Several high-ranking Biden White House officials had longstanding professional and personal links to Hunter Biden before his father ascended to the presidency, emails from the first son’s abandoned laptop show.
Top staffers with whom Hunter Biden, 53, had corresponded during the Barack Obama presidency included at least two Cabinet members, four top aides, and a campaign official.
President Biden elevated confidants who had long been part of his inner circle to prominent positions in his administration, so the correspondence is no surprise.
But given the intense scrutiny congressional Republicans have directed at Hunter over his overseas business affairs, the emails illustrate just how deep his professional access to top movers and shakers runs.
The communications were first analyzed by Fox News and corroborated by The Post.
Antony Blinken
Hunter Biden had email exchanges with Secretary of State Antony Blinken dating back over a decade.
In an October 2012 email, for instance, the first son introduced a man named Kevin Downs to Blinken while the latter was serving as a national security adviser to his father, the then-vice president.
Both Blinken and the younger Biden met in July 2015 after the latter asked to grab coffee and get his advice on a few things, roughly two months prior.
The initial meeting planned in May 2015 appears to have been scrapped due to Beau Biden’s admission to a hospital for brain cancer. Beau passed away on May 30, 2015.
By the time of the 2015 exchange, Blinken had been elevated to serve as deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration. Hunter Biden was on the board of Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma Holdings.
Former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell testified back in April before two House panels that Blinken “played a role in the inception” of the so-called “spies who lie” letter, in which 51 former intelligence officials warned that the Hunter Biden laptop story reported by The Post may have stemmed from Russian disinformation.
“One of the great benefits of this job is that I don’t do politics and don’t engage in it. But with regard to that letter, I didn’t – it wasn’t my idea, didn’t ask for it, didn’t solicit it,” Blinken shot back during an interview with Fox News.
Notably, in the time since the dissemination of the letter, there has been no evidence that any of the content from the laptop reported by The Post was Russian disinformation.
Multiple outlets such as Fox News, the Washington Examiner, CBS News, the New York Times and Washington Post have corroborated contents from the laptop dump in the time since.
Evan Ryan
Hunter also emailed Blinken’s wife, Evan Ryan, the current White House cabinet secretary numerous times starting in 2010.
This included a request for Blinken’s private email address and planning around White House events such as the annual “Easter Egg Roll.”
Ryan worked on Joe Biden’s failed 2008 White House bid.
Jeff Zients
In 2016, the younger Biden had several meetings with Jeff Zients, who is now the White House chief of staff, per the emails.
The elder Biden attended at least two of those meetings, including one in February 2016 and another in May that same year.
At the time, Zients worked as the director of the National Economic Council. When Joe Biden became president, he initially appointed Zients to spearhead the White House’s COVID-19 response task force.
Ron Klain
Zients’s predecessor as White House chief of staff, Ron Klain, who exited his post back in February, is known to have deep ties to the Biden family.
He had served as a counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee when Biden was its chairman and helped on the then-Delaware senator’s unsuccessful 1988 presidential campaign.
Klain and the younger Biden had a handful of communications spanning the past decade featuring introductions of associates to one another or Klain inviting Hunter to events or initiatives from Revolution, his investment firm.
Kathy Chung
Then-Vice President Biden’s executive assistant had a raft of communications with Hunter in which she relayed messages from his father and shared scheduling information.
In one email, she thanked the soon-to-be first son for helping her land a job from his father.
“I just met with your Dad again and he officially offered me the job. It’s pretty exciting,” she wrote in the email. “I cannot thank you enough for thinking about me and walking me thru this. What an incredible opportunity.”
Chung is now serving as the deputy director of protocol in the Pentagon and is a central figure in the probe of Biden’s mishandling of classified documents.
Elizabeth Alexander
Elizabeth Alexander, who is helping the Biden re-election campaign craft its messaging, contacted Hunter numerous times over the past decade, including to praise him for his public statement after he got discharged from the Navy Reserve after a positive cocaine test in 2014.
