Joe Biden poses with Hunter’s Chinese business associates in newly surfaced photos: ‘Incredibly damning’

President Biden is seen in recently unearthed photos meeting with Hunter Biden’s Chinese business associates in China while he was vice president, further calling into question his claim that he “never” discussed business with his son.

The photos, obtained by conservative-leaning America First Legal through a lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), appear to show then-Vice President Biden introducing his son to Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-Vice President Li Yuanchao. Other photos show Joe Biden posing with Hunter’s business associates from BHR Partners, including Jonathan Li and Ming Xue.

“These images shed light on the connections between then-Vice President Biden, Hunter and his Chinese business associates and Chinese government officials, including President Xi Jinping,” America First Legal said in press release this week. “Lawyers and representatives for President Biden and President Obama delayed NARA’s release of these photos, as they have done with other records, until after Election Day.”

“These photos confirm the investigative findings of the Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives that Hunter Biden arranged for his father to meet with Jonathan Li and other BHR executives during a trip to China in 2013, where Mr. Li sought — and received — access to Vice President Biden’s political power, including, for example, privileged access to then-U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus … a condition for Hunter Biden and his associates to participate in the BHR deal,'” America First Legal wrote.

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America First Legal also wrote that, according to the committee’s investigation, “the Biden family benefited from their business dealings with BHR.”

Hunter Biden was asked earlier this year by the House Oversight Committee about his meetings while traveling in Asia with his father.

“When we got back from the event to the hotel, there were ropes and Jonathan Li was in the lobby of the hotel where I was supposed to meet him for coffee,” Hunter Biden said at the time. “In that sequence, I introduced my dad to Jonathan Li and his friend, they shook hands and I believe they probably took a photo. And then my dad went to his room and I went to have coffee with Jonathan Li.”

Hunter Biden added that he told his father “nothing” about who Li was.

Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any role in his son’s affairs.

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“I have never spoken to my son about his foreign affairs,” Joe Biden said in the 2019 presidential campaign.

But emails to and from Hunter Biden cast doubt on that, including a 2017 email obtained by Fox News that features Hunter looking for keys for Joe and Jill Biden, along with his uncle Jim Bidenfor the space he planned to share with the “emissary” of the president of a Chinese energy company that is now in bankruptcy.

In another 2017 email also obtained by Fox News, Biden wrote to the chairman of the same Chinese energy company expressing “best wishes from the entire Biden family” and urging the president to “quickly” send a $10 million bank letter for “proper financing and work” Biden’s joint venture with the company.

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Devon Archer, a former business partner and longtime friend of Hunter Biden, sat for hours before the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door hearing last year and contradicted the president’s claim, saying Hunter put his father on speaker phone while meeting with business partners at least 20 times.

Archer described how Joe Biden was called on the phone to sell “the brand.”

The photos have drawn sharp criticism on social media in light of President Biden’s frequent claims that he has never discussed business with his son.

“Stunning,” Red State writer Bonchie published on X.

“These photos are incredibly damning and speak volumes,” author and journalist Peter Schweizer published on X.

“It is such a shame that only through litigation and only after the conclusion of the Biden administration is its corruption with ties to the Chinese Communist Party fully come into focus,” Real Clear Politics Editor Benjamin Weingarten published on X.

“The Biden crime family’s Christmas card just arrived,” GOP Rep. Eric Burlison published on X.

“China has the Bidens in its back pocket,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton published on X.

Recently revealed photos of the Bidens’ meeting with Hunter’s Chinese business associates renew scrutiny of the email exchange previously reported by Fox News Digital. A 2014 email exchange reveals Hunter Biden once said he would “be happy” to introduce his business associates to a senior Chinese Communist Party official to discuss potential investments after the official allegedly sat at Hunter’s table during a 2013 dinner in Beijing. to welcome his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.

Hunter’s 2014 email exchange with James Bulger related to the same trip to China cited in America First Legal’s press release.

Bulger, who goes by “Jimmy,” was president of Boston-based Thornton Group LLC, the firm that joined forces with Hunter’s now-defunct Rosemont Seneca to launch its joint venture with Chinese investment firm Bohai Capital to create BHR Partners shortly after the Bidens traveled to China. BHR Partners is controlled by Bank of China Limited.

In a 2014 email, Bulger asked Hunter to introduce BHR CEO Jonathan Li and Andy Lu, who was a BHR board member, to “Mr. Tung,” a reference to CH Tung, the former governor of Hong Kong and the billionaire who was vice chairman of the CCP-affiliated Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference to discuss “BHR’s investment goals” and “raising resources”.

The email said Hunter was seated next to Tung at a welcome dinner in December 2013 Vice President Joe Biden to Beijing. Fox News Digital had previously reached out to the White House multiple times asking for the seating arrangements for the Beijing dinner, specifically Hunter’s table, but it did not respond.

“I understand that during the trip to Beijing that you took with your father, President Xi hosted a welcome dinner,” Bulger wrote. “[A]For those dinners, you were seated right next to Mr. Tung, so J and Andy believe it would be very helpful if you could send Mr. Tung a short email stating that you are a partner and board member of BHR and would appreciate it to Mr. Tung if he can meet with your local partners to discuss the Fund.

“Please let me know if you can introduce these two to Mr. Tung by email, it is very important for our BHR initiative [sic] at this moment.”

Hunter replied that he was “happy” to comply with the request, but said he could not remember the names of the gentlemen who sat next to him at dinner.

It appears that the “welcome dinner” in Beijing hosted by President Xi that Bulger referred to in his first email happened during the evening on December 4, 2013, after then-Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao met with Joe Biden earlier that day to discuss strengthening US-China relations.

President Biden pardoned his son earlier this month for all potential crimes dating back to 2014.

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“Today I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” Biden wrote in a statement at the time. “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere in the decision-making of the Department of Justice, and I kept my word even as I watched my son be selectively and unfairly prosecuted.

“There were efforts to break Hunter – who had been sober for five and a half years, even in the face of relentless attacks and selective prosecution,” the 82-year-old father wrote. “In trying to break Hunter, they tried to break me—and there’s no reason to believe they’ll stop there. Enough is enough.”

Fox News Digital has previously reached to the White House about why the pardon was so broad, but did not receive an answer.

“Even as President Biden has forgiven his son, Hunter, for anything and everything ‘that he did or could have done or participated in’ all the way back to 2014, more evidence is emerging every day showing how his family took advantage of More Joe Biden’s longer career in public service for private gain,” US First Counsel Michael Ding said in a statement.

“America First Legal will not stop fighting to uncover the full story of the Biden family’s corruption.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, Hunter Biden’s legal team and the Chinese entrepreneurs in the photos, but did not receive a comment.

Fox News Digital’s Jessica Chasmar Brooke Singman and Tyler Olson contributed to this report