The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has allegedly admitted to possessing potentially thousands of emails reportedly sent by President Joe Biden under pseudonym email accounts while he was vice president, according to a conservative nonprofit legal group.
In an Aug. 23 press release, the Southeastern Legal Foundation said it had filed a lawsuit compelling the agency to hand over the roughly 5,400 emails potentially linked to the fake email accounts.
According to the conservative nonprofit, the pseudonym email accounts were used by President Biden before he took office in the White House to “forward government information and discuss government business with his son, Hunter Biden, and others.”
The lawsuit cites multiple reports, including a letter from Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and another letter from Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, identifying the three pseudonym email accounts as having allegedly been used by President Biden in some communications when he was vice president.
Earlier in August, Mr. Comer also called on NARA to grant him unrestricted access to the unredacted email communications between President Biden—during his time as vice president—and his son and business partners.
NARA Yet to Release Alleged Emails
In its announcement, the Southeastern Legal Foundation said it initially filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request (pdf) to the archives for President Biden’s emails in 2021, at which point NARA responded that “because it did not take custody of then-vice president’s records until January 20, 2017, the emails could not be made public until January 20, 2022.”Therefore, the legal group renewed its FOIA in 2022, it said.
Following that renewed request, NARA allegedly told the nonprofit that it had performed a search of its collection of vice presidential records and identified “approximately 5,138 email messages, 25 electronic files and 200 pages of potentially responsive records that must be processed in order to respond to your request.”
However, the agency noted that FOIA requests are “subject to the provisions of NARA regulations” under which it is required to “notify the representatives of the former President and the incumbent President and the former Vice President prior to the release of any Vice Presidential records.”
Those regulations could add, at a minimum, an extra 60 days until the records could be produced, according to the lawsuit.
However, the Southeastern Legal Foundation claims NARA has yet to hand over a single one of the alleged emails, prompting it to file the latest lawsuit urging the agency to release the documents.
“More than 430 days have passed since Defendant acknowledged receipt of the FOIA request on June 22, 2022. Defendant has failed to meet the statutory requirement to make the records promptly available,” the lawsuit states. “Accordingly, SLF files this lawsuit to compel Defendant to comply with FOIA.”
‘Only Way to Preserve Governmental Integrity’
“All too often, public officials abuse their power by using it for their personal or political benefit. When they do, many seek to hide it. The only way to preserve governmental integrity is for NARA to release Biden’s nearly 5,400 emails to SLF and thus the public. The American public deserves to know what is in them,” Kimberly Hermann, Southeastern Legal Foundation general counsel, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.A spokesperson for NARA declined to comment when contacted by The Epoch Times.
Mr. Comer, one of many Republican lawmakers who has asked NARA to hand over the alleged emails, noted earlier this month that President Biden has stated there was an “absolute wall” between his family’s foreign business schemes and his duties as vice president.
“We already have evidence of then-Vice President Biden speaking, dining, and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates,” Mr. Comer said in a statement. “We also know that Hunter Biden and his associates were informed of then-Vice President Biden’s official government duties in countries where they had a financial interest. The National Archives must provide these unredacted records to further our investigation into the Biden family’s corruption,” he added.
At the time, a spokesperson for the NARA told The Epoch Times that it had received the request from Mr. Comer and “will respond in accordance with the requirements of the Presidential Records Act.”
President Biden has claimed he never discussed business with his son, who conducted a number of foreign business deals between 2009 and 2017, while his father was vice president.
