Article by Jennifer Van Laar in RedState
Are Hunter Biden's China Travels With Michael Lin Related to the Loss of 30 CIA Assets?
It’s well-known that Hunter Biden made multiple business trips to China while his father was Vice President, and that he traveled with the Big Guy on at least one state trip, in December 2013. While the Secret Service provided a list of Hunter Biden’s international trips for which it provided a security detail (in response to a Judicial Watch FOIA), that list merely provides the dates and destinations of the trips, not detailed itineraries.
Believing that one of Hunter Biden’s business partners, Michael Lin (a Taiwanese man some claim is a Chinese asset) may have been privy to classified briefings during those trips, Freedom of Information Act requests were filed on September 11, 2020, with the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, and the Department of Defense seeking:
“[R]ecords relating to traveling in China conducted by Joe Biden and/or Hunter Biden between January 20, 2009 and January 20, 2017, and to the identities of people or entities that met with the Bidens during the course of such trips.”
Apple Daily, a Hong Kong-based news organization, filed the FOIA requests. As of October 20, 2020, none of the agencies had turned over documents to Apple Daily although they noted they’d found responsive documents. Apple Daily, through Asa Hutchinson’s law firm, then filed a lawsuit to compel disclosure of the records as being in the public interest. From the Complaint (emphasis added):
Between 2009 and 2017, then-Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden traveled to China several times, and on at least one occasion, traveled together to China aboard a U.S. government aircraft, a Boeing C-32 with air traffic control call sign “Air Force 2” operated by DAF, while Vice President Biden made an official visit in 2013.
Near the time of Vice President Biden’s trip in 2013, Hunter Biden acquired a 10% ownership interest in a private-equity firm called Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management Co. (“BHR”) and became one of nine directors of the firm. According to an October 4, 2019 report published in the Wall Street Journal, BHR is “controlled and funded primarily by large Chinese government-owned shareholders” and has channeled more than $2.5 billion into private-sector deals on behalf of its financial backers.
One of the non-Chinese shareholders of BHR is a U.S. investment advisory firm called Thornton Group LLC, which was co-founded by Michael Lin, a Taiwanese national. Mr. Lin and Hunter Biden are close business associates, and Mr. Lin was instrumental in helping to establish BHR. Previously disclosed USSS records show that Michael Lin was involved in Hunter Biden’s trips to China.
It is Plaintiff’s intent, through the filing of its FOIA requests and this lawsuit, to ascertain the identities of any entities or persons, in both the private and public sectors, that conducted discussions or participated in meetings with either Hunter Biden or Joe Biden, or both, while the men were visiting China or Taiwan, either separately or together, during the time that Joe Biden served as the Vice President of the United States. Plaintiff would also like to determine whether or not Mr. Lin participated in any such discussions or meetings.
Both Hunter Biden and Joe Biden benefitted, either directly or indirectly, from logistical and other support provided by the Defendants while they traveled in China or Taiwan from 2009 to 2017, including but not limited to air travel. Upon information and belief, such traveling by Hunter Biden included trips and meetings with Michael Lin, who may have been with Hunter Biden and/or Joe Biden in secure areas and/or when Hunter and/or Joe Biden were receiving classified briefings by DOS.
As we covered in stories last week about Hunter Biden’s business dealings in China, the investigators who prepared the Typhoon Investigations report were unable to find any records of Michael Lin before he showed up at Yale in the early ’90s and became friends with James Bulger (son of MA Senate President William Bulger), Chris Heinz, Devon Archer, and Hunter Biden.
Lin formed Thornton Group with Bulger in the mid-2000’s, and the company started doing business in China in 2007. That same year, Lin arranged for US legislators to meet with senior Communist Party officials through the State Legislative Leaders Foundation (SLLF), the first of many such meetings/conferences Lin arranged.
When Hunter Biden traveled to China in 2010 in his capacity as Vice President of Rosemont Seneca Partners, Lin introduced him to “management from core investment institutions, many of whom later became business partners of Biden in China.”
Hunter wasn’t the only Biden working with Lin. Then-Vice President Joe Biden had multiple meetings in Washington DC with Lin, as was detailed in the Typhoon Investigations report released October 2.
Clearly, Mr. Lin has some major connections in the Chinese government; meetings like the ones Lin set up, and conferences between the Chinese legislative body and US leaders don’t just happen because some random person wants them to. Considering the fact that shortly after Biden and Lin visited China in 2010 more than 30 CIA assets in the country were rounded up and killed, their identities made known to Beijing after a CIA communications system that was also linked to US government computers was compromised, questions about Lin’s access and activities with the Bidens need to be asked and answered.
