Both Congress and the Justice Department should subpoena electronic correspondence from then-Vice President Joe Biden’s three private email accounts if that correspondence was sent to or from his son Hunter and if it involved officials of or business relations with Ukraine, China, Russia, or Romania.
One such email, first reported in July 2021, is now receiving renewed scrutiny after being released by the National Archives. It showed that Hunter Biden for some reason was copied on a note to the vice president about the latter’s scheduled call with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The note was sent to the elder Biden at what we now know was one of his private email accounts under the alias of Robert L. Peters. At the time, Hunter Biden was being paid about $1 million annually by a Ukrainian energy firm being probed for alleged corruption.
Joe Biden always has insisted he did not keep tabs on his son’s business affairs, in which the son openly peddled influence based on Joe Biden’s government position. Yet here, as in many other instances, the worst of which may have been bringing Hunter Biden on Air Force Two to China while his son was pursuing a $1.5 billion business deal, the vice president and his aides clearly were roughly aware of Hunter Biden’s dealings. Worse, they appear to have actively kept him “in the loop” about the vice president’s diplomatic efforts involving the same countries from which the son was getting rich.
At least three different people referred to Joe Biden as the "big guy” in the context of Hunter Biden’s business deals. Joe Biden met at least 14 times with various of Hunter Biden’s business associates while vice president, and the vice president’s aides met and emailed with such associates numerous other times. And despite Joe Biden’s claims that he had absolutely no involvement, pro or con, with any rumored FBI investigation into Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian entanglements, the now-president is on tape discussing with Poroshenko a report that an aide for the latter was talking to the FBI. “No, no, they are not,” Joe Biden said. “I told you, the FBI concluded he had nothing and they stopped. That was it. There is no reason to talk to him again.”
With all this as a backdrop, there are several reasons why a subpoena is abundantly necessary. First, there’s the matter of Joe Biden’s use of the pseudonymous email accounts. While it is not illegal for the vice president or other government officials to maintain private accounts, they are not supposed to use those accounts for anything related to their government work. They certainly aren’t allowed to use them deliberately to circumvent official records requirements and especially not for their own personal benefit. And the Presidential Records Act is quite explicit that to the extent a vice president uses private accounts for official business, even if inadvertent, all such emails should be turned over to the archivist of the United States.
Obviously, Joe Biden did indeed turn over some such records because we know Hunter Biden was copied on at least 10 work-related messages in one four-week period. But despite inquiries from Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and others, we don’t know to what further extent Joe Biden complied with that law.
Far more important than the Presidential Records Act, though, is the substance in those private email chains, especially concerning Hunter Biden’s rank profiteering. If Hunter Biden was kept apprised of Joe Biden’s “diplomacy” and Joe Biden was kept apprised of his son's lucrative deals with unsavory foreigners — including, after Joe Biden’s vice presidency, one to whom Hunter Biden referred as “the f***ing spy chief of China” — then the knowing intertwining of their endeavors raises all sorts of problematic questions.
The most pertinent of those questions is this: Was Joe Biden, while vice president or while maneuvering to become president, helping his son sell foreign influence?
By now, there is more than enough reason at least to suspect illicit activity. Only subpoenas can force evidence to be unearthed or indicate that there’s not much evidence at all. Either way, the public should know what sorts of government business their president was conducting while trying to keep it secret.
