https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1674061565409083399Biden is now taking that position, denying that he was present when Hunter Biden sent the message to Zhao;
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REPORTER: "How involved were you in your son’s Chinese shake-down text message? Were you sitting there? Were you involved?"
BIDEN: “No, I wasn’t.”
REPORTER: “Were you?”
BIDEN: “No.”
Importantly this sets the stage for pinning blame on Hunter Biden. Since Joe continues to claim he wasn't involved at all, and never met Hunter's associates, and wasn't present when the message was sent (note- would he really be able to know that with certainty, if it wasn't true? How can he know Hunter didn't send it when next to him, without telling him, if he knew 'nothing' about the dealings?) then the only way forward for Biden is to say Hunter Biden was shaking down the Chinese and Ukrainians and Romanians for bribe money at his own initiative, exploiting his father's name.
Keep in mind IRS detective Gary Shapley just testified to congress last week that in their investigation, Hunter/James Biden's associate Rob Walker told them how Hunter arranged for Joe Biden to meet the same CEFC Chinese investors in this exchange;
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However, according to Shapley, Walker later recalled a CEFC meeting where Joe Biden “stopped in, just said hello to everybody. I don’t even think he drank water. I think Hunter Biden said, ‘I may be trying to start a company or try to do something with these guys and could you?’ And I think he was like, ‘If I’m around,’ and he’d show up.”
In Shapley’s retelling, an FBI agent quizzing Walker asked: “So you definitely got the feeling that that was orchestrated by Hunter Biden to have like an appearance by his dad at that meeting just to kind of bolster your chances at making a deal work out?”