In closed-door impeachment testimony released Thursday, first son Hunter Biden confirmed some of the key facts in his father’s impeachment case, including that Joe Biden attended dinners with his son’s foreign patrons while serving as vice president.
During his daylong deposition before two House committees on Wednesday, the 54-year-old confirmed that Joe Biden attended two dinners at DC’s Cafe Milano restaurant in 2014 and 2015 with Hunter’s Kazakhstani, Russian, and Ukrainian benefactors.
Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, which paid Hunter a $1 million annual salary beginning in 2014 as his father spearheaded US policy toward Kyiv, attended, and Hunter acknowledged to the panels investigating his dad for alleged corruption.
“I do believe that Vadym was at one of these dinners, yes,” he said, supporting the initial October 2020 reports on documents from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, which revealed a thank-you note from Pozharskyi one day after the April 16, 2015, gathering.
Hunter Biden confirmed that the dinners also included Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign denied the report at the time, claiming that no such encounter was on Biden’s “official schedules.”
Hunter confirmed that the dinners also included Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, who transferred $3.5 million to a company co-owned by Hunter and Devon Archer, and Kazakhstani businessman Kenes Rakishev, who bought Hunter a $142,000 sports car.
“I do believe that Vadym was at one of these dinners, yes,” he said, supporting the initial October 2020 reports on documents from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, which revealed a thank-you note from Pozharskyi one day after the April 16, 2015, gathering.
Joe Biden’s presidential campaign denied the report at the time, claiming that no such encounter was on Biden’s “official schedules.”
“My dad did not come for dinner … I believe that he probably had a Coca-Cola and a bowl of spaghetti,” he said of one of the Cafe Milano gatherings, despite other witnesses describing Joe Biden as having a full meal while there.
Hunter believes the first oligarch dinner occurred on his birthday, February 4, 2014, and that “my dad stopped by because it was my actual birthday.” The 2015 meal was ostensibly a fundraiser for a global charity.
The first son declined to specify which oligarchs attended which dinners, saying, “I don’t remember exactly who was there because it’s sometimes conflated.”
The date of the 2014 dinner, however, raises the possibility that Baturina transferred the as-yet-unaccounted-for $3.5 million just 10 days after meeting with the elder Biden.
Archer previously disclosed the first oligarch dinner, but he did not know the date or the reason for the transfer.
“I don’t think I ever introduced him [Joe Biden] to her [Baturina]. I think that she was also at a dinner over the course of the time in which Devon was engaged with Yelena Baturina,” Hunter stated in his deposition.
Hunter testified, “I never received a dime from Ms. Baturina,” who has thus far avoided his father’s sanctions against Russia’s business elite over the two-year Kremlin invasion of Ukraine.”
House Republicans have not determined the exact flow of the $3.5 million, but say $2.75 million was transferred to Rosemont Seneca Bohai, which Archer claims was controlled 50/50 by himself and Hunter Biden.
Baturina made a separate investment of more than $100 million in Archer’s Rosemont Realty, with which Hunter Biden was briefly associated.
However, the scandal-plagued first son refused to confirm, citing a lack of memory and other significant details, including dealings with Chinese companies. He also refused to say that the infamous laptop was forgotten by him at a Delaware shop in 2019.
