President Joe Biden on Wednesday angrily denied that he was involved in an alleged shakedown of a Chinese businessman by his son Hunter Biden.
“No!” President Biden snapped at a reporter on the White House lawn when asked if he was “sitting there” or “involved” when his son sent a threatening WhatsApp text to businessman Henry Zhao on July 30, 2017.
“No I wasn’t, and I won’t,” the president said as he left to the White House to fly to Chicago for an event.
The White House in recent days refused to comment on the WhatsApp message, and answer questions on whether Hunter Biden’s alleged claim of being with the president when he sent it’s true. The White House previously has said that President Biden was not involved in Hunter’s business ventures.
The WhatsApp message got here to light days after Hunter Biden agreed to plead guilty to 2 misdemeanor tax crimes in federal court in Delaware.
Former IRS agent Gary Shapley last month told the House Ways and Means Committee that an IRS search warrant had uncovered the WhatsApp message by Hunter Biden to Zhao a few proposed energy deal, in line with testimony made public last week.
In that message, Hunter told Zhao, “I’m sitting here with my father we would love to grasp why the commitment has not been fulfilled.”
On the time of the message, Joe Biden was a personal citizen, having recently served as a two-term vp. Before that, he served as a U.S. senator from Delaware for a long time.
“Tell the director that I would love to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” Hunter Biden wrote to Zhao, in line with the transcript.
“And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved on this aside from you, Zhang, or the chairman, I’ll ensure that between the person sitting next to me and one and all he knows and my ability to endlessly hold a grudge that you’ll regret not following my direction.”
“I’m sitting here waiting for the decision with my father,” Hunter Biden wrote.
Hunter Biden attends an official State Dinner in honor of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on the White House in Washington, DC, on June 22, 2023.Â
Stefani Reynolds | Afp | Getty Images
Hunter Biden’s attorney Christopher Clark, in a press release to Fox News last week, responded to the disclosure of the message, by noting that his client was within the midst of addiction when he wrote it.
“Biased and politically-motivated, selective leaks have plagued this matter for years. They are usually not only irresponsible, they’re illegal. A detailed examination of the document released publicly yesterday by a really biased individual raises serious questions over whether it’s what he claims it to be. It’s dangerously misleading to make any conclusions or inferences based on this document,” Clark said. “The DOJ investigation covered a period which was a time of turmoil and addiction for my client.”
Clark added that any “verifiable words or actions of my client within the midst of a horrible addiction are solely his own and don’t have any connection to anyone in his family.”
Shapley, the previous IRS agent, testified that the Department of Justice “slow-walked” a criminal investigation of Hunter Biden that began in 2018, giving him “preferential treatment” and doing “nothing to avoid obvious conflicts of interest” within the probe.
While Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to wilfully failing to pay taxes for 2017 and 2018, Shapley testified that there was evidence she must have also been criminally charged for his 2014 tax filing.
Shapley said the DOJ would have charged someone for that yr in “another case I ever worked with similar fact patterns, similar acts of evasion and similar tax due and owing.”
The DOJ has said that the U.S. Attorney for Delaware, David Weiss, made charging decisions within the case against Hunter Biden, not Attorney General Merrick Garland, who was appointed by President Biden. Weiss was appointed to his post by then-President Donald Trump, and allowed to stay in it to proceed the Hunter Biden investigation.
Weiss told the House Judiciary Committee in a June 7 letter: “Throughout my tenure as U.S. Attorney my decisions have been made — and with respect to the matter have to be made — regardless of political considerations.”
