President Biden is seen in newly uncovered photos meeting with Hunter Biden’s Chinese business associates in China while he served as vice president, bringing further scrutiny to his claim he “never” discussed business with his son.

The photos, obtained by conservative-leaning America First Legal through litigation against the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), appear to show then-Vice President Biden introducing his son to Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-Vice President Li Yuanchao. Other photos show Joe Biden posing with Hunter’s business associates from BHR Partners, including Jonathan Li and Ming Xue.

“These images shed light on the connections between then-Vice President Biden, Hunter and his Chinese business associates, and Chinese government officials including President Xi Jinping,” America First Legal said in a press release this week. “Lawyers and representatives for President Biden and President Obama delayed NARA’s release of these photographs, as they did with other records, until after Election Day.”

“These photos corroborate the House Oversight Committee’s investigative findings that Hunter Biden arranged for his father to meet with Jonathan Li and other BHR executives during the 2013 China trip, where ‘Mr. Li sought— and received — access to Vice President Biden’s political power, including, for example, preferential access to then-U.S. Ambassador to China Max Baucus … a condition of Hunter Biden and his associates participating in the BHR deal,’” America First Legal wrote.

HUNTER BIDEN: A LOOK AT HOW THE SAGA SPANNING OVER SIX YEARS UNFOLDED

America First Legal also wrote that, according to the committee’s investigation, “the Biden Family benefited from their business dealings with BHR.”

Hunter Biden was asked earlier this year by the House Oversight Committee about his meetings while traveling to Asia with his father.

“When we returned from an event to the hotel, there was a rope line, and Jonathan Li was in the lobby of the hotel where I was going to meet him for coffee,” Hunter Biden said at the time. “In that line, I introduced my dad to Jonathan Li and a friend of his, and they shook hands and I believe probably took a photograph. And then my father went up to his room, and I went to have coffee with Jonathan Li.”

Hunter Biden added that he didn’t tell his father “anything” about who Li was.

Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any role in his son’s businesses. 

HUNTER BIDEN WAS PAID $100K THROUGH JOINT VENTURE WITH CHINESE ENERGY FIRM, EX-ASSOCIATE TESTIFIED

Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, China President Xi and former U.S. China Ambassador Max Baucus (America First Legal)

“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Joe Biden said on the presidential campaign trail in 2019.

But emails sent to and from Hunter Biden have cast doubt on that, including a 2017 email obtained by Fox News that shows Hunter requesting keys for Joe and Jill Biden, along with his uncle, Jim Biden, for space he planned to share with an “emissary” to the chairman of a now-bankrupt Chinese energy company.

In another 2017 email also obtained by Fox News, Biden wrote to the same Chinese energy company’s chairman extending “best wishes from the entire Biden family,” and urging the chairman to “quickly” send a $10 million wire to “properly fund and operate” the Biden joint venture with the company. 

JOE BIDEN SAYS HUNTER HAS DONE ‘NOTHING WRONG.’ REALLY? LET’S COUNT THE WAYS

Hunter Biden and Joe Biden photo from America First Legal (America First Legal)

Devon Archer, a former business partner and longtime friend of Hunter Biden, sat for hours before the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door hearing last year and contradicted the president’s claim, saying Hunter put his father on speakerphone while meeting with business partners at least 20 times. 

Archer described how Joe Biden was put on the phone to sell “the brand.”

The photos drew strong criticism on social media in light of President Biden’s frequent claims he never discussed business with his son.

“Astonishing,” Red State writer Bonchie posted on X.

“These photos are incredibly damning and speak volumes,” author and journalist Peter Schweizer posted on X.

“It is such a disgrace that only through litigation, and only at the conclusion of the Biden administration is its corruption by ties to the Chinese Communist Party fully coming into focus,” Real Clear Politics editor Benjamin Weingarten posted on X.

“The Biden Crime Family Christmas card just dropped,” GOP Rep. Eric Burlison posted on X.

“China has the Bidens in its back pocket,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton posted on X.

