by Steven Richards and John Solomon
In his interview with impeachment investigators, Hunter Biden claimed he was not an active participant in the Burnham Asset Management venture. That turns out to be not true, evidence shows.
Already accused of lying to Congress about other issues, Hunter Biden's February impeachment inquiry testimony distancing himself from a controversial securities firm directly conflicts with evidence the FBI seized years ago, including his signature on an employment contract that made him the firm's vice chairman.
The documents were gathered by FBI and SEC agents back in 2016 and were recently obtained by Congress and shared with Just the News, but not until after Hunter Biden had already given his deposition in February to the U.S. House as part of his father's impeachment inquiry.
The growing conflicts between evidence now in lawmakers' possession and the stories the Biden camp continually gives to America and Congress are becoming of increasing interest to lawmakers.
This is especially true regarding the Burnham Asset Management firm that was embroiled in a criminal securities fraud case back in 2016 and also was used by Hunter Biden's business partners to help a controversial Russian oligarch a decade ago.
Hunter Biden testified to Congress in February that he never became part of the Burnham investment. “And did you have any active participation in Burnham, either as an equity holder, director, or officer?” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., asked Biden in his impeachment inquiry deposition earlier this year.
“No. I don't think that ever came to fruition. I think that there was a proposal that I'd be a part of that, but it all fell apart in all of this,” Biden replied, referring to the federal securities fraud charges against his partners, Devon Archer and Jason Galanis. The two partners were convicted but Hunter Biden was never charged.
Yet, the newly obtained documents show Hunter Biden was in fact working for Burnham during the same time period. An employment agreement signed by Hunter Biden shows he was named the Vice Chairman of Burnham Asset Management and was to be awarded an $800,000 salary, according to the document, which was also signed by then-CEO Jon Burnham in April 2015.
“Burnham hereby hires the Employee, as Vice Chairman and Senior Managing Director, of Burnham,” the agreement reads.
The FBI's longtime signature expert reviewed the employment document at the request of Just the News and confirmed the signature was indeed Hunter Biden's, matching it to numerous other public documents he signed over the years that included his Social Security card.
"Selecting from those samples, all of them bore similarity with the signature on the Burnham Access Management Employment Agreement," retired Agent Wayne Barnes reported to Just the News. "But there is one which is so close to the current questioned signature that it is all that is needed for today’s conclusion. It is the signature Hunter Biden wrote on his Social Security card dated 9/20/12."
You can read Barnes' analysis here.
Other documents in the FBI collection also show Hunter Biden's direct involvement in Burnham's matters,
For instance, a contemporaneous "Letter of Intent" shows that Hunter Biden’s employment at Burnham was part of a deal that also acquired two of his firms, Rosemont Seneca Advisors and RSP Investments. The plan was to roll Rosemont’s business into the wider Burnham umbrella under Burnham Asset Management or Burnham Securities. The letter confirms Biden’s salary and promised an “earned/buy-in equity plan for each employee” of his old firms, the documents show.
Emails also show that on occasion Hunter Biden responded to business deals involving Burnham. For example, Hunter Biden emailed a Chinese businessman named Henry Zhao about the partnership with Burnham and implied that he was now officially a part of the venture.
“Henry-I am so glad to hear that we have concluded our joint venture between Harvest and Burnham,” Biden wrote. “This is an exciting milestone and I look forward to helping building a cross border institution that helps investors in our respective countries across the globe.”
In another instance in June 2015, Biden received a welcome communication from Burnham, instructing him how to set up his company email, phone, and computer, according to a record obtained by Just the News.
And in November 2015, just months after his official onboarding as vice chairman, Biden was copied on an email chain where partners discussed the visit of Zhao and his partners to the Burnham offices in New York City. In this email, the partners used Biden's new Burnham email address.
The new evidence has caught the attention of lawmakers, including Biggs who told Just the News he thinks Congress should refer Hunter Biden to the DOJ for additional prosecution.
"It's no longer a surprise when one finds out that Hunter Biden has lied to you," Biggs said. "It's not even a surprise that he would lie during a formal congressional interview. Truth seems to be a stranger to him," Biggs said.
"I'm hoping that Congress takes further action on the Biden family and their propensity to abuse power and lie to members of Congress," he added,
Abbe Lowell, lawyer for Hunter Biden, did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
The efforts to obscure Hunter Biden's involvement with Burnham and its controversies go back years, well before his testimony.
Archer and Galanis were charged in May 2016 in a $60 million bonds fraud scheme while they were working at Burnham. According to the Justice Department, the pair, along with several other co-defendants, defrauded an Oglala Sioux Native American tribal entity by inducing it to issue bonds, but then failed to invest them as they promised.
The fraud was carried out from March 2014 to April 2016, according to the Justice Department. Archer and Galanis were ultimately convicted, though a judge recently ruled that Archer should be re-sentenced.
