House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R., Ky.) sent a letter to the National Archives and Records Administration on Wednesday requesting “unrestricted special access” to communications between the office of then–vice president Joe Biden and Hunter Biden or his business associates.
The letter requests unredacted copies of the documents included in NARA’s “Records on Hunter Biden, James Biden, and Their Foreign Business Dealings” file.
Among the requested documents is a December 4, 2015, email in which longtime Biden family business associate Eric Schwerin sent quotes to Biden’s then–communications director Kate Bedingfield that he said the White House should use in response to media outreach regarding Hunter Biden’s role on the board of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Schwerin sent the email at 10:45 a.m. that day. Bedingfield responded hours later at 2:30 p.m. saying, “VP signed off on this.”
“The timing of this email traffic is concerning to the Committee,” Comer writes in the letter, obtained by National Review. “According to Devon Archer (another longtime Biden family business associate), after a Burisma board of directors meeting in Dubai—on the evening of December 4, 2015 (midday in Washington, D.C.)—Hunter Biden ‘called D.C.’ to discuss pressure that Burisma asked him to relieve.”
Archer previously testified that then–vice president Biden joined at least 20 phone calls and/or in-person meetings with Hunter’s foreign business associates during their time working together. He explained that access to the vice president served as the selling point of the Biden “brand” that allowed he and Hunter several lucrative financial opportunities, including joining the board of Burisma. At the time, Burisma’s founder and CEO Mykola Zlochevsky was being investigated by Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, whom the elder Biden later bragged about having fired.
Schwerin formerly served as the managing director of Rosemont Seneca Advisors, a now-defunct financial advisory firm which Hunter Biden co-founded. Schwerin also worked in Hunter’s lobbying shop Oldaker, Biden & Belair from 2002 to 2008, according to financial disclosure forms. He visited the White House and the Naval Observatory at least 36 times while Biden was serving as vice president, Fox News reported.
Emails found on Hunter’s abandoned laptop and reported by the New York Post show that Schwerin was deeply involved in the Biden family’s finances, often moving money around for Hunter and his father.
In April 2022, House Republicans requested that Schwerin turn over all communications involving President Biden and Hunter.
The committee gave NARA a September 20 deadline to turn in “all documents and communications to or from the Executive Office of the President (including but not limited to the Office of the Vice President) to, from, copying or regarding Eric Schwerin, Devon Archer, Vuk Jeremic, John Robinson ‘Rob’ Walker, or Jeffrey Cooper.”
Comer also requests all documents and communications to or from several Obama administration aides and officials — including Bedingfield, Michael Carpenter, Kathy Chung, Amos Hochstein, Colin Kahl, and Alexander Mackler — that were sent to or from, or were copying or regarding Hunter Biden or James Biden. Finally, the House Republican requested all executive calendars created for then–vice president Joe Biden from January 20, 2009 to January 20, 2017.
“Joe Biden never built an ‘absolute wall’ between his family’s business dealings and his official government work – his office doors were wide open to Hunter Biden’s associates,” Comer said in a statement shared with National Review. “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. 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.”
Comer also notes in the letter that House Oversight staff has had discussions with NARA about the committee’s previous requests for special access to vice-presidential records. During those discussions, NARA informed the committee that certain documents would not be produced to the committee and that NARA would not inform the committee of their existence in the event that NARA deems those records to be “personal records” as defined by the Presidential Records Act.
“However, ‘personal records; are defined as those records; which do not relate to or have an effect upon the carrying out of the constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of’ the Vice President,” Comer writes. “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 asked that if NARA withholds requested documents, it produce a log asserting the basis for withholding the document that would include “the length of the document withheld, its sender(s) and recipient(s), the time and date the document was transmitted, and the justification for NARA’s determination to withhold the document.”
The committee previously requested “unrestricted special access” to records related to then–vice president Biden’s foreign travel with his family on Air Force Two and Marine Two.
The lawmakers point to Biden’s “misuse” of the aircraft as yet another way he has “abused his various offices of public trust and wasted taxpayer money to benefit his family’s enterprise, which consisted of nothing more than access to Joe Biden himself.”
Before that, the committee requested documents related to any official duties Joe Biden undertook while vice president that overlapped with Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine.