At long last, first son Hunter Biden affirmed during his Wednesday impeachment inquiry deposition that his father, Joe, was “the big guy” referenced in an email about a business deal with a Chinese state-linked energy firm that yielded millions for Biden family members and other associates, more than three years after The Post broke the story — but rejected the notion that the president was ever penciled in for a 10% stake.
The deposition represents the first time the 54-year-old Hunter has admitted that his former business partner James Gilliar was referring to Joe Biden when he raised the prospect on May 13, 2017, of the first son holding a 10% stake in the lucrative joint venture involving CEFC China Energy “for the big guy.”
“I truly don’t know what the hell that James was talking about,” the first son said when asked about the reference, according to a transcript released Thursday.
“All I know is … what actually happened.”
The email, found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, was first reported by The Post in October 2020 as part of a bombshell series of reports on the first son’s influence-peddling schemes.
Hunter Biden and his allies had long insisted that information found on the laptop either was not his or had been manipulated by bad actors — with dozens of former intelligence officials insisting the trove bore the hallmarks of Russian election interference.
Later in his response, Hunter said that Gilliar’s suggestion of his dad getting a stake was a “pie in the sky idea” with Biden leaving public life after eight years as Barack Obama’s vice president.
“Like, ‘Joe Biden’s out of the office. Maybe we’ll be able to get him involved,'” the first son said.
“Remember, again, is that Joe Biden, for first time in 48 years, is not an elected official and is not seeking office. And so James is probably, like, ‘Wow, wouldn’t be great if a former Vice President could be in our business together?'”
Hunter claimed to his interrogators that if he had seen the email from Gilliar at the time, “I would have picked up the phone and said, ‘You’re out of your mind.'”
“I shut it down, and the evidence of me shutting it down is the actual things you have as evidence,” the younger Biden said.
“Remember that. The agreement, the executed agreement, the executed agreement to create a company that was never operated, that’s what happened. That’s the evidence you have … Nothing to do with my dad, zero.”
The president lashed out at a Post reporter in June 2023 when pressed about being repeatedly referred to as “the big guy,” a moniker that his brother Frank also used in addition to several of Hunter’s associates.
“Why do you ask such a dumb question?” Biden shot back.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) described the deal involving CEFC China Energy as “money laundering” when speaking with reporters on a break from the deposition, pointing to a $40,000 check Joe Biden received from his brother James, following a “complicated financial transaction.”
Comer released bank records last year showing the firm, a shuttered entity that was apparently part of the Chinese Communist Party’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign, paid James and Hunter Biden $6.1 million in 2017 and 2018 — including a $5 million wire on Aug. 8, 2017, days after Hunter texted a CEFC translator that he was “sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
Through a series of transfers to entities owned and controlled by Hunter, those funds flowed to other Biden family members, with $50,000 landing in a personal checking account for James and his wife, Sara — and the first brother writing the $40,000 check to the former vice president as a “loan repayment.”
At another point in the deposition, Hunter Biden described his financial relationship with his father as that of “a normal son [who] would take care of something for their dad or their dad would take care of something for their son.”
Hunter also defended patching his famous father in on speakerphone during calls with his business associates, telling the panel: “My dad calls me, like I’m sure a lot of your parents do, or a lot of you do with your children, and if I’m with people that are friends of mine, I’ll have him say hi.”
Democrats on the panel echoed the remarks when speaking with reporters.
“We’ve been hearing about these speakerphones in public settings for a long time now,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the committee’s ranking member, saying there was nothing “illicit” in doing so and Hunter’s explanation resonated with both Democrats and Republicans in the hearing room.
“People say, ‘Hey, Dad, will you say hello to my friends?’” Raskin said.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) scoffed at the explanation and the first son’s purported expertise as a businessman.
“It is a mirage to believe that Hunter Biden was engaged in international business,” he told reporters during another break.
“This was a bribe masquerading as an international business transaction.”