Hunter Biden, left, son of President Biden, arrives with attorney Abbe Lowell at the O’Neill House Office Building for a closed-door deposition in a Republican-led investigation into the Biden family on Capitol Hill in Washington Feb. 28, 2024.  (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The newly unearthed photos of the Bidens meeting with Hunter’s Chinese business associates renews scrutiny of an email exchange previously reported by Fox News Digital. The 2014 email exchange reveals Hunter Biden once said he would be “happy” to introduce his business associates to a top Chinese Communist Party official to discuss potential investments after that official allegedly sat at Hunter’s table during a 2013 dinner in Beijing to welcome his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden.

Hunter’s 2014 email exchange with James Bulger referred to the same China trip referenced in the America First Legal press release.

Bulger, who goes by “Jimmy,” served as the chairman of Boston-based Thornton Group LLC, a firm that joined forces with Hunter’s now-defunct Rosemont Seneca to launch its joint venture with Chinese investment firm Bohai Capital to create BHR Partners shortly after the Bidens traveled to China. BHR Partners is controlled by Bank of China Limited.

President Biden and Hunter Biden arrive in Syracuse, N.Y. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)

In the 2014 email, Bulger asked Hunter to introduce BHR CEO Jonathan Li and Andy Lu, who was a BHR committee member, to “Mr. Tung,” which refers to C.H. Tung, a former governor of Hong Kong and billionaire who served as vice chairman of the CCP-linked Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, to discuss “BHR investment targets” and “fundraising.” 

The email alleged Hunter sat next to Tung at the December 2013 dinner welcoming Vice President Joe Biden to Beijing. Fox News Digital previously reached out to the White House multiple times requesting the seating chart for the Beijing dinner, specifically Hunter’s table, but it did not respond.

“It is my understanding that during the trip to Beijing that you made with your father, President Xi hosted a welcome dinner,” Bulger wrote. “[A]t that dinner, you were seated right next to Mr Tung, therefore J and Andy believe it would be very helpful if you could please send a brief email to Mr Tung laying out that you are a partner and Board Member of BHR and that You would be grateful to Mr Tung if he could meet your local partners to discuss the Fund.

“Please let me know if you can introduce these two to Mr Tung by email it is very important to our BHR intiative [sic] at this moment.”

Hunter responded that he was “happy” to fulfill the request but said he couldn’t recall the names of the gentlemen who sat next to him at the dinner.

It appears that the Beijing “welcome dinner” hosted by President Xi that Bulger was referencing in his initial email occurred during the evening of Dec. 4, 2013, after then-Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao met with Joe Biden earlier in the day to discuss strengthening U.S.-China relations. 

President Biden pardoned his son earlier this month for any crimes potentially committed dating back to 2014. 

Hunter Biden flashes a big smile as he leaves an Arby’s in Santa Barbara Dec. 4, 2024. This was the first time the son of President Biden had been photographed since being pardoned by his father. (The Image Direct for Fox News Digital)

“Today, I signed a pardon for my son Hunter,” Biden wrote in a statement at the time. “From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision-making, and I kept my word even as I have watched my son being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted.

“There has been an effort to break Hunter — who has been five and a half years sober, even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution,” the 82-year-old father wrote. “In trying to break Hunter, they’ve tried to break me — and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough.”

Fox News Digital has previously reached out to the White House about why the pardon was so broad but did not receive a response.

“Even while President Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter, for anything and everything ‘he has committed or may have committed or taken part in’ going all the way back to the year 2014, more evidence comes out each day showing how his family leveraged Joe Biden’s even longer career in public office for private gain,” America First Legal Counsel Michael Ding said in a statement. 

“America First Legal will not stop fighting to uncover the full story of the Biden Family’s corruption.”

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House, Hunter Biden’s legal team and the Chinese businessmen in the photos but did not receive a comment.

Fox News Digital’s Jessica Chasmar Brooke Singman, and Tyler Olson contributed to this report

The good news: None of the predictions I made in last year’s annual Gustradamus columna came true. If any did, it would have been a sign that the apocalypse is nigh.

The bad news: The apocalypse is here.

Donald Trump is about to become president and is licking his ketchup-specked lips at the prospect of punishing California for not rolling over for him like, say, Jeff Bezos did. Democrats are in the political wilderness now that Latinos seem to be over them. The city of Los Angeles faces a $130-million budget deficit. USC’s football team is playing in something called the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl, while UCLA’s squad is staying home and probably doing steps up and down Young Research Library.

