A newly-released letter sheds more light on how Hunter Biden sought to enlist an American embassy to assist Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company employing him, when his father was serving as vice president.
In a 2016 letter written on Burisma letterhead, Hunter Biden asked then-American ambassador to Italy John R. Phillips to help the company line up meetings with an Italian official to work through regulatory issues pertaining to geothermal energy projects that Burisma wanted to develop in the country, according to The New York Times. Phillips responded in a letter of his own to say that he had tapped an official with the Commerce Department to help out.
“Burisma is currently experiencing certain difficulties obtaining authorizations that are issued by regional authorities. I would like to take this opportunity to ask for your support and guidance in arranging a meeting for representatives from Burisma with the President of Tuscany Region, Mr. Enrico Rossi,” Hunter Biden wrote in his June 2016 letter to Phillips. “This would be a wonderful opportunity to introduce geothermal projects led by Burisma Group, to highlight their social and economic benefits for local communities and develop a common action plan that would lead to further development of the Tuscany region.”
GMA INTERVIEW WITH HUNTER BIDEN
ROBACH: “Do you regret being on the board [of Burisma] to begin with?”
HUNTER: “No – What I regret is not taking into account – a Rudy Giuliani and a President – that would be listening to this RIDICULOUS conspiracy idea – Which again, has… pic.twitter.com/JBRihTOq4y
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 2, 2023
GMA INTERVIEW WITH HUNTER BIDENHunter Biden’s request reportedly made some officials inside the embassy uneasy at the time. Phillips told the outlet that he did not know Hunter Biden particularly well and that he did not recall the specific letter in question, but noted that it was the sort of thing that he would pay attention to as ambassador.
Hunter Biden “was truly grateful for the kindness he and his family had been shown,” and that his reference in the letter to a 2015 Biden family trip to Rome during which Hunter Biden met Phillips was a sign of “heartfelt appreciation for courtesy and comfort,” a representative for Hunter Biden told the NYT. The 2016 letter requesting help for Burisma was a “proper request, which was no different than hundreds of similar requests for introductions that businesses make to ambassadors every year,” Hunter Biden’s attorney previously told the NYT.
Joe Biden was not aware that his son had made a request of the ambassador while he was serving as vice president, a White House spokesperson for Joe Biden told the NYT in mid-2024. The projects that Hunter Biden wanted help with ultimately did not materialize.
Despite having no prior experience in the energy sector, Burisma paid Hunter Biden about $80,000 per month while Joe Biden was in office before drastically cutting his compensation in March 2017, just two months after the first Trump administration took power in Washington. Members of the Obama administration were concerned about potential conflicts of interest regarding Hunter Biden’s involvement with Burisma at the time, particularly given that one of Joe Biden’s top priorities in Ukraine was to push for stronger anti-corruption efforts, according to the NYT.
Hunter Biden’s lucrative employment at Burisma at the same time his father ran point on Ukraine policy for the Obama administration was a key element of House Republicans’ investigation into alleged Biden family influence peddling in the last Congress. Congressional investigators determined that Hunter Biden, his business partners and other members of the Biden family cumulatively raked in millions of dollars from foreign interests in places like Ukraine, China and Romania during Joe Biden’s vice presidency and the years that followed before Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020.
In the last weeks of the Biden presidency, Joe Biden pardoned Hunter Biden for his federal gun and tax convictions, as well as for any potential crimes that may have been committed going back to 2014, the same year that Hunter Biden’s employment at Burisma began. The Biden White House insisted repeatedly that Joe Biden would not pardon his son in the months before the former president did exactly that, and the former president followed up by issuing similarly expansive pardons to several other family members just moments before President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
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