“You have my answer under oath and under the penalty of perjury,” Hunter Biden declared a half-dozen times during closed-door questioning by the joint House Oversight and Judiciary Committees on Wednesday, a transcript of which was released Thursday. His protestations of truth-telling lacked conviction, though, because the facts and logic proclaimed a different reality.
Here are the highlights of Hunter Biden’s most unbelievable testimony.
1. It’s All a MAGA-Orchestrated Conspiracy Theory
Hunter Biden opened by claiming the committees had “hunted” him as part of a “partisan political pursuit” of his father.
“You do not have evidence to support the baseless and MAGA-motivated conspiracies,” he continued before claiming the only basis for the claims of Biden family corruption came from criminals, fugitives, or other liars.
But no matter how many times Hunter evoked the name of Alexander Smirnov — the recently indicted FBI confidential human source who allegedly lied about Burisma paying the Bidens bribes, as memorialized in the FD-1023 — bank records and the testimony of Biden-friendly witnesses negate Hunter’s claims of a conspiracy theory.
There are only so many coincidences the American public will buy before realizing they’re being sold a bag of malarkey. Evidence of large deposits to Hunter Biden-connected businesses from foreigners in Joe Biden’s wake leaves Hunter’s claim of a conspiracy unbelievable.
2. I Called Upon the Wrong Guy
Probably the most incredible area of Hunter’s testimony was his explanation for a text he sent to Raymond Zhao, asking him to have the director of CEFC call him. “I’m sitting here with my father,” Hunter texted Zhao, “and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. I’m very concerned that the chairman has either changed his mind or broken our deal without telling me or that he’s unaware of the promises and assurances that have been made have not been kept.”
“Tell the director I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight,” Hunter continued, adding that “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 direction. All too often people mistake kindness for weakness, and all too often I’m standing over the top of them saying, I warned you.”
“I will call you on WhatsApp,” Zhao replied.
This text exchange was incredibly damning because the players involved were connected to the communist Chinese energy company CEFC, which later transferred $5 million in capital to a company Hunter Biden created only a few days after the above text exchange.
But don’t worry, Hunter assured the committee. His text went to the wrong guy because he was “so out of his mind” from his addiction, he had accidentally sent the threat to “Henry Zhao,” who was not connected to CEFC.
“And I, like an idiot, directed it towards Henry Zhao who had no involvement, who had no understanding or even remotely knew what the hell I was even Godd-mn talking about. Excuse my language,” Hunter told the committee.
First, given the quick response to Hunter’s text from CEFC, it is unbelievable that the text didn’t go to the CEFC-connected Zhao. Second, even if Hunter basically drunk-dialed the wrong mark, that doesn’t exonerate him or his father — the latter of whom, the evidence establishes, helped Hunter by showcasing his accessibility to his son’s business partners.
In short, the text shows Hunter intended to shakedown CEFC, and the $5 million suggests he succeeded.
3. Burisma Wanted Me to Call My… Teen Daughters?
A close second for the most outrageous storyline concerned the call to D.C. that Hunter Biden’s business partner and friend Devon Archer claims Hunter made at the request of Burisma executives.
Archer, a Biden-friendly witness, had previously testified to the House Judiciary Committee that in early December 2015, after a Burisma board meeting, the founder of the Ukrainian energy company had asked Hunter to call D.C. because of pressure being placed on the company. In a follow-up question, Archer confirmed the Burisma request was for “help from the United States Government to deal with the pressure they were under from their prosecutor, and that entailed the freezing of assets at the London bank and other things that were going on in Ukraine.”
According to Hunter’s friend and former business partner, Hunter stepped away with the Burisma executives to make the call to D.C. But when asked about the call on Wednesday, Hunter testified, “I never would have called, and never did my father on behalf of Burisma.”
So, whom did he call?
Hunter didn’t remember but suggested it was his wife or his high school-aged daughters.
Sure, Jan.
4. The Big Guy = The Big Lie?
Revisiting Archer’s testimony from last year added another improbability to Hunter Biden’s testimony — this one concerning “the big guy” moniker.
When questioned about the reference to 10 percent being “held by H for the big guy,” Hunter claimed not to know what that meant. And when questioned by Democrats on the committee about Joe Biden’s nicknames, Hunter denied his family referred to Joe as “the big guy.”
Tony Bobulinski, however, testified previously that “the big guy” was Joe Biden’s nickname. And while Hunter Biden claimed Bobulinski was a liar and not to be believed, Archer also used that nickname in an apparent reference to Joe Biden in his testimony, saying Burisma wasn’t “specific, you know, can the big guy help? It was — it’s always this amorphous, can we get help in D.C.?”