With so much doom and gloom, I wish I could predict good things for 2025. But my Magic 8 Ball sees little to look forward to except a lot of laughs — because we’ll need to crack up at the cruelty and tomfoolery coming from the White House to keep from crying, you know?

This is some of what I see happening in the next 12 months:

*USC, desperate for football glory again, ditches the Big Ten Conference after just a year for something a bit more manageable: The high school-level Trinity League. They finish in last place after perennial prep powerhouse Mater Dei recruits all of their players, leaving the Trojans with a squad made up of the school’s marching band, outgoing President Carol Folt and journalism majors. The last group has never seen a football game — not even Madden.

*In one of his final acts as president, Joe Biden declares the Graffiti Towers — the long-abandoned trio of downtown skyscrapers that turned into L.A.’s biggest tagging canvas — a national monument. The City Council votes to charge an admission fee so people can tag and base jump to their heart’s content. The resulting crush of tourists rescues L.A. from fiscal insolvency.

*Speaking of City Hall, L.A. Councilmember Monica Rodriguez is invited to appear in the live-action version of “The Incredibles” as her animated doppelganger: voluble, brilliant, bespectacled, fashion-forward Edna Mode. The San Fernando Valley politician wins a best supporting actress Oscar by doing nothing more than playing herself.

*After Donald Trump’s share of the Latino vote increased in every presidential election since 2016 — despite a barrage of insults that included bragging about the taco salad at Trump Tower — he shocks the world by granting amnesty to all illegal immigrants, including double amnesty to Venezuelans and Central Americans so they can vote twice. The move guarantees that Latinos will go Republican for the next generation. It also leads Gavin Newsom and Nancy Pelosi to personally construct a 100-foot wall at the U.S.-Mexico border, brick by brick. Kamala Harris volunteers to stand guard in Calexico with a giant inflatable mallet, because she has nothing better to do.

*LeBron James announces he’s going to play until his 60s so he can become the first NBA player to lose alongside his grandson.

*Danny Trejo — whom I suggested back in 2020 should have been appointed California’s U.S. senator — declares he’s entering the 2026 gubernatorial race. All other candidates immediately drop out, because who wants to debate Machete? Trump immediately softens his anti-California stance, lest Trejo crush his short-fingered hands the first time they meet.

*Out of jobs, with no political future but a lot of time on their hands, former L.A. County Sheriff Alex Villanueva and ex-L.A. Councilmember Kevin de León start a podcast. It lasts all of one episode after both pass out from all the whine.

*Labor leaders deem the incoming senior class president at Baldwin Park High School anti-union because of a project praising hometown chain In-N-Out, whose workers have never formed a union yet enjoy some of the highest wages in fast food. They successfully recall the student after a $1.2-million campaign.

*The Times debuts its bias meter with my columna. The AI-powered doohickey self-immolates upon coming across my first use of Spanglish. Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong stops the project and focuses instead on trying to cure something easier than modern-day journalism: cancer.

Pedestrians pass by blooming jacaranda trees in South Pasadena.

(David McNew / Getty Images)

*Someone finds a purpose for jacaranda trees that’s actually beneficial to mankind.

*After a year of fighting online and via diss tracks, rappers Drake and Kendrick Lamar announce they will decide their beef once and for all with a wrestling match in the parking lot of the Tam’s Burgers off Rosecrans and Central avenues in Compton. Since Lamar has the home field advantage, he offers Drake the first kick, punch, body slam, suplex, piledriver, Stone Cold stunner and wedgie. Lamar still easily wins. Drake returns to Canada and takes Justin Bieber with him.

* Elon Musk — who’s suing the California Coastal Commission for not allowing him to launch more SpaceX missions from Vandenberg Space Force Base — decides to move his operations to Mt. Whitney. Newsom — a longtime friend and benefactor of tech bros — tells Musk that’s cool, as long as all those rockets don’t harm the environment. Musk responds by training the bears up there to drive his Cybertrucks so he can start a new Uber rival. Newsom praises Musk’s move as environmentally friendly. The mega-billionaire then turns Mt. Whitney into his lair, calling it Mt. Mar-a-Lago.

