Hunter Biden asked a U.S. government official to help with a business deal in Italy while his father was vice president, according to reports.
According to publicly available documents from the State Department obtained by The New York Times, Hunter Biden asked the U.S. ambassador to Italy for help on behalf of Burisma, a Ukrainian gas company where he was a board member.
An embassy official responded, saying, “I want to be careful about promising too much,” adding, “This is a Ukrainian company and, purely to protect ourselves, U.S.G. should not be actively advocating with the government of Italy without the company going through the D.O.C. Advocacy Center.”
Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, said John R. Phillips, the U.S. ambassador to Italy at the time, was one of several people the president’s son reached out to in hopes of introducing the company to a high level Italian official.
“No meeting occurred, no project materialized, no request for anything in the U.S. was ever sought and only an introduction in Italy was requested,” Lowell said, per the report. The White House maintained President Biden was unaware of his son’s efforts.
This news comes after President Joe Biden withdrew his bid for reelection and Vice President Kamala Harris stepped in as the presumptive nominee. Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, the vice chair of the Republican Conference, defended the several congressional investigations into Biden and his son, among other relatives and close friends in a statement to the Deseret News.
“A grave misconception regarding the impeachment inquiry was that the intent was political,” he said. “That has never been the case, despite the media’s portrayal. House Republicans have led proper, fact-based investigations, uncovering mounds of information on the Biden family’s corrupt business dealings that should disappoint and disgust every American.” He expects Congress “to conduct proper oversight on the Biden family’s corruption” even though Harris is on top of the Democratic ticket now.
Hunter Biden could face charges over lobbying
Last week, the office of special counsel David Weiss, who brought tax and firearm possession-related charges against Hunter Biden, alleged the younger Biden accepted money from a Romanian businessman in exchange for influencing U.S. government agencies during the time of his father’s vice presidency, as ABC News reported.
According to the court filing, the prosecutors plan to introduce evidence of Hunter Biden’s partnership with Gabriel Popoviciu, the eastern European businessman at the younger Biden’s upcoming trial related to tax charges. The filing also stated Hunter Biden reached out to government officials, including the State Department.
He has not been charged with being an unregistered lobbyist, but the trial scheduled in September will touch on the Biden family’s business dealings, which have been under investigation for some years now.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who spearheaded the congressional investigation into Hunter Biden as chairman of the House Oversight Committee, reacted to the court filing, calling the news “the biggest political corruption scandal of our ... lifetime” in an appearance on Newsmax.
Commentators also questioned the timing of the State Department’s decision to release the damaging documents against the Biden family just weeks after Harris inherited Biden’s campaign.
“One of the other things The New York Times reports here is that this document was suddenly shaken loose from the U.S. bureaucracy of the week that President Biden dropped out of the race,” CNN host Kasie Hunt said on a panel Wednesday. “They claim it’s a coincidence.”
Edward-Issac Dovere also remarked on the response from Hunter Biden’s lawyers, saying they simply say he didn’t do anything wrong.
“This feels very strange to people, that the vice president’s son was sending letters or making requests to other government officials and saying, ‘Hey, would you meet with this company?’” he added.