Senator Grassley

Dear Mr. Spear:

Thank you for taking the time to contact me. As your senator, it is important for me to hear about the issues that concern you.

I appreciate hearing your thoughts regarding potential conflicts of interest involving the Biden family. Rest assured that whatever new information is provided to my office, I intend to leave no stone unturned.

There have been serious questions raised regarding potential conflicts of interest and the involvement of the Biden family in foreign business ventures. My inquiry into these matters is focused on a good government approach to determine whether family members have improperly sought to benefit from Joe Biden’s role in public office and whether policy decisions have been improperly influenced by family members’ business and financial ties to foreign actors.

My investigation began in 2019, when news reports brought attention to an Obama administration decision to approve a transaction which gave control of Henniges, an American maker of anti-vibration technologies with military applications, to a Chinese government-owned aviation company and a China-based investment firm with established ties to the Chinese government.

One of the companies involved in that transaction was a billion-dollar private investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). BHR was reportedly formed in November 2013 by a Chinese government-linked firm called Bohai Capital and a company named Rosemont Seneca Partners. Rosemont Seneca was reportedly formed in 2009 by Hunter Biden, Chris Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry, and others. On August 14, 2019, I sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin requesting documents associated with the process by which the Obama administration’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved the sale of Henniges to BHR. At the time the transaction was approved, Joe Biden was Vice President and John Kerry was Secretary of State. The Department of State is an approval entity for CFIUS. Clearly, this transaction created conflicts of interest. This letter is part of my long-standing oversight of the CFIUS process to ensure that all transactions are appropriately vetted for the taxpayer. In 2017, I raised concerns about CFIUS’s 2010 decision to approve a transaction which resulted in the Russian state-owned energy corporation, Rosatom, acquiring U.S. uranium assets. You can read my letter concerning the Henniges transaction in full here: https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2019-08-14%20CEG%20to%20Treasury%20(AVIC%20CFIUS).pdf.

Around the same time that I sent my letter regarding the Henniges transaction, reporting pertaining to Hunter Biden’s position on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian energy company called Burisma Holdings Limited (Burisma) began to pick up the pace. Hunter Biden first became involved with Burisma in 2014. At that time, mass protests had erupted in Ukraine as Ukrainians demanded integration into western economies and an end to the systemic corruption that had plagued their country for years. Vice President Joe Biden, who was described as the “public face of the [Obama] administration’s handling of Ukraine,” travelled to Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, in April 2014 to address Ukrainian legislators. Five days before the Vice President’s visit to Ukraine, Hunter Biden’s business partner, Devon Archer, reportedly met President Biden at the White House. Less than a week after that meeting, Archer joined the board of directors for Burisma. On May 12, 2014, Hunter Biden joined Archer on Burisma’s board. Hunter Biden’s position on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian company presented a potential conflict of interest in light of President Biden’s focus on bringing an end to corruption in Ukraine.

Senator Ron Johnson and I co-authored letters to several government agencies, including the Justice Department, State Department, Treasury Department, U.S. Secret Service, and National Archives and Records Administration, as well as a private consulting firm called Blue Star Strategies that had represented Burisma Holdings. In these oversight letters, we requested official records that could help to shed light on the Biden family’s foreign business dealings. We also requested transcribed interviews with many of the individuals who had firsthand knowledge of Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings and the Obama Administration’s policy toward Ukraine.  Among those interviewed by Committee staff were a former member of the Obama Administration’s National Security Council staff, the former Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, the former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State John Kerry, a former Under Secretary of State under President Obama, a former Assistant Secretary of State under President Obama, the former U.S. Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs under President Obama, two U.S. Ambassadors, and the CEO of Blue Star Strategies.

During our investigation, we confirmed that Acting Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, George Kent, and former U.S. Special Envoy and Coordinator for International Energy Affairs, Amos Hochstein, both raised concerns about Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Burisma. George Kent raised concerns with the Vice President’s office, and Amos Hochstein raised concerns with Vice President Biden that Hunter Biden’s position on Burisma’s board enabled Russian disinformation efforts and risked undermining U.S. policy in Ukraine. In a September 2016 email to colleagues, Kent also wrote that “the presence of Hunter Biden on the Burisma board was very awkward for all U.S. officials pushing an anticorruption agenda in Ukraine.” We also found that Burisma paid over four million dollars for Hunter Biden’s and Devon Archer’s board memberships.

