WASHINGTON — Then-second son Hunter Biden coached then-Vice President Joe Biden’s press secretary on how to respond to media questions about him joining the board of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, emails reviewed by The Post show.
The May 13, 2014 exchanges between Hunter and Kendra Barkoff, which have not been previously reported, form the basis of a complaint sent to the Justice Department Friday alleging that the Biden scion, now 53, violated federal law by failing to register as a foreign agent.
“In advising the Office of the Vice President how to respond to press inquiries about his appointment, Hunter Biden ‘represent[ed] the interests of [a] foreign principal before any agency or official of the Government of the United States,’” America First Legal Foundation general counsel Gene Hamilton wrote to the assistant attorney general for national security Matthew Olsen, quoting the relevant statute.
Burisma announced Hunter Biden’s appointment to its board of directors on May 12, 2014. The following day, according to the complaint, Barkoff sent Hunter an email saying: “Thanks for talking to me. [L]et me know who I should refer folks to.”
“What exactly are they asking?” Hunter responded. “For the time being I’d just refer them to my office. FYI I joined the board of Burisma Holdings Ltd. (Burisma.com) an independent/private natural gas producer in Ukraine along with the former president of Poland. I think the press release is on their website.”
Barkoff then forwarded Hunter an email from Max Seddon, then a foreign correspondent at Buzzfeed News.
“Russian state media is loving this press release, supposedly from a Cypriot-held Ukrainian natural gas company, claiming that the Vice President’s son has joined its board of directors,” Seddon wrote, addressing then-National Security Council spokesperson Laura Lucas Magnuson, who had forwarded it to Barkoff.
“The news seems rather odd on its face and, if true, would present a fairly glaring conflict of interest given the VP’s role on Ukraine policy – particularly since the company is controlled by Nikolai Zlochevsky, who was energy minister and deputy NSC chief under [former pro-Moscow Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych,” the reporter added. “Is this true? What exactly is going on here?”
“Interesting,” Hunter wrote back. “Burisma is completely independent of the Ukrainian government with an independent board of directors. [Zlochevsky] served as Minister of Ecology and resigned in 2010. I joined the board as legal adviser and Burisma also engaged the law firm I am of counsel to Boies Schiller Flexner on matters pertaining to corporate governance, transparency, and expansion. Alana Apter former head of Morgan Stanley Europe is chairman of the board.”
In addition to forwarding Seddon’s questions, Barkoff told Hunter: “Let me know who in your office” to refer media.
“Eric‐ he’s cc’d here,” Hunter answered, referring to one of his business partners, Eric Schwerin — who chimed in: “Kendra, I am around the next few days if you need me.”
“If anything beyond referring questions to my office is required from you or counsel you can contact Heather King at Boise Schiller,” Hunter directed Barkoff, who later sent him the statement her office was putting out to the press.
“Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer,” read the statement, which apparently met with Hunter’s approval. “The Vice President does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company. For any additional questions, I refer you to Hunter’s office.”
The AFL complaint also noted that Hunter wrote Barkoff on June 26 to tell her: “I am really sorry but I have to cancel call today.” — suggesting, according to the organization, that he “had ongoing discussions about the matter with the Office of Vice President that continued for nearly a month and a half.”
The America First Legal Foundation, founded by former Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller, claimed the discussions with Barkoff showed “Hunter Biden is Burisma’s agent and subject to FARA registration because he was an officer of Burisma and represented Burisma’s interests to the Office of the Vice President in addition to advising on a public relations matter.”
Attorneys for Hunter Biden and spokespeople for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
FARA refers to the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, which requires individuals or companies lobbying on behalf of foreign governments, organizations, or nationals to register with the Justice Department and state their activities, compensation, and relationship to the overseas concern.
Burisma hired Hunter Biden to serve as a board member in 2014 when his vice president father was leading the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy and paid him up to $1 million per year, despite no relevant energy-industry experience.
The statute was notably used in 2018 to indict former Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort, who later pleaded guilty to failing to register as an agent of Yanukovych’s government.
“Leftist prosecutors gave Paul Manafort the functional equivalent of a life sentence for providing real counsel to the Ukrainian government based on decades of experience as a top political adviser,” Miller told The Post. “Hunter Biden was acting as a foreign agent, peddling his family name, with no legitimate experience whatsoever, and yet DOJ apparently couldn’t care less.
“Corruption piled on top of corruption,” he added. “The documents we obtained from the National Archives make clear that Hunter violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act and therefore must be held fully accountable under the law. America First Legal has filed a formal FARA complaint with DOJ to initiate that process. It is also essential that DOJ investigate Joe Biden’s collusive scheme with his son and the pay-for-play scandals that have enriched the Biden family.”
Miller’s group has had prior success with targeted complaints. For example, in October the Office of Special Counsel determined that White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain violated the Hatch Act with a political retweet from his official account, for which Klain received a warning.
Emails from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop and witness observations indicate that Joe Biden as sitting vice president attended a 2015 dinner at DC’s Cafe Milano with Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi and Hunter’s other Russian and Kazakhstani business associates.
Pozharskyi emailed Hunter the next day to thank him for “giving an opportunity to meet your father” — forming the basis of The Post’s first October 2020 bombshell from Hunter Biden’s laptop. Joe Biden called the report a false “Russian plan” at the time and social media platforms Twitter and Facebook initially censored it.
Joe Biden also allegedly was involved with a pair of business dealings in China.
According to the complaint by Miller’s group, “A ‘foreign principal’ under FARA includes a ‘corporation … organized under the laws of or having its principal place of business in a foreign country.”
“Until its dissolution on February 16, 2023, Burisma Holdings Limited was a limited company registered in Cyprus and principally doing business in Ukraine. At all times relevant, Burisma was thus a ‘foreign principal’,” the complaint says.
“Any person who willfully violates any provision of FARA or any regulation thereunder shall, upon conviction thereof, be punished by a fine of not more than $250,000 or by imprisonment for not more than five years.”
Hunter Biden reportedly is under investigation by the US attorney’s office in Delaware for possible tax fraud, illegal foreign lobbying, money laundering and lying about his drug use on a gun-purchase form.