Hunter Biden received a 3.16-carat diamond worth $80,000 from Ye Jianming, the ex-chairman of the now-bankrupt energy giant CEFC with ties to Beijing, as a gift to seal a lucrative deal he inked with the son of then-US Vice President Joe Biden, New York Post columnist Miranda Devine has claimed in her upcoming book called "Laptop from Hell".
Devine's findings about the peculiarities of Hunter's murky deal with the Chinese businessman come mostly from the notorious laptop that the presidential son purportedly dropped off at a Delaware repair shop in 2019, but forgot to collect. A portion of the information detailed in the book also came from leaked online conversations and anonymous sources.
China Reportedly Sought Entrance to US and Other Markets
According to the book, Ye Jianming was more than simply the head of one of the biggest energy companies in the world in 2015 – he was also one of Beijing's frontmen in the nation's efforts to secure large-scale foreign investments to support the "Belt and Road" initiative. For these efforts, Ye Jianming required middlemen with connections. And so his associate, British ex-SAS officer James Gilliar proposed that he use the influential Biden family, according to the author's findings.
After getting in touch through Biden family friend Rob Walker, Hunter Biden and Ye Jianming reportedly finally met in December 2015. While the meeting purportedly took place amid the flurry of Christmas parties often hosted by Joe and Jill Biden, it is unclear if the then-US vice president took part in the meeting, the author of the book admitted.
Lucrative Contract and a Gift for Hunter Biden
After hashing out the details and recruiting wealthy institutional investor Tony Bobulinski to work out the structure of the future joint venture with the Chinese businessman, Hunter Biden and the CEFC chairman reportedly met again in January 2017, just days after Joe Biden left office.
It was during that meeting, says Miranda Devine, when Ye Jianming allegedly made Hunter an offer that was hard to turn down - $10 million per year for at least three years for "introductions alone". Hunter would also have received bonuses for each deal struck as a result of an introduction made with his or his uncle Jim Biden's efforts, the files from the laptop suggested.
If these lucrative conditions were not enough, the CEFC chairman further sweetened the pot with a 3.16-carat diamond valued at roughly $80,000, the book claims. Several photos from the laptop purportedly show the said diamond as well as the accompanying certificate, which describes it as a "round brilliant" of Grade F with prime "VS2" clarity and "excellent" cut.
Hunter Biden himself described this meeting with Ye Jianming, who is alleged to have ties with the Chinese Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping, in his interview with The New Yorker. The president's son insisted that he sat down with the then-chairman of CEFC, which went belly up in March 2020 after its illegal financial schemes were uncovered, to discuss possible donations to the World Food Programme USA. Hunter did not mention that Gilliar and Walker accompanied him during his 2016 meeting with Ye Jianming, as they did according to the book.
Per the findings of US Senators Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley, who chaired the Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs and the Senate Finance Committee respectively, in the few months following the January 2016 meeting, Rob Walker received two wires worth $3 million each from State Energy HK Limited - a subsidiary of CEFC.
"At the time of the transfers, State Energy HK Limited was affiliated with CEFC China Energy, which was under the leadership of Ye Jianming. These 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", the authors of the Johnson-Grassley 2020 report said.
The report said that the ultimate beneficiary of these transactions, which were even flagged as "suspicious activity" by the Department of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, remained unknown. Yet, earlier publications of extensive files from the laptop that presumably belonged to Hunter Biden, indicate the president's son regularly received money from Rob Walker.