WASHINGTON — In a striking apparent Freudian slip, President Biden told Greek Orthodox leader “Father Alex” Karloutsos Wednesday that “I’m gonna ruin your reputation by talking” at a White House event.
The 80-year-old president made the bizarre remark to Karloutsos, vicar general of the Greek Orthodox in America, at a celebration of Greek independence also attended by actor Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson.
Karloutsos, 77, reportedly attended an infamous April 16, 2015, dinner at DC’s Cafe Milano with then-VP Biden, his son Hunter Biden and international business associates from Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.
The dinner featured Vadym Pozharskyi of Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, which paid Hunter Biden up to $1 million per year to serve on its board as Joe Biden led the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy, former Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov and his wife Yelena Baturina, who sought out property investments with Hunter Biden, and a trio of Kazakhstani business associates.
Pozharskyi emailed Hunter Biden one day after the dinner to thank him for “giving an opportunity to meet your father.”
The note formed the basis of The Post’s first bombshell report in October 2020 on documents from the first son’s abandoned laptop — directly contradicting Joe Biden’s claim that “I have never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”
Karloutsos got a front-row seat in the White House East Room not far from Hanks.
“It’s great to be here with friends like Father Alex — father, I’m gonna ruin your reputation by talking,” Biden said.
The president added, jokingly, “And the only reason I ran for president and got elected was so I could award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom last year.”
“As a matter of fact father, I still haven’t figured out, am I the reason I’ve been made an archon? Is that what happened?” Biden went on, possibly referring to an award he received from the church in October 2015.
“I don’t know, but you’ve been a great friend for a long time and your family as well have been great friends of ours,” the president concluded.
Moments later, the president took a seat one seat from Karloutsos, who proceeded to lean over Archbishop Elpidophoros Lambriniadis to have an at-times animated conversion with Biden.
Biden left room after calling Hanks, whose Greek-American wife performed three songs at the event, on stage and praising the “loyalty” of Greeks.
“The one thing about the Greek community I’ve learned over these years — and it’s been 50 years, I hate to admit it, it’s that long — but is loyalty, loyalty, loyalty. And I tell ya, I think my sister and I, my family and I, have returned it. But you’ve been incredibly, incredibly loyal,” Biden said.
“You know father, I’m not joking about my affection for the church,” Biden added to Karloutsos.
Hanks, addressing his own attendance, said, “I am not Greek, but I had the good sense to marry one.”
Biden left the East Room without answering The Post’s question about why he met with his family’s foreign business associates.
Father Alex also did not respond to The Post’s attempt to ask a question about his conversation with Biden.
At the time of The Post’s initial reporting on Hunter Biden’s laptop, Biden — who also met with his son’s Chinese and Mexican associates — vaguely denied the report and social media platforms censored the article for being potential misinformation or the byproduct of hacking.
It’s unclear if Karloutsos has ever publicly commented on the business dinner.
Ahead of the meal, Hunter wrote that the gathering would be “ostensibly” about his role a chairman of the World Food Program USA.
The Washington Post reported in 2021 that “Joe Biden only dropped by briefly to meet with one of the guests, Alex Karloutsos,” according to Rick Leach, former president and chief executive of WFP USA.
However, two other attendees told The Post that Joe Biden sat down and ate — with one guest saying the sitting vice president stayed about 40 minutes and even posed with the Kazakhstani group in a photo that emerged after he won the presidency.
“It was an odd dinner because there was [then-Kazakhstani Prime Minister Karim] Massimov, Luzhkov and his wife and it was not a big table and then there was somebody there from some food charity making a pitch for support,” a fellow guest told The Post. “I mean, it was was it was a little odd, the whole thing.”
Baturina is one of a dwindling list of Russian oligarchs who has not yet faced US sanctions over the more than one-year-old Russian invasion of Ukraine. Another Russian oligarch who sought out US property investments with Hunter Biden, Vladimir Yevtushenkov, also has managed to avoid Biden administration sanctions.
