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April 8, 2024 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
01:29:41
Episode 162 LIVE: Anatomy of a Bribe (feat. Tony Bobulinski) – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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Thank you.
You're not taking Matt Gaetz off the board, okay?
Because Matt Gaetz is an American patriot and Matt Gaetz is an American hero.
We will not continue to allow the Uniparty to run this town without a fight.
I want to thank you, Matt Gaetz, for holding the line.
Matt Gaetz is a courageous man.
If we had hundreds of Matt Gaetz in D.C., the country turns around.
It's that simple.
He's so tough.
He's so strong.
He's smart and he loves this country.
Matt Gaetz.
It is the honor of my life to fight alongside each and every one of you.
We will save America!
It's choose your fighter time!
Transcending the Firebrand. - Welcome to a very special edition of Firebrand We are broadcasting now from the Spotify studios in Los Angeles, California.
As you know, this is a time when Congress is out of Washington, D.C. We're moving around the country.
Some are doing investigative work.
Some are doing communications work and political work.
We're incredibly grateful that the Spotify team has invited us here to this soundstage.
They actually make them available to all of their creators to be able to come in We're very proud that Firebrand is hosted on Spotify in addition to the other platforms that we're able to use and we're grateful for all of our Spotify listeners and certainly grateful for this tremendous opportunity.
So the goal for this discussion is not going to be to review We're good to
go.
But what Mr. Bobulinski thought was a business deal started to look more and more like a bribe to him.
Now, we've gone over a lot of the facts.
We've gone over a lot of the documents, text messages that have really corroborated Mr. Bobulinski.
And you may have seen folks in the media or even Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee attack this man.
But what they never attacked What they never challenged was any fact he laid out, any meeting he had, any place he was, any document that he provided.
There was a critique of his goals, a critique of his motives, a critique of his person.
And that is something that, as we saw in the House Judiciary Committee, as America saw, Mr. Bobulinski was well adapted to handle and handled them.
Indeed, he did.
We keep hearing from certain corners that our democracy is at risk and democracy is on the ballot in 24. Yet the same people preaching this mantra know better.
They continue to lie directly to the American people without hesitation and remorse.
Rep.
Dan Goldman and Jamie Raskin, both lawyers, and Mr. Goldman, a former prosecutor with the SDNY from New York, will continue to lie today in this hearing and then go straight to the media to tell more lies.
My biggest appeal to everyone in this room is I wish you would spend the time focusing on the fact that the Chinese Communist Party We should be asking how that happened.
How did the Chinese Communist Party infiltrate the White House of the United States of America?
Let's start there, focus on those facts, what they did, how they did it, why they used money, why they used private enterprises instead of military stuff and other stuff.
That is huge to our national security.
But I don't want this discussion to just be about what we're learning from the Bidens and the documents that relate to their business activities and their activities with China.
My hope is that this discussion will teach us a little bit more about how the power centers in the world work.
I am concerned that increasingly the institutions that we have often admired and looked to as Americans, institutions like the United Nations, like our judicial system, are increasingly being compromised by China through bribes.
And this is not some conspiracy theory I have.
It's not just a viewpoint from Mr. Bobulinski.
As we're going to prove to you, this has been the position of the United States government in very specific And in very meaningful criminal litigation in the Southern District of New York.
Now, you'll hear from Mr. Boblinski about a company called CEFC. And CEFC was really the investment wing of China's energy business and a big part of their One Belt, One Road initiative.
CEFC has one of their major executives, major players, put on trial in New York for corruption.
Corruption that involved countries in Africa, banks in New York, people in our own government.
And in those circumstances, I think we can learn a lot about how bribes, how global institutions are driving the decisions that affect the lives of people here and all around the world.
So with that, I welcome Tony Bobulinski.
Tony, you have been through an experience that not a lot of people have, testifying before Congress, having your story scrutinized by every opposition research entity, every media entity, every congressman.
And Without question, every person I've talked to in town halls around my district, around the country, they say you were credible, that you stood on the facts and that no one really challenged you on those facts.
But just talk a little bit about, like, as a human being who didn't have a lot of notoriety before all of this, going through this process, what's your reflection on it as we sit here today in the Spotify studios in Los Angeles?
Yeah, good morning, Matt, and obviously I'd like to thank Spotify as well for hosting us and Joel and Matt, you and your team for having me down here.
So stating that I had no notoriety before all this is probably an understatement because I had spent the prior 10 plus years working for one of the wealthiest families in the world.
And through my time doing that, most people actually didn't know what I did for a living because I didn't really talk about it.
I didn't have any social media accounts.
I didn't have profiles.
We didn't have a website.
The family was a very low key.
Very, very wealthy family and we invested all over the world and I could care less if anybody knew my name.
So I was the, you know, the stark contrast of this environment we live in today where, you know, people are building huge social media following.
So it's...
It has been an education of just how the media works.
If you had asked me, I actually lived in a place for almost 15 years that didn't have a TV in it.
If I wanted entertainment, I'd go to the movie theater and during, you know, I was working 80 to 100 hour weeks and I had four Bloomberg's on my desk.
So if I needed information on any company I was invested in, I could get it instantly and stuff like that.
And so if you'd asked me six years ago if the media Lied, misrepresented, told half stories.
I would have said, no, that doesn't happen.
There's laws that protect that from happening and hold them accountable and stuff like that.
I was ignorant on the subject.
You know, our companies that we're invested in had comms people, and I really didn't get involved at that level if I sat on a board and stuff like that.
So to say that this was just a crazy, rude awakening of what I've gone through the last five years, it's been astonishing, honestly.
And most people will never go through that.
Most people will not go from being a consumer of information to being kind of the subject of that entire ecosystem.
Now, you talk about comms people.
Our communications director is Joel Valdez.
He is the executive director of Firebrand.
And Joel is joining us to help us today, also to give the everyman perspective.
But, you know, I mean, it's certainly something to go from a world in which you're judged by these high-intensity economic decisions to being peppered with five-minute rounds of questions.
Before we get into any of the specifics here, if you were to meet someone We're good to go.
It's funny because actually the parallel in the investing business, I spent my whole career post the Navy, you know, in the investment business.
And you'd always talk to, you know, early stage and venture companies and tell them to fine tune their elevator pitch, right?
Their 60 second elevator pitch.
This story about the Biden corruption is...
And the, you know, involvement of China, Russia, Ukraine, Romania, and the list continues on to try to package that in two minute or five minute soundbites is nearly impossible.
And so to prepare for congressional testimony, it was just an interesting dynamic because I'm fighting to get the facts out to the American people.
And, you know, I had this interchange with AOC where she was looking for like a soundbite or something Short and quick and sweet.
And this is not a short, quick and sweet story.
I believe the fact that he was sitting with me while I was putting together a business deal.
Did you witness the president commit a crime?
Is it your testimony today?
Yes.
And what crime have you witnessed?
How much time do I have to go through it?
It is simple.
You name the crime.
Did you watch him steal something?
Corruption statutes, RICO and conspiracy.
What is it?
What is the crime, sir?
You asked me to answer the question.
I answered the question.
RICO, you're obviously not familiar with.
Excuse me, sir.
RICO is not a crime.
It is a category.
What is the crime?
It's a category of crimes that you're then charged.
You have charges.
You have charges.
Sir, please name- You want me to name the exact statute under RICO? Yes.
Well, it's funny, in this committee room, everyone's not here, there's over 18 lawyers that went to law school.
All right, sir, I reclaim my time.
I reclaim my time.
I'll leave it up for you guys to define the statute under RICO. Okay, thank you, sir, I reclaim my time.
I don't have a picture of Joe Biden picking up a duffel bag of $20 million of cash.
This is a very complicated, involving the most powerful countries in the world and how they operate to infiltrate powerful business, powerful political people in the United States.
And I'm simply fighting to get the facts out to the American people.
That's all I ever wanted to do.
And that sort of plays into your question about This, you know, rude awakening in 2020. I simply wanted to deliver the facts to congressional parties, senators, and let them go take these facts and educate the American people.
But unfortunately, that wasn't done as efficiently as it could be.
So here I sit with you today, still fighting to get the facts out to the American people.
For a lot of folks, I think it's not familiar to think about who you are in the world and in the grand scheme of the economy, because a lot of people don't know a Tony Bobulinski in their life.
So if you were to draw on an archetype for you, you're not Bobby Axelrod, right?
You don't run a hedge fund, but at the same time...
A lot of the people who are running family funds or making big investment decisions kind of seek you out as someone to hunt deals, find deals.
So who is a Tony Bobulinski archetype that people could associate with?
