Joe Biden, as vice president, reportedly met his son’s business partners from Ukraine, Russia, and Kazakhstan in Washington, DC, over dinner in 2015.
The revelation, made by the New York Post Wednesday, further fuels suspicions that the elder Biden likely knew of his son’s business activities overseas, despite the president’s repeated claims of ignorance of his son’s dealings abroad with businesses and government officials.
Critics, including some of his former business partners, have accused Hunter of using his father’s name and political connections for personal gain, particularly when it comes to gaining access to business dealings overseas.
Citing information obtained from the infamous “laptop from hell” allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden, the Post reported Wednesday:
The dinner, on April 16, 2015, was held in the private “Garden Room” at Café Milano, a Georgetown institution whose catchphrase is: “Where the world’s most powerful people go.” 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.”
The guest list prepared by Hunter three weeks before the Café Milano dinner included Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, corrupt former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov, who since has died. Baturina 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.
Treasury Department officials highlighted the wire in suspicious activity reports provided to an investigation into Hunter last year by Republicans on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The Post acknowledged that it is unclear who Hunter was referring to when he told Archer, “I think your guy being there is more trouble than it’s worth- unless you have some other idea.” However, the newspaper suggests it could have been Kerry.
Before the dinner, Hunter reportedly made it clear to guests that his father would be attending.
According to the Post, however, in one email, Hunter appears to use his position on the board of the World Food Program (WFP) USA, the American fundraising arm of the United Nations-related nonprofit, as a cover for the meeting’s true goal of introducing his father to his business partners.
“Ok – the reason for the dinner is ostensibly to discuss food security,” Hunter wrote March 26 to Michael Karloutsos, son of the then-head of the Greek Orthodox Church. “Dad will be there, but keep that between us for now. Thanks.”
It is reportedly unclear exactly how many of the 14 people on the guest list made it to the dinner.
Russian millionaire Baturina, who raised suspicions among Republicans after wiring millions of dollars to the firm co-founded by Hunter, sent her husband to the dinner alone, although both were on the list.
The Post noted that Hunter invited three Kazakh officials to the dinner, including Marc Holtzman, then chairman of the former Soviet republic’s largest bank, Kazkommertsbank.
Hunter did not identify the other two Kazakhs on his guest list. Still, the Post suggested one of them may have been Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister, Karim Massimov, citing an invitation for Archer to meet the leader at a “small private breakfast” the morning after the dinner.
Biden’s 51-year-old son, who described the PM as a “close friend” a year after the dinner, conducted business in Kazakhstan with an associate of Massimov, oligarch Kenes Rakishev.
In April 2014, the Kazakh oligarch’s company, Novatus, wired $142,300 “for a car” to the firm co-founded by Hunter and Archer, the Republican Senate report revealed.
“Massimov and Rakishev appear in an unverified photograph, posing alongside a smiling Joe Biden and Hunter, which was posted on a Kazakhstani anti-corruption website in 2019,” the Post noted.
After denying any knowledge of the laptop, Hunter admitted last month that it “certainly” could belong to him, but “I really don’t know.”
In October 2020, news reports surfaced that the FBI had seized the laptop, allegedly abandoned by Hunter at a computer repair shop in Delaware in April 2019, as part of a money laundering probe.
The White House did not respond to the Post’s request for comment on the dinner.
At the time of the April 2015 dinner, Hunter sat on Burisma’s board for a lucrative monthly salary of more than $80,000, according to some estimates.
Burisma hired Hunter while his father was in charge of U.S. policy towards Ukraine, including anti-corruption efforts, prompting Obama officials to warn of a potential conflict of interest that was dismissed by the office of then-VP Biden.
In October 2020, the Post unveiled bombshell emails it obtained from Hunter’s alleged laptop, suggesting Biden likely lied about not being involved with his son’s overseas business dealings.
Big Tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google, and the Democrat-allied mainstream media tried to censor the story.
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