Fourteen Republicans signed on to a pair of letters to the White House and National Archives on Thursday asking for records of any correspondence between Hunter Biden and the White House during both the Obama and Biden administrations to be turned over to them.
‘The Biden family has for decades profited off Joe Biden’s positions of public trust. Hunter Biden particularly benefitted from his father’s success in politics,’ the letter, signed first by ranking member on the Oversight Committee Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.
It noted that Russia weeks ago levied sanctions on not only White House officials but also Hunter Biden. ‘The nation’s adversaries apparently see the President’s son as a pressure point to exploit.’
‘Hunter Biden’s connections throughout the Russian sphere of influence have now become especially relevant in the fast-moving and developing Russian war in Ukraine. If the Russian government is attempting to influence American policy in Ukraine by exploiting Hunter Biden’s connection with his father—the President of the United States—the American people deserve to know it.’
‘The Biden family has for decades profited off Joe Biden’s positions of public trust. Hunter Biden particularly benefitted from his father’s success in politics,’ the letter read
‘The Biden family has for decades profited off Joe Biden’s positions of public trust. Hunter Biden particularly benefitted from his father’s success in politics,’ the letter, led by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., read
It cited the younger Biden’s seat on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma and how he joined together with Chinese partners to found a firm that later aided China in purchasing cobalt from Congo. It cited Hunter’s attempts at brokering a deal with a Chinese oil company and former Kazakh prime minister Karim Massimov for a $120 million pipeline and helped prevent a Romanian real estate tycoon’s conviction for bribery charges. The pipeline attempts were exclusively reported by DailyMail.com and revealed through emails found on Hunter’s abandoned laptop.
The letter also noted that Hunter has taken up a career as an artist and his work now is priced at up to $500,000 despite his amateur status.
The president’s son is under a federal investigation for potential violations of tax, money laundering and foreign lobbying laws with his business interests abroad.
The letters are addressed to Dana Remus, counsel to President Biden, and David Ferriero, head archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration. The letter asked for a response to be provided to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform by April 14.
‘Given Hunter Biden’s foreign business relationships in Ukraine and Russia and the current international landscape, we are concerned about whether Hunter Biden continues to profit off his status as President Biden’s son as well as whether foreign adversaries may be attempting to exploit questionable business dealings,’ it read.
The letter asked for: communications between the president’s office and the vice president’s office and the Biden family relating to Ukraine or Russia from Inauguration Day to present, a list of past and ongoing foreign businesses interests related to the Biden family, all documents related to Hunter’s artwork and a list of the policies and procedures in place to ensure the Biden family does not profit off Biden’s presidency.
They want the same information from 2009-2017, in addition to any communications between the White House and the late former mayor of Moscow Yuri Lushkov and his wife Yelena Baturina.
Republicans have little political muscle to force the White House and National Archives to hand over the documents since they are in the minority on the Oversight Committee and in Congress. But the GOP has repeatedly said that if they win back the House in the midterms, they will subpoena Hunter to come in for questioning about his famed laptop and his business dealings.
In the middle of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, former President Trump earlier this week urged Russian leader Vladimir Putin to hand over any documents he may have about Hunter Biden’s dealings with Russian oligarchs.
The ex-president said he was particularly interested in an alleged $3.5 million payment from the former mayor of Moscow’s widow to a company co-founded by Hunter Biden.
A 2020 report by Senate Republicans claimed that Baturina, one of Russia’s billionaire oligarchs, gave the hefty sum to a company called Rosemont Seneca Thorton as part of a ‘consultancy agreement.’
Baturina was curiously left out of a smattering of sanctions against Kremlin officials and oligarchs.
Republicans have re-upped their calls for transparency around Hunter’s business dealings after the New York Times and the Washington Post acquiesced that they had confirmed the authenticity of the laptop Hunter abandoned at a Delaware repair shop in 2019. DailyMail.com authenticated the contents of the laptop a year ago, after the New York Post first reported on it in October 2020.
The Times also reported that Hunter had just paid off a $1 million tax bill, as he was under investigation for defrauding the IRS.
The Republicans also raised skepticism over Biden’s claims he never spoke ‘to my son about his overseas business dealings.’
‘This appears not to be true. The evidence is now clear that not only did Joe Biden talk to his son about his overseas business dealings, but he also met with his son’s associates,’ they wrote.
Emails show that then-Vice President Biden did meet with his son’s Russian, Ukrainian and Kazakhstani business associates in 2015 in Washington, D.C.
One attendee, an executive at now-infamous Ukrainian energy firm Burisma where Hunter was a board member, wrote an email the day after thanking Hunter for the ‘opportunity to meet your father’.
‘Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure’, Vadym Pozharskyi wrote on April 17, 2015.
Widow Yelena Baturina and daughter Yelena Luzhkova after a farewell ceremony for Yuri Luzhkov, who served as mayor of Moscow in 1992-2010, at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
One startling email among those now validated by the Post indicates the president could have been involved in Hunter’s business dealings with the Chinese.
In September 2017 Hunter was planning to open a new office for his multi-million-dollar joint venture with CEFC at the House of Sweden, a Georgetown building home to the Swedish embassy.
He wrote to a building manager: ‘please have keys made available for new office mates: Joe Biden, Jill Biden, Jim Biden, Gongwen Dong (Chairman Ye CEFC emissary).
‘I would like the office sign ton [sic] reflect the following: The Biden Foundation, Hudson West (CEFC US).’
‘We are very excited and honored to welcome your new colleagues!’ the manager replied.
Biden Foundation board member Jeffrey Peck told the Post: ‘There was never any thought — like zero thought or consideration — given to that building.’
The House of Sweden said they made the keys but Hunter never picked them up.
The Post’s admission, hot on the heels of that of the New York Times, coincides with an apparent growing momentum in Hunter’s federal prosecution over reported tax fraud, money laundering and illegal foreign lobbying allegations.
The New York Times reported that material from the laptop is part of the FBI’s evidence in the case.
Prosecutors have subpoenaed several of Hunter’s associates, including a former employee Lunden Roberts, with whom he fathered a baby.
Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz grilled the assistant director of the FBI’s Cyber Division over the whereabouts of the laptop in a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday.
After a battle with Democrats on the committee, Gaetz then entered a copy of the laptop drive as evidence, and tweeted calling for the president’s son to be subpoenaed.