A recently revealed classified e-mail from 2016 indicates that at least one United States official raised concerns that Hunter Biden’s business activities in Ukraine could pose a problem for the U.S. and Eastern European nations’ ability to crackdown on Ukrainian corruption. In 2016, George Kent, a senior ranking state department official, emailed his superiors in the Obama administration his concerns that then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son’s dealings in Ukraine could “undercut” U.S. anti-corruption efforts.
The email was sent on November 22, 2016, and was first obtained and reported by Just The News:
“The real issue to my mind was that someone in Washington needed to engage VP Biden quietly and say that his son Hunter’s presence on the Burisma board undercut the anti-corruption message the VP and we were advancing in Ukraine,” Kent wrote multiple high-ranking officials in the State Department in Washington.
The email also indicated that Hunter was on the board when Burisma allegedly paid what Kent described as a $7 million “bribe,” though it is unclear if Hunter knew about it. Regardless, Kent also wrote that the perceived double-standard was worrisome and would send mixed messages to the Ukrainian people:
“Ukrainians heard one message from us,” Kent wrote, “and then saw another set of behavior, with the [Biden] family association with a known corrupt figure whose company was known for not playing by the rules in the oil/gas sector.”
Hunter’s dealings with Burisma were a factor in the 2020 election, as President Donald Trump and his campaign accused the Biden family of improperly using Joe’s political offices in making money aboard. Burisma is an energy company, and Hunter had little to no experience in the energy industry before getting job at Burisma while his father was the vice president.
Just The News also noted that beyond Kent’s concerns, another issue raises by the discovery of said e-mail is the fact the State Department never acknowledged its existence:
It was classified “confidential,” the lowest level of secrecy, by then-U.S. Ambassador to Kiev Marie Yovanovitch, another of the Democrats’ impeachment witnesses, and was not produced as evidence to House lawmakers during impeachment. Contrary to federal law, the State Department failed to acknowledge the existence of the document to the court or to Just the News in its multiple Freedom of Information Act lawsuits against the State Department seeking records on Hunter and Joe Biden’s dealings in Ukraine.
Just The News also pointed out that the e-mail contradicts what many Democrats were saying regarding Hunter’s business efforts:
Most importantly, the email’s stark message directly conflicts with the narrative the mainstream media, State Department witnesses and Democratic congressmen gave the public two years ago, when they insisted Hunter Biden’s lucrative job with the allegedly corrupt Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings — while creating the appearance of a conflict of interest — had no impact on U.S. efforts to fight corruption in that country.
Kent, the diplomat who sent the e-mail, was featured prominently as an expert during the first impeachment of Trump.