New reports surfaced late on Monday that alleged that records from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, appeared to show that Joe Biden met with foreign business associates of his son’s while he was vice president in the Obama administration.
Joe Biden reportedly met his son’s business associates from Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan at a dinner in Washington, D.C., on April 16, 2015. The New York Post reported:
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.”
At the time, Burisma was paying Hunter $83,333 a month to sit on its board.
The New York Post reports that the guest list prepared by Hunter before the dinner included “Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, corrupt former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov,” as well as three officials from Kazakhstan, among them the then-chairman of Kazkommertsbank.
Baturina, the Russian billionaire, “wired $3.5 million on Feb. 14, 2014, to Rosemont Seneca Thornton LLC, a Delaware-based investment firm co-founded by Hunter and Devon Archer, a former adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry,” reports The New York Post.
The Washington Post, which published a new piece about the dinner on June 7, 2021, reports that two other noteworthy guests — the chief executive of the World Food Program USA and a powerful figure in the U.S. Greek Orthodox Church — attended.
Rick Leach, the food program executive, told the Washington Post that then-Vice President Joe Biden made an appearance, but did not sit down or participate in the dinner or any dinner conversations. Instead, he said Biden only spoke with Alex Karloutsos, a figure in the Greek Orthodox Church who Biden has reportedly been friends with for decades.
Karloutsos reportedly also corroborated Leach’s accounting of the events that evening, telling The Washington Post: “That is true. It was very kind of the then VP to do so.”
Hunter Biden told guests that the purpose of the dinner would be to discuss food security in apparent connection to his role on the board of World Food Program USA.
“Ok – the reason for the dinner is ostensibly to discuss food security,” Hunter Biden wrote on March 26 to Michael Karloutsos, son of Alex Karloutsos. “Dad will be there but keep that between us for now. Thanks.”
“Everything is between us. All good!” Alex Karloutsos replied, “I know you mentioned your dad would probably join the dinner as well.”
Leach told The Washington Post that the dinner discussions were focused on food security, and that “there was no discussion of politics or business about anything or anywhere.”
The New York Post noted that it was not clear whether everyone on the list attended. One of Hunter Biden’s business associates emailed him the day before the event to tell him that Baturina did not want to come but her husband would attend. According to The Washington Post, Alex Karloutsos was not on the early list of attendees even though he did make an appearance.
Back in October, the Washington Post reported: “Andrew Bates, a campaign spokesman for Joe Biden, said a review of Biden’s schedules from 2015 finds no record of any such meeting. Officials who worked for Biden at the time told The Fact Checker that no such meeting took place.”
The Washington Post, citing a White House official with knowledge of Biden’s schedule, reports that Joe Biden only decided to drop by to talk to Alex Karloutsos on that day. However, this seems to run at odds with Hunter’s March 26 email to Michael Karloutsos, in which Hunter said his dad would join them.
Related: Hunter Biden Discussed Plans For A Business That Would Include Joe Biden, Emails Show
Biden has previously stated that he never spoke to his son about his son’s overseas business dealings.
“I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” Biden told a Fox News reporter in September 2019. “I know Trump deserves to be investigated. He is violating every basic norm of a president. You should be asking him why is he on the phone with a foreign leader, trying to intimidate a foreign leader. You should be looking at Trump.”
However, Biden’s claims about never speaking to his son about his overseas business dealings come after his own son said in an interview that they did speak about business “just once.”
This report has been updated to include additional information.