By Glenn Reynolds
The never-before-revealed
meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an
adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015,
about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up
to $50,000 a month.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for
inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic]
some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the e-mail reads.
An earlier e-mail from May 2014
also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for
“advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf.
The blockbuster correspondence
— which flies in the face of Joe Biden’s claim that he’s “never spoken to my
son about his overseas business dealings” — is contained in a massive trove of
data recovered from a laptop computer.
The computer was dropped off at a repair shop in Biden’s home state of Delaware in April 2019, according to the store’s owner.
Other material extracted from
the computer includes a raunchy, 12-minute video that appears to show
Hunter, who’s
admitted struggling with addiction problems, smoking crack while engaged in
a sex act with an unidentified woman, as well as numerous other sexually
explicit images.
The customer who brought in the
water-damaged MacBook Pro for repair never paid for the service or retrieved it
or a hard drive on which its contents were stored, according to the shop owner,
who said he tried repeatedly to contact the client.
The shop owner couldn’t
positively identify the customer as Hunter Biden, but said the laptop bore a
sticker from the Beau Biden Foundation, named after Hunter’s late brother and
former Delaware attorney general.
Photos of a Delaware federal subpoena given to The Post show that both the computer and hard drive were seized by the FBI in December, after the shop’s owner says he alerted the feds to their existence.
A federal subpoena showing the computer and hard drive were seized by the FBI
But before turning over the
gear, the shop owner says, he made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it
to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer, Robert Costello.
Steve Bannon, former adviser to
President Trump, told The Post about the existence of the hard drive in late
September and Giuliani provided The Post with a copy of it on Sunday.
Less than eight months after
Pozharskyi thanked Hunter Biden for the introduction to his dad, the then-vice
president admittedly pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime
Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk into getting rid of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin
by threatening to withhold a $1 billion US loan guarantee during a December
2015 trip to Kiev.
“I looked at them and said: I’m
leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the
money,” Biden infamously bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.
“Well, son of a bitch. He got
fired.”
Shokin has said that at the
time of his firing, in March 2016, he’d made “specific plans” to investigate
Burisma that “included interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures
into all members of the executive board, including Hunter Biden.”
Joe Biden has insisted that the
US wanted Shokin removed over corruption concerns, which were shared by the
European Union.
Meanwhile, an
email dated May 12, 2014 — shortly after Hunter Biden joined the
Burisma board — shows Pozharskyi attempting to get him to use his political
leverage to help the company.
The message had the subject
line “urgent issue” and was also sent to Hunter Biden’s business partner, Devon
Archer, who also sat on the Burisma board at the time.
Devon Archer - Patrick McMullan via Getty Image
Pozharskyi said that “the
representatives of new authorities in power tend to quite aggressively approach
N. Z. unofficially with the aim to obtain cash from him.”
N.Z. isn’t identified in the
email but appears to be a reference
to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky, whose first name is a Ukrainian
version of “Nicholas.”
When the alleged shakedown
failed, “they proceeded with concrete actions” in the form of “one or more
pretrial proceedings,” Pozharskyi wrote.
“We urgently need your advice
on how you could use your influence to convey a message / signal, etc .to stop
what we consider to be politically motivated actions,” he added.
Hunter Biden responded by
saying he was with Archer in Doha, Qatar, and asked for more information about
“the formal (if any) accusations being made against Burisma.”
“Who is ultimately behind these attacks on the company? Who in the current interim government could put an end to such attacks?” he added.
The exchange came the same day that Burisma announced it had expanded its board of directors by adding Hunter Biden, who was put in charge of its “legal unit and will provide support for the Company among international organizations,” according to a news release that’s since been scrubbed from Burisma’s website.
Hunter Biden actually joined
the board in April 2014, according to multiple reports.
His lawyer said last year that
Hunter was “not a member of the management team,” adding, “At no time was
Hunter in charge of the company’s legal affairs.”
About four months after Hunter Biden’s correspondence with Pozharskyi, Archer forwarded Hunter Biden an email chain with the subject line “tax raise impact on Burisma production,” which included Pozharskyi saying that the Ukrainian cabinet had submitted new tax legislation to the country’s parliament.
Photos from Hunter Biden's hard drive
“If enacted, this law would kill the entire private gas production sector in the bud,” Pozharskyi wrote.
In the Sept. 24, 2014, email,
Pozharskyi also said he was “going to share this information with the US
embassy here in Kyiv, as well as the office of Mr Amos Hochstein in the
States.”
At the time, Hochstein was the
State Department’s newly appointed special envoy and coordinator for
international energy affairs.
