The only thing better than a Friday newsdump is a Friday newsdump made over the Christmas/New Years holiday period.
The National Archives has finally released photos showing then-Vice President Biden meeting with two of first son Hunter Biden's Chinese government-linked business partners -- again proving that the president lied about not interacting with his family's foreign patrons.
The cache of photos, released long after their potential political salience and days before Biden retires on Jan. 20, also show Chinese President Xi Jinping grinning as then-Vice President Biden introduced his son during the same December 2013 trip to Beijing.
The Xi-Hunter Biden encounter, which had not previously garnered much attention, appears to have been at a meal Hunter described in an email to his former associate Devon Archer as "pretty amazing" because his dad and China's powerful authoritarian leader "were supposed to spend 2hrs together [but it] stretched to 7hrs. I think they are in love."
Xi was about two months into his ambitious "Belt and Road" foreign-influence and investment campaign -- and a Chinese state-backed company aligned with that vision, BHR Partners, was in the process being co-launched by Hunter.
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The newly released photos, which would have been politically explosive if they were released during the now-closed House impeachment inquiry into alleged Biden family corruption, show the elder Biden shaking hands with incoming BHR Partners CEO Jonathan Li and greeting the company's managing director Ming Xue.
Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for both of Li's children and, according to Archer, greeted Li during a subsequent speaker-phone conversation when Hunter returned to Beijing.
BHR Partners was officially registered as a company 12 days after Air Force Two landed in Beijing with the Biden family for that trip, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The firm played an important role in foreign acquisitions for China, including the 2016 purchase of a Congolese cobalt mine from US and Canadian companies. Cobalt is used for electric car batteries.
The troubled now-54-year-old first son held a 10% stake in BHR through at least part of his dad's presidency and says he relinquished control to his "sugar brother" Kevin Morris, who has loaned Hunter a sum believed to top $6.5 million since meeting him at a 2019 Biden campaign fundraiser.
The photos were released to the America First Legal Foundation in response to a transparency lawsuit.
"AFL obtained the photos through our lawsuit against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which was filed on September 8, 2022," the group led by President-elect Donald Trump's adviser Stephen Miller wrote on X.
"NARA had planned to release these photographs on October 23, 2024 -- thirteen days before Election Day. Lawyers and representatives for President Biden and President Obama delayed NARA's release of these photos -- as they did with other critical records -- until after Election Day."