Joe Biden retained classified information on the Obama administration’s Ukraine policy he spearheaded as vice president, Special Counsel Robert Hur’s team discovered.
Hur, who investigated Joe Biden’s retention of classified documents when he was a private citizen, released a report Thursday in which he concluded that Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” but declined to pursue charges.
Among the documents recovered was a transcript of a Dec. 11, 2015 phone call between then-Vice President Biden and then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, according to Hur’s report.
Federal investigators found a handwritten note with a tipsheet for the phone call Joe Biden placed in a red “VP Personal” fold in addition to the transcript. (RELATED: Special Counsel Calls Biden ‘Well-Meaning Elderly Man With A Poor Memory’)
READ THE REPORT:
“Get [a] copy of this conversation from Sit Rm for my Records please,” the note to Biden’s assistant says. Biden’s signature is at the end of the note.
Biden’s attorneys and the DOJ discovered the documents at his Delaware residence and at his former office at D.C.’s Penn Biden Center between Nov. 2022 and Jan. 2023
At the time of the phone call with Yatsenyuk, Biden’s son Hunter was making more than $80,000 per month as a board member of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings, bank records show. He joined the company in spring 2014 despite lacking experience in either Ukraine or the energy sector. He departed the firm in 2019, when his father was a private citizen and possessed the classified documents.
Ahead of his appointment with Burisma, Hunter Biden sent then-business partner Devon Archer, who served alongside Biden on Burisma’s board, detailed information about Ukraine’s political situation and energy sector. (RELATED: Former Burisma Lawyer John Buretta Files Retroactive FARA Disclosure As Biden Impeachment Inquiry Progresses)
In Dec. 2015, Joe Biden took a trip to Ukraine and spoke to the country’s parliament, urging them to step up anti-corruption measures, according to an archived transcript of his speech.
A few months later, Ukraine fired its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, an individual viewed by Burisma as a “threat” to its business, Devon Archer told Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson in August. (RELATED: The Biggest Question From Devon Archer’s Testimony About The Biden Family Remains Unanswered)
Carlson interviewed Archer in the days following his testimony before the House Oversight Committee. Archer told lawmakers the Biden family “brand” protected Burisma from scrutiny and recalled a spring 2015 dinner attended by then-VP Biden and Burisma executive Vadim Pozharskyi.
.@TuckerCarlson: “Why would Western powers even get involved in who the chief prosecutor in Ukraine is?”
ARCHER: “That’s a question that I don’t know.”
TUCKER: “Within Burisma, Shokin was considered a threat to your business?”
ARCHER: “Shokin was considered a threat.” pic.twitter.com/jBPSkIryk1
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) August 4, 2023
Joe Biden subsequently bragged on multiple occasions about how he leveraged $1 billion in U.S. assistance to pressure Ukraine into firing Shokin. Yuriy Lutsenko, who replaced Shokin as prosecutor general, cleared Burisma and its founder Mykola Zlochevsky — whose property had reportedly been raided by Shokin right before his dismissal — of all charges.
Blue Star Strategies, a lobbying firm Burisma hired in late 2015, sent the company Joe Biden’s talking points right before the Ukraine trip took place. When Zlochevsky was let off the following year, the lobbyists took a “victory lap” with Hunter Biden’s then-business associate Eric Schwerin, emails show.
Schwerin exchanged over 50 private emails with one of Joe Biden’s email aliases, and many of those emails were sent around the time of a June 2014 trip the sitting vice president took to Ukraine, House investigators revealed in December. Schwerin testified in January and said he conducted financial services for Joe Biden free of charge, a source familiar told the Caller.
Joe Biden denied on Dec. 6 ever speaking with his son’s business associates, despite evidence indicating otherwise.
Burisma significantly reduced Hunter Biden’s salary once his father left office, according to Hunter Biden’s federal tax indictment in California. Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to the tax charges at an arraignment on Jan. 11.
Federal investigators found additional documents related to Ukraine in Biden’s possession, including a confidential Sept. 2014 memo prepared by Biden staffers covering U.S. energy assistance to Ukraine, Hur’s report indicates. Joe Biden kept the memo in a binder that appears to have been used to prepare for an interview with former CBS anchor Charlie Rose.
The Biden family’s foreign business dealings are the focus of House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, one of the leaders of the inquiry, said in a statement Thursday that he will continue to investigate the classified documents possessed by Joe Biden. (RELATED: Chinese Firm Paid Hunter And James Biden Millions For Attempting To Secure US Energy Deals, Testimony Shows)
🚨 Chairman Comer Statement on Special Counsel Hur’s Report
“Americans expect equal justice under the law and are dismayed the Justice Department continues to allow Joe Biden to live above it. Joe Biden willfully retained classified documents for years in unsecure locations and…
— Oversight Committee (@GOPoversight) February 8, 2024
“The House Oversight Committee has been investigating Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and we have uncovered key facts that unravel the White House’s and President Biden’s personal attorney’s narrative of events,” Comer said. (RELATED: Former Joe Biden Aide Recommended By Hunter Biden Handled Classified Documents, House Oversight Reveals)
“Additionally, important questions remain about the extent of Joe Biden retaining sensitive materials related to specific countries involving his family’s influence peddling schemes that brought in millions for the Bidens,” he continued. “While the Justice Department has closed its investigation, the Oversight Committee’s investigation continues. We will continue to provide the transparency and accountability owed to the American people.”
The special counsel declined to pursue criminal charges against the sitting president despite concluding that he willfully held classified documents. The report also details problems with the president’s memory, noting that during interviews he appeared to forgot when he was vice president and when his late son Beau passed away.
“I cooperated completely, threw up no roadblocks, and sought no delays. In fact, I was so determined to give the Special Counsel what they needed that I went forward with five hours of in-person interviews over two days on October 8th and 9th of last year,” President Biden said in a statement. “I just believed that’s what I owed the American people so they could know no charges would be brought and the matter closed.”