Hunter Biden continues to hold a minority stake in a Chinese private equity firm that invested in a technology company that was sanctioned in 2019 for committing human rights violations against Uyghurs.
President Joe Biden promised in October 2019 during his campaign that nobody in his family would have any business relationship with any foreign corporation or country if he won the White House. The president reiterated his promise in December 2020 after his election victory, saying his son would “not be involved in any business, any enterprise that is in conflict with or appears to be in conflict with an appropriate distance from the presidency and government. ”
“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,” Joe Biden said in October 2019. “Period. Period. End of story.”
Despite his father’s promises, Hunter Biden continues to hold a 10% equity stake in the Chinese equity firm, BHR Partners, through his company, Skaneateles LLC, according to business records accessed Monday from China’s National Credit Information Publicity System.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said in early February that Hunter Biden was in the process of divesting his ownership stake in BHR Partners, which he obtained with a $420,000 investment in October 2017.
Psaki told reporters Monday that Hunter Biden was still in the process of winding down his investment in the firm and directed further questions to his representatives.
It’s not clear if Hunter Biden expects to receive a return on his investment in BHR Partners after his divestment is complete.
Hunter Biden’s lawyer, George Mesires, has not returned numerous inquiries from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
BHR is co-owned by the Chinese state-controlled Bank of China, its business records show, and manages the equivalent of $2.1 billion in assets, according to its website.
The same month Hunter Biden purchased his 10% stake in BHR Partners, the private equity firm purchased a stake in the Chinese facial recognition company Megvii, which was later sanctioned by the U.S. government in 2019 for its alleged involvement in implementing “China’s campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention, and high-technology surveillance against Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other members of Muslim minority groups in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.”
President-elect Joe Biden embraces his son Hunter Biden after addressing the nation from the Chase Center on November 07, 2020, in Wilmington, Delaware. (Andrew Harnik-Pool/Getty Images)
Mesires said in an October 2019 statement that his client had not received any return on his investment in BHR Partners up to that point.
However, emails located on a copy of Hunter Biden’s alleged laptop show that he was told on multiple occasions by his business partner Eric Schwerin that he could expect to receive significant payments from BHR beginning in 2019, the DCNF previously reported.
“BHR is due to have a significant distribution in 2019 because of the CATL exit,” Schwerin told Hunter Biden in a November 2018 email. (EXCLUSIVE: Hunter Biden Was Due To Receive ‘Significant’ Payments From Chinese Private Equity Firm Starting In 2019, Emails Show)
In another email the following month Schwerin told Hunter Biden that he can expect BHR to generate income for him “over the next couple of years.”
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