Comer Seeks Documents That Could Show Biden ‘Influence Peddling,’ Mixing Official Duties With Son Hunter’s Business Interests

The chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Congressman James Comer, is seeking records from the National Archives and Records Administration that allegedly show President Biden helped facilitate his son Hunter’s business dealings during his time as vice president. 

Mr. Comer asked NARA “to provide then-Vice President Joe Biden’s records regarding his duties as Vice President that overlapped with his son’s activities in Ukraine.” The chairman also requested all communications between the younger Mr. Biden and his business associates, Devon Archer and Eric Schwerin. 

“Joe Biden has stated there was ‘an absolute wall’ between his family’s foreign business schemes and his duties as Vice President, but evidence reveals that access was wide open for his family’s influence peddling,” Mr. Comer said in a statement. “We already have evidence of then-Vice President Biden speaking, dining, and having coffee with his son’s foreign business associates.”

Mr. Comer and his Oversight Committee colleagues now say they have evidence while vice president, Mr. Biden was using pseudonyms — “Robert Peters,” “Robin Ware” and “JRB Ware” — during his communications with key Ukrainian officials while his son was serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma. Mr. Comer, in his letter to the archivist of the United States, has requested unredacted records of these communications.

“At 9:00 a.m. on May 27, 2016, Vice President Biden took a call with the president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko,” Mr. Comer writes in his letter. “It is concerning to the Committee, however, that this document was sent to ‘Robert L. Peters’ — a pseudonym the Committee has identified as then Vice- President Biden. Additionally, the Committee questions why the then-Vice President’s son, Hunter Biden — and only Hunter Biden — was copied on this email to then-Vice President Biden.”

The alleged pseudonyms appear to be a play on Joe Biden’s full name, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.

Mr. Comer’s documents request is just the latest step in his committee’s long-running investigation into the Biden family and their finances, which Mr. Comer has referred to as “organized crime,” during the elder Mr. Biden’s time as vice president. 

Testimony from Archer before the Oversight Committee disclosed that on at least 20 occasions the elder Mr. Biden spoke to his son’s foreign business partners, though Archer said he never heard the president specifically discuss business matters. Twice during his time as vice president, though, Mr. Biden did dine with his son’s foreign business partners, including the first lady of Moscow, Yelena Baturina, and a Kazakhstani banking magnate, Kenes Rakishev, at Washington’s exclusive Cafe Milano restaurant. 

 Mr. Comer said in his statement that “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.”

The request for the communications stems from persistent allegations that the president was intimately involved in aiding his son’s foreign business interests in his official capacity as vice president. Mr. Comer points out in his letter to NARA that the first son was at one point copied on an email that was sent to his father that included his schedule for the day. That same day, the vice president had a call with Mr. Poroshenko. 

In 2020, Mr. Poroshenko told CNN that he “never” discussed Burisma with the elder Mr. Biden and never faced pressure to fire the country’s chief prosecutor, who was was investigating the company at the time.