I struggled with this.
Yeah, it's interesting because I had numerous offers through my career to become a Bobby Axelrod, to launch my own hedge fund, private equity fund.
I chose not to.
I chose to work for a specific family, which is an interesting dynamic because You're intertwined with their children, with their grandchildren, all the personal aspects of their family and business.
So trust is even at a much, much higher level than it would be if I went to work for a Goldman Sachs or ran my own hedge fund.
And when I say trust...
That familiarity you had working with a family and intertwining a family dynamic, which I don't care who you are, every family dynamic has contours with business.
Were you able to draw on that at all as you kind of saw the Bidens interacting and as you were there having a meeting with Joe Biden?
He's telling you to take care of his son.
There must have been some sort of merging of kind of family and business that you were able to identify and see based on your background.
Yeah, and I'm sure the Bidens picked up on it because I had spent my time working for one of the wealthiest families in the world That had multiple generations involved in the business.
So I would be trading large amounts of stock on a daily basis.
And the grandchildren would walk in my office and ask, Hey, how are you doing?
What are you doing?
Can we step in to learn what I was doing or talk about it?
And so I developed a relationship and just a mutual trust of the dynamics between the grandchild and the patriarch.
There are different perspectives on life and the kids as well because they all have their own families, their own interests, their own wealth.
Each one of these families were hugely wealthy in their own right and then in aggregate, one of the most powerful and wealthy families in the world.
So it was … Well, with a powerful family that is producing a lot of cash with investments, everybody wants to get their beak wet.
And sometimes that's challenging in how it's presented and talked about and discussed.
And it seemed as though in this China deal where they were bringing you in to create the veneer of a business arrangement, but really it was the facilitation of payment to family members.
It seemed as though you might have been drawn into that because they knew you were familiar with the interplay of family and business.
Yeah, no question.
I mean James Gilliard, who was the individual, former British military, British intelligence, didn't really talk much about what he did outside of sort of relationships and stuff.
I'd known him for approximately 10 years from deals I was doing around the world.
And just to give your listeners a snapshot, I'm not just talking about China.
I've been to mainland China 10 plus times.
I had a business there that employed hundreds of people that worked for me.
It was in a business very similar to Groupon.
So it was a daily deal kind of business at restaurants and spas and a variety of things.
And all over that Asian region, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, So I spent a lot of time there in 2010, 2011, and 2012. And I personally was highly, highly concerned and skeptical about China.
And so when James Gillier initially brought this up to me in 2015, I was encouraging him to, you know, Be intense on your due diligence.
Don't believe anything until it's signed or the money's in the bank.
Ask a lot of questions out of a position of concern for James Gilliam.
So this deal with the Bidens wasn't the first time you were familiar with how the Chinese do business.
Correct.
You had done other deals in China, with China, with Chinese interests or assets.
Deals in the tens of millions.
So you got that.
Had you also ever done business in Africa?
I've been to Africa.
I've looked at a couple of deals there.
I personally have not deployed any capital in Africa.
I'm interested with China working on modern-day colonialism in Africa.
It's an interesting interplay.
So getting back to kind of how America got to know you, this testimony against the Bidens, one thing that struck me is that you're the one guy who emerges out of Biden world who's not a criminal, telling the truth about them.
I mean, you've got Devin Archer, who was indicted.
I guess he's subject to his trial.
You got the Bulger family.
Whitey Bulger's son, I guess.
I mean, I don't know that he's a criminal, but the Bulger name certainly evokes a sense of what kind of business they're at least tied to.
Then you've got Galatis sitting in a prison cell, and you're the one guy who emerges.
You've never been accused of a crime, to my knowledge.
I've never been arrested.
I've never gone to prison.
And so you're a business guy that comes out of this, and you become the central narrator.
And The way they chose to attack you was interesting.
They didn't really go after any of the claims you made because it was all documented.
Instead, they went after your goals and they started by saying you were some sort of political operative.
Mr. Bobulinski made his hazy allegations against the Bidens public for the first time at a press conference choreographed by the Trump for President campaign, which provided him a venue, a gaggle of journalists, and even a dress shirt that they went out and bought for him to wear to the event.
Hours later, Mr. Bobulinski joined the second 2020 presidential debate as Donald Trump's personal guest, where he was seated with Kid Rock and Mark Meadows.
Address that directly.
Yeah, it's interesting because the American people probably, hopefully they're not tired because, you know, bleed red, white, and blue first, then blue and white for Penn State second.
But I don't say this lightly.
I grew up the grandson of of a 37-year army intelligence officer that spoke, I think, eight languages.
So effectively he was a military spy.
My mom, my aunt was born in Cuba.
That family had to be extracted from Cuba back in the day.
My father spent his whole career as a naval officer traveling the world as I did as a kid.
My brother, a 28-year Navy flight officer who served in combat.
My other grandfather served in the Air Force and I was lucky enough to be invited, I think they picked 25 instructors a year, to go teach at Nuclear Power School, probably the most elite, academic, intense environment founded by Admiral Rickover.
And I only reiterate that Each time to the American people to sort of set a tone of, I am not political.
I was willing to die for this country and fight for this country, as was every immediate male in my family.
We love this country.
I've been simply trying to get the facts out to the American people.
And you bring up a good point.
They don't attack the facts.
I've yet to see Hunter Biden or Abby Lowell come out and say, hey, that text, You know, they're causing concerns.
It's a screenshot of a Blackberry.
That text has been doctored.
They never say that because every document, every email, every text I've produced is factual, has metadata.
Unfortunately, forensics people couldn't pull it off the Blackberry, so I had to take pictures of it.
Well, it's not even challenged.
That's what's so ridiculous about the criticisms of you showing screenshots from a Blackberry.
There's not a single person who says that these messages were not sent and received.
Not one.
They just want to nitpick at the origin, but they don't in any way challenge the content.
And the content is then reinforced with the actual meetings that occurred and your own testimony about those experiences.
But I want to draw a finer point on the question.
Okay.
When you say your goals are to get the information out, one thing I noticed is that during the congressional testimony, people tried to bait you into saying that you believed Joe Biden should be impeached.
Do you think Chairman Comer has proven that Joe Biden has committed a high crime and misdemeanor?
I believe with all the evidence he's gathered, yes, he's proven that Joe Biden has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
Okay.
And so I assume you believe Joe Biden should be impeached?
Well, that's up to you guys.
You said, look, that's not for me.
That's for the Congress to decide.
I'm laying the facts out.
But when this is all over, Tony, what do you want to have happen?
Like, do you think that Biden's belong in jail?
Do you believe Joe Biden should be impeached?
Do you believe that this should just flavor our understanding of the broader corruption problems we have?
Should it lead to legislation?
I've had Republicans and Democrats even say, you know, watching all this stuff, if it's not a crime, maybe it should be.
And do you want to see like a Bobby Alinsky bill come out of this?
When this is all over, what makes it worth it to you that you've put your name on the line, you've put your credibility on the line?
And really, you know, now you go from being a finance guy and a deal guy to being seen as the guy bringing down the Bidens.
Well, there's a lot in that question, so hopefully I have a little bit of time in the packet.
So I look forward to sort of riding off into the sunset and going back to my private life and enjoying my family, willing to fight for this country, you know, however I'm asked to.
But I look forward to that and people such as yourself who are, you know, driving change and making waves in Congress.
There's a couple of different pieces of this.
I've always been shocked I think we discussed this in the hearing in the spring of 2017, when I started to take meetings and and get up to speed on this and had lawyers setting up the business, I was shocked would be an understatement that the Bidens were even Able to be anywhere near these discussions.
Remember, I held a Q security clearance, which was granted by the DOE and the NSA, and I had to fill a form out every year under oath that I hadn't received gifts.
I could be wrong on the dollar amount.
I think it was somewhere between $50 and $100.
No immediate member of my family had received gifts or was interacting, sort of like FBI agents have to do every year.
And so with that purview, seeing what these guys were doing in the spring of 2017, I asked my lawyers, I was like, this doesn't make sense.
I have a great reputation.
I've spent time all over the world.
I work for one of the most private but wealthiest families in the world.
I have zero interest in stepping out of the box.
And so they looked into it from my vantage point and under FCPA and dotted I's and cross T's.
That doesn't mean they looked at it from the Biden's vantage point, what they were able to do as a political family and their relationships and all that stuff.
And so I believe there needs to be legislation to require, if it's not already in place, because I'm not an expert on it, for the president's family and the vice president's family.
Because my lawyers are frustrated when they're asking this question.
