House Republicans are moving closer to an impeachment inquiry against President Joe Biden, according to Speaker Kevin McCarthy as party leaders continue to investigate allegations that the president accepted millions of dollars in bribes from foreign entities, including individuals linked to the Chinese Communist Party.
With the investigation into the alleged corruption of the Biden family — primarily Biden and his son Hunter — heating up, here is a timeline, according to House Republicans and other documentation, of the events that some lawmakers have said may lead to Biden’s impeachment:
November 2013: Hunter joined with Chinese investors to create Bohai Harvest RST Equity Investment Fund Management Co., Ltd. (BHR), an investment fund controlled by the Bank of China. One month later, then-Vice President Joe Biden traveled with Hunter on Air Force 2 to China and met the CEO of BHR, Jonathan Li. Soon after that, BHR’s business license was approved and Hunter had become a board member.
February 5, 2014: Kenes Rakishev, a Kazakhstani businessman, met Hunter Biden at a Washington, D.C., hotel.
April 23, 2014: Rakishev’s Singaporean company wired $142,300 through his Latvian company to a Rosemont entity. Soon after, that entity wired $142,300 to a car dealership in New Jersey for a new sports car for Hunter Biden.
May 12, 2014: Ukrainian gas producer Burisma announced that Hunter Biden had joined its board of directors.
May 21, 2014: Nine days later, Vice President Biden visited Romania and delivered a speech to the Romanian prime minister, judges, prosecutors, and leaders of the Romanian Parliament.
September 12, 2014: BHR invested $1.7 billion in a Chinese Communist Party-linked petroleum and chemical company. Roughly three months later, Hunter Biden and his business associate invested $484,920 into BHR. A few weeks later, Rakishev’s Kazakhstani oil company and Burisma joined with a CCP-linked company and announced a transnational financial arrangement.
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March 20, 2015: Flash forward to March 2015, when Hunter Biden organized a business dinner at Café Milano in Washington, D.C., where Joe stopped by to meet high-level Burisma official, Vadym Pozharskyi.
September 1, 2015: BHR joined with a CCP-linked entity to acquire U.S.-based Henniges Automotive in a deal reportedly worth $600 million.
November 2, 2015: Pozharskyi suggested high-level U.S. level officials visit Ukraine and talk with Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and President Petro Poroshenko about Shokin’s investigations into Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky for fraud.
November 5, 2015: As the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability documents, a company owned by a Biden associate began receiving from a Romanian businessman what turned out to be millions of dollars over the course of two years:
“Romanian businessman, Gabriel Popoviciu, begins making deposits into Robinson Walker, LLC’s bank account. Robinson Walker, LLC is an entity owned by a Biden associate, Rob Walker. Popoviciu’s company sent Robinson Walker the first wire for $179,836.86. From November 2015 to May 2017, Popoviciu’s company paid Robinson Walker, LLC over $3 million,” the committee wrote. “Biden family accounts received approximately $1.038 million from the Robinson Walker, LLC account after Popoviciu’s deposits. Sixteen of the seventeen payments from Popoviciu’s company to Robinson Walker, LLC were made while Joe Biden was Vice President.”
November 6, 2015: Amos Hochstein, the special envoy and coordinator for International Energy Affairs in the Obama Administration, met with Hunter Biden and discussed Burisma. Five days later, he met with Vice President Biden in the West Wing. The day after that he called Hunter Biden. The next day, Hunter traveled to Romania to meet with the U.S. Ambassador to Romania.
December 7, 2015: Hunter Biden and CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming began communicating regarding a possible U.S. partnership. The same day, Vice President Biden arrived in Ukraine, demanding Prosecutor General Shokin be fired if Ukraine wants $1 billion in International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans. Two days later, Joe Biden got a commitment from President Poroshenko that Prosecutor General Shokin will be fired.
December 17, 2015: Vice President Biden hosted a party which Amos Hochstein and Hunter Biden both attended.
2015/2016: According to a CHS (confidential human source) who was quoted on an FBI FD-1023 form created on June 3, 2020, he attended a meeting at Ukraine’s Burisma office in late 2015 or early 2016. The CHS said the purpose of the meeting was to discuss Burisma’s interest in purchasing a U.S.-based oil and gas business for the purpose of merging it with Burisma to conduct an IPO in the U.S. The CHS said Burisma’s CFO Vadim Pojarskii, as well as Karina Zlochevsky, the daughter to Burisma’s CEO and founder Mykofa Zlochevsky, and her husband attended the meeting.
According to the CHS, Pojarskii asked CHS whether CHS was aware of Burisma’s Board of Directors. CHS replied in the negative, prompting Pojarskii to name them, including Hunter Biden. Pojarskii said they hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.”
CHS said roughly one or two months later, CHS met Mykola Zlochevsky and Oleksandr Ostapenko in Vienna.
“The trio continued to talk about the feasibility of Burisma acquiring a US-based entity,” The FD-1023 stated. “CHS recalled this meeting took place around the time Joe Biden made a public statement about (former) Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin being corrupt, and that he should be fired/removed from office. CHS told Zlochevsky that due to Shokin’s investigation into Burisma, which was made public at this time, it would have a substantial negative impact on Burisma’s prospective IPO in the United States. Zlochevsky replied something to the effect of, ‘Don’t worry Hunter will take care of all of those Issues through his dad.’”
