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- Karim Massimov ran Kazakhstan’s National Security Committee until he was fired by the country’s embattled president late last week
- He and other unnamed intelligence officials were arrested the day after firing
- Hunter Biden once called Massimov a ‘good friend’ in an email from 2016
- An undated photo appears to show Joe and Hunter Biden smiling alongside Kazak businessman Kenes Rakishev as well as Massimov
- It was originally published by an anti-corruption group called the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery and has not been independently verified
- Reports claim that Hunter traveled all the way from Paris to Kazakhstan without his Secret Service detail in 2014 to discuss a Burisma deal with Massimov
- The photo resurfaced in 2020 after reports claiming that emails found on Hunter’s laptop could implicate Joe in his son’s international business dealings
Kazakhstan‘s former intelligence chief Karim Massimov, who Hunter Biden had described as a ‘close friend,’ was arrested last week and charged with high treason as violent anti-government demonstrations there see more than 160 people killed and nearly 8,000 more injured.
Massimov was arrested on Thursday, his own agency announced over the weekend, toward the end of a week of bloody protests sparked by a virtually overnight spike in fuel prices.
On Wednesday he was fired from his role heading the Kazakhstan National Security Committee by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev. He previously served as the country’s prime minister from 2007 to 2012 and again from 2014 to 2016.
A photo unearthed in October 2020 appears to show Joe Biden meeting with Massimov and Kenes Rakishev, his son Hunter’s alleged business partner in Kazakhstan.
Hunter and Massimov reportedly became friendly when the then-vice president’s son served on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma and Massimov was in his second stint as Kazakh prime minister.
The pair met up in Kazakhstan sometime in 2014 to discuss a potential energy deal, emails obtained from Hunter Biden’s laptop reveal. Hunter allegedly skipped out on his Secret Service detail for the private get-together.
It was in 2016 that the president’s son called Massimov a ‘close friend.’
An undated photo appears to show Joe Biden and his son Hunter (center) meeting with Kazak businessman Kenes Rakishev (left) and Kazakhstan’s former prime minister Karim Mossimov (right). The photo was first published on the website of an anti-corruption group called the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery in 2019 and has not been independently verified
Massimov served as Kazakhstan’s prime minister from 2007 to 2012 and again from 2014 to 2016
In one email from March 15, 2015, Devon Archer – former adviser to then-Secretary of State John Kerry – forwarded to Hunter an invite from Kazakh banker Marc Holtzman to a ‘small private breakfast’ with Massimov when he was prime minister
Another email from a former aide of John Kerry’s shows Hunter getting invited to a ‘private breakfast’ with Massimov in 2015 by Kazakh banker Marc Holtzman.
‘Prime Minister Massimov will be most delighted if you will please join us for a small breakfast at one table at the Willard Hotel, Holmes Suite from 8 am until 9 am,’ Holtzman’s email said.
The National Security Committee, which Massimov ran until the day before his arrest, is Kazakhstan’s national intelligence agency that replaced the Soviet-era KGB after the USSR collapsed.
There were no details of the treason allegations against him. The security service said other officials were also detained, but did not name them.
On Friday, a pro-government politician said on television he had information that the security forces had been ordered to abandon Almaty airport so protesters could take it over. He said they had left a security building in the city undefended, enabling people to seize weapons.
It was not immediately possible to verify this account. The airport remains closed but is now under the control of Kazakh security personnel and Russian troops, according to Russia’s defense ministry.
Protests that were sparked by a near-doubling of gas prices were initially peaceful when they broke out on January 2. But they quickly turned violent, becoming a broader rebuke against Tokayev’s Russian-backed government.
The protests that sparked by high fuel prices in Kazakhstan on January 2 have since seen more than 160 people killed and nearly 8,000 detained
As of January 10, Kazakh authorities reported that 7,939 people have been detained and 164 people were confirmed dead — including three children.
The undated photograph of Massimov and the Bidens, published in an October 2020 report, resurfaced in the wake of a New York Post report claiming that emails found on Hunter’s laptop could purportedly implicate Joe in his embattled son’s international business dealings during his time as vice president.
In the image – which was published on the website of an anti-corruption group called the Kazakhstani Initiative on Asset Recovery and has not been independently verified – Joe and Hunter are seen smiling alongside Rakishev and Mossimov.
DailyMail.com lifted the lid on Hunter’s alleged relationship with Rakishev last week, revealing that between 2012 and 2014 the former VP’s son worked as a sort of go-between helping the Kazak businessman broker US investments.
Emails passed to The Mail via anti-corruption campaigners from the Central Asian country revealed that Hunter held extensive meetings with Rakishev, who has close family ties to the kleptocratic regime of his homeland’s despotic former president Nursultan Nazarbayev.
DailyMail.com lifted the lid on Hunter’s alleged relationship with Rakishev (pictured) last week
Hunter also traveled to the Kazakh capital of Astana to hold business discussions with Rakishev, who was apparently looking to invest a portion of his personal fortune in New York and Washington DC.
Hunter then attempted to persuade Rakishev to buy into a Nevadan mining company, brokering a series of meetings with the firm, before convincing him to invest a cool million dollars with Alexandra Forbes Kerry, the film-maker daughter of Democrat Senator and former Presidential candidate John Kerry.
Rakishev, who wrote messages in broken English, appeared to have become intimate with the vice president’s son, calling Hunter ‘my brother!’ and ‘my brother from another mother!’
They shared gossip about their family holidays and dined together at luxury restaurants in New York and Washington DC (‘I’m on vacation with family [at] Lake Michigan . . . trying to spend some much needed time with my wife and daughters. It’s my 20th anniversary of marriage tomorrow,’ Hunter told Rakishev in July 2013).
The unverified photo fueled speculation that Hunter may have dragged his father into the oligarch’s orbit as well – deepening a long-standing controversy over Hunter’s overseas business dealings when Joe was VP.
Joe Biden and his son Hunter are facing renewed scrutiny related to Hunter’s business dealings overseas after his abandoned laptop was found to hold e-mails that allegedly show Joe Biden was in on Hunter’s deals. Joe Biden’s campaign has denied any wrongdoing
Hunter has for years been criticized for his lucrative but ethically questionable work overseas, which has often created apparent conflicts of interest with Joe’s official roles.
The Biden campaign was rocked by a vintage ‘October surprise’ last week when a New York Post expose claimed that Hunter’s laptop was abandoned at the computer shop in April 2019 for months and was found to contain emails that could implicate Joe.
The laptop’s hard drive was obtained by Donald Trump‘s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who shared its contents with the Post.
Senior federal officials told Fox News on Tuesday that the FBI is now in possession of the computer and confirmed that Hunter’s emails are ‘authentic’.
The emails indicated that Hunter introduced his father Vadym Pozharskyi of Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy company that Hunter served on the board of, in 2015.
The purported meeting allegedly took place a year before Joe pressured Ukrainian government officials to fire the prosecutor involved in an investigation of Burisma.
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