In December 2017, the Naftogaz
Group, Ukraine’s state-owned energy company, announced that Hochstein had
joined the company as an independent director, but on Monday he announced his resignation.
“The company has been forced to
spend endless amounts of time combating political pressure and efforts by
oligarchs to enrich themselves through questionable transactions,” Hochstein
wrote in an op-ed published by the Kyiv Post.
In addition to denying that’s
he’s spoken to Hunter Biden about his overseas business dealings, Joe Biden has
repeatedly denied any conflict of interest or wrongdoing by either of them
involving Burisma.
Last February, he
got testy during an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show when co-host
Savannah Guthrie questioned whether it was “wrong for [Hunter] to take that
position, knowing that it was really because that company wanted access to you.”
“Well, that’s not true. You’re
saying things you do not know what you’re talking about,” the elder Biden
responded.
Photos from Hunter Biden's hard drive
Last December, Joe Biden
also lashed
out during a Democratic primary town hall event in Iowa, where a man
accused him of sending Hunter to Ukraine “to get a job and work for a gas
company, he had no experience with gas or nothing, in order to get access to
. . . the president.”
“You’re a damn liar, man.
That’s not true and no one has ever said that,” Biden fumed.
Biden then continued berating
the man as he stepped forward, called the man “fat” and challenged him to “do
push-ups together, man.”
The FBI referred questions
about its seizure of the laptop and hard drive to the Delaware US Attorney’s
Office, where a spokesperson said, “My office can neither confirm nor deny the
existence of an investigation.”
Hunter Biden’s lawyer refused
to comment on the specifics but instead attacked Giuliani.
“He has been pushing widely
discredited conspiracy theories about the Biden family, openly relying on
actors tied to Russian intelligence,” the lawyer, George R. Mesires, said of
Giuliani.
Pozharskyi and the Joe Biden
campaign did not return requests for comment. Hochstein could not be reached.
Additional
reporting by Ebony Bowden
https://nypost.com/2020/10/14/email-reveals-how-hunter-biden-introduced-ukrainian-biz-man-to-dad/
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Hunter Biden introduced Burisma adviser to VP
dad before Ukraine pressure, email shows
New York Post Editorial| FOX News
Photo: Hunter Biden (left) and VP Joe Biden (right) - Getty Image
The correspondence is contained in a massive
trove of data recovered from a laptop
Former VP's son emerges as an issue in the 2020 campaign,
Mike Emanuel reports.
Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a
top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder
Biden pressured
government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was
investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post.
The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a
message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of
Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after
Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving
an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s
realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads.
An earlier email from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi,
reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use
your influence” on the company’s behalf.
The blockbuster correspondence — which flies in the face
of Joe Biden’s claim that he’s “never
spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings” — is contained in a
massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer.
The computer was dropped off at a repair shop in Biden’s
home state of Delaware in April 2019, according to the store’s owner.
Other material extracted from the computer includes a
raunchy, 12-minute video that appears to show Hunter, who’s
admitted struggling with addiction problems, smoking crack while engaged in
a sex act with an unidentified woman, as well as numerous other sexually
explicit images.
The
customer who brought in the water-damaged MacBook Pro for repair never paid for
the service or retrieved it or a hard drive on which its contents were stored,
according to the shop owner, who said he tried repeatedly to contact the
client.
The shop owner couldn’t positively identify the customer
as Hunter Biden, but said the laptop bore a sticker from the Beau Biden
Foundation, named after Hunter’s late brother and former Delaware attorney
general.
Photos of a Delaware federal court subpoena given to The
Post show that both the computer and hard drive were seized by the FBI in
December, after the shop’s owner says he alerted the feds to their existence.
But before turning over the gear, the shop owner says he
made a copy of the hard drive and later gave it to former Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s
lawyer, Robert Costello.
Steve Bannon, former adviser to President Trump, told The
Post about the existence of the hard drive in late September and Giuliani
provided The Post with a copy of it on Sunday.
'Son of a bitch. He got fired'
Less than eight months after Pozharskyi thanked Hunter
Biden for the introduction to his dad, the then-vice president admittedly
pressured Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and Prime Minister Arseniy
Yatsenyuk into getting rid of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin by threatening
to withhold a $1 billion US loan guarantee during a December 2015 trip to Kiev.
“I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If
the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money,” Biden infamously
bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations in 2018.
“Well, son of a bitch. He got fired.”
Shokin has said that at the time of his firing, in March
2016, he’d made “specific plans” to investigate Burisma that “included
interrogations and other crime-investigation procedures into all members of the
executive board, including Hunter Biden.”
Joe Biden has insisted that the US wanted Shokin removed
over corruption concerns, which were shared by the European Union.