I literally had to A criminal law firm and a lawyer do a bunch of work, not for me, I don't need it, but what the vice president and their immediate family members are allowed to do under the current legislation.
It was sort of shocking to me.
That's why when AOC asked me the question, I could quickly talk about RICO and conspiracy and stuff like that, because I've spent a large amount of my own personal funds Having lawyers dig into that to understand it.
Because currently my understanding is the Vice President and the President live under sort of a slightly different umbrella than if you're an FBI agent or a naval officer.
Or a member of Congress.
Or a member of Congress.
And I don't understand how I as a lieutenant with a Q security clearance had to disclose every year if I even had a lunch with a foreign national.
Yet the Vice President and the President of the United States possibly can have their immediate family members, their son, their brothers...
Flying all over the world, meeting effectively foreign nationals with close ties.
So that would be a goal of yours?
The Biden family is going to also ride off into the sunset.
I can't tell you exactly when, but the threat of China to the United States of America is more real and has been real for decades.
And if your listeners want to read a great book, there's a book out there called Spies and Lies that walks through the MSS, the Ministry of State Security, which is the intel agencies for the Chinese Communist Party, and they give a PhD dissertation On how little – it might be as simple as a cab driver in New York gathering information of what they see to the highest kind of operations of information exchange and stuff like that.
So I believe there's – Well, let me stop you there.
Let me stop you there because I think this is getting somewhere really good.
If because of your testimony and what you've illuminated, we end up with stronger anti-corruption laws.
Let's just make that a basket.
And Katie Porter laid out some great ideas.
I thought you did a great job in the hearing.
We should have a policy discussion about how to stop government officials from using their positions to get money or favors.
Now, that is a real hearing, one that nearly every American, regardless of party, wants us to hold.
We could start by talking about how senior executive branch officials can leave public service, wait just one year, and then legally become lobbyists for big corporations, scoring their new employers' profitable government contracts and favorable regulations.
They can even be paid by the big corporations during that short one year while they are waiting to become lobbyists as a down payment for their future ability to peddle influence.
That's wrong.
For the panel of witnesses, by show of hands, as Americans, would our witnesses support extending this one-year waiting period to at least two years?
No, I would.
Okay, so there we go.
Republicans, Democrats, even convicted criminals, everybody supports that we should do more to stop influence peddling.
And then it also resulted in the American people becoming more resilient against this threat of Chinese bribery and Chinese aggression and malign influence.
But it never resulted in an impeachment of Joe Biden or a prosecution or criminal justice.
If it just resulted in legislation and then stronger American resilience against China, will all of it have been worth it to you?
A thousand percent.
A thousand percent.
I said I bleed red, white and blue.
I don't say that lightly.
We have to protect our country, our people, our intellectual property, all these People in this country working 50, 60 hour weeks to produce things that are being stolen by the Chinese Communist Party.
We need to protect them and wake up to how they are infiltrating our country.
And notice, they are using capital to do it.
Obviously, one of the largest economies in the world, back and forth with the United States, they deploy, people are like, oh, the Biden's millions of dollars.
The Chinese Communist Party Deploys probably tens of billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars around the world infiltrating Africa, South America, Europe, Eastern Europe, and stuff like that.
And we need to wake up.
So if that's addressed legislation, I think the American people are going to hold the Biden family accountable.
I don't need to do that.
But what's interesting about that is there's no resentment in you toward the Bidens.
It's toward China.
Correct.
It's toward the people offering the bribes considerably more than it is the people taking them.
And I think that you've been unfairly treated in that way.
And the truth.
If Joe Biden And Hunter Biden and the Biden family came out in 2020 or 2019 when I started seeing President Trump getting impeached for a phone call and all that stuff.
Really don't want to weigh in on that.
But I understood the corruption in Ukraine.
I've been to Ukraine numerous times.
I've seen business transacted there and seen some interesting stuff to say the least.
If they had just simply come out and told the truth, Yes, I've met with my son's business partners.
Maybe I crossed a line I didn't understand I was crossing it or I did cross it and stuff like that.
If they told the American people the truth in 2020, I would have simply given this information to the appropriate people, senators, congressmen, the DOJ, and people would have never heard my name, nor would they have needed to.
But when they were willing to lie about all these facts that are insanely well documented, not only by me, by numerous business partners across large spans of time, by our own Department of Justice.
And if somebody really wants to exhaust themselves, they can sit down and cross-connect all these different data points and see, well, that text message is valid because it's talked about three different times in other communications.
And so I don't have animosity towards the Biden family.
Yes, they defrauded me.
Yes, they stepped out of the box.
This is about our country.
We have to protect ourselves against the Chinese Communist Party and what they're willing to do to become the global power and supersede the United States of America.
You've really become a China Hawk.
I've been a China Hawk since I left there in 2012. Yeah.
Based on the stuff I saw go on there, I mean, I would always say- Well, there's different views on this, Tony.
There's like the Steve Bannon view that China's trying to dominate all of us.
They're engaged in irregular warfare against us.
We have to go full throttle against them.
And then kind of on the other end of the continuum, there's the Elon Musk view that the people of China are wonderful, that he's bullish on China's opportunities.
And really, if we draw China closer to us, then they will be more like us.
I plot myself far closer to the Steve Bannon perspective than the Elon perspective because as we've drawn China closer to us, we've just become more like them.
Well, and just to differentiate this, there is a material difference between the Chinese Communist Party and the leadership and the Chinese people.
I had hundreds of Chinese people working for me in mainland China, Hong Kong, and they were wonderful, smart, hardworking, caring people.
But they were different than the power center of the Chinese Communist Party.
They themselves complained about the Chinese Communist Party and the power centers.
And that CCP uses their power of leverage over Chinese nationals on their own soil and around the world to gather information and stuff like that.
So Elon Musk, what an amazing entrepreneur and crazy smart guy.
I think he is differentiating between effectively the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party.
But unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party gets the Chinese people to do things many of them probably don't want to do.
But the power they hold over their family, their jobs, their livelihood is something that we're not familiar with in this country.
China's a colonial power, right?
They're a modern colonial power.
They want to extract resources from other places for their benefit, and that's going to get into this trial that I'm dying to get into, but I really enjoy the top-line analysis of what's going on in the world.
I think it educates people a great deal.
And I think a lot of Americans say, okay, well, China seeks this bipolarity.
Right now, arguably, we live in a unipolar world.
China seeks bipolarity, and they...
They are going to try to crowd out US influence in the world with the One Belt, One Road Initiative, get people more tied into their economic systems, military systems, whatever.
I see it differently.
I actually don't believe China is simply trying to crowd out the United States.
I think they are trying to include the United States in the Belt and One Road Initiative as a subservient power.
That it's not just they want deals elsewhere to feed China.
They actually want deals in the United States feeding China.
And I think that's a misconception with a lot of people.
But you are a frontline witness to China's efforts.
Forget the Bidens for a moment.
China's efforts to try to get deals inside the United States, not for our benefit, but for their benefit.
And does that just kind of shape how you think about them?
And what would you add to just a regular person's understanding of What China's real goals are.
Well, the American people need to understand that the Chinese Communist Party, the MSS, their intel agencies and stuff like that are using capital to infiltrate our country.
We're a capitalistic country.
We're founded on free enterprise and trust and the ability to go out and make your dreams true.
And they're feeding into that by using large amounts of capital.
So it's important that they hear because there was all this discussion in 2020 about $10 million for Sinehogg.
The $10 million was insignificant.
That $10 million was to get office space, although Hunter wanted to take it all out and put it in his piggy bank day one, which was part of the reason why we went back and forth.
But Director Zhang and Chairman Yee were talking about deploying billions to potentially tens of billions of US dollars in the United States in infrastructure projects.
Financial institutions.
If your readers aren't familiar, there's a very successful investment bank called Mollison Company.
Ken Mollison, the founder of that business, it's a multi-billion dollar enterprise.
I sat down with him at the rooftop of the Peninsula Hotel in 2020 in a very serious discussion talking about buying Mollison Company, a multi-billion dollar enterprise.
Ken Mollison wouldn't have taken the time to sit down with me if he didn't think it was real.
Right?
And we were having those discussions because CEFC was looking at deploying large amounts of money on our own shores.
So yeah, scale really important here.
The 10 million, that is like a little sprinkle fund.
That is not the big flow.
Not even a sprinkle.
It's like a, you know, a drop.
Yeah, a drop.
But do this.
Orient listeners right now.
What is CEFC? Who is Chairman Yi, who is Director Zhang, and who is Patrick Ho.
Give me those four.
