Joe Biden’s son Hunter still has a stake in a Chinese private equity firm, according to a report – despite a campaign pledge that neither he nor his family would maintain any foreign business interests.
Hunter, 50, retains a 10 per cent in the Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management Company, Fox News reported.
BHR Partners is co-owned by the Bank of China, the state-controlled central bank.
Hunter Biden, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live in April, still retains foreign business interests
Hunter Biden with his wife Melissa and Joe Biden, pictured on March 26 at Joint Base Andrews
In October 2019, while on the campaign trail, Joe Biden stated: ‘No one in my family will have an office in the White House, will sit in on meetings as if they are a cabinet member, will, in fact, have any business relationship with anyone that relates to a foreign corporation or a foreign country.’
Hunter Biden sat on the board of BHR
He was making a dig at his predecessor Donald Trump, who hired daughter Ivanka and son-in law Jared Kushner as senior White House advisers.
The former president also roped in multiple other family members to help push his administration’s message.
Hunter Biden said at that time that he was stepping down from the board of the company.
Asked why he had not divested, 100 days in to his father’s presidency, the White House referenced spokeswoman Jen Psaki’s comments in February, when she said it was taking time – then passed the buck.
‘He has been working to unwind his investment, but I would certainly point you — he’s a private citizen,’ Psaki said.
‘I would point you to him or his lawyers on the outside on any update.’
Hunter Biden’s business dealings have long caused his father headaches, amid accusations that the troubled Harvard-educated lawyer was trading off his family name.
Hunter had business interest in Ukraine, China and Kazakhstan, leading to concern about influence peddling.
Joe Biden has denied having any knowledge of his son’s work.
Joe Biden with his son Hunter, seen in January 2009
Hunter Biden’s extremely lucrative Ukrainian business dealings have consistently raised eyebrows, in particular.
Hunter was on the board of energy company Burisma, one of the largest natural gas companies in Ukraine, when his father was serving Barack Obama’s vice president.
Hunter has admitted it was ‘poor judgment’, as his involvement in Burisma became a lightning rod during the 2020 presidential campaign.
Republicans constantly accused Joe Biden of corruption, in cahoots with his son, and a laptop that Hunter took for repair and then forgot to pick up became a battering ram for the former vice president.
The laptop, which was handed over to the FBI in 2019, is brimming with evidence of apparent criminal activity by Hunter and his associates including drug trafficking and prostitution.
Photos also show Hunter with cracked and badly damaged teeth – known as ‘meth mouth’ – as he sits in a dentist chair, and another photo showing him visibly balding.
Hunter appeared to be obsessed with making and starring in porn films with prostitutes, videos and photos on his laptop show.
The hard drive contains hundreds of pictures of naked women and naked selfies of Hunter, as well as dozens of videos.
The sex tapes and shots with hookers are mixed in with family photos, business documents and selfies from his then-lover and brother’s widow Hallie in his laptop’s photos folder.
Texts show he would often order drugs to hotel rooms and take them with the women before or after sex – and photos include bottles of 100mg Viagra pills, the highest dose prescribed by doctors.
He has admitted that many of those years were a blur, but credits his sobriety and clean-living to his new wife Melissa Cohen, a South African filmmaker he married after just six days.