President Joe Biden has repeatedly claimed that he was never involved in son Hunter Biden’s business deals with foreign leaders, but House Republicans have released what they say amounts to direct evidence proving otherwise.
As reported by NBC News, GOP leaders provided materials that show “Joe Biden corresponded via email with his son Hunter’s business associate on 54 occasions during his tenure as vice president.
“Some of these messages were sent around the period when Joe Biden was traveling to Ukraine, and his son was employed by a Ukrainian gas company, as indicated by records made public by House Republicans,” the outlet continued.
A White House spokesperson declined to comment but referred to statements made by House Democrats, asserting that Hunter Biden’s business associate, Eric Schwerin, served as Joe Biden’s financial adviser from 2009 to 2017 and assisted in filing his tax returns. Schwerin did not respond to requests for comment either, NBC reported, adding:
The records released describe the dates of the emails and who exchanged them, but do not include the messages themselves. NBC News has not reviewed the contents of the emails.
All told, then-Vice President Biden emailed Schwerin 35 times before and after his 2014 trips to Ukraine. Five emails were exchanged just prior to a trip by Vice President Biden to Ukraine on June 7, 2014, and 27 emails were sent from the end of June to a second trip to Ukraine by Biden on Nov. 21, 2014.
The majority of the communication took place before and after the agreement for Hunter Biden to join the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, the outlet reported.
Democrats claimed that Schwerin told the House Ways and Means Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), that “he was not aware of any involvement by President Biden in the financial conduct of the President’s relatives’ businesses, much less any transactions into or out of the then-vice president’s bank account related to business conducted by any Biden family member,” according to Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)
The email disclosures were included in law enforcement records made public by House Republicans after IRS whistleblower Joseph Ziegler’s testimony, who provided the documents to Smith’s committee, along with a sworn affidavit. The panel also received testimony from a second IRS whistleblower, Gary Shapley.
Ziegler told Congress that “there were multiple emails found with Hunter Biden and his business associates,” but at the time, investigators did not know that Joe Biden used multiple email aliases in private emails.
NBC News further reported that former President Donald Trump “falsely claimed that Joe Biden helped oust a Ukrainian prosecutor, Victor Shokin, when he was ‘prosecuting’ Burisma,” but in fact, Joe Biden is featured in a video at a conference hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018 explaining that he threatened to withhold a $1 billion aid package from Ukraine when he was VP if the administration of then-President Petro Poroshenko didn’t fire Shokin within hours, suggesting the same kind of “quid pro quo” Trump was impeached for the first time.
“Well, son of a bitch,” Joe Biden said in the video. “He got fired.”
They might want to know why Joe Biden wanted Viktor Shokin to be fired back when Hunter was somehow on the board of Burisma. pic.twitter.com/mVOJrMbyLA
— Mercer 🏴 (@LudwigvonMercer) December 14, 2023
Earlier this month, meanwhile, Hunter Biden was indicted on new federal felony tax charges that add to his legal troubles. He faces substantial jail time if he’s convicted on all counts.
According to the Washington Examiner, “Special counsel David Weiss, who is leading the prosecution, brought nine charges against Biden in the Central District of California, alleging in the indictment that the first son failed to pay $1.4 million in federal taxes over a four-year period.”
The money he earned came from Burisma.
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