Miranda Devine: Emails show Joe Biden expected slice of Hunter’s income
Hunter Biden felt the pressure and expectations of being his father’s son and has complained about having to give half his salary to now President Joe Biden, writes Miranda Devine.
While Joe Biden careens around the country eating ice cream and behaving like a kind but slightly dotty grandpa, it’s worth remembering the cynical way he used his son Hunter to generate cash for the family.
Hunter, now 51, wanted to be an artist or a writer but he was assigned by his father the role of family breadwinner through lucrative grace-and-favour jobs and sweetheart deals facilitated by Joe’s network of connections in Delaware and, later, throughout the world.
The irresistible temptations of gushing torrents of unaccountable cash would lead Hunter into a brutal addiction to crack cocaine, which he details in his memoir Beautiful Things.
Resentful of the expectations placed on him, Hunter complained he was forced to give half his salary to his father.
“I hope you all can do what I did and pay for everything for this entire family for 30 years,” Hunter wrote in a text message to his daughter Naomi in 2019, found on his abandoned laptop.
“It’s really hard. But don’t worry, unlike Pop [Joe], I won’t make you give me half your salary.”
There’s no direct evidence of such a wealth transfer on Hunter’s laptop.
But what we do know is that, while Joe was vice president, Hunter routinely paid at least some of his household expenses, including AT&T bills of around $190 a month.
We know from an email on June 5 2010, with the subject “JRB bills”, to Hunter from Eric Schwerin, his business partner at Rosemont Seneca, that he was expected to foot hefty bills to contractors in Wilmington, Delaware, for maintenance to his father’s palatial lakefront property. Joe’s initials are JRB — Joseph Robinette Biden.
The bills that June included $2600 to contractor Earle Downing for a “stone retaining wall” at Joe’s Wilmington estate, $1475 to painter Ronald Peacock to paint the “back wall and columns” of the house, and $1239 to builder Mike Christopher for repairs to the airconditioning at the cottage of Joe’s late mother, Jean “Mom-Mom” Biden, which was on his property and which he would later rent to the Secret Service for $2200 a month.
“This is from last summer I think and needs to be paid pretty soon”, wrote Schwerin of Christopher’s bill.
Another $475 “for shutters” was owed to RBI construction, of Bear, Delaware, about a 15 minute drive west of Wilmington.
Schwerin’s email to Hunter begins: “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’.”
He goes on to explain “there is about $2000 extra in ‘my’ account beyond what is used for monthly expenses”.
It is unknown why Schwerin used quotation marks around “my”. But it appears the account is used, at least in part, to pay expenses for Joe.
Three days later Schwerin writes Hunter again: “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 email I sent you let me know.”
In another email to Hunter on July 6, 2010, titled “JRB Future memo”, about a plan apparently devised for Joe’s future wealth management, Schwerin writes: “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 it might be a good time [for] some positive news about his future earnings potential”.
At this point Joe has been vice president for barely 18 months of his eight-year term.
Other documents on the laptop suggest a mingling of Joe’s finances with Hunter’s.
In an email on April 12 2018, to his assistant Katie Dodge, Hunter complains he has been “shut out” of one of his Wells Fargo bank accounts.
“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, paid for past 11 years”.
Further evidence that Joe expected to receive a slice of his son’s income was provided by Tony Bobulinksi, Hunter’s former business partner in a firm called Oneida, which was set up to enter a joint venture with Chinese energy conglomerate CEFC.
Bobulinski says Joe was the “big guy” referred to in a 2017 email who was to be allocated 10 per cent equity in the firm: “10 [per cent] held by H [Hunter] for the big guy”.
Schwerin had been a loyal factotum to Hunter since the days they worked together in the Department of Commerce during the Clinton administration.
As President of Rosemont Seneca, Schwerin would do everything from answer Hunter’s emails to facilitate his alimony payments and organise his trips to China.
His relationship with Hunter later soured but not before he developed a close relationship with the Biden family, including Joe, who attended his birthday dinner at DC’s Graffiato restaurant for 20 minutes one year.
Schwerin also was rewarded with a plum Obama government appointment to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.
Perhaps it was black humour but, in 2014, when Hunter was enmeshed in dubious money-making schemes in at least five countries where Joe wielded power, Schwerin emailed him a quote from the then-VP, answering a question about “the professional choices made by his children” which aired on WLWT Cincinnati.
“I should have one Republican kid who’d grow up to make money,” Joe said.
Miranda Devine is in New York for 18 months to cover current affairs for The Daily Telegraph
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