5. ‘My Chairman’ is Absolutely, Positively Not Daddy
Also ringing hollow was Hunter Biden’s assertion that “my chairman” was not his father. House investigators asked Hunter about a text he had sent to Bobulinski, in which he said, “In light of the fact that we are at an impasse of sorts, and both James’ lawyers and my chairman gave an emphatic no — I think we should all meet in Romania on Tuesday next week.”
Hunter went on to say that “my chairman” was Chairman Ye of the Chinese company CEFC. Hunter then testified that he didn’t ever refer to his father as “my chairman,” calling the suggestion “laughable.”
The Republican committee members confronted Hunter with a text his business partner Rob Walker had sent to Bobulinski that said, “When he said his chairman, he was talking about his dad.”
Hunter sought to negate Walker’s testimony by claiming it was merely one “third party that was talking with another third party” who was “making a judgment about what I was talking about.”
Hunter then reverted to, “[Y]ou have my answer under oath that I did not refer and never have referred to my father as chairman.”
His “under oath” guarantee isn’t very assuring, however, given that Hunter had earlier stressed his long-standing relationship with Rob Walker — the third party who identified “my chairman” as Joe Biden.” “Rob Walker has known me since 1998,” Hunter testified. In fact, Hunter claimed Walker would have told their other business partners they were “way out of bounds” if Walker knew they were suggesting getting Joe Biden involved in their business deals.
So it sure seems like Walker would know whether Hunter would refer to his father as “my chairman.”
6. The Laptop Was a Plant
While many of Hunter’s explanations were unbelievable, his claims about the laptop the FBI seized from a Delaware repair shop were surreal.
When asked about his laptop from hell, Hunter claimed first not to remember dropping one off at a repair store in 2019. Then, when asked if he ever dropped off a laptop at a repair shop, Hunter spoke of dropping one off at a place three blocks from his D.C. office and at an Apple store in Georgetown.
When pushed on whether he had ever left a laptop for repair in Delaware, Hunter replied that “the largest Apple store in America is at the Christiana Mall,” and that if he were “to drop off a laptop” — not that he “ever remember[ed] doing that, but if [he] was going to drop off a laptop” — he “would have gone to the Apple store, which was 7 minutes from [his] parents’ home there.”
In other words, Hunter is claiming he wouldn’t have dropped his laptop off at Mac Isaac’s store to suggest he didn’t. This outrageous assertion is part of a conspiracy theory that suggests the laptop abandoned at the Delaware repair shop was a plant.
Hunter also pushed another false narrative by suggesting much of the evidence recovered from the laptop was fake.
“Many different things” on the laptop were “either fabricated, hacked, stolen, or manipulated.” “100 percent,” Hunter testified on Wednesday.
Of course, when it came to identifying which ones, Hunter insisted, “I can’t go through them all right now.”
7. My Resume Is Real — And It’s Spectacular
Throughout the transcribed interview, Hunter also attempted to deflect questions about his lucrative service on Burisma’s board of directors by touting his resume. But when pushed on what he actually did for Burisma for a million-dollar paycheck, Hunter’s explanation of attending board meetings and “providing the best advice that I could give” convinced no one.
That was especially true given that the one thing Hunter should have been giving advice about — Burisma’s various legal problems — the president’s son claimed to know nothing about. Specifically, according to his Wednesday testimony, he did not know Burisma was under investigation in the U.K. for money laundering and had $23 million of assets frozen until “it became public.”
One would think a board member bearing the impressive resume of Hunter Biden and charged with overseeing corporate governance would know about an investigation and frozen assets before “it became public.”
8. That’s Not My Money… Until It Is My Money
Another eyebrow-raising refrain from Hunter Biden concerned payments into accounts held in the name of Rosemont Seneca Bohai and Rosemont Seneca Thornton. Those entities were Devon Archer’s, and as such, the money deposited into those accounts from foreigners wasn’t Hunter’s, the president’s son suggested.
“I have no authority over those accounts, and I have no view inside of it,” he testified.
Never mind that Archer transferred large sums from those accounts to Hunter Biden-connected accounts or, in one case, used the $142,300 a Kazakhstani oligarch deposited into the Rosemont Seneca Bohai account to pay for a car for Hunter Biden. While Hunter tried to downplay the shifting of funds from one business to another, at the end of the day, it was all unbelievable.
The totality of Hunter Biden’s testimony also rendered his opening line unbelievable. That line—“I did not involve my father in my business” — seems false at every angle.
Margot Cleveland is an investigative journalist and legal analyst and serves as The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. Margot’s work has been published at The Wall Street Journal, The American Spectator, the New Criterion, National Review Online, Townhall.com, the Daily Signal, USA Today, and the Detroit Free Press. She is also a regular guest on nationally syndicated radio programs and on Fox News, Fox Business, and Newsmax. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. Cleveland is also of counsel for the New Civil Liberties Alliance. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland where you can read more about her greatest accomplishments—her dear husband and dear son. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.
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