In the wake of their arrests, Hunter Biden's then-lawyer George Mesires said in a statement that his client immediately moved to distance himself from the firm, claiming the pair had used Biden's name without his knowledge.
“The defendants...invoked and used Hunter’s name—without his knowledge—to lend their business venture more credibility,” Mesires said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “As soon as Hunter learned of the illegal conduct, and that his name was being used in this unauthorized and inappropriate manner, Hunter took immediate steps to ensure that his business interests would not be associated with the Burnham Group or with any of the defendants."
Despite that, The Wall Street Journal also reported that Archer’s attorney, Matthew L. Schwartz, said during the trial that Hunter Biden “was part of this deal."
More than a year before Hunter Biden officially became a part of Burnham, Biden's partners, including Archer and Galanis, sought to overcome a federal watch list that was preventing a potential investor, Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina, from pouring resources into the new Burnham venture. Emails show that Archer and Galanis worked with contacts at Morgan Stanley in order to help Baturina secure a U.S.-based bank account in January of 2014, Just the News previously reported.
Later that year, Baturina would wire $3.5 million to Rosemont Realty --another project tied to Hunter Biden's partners --just weeks before she dined with then-Vice President Joe Biden at the Cafe Milano restaurant in Georgetown, Just the News reported. Despite this, the president insisted on national television that he never met any of his son's business partners or discussed business with him.
Other foreign business partners of Hunter Biden, including oligarchs from Kazakhstan, were also in attendance with the president. Galanis told Congress that he worked through Burnham to secure a U.S. account for Baturina precisely so she could invest further in the group's "new projects," that is, Burnham.
"I previously met Ms. Baturina in February 2014 when Devon Archer asked me to help open her a U.S. bank account. She had invested at least $105 million from Rosemont Realty by that time, which was a Devon Archer investment vehicle. She was having trouble opening a U.S. bank account based on reports of her ties to criminal figures in Russia and corruption allegations related to her politician husband," Galanis said in his deposition.
"Our efforts were to help her open a bank account, done with the understanding that she would provide more funding to our new projects," he added.
Later in 2014, and still months before Hunter Biden officially signed his employment agreement, Burnham appeared eager to broadcast the future first son’s association with the company. One December 2014 Burnham pitch book outlining the group’s plans identified Biden as part of the “highly experienced” team the company was trying to assemble. This was not the last time that trading on the Biden name would become the go-to business model.
The presentation highlighted the benefits of acquiring Biden’s firms including access to his financially powerful Chinese connections through Bohai Harvest RST and enjoying “more day to day engagement by our Chairman and Biden.”
The slide deck was set to be presented to Harvest Global Investments which was headed by Zhao, the Chinese business executive. Emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop and witness testimony at the impeachment inquiry show Zhao was keen on partnering with Burnham and Biden because of the value of the Biden family name and the access it would provide, Just the News previously reported.
Another email first reported by investigative author Peter Schweizer in his book, "Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win" show that Zhao was primarily interested in partnering with Burnham because of Hunter Biden’s proposed involvement.
“Henry we believe, is still interested in doing the JV deal if a fair evaluation of Burnham can be agreed to and if YOU as a deal maker are inside Burnham,” one partner wrote to Hunter Biden in October 2014. “Henry holds you in very high regard.”
Biden and Archer also planned to form another Burnham-connected entity, this time a joint venture with controversial Burisma Holdings founder Mykola Zlochevsky, which would be headquartered in Liechtenstein and serve as Burisma’s expansion vehicle abroad, Just the News reported last week.
The venture was set to be capitalized by Zlochevsky with $120 million investment and the new Burnham entity—Burnham Energy Security LLC—was slated to get a quarter of the new venture's net revenues without putting up any cash.
When the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) began to investigate the tribal bond transactions in 2016, the agency was also aware of Hunter Biden’s apparent affiliation because it subpoenaed him for documents related to his involvement with Rosemont Seneca Bohai, according to a letter from congressional investigators to the SEC. Rosemont Seneca Bohai was a firm jointly utilized by Biden and Archer via a “handshake 50-50 ownership” agreement, Archer testified earlier this year. According to investigators, the firm carried out at least one transaction of tribal bonds related to the scheme.
Hunter Biden’s lawyers responded to the subpoena by producing more than 1,700 responsive documents, Congress says. But, the lawyers also reportedly invoked his father’s name to urge the agency to keep his association with the partners and companies at the center of the investigation private.
“The confidential nature of this investigation is very important to our client and it would be unfair, not just to our client, but also to his father, the Vice President of the United States, if his involvement in an SEC investigation and parallel criminal probe were to become the subject of any media attention,” Biden’s lawyers wrote the SEC after turning over documents, according to records on file with the committee. Indeed, Biden’s affiliation with Burnham was never addressed by prosecutors publicly.
Steven Richards and John Solomon
Source: https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/hunter-biden-signed-employment-agreement-firm-he-distanced-himself
