That some Biden family confidantes had roles that cut across supposedly separate spheres of influence is noteworthy because of how often Joe Biden has claimed to have no knowledge whatsoever of his son's business dealings.
Joe Biden has since pivoted to claiming that he was never “in business” with his son. Some of the aides who have worked for him, however, could not say the same.
HERE’S HOW TRUMP'S 2024 RIVALS CAN GET UNDER HIS SKIN
For example, Anne Marie Person was an employee at Rosemont Seneca, Hunter Biden's now-defunct company, for several years and appeared to help manage his schedule and logistics, according to emails from his abandoned laptop.
In May 2014, Person joined then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office and took what appeared to be a similar role for Hunter Biden’s father. While working for the vice president, Person appeared to keep in touch with Hunter Biden, including by offering to set up a White House tour for someone Hunter Biden knew through his business, emails show.
Person married another Rosemont Seneca employee, Michael Muldoon, who also eventually left Hunter Biden’s firm for a job in the Obama administration.
Muldoon appeared to serve in a higher-level role for Rosemont Seneca, helping Hunter Biden and his partners advance foreign business deals, emails suggest.
By 2012, however, Muldoon had taken a job at the U.S. Agency for International Development. He worked as an investment officer in the Development Credit Authority, a part of USAID that handled loan guarantees for private entities.
Hunter Biden’s business associates spent time attempting to make inroads at USAID on behalf of Burisma, the Ukrainian energy company on whose board Hunter Biden served for years.
A 2014 partnership between USAID and Burisma raised red flags for some State Department officials, according to a report released by the Senate Homeland Security Committee in 2020. The State Department put an end to it due to concerns about corruption at Burisma.
There’s no evidence Muldoon was involved in the USAID partnership.
However, the fact that a former Rosemont Seneca executive worked at USAID while the agency struck an agreement with Burisma, and while Joe Biden was vice president, created at least the appearance of a conflict of interest — the type Joe Biden had pledged to be avoiding.
During the course of seeking out clients overseas, Hunter Biden discussed potential deals in Serbia with Mark Doyle, a former senior adviser to his father and the financial director of Joe Biden’s 2008 presidential bid.
In 2010, emails show, Doyle told Hunter Biden that the then-president of Serbia and his staff were “very willing to help you with your fund.” Doyle was then a registered lobbyist for Serbia.
Around the same time, Doyle also appeared to be bundling checks for Beau Biden’s successful run for attorney general of Delaware.
Doyle attempted to facilitate several different deals with Hunter Biden, including one with the Saudi Business Council. It’s unclear whether any came to fruition.
Doyle went on to start a political action committee for Joe Biden in 2019 as he embarked on his successful run for president, raising millions of dollars for Joe Biden’s campaign.
Mark Gitenstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Romania during the Obama administration and currently the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, appeared to advise Hunter Biden’s business at least informally about a Romanian investigation into a top businessman in Romania, who was a client of Hunter Biden’s.
“Looks like this will not help your client,” Gitenstein wrote to Hunter Biden and his business partners in 2016, forwarding along a message from State Department officials. Gitenstein had by then left government for a stint in the private sector.
In another email, Hunter Biden mentioned that he’d spoken to Gitenstein about people he could recruit to speak out on behalf of the Romanian businessman.
Eric Schwerin was one of Hunter Biden’s closest business associates at Rosemont Seneca, involved in everything from foreign deals to the Biden family’s personal finances.
Schwerin visited the White House dozens of times while Joe Biden was vice president, visitor logs show, and received a high-level government appointment from the Obama administration in 2015.
Schwerin was named to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad.
Hunter Biden also appeared to advise his father’s office on a key hire.
He successfully helped Kathy Chung, a Senate aide at the time to then-Delaware Sen. Ted Kaufman, get a job in his father’s office in 2012.
Chung kept the lines of communication between Hunter Biden and his business partners during her years working in the vice president’s office as an executive assistant. She regularly looped Schwerin and other Rosemont Seneca employees into correspondence about Joe Biden’s official business.
In 2017, with his father out of office, Hunter Biden tried to recruit Chung to come and work for him “so that I can make everyone money,” he wrote in a 2017 email.
Chung did not appear to do so. She remained on Joe Biden’s personal staff and was later singled out as the aide responsible for packing up the classified documents discovered in Joe Biden’s private office.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Rob Walker was one of Hunter Biden’s closest business associates and an executive at Rosemont Seneca.
His wife, Betsy Massey Walker, served as a personal aide to then-second lady Jill Biden.