Hunter Biden knew he was working with associates who were high up in Chinese intelligence circles, according to a new report.
The report published Monday by Yahoo News delves into the connections between Hunter Biden and Patrick Ho, referred to as Patrick Ho Chi-ping in some reports concerning Ho’s 2018 bribery conviction that was linked to arms dealing and bribery in Africa.
Yahoo’s report is written by Michael Isikoff, its chief investigative correspondent, and Zach Dorfman, its national security correspondent. Both are veteran and respected journalists.
(Isikoff is probably best known as the reporter then working for Newseek who had the story in 1998 about independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation of then-President Bill Clinton and his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, but lost the scoop to the Drudge Report because Newsweek sat on it.)
Ho, who was a former Hong Kong government minister, and Ye Jianming, an energy tycoon who had links in his past to China’s People’s Liberation Army, had formed a business partnership with Hunter Biden and James Biden, who is President Joe Biden’s brother.
In November 2017, Ho was arrested by FBI agents at New York’s JFK Airport as part of what Isikoff and Dorfman called “an audacious plot to dole out millions of dollars in bribes to African leaders in exchange for major energy contracts that appeared to advance Chinese government interests.”
Yahoo reported in 2018 that Ho’s first phone call after his arrest was to James Biden. He asked Biden to get him a lawyer.
According to the report published Monday, the infamous Hunter Biden laptop contained an audio recording from May 11, 2018, between Hunter Biden and a woman who has not been identified.
Hunter Biden complained about a reporter for the New York Times who was asking about Ho.