“Hey Hunter – just wanted to write you a quick note to say David and I are thinking of you. Your statement was perfect and gracious. Sending you a virtual hug from both of us and hoping you can get some peace this weekend,” she wrote in the email.
Alexander is currently on leave from her work as the communications director for first lady Jill Biden while she leads the Biden 2024 campaign’s messaging arm.
Her husband, David Wade, advised Hunter amid the initial public hubbub over his gig with Burisma.
Annie Tomasini
Oval Office operations director Annie Tomasini had a series of exchanges with Hunter on his laptop dating back to 2010.
Sometimes, she would refer to him as “broker.” She touched base with him in 2010 when she took a role at Harvard University and kept in touch with him through at least 2016.
She has traveled with the first family to Camp David several times over the past couple weeks.
Michael Donilon
Senior adviser Michael Donilon only had a couple of emails with the younger Biden between 2010 and 2016, mostly about logistical issues.
But he was featured in email chains and conversations from others who bounced ideas off Hunter Biden.
He was looped in on conversations about strategy sessions during the 2012 election cycle, consideration of a 2016 presidential bid, and more.
Donilon previously served as Joe Biden’s chief campaign strategist during the 2020 election.
Louisa Terrell
Louisa Terrell, director of the Office of Legislative Affairs has had multiple contacts with Hunter Biden over the past decade.
Much of the correspondence featured the two catching up or setting up times to meet. At one point, in 2014, she thanked him for his assistance in getting her daughter accepted into Sidwell Friends School, an elite Washington prep school.
“Thank you so so much for your help. I hope you know how much I appreciate it. Thank you, thank you!” she wrote in the email.
The Post has contacted representatives for both the White House and Hunter Biden for comment.
Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has led the charge against the Biden family over its business dealings, particularly regarding Hunter.
He has flagged what he describes as suspicious transactions that originated from Romania and is investigating whistleblower allegations of a bribery scheme involving the first family detailed in an FD-1023 file.
Congressional Republicans who gained access to the file alleged that it detailed two $5 million transactions — one to Joe Biden and the other to Hunter from the owner of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky.
Biden’s defenders have countered that Republicans like Comer have peddled damaging allegations against the first family but have so far been unable to prove their claims.
“The Comer playbook has become predictable: Over-promise, then under-deliver,” White House spokesman Ian Sams wrote in a memo last month.
Hunter Biden reached an plea agreement with federal prosecutors on a legal matter separate from the allegations of influence peddling, court documents revealed last month.
He is expected to enter a guilty plea to two federal misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay his federal income taxes and enter a pretrial diversion agreement to avoid a felony count of illegally possessing a firearm while addicted to illicit drugs.
A hearing on the matter has been set for July 26 in Wilmington, Del. federal court.
Favors passing and now they are all in control of Hunter’s fate….. surprising!!!!! Not really, this how corrupt people work!!!!
If there ever was a time for a special council…….this is it.
Why were all these people given White House jobs? And why did they need to contact Hunter who has no business ties in the White House? All these people need to be investigated or replaced. This sounds just too fishy.
I see the nasty bleach-thing is still begging for your cash with a credit card. It gets more pitiful with every passing, high-interest rate, dollar-sucking photograph. I wonder how far a drunken doper would slide down the blacktop after losing control at 173 MPH. Maybe bo jiden and/or his daddy’s boy punk son can answer that question; if the FBI or DOJ doesn’t tell him to dummy-up, and then deny it.
Hey, it looks like the bleach-thing has been putting-in a little overtime with the knife and fork. You know, knockin’ down a few extra pounds, no wonder there’s so much make-up. Anyway, the FBI and DOJ are worse than bo jiden and his doper daddy’s boy, or his crime family. I guess it could be called obstruction of justice, but that charge doesn’t make sense. There is no law, thus there is no justice. A perfect example is bo jiden’s daddy’s boy, income tax evading, gun packing doper punk son.