When Joe Biden made his way to the Oval Office in January 2021, his degenerate son Hunter had to find a new way to keep the family money coming in. After all, taking millions from the Chinese and other foreign actors under the guise of "business dealings" was a bad look (although not bad enough while Joe was vice president).
Hunter accomplished this by becoming an "artist," selling work for $500,000 a canvas. His style? Blowing paint through a glass straw in his pool house.
"The venture capitalist turned artist, whose studio is in the pool house of his Hollywood Hills home, creates his work with a metal straw he uses to blow alcohol ink onto Japanese Yupo paper, creating abstract layers of colors and concentric circles," Vanity Affair wrote in December 2020, shortly after the presidential election.
But now, Business Insider has found who is buying Hunter's "art" and it appears he's still peddling influence.
Hunter Biden did in fact learn the identity of two buyers, according to three people directly familiar with Hunter Biden's own account of his art career. And one of those buyers is indeed someone who got a favor from the Biden White House. The timing of their purchase, however, is unknown.
That buyer, Insider can reveal, is Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real estate investor and philanthropist. Hirsh Naftali is influential in California Democratic circles and is a significant Democratic donor who has given $13,414 to the Biden campaign and $29,700 to the Democratic National Campaign Committee this year. In 2022, she hosted a fundraiser headlined by Vice President Kamala Harris.
In July 2022, eight months after Hunter Biden's first art opening, Joe Biden announced Hirsh Naftali's appointment to the Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad. It is unclear whether Hirsh's purchase of Hunter Biden's artwork occurred before or after that appointment.
🚨 Major Democratic donor and Biden-appointed commissioner Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali has been revealed as a buyer of Hunter Biden’s art, revealing potentially another pay-to-play scheme. https://t.co/vLx2ZwOMC0
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) July 24, 2023
As a reminder, the White House uses taxpayer funds to help facilitate Hunter's art career but promised the Biden family dealings would remain separate from government affairs.
"I can tell you after careful consideration a system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards. Of course he has the right to pursue an artist career, just like any child of a president has the right to pursue a career but all interactions regarding the selling of art and setting the prices will be handled by a professional galerist, adhering to the highest industry standards and any offer out of the normal course would be rejected out of hand and the galerist will not share information about buyer or prospective buyers with Hunter Biden or the administration which provides quite a level of protection and transparency," Psaki said in July 2021.
When asked about potential ethics violations surrounding Hunter Biden's art sales, Jen Psaki says "a system has been established" and "he has the right to pursue an artistic career." pic.twitter.com/Ot0YueKadS
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 9, 2021