Newly reported photographs and emails question US President Joe Biden’s repeated denials of having ever had anything to do with his son Hunter Biden’s controversial business dealings in countries where he wielded influence as vice president, according to the Daily Mail.
Joe Biden is reported to have met with his son's business associates, including Mexican billionaires Carlos Slim and Miguel Alemán Velasco ( son of former Mexican president Miguel Alemán Valdés), in the vice president's office, while also flying Hunter Biden and his partner Jeff Cooper on Air Force 2 to Mexico City in 2016.
At the time, claims the outlet, the younger Biden had scheduled to meet Velasco’s son, Miguel Aleman Magnani, to discuss a lucrative business deal.
‘Damning Revelations’
The new revelations are purportedly contained in the trove of documents on the notorious abandoned laptop that made headlines in 2020 throughout the November presidential campaign.
On 14 October, the New York Post published a story alleging that Joe Biden was engaged in his son's shady business dealings overseas during his tenure as US vice president, citing information it obtained from a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden. The laptop had ostensibly been taken to an IT store in 2019 for repairs but was never collected.
The newly-reported body of evidence published by the outlet includes several photographs taken of Vice President Joe Biden flanked by Carlos Slim and Miguel Alemán Velasco as Hunter Biden and Jeff Cooper were reportedly working on energy deals in Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America.
As then-President Enrique Pena Nieto was pushing to reform Mexico’s energy market to allow private capital investment in state-owned oil and gas monopoly Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Hunter Biden and partner Jeff Cooper reportedly devised a scheme in 2013 to invest in multiple businesses in Mexico to cash in on the developments.
They were hoping to do so by taking advantage of their relationship with the Mexican billionaire Alemán’s family. The outlet cites an e-mail dated 26 February 2013 from Cooper, an attorney who worked with Hunter Biden’s late brother Beau on asbestos claims, as saying:
“Miguel wants us to go to Mexico City. This is setting up to be flippin gigantic brother.”
Hunter Biden and Cooper ostensibly sought out founder and CEO of airline Interjet Miguel Alemán Magnani, the grandson of the former Mexican president, to strike up a relationship with tycoon Carlos Slim.
Hunter Biden at the time was enjoying a lucrative position on the board of Ukrainian oil and gas giant Burisma. Together with Cooper, they managed to orchestrate for the Mexican billionaires a private “meeting” with then-vice president Joe Biden.
Furthermore, according to a February 2016 email, Hunter Biden and Cooper hitched a ride to Mexico on Air Force Two with the-then Vice President Joe Biden, who was en route to conduct trade talks with the then-president of Mexico, Enrique Pena Nieto.
On 24 February 2016 Hunter Biden is reported to have written an e-mail to Aleman Magnani aboard Air Force Two, bemoaning his failure to follow through on what the younger Biden seemed to perceive as a quid pro quo of favors, involving access to the Vice President.
“We are arriving late tonight on Air Force 2 to Mx City. I’m attending meeting w/ President N [Peña Nieto] and dad. Would love to see you but you never respond. I am really upset by it . . . I want you at the plane when the VP lands with your Mom and Dad and you completely ignore me… We have been talking about business deals for 7 years… but I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing White House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration and then you go completely silent . . . You make me feel like I’ve done something to offend you.”
Burisma also got involved in Hunter Biden’s Mexican ventures, according to the documents cited by the outlet.
“I met with Miguel [Aleman Magnani] last night. He has set up meetings with the Secretary of Energy and the CEO of Pemex for Jan 12. Is there any chance that anyone from Burisma could attend?” Cooper is cited to have written in an email to Hunter Biden dated 2014.
The following year, Hunter Biden is said to have revealed Burisma's plans to participate in the privatisation of the Mexican state oil firm, in an email to his business partners Cooper, Archer and Magnani.
‘Laptop from Hell’
The Daily Mail stated that it obtained a copy of what it believes to be Hunter Biden's laptop hard drive from former Steve Bannon podcast co-host Jack Maxey. It added that there has not been any official White House comment on its reports related to the US President and his son.
In September 2020 the owner of the computer store where the abandoned laptop was discovered gave a copy of its hard drive to Donald Trump's then-lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
Tony Bobulinski, former business associate of Hunter Biden, displays a cell phone while speaking to journalists ahead of a debate between Democratic nominee Joe Biden and U.S. President Donald Trump, at the JW Marriott in Nashville, Tennessee.
© TOM BRENNER
What has since been dubbed the “laptop from hell” and its explosive contents emerged during Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in 2020. The documents, uncovered by the NY Post, suggested that the-then Democratic presidential hopeful’s son, Hunter Biden, had hawked a meeting between one of the members of the Ukrainian Burisma gas company, probed for corruption in the past, and his father, who served as the US vice-president at the time.
The laptop's hard drive also purportedly contained information about murky business dealings of Hunter Biden with Chinese companies, including those potentially affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party.
The documents mentioned a "big guy" for whom Hunter Biden purportedly held a share in a Chinese business, with the young Biden's ex-business partner Tony Bobulinski alleging this unidentified individual could have been Joe Biden himself. The current POTUS has denied all allegations of misconduct either by him or his son.