Meanwhile, an email dated May 12, 2014 — shortly after
Hunter Biden joined the Burisma board — shows Pozharskyi attempting to get him
to use his political leverage to help the company.
The message had the subject line “urgent issue” and was
also sent to Hunter Biden’s business partner, Devon Archer, who also sat on the
Burisma board at the time.
Pozharskyi said that “the representatives of new
authorities in power tend to quite aggressively approach N. Z. unofficially
with the aim to obtain cash from him.”
N.Z. isn’t identified in the email but appears to be
a reference
to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky, whose first name is a Ukrainian
version of “Nicholas.”
'Concrete actions'
When the alleged shakedown failed, “they proceeded with
concrete actions” in the form of “one or more pretrial proceedings,” Pozharskyi
wrote.
“We urgently need your advice on how you could use your
influence to convey a message / signal, etc .to stop what we consider to be
politically motivated actions,” he added.
Hunter Biden responded by saying he was with Archer in
Doha, Qatar, and asked for more information about “the formal (if any)
accusations being made against Burisma.”
“Who is ultimately behind these attacks on the company?
Who in the current interim government could put an end to such attacks?” he
added.
The exchange came the same day that Burisma announced it had expanded its board of directors by adding Hunter Biden, who was put in charge of its “legal unit and will provide support for the Company among international organizations,” according to a news release that’s since been scrubbed from Burisma’s Web site.
Hunter Biden actually joined the board in April 2014, according to multiple
reports.
His lawyer said last year that Hunter was “not a member of the management
team,” adding, “At no time was Hunter in charge of the company’s legal
affairs.”
About four months after Hunter Biden’s correspondence with Pozharskyi, Archer
forwarded Hunter Biden an email chain with the subject line “tax raise impact
on Burisma production,” that included Pozharskyi saying that the Ukrainian
Cabinet had submitted new tax legislation to the country’s parliament.
“If enacted, this law would kill the entire private gas production sector in
the bud,” Pozharskyi wrote.
In the Sept. 24, 2014, email, Pozharskyi also said he was “going to share this
information with the US embassy here in Kyiv, as well as the office of Mr Amos
Hochstein in the States.”
At the time, Hochstein was the State Department’s newly appointed special envoy
and coordinator for international energy affairs.
In December 2017, the Naftogaz Group, Ukraine’s state-owned energy company,
announced that Hochstein had joined the company as an independent director, but
on Monday he announced his resignation.
“The company has been forced to spend endless amounts of time combating
political pressure and efforts by oligarchs to enrich themselves through
questionable transactions,” Hochstein wrote in an op-ed published by the Kyiv
Post.
In addition to denying that’s he’s spoken to Hunter Biden about his overseas
business dealings, Joe Biden has repeatedly denied any conflict of interest or
wrongdoing by either of them involving Burisma.
Last February, he got testy during an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show when
co-host Savannah Guthrie questioned whether it was “wrong for [Hunter] to take
that position, knowing that it was really because that company wanted access to
you.”
“Well, that’s not true. You’re saying things you do not know what you’re
talking about,” the elder Biden responded.
Last December, Joe Biden also lashed out during a Democratic primary town hall
event in Iowa, where a man accused him of sending Hunter to Ukraine “to get a
job and work for a gas company, he had no experience with gas or nothing, in
order to get access to . . . the president.”
“You’re a damn liar, man. That’s not true and no one has ever said that,” Biden
fumed.
Biden then continued berating the man as he stepped forward, called the man
“fat” and challenged him to “do push-ups together, man.”
The FBI referred questions about its seizure of the laptop and hard drive to
the Delaware US Attorney’s Office, where a spokesperson said, “My office can
neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.”
Hunter Biden’s lawyer refused to comment on the specifics but instead
attacked Giuliani.
“He has been pushing widely discredited conspiracy theories about the Biden
family, openly relying on actors tied to Russian intelligence,” the lawyer,
George R. Mesires, said about Giuliani.
Pozharskyi and the Joe Biden campaign did not return requests for comment.
Hochstein could not be reached.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hunter-biden-ukraine-burisma-adviser-email
________________
Senate Republicans release
report on Hunter Biden and Ukraine
HUNTER
BIDEN'S EX-BUSINESS PARTNER TO FACE SENTENCING AFTER COURT REINSTATES FRAUD
CONVICTION
TRUMP
TAKES PRESS TO TASK FOR SKIPPING OVER HUNTER BIDEN SCANDALS
TRUMP
TARGETS HUNTER BIDEN'S FOREIGN BUSINESS DEALINGS DURING HEATED DEBATE CLASH