Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, arrives at federal court in Wilmington, Del., June 11, 2024. After President Biden dropped his re-election bid, his administration released records showing that while he was vice president, his son solicited U.S. government assistance.HAIYUN JIANG/The New York Times News Service
Hunter Biden sought assistance from the U.S. government for a potentially lucrative energy project in Italy while his father was vice-president, according to newly released records and interviews.
The records, which the Biden administration had withheld for years, indicate that Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 seeking assistance for Ukrainian gas company Burisma, where he was a board member.
Embassy officials appear to have been uneasy with the request from the son of the sitting vice president on behalf of a foreign company.
“I want to be careful about promising too much,” wrote a Commerce Department official based in the U.S. Embassy in Rome who was tasked with responding.
Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Biden, said his client “asked various people,” including the U.S. ambassador to Italy at the time, John R. Phillips, whether they could arrange an introduction between Burisma and the president of the Tuscany region of Italy, where Burisma was pursuing a geothermal project.
“No meeting occurred, no project materialized, no request for anything in the U.S. was ever sought, and only an introduction in Italy was requested,” Lowell said in a statement, calling the outreach by Biden a “proper request.”
The State Department did not release the actual text of the letter.
A White House spokesperson said the president was not aware when he was vice president that his son was reaching out to the U.S. Embassy in Italy on behalf of Burisma.
A view shows a building, which reportedly houses an office of a subsidiary of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings Ltd, in Kiev, Ukraine January 14, 2020.VALENTYN OGIRENKO/Reuters
The department’s release of documents to The New York Times came shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race and as his son prepares to stand trial next month on charges of evading taxes on millions of dollars in income from Burisma and other foreign businesses.
Hunter Biden has not been charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, which requires people to disclose when they lobby the U.S. government on behalf of foreign interests.
In a court filing last week, in what was perceived as a pressure move, prosecutors indicated that they did not intend to add a FARA charge but noted that they had evidence that Biden had reached out to the State Department on behalf of a different foreign client, a real estate magnate facing corruption charges in Romania. Biden did not register under FARA as a lobbyist for the Romanian developer or Burisma.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.