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President Biden used at least three email aliases during his time as vice president in the Obama administration, a move that has ramped up congressional scrutiny of his involvement in his son’s foreign business deals.
White House records show that Mr. Biden used the name “Robert L. Peters” while serving as vice president. House investigators say Mr. Biden also disguised his name on emails using the pseudonyms “Robin Ware” and “JRB Ware,” a play on his middle name and initials paired with his home state of Delaware.
Mr. Biden has not explained why he used the aliases, but the tactic has raised House investigators’ suspicions of the Biden family’s foreign business deals and the extent of Mr. Biden’s role in securing them while he was vice president and after leaving office.
The Washington Times reported in July that the National Archives had released a May 26, 2016, White House scheduling email sent to then-Vice President Biden ahead of a call with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The email copied in his son Hunter Biden, who was serving on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings, which was looking to shake off a corruption investigation.
The email about the Poroshenko call was sent to Mr. Biden under the pseudonym Robert L. Peters.
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Email aliases are not new for top government officials. President Obama used one while in office, as did then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
House investigators are concerned that Mr. Biden used several aliases to hide his involvement in his son’s business deals.
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee, which is seeking to scour National Archives records to find out more about Mr. Biden’s email aliases, has already scrutinized bank records provided by financial institutions that show nine Biden family members, including a granddaughter of the president, pocketed money from the foreign business deals. The deals netted the family and a small group of business associates more than $20 million, bank records show.
New testimony from Hunter Biden’s former business associate Devon Archer revealed that the vice president was used to leverage the deals by serving as the “brand” that his son and business partners could sell to foreign business partners from China, Russia, Ukraine and other countries.
Archer said Mr. Biden phoned into 20 of his son’s foreign business deals and appeared at two dinners his son was holding with business associates. He did not talk business, Archer said, but chatted about the weather and other unrelated topics.
Additional evidence surfaced when the House heard testimony from IRS whistleblowers assigned to investigate Hunter Biden’s tax crimes.
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IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley said Biden business associate Rob Walker told investigators that Mr. Biden stopped by the Four Seasons Hotel, where Mr. Walker and Hunter Biden were dining with executives of CEFC, a Chinese energy company tied to the Chinese Communist Party.
“He stopped in, just to say hello to everybody,” Mr. Walker told the agents. He said it was after Mr. Biden’s vice presidential term ended. Mr. Biden “literally sat down. … I don’t even think he drank water,” Mr. Walker said.
Hunter Biden, family members and associates ultimately pocked millions of dollars from CEFC, and Hunter Biden received an $80,000 diamond from CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming.
Archer, who is facing a prison term on an unrelated securities fraud conviction, told House investigators that Hunter Biden and Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky called the vice president from Dubai to seek help regarding pressure on Burisma, which was trying to thwart a state-run corruption investigation.
At the time, Hunter Biden and Archer were receiving million-dollar annual salaries for serving on the board of Burisma. Ukrainian Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was bearing down on the company and seized property from Mr. Zlochevsky.
Mr. Poroshenko fired Mr. Shokin in March 2016.
In 2018, Mr. Biden bragged that he was responsible for Mr. Shokin’s ouster after threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if Mr. Poroshenko did not fire him.
“If the prosecutor is not fired, you are not getting the money,” Mr. Biden said he told Mr. Poroshenko.
It is unclear whether Hunter Biden was involved in the May 27, 2016, phone call from Mr. Biden to Mr. Poroshenko in the aftermath of Mr. Shokin’s firing or whether he was only copied in on the email alerting the vice president to the schedule.
According to a readout of the call provided by the White House, the two leaders “discussed the importance of continuing to institute reforms in the Office of the Prosecutor General, and the significance of Ukraine’s progress toward implementing judicial reforms and meeting IMF conditions,” among other matters.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.
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