Joe Biden played the role of "closer" in many of his son Hunter Biden's business deals with individuals from unfriendly countries, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said, citing witness testimony in the ongoing Biden impeachment inquiry.
Jason Galanis, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, described one instance to congressional investigators: A phone call from Joe Biden to an assembled meeting of business partners and Russian oligarchs. Galanis reported the call took place at a May 4, 2014, restaurant meeting in Brooklyn.
“I was present when Hunter called his father on a cell phone and put the call on speaker. Present for the call were Yelena Baturina, an investor in Rosemont projects; her husband Yuri, the former mayor of Moscow; and Devon Archer,” Galanis says, according to a transcript released by the Oversight Committee.
“During the May 4th party, we were told to go to an area of the restaurant to gather because Hunter was going to call his father,” Galanis added. “Hunter called his father, said, ‘Hello,’ and ‘Hold on, Pops,’ then put the call on speaker phone and said, 'I'm here with our friends I told you were coming to town, and we wanted to say hello.' ”
Galanis said the then-vice president delivered pleasantries to the assembled group, but when he was ready to end the call, he delivered a message directly to his son’s partners.
“Okay, you be good to my boy,” Joe Biden reportedly said.
“Everything is good, and we're moving ahead,” Hunter responded, according to Galanis’ recollection.
“I recall being stunned by this call, to actually hear the Vice President’s voice on the phone. It was clear to me that this was a prearranged call with his father meant to impress the Russian investors that Hunter had access to his father and all the power and prestige of that position,” Galanis said.
Comer told the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show on Friday that Joe Biden serve the role as the "person who closed the deal, Hunter and Jim would initiate the deal. They would make their pitch, their business model was to be able to what I call influence peddle, but what they were doing is selling access to Joe Biden. And then Joe Biden would get on the phone or have lunch with them or do something and make it known in a plausible deniability kind of way that he was involved.”
“But wink wink he really wasn't involved. And at the end of the day, the Biden family got tens of millions of dollars from our enemies around the world. And everyone should be ashamed that our President of the United States has sold access to our two biggest enemies, China and Russia, among other adversarial nations around the world for over a decade,” Comer added.
Galanis described Joe Biden's role in the deals as the “Biden Lift.”
Galanis, along with another impeachment witness, Tony Bobulinski, claims the Biden name and the perception of influence were key for Hunter Biden to secure the lucrative deals.
Baturina, the widow of former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, who died in 2019, also attended an April 2014 dinner hosted by Hunter Biden at the posh Cafe Milano in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C., according to testimony from Devon Archer. Mere weeks before, Baturina had deposited $3.5 million into a bank account associated with a Hunter Biden-connected business for the purpose of investing in a real estate deal in New York City. Archer told the committee Joe Biden attended the meeting.
Kazakhstani oligarch Kenes Rakishev also attended the same dinner with Baturina and Joe Biden. Shortly after the gathering, Rakishev wired a Hunter Biden-connected entity $142,300 on April 21, 2014. The following day, the same amount was wired to a New Jersey car dealership to pay for a Porsche sports car for Hunter Biden, according to a report by the Oversight Committee.
Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry, who sits on the Oversight Committee, believes access to Joe Biden was the business model based on sworn testimony his committee has received and highlighted the security implications of Hunter Biden’s business relationships on the "John Solomon Reports" podcast Monday.
"Hunter Biden had no ability or authority, he had no way of making anything go away," said Perry. "He's not elected to anything. He's not appointed to anything. In a position of authority. The only way that that could be done was by having his father or somebody he knew, based on his last name and access, do it,” Perry continued, responding to reporting from Just the News that Galanis testified Hunter Biden solicited $5 million from a Ukrainian oligarch in an effort to quash a U.S. indictment against him.
“The Navy and the U.S. government and our Armed Forces compromised itself and every other member of of the Navy that was serving of the armed forces that was serving honorably compromised all of them for the sake of Hunter Biden, the Biden family and what they were seeking to do, which was clean up their corrupt sons, you know, image, and they were using the United States Armed Forces and the goodwill that that has garnered over years and years of sacrifice and service to do it,” Perry said.
“It is it is the height of immorality and disrespect for the uniformed services,” he added.
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