President Biden used at least three email aliases during his time as vice president in the Obama administration, a move that has ramped up congressional scrutiny of his involvement in his son’s foreign business deals.
White House records show that Mr. Biden used the name “Robert L. Peters” while serving as vice president. House investigators say Mr. Biden also disguised his name on emails using the pseudonyms “Robin Ware” and “JRB Ware,” a play on his middle name and initials paired with his home state of Delaware.
Mr. Biden has not explained why he used the aliases, but the tactic has raised the suspicions of House investigators who are probing the Biden family’s foreign business deals and how extensive a role Mr. Biden played in securing them while he was vice president and after leaving office.
The Washington Times reported in July that the National Archives had released a May 26, 2016, White House scheduling email sent to then-Vice President Biden ahead of a call with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The email copied in his son Hunter Biden, who at the time was serving on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holding, which was looking to shake off a corruption probe.
The email about the Poroshenko call was sent to Mr. Biden under the pseudonym Robert L. Peters.
Email aliases are not new for top government officials. President Barack Obama used one while in office, as did then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
House investigators are concerned that Mr. Biden was using several aliases to hide his involvement in his son’s business deals.
The House Oversight and Accountability Committee, which is seeking to scour National Archives records to find out more about Mr. Biden’s email aliases, has already scrutinized bank records provided by financial institutions that show nine Biden family members, including a granddaughter of the president, pocketed money from the foreign business deals. The deals netted the family and a small group of business associates more than $20 million, bank records show.
New testimony from Hunter Biden’s ex-business associate Devon Archer revealed then-Vice President Biden was used to leverage the deals by serving as the “brand” that his son and business partners could sell to foreign business partners from China, Russia, Ukraine and other countries.
Mr. Biden, according to Archer, phoned in to 20 of his son’s foreign business deals and appeared at two dinners his son was holding with business associates. He did not talk business, Archer said, but chatted about the weather and other unrelated topics.
Additional evidence surfaced when the House heard testimony from IRS whistleblowers who were assigned to probe Hunter Biden’s tax crimes.
According to IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, Biden business associate Rob Walker told investigators that Mr. Biden stopped by the Four Seasons Hotel, where Mr. Walker and Hunter Biden were dining with executives of CEFC, a Chinese energy company tied to the Chinese Communist Party.
“He stopped in, just to say hello to everybody,” Mr. Walker told the agents. He said it was after Mr. Biden’s vice presidential term had ended. Mr. Biden “literally sat down. … I don’t even think he drank water,” Mr. Walker said.
Hunter Biden, family members and associates ultimately pocked millions from CEFC and Hunter Biden received an $80,000 diamond from CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming.
Archer, who is facing a prison term on an unrelated securities fraud conviction, told House investigators that Hunter Biden and Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky called then-Vice President Biden from Dubai to seek help regarding the pressure Burisma was under due to a state-run corruption probe it was trying to thwart.
At the time, Hunter Biden and Archer were hired for million-dollar annual salaries to serve on the board of Burisma. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin was bearing down on the company and seized property from Mr. Zlochevsky.
Mr. Poroshenko fired Mr. Shokin in March 2016.
Mr. Biden in 2018 bragged that he was responsible for Mr. Shokin’s ouster after threatening Mr. Poroshenko he’d withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if he did not fire him.
“If the prosecutor is not fired, you are not getting the money,” Mr. Biden said he told Mr. Poroshenko.
It is not clear whether Hunter Biden was involved in the May 27, 2016 phone call from Mr. Biden to Mr. Poroshenko, or whether he was only copied in on the email alerting the vice president to the schedule.
According to a readout of the call provided by the White House, the two leaders “discussed the importance of continuing to institute reforms in the Office of the Prosecutor General, and the significance of Ukraine’s progress toward implementing judicial reforms and meeting IMF conditions,” among other matters.
• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.