Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), former chair of the House Oversight Committee, raised concerns over current President Joe Biden adviser Amos Hochstein, who was aboard a 2015 flight to Ukraine with then-Vice President Joe Biden.
On Thursday, the Oversight Committee retweeted a photo of Hochstein, then-Special Envoy, aboard Air Force Two on the way to Ukraine, briefing then-Vice President Joe Biden.
U.S. Envoy for Energy Affairs Amos Hochstein meets with Outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, in Beirut, Lebanon, June 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
The committee said the photo was taken on the same trip where Joe Biden lobbied the Ukrainian government to fire top prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings. The energy company paid Hunter Biden $83,000 a month for a board position to obtain the “Biden brand,” as Biden business associate Devon Archer described the arrangement.
“Current White House staffer Amos Hochstein was in communication with Hunter and Burisma while working for then-VP Joe Biden,” the committee posted on Twitter. “According to obtained emails, there were multiple conversations between Burisma, Hunter, and Hochstein while Hochstein was working as a federal government employee as well as multiple logged meetings with VP Biden including the day after Shokin was fired.”
The unearthed photo raised concern among Republicans.
“Amos Hochstein is years overdue in receiving fair scrutiny for his revolving door of service to Obama and Biden and catering to international business clients,” Issa told Breitbart News.
“We also need clarification of photos that show him briefing Joe Biden while on the way to Ukraine for Hunter to cash in,” he added. “Suggesting they were talking about the weather and grandchildren isn’t going to work.”
Hochstein was appointed as Joe Biden’s special coordinator for global infrastructure and energy security in 2021. In 2022, Biden appointed him as special presidential coordinator.
Hochstein’s involvement in the Biden family business is well documented. On April 16, 2015, Hochstein met with Joe Biden at the White House, the visitor logs show. That meeting occurred the same day Hunter Biden introduced Joe Biden to Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi and other business associates during a dinner at Café Milano in Washington, DC.
President Joe Biden, and his son Hunter Biden arrive at Fort McNair on June 25, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together,” read an email Hunter Biden received from Pozharskyi the next day.
In November of 2015, Hunter Biden and Hochstein met for coffee at a Starbucks in Georgetown. On several dates afterward, Hochstein met with then-Vice President Joe Biden.
One of those meetings happened on December 11, 2015, two days after Hochstein and Joe Biden returned from Ukraine. Joe Biden visited Ukraine from December 7-9, 2015.
Then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, right, applauds then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, left, after he addressed the Ukraine Parliament in Kiev, Ukraine, on December 8, 2015. (AP Photo/Mikhail Palinchak)
Three months after the visit, the Ukrainian government fired Shokin.
Joe Biden bragged about the firing during a 2018 appearance at the Council of Foreign Relations.
“I said, ‘I’m telling you, you’re not getting the billion dollars.’ I said, ‘you’re not getting the billion. I’m going to be leaving here in, I think it was about six hours,'” Biden told the audience. “I looked at them and said, ‘I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money.’ Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
Watch below:
Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s best friend in business, was asked about the firing by Tucker Carlson.
“Joe Biden, of course, was the driving force behind his firing?” Carlson asked Archer during an interview released last week.
“Yeah, he was involved in that,” Archer replied.
“Joe Biden knew that his son was on the board of this company that was being hassled by the prosecutor whose firing he was calling for?” Carlson asked.
“Right,” Archer said.
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Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.