Joe and Hunter Biden do Black Friday despite corruption cloud

President Biden and scandal-plagued first son Hunter Biden went shopping Friday on Nantucket amid a federal investigation of the first family’s overseas business deals — as House Republicans vow a parallel probe to unearth Joe Biden’s role in his brother and son’s foreign consulting work.

The president, 80, and his 52-year-old son visited several small businesses on the exclusive Massachusetts island after Joe Biden lunched at a restaurant called Brotherhood of Thieves — apparently without Hunter, according to pool reports.

Hunter Biden and his father popped into shops, including Craftmasters of Nantucket, before attending the island’s annual Christmas tree lighting festival, where Hunter then stood alongside his dad to greet eventgoers.

The Biden family is staying — likely for free — at the home of private-equity billionaire David Rubenstein, who also lent his $20 million compound to the president last Thanksgiving.

The trip to Nantucket follows Hunter Biden’s frequent visits to the White House in the run-up to House Republicans retaking power in January. Also this month, he attended the traditional pre-Thanksgiving turkey pardon days after his eldest child, Naomi Biden, got married at the White House.

Joe Biden allegedly was involved to some degree with many of Hunter’s influence-peddling gigs overseas, especially in countries where the elder Biden held sway as vice president from 2009 to 2017, such as China and Ukraine.

The incoming chairman of the House oversight committee, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), said at a press conference last week that his panel would use its power to subpoena testimony and evidence to “evaluate whether this president is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars.”

“This is an investigation of Joe Biden,” Comer said.

Hunter Biden confirmed in late 2020 that he’s under federal investigation for possible tax fraud. One of his associates, Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris, recently paid the IRS about $2 million on the first son’s behalf, though the terms of that arrangement remain murky and paying off the debt doesn’t prevent criminal charges for the original non-payment.

The FBI also reportedly is investigating Hunter Biden for possible money laundering, illegal foreign lobby and lying about his drug use on a gun-purchase form. The investigators report to the US attorney’s office in Delaware. Attorney General Merrick Garland has resisted calls to appoint a special counsel to insulate the probe from political pressure — despite naming a special counsel last week to oversee a pair of investigations into former President Donald Trump.

The president has been a recurring figure in his family’s overseas business venture — despite claiming he’s “never” spoken to his son about his foreign income — according to records from a laptop that Hunter Biden abandoned in 2019 at a Delaware repair shop, in addition to other reporting.

In China, Hunter Biden co-founded an investment firm called BHR Partners in 2013 within weeks of joining then-Vice President Biden aboard Air Force Two on an official trip to Beijing, according to the Wall Street Journal. Hunter introduced his dad to incoming BHR CEO Jonathan Li in a hotel lobby and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children. Online business records indicate that Hunter Biden still co-owns a 10% stake in BHR, despite his father’s insistence there would be no family-business-related conflicts of interest during his presidency.

Joe Biden allegedly was involved with a second Chinese venture as well. Hunter and first brother Jim Biden earned $4.8 million from CEFC China Energy — an arm of Beijing’s foreign-influence “Belt and Road” initiative — in 2017 and 2018, according to the Washington Post’s review of Hunter Biden laptop documents.

Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski says he met with Joe Biden in May 2017 to discuss the CEFC deal and a May 2017 email from another associate, James Gilliar, says the “big guy” was due a 10% cut. Bobulinski and Gilliar have identified Joe Biden as the “big guy.”

In Ukraine, Hunter Biden received up to $1 million per year to serve on the board of the energy company Burisma — despite no relevant industry experience — as his vice-president dad led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy.

White House visitor logs show that Joe Biden met with his son’s partner Devon Archer in 2014 around the time both Hunter Biden and Archer joined the Burisma board. Joe Biden attended a 2015 DC dinner apparently attended by Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi, who wrote Hunter an email the next day thanking him for the “opportunity to meet your father.”

Hunter invited other international associates to the 2015 dinner with his father, who was the sitting vice president at the time. Laptop records indicate he also invited Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, ex-Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov. Baturina is one of a dwindling number of Russian oligarchs yet to face US sanctions over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. She paid $3.5 million in 2014 to a Hunter Biden-linked firm, according to a 2020 report from GOP-led Senate committees.

Photos and emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop also indicate that Joe Biden in 2015 hosted his son and a group of Mexican business associates at the vice president’s official residence. Joe and Hunter Biden posed for a group photo with Mexican billionaires Carlos Slim and Miguel Alemán Velasco.

In 2016, Hunter Biden emailed Alemán’s son, apparently from Air Force Two while joining his dad for an official visit to Mexico, complaining that he hadn’t received reciprocal business favors after “I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing White House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration.”

Since Joe Biden became president, Hunter launched an art career seeking as much as $500,000 for his novice works.

The White House developed a plan for those art sales to be “anonymous” to theoretically prevent possible influence-peddling. Hunter received at least $375,000 last year for five prints at a Los Angeles art show attended by one of his father’s ambassador nominees, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. It’s unclear how many other sales he may have made.