During our investigation, we also uncovered evidence that Hunter Biden’s foreign business connections were much more extensive than had previously been reported. The U.S. government records produced in response to our information requests showed that during the years since Joe Biden became Vice President, Hunter Biden, his family, and Archer had received millions of dollars from foreign nationals with questionable backgrounds. For example, we found that a private holding company connected to a Kazakh national named Kenges Rakishev sent $142,300 payment to Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC on the same day that Vice President Biden appeared with the Ukrainian Prime Minister and addressed Ukrainian legislators in Kyiv regarding Russia’s actions in Crimea. According to our report as well as recent news reports, Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC was a company that sent some of the payments originating from Burisma to Hunter Biden.According to a recent news report, “[a] day after the money [from the company controlled by Rakishev] was received by Rosemont Seneca, the entity’s banking statements show, it wired the same amount to a New Jersey car dealer. The money purchased a Fisker sports car for use by Hunter Biden to be owned in the name of Rosemont Seneca, said [a] former associate and another person. Hunter Biden later traded the Fisker for a silver Porsche, the ex-associate added.”

In addition, we learned that Hunter Biden had extensive business associations with Chinese nationals linked to China’s Communist government, including its military and intelligence elements.These connections resulted in millions of dollars in cash flow to entities associated with Hunter Biden and his uncle, James Biden. Also, in 2017, Hunter Biden and a Chinese national opened a bank account which funded a $100,000 global spending spree with his uncle and aunt, James and Sara Biden.

On September 23, 2020, Senator Johnson and I released a report containing our investigative findings up to that point.  Our report was entitled, “Hunter Biden, Burisma, and Corruption: The Impact on U.S. Government Policy and Related Concerns.” You can access the report here: https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/HSGAC%20-%20Finance%20Joint%20Report%202020.09.23.pdf.

After releasing this interim report, we did not let up. Concerned by what we had already found, we requested additional records and uncovered evidence of additional, troubling financial transactions.

For instance, we learned that in 2017, two wires, each in the amount of $3,000,000, were sent from a company called State Energy HK Limited to Robinson Walker LLC, a company associated with Rob Walker, a longtime business associate of Hunter Biden. At the time that these wires were sent, State Energy HK Limited was associated with CEFC China Energy, a company that was under the leadership of Ye Jianming and Gongwen Dong, business associates of Hunter Biden with established ties to China’s communist government. On November 18, 2020, Senator Johnson and I made these findings public in a supplement to our September 23, 2020 report. As we note in the report, “[t]hese transactions are a direct link between Walker and the communist Chinese government and, because of his close association with Hunter Biden, yet another tie between Hunter Biden’s financial arrangements and the communist Chinese government.” You can read our full supplemental report at the following address:  https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/2020-11-18%20HSGAC%20-%20Finance%20Joint%20Report%20Supplemental.pdf.

Last year, Senator Johnson and I continued to follow up by sending additional letters to the Director of National Intelligence, the National Archives and Records Administration, and other entities used by Hunter Biden’s Chinese business partners. In these letters, we requested official U.S. government records pertaining to activities by several of Hunter Biden’s business associates with established ties to the Communist Chinese government.

In July of 2021, a member of the public provided a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop to my office. Upon receiving it, I instructed my staff to immediately begin working to review and verify the materials that were on it, which is consistent with my approach whenever any member of the public provides information to my office. Some of the information on the copy of the laptop I received was consistent with and shed additional light on Senator Johnson’s and my recent investigative findings. Recently, the New York Times and Washington Post reported that they have authenticated thousands of records from the laptop.

My staff’s due diligence review has been an important key to publicly verifying the authenticity of some of the records contained on the Hunter Biden laptop. In addition, my staff have been able to identify records on the laptop that aren’t executed and signed, such as legal and financial documents, making them largely unusable. My staff have then worked to acquire executed and signed documents from sources outside the laptop.

For example, as recently reported, the Hunter Biden laptop contains a copy of an important 2017 LLC agreement between Hunter Biden and his Chinese business associates. This LLC agreement lays out the terms of an agreement under which Hunter Biden would receive $100,000 per month, and his uncle, James Biden, would receive $65,000 per month, to help an energy company closely tied to China’s Communist government expand its reach in the American energy sector. The copy of the LLC agreement contained on the laptop is unsigned and unexecuted. Instead of releasing this unverified version, Senator Johnson and I were able to acquire an official, signed and executed copy of this LLC Agreement from a financial institution, along with official bank statements and wire transaction records showing without question that the payments to Hunter and James Biden described in the LLC agreement were actually made. This was a long and difficult process.

Recently, Senator Johnson and I made these official documents and some of the other official bank records we collected during our investigation public. These official records have been used by the news media to corroborate and verify the authenticity of records contained on the Hunter Biden laptop.  A recent Washington Post article that relies on information my office released in order to verify e-mails on the Hunter Biden laptop is available here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/30/hunter-biden-china-laptop/.

