It was recently revealed that Hunter Biden sent a threatening WhatsApp message to a Chinese business associate to demand payment for a prior deal, ostensibly while his father, then-former Vice President Joe Biden, was sitting right beside him.
In response to that revelation, Biden's defense attorney Chris Clark all but confirmed the veracity of the message but simultaneously seemed to dismiss it as the ramblings of a drug-addicted and troubled man that bore no connection to his family, Breitbart reported.
Yet, the message clearly appears to undermine President Biden's oft-repeated assertion that he had no knowledge of or involvement in his son's dubious foreign business dealings.
On Thursday, the Republican-led House Ways and Means Committee released the testimony of IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, who headed a years-long investigation into Hunter Biden, which included reference to a July 2017 WhatsApp message that Biden had sent Henry Zhao, a Chinese business associate.
According to Fox News, the message from Biden to Zhao read, in part, "I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. 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. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father," he added.
In response to that revelation on Thursday, as well as criticism of the plea deal announced days earlier in which Hunter Biden would avoid any actual punishment for three federal criminal charges, Biden's defense attorney Clark released a statement that seemingly confirmed that the WhatsApp message was real.
"The DOJ investigation covered a period which was a time of turmoil and addiction for my client," Clark said. "Any verifiable words or actions of my client, in the midst of a horrible addiction, are solely his own and have no connection to anyone in his family."
The Washington Free Beacon reported that the statement from Clark, oddly enough, seemed more focused on protecting President Biden than his own client, as what Hunter said in the message clearly contradicts the repeated denials from President Biden and his spokespeople of any knowledge of or involvement in his son's business dealings.
To be sure, it is entirely plausible that Hunter Biden was lying and his father wasn't sitting next to him when that message was sent on July 30, 2017. That said, multiple photos recovered from Biden's abandoned laptop and verified through metadata place the president's son at his father's Wilmington, Delaware home on that exact same date.
Furthermore, Fox News reported that a 2020 Senate report had exposed how roughly one week after that message had been sent from Biden to Zhao, it appears that the demanded payment was received.
On August 4, 2017, a wire transfer of $100,000 was sent to Biden's Owasco law firm from CEFC, the Chinese energy company Zhao worked for. Then, on August 8, 2017, two additional transfers totaling $5 million were sent from CEFC to Hudson West III, a firm co-owned by Biden.
Then, over the course of about a year, roughly $4.7 million of that money was sent in installments to Owasco, followed by, per Fox News, about 20 wire transfers totaling around $1.4 million from Owasco to Lion Hall Group, a firm owned by the president's brother, James Biden, and his wife Sarah.
Hunter Biden was admittedly addicted to crack cocaine at the time of the message, but attorney Clark's efforts to dismiss the WhatsApp message due to that drug addiction fall flat when viewed against the numerous financial transactions that followed the "verifiable words and actions" of his client.
