writing that when Hunter “said his chairman he was talking about his dad and I think your dismissal of it maybe offended him a bit, but you didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Walker told the congressmen he was just trying to diffuse tension and that they would need to ask Gilliar who the big guy was.

Bobulinski said “I met Joe Biden face-to-face. These guys were talking about having Joe Biden come to New York and sit face-to-face with Chairman Ye while we were formalizing this deal. And for every one of these guys to now have amnesia or, like, you know, claim that, ‘Oh, Hunter wasn’t really talking about his father,’ is just absurd. The American people deserve the truth.”

Bobulinski also said he met with Gabriel Popoviciu, an oligarch accused of corruption in Romania, who had been paying Walker and Gilliar while Joe Biden was tasked with dealing with Romanian corruption as part of his vice president portfolio. “When I met with Gabriel Popoviciu, he was very vocal about the fact that he had stopped paying Robinson Walker when Joe Biden left the White House, and the reason why he had stopped paying them — and the reason was because he viewed that he no longer had the power or the leverage of the Biden family to — for what he was dealing with in Romania. And he actually asked me, did I know any — did I have any insight on how he potentially could get relationships at the Trump side of the ledger,” Bobulinski said. He said that Gilliar told him that the contract with Popovicio “outlined that, if, in fact, they were successful in getting Gabriel off in Romania, that they stood to make potentially millions or tens of millions of dollars.” 

During the testimony, Democrats focused on attempting to discredit Bobulinski for allegedly cooperating with Republicans to get his story out. But Bobulinski, who previously donated to Democrats and did highly technical work for the Navy Nuclear Power Training Command, said he was looking for any outlet with a wide audience to tell a story that was otherwise being suppressed.

When Bobulinski mentioned that he had evidence including recorded calls, Democrats asked where he recorded them, seemingly in an attempt to get him to admit whether he broke the law by recording in a state where that is illegal. (He said he was in a state where it was legal.)

Rep. James Comer, the Republican chairman of the Oversight Committee, apologized to Bobulinski.

“I’ve never seen that display of pathetic behavior in a deposition before,” Comer said. “I apologize for their behavior.”