Democrat President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, sought out a huge “forever” deal with an energy company that is owned and controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), leaked emails have revealed.
Hunter’s efforts to secure a deal with China National Offshore Oil Corp were exposed in newly-uncovered emails leaked from his “laptop from hell.”
As noted by investigative journalist Matt Palumbo, China National Offshore Oil Corp is a state-owned energy company.
The firm was sanctioned by President Donald Trump due to its connections to the CCP’s military branch, China’s People’s Liberation Army.
In the emails, dated April 2014, while Joe Biden was vice president, Hunter tries to negotiate a life-long contract with the Chinese firm that will pay him a $1 million annual salary.
Hunter’s lucrative potential deal would’ve also involved the former Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Karim Massimov.
Massimov was arrested on suspicion of treason last month.
According to the New York Post, the emails are dated about a year before Hunter and then-Vice President Biden apparently posed for a photo with Massimov in a Washington, DC, restaurant.
The correspondence shows Hunter Biden and then-business partner Devon Archer discussing an offer to help find “investment opportunities” for the China National Offshore Oil Corp.
Archer has since cooperated in a tax probe of Hunter Biden.
That same month, both men were appointed to the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings and Archer suggested that a deal involving the two overseas firms would set them up for life.
Burisma had paid Biden as much as $1 million a year while his father was vice president, despite having no experience in the energy sector or even speaking Ukrainian.
“If we can connect the dots here between CNOOC and Bursima we can do only that, forever,” Archer wrote on April 8, 2014.
Less than 10 minutes later, Biden responded: “Thinking the same thing, fraught with many land mines- but…”
“Many…don’t even know if we could pull it off but it’s a major option,” Archer wrote back.
In a follow-up message, Biden brought up the possibility of involving the oil-rich former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, writing, “What about KZ? How is the shut down of there [sic] mega will going to effect [sic] our guys?”
Archer replied that he’d “been thinking about that” and that he’d be “speaking to Masimof’s [sic] son today,” adding: “I’ll let you know how that turns out.”
A month later, on May 7, Hunter Biden emailed Burisma executive Vadim Pozharskyi that he’d “landed in Beijing” and that “one of the principal reasons is to discuss possible cooperation with CNOC[sic]/China and Burisma.”
That same day, Archer also wrote to Pozharski and said, “I will provide a full itinerary for KZ next week but the primary meeting is set with the Prime Minister of KZ, Masimof [sic], on June 2nd.”
“Everything will revolve around that meeting and the subject will be securing the highest quality proven reserve fields in KZ,” he said.
Archer also noted “a preliminary plan” for him and someone identified only as “Alex” to fly from Kazakhstan to Beijing.
“If you are able to coordinate CNOOC cooperation meetings in that time frame we would be hopeful you and Nikolay can join as well,” he added.
“Nikolay” appears to be a reference to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky, a former Ukrainian government official who reportedly left the country before being charged in absentia in 2020 in an alleged corruption case.
In a follow-up email, Hunter Biden asked Archer to explain “how a Burisma/KZ/China deal would look,” to which Archer said, “Quick answer is I do not have an answer just yet but that’s what I am thinking about, researching and formulating.”
“CNOOC is a nice to have in the situation that make it a silver bullet. I do know that,” he added.
China’s third-largest oil company, CNOOC was sanctioned by former President Donald Trump’s outgoing administration in January 2021 over its activities in the South China Sea, where officials said it was preventing other companies from engaging in offshore exploration and extraction of oil and gas.
“CNOOC acts a bully for the People’s Liberation Army to intimidate China’s neighbors, and the Chinese military continues to benefit from government civil-military fusion policies for malign purposes,” then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said at the time.
The move, which blocks CNOOC from purchasing American high technology without a special license, came a month after it was added to a blacklist of alleged Chinese military companies in which US citizens aren’t allowed to invest.
The emails were contained on the hard drive of a laptop computer that was left at a Delaware repair shop in April 2019.
The contents of the hard drive were first revealed by The New York Post in 2020.
Hunter Biden has since claimed that the laptop may have been stolen from him before being abandoned.
The latest emails from the hard drive were published this week by the Daily Mail.
The outlet said the messages don’t make clear whether the deal under discussion ever went through.
There’s been no previous reporting on such an agreement.
In June, the Washington Examiner was the first to report on the emails regarding the planned meeting with Massimov, including how Hunter Biden ditched his Secret Service detail in Paris in May 2014 to travel to Kazakhstan.
Last month, Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) — who have been investigating Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings — accused the Secret Service of improperly redacting records of his travels.
The senators say documents they received “do not show whether [Secret Service] personnel or Hunter Biden traveled to Kazakhstan in May or June 2014.”
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden is pursuing a new career as a self-taught painter, while his former partner, Archer, now faces sentencing later this month in an unrelated fraud case.