*I take a long, relaxing vacation — eh, who am I kidding! Consider it a miracle if I take a two-hour break — and it certainly won’t be at In-N-Out, which will continue to be overrated.

Bob Iger wants out of the culture wars.

Walt Disney Co. and its chief executive have made a sharp pivot since doubling down on diversity and inclusion efforts in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis four and a half years ago. At the time, Disney’s top executives, including then-Chairman Iger, vowed in a message to employees: “We intend to keep the conversation going … for as long as it takes to bring about real change.”

The Magic Kingdom dropped its pomp greeting to fans for its nightly fireworks display. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” became a gender-neutral salutation to “dreamers of all ages.” Pixar’s animated movie, “Lightyear,” included a brief kiss between two women characters; and Disney’s animated film, “Strange World,” featured the company’s first biracial queer teen hero.

But in the past week, Disney acknowledged that a transgender athlete storyline had been removed from an upcoming Pixar animated series, “Win or Lose,” about a middle-school softball team. In a statement, Disney said it recognized “many parents would prefer to discuss certain subjects with their children on their own terms and timeline.”

And Iger signed off on the settlement of a high-profile defamation lawsuit brought last spring by President-elect Donald Trump, amid howls from journalists that the owner of ABC News had caved to political pressure.

Disney agreed to pay $1 million for Trump’s legal fees and donate another $15 million for Trump’s future presidential library.

Trump sued ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos last spring after the journalist asserted during an on-air interview that a civil court jury had found Trump “liable for rape” in a case brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. Instead, New York jurors determined Trump was liable for “sexual abuse.”

Some First Amendment experts believed ABC had a winning case, in part, because of a high hurdle for public officials to prove defamation.

The network “might well have prevailed if they had hung in there,” prominent journalist Margaret Sullivan wrote in a Substack opinion piece. “Instead, this outcome encourages Trump in his attacks on the press — and he needs no encouragement.”

Disney declined to comment for this story or make Iger available for an interview.

People close to the company, who were not authorized to comment, said Disney’s general counsel had recommended the settlement with Trump and that the decision to remove the transgender storyline from “Win or Lose” had been made months earlier.

A bruising fight with DeSantis

Disney’s retrenchment comes nearly three years after it found itself sinking in political quicksand.

In early 2022, Disney became a target for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis after then-Chief Executive Bob Chapek waffled on a response to a Florida law aimed at preventing classroom discussions about sexual identity. Chapek’s instinct was to stay out of the fray and he initially defended the company’s initial silence, saying in a letter to Disney employees that corporate statements “do very little to change outcomes or minds.”

Such proclamations are “often weaponized by one side or the other to further divide and inflame,” Chapek wrote.

But after loud protests from employees and activists — and a Twitter post from then-retired Iger, who warned the Florida legislation “will put vulnerable, young LGBTQ people in jeopardy” — Chapek reversed course.

DeSantis seized on Disney’s shifting stance and branded the company as “woke.”

In conservative circles, the pejorative label stuck.

“When you assign a private entity to a political team, then very quickly people will begin to view things in that light,” said Michael Binder, a University of North Florida political science professor who studied the Disney-DeSantis dispute.

Iger, who returned as chief executive two years ago to replace Chapek, recognized the existential threat.

“Our primary mission needs to be to entertain,” Iger said during the company’s 2023 investor meeting. “It should not be agenda-driven.”

Iger increasingly has stressed the importance of steering the company away from overt political messaging.

“The stories you tell have to really reflect the audience that you’re trying to reach but that audience, because they are so diverse … can be turned off by certain things,” Iger said during an April appearance on CNBC. “We just have to be more sensitive to the interests of a broad audience. It’s not easy.”

Disney’s nearly two-year fight with DeSantis was bruising.

“DeSantis was using Disney as a political foil to make a case for his run for presidency,” said Binder, the director of University of North Florida’s Public Opinion Research Lab. “That was not something that we had seen before: Governors and elected officials outwardly attacking private companies, particularly a Republican going after a company.”

