WASHINGTON — President Biden’s daughter-in-law Hallie is the mysterious “new” Biden family member who got paid Chinese cash in 2017, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer revealed exclusively to The Post Thursday.
Comer said the payments to first son Hunter Biden’s sister-in-law-turned-former lover were revealed in subpoenaed bank records.
The records show Hallie Biden received $35,000 over two transfers in 2017 from Biden family associate Rob Walker, who got $3 million on March 1, 2017, from State Energy HK Limited, a firm affiliated with CEFC China Energy.
President Biden, who allegedly was the “big guy” mentioned in communications about the same Chinese venture, dined at Hallie Biden’s residence last Friday during his regular weekend trip home to Delaware. It’s unclear if they discussed the looming bombshell, which Comer (R-Ky.) publicly teased Monday night on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
One transfer to Hallie from Robinson Walker LLC was for $25,000 on March 20, 2017, Comer’s staff wrote in a Thursday morning memo to committee members. Another $10,000 was transferred on Feb. 13 — raising “many questions” according to a committee aide because it came shortly before, rather than after, the $3 million haul.
The information creates an unexpected new avenue for investigation — and the memo notes the bank records don’t include the first names of all Biden family recipients, meaning there may be others involved, in addition to Hunter Biden and first brother James Biden.
Hallie Biden is the widow of Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015, and the mother of two of the president’s grandchildren, Natalie and Robert Hunter. She dated the president’s other son, Hunter, from around 2016 to 2019, a timeframe that included the Chinese dealings.
“Democrats described our subpoena as providing nothing more than records for Papa John’s and Starbucks, but they failed to mention the records we’ve received documenting the Biden family’s business schemes,” Comer told The Post, referring to committee ranking member Rep. Jamie Raskin’s disclosure of the subpoenas this week.
“Over the course of several years, members of the Biden family and their companies received over $1.3 million in payments from accounts related to their associate, Rob Walker,” Comer said. “Most of this money came as a result of a wire from a Chinese energy company and went not only to Hunter and James Biden but also to Hallie Biden and an unknown ‘Biden.’”
Comer added, “It is unclear what services were provided to obtain this exorbitant amount of money.”
More than a third of the $3 million that Walker’s firm received was forwarded to Biden family associate James Gilliar and “almost the exact same amount,” $1,065,000, was distributed among Biden family members over three months, the committee memo says.
The staff memo says the bank records raise questions for investigators, including “why Hallie Biden — publicly reported to work as a school counselor — received money from Robinson Walker, LLC; and … who the account holder is for the bank account entitled ‘Biden.’”
A bank account identified in records as belonging to “Biden” — without a first name — received $70,000 from Walker’s account in four installments paid from March 6 to May 17, 2017, according to the memo. The rest appears to have gone to entities controlled by Hunter and James Biden.
“The Committee is continuing to investigate the identity of this account holder,” the memo from Comer’s office said.
The Chinese funds flowed to the famous political family less than two months after Joe Biden left office as Barack Obama’s vice president.
Walker, who distributed the money, is a former Clinton administration official whose wife, Betsy Massey Walker, was an assistant to first lady Jill Biden during Joe Biden’s vice presidency, The Post previously reported.
White House spokesman Ian Sams dismissed the new revelations as an “attack” on Biden’s family.
“After a disgusting attack lamenting that the President’s deceased son Beau was never prosecuted while he was alive, Congressman Comer has now decided to go after Beau’s widow,” Sams said. “Instead of bizarrely attacking the President’s family, perhaps House Republicans should focus on working with the President to deliver results for American families on important priorities like lowering costs and strengthening health care.”
A spokesperson for Hunter Biden’s legal team on Thursday confirmed the payments.
“Hunter Biden, a private citizen with every right to pursue his own business endeavors, joined several business partners in seeking a joint venture with a legitimate energy company in China. Hunter received his portion of good faith seed funds which he shared with his uncle, James Biden, and Hallie Biden … and nobody else,” the spokesperson said, according to Fox News.
Among the new clues to surface in the bank records is the revelation that money also moved between Walker’s account and those of Biden family members in 2015 while Joe Biden was still VP.
“On November 5, 2015, Robinson Walker, LLC received a wire from a company (the Committee continues to investigate the identity of the account holder for this company) that had an overseas bank account in the amount of $179,836.86,” Comer’s memo says.
The oversight committee memo notes that in a striking similarity to the disbursement of the $3 million in early 2017, the smaller 2015 amount appears to have been also split three ways between Walker, Gilliar and the Biden family — with $59,900 sent on Nov. 9, 2015, to the account of “Robert Biden.” Robert is Hunter Biden’s legal first name.
Hunter Biden and the president’s brother James earned at least $4.8 million from CEFC China Energy, a since-defunct cog in Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign, in 2017 and 2018, according to prior reporting on Hunter’s abandoned laptop.
Hallie Biden previously was the subject of news coverage for allegedly throwing a gun belonging to Hunter into a Delaware dumpster in October 2018 during their tempestuous relationship.
Determining Joe Biden’s own links to the Chinese funds is a priority for House Republicans.
The Post exclusively reported in October 2020 that Hunter’s former laptop included a May 2017 email from Gilliar proposing that the “big guy” get 10% of the CEFC deal.
A whistleblower, former Hunter Biden associate Tony Bobulinski, came forward just before the 2020 election to allege that he personally met with Joe Biden in May 2017 to discuss the CEFC venture.
Both Bobulinski and Gilliar have identified Joe Biden as the “big guy.”
Republicans accuse Biden of being too soft on China on issues such as determining the origins of COVID-19, which killed more than 1 million Americans, and stopping fentanyl exports, which killed about 196,000 Americans from 2018 to 2021 alone.
Meanwhile, online business records indicate the first son still owns a 10% stake in Chinese state-backed BHR Partners, which says it manages $2.1 billion in assets.
Hunter co-founded BHR Partners in 2013 within weeks of joining then-Vice President Biden aboard Air Force Two on an official trip to Beijing, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Hunter introduced his dad to BHR CEO Jonathan Li in a hotel lobby and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children.
Hunter Biden is under federal investigation by the US attorney’s office in Delaware for possible tax fraud, illegal foreign lobbying, and other crimes.
The first son has said that he paid as much as “half” of his income to his father.
The bank subpoena revelations come as the Oversight Committee ramps up its investigation into the Biden family’s foreign dealings.
Comer’s staff on Wednesday began reviewing Treasury Department suspicious activity reports on Biden family transactions — expected to include business relations involving additional countries such as Russia and Ukraine.
He’s also demanding sales records for Hunter’s artworks sold, supposedly to anonymous buyers, through a Manhattan gallery.
