(Headline USA) Hunter Biden told lawmakers during his closed-door testimony on Wednesday that he was “high or drunk” when he name-dropped his father in a threatening text message to a Chinese business associate, according to the Daily Mail.
A readout of his testimony revealed that Hunter admitted to sending the WhatsApp text to Henry Zhao, who worked for the Chinese Communist Party-linked energy company CEFC, in 2017.
Their warnings fell on deaf ears.
In August 2020, a search warrant uncovered a text between Hunter and Henry Zhao, an executive at a Chinese company that paid Hunter $100,000.
The text mentioned Joe Biden repeatedly.
Investigators were not allowed to verify the information. pic.twitter.com/wpqmrkppz1
— Rep. Jason Smith (@RepJasonSmith) June 22, 2023
“I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter wrote to Zhao.
“Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” he continued. “And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction.”
Although many of the messages from Hunter’s abandoned laptop contain typographical and spelling errors, the message to Zhao—despite his purported state of inebriation—was perfectly punctuated
Yet, Hunter not only claimed during his deposition that he had lost control of his faculties when he sent the message, but also that he “sent it to the wrong recipient, and is now embarrassed” by it.
Within 10 days of the threatening message, CEFC sent $5.1 million to Biden family-linked accounts, according to financial information obtained by congressional Republicans.
Hunter also reportedly insisted throughout his testimony that his father, President Joe Biden, had nothing to do with his foreign business dealings.
“I am here today to provide the committees with the one incontestable fact that should end the false premise of this inquiry: I did not involve my father in my business,” he claimed in a statement before his six-hour deposition. “Not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist. Never.”
He went on to dismiss Republicans’ investigation into his finances as “baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracy theories.”
However, at one point Hunter admitted that his father was, in fact, the “big guy” mentioned in an email by James Gilliar, one of the Biden family’s business associates.
Hunter blamed the email on Gilliar, telling lawmakers that Gilliar was “out of his mind for even suggesting Joe Biden get involved in their joint venture.”
House Oversight Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., said the testimony would usher in the “next phase” of the impeachment investigation.
“I think a public hearing will hopefully clear up some discrepancies between some of the statements being made by some of the associates and that we heard today,” Comer said in a statement afterward.
🚨BREAKING🚨
Following Hunter Biden’s deposition, Chairman Comer announces the next phase is a public hearing.
“I think this was a great deposition for us. It proved several bits of our evidence that we've been conducting throughout this investigation.
“But there were also… pic.twitter.com/ZtsqcyCED2
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) February 28, 2024
