WASHINGTON — Hunter Biden tried to help a corrupt Romanian client by lobbying US officials during his father’s vice presidency, special counsel David Weiss’ office said Wednesday in a filing that nonetheless says those possible criminal infractions were “not relevant” to the first son’s tax-fraud trial next month.
Hunter, 54, is scheduled to stand trial in Los Angeles beginning Sept. 9 for allegedly failing to pay $1.4 million in taxes between 2016 and 2019 on income from Chinese, Romanian and Ukrainian dealings.
Weiss’ filing says that Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu, convicted in his homeland of bribery in 2016, hired Hunter and his associates “to attempt to influence U.S. government agencies to investigate the Romanian criminal investigation of [Popoviciu], and thereby cause an end to the investigation.”
Hunter Biden and two business partners drafted a bogus business document to cover their tracks in a bid to avoid triggering the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires registration and disclosure of lobbying on behalf of certain overseas clients, according to the court filing.
“[T]he defendant [Hunter Biden] and his business partners did reach out to government officials, specifically the United States Department of State,” the new filing says.
Hunter’s business partner Rob Walker “structured [the] business relationship in an effort to avoid having to register as a foreign agent,” the filing says.
That business structuring was based on lies and featured a “Management Services Agreement,” the filing says, in which “[Walker’s] legal entity would purportedly provide management services to real estate properties in Romania, but that was not actually what [Popoviciu] was paying for.
“In reality, [Walker] and [Popoviciu] agreed that [Walker] would receive compensation for work by [Walker], [Hunter Biden], and [Hunter’s partner James Gilliar], to attempt to influence U.S. government agencies to investigate the Romanian investigation of [Popoviciu], and [Walker] would pass approximately 1/3 to [Hunter Biden] as his compensation and approximately 1/3 to [Gilliar] as his compensation.”
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Despite the evidence of FARA violations, “[t]he introduction of that evidence… does not mean that the government will also reference allegations that the defendant violated FARA and that contacts with government officials were improper; such allegations are not relevant to the charges in this tax case,” Weiss wrote.
Bank records acquired by congressional Republicans last year indicated that Popoviciu’s Bladon Enterprises transferred $3 million to Walker’s Robinson Walker LLC between November 2015 and May 2017.
Roughly one-third — $1,038,627.08 — was transferred to bank accounts belonging to Hunter Biden, as well as to Hallie Biden, the widow of Hunter’s brother Beau and Hunter’s then-girlfriend, who received $10,000 from Walker’s firm — apparently from the Romanian income — in February 2017.
The new filing does not say if Hunter lobbied his own father on Popoviciu’s behalf — though some of their documented interactions have raised suspicions.
Hunter Biden referred Popoviciu to former FBI Director Louis Freeh, for example.
Freeh called Hunter in July 2015 just two hours before Hunter was scheduled to meet with his dad, according to records from Hunter’s abandoned laptop.
Hunter flew to Romania on Nov. 15, 2016, for a two-day trip to represent Popoviciu before the National Anticorruption Directorate.
Hunter had a “breakfast with dad” two days after his return.
Then-VP Joe Biden was railing against corruption in Romania at the time.
Joe Biden visited Romania in May 2014 and delivered a speech to leaders of the country’s government saying “corruption is a cancer, a cancer that eats away at a citizen’s faith in democracy.”
In September 2015, Joe Biden hosted Romanian President Klaus Iohannis at the White House.
An official US readout said the men focused on “anti-corruption efforts and rule of law as a means to strengthen national security and promote greater investment and economic growth.”
Biden’s chief political rival, former President Donald Trump, likened Hunter to a “vacuum cleaner” following his father to countries known for their corruption.
Hunter ‘performed almost no work’ for Ukraine, China cash
Weiss’ office said it intends to focus on two other business relationships during Hunter’s tax trial — including his role on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings, which he joined in early 2014 as his father took the lead in the Obama administration’s policy toward Kyiv, and his lucrative income from CEFC China Energy.
The new prosecution filing says “the evidence will show the defendant performed almost no work in exchange for the millions of dollars he received from [Burisma and CEFC].”
Hunter earned a salary of up to $1 million per year to serve on Burisma’s board and introduced his father to the county’s board adviser Vadym Pozharskyi on April 17, 2015.
Joe Biden also interacted with Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who is described in laptop documents and by a former business associate as a “core shareholder” of a Hunter-chaired Burisma subsidiary.
The CEFC role also entangled the future president.
Joe Biden was penciled in for a 10% cut in a proposed joint venture with the Chinese state-linked CEFC in May 2017, which paid entities linked to Hunter and his uncle James Biden more than $7 million shortly after their powerful relative left office as vice president in 2017.
Walker testified to House committees on Jan. 26 that Joe Biden attended an early 2017 lunch with CEFC chairman Ye Jianming, shortly before an initial $3 million tranche was transferred to a group of Biden family partners, of which more than a third went to Hunter and first brother James Biden.
Walker said those funds were for services scouting business opportunities during the Obama-Biden administration.
The state-linked CEFC later wired entities associated with first brother James Biden and Hunter $5.1 million within 10 days of a shakedown text message in July 2017 in which Hunter warned a China-based associate he was “sitting here with my father.”
Photos from Hunter’s laptop indicate he was indeed at his dad’s Wilmington, Del., home that day.
Biden family critics have long argued that Hunter Biden and his uncle James flouted the Foreign Agents Registration Act with an array of foreign business relationships.
In a recognition of the potential legal and political peril of FARA charges, Hunter walked away from a probation-only plea deal on federal tax and gun crimes last July over courtroom demands for broad immunity, including for FARA crimes, which could implicate his father.
Hunter was convicted of a trio of federal gun felonies on June 11 and will be sentenced on Nov. 13 in that case.
FARA charges can result in long prison terms.
Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman Paul Manafort was sentenced in 2018 to 60 months behind bars specifically for FARA violations related to his work in Ukraine, plus another 30 months for tax and bank fraud and witness tampering.
FARA cases generally must be filed within five years of an offense, meaning many of Hunter’s best-known actions linking foreign associates to his then-vice president father may not be prosecutable.
The congressional inquiry developed evidence that Joe Biden interacted with Hunter and James Biden’s associates from two Chinese government-linked business ventures and their patrons from Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine, in addition to many of their domestic associates.
Joe Biden has consistently claimed he “never” discussed business with either his son or brother and said in December and again in March that he “did not” interact with their partners — despite photos, emails and witness statements indicating otherwise.
The political salience of Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes and his father’s alleged role in foreign dealings has been greatly reduced by the elder Biden’s July 21 decision to drop out of his campaign for a second term.
