New book substantiates claim Joe Biden was the ‘big guy’ in shady Chinese deal, expected a 10% cut
A new book detailing the Biden family's array of controversial overseas business dealings provides fresh insight into an infamous meeting the family held with Tony Bobulinski, during which President Joe Biden allegedly greenlit a deal with Chinese business magnates and secured a 10% cut of the venture.
What are the details?
In "Laptop from Hell," New York Post columnist Miranda Devine uses a massive cache of files obtained from Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop to reconstruct the meeting, which took place in 2017 at the Los Angeles Beverly Hilton hotel.
According to an excerpt of the book published by the Post on Sunday, Biden was scheduled to speak at the Milken Institute Global Conference. But in his downtime, he allegedly joined his son, Hunter, and brother, Jim, for a meeting with their prospective business partner Bobulinski to offer a go-ahead for the deal.
On May 2, 2017, at around 11 p.m. Biden — then just months removed from serving as vice president — sauntered into the Beverly Hilton lobby to vet Bobulinski.
Prior to the meeting, Devine wrote, Jim Biden explained to Bobulinski that the meeting would be strictly "high level." Hunter Biden added, “We will not go into any detail about the business. I just want my dad to be comfortable with you.”
During the ensuing meeting, Joe Biden and Bobulinski shared their backgrounds, got acquainted with one another, and spoke in generalities about the prospective deal with now-defunct Chinese government-linked energy conglomerate CEFC China.
It reportedly went well and resulted in Biden saying, “My son and my brother trust you emphatically, so I trust you.”
What else?
In the book, Devine explained that Biden was the "final decision-maker" and that "nothing important was done without his agreement."
And so, with Joe's approval, the plan to incorporate SinoHawk Holdings LLC moved forward. It would be a global investment firm kick-started with $10 million in Chinese money split 50/50 between Biden's business group and CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming.
The book's excerpt outlined a pivotal email obtained by the Post last year that detailed the “remuneration packages” for six individuals involved in the Biden family's business consortium.
In the email, James Gilliar outlined a "provisional agreement" for the distribution of equity that included "20" for "Jim," "20" for "H [Hunter]," and "10 held by H for the big guy?”
Bobulinski would later report that the "big guy" mentioned in the email was unquestionably Joe Biden, noting that Hunter would often call his father "the big guy" or "my chairman" in verbal and written communication.
Anything else?
According to Devine, in a follow-up meeting with Jim Biden, Bobulinski was warned to keep Joe Biden away from the details of the deal so that he could publicly claim "plausible deniability."
The family was allegedly "paranoid" about someone mentioning Joe Biden's involvement, apparently fearing that his connection to unsavory dealings could tank his chances at the presidency.
During the 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden claimed that he "never spoken to [his ]son about his overseas business dealings."