I spoke about these records and the millions of dollars that flowed to Hunter Biden and James Biden from corporate entities linked to the Chinese Government on the Senate floor on March 28, March 29, and April 5, 2022. You can view them at the following web addresses:

Part 1:  https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/grassley-johnson-discuss-investigation-into-biden-family-foreign-financial-entanglements_-part-1;

Part 2:  https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/grassley-johnson-release-bank-records-tying-biden-family-to-ccp-linked-individuals-and-companies;

Part 3:  https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/remarks/the-biden-family-investigation_part-iii-james-biden.

The records we publicly released also further support the findings contained in our September 2020 report and show millions of dollars in wire transfers going from Chinese nationals connected to the Communist government to entities associated with Hunter Biden and Joe Biden’s brother, James Biden.

The Wall Street Journal also recently noted that our ongoing investigation has “confirmed [our] earlier report and portions of the laptop, thereby adding to the pressure on the media finally to do some digging.” The article also noted that the false claims of Russian disinformation that the liberal media levied against me and Senator Johnson when we issued our initial Biden reports require an apology. Highlights from the article are available here: https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/commentary/icymi_opinion-apologies-for-hunter-bidens-laptop.

I have also raised serious concerns about DOJ’s handling of information related to Hunter Biden.

On May 31, 2022, I wrote to Attorney General Garland and Director Wray regarding likely violations of Federal laws, regulations and Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) guidelines by Assistant Special Agent in Charge (“ASAC”) Timothy Thibault of the Washington Field Office (“WFO”) based on a pattern of active public partisanship in his then public social media content. Since then, my office has received a significant number of protected communications from highly credible whistleblowers.

First, it’s been alleged that the FBI developed information in 2020 about Hunter Biden’s criminal financial and related activity. It is further alleged that in August 2020, FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten opened an assessment which was used by a FBI Headquarters (“FBI HQ”) team to improperly discredit negative Hunter Biden information as disinformation and caused investigative activity to cease. Based on allegations, verified and verifiable derogatory information on Hunter Biden was falsely labeled as disinformation.

The basis for how the FBI HQ team selected the specific information for inclusion in Auten’s assessment is unknown, but in more than one instance the focus of the FBI HQ team’s attention involved derogatory information about Hunter Biden. Accordingly, the allegations provided to my office appear to indicate that there was a scheme in place among certain FBI officials to undermine derogatory information connected to Hunter Biden by falsely suggesting it was disinformation.

Second, it has been alleged that in September 2020, investigators from the same FBI HQ team were in communication with FBI agents responsible for the Hunter Biden information targeted by Auten’s assessment. The FBI HQ team’s investigators placed their findings with respect to whether reporting was disinformation in a restricted access sub-file reviewable only by the particular agents responsible for uncovering the specific information. This is problematic because it does not allow for proper oversight and opens the door to improper influence.

Third, in October 2020, an avenue of additional derogatory Hunter Biden reporting was ordered closed at the direction of ASAC Thibault. My office has been made aware that FBI agents responsible for this information were interviewed by the FBI HQ team in furtherance of Auten’s assessment. It’s been alleged that the FBI HQ team suggested to the FBI agents that the information was at risk of disinformation; however, according to allegations, all of the reporting was either verified or verifiable via criminal search warrants. In addition, ASAC Thibault allegedly ordered the matter closed without providing a valid reason as required by FBI guidelines. Despite the matter being closed in such a way that the investigative avenue might be opened later, it’s alleged that FBI officials, including ASAC Thibault, subsequently attempted to improperly mark the matter in FBI systems so that it could not be opened in the future.

If these allegations are true and accurate, the Justice Department and FBI have allowed political infection to take root, which undermines the equal application of the law.

In light of the serious allegations and my ongoing investigation into Justice Department and FBI misconduct, I have asked the FBI to produce a series of records relating, among other things, to the Auten assessment, cases under the purview of Thibault, and the Bidens and their foreign business relationships. Congress, as part of its constitutional oversight responsibilities, must perform an independent and objective review of these matters.

You can find my July 25, 2022, letter concerning the FBI’s handling of information related to Hunter Biden here:https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/grassley_to_justice_deptfbipoliticalbiasfollowup.pdf.

Of course, Senator Johnson and I will continue to investigate and follow up on our earlier oversight requests, and we will continue to make our investigative findings public whenever possible. Rest assured, whatever new information is provided to my office, I intend to leave no stone unturned.

Thank you for taking the time to contact me.  I encourage you to keep in touch.