The Biden campaign sent its letter to Baquet Wednesday, expressing outrage for printing “a baseless conspiracy theory” and calling Schweizer, author of the book Secret Empires, a “right wing polemicist.” While half of Schweizer’s op-ed in the Times addressed Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao’s China ties, the Biden campaign did not seem to take issue with that particular coverage.
In the op-ed, Schweizer wrote:
In December 2013, Joe and Hunter Biden flew aboard Air Force Two to China; less than two weeks after the trip, Hunter’s firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, which he founded with two other businessmen in June 2013, finalized a deal to open a fund, BHR Partners, whose largest shareholder is the government-run Bank of China, even though he had scant background in private equity.(Representatives of the fund claim that the timing of the deal and the Bidens’ trip to China was coincidental). Thus far, the firm has invested about $2.1 billion, according to its website.
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With the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014, Joe Biden became point person in Ukraine as well. That same year, Hunter Biden landed a board position with the Ukrainian energy giant Burisma Holdings. Despite having no background in energy or Ukraine, the vice president’s son was paid as much as $50,000 a month, according to financial records. (He left the board in early 2019).
