The first AP1000 nuclear power plant in Sanmen, China, gets approval to load nuclear fuel in April 2018. (Credit: public domain)
(…) Lawmakers told Just the News that the story of CEFC fits a pattern that Hunter Biden was willing to take money from countries or companies adversarial to the United States, including helping them try to acquire prize assets like the Michigan-based Heninges firm that Just the News reported Hunter Biden helped sell to a Chinese firm tied to the People’s Liberation Army.
That transaction was deemed so sensitive – because Heninges produced windshield technology for U.S. fighter jets – it had to get special approval from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States during the Obama-Biden years.
(…) House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, who is leading the impeachment inquiry with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, said Wednesday that the Biden family’s close and lucrative relationship with China leaves Americans wondering whether foreign policy decisions today are being influenced today by business ties from the past.
“We’re very concerned. And when you look at the Biden administration, there’s no question in my mind that they’ve had a soft on China policy,” Comer said on the “Just the News, No Noise” television show. “And there are certain policy decisions that this administration has made that are counter to what any American would want with respect to foreign policy relating to China.”
Some of the evidence about CEFC’s pursuit of Westinghouse was secured from the laptop that Hunter Biden abandoned at a Delaware computer repair shop and was later seized by the FBI in December 2019. The FBI shortly thereafter authenticated the laptop.
Gilliar and his partners, Hunter Biden and Walker, discussed in one email a “CEFC / [Westinghouse]” deal, though the contours of the proposed agreement were unclear in that correspondence.
“Good to see a couple of weeks ago, further to our discussions we have prepared a deck for my visit to CEFC board on Monday in Beijing, It has been made clear to me that CEFC wish to engage in further business relations with our group and we will present a few projects to them,” Gilliar wrote to Jim Bernhard of Bernhard Capital in February 2016.
“I attach [sic] the decks and a covering [sic] letter that lay out the principals as I see of a Westinghouse play, we have been a little presumptuous that you wish to be included, but we hope so ?” he added.
Gilliar also made clear that Hunter Biden was intimately familiar with the proposed deal. “P.S Im [sic] sure H can give you the heads up on the play if you need more details,” Gilliar wrote.
You can read the email below:
Attached to the email were two documents. One was a signed cover letter marked to be sent to CEFC China Energy, the energy conglomerate that began courting Hunter Biden while his father was finishing his last term as vice president. Some of the earliest communications with CEFC uncovered by the House Oversight Committee date to late 2015.
The cover letter mentioned by Gilliar, obtained by Just the News, sheds light on the extent of the planned deal, clearly detailing the scope of the team’s plan for helping CEFC acquire Westinghouse. This included facilitating CEFC’s dominance of the Chinese and global nuclear energy market and masking the acquisition behind firms that wouldn’t raise alarms in western capitals.
The letter shows Gilliar and team believed CEFC was uniquely positioned to acquire from Toshiba an ownership stake in the American nuclear company due to the Japanese conglomerate’s “market weakness” and the “indecision of the Japanese Nuclear industry.”
Gilliar highlighted how the Chinese market was highly dependent on international support by companies that use Westinghouse technologies. Additionally, China still had restrictions on the technologies that it could export. “The original license agreement with Westinghouse was only domestic,” Gilliar pointed out.
Yet, Gilliar and his team saw an opportunity for CEFC to fill an important role in the Chinese domestic nuclear market and around the world through the acquisition, and in the process, liberate China from its dependence on foreign nuclear technology.
(…) The documents make clear the team’s ambitions were nothing short of achieving a commanding influence for CEFC over the global nuclear power plant sector. “In summary, utilizing the U.S. face of Westinghouse, combined with the economic power of CEFC (China) is the perfect solution to control this global sector,” Gilliar wrote CEFC.
You can read the signed letter and the confidential report (parts 1 & 2) below:
There was just one problem: “It would be highly unlikely that Toshiba would sell Westinghouse to Chinese or Korean interests, certainly not for an attractive price,” one memo stated.
But Gilliar proposed a solution for CEFC: his company—the European Energy and Infrastructure Group—and Bernhard Capital Partners would “implement an acquisition structure” that would “create the correct support in Washington that guarantees CEFC to receive the right support and U.S. promotes for its operations.”
This plan would place the appearance of a layer between CEFC—a China-based company with close connections to the ruling Chinese Communist Party and component of its national energy strategy—and the iconic U.S.-based energy company. (Read more: Just the News, 3/13/2024) (Archive)