White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to say Monday whether first son Hunter Biden has sold his remaining stake in a Chinese private equity firm with ties to the Communist government in Beijing — two years after President Biden vowed that his family would divest itself of all overseas business interests.
In April, the Daily Caller reported that Skaneateles LLC — Hunter’s company — still owned 10 percent of BHR Partners, which is controlled by the state-run Bank of China.
On Monday, Newsmax correspondent Emerald Robinson asked Psaki for an update on the matter, to which the press secretary responded: “I’d point you to his representatives on that. He [Hunter] doesn’t work in the administration.”
“The President has said during the campaign that none of his family will have any business relationship with anyone that relates to a foreign corporation or a foreign country,” Robinson pressed shortly after Psaki’s response. “Wouldn’t it be assuring to the American people, as we head into this, if they just let the American people know if Hunter has divulged himself of that to make sure there’s no –“
“Again, I conveyed to you, and then I think I’m going to have to move on, that you should talk to his representatives,” Psaki repeated.
When Robinson attempted to ask another question, Psaki told her: “There’s no reason to yell. I’m certainly not yelling. You should talk to his representatives. That remains his policy. He’s been working to wind that down. Beyond that, I would talk to his representatives.”
BHR Partners was founded in 2013 — with Hunter’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, initially sharing a 30 percent stake with the Thornton Group run by James Bulger, the son of longtime Massachusetts state Senate President Billy Bulger. In July 2019, the New Yorker reported that Hunter was an unpaid member of the company’s board, but did not take a personal equity stake until his father left office as vice president in 2017.
In December 2013, Hunter accompanied his father to China on board Air Force Two. On that occasion, the magazine reported, Hunter arranged for future BHR CEO Johnathan Li to introduce himself to Joe Biden.
In October 2019, then-candidate Biden vowed that “no one in my family will have an office in the White House, will sit in on meetings as if they are a cabinet member, will, in fact, have any business relationship with anyone that relates to a foreign corporation or a foreign country.”
Around the same time, Hunter Biden stepped down from BHR’s board.
“Under a Biden Administration, Hunter will readily comply with any and all guidelines or standards a President Biden may issue to address purported conflicts of interest, or the appearance of such conflicts, including any restrictions related to overseas business interests,” his lawyer said at the time.
In December 2020, Hunter Biden disclosed that the federal government was investigating his overseas business dealings, after The Post reported he helped arrange a 2015 meeting between his father and his Ukrainian energy firm executive boss — whom the elder Biden later helped shield from investigation.