Politics
Joe Biden poses with Hunter's Chinese business associates in newly surfaced photos: 'Incredibly damning'
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
Hunter Biden and Joe Biden with Ming Xue, Jonathan Li and Rock Shi (America First Legal)
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
new video loaded: Trump Announces Construction of New Warships
transcript
transcript
Trump Announces Construction of New Warships
President Trump announced on Monday the construction of new warships for the U.S. Navy he called a “golden fleet.” Navy officials said the vessels would notionally have the ability to launch hypersonic and nuclear-armed cruise missiles.
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We’re calling it the golden fleet, that we’re building for the United States Navy. As you know, we’re desperately in need of ships. Our ships are, some of them have gotten old and tired and obsolete, and we’re going to go the exact opposite direction. They’ll help maintain American military supremacy, revive the American shipbuilding industry, and inspire fear in America’s enemies all over the world. We want respect.
By Nailah Morgan
December 23, 2025
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. ©2021 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Market data provided by Factset. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. Legal Statement. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper.
For decades, American families have gathered to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” on Christmas Eve.
The 1946 Frank Capra movie, about a man who on one of the worst days of his life discovers how he has positively impacted his hometown of Bedford Falls, is beloved for extolling selflessness, community and the little guy taking on rapacious capitalists. Take those values, add in powerful acting and the promise of light in the darkest of hours, and it’s the only movie that makes me cry.
No less a figure of goodwill than Pope Leo XIV revealed last month that it’s one of his favorite movies. But as with anything holy in this nation, President Trump and his followers are trying to hijack the holiday classic.
Last weekend, the Department of Homeland Security posted two videos celebrating its mass deportation campaign. One, titled “It’s a Wonderful Flight,” re-creates the scene where George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart in one of his best performances) contemplates taking his own life by jumping off a snowy bridge. But the protagonist is a Latino man crying over the film’s despairing score that he’ll “do anything” to return to his wife and kids and “live again.”
Cut to the same man now mugging for the camera on a plane ride out of the United States. The scene ends with a plug for an app that allows undocumented immigrants to take up Homeland Security’s offer of a free self-deportation flight and a $1,000 bonus — $3,000 if they take the one-way trip during the holidays.
The other DHS clip is a montage of Yuletide cheer — Santa, elves, stockings, dancing — over a sped-up electro-trash remake of Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas is You.” In one split-second image, Bedford Falls residents sing “Auld Lang Syne,” just after they’ve saved George Bailey from financial ruin and an arrest warrant.
“This Christmas,” the caption reads, “our hearts grow as our illegal population shrinks.”
“It’s a Wonderful Life” has long served as a political Rorschach test. Conservatives once thought Capra’s masterpiece was so anti-American for its vilification of big-time bankers that they accused him of sneaking in pro-Communist propaganda. In fact, the director was a Republican who paused his career during World War II to make short documentaries for the Department of War. Progressives tend to loathe the film’s patriotism, its sappiness, its relegation of Black people to the background and its depiction of urban life as downright demonic.
Then came Trump’s rise to power. His similarity to the film’s villain, Mr. Potter — a wealthy, nasty slumlord who names everything he takes control of after himself — was easier to point out than spots on a cheetah. Left-leaning essayists quickly made the facile comparison, and a 2018 “Saturday Night Live” parody imagining a country without Trump as president so infuriated him that he threatened to sue.
But in recent years, Trumpworld has claimed that the film is actually a parable about their dear leader.
Trump is a modern day George Bailey, the argument goes, a secular saint walking away from sure riches to try to save the “rabble” that Mr. Potter — who in their minds somehow represents the liberal elite — sneers at. A speaker at the 2020 Republican National Convention explicitly made the comparison, and the recent Homeland Security videos warping “It’s a Wonderful Life” imply it too — except now, it’s unchecked immigration that threatens Bedford Falls.
The Trump administration’s take on “It’s a Wonderful Life” is that it reflects a simpler, better, whiter time. But that’s a conscious misinterpretation of this most American of movies, whose foundation is strengthened by immigrant dreams.
Director Frank Capra
(Handout)
In his 1971 autobiography “The Name Above the Title,” Capra revealed that his “dirty, hollowed-out immigrant family” left Sicily for Los Angeles in the 1900s to reunite with an older brother who “jumped the ship” to enter the U.S. years before. Young Frank grew up in the “sleazy Sicilian ghetto” of Lincoln Heights, finding kinship at Manual Arts High with the “riff-raff” of immigrant and working-class white kids “other schools discarded” and earning U.S. citizenship only after serving in the first World War. Hard times wouldn’t stop Capra and his peers from achieving success.
The director captured that sentiment in “It’s a Wonderful Life” through the character of Giuseppe Martini, an Italian immigrant who runs a bar. His heavily accented English is heard early in the film as one of many Bedford Falls residents praying for Bailey. In a flashback, Martini is seen leaving his shabby Potter-owned apartment with a goat and a troop of kids for a suburban tract home that Bailey developed and sold to him.
Today, Trumpworld would cast the Martinis as swarthy invaders destroying the American way of life. In “It’s a Wonderful Life,” they’re America itself.
When an angry husband punches Bailey at Martini’s bar for insulting his wife, the immigrant kicks out the man for assaulting his “best friend.” And when Bedford Falls gathers at the end of the film to raise funds and save Bailey, it’s Martini who arrives with the night’s profits from his business, as well as wine for everyone to celebrate.
Immigrants are so key to the good life in this country, the film argues, that in the alternate reality if George Bailey had never lived, Martini is nowhere to be heard.
Capra long stated that “It’s a Wonderful Life” was his favorite of his own movies, adding in his memoir that it was a love letter “for the Magdalenes stoned by hypocrites and the afflicted Lazaruses with only dogs to lick their sores.”
I’ve tried to catch at least the ending every Christmas Eve to warm my spirits, no matter how bad things may be. But after Homeland Security’s hijacking of Capra’s message, I made time to watch the entire film, which I’ve seen at least 10 times, before its customary airing on NBC.
I shook my head, feeling the deja vu, as Bailey’s father sighed, “In this town, there’s no place for any man unless they crawl to Potter.”
I cheered as Bailey told Potter years later, “You think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn’t.” I wondered why more people haven’t said that to Trump.
When Potter ridiculed Bailey as someone “trapped into frittering his life away playing nursemaid to a lot of garlic eaters,” I was reminded of the right-wingers who portray those of us who stand up to Trump’s cruelty as stupid and even treasonous.
And as the famous conclusion came, all I thought about was immigrants.
People giving Bailey whatever money they could spare reminded me of how regular folks have done a far better job standing up to Trump’s deportation Leviathan than the rich and mighty have.
As the film ends, with Bailey and his family looking on in awe at how many people came to help out, I remembered my own immigrant elders, who also forsook dreams and careers so their children could achieve their own — the only reward to a lifetime of silent sacrifice.
The tears flowed as always, this time prompted by a new takeaway that was always there — “Solo el pueblo salva el pueblo,” or “Only we can save ourselves,” a phrase adopted by pro-immigrant activists in Southern California this year as a mantra of comfort and resistance.
It’s the heart of “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the opposite of Trump’s push to make us all dependent on his mercy. He and his fellow Potters can’t do anything to change that truth.
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