CEFC, Zhang, Yi, Ho.
Okay.
So, CEFC at its peak was a top five private enterprise in mainland China in the energy business, but also in the financial institution business and a variety of other tech military stuff that they were doing.
But the primary core of it It was the energy business around the world.
And at its peak, I think it was doing in the 40s, 40 plus billion dollars of revenue on an annual basis.
Chairman Yee was the chairman of that company.
And if you look him up, you'll notice that he's a very stealth individual.
People say, there's not much known about him.
Where did he come from?
Where did CFC come from?
All of a sudden they're on the global stage and you have this Forbes 40 under 40 individual flying around on an Airbus 300, I believe.
And when he touched down in the city, he would roll with an entourage like 15, 20 people deep of executives.
So Chairman Yee was the executive or the chairman of it, who in March of 2018 disappeared.
Hasn't been seen since.
People speculate whether he's dead or in a mud hole in mainland China.
So that's part of our story later.
So that's Chairman Yee.
Then you have Director Zhang.
There was a debate whether he was the number two or number three.
I believe, based on my interaction and knowledge, that he was the senior most Chinese Communist Party member at CEFC. I was told he was sort of put in place to keep an eye on Chairman Yee a couple of different times by people I would trust.
And he was the one flying around the world striking deals.
There's a famous picture of him with Putin in Budapest, Hungary in August 2017 when they were in the middle of the Rosneft deal.
He's the individual I interacted with extensively up until the end of July 2017 when the Bidens stepped in and decided they wanted to take all the money directly themselves.
But Director Zhang, interesting enough, was able to leave the United States Was never named in that trial that we're gonna talk about in the SDNY. He's named by witnesses, but he was never charged and his visas were revoked in the summer of 2017. So he's a high level executive.
He was the, you know, on the ground deal guy doing business in, you know, Africa, South America, all over the world.
And then Patrick Ho, I never met, I'd actually never heard of Patrick Ho until he was indicted in November of 2017 and this house of cards built by the Chinese Communist Party called CEFC came crumbling down Between Patrick Ho's indictment and Chairman Yee disappearing into a mud hole or jail and call it very early – may have been late February but early March 2018. So don't know if that covers all of it.
Very helpful context.
So CEFC, this is the big Chinese energy business investment conglomerate that is going to plow in the cash in theory to Oneida, this business entity, the one where we had originally contemplated 10 percent for the big guy.
No, no.
You've done that extensively on a lot of things.
But just for those catching up, we get Oneida set up.
CEFC is going to plow the money in.
Zhang gets that shakedown text message from Hunter Biden.
We'll throw that on the screen saying, I'm sitting here with my father.
Start making the payments.
And then Patrick Ho, someone you haven't met, but we're going to learn about him.
Right.
Ho is one of these executives whose job it is to consummate the bribe, to make the government official compromised and do what's necessary.
And he ends up running a foundation that is funded entirely by CEFC. Correct.
And this is not unusual, by the way.
Shell has a foundation that they run.
Exxon has a foundation they run.
And these foundations largely exist to build goodwill and to achieve the goals of the company.
But here with China, based on everything we've been discussing leading up to this point, you have described a China that is trying to get senior government officials, former government officials, upcoming government officials compromised.
And so there is this trial that occurs that you just referenced.
In New York where Patrick Ho is accused by the United States government of facilitating these bribes.
And I want to read the opening statement in this trial.
Matt, do you mind if I just address one piece of that because you just hit a lot.
For the American people listening to this, I'd encourage you to look at the WhatsApp messages that Matt just referenced on July 30th, 2017 and July 31st, 2017. But even more important, look at the one on July 25th, 2017. It's a group discussion called Oneida Holdings.
It was myself, James Gillier, Rob Walker, Hunter Biden, and Jim Biden.
And in that message, Hunter says, I haven't spoken to either of them.
Meaning he hasn't spoken to Director Zhang or Chairman Yee because he was yielding to me to focus on getting the $10 million of capital into Sinawak Holdings to capitalize the business.
That's July 25th where he says, I haven't spoken to any of them.
Then five days later on July 30th, he invokes his father sitting next to him because he knows he's broke.
He has all these payments due for his alimony, a variety of things on the 1st of August.
And at that time, remember, I didn't know he was a drug addict or had these issues.
I had no idea to the extent of the problems that he was personally dealing with and stuff like that.
But on the 30th, he says, why haven't you fulfilled the commitment?
That commitment he's talking about is Sino Hawk Holdings.
Okay?
Then on the 31st, all of a sudden his tone changes after he's had a discussion with Director Zhang.
And Zhao, who is the interpreter for director Zhang, and all of a sudden he's now reshaping it Where the commitment to sign-off holding isn't what he's focused on.
He's focusing on reshaping the partnership to remove Oneida and put his law firm, Owosco, in as a 50% owner.
Why was he able to do that?
It plays into your focus, Matt.
He was able to do that because all CEFC cared about was the Biden family and the Biden name.
I was irrelevant.
I was insignificant.
I had looked Director Zang in the face numerous times.
The first time I met him, I told him, listen, I believe you're going to lie, cheat, and steal.
And he laughed and said, listen, we're very westernized.
When we say we're going to do something, we will do it.
And I said, well, that's not been my track record in my interaction being in China and all that stuff.
And so they knew they had fully executed operating agreements in Sinohawk Holdings, and they knew they had liability to circumvent those agreements.
But they were willing to do that at the end of July 2017 because all they wanted Was the Biden family and the power and the access to information?
And why at that moment in time?
Because this is important to the trial you're going to talk about because it plays into how they acted.
They had me chase them for two months for this money.
We're getting to it.
Why all of a sudden did it flow within 10 days?
Well, Hunter invokes his father, but more importantly, the Chinese needed something.
CEFC was under the impression there were sealed indictments of they didn't know who.
They thought possibly Patrick Ho, possibly the chairman, possibly Director Zhang at the end of July 2017, and they needed information and access.
And so they were willing to do whatever the Bidens asked them to do.
I was insignificant.
James Gillier was insignificant.
Rob Walker.
And that's what happened.
And those WhatsApp messages spell it out in intimate detail.
And you can cross-check them with a variety of information.
And so my hat's off to Shapley and Ziegler for...
Being bold and proud and fighting for the truth for the American people and coming out and producing that information.
So sorry, I just thought that information was very important.
No, very helpful.
We'll get all that on the screen and all that as context because the fundamental essence of the Biden defense here is that this wasn't a bribe with CEFC. This was legitimate business and they cast you as just kind of a disgruntled business guy who didn't get the right part of the deal that you wanted when in reality You were the one being duped to be brought in to look like this was legitimate business because you're a legitimate businessman.
But then around the legitimate business entity, Oneida Holdings, they were getting the payments.
And it's so correct the way you describe it.
The only reason they were able to go around you, the legitimate businessman, is because this wasn't legitimate business.
So if the core tenant of the Biden defense is this is all legitimate business, That's when you made the point at the hearings, people need to know the truth about CEFC and what they're doing.
And how come no deal was ever done?
How come with Sino Hawk there wasn't a deal done?
I don't mean the $10 million, I mean an actual transaction where we invested hundreds of millions or billions of dollars.
I had a detailed deal where we were going to invest three to five hundred million dollars in Romania.
Didn't happen.
Biden's claim they worked for two years to present all these deals.
How come none of the deals happened?
You're going to get to it because you're going to focus on this trial.
And that's the same way they operated in Chad and Uganda because they needed things.
So they came with their capital.
They claimed they were going to do things.
When they got what they needed, they sort of then sort of just rode off and moved on to the next thing.
And what they needed at the end of July 2017 is they needed intel and details about those sealed indictments of CFC executives and what it meant to their company.
So key on that.
And we also want to put up on the screen here the Devin Archer messages with Hunter Biden, where he's saying, well, gee, Hunter, in essence, we're telling the Chinese we can protect them from indictments.
And here I am, Devin Archer, getting indicted.
It sort of limits our ability to be able to sell that protection.
But here is the opening statement in the government's allegations against CEFC. This is a case about greed and corruption.
About more than two million dollars in bribes.
Cash hidden in gift boxes, international wire transfers, and promises of future riches.
Bribes offered and paid by the defendant, that man, Patrick Ho, offered and paid to the leaders of two African nations, all done in an effort to corruptly obtain business for a multi-billion dollar Chinese oil company.
During this trial, you will hear about two bribery schemes that were global, but each began right here in New York.
The first scheme involved the Republic of Chad, a country in Africa.
The defendant and his business associates offered $2 million in cash to the top public official in Chad, the president.
