The spreadsheet shows Hunter Biden’s debts included more than $130,000 in legal fees due “ASAP” to the law firm of Faegre Baker Daniels, with $28,382 owed for “BHR Restructuring.”
That appears to be a reference to the Chinese company Bohai Harvest RST (Shanghai) Equity Investment Fund Management, in which Hunter Biden held a 10 percent stake through a company called Skaneateles LLC.
HR is primarily owned by Chinese investors, including the state-controlled Bank of China.
Hunter Biden owed Faegre Baker another $20,909 for “Burnham Restructu,” which appears to refer to the Burnham Financial Group, which former Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer and others invested in as part of a plan to create their own financial services conglomerate.
Hunter had an office at the New York headquarters of an asset-management firm that was intended to be merged into Burnham as a part of a deal called a “roll-up,” the Wall Street Journal reported in 2019.
The White House didn’t immediately respond when asked if the president agreed to pay his son’s bills without reviewing them or asking what they were for.
Mesires didn’t immediately respond when asked if his firm’s bills had been paid.
In December, another lawyer representing Hunter Biden, Chris Clark, told The New York Times that he “no longer holds any interest, directly or indirectly, in either BHR or Skaneateles.”
The assertion came after the White House refused to say whether the first son had divested himself in line with his dad’s campaign promise that his family members “will not be engaged in any foreign business.”
Chinese records show Hunter Biden was no longer on BHR’s board of directors as of April 2020, according to the Times.
Other debts listed in the spreadsheet included payments and insurance for a Porsche, a Ford truck and a boat; tuition for Hunter’s daughters to attend the University of Pennsylvania and the private Sidwell Friends School; and $37,000 a month to his ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle.
A section titled “CREDIT CARDS” included a total outstanding balance of $157,033 and another section, titled “OTHER EXPENSES,” listed monthly dues of $320 and $60, respectively, to the Yale Club of New York City and the 116 Club, a private watering hole near the US Capitol in Washington, DC, that’s favored by politicians and lobbyists.
