President Joe Biden exchanged dozens of emails with one of his son’s business partners, according to a newly disclosed document, bolstering Republicans’ claims that their investigation of the president’s involvement in his son’s businesses is warranted.
President Biden, before he became president, emailed Eric Schwerin while using an alias, the document shows.
President Biden was vice president from 2009 to 2017.
The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. Mr. Schwerin didn’t return an inquiry.
Just five of the emails were exchanged before President Biden traveled to Ukraine in June 2014. Most came after the trip.
President Biden infamously during the trip pressured Ukraine to fire its top prosecutor, who was investigating Burisma Holdings. Hunter Biden, the president’s son, was employed by Burisma.
The pressure worked and the prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was ousted.
President Biden used various email addresses, including robinware456@[redacted], to communicate outside of official channels, according to investigators. President Biden and Mr. Schwerin were copied on another several hundred emails, including 38 sent from White House email accounts.
“Evidence from today’s documents show right around the time of international trips like those to Ukraine, Joe Biden was emailing his son and his son’s business partner from private email accounts using aliases while Vice President,” Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said in a statement.
Mr. Schwerin helped both President Biden and Mr. Biden with financial issues, according to emails from Mr. Biden’s laptop computer. One message showed Mr. Schwerin discussed President Biden’s mortgage in a phone call with Mr. Biden, who described him in another message as “a close confidant and counsel.”
Mr. Schwerin “managed almost every aspect of our financial lives,” Kathleen Buhle, Mr. Biden’s ex-wife, wrote in her memoir.
Previously disclosed records showed that Mr. Schwerin visited the White House or the Naval Observatory, where the vice president resides, dozens of times while President Biden was vice president.
The emails were part of a fresh tranche of materials released by the Ways and Means Committee after receiving them from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Zeigler, who worked for years on the probe into Mr. Biden’s possible crimes, including avoiding taxes.
The emails are “the kind of lead pointing to Joe Biden’s involvement that investigators would be allowed to pursue in a truly independent probe,” Jason Foster, founder of Empower Oversight, who helps represent the whistleblowers, said in a statement.
Mr. Smith said before the panel voted to release the records that the alias emails “raise questions of whether Joe Biden was trying to hide the existence and content of these messages.”
He added: “If investigators had not been stonewalled, the IRS investigation into Hunter Biden’s tax fraud and business dealings would have naturally laid bare Joe Biden’s direct involvement.”
“Mr. Schwerin worked closely with the Biden family members, Biden associates, and Biden corporate entities that the Committees have identified as transferring millions of dollars to the Bidens, often from foreign sources,” Republicans said in the cover letter for Mr. Schwerin’s subpoena. “Indeed, the Committees have reviewed bank records indicating Mr. Schwerin had access to bank accounts the Committees believe are relevant to the Committees’ investigation.”
Bank records, for example, show that Mr. Schwerin was the registered agent corporate secretary of Mr. Biden’s firm Owasco P.C.
Mr. Schwerin did meet with lawmakers in March but indicated that he only possessed documents related to a different firm, according to the House Oversight Committee. But documents from the National Archives show he was directly in contact with White House employees regarding Burisma, they said.
Mr. Schwerin was said to be in a position to testify as to whether President Biden “abused his office of public trust by providing foreign interests with access to him and his office in exchange for payments to his family or him.”