They concealed the cash in gift boxes, and they offered this bribe in an effort to obtain valuable oil rights.
The second scheme was similar but involved the Republic of Uganda, another country in Africa.
The defendant and his associates sought to bribe two of the top officials in Uganda, the president and the foreign minister.
The defendant schemed to pay them millions of dollars in cash and wire transfers, along with offering them a cut of future profits.
Again, all in an effort to obtain business for the Chinese oil company.
How was the defendant able to get access to such high-ranking officials?
In both of these schemes, he took advantage of the fact that he ran a non-profit organization which was fully funded by the oil company.
This position gave him access to some of the most powerful leaders around the globe, including at the United Nations right here in Manhattan.
He also held meetings here in New York and he wired money through banks here in New York.
But you'll learn that while the defendant led a non-profit, what drove him to Chad and Uganda was money.
Business.
You see, the oil company already had operations in Asia and Europe, but they were looking to expand into the African market.
But the defendant and his associates didn't want to take time to win business the right way, in a competitive role.
After all, someone else might get that deal.
So they cheated.
They decided to offer bribes to gain an unfair advantage, and the defendant used his nonprofit organization to make it look like those bribes were something else, something legitimate.
But as the evidence will show, those payments weren't charitable donations.
They weren't political contributions.
They were bribes, money offered to the top officials in Chad and Uganda in exchange for business.
What the defendant did wasn't just wrong.
It wasn't business as usual.
It was corrupt and it was criminal and that is why we are here today.
Ladies and gentlemen, this opening statement is the government's opportunity to give you an overview of the evidence we're going to show you in this case.
First, I'm going to talk about what the evidence is going to show.
Second, I'm going to talk about the different types of evidence that you're going to see.
And third, I'll give you a brief overview of the charges.
So what will the evidence show?
You'll learn that the defendant is a citizen of China.
And during the scheme, he was working on behalf of a multi-billion dollar Chinese company called CEFC China Energy, or just CEFC for short.
The company is headquartered in Shanghai, China, where With operations and offices around the world, it's a massive company engaged in primarily the oil business and banking, as well as many other things.
Now, while the defendant worked on behalf of this massive company, he did so carefully, indirectly.
You'll learn that the defendant wasn't, at least on paper, an employee of the oil company.
Instead, he was the secretary general of a nonprofit organization, or NGO, that the oil company funded.
In fact, the nonprofit NGO also went by the same abbreviation as the energy company, CEFC. Running an NGO allowed the defendant to pass himself off as a humanitarian, a man solely interested in promoting causes like sustainable development, energy security, and clean water.
And though his position at the NGO existed, the defendant gained access to powerful leaders across the globe, and that access was brokered in many cases right here in Manhattan.
His NGO participated in official United Nations events.
It looked impressive.
But behind closed doors, the defendant was focused on business.
Business for CEFC, the multi-billion dollar oil company that funded his NGO. He used his NGO to gain access to world leaders who could benefit the oil company's business.
And he used the cover of the NGO to pay bribes where it felt necessary to get the job done.
Bribes for business.
This for that.
You'll see he carried out the same plan in both Chad and Uganda.
The defendant wanted to break into the African market, so he threw money at top leaders in both countries.
In Uganda, the scheme resulted in business being directed to the defendant and CEFC. In Chad, however, the scheme backfired.
The president rejected the bribe and was furious about it.
But as you'll learn, the law makes it a crime to offer a bribe whether or not the foreign official accepts it and whether or not the bribe successfully leads to any business or profits.
And you'll see overwhelming evidence that the defendant did exactly that.
He schemed and conspired to corrupt official decision making in Chad and Uganda.
He offered millions of dollars in bribes and he did so in an effort to gain business.
Now, I'd like to talk about the scheme in greater detail.
The scheme began in the fall of 2014 when the defendant and his business associates sought out oil projects in Chad.
At the time, CEFC had operations in Asia and Europe, but had not yet established themselves in Africa.
To change this, the defendant wanted to go straight to the top, to engage directly with the president of Chad.
But the defendant didn't know the president, so he sought out someone who did.
A man named Cheesh Guido.
Guido was a former foreign minister in Senegal, a country in West Africa.
Guido was connected to some of the most powerful officials in Africa, including the president of Chad.
So the defendant paid Guido to introduce him to the president.
You'll learn the defendant first met with Guido right here in Manhattan, steps from the United Nations.
Following this meeting, the defendant reported back to his boss, the chairman of the multi-billion dollar oil company, that he had set in motion a plan to receive special attention and support from the president of Chad.
A couple of weeks later, in November of 2014, the defendant flew to chat with other representatives from the CEFC oil company.
Along with Guido, they met with the president and the president was receptive.
He presented the defendant and CEFC with an opportunity to obtain extremely valuable oil fields.
But at the first meeting, they didn't go into details, like how much CEFC would pay to achieve those rights.
All the defendant knew is that the president would make the final decision on whether or not CEFC would sell those rights and at what price.
The defendant was eager to seal the deal.
So through Guido, he represented that they would set up a second meeting in Chad almost immediately on the heels of the first meeting.
Guido thought this was a bad idea.
It was too soon.
CFC had not done the work yet to figure out the price it would offer for the oil, but the defendant insisted on the second meeting right away.
Why?
The defendant wanted the second meeting so badly they wanted to get in front of the president in person before any negotiation on the price had taken place because the plan...
Was to bribe the president.
To throw money at him to make sure the negotiation went the way the defendant wanted it to go.
You see, during the second meeting with the president of Chad, the defendant and his associate presented the president with several gift boxes.
But they didn't just contain gifts.
Hidden inside was two million dollars in cash.
Money for an oil deal.
This for that.
You'll learn, however, the defendant had their corrupt plan backfire.
The president of Chad saw this as a blatant attempt to bribe him.
He was furious.
He confronted the defendant and the other oil company representatives.
He demanded to know why they had tried to bribe him and pay him off.
After the president spoke, the first person to respond to the defendant replied and said, no denial.
Instead, they said the president was mistaken or misunderstood.
The defendant was simply impressed by the president's reaction.
The defendant and his associates then spoke quickly and privately.
They came up with a solution.
They convinced the president to keep the money And they would wire him a letter saying that the $2 million in cash was really just a charitable donation.
And they did just that.
You'll learn that after leaving Chad, the defendant did a draft short letter to the president saying the oil company wished to make the $2 million donation for which the president would use something at his personal disposal.
But along with that letter, the defendant worked on a second document that was included in the letter, an agreement between the oil company and the government of Chad that said the Chadian government would support the oil company in obtaining the oil rights in Chad.
Because, call it a donation or not, the defendant was focused on business.
If he could get the business by labeling secret cash in a box as a donation, that was just fine.
Let's talk about how the defendant's second bribery scheme worked.
This involved Uganda.
He played much the same game, just with different players.
This time he didn't offer just one bribe.
He offered multiple bribes to two high-level officials in Uganda, the foreign minister and the president.
You'll learn that in 2014 and 2015, the defendant, using his status as the head of a non-profit NGO, met multiple times in New York with the former foreign minister of Uganda.
At the time, the foreign minister was serving A one-year term as one of the highest ranking officials at the United Nations, the president of the General Assembly.
And during these private meetings, they discussed ways to connect the defendant and his associates with the oil company to the president of Uganda.
As it happened, the president of Uganda was the foreign minister's brother-in-law.
And the foreign minister promised they could easily bring the two sides together.
So the defendant developed a relationship with the foreign minister.
In public, the defendant appeared with him at UN events, gave speeches, talked about lofty humanitarian goals.
But in private, the defendant was focused on how the foreign minister could open doors for CEFC to pursue all sorts of business in Uganda.
In late 2015, the foreign minister's term at the United Nations ended.
He returned to his powerful position in Uganda.
And at that point, all the groundwork had been laid.
The foreign minister was ready to help the defendant, and the defendant was more than willing to pay up.
The foreign minister reached out to the defendant.
He requested a contribution or donation for a so-called foundation that the foreign minister wanted to launch, and he provided the account information for an international wire transfer.
The defendant eagerly responded that he was ready to renew their commitment and agreement.
But you'll see that this talk about a donation was all winks and nods.
The defendant didn't ask anything about what the foundation would do.
They didn't talk about that.
As far as the defendant was concerned, all that mattered was that the foreign minister wanted to get paid.
But before he paid up, the defendant made crystal clear that he wanted something in exchange.
The defendant demanded an invitation to the inauguration of the president of Uganda, who had just been reelected.
