Hunter Biden’s Broken Car Cost Taxpayers $139 Million

Daniel Greenfield  August 23, 2023 @ Sultan Knish Blog  

When Hunter Biden was driving 172 miles an hour while smoking crack on the way to meet prostitutes in Las Vegas, the son of a future president was driving a Porsche 911.

Devon Archer, Hunter’s closest partner, told the House Oversight Committee that the car had been paid for by an oligarch from Kazakhstan. “I believe it was a Fisker first and then a Porsche.”

Kenes Rakishev, the banker for Kazakhstan’s dictator and a close associate of Ramzan Kadyrov, Putin’s ruthless Chechen warlord, had allegedly bought Hunter the sports car after a meeting with Joe and Hunter at Cafe Milano: an exclusive D.C. eatery that the Washington Post had described as “Washington’s ultimate place to see and be seen.”

The Fisker Karma was more than just another sports car. The electric luxury vehicle was a social statement that had been backed by a $529 million loan to the Europeans behind it.

Vice President Joe Biden, told local politicians, union members, and Fisker executives in Wilmington, Delaware in 2009 that Fisker would be bringing green jobs for everyone..

Joe Biden cited “a real commitment by this Administration” and “loans from the Department of Energy” that would help “America’s auto industry reclaim its top position in the global market. Of the total loan, $359 million is going to revive manufacturing at the Boxwood Plant.”

The then vice president made no mention of Hunter’s business interests, Fisker’s backing by Al Gore’s venture capital fund or that the $170 million remainder of the loan would be going to build Fisker’s ‘Karma’ cars in Finland.

“We’re not in the business of failing; we’re in the business of winning. So we make the right decision for the business,” Fisker said. “That’s why we went to Finland.”

Hunter Biden was not in the business of failing either: it just seemed to happen anyway. Armed with his father’s backing and that of local Delaware officials, he was working to transform the state’s rust belt infrastructure, like the old GM plant that Fisker was promising to take over, into green energy ventures that would cash in on the massive redistribution of taxpayer money through the $90 billion allocated for green energy companies in Obama’s ‘Recovery Act’.

Emails went back and forth between Hunter Biden, Delaware’s governor and the head of the state’s office of economic development who described a green energy project touted by Hunter as coming from the “vice president’s office”. The line between Joe Biden and his son’s business ventures, which is at the heart of the House Oversight Committee, seemed barely there.

After Fisker’s loan had been secured, Wayne Kimmel, Hunter’s childhood friend and a venture capitalist, who along with Hunter had cosponsored an inaugural breakfast to celebrate his dad’s new job, emailed Hunter to ask for an introduction to Chris Heinz, John Kerry’s stepson and a co-founder of Hunter’s Rosemont Seneca firm, to discuss Fisker.

“Its our fund that’s in the deal,” Hunter replied.

And what made the deal work was $529 million in taxpayer money. The Delaware launch, attended by Joe Biden, was ultimately going to benefit Hunter Biden’s company.

“Hunter… sincere thanks for any and all help provided concerning Fisker, particularly intro to Wayne. Also, congrats to all on the finalization of the Boxwood Plant transfer, announced on Monday,” Barry Yerger, a financial mover and shaker recently appointed by Joe Biden to the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, wrote.

While the Fisker disaster unfolded, there was no mention of the Biden role in the company.

Fisker was supposed to build “affordable” electric cars in Delaware that would cost $40,000. Instead it built the ‘Karmas’ in Finland. They cost six figures, were too heavy, the hybrid’s gas mileage was no better than some regular cars and the tires wore out in a year.

But Hunter wanted one anyway, perhaps to drive or to show off to prospective investors.

By 2012, the target date, $193 million of the loan had been spent on the ‘Karma’ and other projects, and nothing was happening in Delaware. In 2013, the only option, the local media warned was “Chinese billionaires” preparing for Fisker’s bankruptcy auction. One of those Chinese billionaires would win the auction despite his company, which promised to make the electric cars, being created a few months beforehand with no office address or phone number, after rigging the auction and “cheating taxpayers out of millions of dollars”.

A few months after a Kazakh oligarch allegedly bought Hunter a Fisker Karma, it was already breaking down. Meanwhile Joe Biden was meeting with a different set of foreign executives.

Joe Biden invited two executives from Wanxiang, a Chinese automotive company that would gobble up Fisker, to the White House. A few days later one of the executives promised to help get Hunter’s Fisker Karma fixed.

“Last Friday when we visited D.C., I heard that your Fisker is out of order and could not get serviced. Sorry,” the Chinese executive wrote. “It would be our honor to get your Fisker fixed… I would like to give you a call to see what we could do as next step.”

The Chinese executive mentioned, “It would be our great honor to welcome you to visit Fisker or Wanxiang at any time.”

Did the Chinese executive hear about Fisker and the state of Hunter’s car from him or his dad? The executive’s phrasing suggests that he had heard about it from someone other than Hunter.

The head of Delaware’s economic development office claimed that Hunter Biden had offered to “to link the governor with Chinese investors interested in acquiring the auto plant.” But nothing happened. Wanxiang never built any cars there, but instead sold it off to a private developer.

No cars would be built on the auto plant. Instead taxpayers were left not only with over $100 million in losses, but local taxpayers were also on the hook for its $400,000 power bill.

The green energy disaster was not the only one that came from Obama’s corrupt Recovery Act.

Sun Edison, a solar panel company, became the biggest green energy bankruptcy, benefiting from as much as $1.5 billion in government grants and subsidies. In an email, Devon Archer mentioned to Hunter that he was planning to meet with Sun Edison “in the next few weeks and qualify if there’s opportunity”. The Biden administration appointed Jigar Shah, Sun Edison’s founder, to head the loan office at the Department of Energy distributing green energy grants.

There is no shortage of opportunities and expenses. The story of Fisker suggests that Joe Biden’s abuse of his office to help Hunter’s economic interests may go as far back as 2009. Not long after Joe became vice president, Hunter was benefiting from the connection.

Americans lost over $100 million on Fisker, but thanks to the services of a Kazakh oligarch and some Chinese automotive executives, Hunter Biden got a $142,000 lemon.

Until he traded it in for a Porsche. 

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.
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