Hunter Biden complained that 'half' of his salary went to paying his father's bills while he was Vice President, casting doubt...
Hunter Biden complained that 'half' of his salary went to paying his father's bills while he was Vice President, casting doubt on the Joe's previous claims that he's never benefited from his son's business dealings.
The bills included a $190-a-month AT&T phone bill and thousands in repairs on Joe's lakeside home in Wilmington.
The payments were described in a 2010 email, when Joe Biden was earning $225,000-a-year as Vice President. He had already made well over $100,000-a-year for decades prior as a senator and author.
Hunter, according to emails, had to foot a $190-a-month AT&T phone bill for his father, and pay for repairs to his lakeside property in Wilmington, Delaware. At the time, Hunter was working as the interim CEO of Paradigm Global Advisors and he'd also founded the investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners.
He joined Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings on its board in 2014.
Joe has always insisted that he neither set up nor benefited from Hunter's international business relationships while he was Vice President.
But in emails between Hunter and Eric Schwerin, his business partner at Rosemont Seneca, in 2010, they discussed how much they needed to spend paying Joe's bills.
The subject was 'JRB bills' - which match Joe's initials - and described how $2,600 was to be paid to a contractor for a 'stone retaining wall' at Joe's home, along with $1,475 to be paid to a painter for the 'back wall and columns' of the property and $1,239 to a builder who'd fixed the AC at Joe's late mother's home. He rented that house to the Secret Service for $2,200 a month.
In an email to Hunter from Eric Shwerin, his partner at Rosemont Seneca, Shwerin talks about the bills they needed to pay for Joe
Shwerin to Hunter in other emails titled JRB Future and JRB bills
Texts from Hunter to his daughter Naomi in 2019 where he complained about having to give Joe half of his salary. He also threatened to never give her a 'dime' again
In other texts to his personal assistant, he said his father had been using lines of credit on his account
The texts about AT&T were from 2018 - when Joe Biden had earned more than $11million
Joe and Hunter Biden in 2010, when the former was Vice President and Hunter was being asked to pay family bills through his roles at an investment firm
In the years that followed the emails, Hunter became addicted to crack cocaine and alcohol. Photos like this one were found on the same laptop as the emails
Years later, in a text to his own daughter, Hunter - who had by then been battling drug addiction for years - he complained: 'I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years.
'It’s really hard. But don’t worry, unlike Pop [Joe], I won’t make you give me half your salary.'
It was a text he sent to his daughter Naomi in 2019.
Hunter started working for Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas company, in 2014.
He earned $83,333-a-month from Burisma until two months after Joe left office.
Before Joe left office, he was referred to as 'the big guy' and described in an email from a Ukrainian executive at Burisma which suggested he'd gotten access to him through Hunter.
It raised serious questions because the executive was also being investigated by a Ukrainian prosecutor who was ousted after Joe leveraged $1billion in American aide money to get him out.
The White House did not respond to requests for comment on Monday morning.
Joe has in the past denied ever offering access to him or the White House to any of Hunter's business associates.
Scherwin, in one of the emails, wrote to Hunter: 'FYI, there are a few outstanding bills that need to be paid and I am not sure which ones are a priority and which should get paid out of ‘my’ account and which should be put on hold or paid out of the ‘Wilmington Trust Social Security Check Account.’
'There is about $2,000 extra in ‘my’ account beyond what is used for monthly expenses.'
Many of the bills were for repairs to the Biden family home in Wilmington, Delaware. There were bills for paint and new walls that Hunter and his business partner paid
It's unclear why he put the word my in quotation marks.
In another, he said: 'Mike Christopher [builder] is hassling me so I am paying a couple of the smaller things since I haven’t heard from your Dad. Know he’s busy — so it’s OK.
'But if you think he has a moment or two to review the e-mail I sent you let me know.'
The following month, he said: 'Does it make sense to see if your Dad has some time in the next couple of weeks while you are in DC to talk about it? Your Dad just called me about his mortgage . . . so it dawned on me to might be a good time [for] some positive news about his future earnings potential.'
In the years after he left office as Vice President, Joe and Jill Biden made millions through book deals and speaking engagements but much of the money flowed through companies which allowed them to circumvent tax bills.
In 2017 alone, the couple declared $11.1 million in earnings - more than double they had made in any other year for 18 years prior. Joe has always insisted the money was earned above board.
In a 2018 email to one his own assistants, Hunter complained that he had been shut out of his own bank account and that his father had been using it.
'Too many cooks in the kitchen. Too many profile changes and such. Happened 10 days ago too...
'My dad has been using most lines on this account which I’ve through the gracious offerings of Eric have paid for past 11 years,' he said.
Hunter wrote in his memoir Beautiful Things how he slipped into drug and alcohol addiction while working in these business roles.
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