President Joe Biden vehemently denied ever talking business with his son, “or with anyone else” in the run-up to the 2020 election. In fact, Biden even fat-shamed an Iowa voter who approached the subject during the Democratic primaries. On the debate stage with Donald Trump, the former vice president peddled conspiracies of Russian interference when emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop revealed otherwise.
On Sunday night, the New York Post reported on anticipated testimony from Hunter Biden’s former business partner, Devon Archer. The 48-year-old who went golfing with the Bidens in 2014 is expected to tell the House Oversight Committee how Hunter Biden put his father in contact with foreign businessmen and potential investors at least 24 times. According to the Post, such meetings were either in person or by speakerphone, with Hunter Biden often dialing in Joe.
Beyond those meetings, there are numerous other episodes where the president interacted with his son’s business partners, contrary to his campaign claims of “absolute” separation.
2015 Georgetown Dinner
Then-Vice President Joe Biden reportedly met with Ukrainian, Russian, and Kazakhstani business partners at a famous D.C. establishment in 2015. The meeting, arranged by Hunter, took place at one of Georgetown’s most famous restaurants, Café Milano, “where the world’s most powerful people go,” as the local catchphrase goes.
Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive at the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, thanked Hunter for the introduction to his father.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together,” Pozharskyi wrote in an email released by the New York Post weeks before the 2020 election.
Hunter Biden sat on the board of Burisma, raking in excessive compensation while his father dictated White House policy on Ukraine. Records recently made public reveal Burisma’s founder paid a $10 million bribe to the Biden family in exchange for political protection.
Others on the guest list for the 2015 dinner included Marc Holtzman, who was chairman of Kazakhstan’s largest bank at the time, Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina, and her husband, the former corrupted Mayor Yury Luzhkov of Moscow, who is now deceased. A total of 14 were invited with several left unnamed.
“It is unclear if everyone on Hunter’s list attended,” the New York Post’s Miranda Devine reported.
West Wing Visits
Visitor logs show Hunter Biden’s business associates visited the White House at least 80 times while Joe Biden was vice president, according to Fox News. One such visit included a pair of Mexican businessmen who visited the West Wing on Feb. 26, 2014, and were later photographed in the press briefing room with the vice president and his son.
Another meeting with the vice president at the time included two Chinese businessmen connected to a firm that Hunter Biden was invested in.
In 2011, Vice President Biden met with three of Hunter’s associates, including one foreign national at the White House, according to emails published by Fox News in May.
Naval Observatory
Hunter Biden’s diary shows more than 100 events at the vice president’s residence while living at the Naval Observatory, some of which seem to “overlap with Hunter’s business interests,” according to the New York Post. Photographs from the same day as one meeting on the calendar for Nov. 19, 2015, feature Mexican billionaires Carlos Slim and Miguel Alemán Velasco. Hunter Biden spent years leveraging White House perks to pursue business deals with Slim.
Velasco was one of the two businessmen who were pictured in the White House press briefing room with the Bidens the previous year.
The photos from the vice president’s living room at the Naval Observatory also featured Velasco’s son Miguel Aleman Magnani, the founder of budget airline Interjet, and Jeff Cooper, who was described by the Post as “a longtime Biden family benefactor.” Hunter Biden and his wife Kathleen stayed at Magnani’s mansion in March 2015.
This article has been updated since publication.
