House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) sent a letter to the National Archives and Records Administration requesting unredacted records and emails from Joe Biden’s time as vice president that show his communications team working with one of his son’s business associates to squash stories about Burisma.
Emails released by the National Archives show that then-Vice President Joe Biden’s communications director, Kate Bedingfield, would email Eric Schwerin — a former business associate of Hunter Biden — about press inquiries the vice president received regarding Hunter Biden’s role on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company.
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According to the emails, Schwerin — who served as managing director of the investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, which Hunter Biden co-founded with Devon Archer — would help walk through ways to squash stories about Hunter Biden’s position on the board.
“I would just urge her (as I know you are doing) that there is no new news there,” Schwerin said in a Dec. 8, 2015, email to Bedingfield about a media inquiry regarding Hunter Biden. “And even if she uses it – she should avoid getting into past stories (Navy, etc.) that have nothing to do with this.”
Bedingfield responded to the email saying that she had spoken with the reporter and that “she will only use if her editors hold a gun to hear [sic] head. She absolutely will not do the second thing.”
In another email in the same thread on Dec. 4, 2015, Schwerin provided Bedingfield with a quote attributable to a “spokesperson for Hunter Biden” to give reporters who asked about Hunter Biden’s role with Burisma.
“Hunter Biden joined the Board to strengthen corporate governance and transparency at a company working to advance energy security for Ukraine,” the quote reads. “These are also goals of the United States. Far from being out of sync with the policies of the United States, the Board is working to bring this privately held energy company into the kind of future that is critical for a free and strong Ukraine. These are goals that attracted not just Hunter to the effort, but respected American and European political and business leaders.”
Later in the day, Bedingfield responded to the quote from Schwerin, saying that “VP signed off on this — will give this quote to both reporters in my name shortly.”
While some of the emails released by NARA are unredacted, others are redacted, so because of this, Comer is requesting “additional information regarding communications between the Office of the Vice President and Hunter Biden or his business associates” and is asking for the “complete and unredacted versions” of the documents in “Case Number 2022-0121-F” which is the file name for the trove of emails released by NARA.
“Joe Biden never built an ‘absolute wall’ between his family’s business dealings and his official government work – his office doors were wide open to Hunter Biden’s associates,” Comer said in a statement. “There is evidence of collusion in the efforts to spin media stories about Burisma’s corruption while Vice President Biden was publicly pushing an anti-corruption agenda in Ukraine.”
In the letter to Colleen Shogan, the archivist for NARA, Comer said the timing of the Dec. 2015 email chain is “concerning” because it corresponds with a phone call Hunter Biden made to “D.C.” at the behest of Burisma officials.
According to Archer’s testimony earlier in July before the Oversight Committee, on Dec. 4, 2015 — the same day Schwerin sent the quotes — Mykola Zlochevsky, the head of Burisma, told Hunter Biden that the Ukrainian energy company needed “help from the United States government” to deal with the pressure the company was under from Viktor Shokin, the former prosecutor general in Ukraine who was allegedly investigating Burisma. Archer walked away, and Hunter Biden was told to call “D.C.”
Biden then traveled to Ukraine three days later and gave a speech against Shokin and the corruption in his agency. Biden also threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees meant to help rebuild Ukraine’s economy unless the country got rid of Shokin.
In light of this, Comer is also requesting all documents and communications “to or from the Executive Office of the President (including but not limited to the Office of the Vice President)” that include Schwerin, Archer, and other former associates of Hunter Biden, Vuk Jeremic — the former foreign minister of Serbia and president of the United Nations General Assembly — John Robinson “Rob” Walker, or Jeffrey Cooper.
Additionally, the committee asked for all documents and communications involving Hunter Biden or James Biden that are to or from Bedingfield, Michael Carpenter, the former special adviser for Europe and Eurasia for Vice President Joe Biden; Kathy Chung, the former executive assistant to Vice President Joe Biden; Amos Hochstein, the former assistant secretary of state for energy resources; Colin Kahl, the former national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden; and Alexander Mackler, a former legal counsel to Vice President Joe Biden.
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NARA has until Sept. 20 to comply with Comer’s request.
“Suspiciously, Hunter Biden’s associate had a media statement on Burisma approved by Vice President Biden himself the same day Hunter Biden ‘called D.C.’ for help with the government pressure facing Burisma,” Comer said in the statement. “Americans demand accountability for this abuse of government office for the benefit of the Biden family. The Oversight Committee will continue to pursue all evidence to provide much needed transparency to the American people.”
