(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) A reportedly damning phone conversation that had then-Vice President Joe Biden haggling with executives from Ukrainian energy company Burisma looking for help to derail a corruption probe into the company’s dealings is tied to a list of documents that the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration is withholding from House Republicans.
The conversation reportedly took place on the same day that Biden approved a set of talking points designed to hobble non-compliant media from pursuing links between Biden’s role as vice president and his influence in helping his son, Hunter, retain a job on the Burisma board, despite having no background in the energy business, according to the Washington Times.
The talking points were included in a 2015 email that Hunter Biden’s business buddy Eric Schwerin sent to the veep’s assistant, Kate Bedingfield, to which she replied, “VP signed off on this.”
The quotes Joe Biden approved as talking points were subsequently fed to the regime-friendly New York Times to help defuse a story about the vice president’s “credibility” in tackling Ukrainian corruption while Hunter was drawing a fat paycheck from Burisma.
“Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer,” Bedingfield told the paper using the Joe Biden-approve quotes. “The vice president does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company. The vice president has pushed aggressively for years, both publicly with groups like the U.S.-Ukraine Business Forum and privately in meetings with Ukrainian leaders, for Ukraine to make every effort to investigate and prosecute corruption in accordance with the rule of law. It will once again be a key focus during his trip this week.”
The emails with talking points were sent on the same day that Hunter put his vice president father on the phone with Burisma CEO Mykola Zlochevsky, according to sworn testimony that Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer provided to House investigators.
In response to NARA refusing to provide the emails to House investigators, House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer swatted down assertions that the documents were “personal” as the NARA claimed.
“The Committee has made clear that its investigation involves potential abuse by then-Vice President Biden of his official duties; it cannot be NARA that determines whether certain records ‘do not relate to or have an effect upon’ those duties,” Comer wrote in a Wednesday letter to Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan.
Among other documents the committee is seeking, the emails between Hunter Biden’s business associate and the vice president’s assistant timed to Joe Biden’s phone conversation with Burisma executives are of particular interest. The documents add extra weight to mounting evidence that refutes Biden’s repeated claims that he was never involved in his son’s shady business dealings.
“Joe Biden never built an ‘absolute wall’ between his family’s business dealings and his official government work,” Comer said. “His office doors were wide open to Hunter Biden’s associates. There is evidence of collusion in the efforts to spin media stories about Burisma’s corruption while Vice President Biden was publicly pushing an anti-corruption agenda in Ukraine.”
Comer continued the argument in his letter to the national archivist, writing that, “Suspiciously, Hunter Biden’s associate had a media statement on Burisma approved by Vice President Biden himself the same day Hunter Biden ‘called D.C.’ for help with the government pressure facing Burisma.”
Mark Pellin is an editor at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/sabrepaw70.
