Emails from first son Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop show that one of his business partners in an alleged influence-peddling operation helped coordinate the transfer of President Biden’s Senate papers to the University of Delaware — a haul which may have included “sensitive” and “classified” documents.
Former Rosemont Seneca Advisors President Eric Schwerin communicated with Biden’s deputy counsels Katherine Oyama and Michael Mongan in the lead-up to the delivery of the trove, and concerns were expressed by the Obama White House about the contents of the donation.
“Eric: Cynthia [Hogan, Joe Biden’s White House counsel] requested that I e-mail you the draft deed of gift for the Vice President’s senate [sic] papers, which was submitted to our office in the fall … Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions,” Mongan emailed Schwerin on March 12, 2010, a message posted online by the nonprofit research group Marco Polo USA.
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Three days later, Oyama followed up with Schwerin and passed along concerns raised by Hogan.
“As you can see, the terms contained in the current draft are very favorable to the University,” Oyama wrote. “Cynthia also asked me to note that due to the political sensitivities associated with any public release of the Vice President’s Senate papers, both the Office of the Vice President and the White House will have strong views on some of these items, especially those related to the timing and scope of any public release.”
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Among other issues, Oyama went on, the draft proposal for the transfer “does not set forth a procedure for withholding sensitive or personal materials,” and “appears to include Obama-Biden transition papers, which the Vice President likely does not own.”
The lawyer also noted the need to insert a provision outlining “the University’s duty to comply with privacy laws, rules governing the handling of Committee records, classified information procedures, etc.”
Fewer than two hours later, Schwerin forwarded Oyama’s email to Hunter Biden’s Rosemont Seneca email account, telling him “FYI – if you want to be in the loop.”
It is unclear how the issues raised by Biden’s White House lawyers were resolved. In the end, 1,850 boxes of files from the then-vice president’s DC office were delivered to University of Delaware in June 2012 on 33 pallets carried by two trucks, according to media reports at the time. Also included in the gift to the 80-year-old president’s alma mater were 415 gigabytes of electronic records.
Last month, classified material dating back to Biden’s time in the Senate was found at his home in Wilmington, Del., prompting calls for a search of the University of Delaware archive.
“The next step in this scandal is going to be, OK, if Biden’s Senate documents include classified documents outside of classified settings — which is illegal — how many more classified documents are illegally in his Senate papers?” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said on his “Verdict” podcast Jan. 23.
“The University of Delaware has said, nope, they’re not releasing the documents to anybody until two years after Biden retires from public life,” he added.
“I am right now calling for the Department of Justice, for the FBI to examine all 1,850 boxes of those Senate records to see how many additional classified documents are in those records,” Cruz continued. “The answer should be none. But given Biden’s pattern, we should have zero confidence that there are not multiple classified documents within those 1,850 boxes of Senate records.”
The Biden administration has referred questions about a potential search of the University of Delaware facility to the White House counsel’s office, which has dubiously claimed to have been fully transparent with the ongoing investigation. Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed special counsel Robert Hur to conduct a criminal probe into mishandling of classified material by Biden or others in his orbit.
Rosemont Seneca Advisors, a now-defunct investment firm co-founded and run by Hunter Biden, and its affiliates have come under scrutiny amid revelations that the first son secured meetings with top state-linked Chinese companies while representing Rosemont during trips to Beijing while his dad was veep.
One Rosemont affiliate is also accused of receiving a mysterious $3.5 million payment from Elena Baturina, the richest woman in Russia and the widow of Yury Luzhkov, the former mayor of Moscow, according to a Senate report.