University researchers found DeSantis’ “woke” campaign against Disney had gained traction, at least among conservatives — despite the fact that Disney has long been one of Florida’s largest employers and a pillar of its tourism economy.

In a public opinion poll in early 2023 of Florida registered voters, the Public Opinion Research Lab found that only about 27% of Republicans in the state had a “favorable” view of Disney. Meanwhile, 76% of the Democrats polled were fans of the Mouse House.

“There was a huge split, and that’s not great for a company that’s trying to market to everybody,” Binder said.

Republican lawmakers closed ranks with DeSantis and Disney lost its unique land-use authority in Central Florida. Disney filed a First Amendment lawsuit the following year, arguing that DeSantis and state Republicans had waged a concerted campaign to punish Disney for exercising its speech rights to criticize Florida’s anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

Earlier this year, a federal judge threw out Disney’s First Amendment lawsuit.

Disney settled with Florida, but the DeSantis episode brought into stark relief the hazards of promoting the company’s values to a global audience during polarizing times.

“Disney provides a product: entertainment,” said Charles Elson, a former director at the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. “It shouldn’t be about politics.”

Besides, Elson said, it becomes messy and costly for companies to extricate themselves after taking a political stand.

“When you get into politics, you are making a statement,” Elson said. “And when you get out, that also becomes a statement.”

Iger has long championed Disney’s efforts to diversify its casts and storylines.

The 101-year-old company introduced its first Black princess in 2009. Nearly a decade later, it released the movie “Coco,” which was rich in Latino culture. Its 2018 Marvel film, “Black Panther,” became a juggernaut, earning $1.3 billion in global ticket sales.

The original “Moana,” which was inspired by Polynesian mythology, earned the mantle of most streamed movie on Disney+. The sequel, released over Thanksgiving weekend, has shattered box office records and has already raked in $750 million internationally.

“Our businesses create entertainment, travel and consumer products whose success depends substantially on consumer tastes and preferences that change in often unpredictable ways,” the company said in its most recent annual report.

“Consumers’ perceptions of our position on matters of public interest, including our efforts to achieve certain of our environmental and social goals, often differ widely and present risks to our reputation and brand,” the report added.

A cloudy defamation case

Disney has since joined a growing list of businesses that have opted to stand down rather than antagonize the president-elect — to the dismay of some First Amendment experts who believed Disney could have defeated Trump‘s defamation claims in the ABC News case.

Last year, a federal judge in Florida tossed out a lawsuit Trump filed against CNN, which sought $475 million in punitive damages. Trump claimed his reputation had been sullied by the network’s references to his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election as “the Big Lie.”

But defending Stephanopoulos’ statements may have been more fraught, according to people familiar with Disney’s internal deliberations.

Disney’s General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez and other high-level executives grew concerned after the judge in the case last July denied Disney’s motion to dismiss the case, according to one knowledgeable insider. In that ruling, U.S. District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga wrote that “a reasonable jury could interpret Stephanopoulos’s statements as defamatory.”

Altonaga was appointed by former President George W. Bush.

Disney also figured it risky to present the case to a jury in South Florida, where Trump is particularly popular, the knowledgeable people said. Polls also have found a growing lack of trust in the news media.

An ‘entertainment-first’ company

Disney lawyers recognized that some legal conservatives might champion the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where three Trump appointments sit. What’s more, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has expressed a desire to overturn the landmark New York Times vs. Sullivan court decision, which would have been at the heart of the ABC News case.

Disney didn’t want to jeopardize 60 years of press freedoms bestowed through that decision. Not to mention the harm to Disney’s and ABC’s image by trying to withstand Trump broadsides during his second term. CNN, in particular, sustained reputational damage after dueling with Trump, who labeled the cable news channel “fake news.”

“You don’t want to get in a fight with the head of a government that regulates you,” Elson said. “Politics is bad for business.”

Disney is trying to walk — but not cross — the line. During its meeting with shareholders earlier this year, Iger said he believes Disney has “a responsibility to do good in the world.”

“The Disney company can have a positive impact on the world … fostering acceptance and understanding of … people of all different types,” Iger told CNBC last spring. “But we need to be an entertainment-first company.”