In email after email, the defendant demanded meetings, with the president and other top ugandan officials and insisted that before traveling to uganda the foreign minister provided with a list of specific projects that cefc could participate in and when he got the invitation to the inauguration and received assurances that he would get access to the needed ugandan officials who would steer business to cefc the defendant was ready to pay up he wired half a million dollars to the account of the foreign minister But the corrupt scheme didn't stop with the foreign minister.
The defendant also schemed to bribe the president of Uganda, the foreign minister's brother-in-law.
The defendant suggested to his boss, the chairman of the oil company, That the money be provided in cash as a supposed donation to the president's re-election campaign.
Of course, the president had just been re-elected.
This made no sense.
But it didn't matter to the defendant.
Business mattered.
So he was about to board to the Plain Dioconda.
The defendant told the foreign minister that he needed special assistance with customs in Uganda because they were bringing some, quote, very nice gifts for your president.
What did the defendant and CEFC want in exchange for their money?
As I said, it was simple.
Business.
Business for CEFC. After wiring half a million dollars and landing in Uganda with those very gifts, the defendant and his associates met with the president, the foreign minister, and other Ugandan officials.
They got the inside track on a variety of profitable business opportunities.
The defendant reported back to his boss at CEFC that the visit and the discussions were successful, that the president was likely to be highly supportive of cooperating with CEFC, In fields like energy, infrastructure, finance, agriculture, and tourism.
The president even agreed to carve out a large piece of land near Lake Victoria for the oil company to develop a high-end tourist resort.
Shortly after the trip to Uganda, the defendant got back in touch with the foreign minister.
He said that CEFC had decided that their first priority would be to acquire a Ugandan bank.
The defendant promised the foreign minister the president could be partners in the venture So that if CEFC profited, those officials would be able to line their pockets too.
And sure enough, a few months later, the foreign minister learned of a Ugandan bank that was looking to be acquired.
And who did he bring this opportunity to?
The defendant and CEFC. This for that.
That is a summary of what happened.
This is the partial opening statement of not Republicans in Congress, but the actual United States government.
And so we're supposed to believe that that CEFC, which by the way, Patrick Ho gets convicted on six of seven counts, gets sentenced to three years in prison, Based on those allegations and those charges.
Joel Valdez, executive producer of Firebrand, your take on the government's opening statement.
I can't wait to watch the Netflix series on this, if they even come forward with this.
But that was insane.
Usually, you know, some of these, I feel like the Democrats in Congress want you to believe that this is, you know, all these are just, Hunter is just such a great businessman.
But these deals that he's doing with these people seem to just be clearly corrupt.
And I think they laid it out pretty well.
Well, and what's interesting is the pattern recognition.
If you heard me going through that, you can actually start to think about who plays what role here.
And so as this trial goes on, Tony, and you're the one who was pounding the table on this in the congressional testimony, we learn of this Serbian guy.
This Serbian guy, tell us about him.
Well, just real quick, because Joel hits this.
You just did a phenomenal job reading what our own Department of Justice opened a seven-day, I think the eighth day was, you know, finalizing with the jury, trial in the SDNY. And notice, because I would love for you to interview the prosecutors, why didn't they name Chairman Yee Why didn't they name Director Zhang?
And why were they so shy about naming CFC and the indictments and their trial?
Patrick Ho was working at behest of all of them.
Director Zhang, the plane that left Hong Kong to fly with the $2 million of gift boxes, Director Zhang was the senior CFC official on that.
The same Director Zhang that Hunter Biden was shaking down on July 30th, 2017, demanding that they fund 10 million dollars and then ultimately on the 31st of the Biden family.
So there's a saying, walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
Yeah, this is quacking a lot like a bribe.
And the evolution, if you look at the fact pattern with the Bidens, It's exactly the same fact pattern as Uganda and Chad.
And those were just what the SDNY talked about.
CFC was doing this all over the world.
Yeah, well this is just where they had a sufficient jurisdictional nexus through the New York banks and the New York meetings.
But what's interesting You've got to look at the common threads here.
And to our listeners, this will repeat again in some other Chinese enterprise.
It's certain to repeat.
But first you have what has to look like a legitimate thing.
And so that's where Ho is there to say, oh, well, this is just our international sustainable development work and clean water.
But don't you see?
You were the legitimate thing.
They need somebody to be out there to make the bribe payment that's really going on under the table look legitimate.
So in a lot of ways, Ho does this for the company, but they couldn't have Ho running around anywhere.
And I think they kind of knew he was in trouble for this Africa stuff.
So they go get him a Bobulinski to say, okay, we got something to make this look legitimate.
And that's when the real dirty stuff starts.
So there's a cycle here that I was able to track.
First, CEFC needs the connectors.
Then they need the introductions.
Then they need the bribes.
Then they need the deals.
So in this trial, we get introduced to the first – and by the way, Hunter, right?
Gilear, connector, right?
Then they get to the government people, the Bidens, then the bribes, then the payoff.
Jeremek.
Who's Jeremek?
So Vuk Jeremek is a Serbian national who was the president of the General Assembly, the UN General Assembly.
I believe he was there 2012. You serve in a one year capacity and that's where he met Patrick Ho through that relationship.
And they developed.
And then when he left, when Vuk Jeremik left, he was actually a paid advisor to CFC for multiple years.
He was, I think, all in.
Oh, so wait a second.
I think Vuk Jeremik might have gotten paid millions of dollars across his total contract.
So Vuk Jeremik is the president of the UN General Assembly.
And in that role, you got a lot of relationships with all the foreign ministers, the key power players.
Hundreds of countries.
All over the world.
And he rolls out of that job.
And he actually leaves the job because his government in Serbia gets thrown out of power.
So you can't be the representative of your government when your government gets thrown out of power.
He loses that.
And what immediately happens?
Powerful man, powerful position right out of power.
The Chinese see the opportunity.
They scoop him up.
He starts getting hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of dollars from China immediately as a connector upon that role.
And then who does...
What's CEFC saying?
At this time, Patrick Ho saying, we got to get these African deals in Chad and Uganda.
So they go to Vuk, Jeremek, and they say, well, you're a Serbian guy, but you had this position as the president of the UN General Assembly.
So who can you connect us with in Africa?
And that's where we meet Gaudio.
Am I saying that right?
Yeah, I think it's a God.
You know, and the interesting thing here, which is powerful for the American people is you have to understand the way Intel or sort of operations work because book Jeremy was witness number one for the United States government, the DOJ.
They didn't accuse him of any wrongdoing.
He showed up and was happy to testify.
I think at his peak, he might've been getting paid a million dollars a year under a CFC contract.
I'd have to go back and check that.
But notice that because everyone's like, well, why wouldn't Patrick Ho know what Chairman Yee's agenda was?
Well, Chairman Yee didn't tell Patrick Ho probably all of his agenda, nor did Director Zhang.
So Vuk Jeremek was simply a connector.
And obviously leaving the president of the UN General Assembly, he knew the leaders of all the countries around the world and could get to any of them.
And so they were happy, CFC, they were happy to engage him and pay him large sums of money to just simply make introductions.
And then Vuk would leave the room and go on with his other stuff.
I think a lot of people don't know that, that that is a cottage industry that exists.
People that get paid millions of dollars just to make these connections.
So Vuk Jeremic creates this meeting with Gadio.
Gadio is the former foreign minister of Senegal.
Oh, and by the way, Former president of the UN General Assembly.
Interesting how that works, right?
And then how does Gadio then become an asset essentially of the Chinese in this deal?
Well, so he had the relationship originally with the president of Chad.
Not just a relationship, but close friendship apparently.
And so Vuk engaged them to set up that meeting originally with Patrick Ho.
My understanding is the original meetings were in New York around the UN stuff.
And then ultimately they did on-site meetings in Shad where, you know, those gift boxes were exchanged and stuff like that.
But it's just a serial of leveraging powerful political people, using capital to do that, getting in the room with the right people, and then, you know, CFC. Remember, CFC in the first meeting wouldn't tell you their agenda, because if they actually told you their true agenda, you would get up and walk out of the room, right?
Vuk Jeremek is simply, oh, I can get you a meeting with him.
You're paying me.
So he sets him up.
He helps the government.
But he's getting a meeting with another guy getting a meeting, this Gadio guy.
So he's an African from Senegal.
I think he knew Jeremek.
They'd both gone to Harvard together.
And so Gadio shows up and says, okay, I will connect CEFC with people in government.
Doesn't Gadio essentially play the role of the Bidens here?
Yeah, but isn't he the archetype?
Yeah.
