Hunter biz pal Joe’s ‘counsel’
Focus on the fact that you have been a close confidant and counsel to him.
Hunter Biden described his longtime business partner Eric Schwerin as a “close confidant and counsel” to then-Vice President Joe Biden, a newly discovered email from the first son’s infamous laptop shows, casting fresh doubt on the president’s claim to have never talked business with his offspring.
The younger Biden, now 53, made the comment in a February 2014 exchange with Schwerin, who asked Hunter to review a letter of recommendation he’d written for Joe Biden to send.
“Can you take a quick look at the attached? I am going to send it to your Dad (via Kathy) tomorrow and wanted to make sure you think this isn’t too over the top and that you think your Dad would be comfortable sending it,” wrote Schwerin, who was president of Hunter’s since-dissolved Rosemont Seneca Partners investment fund, in the Feb. 18 email.
The attached file was titled “JRB CFR Rec,” an apparent reference to the Council on Foreign Relations. The email, posted online by the nonprofit research group Marco Polo USA, also named Joe Biden’s longtime executive assistant, Kathy Chung.
Hunter responded to the message Feb. 22, telling Schwerin the letter was “good” before suggesting that he “tone down the ‘he and my son’ parts.”
“I think it’s better to just focus on the fact that you have been a close confidant and counsel to him and just say somewhere something like ‘as a business partner with my son at Rosemont Seneca,’ ” Hunter said.
Schwerin replied a few hours later, saying: “That was one part I was unsure of — was trying to make sure the reader understood there was a real relationship that it wasn’t just a letter he was writing for a friend of a friend or something.”
He added: “I already sent to Kathy but not sure she gave it to him yet so I will make those changes.”
In March 2015, 13 months after the exchange, then-President Barack Obama announced he was appointing Schwerin to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, which works to preserve US-linked historic places in Central and Eastern Europe.
Biden has repeatedly insisted he has “never spoken” with Hunter about the family’s overseas interests. However, Schwerin has longstanding
Hunter Biden (above, right) to Eric Schwerin (left) about Joe Biden ties to the Biden family, to the point that he visited the White House and other official venues 27 times when Biden served as Obama’s vice president.
Family finances
Other emails from the laptop also point to how Schwerin had been deeply involved in the Biden clan’s finances, having moved money around for both father and son.
Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, also wrote in her memoir, “If We Break,” of an encounter with Schwerin at a party in the Dominican Republic: “By now, Eric had managed almost every aspect of our financial lives, so our relationship was an awkward one. One born out of mutual need, perhaps. But I trusted him.”
Still more emails from 2010 show Schwerin was looped in on the transfer of Joe Biden’s Senate papers to the University of Delaware, a haul which was later searched by investigators probing Biden’s mishandling of “sensitive” and “classified” documents.
Schwerin hasn’t been accused of any wrongdoing as Hunter continues to face a federal probe for possible tax fraud and other violations stemming from his overseas business dealings.
Schwerin is among those who have been asked to provide records — including those related to Hunter’s interests in Ukraine and China — to the House Oversight Committee amid the investigation into whether members of the Biden family used the then-vice president’s name as leverage.
A committee spokesperson told The Post last week that Schwerin’s attorney was expected to start turning over documents “soon,” but Hunter’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, had so far refused to honor the request.