Boy, asking the “Big Guy” anything about his son and his foreign his business dealings and watch his demeanor change in a hurry.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden was leaving the White House to deliver a speech on the economy in Chicago. Before he boarded Marine One, however, he fielded the customary spray of questions from reporters.
According to a White House transcript, the questions ranged from Alabama GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville blocking Pentagon promotions unless the White House abandons a plan to pay travel expenses in the cases of members of the military who want to obtain an abortion to whether the attempted coup in Russia over the weekend would weaken Russian President Vladimir Putin.
For the most part, Biden dealt with these questions calmly. Then, a reporter asked about the one topic on Washington’s mind at present:
“President Biden, how involved were you in your son’s ‘Chinese shakedown’ text message?” a reporter asked. “Were you sitting there? Were you involved? Were you involved?”
Ruh-roh.
“No, I wasn’t. And I don’t–” a visibly piqued Biden responded.
“Were you?” the reporter followed up.
“No!” Biden yelled.
Reporter: “How involved were you in your son’s Chinese shake-down text message? Were you sitting there? Were you involved?”
Biden: “No, I wasn’t.”
Reporter: “Were you?”
Biden *yelling*: “No!” pic.twitter.com/dwLwbVQrju
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 28, 2023
Uncle Joe doth get angry quickly when anyone mentions how much he knew about his son’s foreign business dealings. During the campaign trail, he all but swore upon a stack of copies of “The Audacity of Hope” that he’d never discussed Hunter’s foreign business affairs with him during his time in office.
This seemed unusual at the time, considering that Hunter Biden’s only discernible talent, at least in the business world, was his last name and the access to the powerful that it provided him.
These claims became even more outlandish after the contents of a laptop Hunter left at a Delaware repair shop began to spill out — which included interesting data like emails that seemed to indicate Hunter had introduced some of his associates to his father at events, a voice mail in which Joe talked to Hunter specifically about a New York Times report on his business dealings, and pictures of Biden and son with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and other Latin American movers and shakers taken during Biden’s time as vice president.
Earlier ->
Biden: Hunter’s laptop is “Russian” disinfo
Biden: Hunter “is the smartest guy I know”
Biden: “I never talked to Hunter about his foreign business” dealings
Biden: Hunter “did nothing wrong”
Biden: “There is no controversy about my son … it’s a flat lie” https://t.co/B43OdXwMJ7
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) June 28, 2023
And then there was the infamous email about a proposed deal with Chinese government-linked energy conglomerate CEFC that included the phrase “10 held by H for the big guy?”
According to former Hunter Biden associate Tony Bobulinski, that meant 10 percent of the money would be held by Hunter for his father, “the Big Guy.”
[firefly_poll]
Alas, this came during the closing days of the 2020 campaign and reporting on the scandal was limited by Big Tech giants like Twitter and Facebook and Google, which likely was decisive in Biden winning the presidential election.
In the aftermath of the election, establishment media outlets did their best to downplay news about the evidence on the laptop and allegations of corruption in the Biden family, but Republicans like Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and conservative news outlets kept a light on the ongoing scandal, especially since the 2022 midterms gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives.
In late May, IRS supervisory agent Gary Shapley testified before the GOP-run House Ways and Means Committee. In that testimony, released last week, Shapley claimed that investigators discovered a WhatsApp message between Hunter Biden and Henry Zhao, who worked with CEFC.
In the message, Shapley testified, Hunter threatened Zhao over a business deal going sour — and warned that Biden himself was involved in the matter.
“For example,” Shapley said, “we obtained a July 30th, 2017, WhatsApp message from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, where Hunter Biden wrote: ‘I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, 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.'”
In a WhatsApp message, Hunter states his father is in the room and uses him as leverage in a dispute with Henry Zhao, an executive at CEFC linked to the CCP. pic.twitter.com/AOeiyZ7S6G
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) June 23, 2023
What’s more, a Senate investigation revealed that, within days of that message, records show that a subsidiary of CEFC sent two payments totaling just over $5 million to accounts linked to Hunter Biden:
Within 10 days of Hunter Biden’s WhatsApp message to the Chinese official associated with CEFC, a CEFC subsidiary sent 2 payments totaling $5.1M to accounts linked to Hunter, according to records cited in the Senate GOP investigation. https://t.co/myy4Xw8un2 pic.twitter.com/EEkb3sa6Y7
— Kenneth P. Vogel (@kenvogel) June 23, 2023
And, thanks to Hunter’s seemingly pathological need to document every aspect of his lifestyle — maybe, one guesses, because he was rarely sober enough to remember much of it himself — evidence on his laptop had him driving his father’s Corvette at the Bidens’ home in Wilmington, Delaware, on the same day that the WhatsApp exchange with Zhao took place. (The Corvette, you may remember, is the one usually stored in the garage where, up until recently, Joe Biden was storing classified documents, too.)
This photo appears to show Hunter Biden, in his father’s infamous corvette, hours after texting his Chinese business partner: “I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
Where was Joe Biden when Hunter sent that text? pic.twitter.com/Nds3xts8Nz
— Claudia Tenney (@claudiatenney) June 23, 2023
And yet, despite this extremely problematic piece of evidence, House Oversight Committee Republicans said on Twitter that, despite the fact “[i]nvestigators wanted to get the location data to confirm Joe Biden was in the room when Hunter used him as leverage … there is no confidence the FBI obtained that data,” according to testimony.
Investigators wanted to get the location data to confirm Joe Biden was in the room when Hunter used him as leverage but there is no confidence the FBI obtained that data. pic.twitter.com/gEMIOVGYyl
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) June 23, 2023
Twitterers weren’t exactly buying Biden’s anger as evidence he was telling the truth:
Guilty af
— AlyJaenicke (@AlyCowgirls) June 28, 2023
The angrier he gets at the question, the louder he barks back, the guiltier he is –
— Allan Davis (@SrgtPreston) June 28, 2023
So now he’s calling his son a liar or else throwing him under the bus to save himself? Same doting father the media was crying over yesterday?
— BillHobson (@BillHobson1) June 28, 2023
And it’s not like Joe doesn’t have a history of getting mad when people get a bit too close to the truth when it comes to Hunter’s shady business dealings:
In 2019 ~
Joe Biden got angry and insulted a man at his campaign event because he questioned Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine…pic.twitter.com/hz3g8XD1M0— Lawyerforlaws (@lawyer4laws) April 5, 2022
Sept. 2019
Joe Biden’s Campaign~
I’ve never spoken to my son about his business dealings,
Everyone has looked at this and nothing’s thereApril 25, 2022
Jen Psaki has to check on
Joe Biden having 19 visits in the WH with Hunter Biden’s business partners ?Watch Til End .. pic.twitter.com/4ZlQPKN0HC
— Lawyerforlaws (@lawyer4laws) April 25, 2022
Look, anger is not a prima facie sign of guilt on the president’s part. What we do know is that it’s almost certain he’s misled the American people about how much he knew regarding his son’s overseas business dealings and his involvement in said dealings remains an open question.
And when he’s yelling at reporters the same way he was yelling at them when he was lying about what he knew concerning Hunter’s influence-peddling, why should we believe the behavior doesn’t indicate the same level of truthfulness this time around?
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