“CHS advised Zlochevsky it would be problematic to raise capital in the US given Shokin’s investigation Into Burisma as nobody in the US would invest in a company that was the subject of a criminal investigation,” the document continued. “CHS suggested it would (be) best if Burisma simply litigate the matter In Ukraine, and pay some attorney $50,000. Zlochevsky said he/Burisma would likely lose the trial because he could not show that Burisma was innocent; Zlochevsky also laughed at CHS’s number of $50,000 (not because of the small amount, but because the number contained a ‘5’) and said that ‘it costs (million) to pay one Biden, and 5 (million) to another Biden.’ CHS noted that at this time, It was unclear to CHS whether these alleged payments were already made.’ CHS inquired whether Hunter Biden or Joe Biden told Zlochevsky he should retain Hunter Biden; Zlochevsky replied, ‘They both did.’”
January 20, 2016: Vice President Biden met President Poroshenko in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum; Biden stressed the linkage between the loan guarantee and the necessary reforms.
February 4, 2016: Mykola Zlochevsky gave Hunter Biden extravagant birthday gifts.
February 11, 2016: Vice President Biden and President Poroshenko spoke to each other. Five days later, Poroshenko asked Prosecutor General Shokin to resign. Two days after that, Vice President Biden called President Poroshenko to thank him for urging Shokin to resign.
January 2017: BHR agreed to purchase Lundin Mining Corp’s minority stake in African cobalt/copper mine Tenke Fungurume Mining S.A. for $1.14 billion. The next month, CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming gave Hunter Biden a diamond worth $80,000.
March 1, 2017: Chairman Ye Jianming’s company wired $3 million to Robinson Walker. The same day, Joe Biden attended a CEFC meeting at the Four Seasons in Los Angeles, according to a Biden family associate.
May 13, 2017: An email was sent between Biden business associates about the ownership of the CEFC deal, mentioning “10 held by H for the big guy?”
July 30, 2017: Hunter Biden reportedly wrote in WhatsApp messages to a Chinese company:
Please have the director call me – not James or Tony or Jim – have him call me tonight. I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. I am very concerned that the Chairman has either changed his mind and broken our deal without telling me or that he is unaware of the promises and assurances that have been made have not been kept. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand. And now means tonight. 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. All too often people mistake kindness for weakness – and all too often I am standing over top of them saying I warned you. From this moment until whenever he reaches me. […]
Ok my friend – I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father. I sure hope whatever it is you are doing is very very very important.
August 2, 2017: Hunter Biden wrote in an email discussing the deal, “The chairman changed that deal after we me[t] in MIAMI TO A MUCH MORE LASTING AND LUCRATIVE ARRANGEMENT to create a holding company 50% percent [sic] owned by ME and 50% owned by him. Consulting fees is one piece of our income stream but the reason this proposal by the chairman was so much more interesting to me and my family is that we would also be partners inn [sic] the equity and profits of the JV’s investments.”
The joint entity, Hudson West III, LLC was formed, with 50% owned by CEFC agent Gongwen Dong and 50% owned by Hunter Biden.
August 3, 2017: In a WhatsApp exchange, Hunter Biden told Gongwen Dong, “The Biden’s [sic] are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman wants from this [partnership].” CEFC wired $100,000 to Hunter Biden’s company, Owasco PC.
2019: According to the FD-1023 released by Grassley, at some point in 2019, the CHS said that he met with Ostapenko in London. They called Zlochevsky. Zlochevsky asked CHS and/or Ostapenko if they read the recent news reports about the investigations into the Bidens and Burisma, CHS mentioned Zlochevsky might have trouble explaining suspicious wire transfers that might evidence any payments to the Bidens. Zlochevsky responded he did not send any funds directly to the “Big Guy.” CHS took that as a reference to Joe Biden, according to the FD-1023.
January 2019: Hunter Biden texted his daughter, “I hope you can all do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years. It’s really hard. But don’t worry. Unlike Pop, I won’t make you give me half your salary.”
October 3, 2019: A spokesman for Hunter Biden stated, “Hunter neither played a role in the formation or licensure of [BHR], nor owned any equity in it while his father was Vice President. He served only as a member of its board of directors, which he joined based on his interest in seeking ways to bring Chinese capital to international markets. It was an unpaid position. . . . To date, Hunter has not received any compensation for being on BHR’s board of directors. He has not received any return on his investment; there have been no distributions to BHR shareholders since Hunter obtained his equity interest. Moreover, Hunter played no role in directing or making BHR’s investments. Hunter intends to resign from the BHR board of directors on or by October 31, 2019.”
December 8, 2019: Joe Biden stated of Hunter’s work for Burisma, “I don’t know what he was doing. I know he was on the board. I found out he was on the board after he was on the board, and that was it.”
June 30, 2020: The FBI FD-1023 form was created to memorialize information obtained from the CHS. Later that month, CHS said ZIochevsky said he had a total of “17 recordings” involving the Bidens; two of the recordings included Joe Biden, and the remaining 15 recordings only included Hunter Biden. CHS said per Zlochevsky that the recordings showed Zlochevsky was somehow coerced into paying the Bidens to ensure Shokin was fired.
October 22, 2020: Joe Biden said during a presidential debate: “I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life … My son has not made money, in terms of [the] thing about, what are you talking about? China. The only guy who made money in China is [President Trump].”
The same day, Hunter’s ex-business associate Tony Bobulinski accused Joe Biden of lying about his family’s business dealings, saying, “I have heard Joe Biden say he has never discussed his dealings with Hunter. That is false. I have firsthand knowledge about this because I directly dealt with the Biden family, including Joe Biden.” He said Joe Biden was “the big guy” named in the May 13, 2017, email.
When any potential impeachment inquiries could be conducted remains unclear, but House Speaker Kevin McCarthy indicated on Monday that Republicans would move toward impeachment.
“I believe we will follow this all the way to the end. And this is going to rise to an impeachment inquiry the way the Constitution tells us to do this. And we have to get the answers to these questions,” he said.