Gal Luft, the fugitive “missing witness” of the Biden corruption investigation, has offered new evidence to the House impeachment inquiry about an FBI mole who tipped off Hunter Biden that his Chinese partners had been named on four sealed indictments in 2017 by Manhattan federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York.
The Israeli professor, and former Israel Defense Forces officer, has been on the run for six months, after skipping bail in Cypress where he was awaiting extradition to the United States on gun-running and foreign-lobbying charges, also brought by the SDNY.
In an open letter to Reps James Comer, Jim Jordan and Jason Smith, the three House committee chairmen running the impeachment inquiry, Luft claims that the tipoff to Chinese executives of CEFC came on the same day that the first son wrote a WhatsApp message shaking down another CEFC employee for millions of dollars over a “highly confidential and time sensitive” matter while claiming his father was in the room with him.
“I am sitting here with my father, and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled,” Hunter wrote to CEFC employee Raymond Zhao on July 30, 2017, in a Whatsapp message that was presented to Congress in June during testimony by IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley.
“I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”
Later that night, CEFC executive Patrick Ho, who was staying in a hotel in Manhattan, received an urgent call from CEFC president Chan Chauto in Shanghai, who told him to leave the US immediately, according to Luft, who speaks to Ho regularly.
The next day, Ho flew to Hong Kong where he remained for four months.
Quite a ‘problem’
Zhao told Hunter in a follow-up Whatsapp on July 31, 2017, that “CEFC is willing to cooperate with the family. He thinks now the priority is to solve the problem mentioned last night.”
Luft believes the “problem” and “highly confidential and time sensitive” matter that Zhao and Hunter discussed was the secret SDNY indictments.
Within nine days of the WhatsApp shakedown, CEFC would wire $5.1 million to entities in the US to transfer to Hunter.
Luft, who also had been earning money through a partnership with CEFC, flew to Hong Kong to see Ho on Aug. 14, 2017, two weeks after his sudden departure. Ho told him about the SDNY indictments, and that Hunter had a mole inside the FBI who had tipped him off. The Chinese nickname for the mole was “One-Eye.”
“The existence of a potential mole within the FBI and/or Justice Department who conveyed to Chinese individuals information about sealed indictments has, apparently, to this day never been solved,” Luft wrote in his letter to Comer. “Perhaps Congress should investigate the issue as part of its impeachment inquiry.”
The tipoff to CEFC executives came at a crucial stage in their negotiations to buy into Russian state-owned energy company Rosneft and came just 10 days before a curious meeting between a CEFC employee in Albania and disgraced G-man Charles McGonigal, then counterintelligence boss at the FBI’s New York Field Office, which had been surveilling Ho and his associates. McGonigal pleaded guilty Friday to concealing at least $225,000 in cash payments from a former Albanian intelligence official.
On Sept. 8, 2017, CEFC announced its plans to acquire a $9.1 billion stake in Rosneft.
On Sept. 9, 2017, McGonigal met Dorian Ducka, a CEFC employee and Hunter Biden associate, in Albania, according to his indictment. Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama also was at the meeting. At Ducka’s request, McGonigal urged Rama to be careful about awarding oil field drilling licenses in Albania to Russian front companies.
On Sept. 10, 2017, Hunter signed an attorney engagement letter to represent CEFC’s Ho for a $1 million retainer.
According to Luft, sometime in September 2017, Hunter and Jim Biden flew to Hong Kong to meet Ho and asked him to buy them two “burner” iPhones before telling him the coast was clear to go back to New York. But when Ho returned to the US on Nov. 17, 2017, he was arrested at JFK Airport on charges of bribery and money laundering.
Ho’s first call was to Uncle Jim Biden, looking for Hunter. Hunter then asked another lawyer, Edward Kim, to do the legal work. Kim asked Hunter in an email the afternoon of Ho’s arrest to “find the names of the FBI agents you spoke with, that would be helpful.” Hunter replied: “Working on it.”
On Nov. 19, 2017, McGonigal had another meeting in Albania with Ducka, according to his indictment.
How McGonigal fits into the Biden-CEFC picture is still to be determined, but he was in charge of FBI counterintelligence in New York at the time when the SDNY was surveilling Ho and his associates, so he must have been aware of Hunter’s connection.
Comer described the information contained in Luft’s letter Sunday as “helpful” and said he looked forward to investigating his allegations about an FBI mole. His committee still is interested in interviewing Luft.
“We get a lot of tips, and the next step is to verify the accuracy of the claims,” he said.
Shady characters
Luft’s timing is fortuitous because the Biden corruption impeachment inquiry beginning Thursday will refocus attention on China. Comer is set to reveal two new tranches of evidence this week, including a new Chinese wire to Biden family members and new documents provided by the IRS whistleblowers.
Comer also hit back at Democrats’ criticism of his inquiry for seeking to interview shady characters, saying: “That’s a reflection about Biden, not our inquiry.”
When Democrats first smeared him in June for wanting to interview Luft, whom they branded a “Chinese spy” because of his association with CEFC, Comer had a devastating comeback: “All I know is that [Luft] was getting money from the same company the Bidens were getting money from . . . Is the president’s son a Chinese spy? They took money from the same company.”
Democrat Rep. Dan Goldman interjected: “Who cares if they had money from the same company?”
And that is probably the most perfect summation of the Democrats’ untenable position of defending the indefensible as the impeachment inquiry kicks off this week.
