President Joe Biden’s son Hunter had his salary cut by the Ukrainian energy company that put him on their board while Joe served as President Barack Obama’s vice president — just two months after the end of the Obama administration.
A new book from New York Post columnist Miranda Devine includes an email sent to Hunter on March 19, 2017 — two months after President Donald Trump was inaugurated — that asked the younger Biden to sign a new director’s agreement. The email, sent by Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi, stated that “the only thing that was amended is the compensation rate.”
“We are very much interested in working closely together, and the remuneration is still the highest in the company and higher than the standard director’s monthly fees. I am sure you will find it both fair and reasonable,” the email said.
Prior to the email, while Joe Biden was vice president, Hunter was paid $83,333 a month to sit on Burisma’s board. After the new agreement was signed, his compensation was slashed by half, to $41,500. To be sure, still an exorbitant monthly sum for someone with no qualifications to sit on the board, but far less than the $1 million-a-year salary he was commanding.
The email, published by the Post, contains no documented reason for the pay cut. As Devine wrote, the “only change in circumstance appears to be that Hunter’s father was no longer in office.”
“In 2016, Hunter’s total income from Burisma was $999,996. In 2017 it dropped to $665,000, and then $498,000 in 2018,” Devine added.
Hunter resigned from the board in April 2019 when his continued employment caused headaches for Joe’s presidential campaign.
Devine added that this email, as well as invoices and other emails, were included on the damaged laptop obtained by the Post ahead of the 2020 election. The Post reported on the contents of the laptop, but the story was suppressed by social media platforms and the mainstream media.
The email revelation comes just after The Daily Wire’s Ryan Saavedra reported that Joe met with Hunter’s foreign business associates while he was still vice president. The elder Biden apparently met these associates at a dinner in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 2015. From the Post:
The next day, Hunter received an email from Vadym Pozharskyi, an executive of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, to thank him for introducing him 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 on April 17, 2015. “It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.”
In an email to Michael Karloutsos, son of the then-head of the Greek Orthodox Church, Hunter wrote that “the reason for the dinner is ostensibly to discuss food security,” adding that “Dad will be there but keep that between us for now. Thanks.”
As Saavedra noted, Biden has said that he never spoke to his son “about his overseas business dealings.” Hunter himself admitted that he spoke with his father about his business dealings, but that it happened “just once.”