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New York Post article alleges Hunter Biden introduced former VP Joe Biden to Ukranian official

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Wednesday morning, the New York Post published an article revealing a “smoking-gun email” detailing how former Vice President and current democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden used his influence to set up a meeting between a Ukrainian official and his father.

The emails were reportedly between Hunter Biden and Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings’ third-ranking executive Vadym Pozharskyi. In one alleged May 2014 email, Pozharskyi asked Hunter Biden for “advice on how you could use your influence to convey a message / signal.” This email would have been sent about one month after Hunter Biden joined the board of the Ukrainian natural gas company. 

In another email sent on April 17, 2015, Pozharskyi allegedly thanked Hunter Biden for the chance to meet his father, Joe Biden. “Thank you for inviting me to DC and giving me an opportunity to meet your father and spend some time together.” 

According to the Post, in April of 2019, an unidentified person left a water damaged MacBook Pro at a repair shop in Delaware, the home state of the Biden family. The Post reports that the repair shop owner found that the laptop contained emails and other compromising material about Hunter Biden. The laptop reportedly had a sticker from the Beau Biden Foundation, though the owner of the repair shop was not sure that it belonged to Hunter Biden. 

The shop owner said, according to the Post, that the person who dropped off the laptop “never paid for the service or retrieved it.” The shop owner reportedly tried to contact the client, with no response.  The shop owner contacted federal authorities about the laptop and hard drive, according to the Post. A photo of a federal court subpoena showing that the FBI seized the hard drive and laptop was also included in the article, though it was not clarified why the FBI would need to subpoena the shop owner after they already alerted the authorities on their own. 

According to the report made by the Post, the repair shop owner made a copy of the hard drive and sent it to Robert Costello, a defense attorney who represents Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani is President Trump’s personal defense lawyer and is currently under criminal investigation over whether he violated foreign lobbying laws in Ukraine by the Manhattan US attorney’s office. Giuliani met with a Ukrainian national named Andrii Derkach to discuss efforts to obtain damaging information on Biden before the 2020 election in the same month that the Post said the repair shop owner gave Giuliani’s lawyer a copy of the hard drive (Business Insider). 

Since the early Wednesday morning report on the “smoking-gun email,” the authenticity of the New York Post’s sources have been questioned. “A closer examination of the Post’s story raises several red flags,” writes political correspondent for Business Insider Sonam Sheth. 

The FBI reportedly had evidence that Joe Biden met with an executive from Burisma Holdings since December of 2019 when the House impeached the president, according to Channel 411 News. The Burisma executive was allegedly introduced to Joe Biden by his son, Hunter Biden. Business Insider, however, reports that “there’s no evidence Pozharskyi actually met Joe Biden.” 

Kellyanne Conway, a former White House counselor to President Trump, tweeted, “Biden lied when he denied speaking to his ‘son [Hunter] about his overseas business dealings.’” A reporter asked former Vice President Joe Biden live on CBSN how his role as Vice President and his son’s job in Ukraine is not a conflict of interest. Biden answers, “It’s not a conflict of interest, there’s been no indication of any conflict of interest, from Ukraine or anywhere else. Period! I’m not going to respond to that.”

ARTICLE: EVAN STOGSDILL

POLITICS EDITOR: CARSON CHOATE

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