Hunter Biden is yet again making headlines as the New York Times continues digging into his business. On Tuesday, the newspaper sued the S...
Hunter Biden is yet again making headlines as the New York Times continues digging into his business.
On Tuesday, the newspaper sued the State Department to obtain emails from the Romanian embassy from 2015 to 2019. These emails mention a number of international business people, including Hunter Biden and his former business contact Tony Bobulinski, as Politico reported.
The New York Times is blaming the State Department for not handing over documents in a timely matter that it had requested through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the New York Post reported.
The FOIA requests were sent last June. When the Times asked the State Department in December for an ETA on when they would receive the requested documents, the State Department said April 15, 2023.
The FOIA requests also seek information on Rudy Giuliani, who former President Donald Trump had used to look into Hunter Biden’s connections in Ukraine.
“One of the Times’ goals in the suit appears to be finding out whether embassy officials did any favors on behalf of private businesses (including, presumably, that of the president’s son) that would raise questions about possible conflicts of interest and corruption,” Politico reported.
The FOIA request also seeks to discover “(1) the possible improper use of federal government resources to assist and advance private business interests with connections to United States government officials and (2) the possible evasion of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) by those private business interests, and (3) the non-enforcement of FARA by the federal government in relation to those private business interests.”
Though the New York Times lawsuit is new, this is just one more development in continuing investigations that have surrounded Hunter Biden, which has naturally also led to queries about whether Joe Biden has had any connections to his son’s questionable business.
Joe Biden said in 2019 that he had “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings,” as the New York Post reported.
But in 2019, the FBI took possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop that allegedly had his business documents and other personal materials. Emails recovered from the laptop showed that Hunter Biden had introduced his father, who was still vice-president at the time, to a Ukrainian executive from a top energy firm.
That took place less than a year before Biden pressured Ukrainian government officials to fire a prosecutor who was investigating the company, as the New York Post reported.
All the entanglements of the Bidens and their international business dealings came to the forefront in 2020 as Biden and Trump campaigned. Trump’s ally, Rudy Giuliani, gave the New York Post a copy of the hard drive and the Post began reporting on the details.
Then in 2020, Trump told his Attorney General William Barr that he had to act and appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden before the election, as the Guardian reported.
The probe had many political implications, but Barr did make it clear that Joe Biden was not under investigation, as CNN reported.
The probe brought many questions about the Bidens’ business dealings internationally, what Joe Biden may and may not have known, whether the evidence on the laptop was legitimate, and more. These questions persisted and resurfaced throughout Biden’s first year as president, and now it’s making headlines again as the New York Times is getting involved.
The New York Times said that its investigations and requests for information from the State Department are part of its work.
“As a routine part of their reporting, New York Times journalists regularly seek potentially newsworthy information from a variety of sources, including from the U.S. government through FOIA requests,” a spokesperson for the Times told Politico.
“We’re hopeful the government will promptly release any relevant documents, and as always we are prepared to pursue our request through a lawsuit if necessary. Just as we do on any line of reporting, we will assess the newsworthiness of the material once we receive it,” they added.
The New York Times’ investigations and pressure on the State Department just increases the spotlight that was already being shined on Hunter Biden.
In the midst of this legal battle between the New York Times and the State Department, the State Department has remained silent.
Insider reached out to the State Department, but a spokesperson said that they could not comment on active legal proceedings.
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