And what we haven't talked about is Vuk Jeremek had a very, very close relationship with Hunter Biden and the Biden family.
And that's actually talked about in the fall of 2015 when CFC started making their approach to the Biden family, which started in October 2015. So Vuk Jeremek is not only involved in that, but also a very close relationship.
Going back to those WhatsApp messages, your listeners can go and see that on July 31st, in between shaking down Director Zhang for the money and then a phone call, Vuk Jeremek reaches out to Hunter Biden and Hunter responds saying, hey, I'm on with the director, I'll call you after.
So all these people are intertwined and I believe under national security, There's something much bigger out there that we haven't been fully educated on, on what was going on.
And you can see it.
Why didn't the SDNY name CFC Chairman Yee and Director Zhang?
Why was Charles McGonigal the head of counterintelligence of the FBI, a 25 career veteran of the FBI? Was right in the middle of all of this in July of 2017 and 2018. So I believe there's a lot more that our intel agencies and the Department of Justice know about all these parts, as well as the Biden family's involvement that the American people haven't quite yet been educated on.
The UN doesn't come out smelling like a rose on this, do they?
It looks like someone from one of these third world countries gets a major position of power, which is kind of the last thing that happens before you get some major consulting contract from the Chinese.
And as Gadio describes it, he says, well, you know, I said I'd get him with the president of Chad.
I show up.
I don't know that this $2 million in cash in a box is going to be presented.
It gets presented.
Gadio says, I should have known better.
I should have walked away.
I knew it was a bribe.
I stayed involved in the conspiracy.
He gets a non-prosecution agreement in order to testify against Patrick Ho, who's the target here.
But what it's important for people to see is when the Chinese are trying to do one of these corrupt deals, They absolutely have to have the folks to really lubricate that bribe.
And in this trial, you see exactly what Hunter Biden was doing in the United States reflected in the conduct of people who are getting charged with crimes.
Correct, correct.
And go back and look.
It wasn't just Vuk Jeremek.
It was the subsequent two presidents of the General Assembly.
After Vuk Jeremek, it was John Asch.
Who was also charged and a Chinese national went to jail for corruption and stuff like that.
Then when John Ash left, there was an individual named Sam Kutessa, which had to do with the Uganda stuff.
So they did three consecutive, I don't know if they did pre or post that, but it's publicly well documented.
Three presidents of the UN General Assembly were intertwined with CFC's business around the world and acting as connectors or being on the receiving end of millions of dollars From CFC and the Chinese Communist Party.
It is laid bare what the true business model of CEFC is.
Correct.
And by extension, China, really.
That the true business model is to get these deals by not playing fair.
And remember, Matt, Matt, Matt, that's not you saying it.
That's not me saying it.
It's not the Republican Party or Chairman Comer or Chairman Jordan.
That is the Department of Justice and the prosecutors in the SDNY. Some would say the toughest, the most renowned district in the whole country.
I'd love to see them interviewed on CFC and weighing in in front of Congress.
And so some might say, okay, it's one thing if it's Africa, exotic place, maybe you got to pay bribes there.
But we actually saw this reflected in North America as well with Pemex in Mexico.
That comes out in the trial.
As we see in the transcripts, some of the very players involved in these bribes in Africa are waddened up with people around Biden world, with people around CEFC world, They wanted to acquire Pemex, which is the major Mexican producer of petrol.
What does that tell us about CEFC? Well, their tentacles were everywhere.
Remember in Romania that I was heavily involved in, CFC was willing or looking at deploying three to five hundred million dollars of capital into buying down The majority ownership of Gabriel Popovich in his company in Romania to help potentially with what he was dealing with.
In Pemex, there was discussions.
Vuk Jeremek, I believe, went to Harvard with the CEO of Pemex.
And Vuk Jeremek set up a meeting where not only CFC was part of the discussion, but Burisma The Ukrainian energy company that obviously has become world famous, that Hunter and Devin sat on the board on, was sitting at the table as well.
So these tentacles, this one belt, one road, CFC had all over the world at extensive negotiating tables.
Yeah, and I want to, for a moment, zero in on Chad and how it played out in this trial.
And there's a part of the testimony of Gadio where they're talking about why Chad mattered and how the business worked.
So here's the government's question.
And what did Vuk Jeremek say to you with respect to the defendant?
And here they're talking about Chad, and the question is to Gadio.
He told me about one of his friends in China who's doing a lot of work with the United Nations.
The United Nations, economic and social organizations.
He also told me that it works with an oil company called CEFC, China Energy Fund Company.
He said you should meet him because he's a good friend of ours.
Number one, number two, you know, very powerful company in China.
They're interested in oil in Africa.
And he himself is interested in helping to be introduced to CHAD, the Central African Republic called CHAD. Okay, and did Mr. Jeremek say anything to you with respect to what the defendant or his company's interests were in CHAD? I think the main introduction had to be made first.
Then later, we discussed the fact that CEFC could also provide CHAD with other areas of interest, such as infrastructure, Banking system, military equipment, and other things like that.
So I wanted to point to this in the trial because if you're watching all of this, and the full sum of it is which billionaires in what part of the world are going to reap some extra benefit, It goes a lot deeper than that because once these bribes are made and once the hooks of the Chinese Communist Party are in these countries, it's not just the energy, it's the financial system, it is the military system, and all of a sudden this becomes pretty broad-reaching.
A key point in that is, remember, and the prosecutors outlined this, in Chad, there was the state-owned Chinese energy company that had been penalized with a $1.2 billion penalty by the government of Chad that was existing when CFC all of a sudden had an interest in Chad and their energy.
That was done before CFC. Well, it was going to be the masthead.
Yes.
Then, all of a sudden, Vuk makes an introduction.
Gaudio makes an introduction with the president.
And then, weirdly enough, that $1.2 billion penalty becomes a...
$400 million penalty and then some equity ownership that they structured while they were doing this.
I believe if you read between the lines and you actually could interview more people, CFC's agenda in going into Chad was to actually help the Chinese state-owned energy company either remove that penalty or get it reduced.
Like I said, it went from $1.2 billion to $400 million and then a slice of equity in it.
And then all of a sudden, CFC... Wasn't really that interested in doing a lot of deals.
They never did a deal in Chad.
But when they reached out, they were hot and heavy.
They brought $2 million.
And remember, Patrick Ho was not on the private jet that flew to Chad, is my understanding.
It was Director Zhang with those gift boxes with $2 million of cash.
The same Director Zhang that I met face-to-face with around the world.
Hunter Biden and the Biden family shook down at the end of July 2017 and that ultimately sent that five plus million dollars to Hudson West 3 and then funded Owosco Holdings Hunter's Company.
So there's a lot more here than even we know and we spent a lot of time looking at all these facts and diving into it.
I love how the SDNY is making a better case to defund the United Nations than most Republicans in Congress.
No, they are showing the UN as really an influence peddling operation that allows the Chinese to go and engage and capture right here in our country.
And in a lot of ways, we ought to be utilizing that jurisdiction more if those things are happening in New York.
Yeah, well, no question.
People are like, well, That American in the middle of Nebraska listening to the Firebrand podcast is going to be like, Tony Bobulinski was a military man.
He's proud of all of his military.
What was he even doing in business with CFC? If I read, if the government had come to me and given me one paragraph of their opening statement in that, I would have ran as fast as I could out the door and I would have told James Gillier, you guys are out of your mind.
You want nothing to do with this company.
And the Bidens at that time, you guys are clearly out of your mind.
You shouldn't be anywhere near this and you should be running.
running.
I didn't know any of this information at that time.
I wish I had.
And the crazy thing is the SDNY started issuing FISA warrants.
So they were listening to recorded conversations, email exchanges, real time, all the way back to 2014 and 15 with Patrick Ho.
So they had to have known or our FBI or CIA, the DOJ had to know every aspect of what I was doing with CFC, what the Bidens were doing.
And those are questions that we have yet to see answered on why this wasn't forestalled or somebody didn't step in.
right?
Why didn't I get a knock on my door one day and say, hey, listen, we don't go into a lot of detail.
We understand that you're working on this deal.
You should just stop taking calls, stop responding to emails, and stay as far away from this as possible.
It's the case of Sam Katusa, who gets a lot of attention from the FBI, reviewing emails, phone calls, and that emerges in this allegation of a big bribery.
Sam Katusa was the president of the United General Assembly.
Two people after the middle, the guy between them was John Ash who they also were monitoring, who they also charged and they sent another Chinese national to jail for corruption that was associated with Patrick.
Do you think there's a single president of the UN General Assembly from a third world country who doesn't at least have some bribery outreach from CEFC or the Chinese?
