by Sinclair Broadcast GroupSunday, November 1st 2020

WASHINGTON (SBG) – Former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has been thrust into the 2020 spotlight mere days before the presidential election. The New York Post said on Oct. 14 that Joe Biden knew about his son’s business dealings in China and Ukraine. The Post published content from a cache of emails the newspaper got from a laptop Hunter Biden reportedly dropped off at a Delaware shop. Sinclair Broadcast Group has been unable to verify this report.

Hunter Biden was discharged from the Navy Reserve in early 2014 after being caught with cocaine in his system. Emails allegedly show Hunter and his business partners began formulating a deal with Ukraine’s largest energy company Burisma and its owner, Nikolay Zlochevskyi.

Around the same time, the White House announced his father, Vice President Joe Biden, would focus on Ukraine policy and make a trip there. Burisma, caught in the middle of fraud probes, seemed anxious to use the Biden name to deflect ongoing controversy. A few days after Joe Biden touched down, his son Hunter was on the company’s board of directors. Not long after the visit, Burisma made a $250,000 payment to the law firm where Hunter worked, according to emails.

By November 2015, the emails say Burisma named Ukraine’s prosecutor general Viktor Shokin as one of the “key targets” Hunter and his partners should focus on, with “high-ranking U.S. officials … with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases.”

Within weeks, Hunter and the company got an advance briefing of a trip where Vice President Biden would put Shokin in the crosshairs, according to emails. Joe Biden later recounted how he got Ukraine’s president to fire Shokin by threatening to hold back $1 billion in U.S. funds. Biden contends Shokin hadn’t “fought corruption hard enough” and and his firing made it more, not less likely, Burisma would be thoroughly investigated.

In January 2017, just before President Donald Trump took office, Burisma announced all cases against it were closed. Today, two of Hunter’s former business partners, including the one from the Ukraine deal, are in prison on unrelated charges. The Biden family has not commented on the accuracy of the emails.