Joseph R. Biden’s presidential campaign pushed back Wednesday against a report in The New York Post that alleges he knew more than he let on about his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings while he served as vice president.
Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said the alleged 2015 meeting between Mr. Biden and Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, that is at the heart of the report never happened.
“We have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place,” Mr. Bates said, according to Politico.
The Trump campaign, meanwhile, pounced on the New York Post report, calling the allegations “explosive” and accusing Mr. Biden of lying to the American public about what he knew about Hunter’s business overseas.
The New York Post report said an email from Mr. Pozharskyi to Hunter Biden that was discovered on the hard drive of a laptop that was left last year at a Delaware repair shop contradicts Mr. Biden’s assertion that he “never” spoke to my son about his overseas business dealings.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads.
The store owner, according to The New York Post, passed the computer on to the FBI after making copies of the hard drive and sharing them with former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s personal lawyer.
The hard drive allegedly also includes a video of Hunter Biden, who struggled with drug use in the past, smoking crack, and engaging in a sex act with a woman.
Mr. Trump and his allies have questioned whether Mr. Biden pushed to oust a prosecutor in Ukraine because he was investigating Burisma, the gas company where Hunter Biden landed a lucrative board position while his father served in the Obama administration.
Mr. Bates said previous investigations into the Biden family — including by Republican-led congressional committees — “have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing.”
Mr. Bates said members of the Trump administration have “attested to these facts under oath” and said the The New York Post reporter did not share key details of the story with the Biden campaign.
“They certainly never raised that Rudy Giuliani — whose discredited conspiracy theories and alliance with figures connected to Russian intelligence have been widely reported - claimed to have such materials,” he said.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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