I don't know.
It seems crazy to me.
It just all seems crazy.
Well, and this is an ongoing concern.
I mean, let's – so we've now kind of – we've gone over the CEFC business model, get the connectors, get the decision – the government decision makers, get the bribes, get the deals.
And you've pointed out it doesn't always emerge in a deal, but as our own government stated, If you offer the bribe, even if the deal doesn't emerge on the back end, you are guilty of violating these laws.
And unfortunately, we don't view foreign corrupt practices the way we view domestic corrupt practices.
We're harder on what you can do to bribe foreigners than on what foreigners can do.
To bribe people in the United States.
But we've been over that business model.
We've been over how these various connectors are playing the role of the Bidens abroad, but then the Bidens get brought in to sort of do that in the United States.
And now I think a listener would be left sort of wondering, so where do we go from here?
I mean, is CEFC still on the march in their bribery and colonialism?
And are we worried Even forget about the Bidens, that there are other U.S. policymakers and decision makers who are going to be confronted with these corrupt opportunities.
Well, crazy enough, when Patrick Ho was indicted and arrested and thrown in jail in November 2017, and then shortly after that, we could spend a whole other show talking about What Hunter and Jim Biden did to alter documents in Hudson West 3, remove Chairman Yee so they could continue.
Imagine this.
Patrick Ho gets indicted.
Hunter Biden in a recording talks about his belief that Patrick Ho is the spy chief of China.
And are the Bidens running as fast as they can out the door?
No, they're running in the door.
Hunter Biden wants to represent Patrick Ho so he can get a million dollars simply for Finding a lawyer.
Apparently Patrick Ho now potentially might sue Hunter Biden for that million dollars because it was never returned.
I saw that in a press release.
And then Chairman Yee is detained in mainland China.
Are the Bidens running out of the room?
No, they're digging in.
They're altering Hudson West 3's operating agreement so they can keep paying themselves millions of dollars.
And they have no authority or approval from Chairman Yee, the partner of CFC to do it.
It is crazy, but CFC collapsed, was taken over by who?
The Chinese government.
And I'm sure there's a next version of CFC out there.
I've stayed away from it.
I'm happy to be done with it.
But I'm sure there's small versions of CFC and large versions that are using capital around the, they call it loan to own, One Belt, One Road, in seaports, military installations, buying up farmland, all kinds of stuff that the Chinese Communist Party is doing right now as you and I sit here for this amazing podcast.
And they're doing it at every level, whether it's sending Fang Fang to chase after Eric Swalwell when he was on the city government in the city of Dublin, California, or whether it's offering these massive connector consulting contracts To people in the UN to go and do their bidding.
It's everywhere along that scale.
Right, because an important part, one of the things that the Democrats want to argue is, well, Joe Biden announced in October 2015 that he wasn't running for president.
Why would CFC care about it?
The Chinese are 100-year thinkers.
And in that announcement, Joe implied that Stay tuned.
Something could be coming.
I'm not running in this election, but potentially could run in further elections.
CFC approached the Biden family in the beginning of October, and then they increased it, started doing deals while Joe was in the White House.
There's all these communications that have been made public by Chairman Comer and Chairman Jordan.
And so they are long-term thinkers.
They could plant seeds as small as a, you know, taxi driver or, you know, Uber driver or some businessman or woman that are simply just gathering intel.
We want to know you're driving an Uber in D.C. We just want to know everyone you pick up and the Chinese national might just have to cooperate because the Chinese Communist Party has power over them based on their family being in mainland China and stuff like that.
So, yes, we have to wake up.
Not make it the boogeyman in the corner.
Let's just acknowledge what they are willing to do, how they are doing it, and how we as a country lock arms and protect ourselves from that and not fall prey to the capitalistic side of it or the different tools they're using to infiltrate us and set rules and stuff like that and hold them accountable.
And it was part of Hunter Biden's defense in his deposition.
We'll get that part on the screen where he says, my dad and I, we were out of power.
Dad was out of office.
So what if we wanted to do a business with China?
And if you're just looking at CEFC and the Bidens, you might think, well, maybe that looks more like legitimate business.
But then if you look at the fact that they went and hired Gadio after he had just left, All of them.
Look.
All of them.
What they do is they wait till you're just out.
They get your hooks in you.
But you see with a number of these other people, there is a revolving door in government.
They're willing to buy people off on their way out with the prospect and the hope that when those people get back in, they'll be compromised.
Yep.
Looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.
I'm willing to bet it's a duck.
You have to be disappointed that when you voluntarily provided all this information that you've given Congress to the FBI, that it didn't seem to be treated with the same seriousness of the Patrick Ho prosecution that we've been going through.
Do you think that's just because it was Hunter Biden playing the role of the bribe solicitor and the bribe facilitator as opposed to some random Chinese national or some lower notoriety person?
As I've said, there is much more here Then the American people, even you as a congressman, are aware of.
Charles McGonigal, the head of counterintelligence with a specialty in Russia, was based in New York City from 2016 through 2018. In his indictment, they name a person B. That person B is Dorian Duca, an Albanian national.
That also had close ties to James Gillier and Hunter Biden.
So much so, there's an email off the infamous laptop where Hunter Biden says, his first name was Dorian, that if Tony doesn't want to pay, I never met Dorian, I never interacted with Dorian, but James Gillier is talking in this email exchange that I'm not on how valuable Dorian Duca was in their initial introductions with CFC. Hunter, who wasn't willing to give anybody a penny, was saying, if Tony isn't okay with it, I'll pay Dorian Duca out of my own salary.
Think about the power of that statement.
That Dorian Duca is person B in one of Charles McGonagall's two indictments, and Dorian Duca was being paid by CEFC. So are the American people supposed to believe that the head of counterintelligence In the summer of 2017,
wasn't fully aware of everything the Biden family was doing, everything that CFC was doing, and oh, for a reminder, they were in the process of buying a $9 billion 14% stake in Rosneft, the Russian-owned, Putin-controlled, US-sanctioned energy company.
All that was going on in the summer of 2017, by the way, shortly after Joe Biden walked into a private dining room at the Four Seasons in Washington, D.C. to shake Chairman Yee's hand, Director Zhang's hand in an entourage for 15 to 20 minutes, according to Rob Walker's Director Zhang's hand in an entourage for 15 to 20 minutes, according to Rob Walker's sworn testimony that Hunter couldn't remember
All of that going on in 2017, CFC was an extension of the Chinese Communist Party, deploying billions and tens of billions of dollars around the world to represent the capitalistic arm of getting their meat hooks in different countries and...
And we need to wake up in this country to protect ourselves and protect the American people.
And I appreciate everything you're doing focused on that and getting your peers and other people to focus on that.
Well, and what I really have enjoyed about this discussion is that the focus isn't exclusively on one administration, one family, one president.
This is really about a global scheme to hurt America, to hurt our interest, driven by the Chinese.
And really, you've played a key part in giving us visibility into that scheme through the most high profile alleged bribes that you could possibly imagine to the people who are now behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.
Final question.
Tony, with all you've exposed and talked about, do you fear retaliation?
Is that something that you went into this knowing would be potentially a part of your life going forward?
In 2020, as I told you, I was a very private, no social media, low key.
I could hear my two grandfathers and my father Saying, you can't sit on the sideline.
You know too much.
You have to come forward and tell the American people the truth.
I didn't know how to do it.
I didn't know the right people to talk to.
This was all out of water, you know, out of element for me.
I was willing to do it then.
We live in the greatest country in the world based on truth, based on the freedom that, you know, our people have fought and died for before us.
I was happy to do it.
I didn't think much about retaliation.
I expected it.
I've been warned of it.
As recently as In our congressional hearing where Lev Parnas is threatening me, sitting next to me, warning they're coming for you.
I think it's laughable that the Democrats are asking Lev Parnas to weigh in on my credibility, a convicted felon that served jail time.
I have an impeccable record.
Now, he warned me earlier in this hearing that they're coming for me.
I look forward to that.
I look forward to that, Mr. Parnas.
Keep lying.
You'll be there soon.
Well, and is that a threat, Mr. Parnas?
No, it's just the truth.
No, did you say they were coming for me?
No, I said if you keep lying, you will end up in prison.
I'm not lying.
You're the one who was lying.
You're the one who went to prison for lying.
What am I lying for?
Well, let him come.
The truth will win out.
And our country is worth fighting for, and I'm more than happy to do it.
A truth teller, an international businessman, and a patriot, Tony Bobulinski.
Thanks for being here with us.
Thank you very much.
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