Written by Nathaniel Reed.

Hunter Biden played a crucial role in securing a lucrative retainer for the U.S. law firm Boies Schiller & Flexner with Burisma Holdings a decade ago. The firm’s lawyers crafted a 58-page plan to extricate the controversial energy company from an ongoing criminal investigation in Ukraine. This effort heavily relied on influencing the administration of his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, according to FBI-gathered evidence.

This “legal defense plan” memo, obtained by Just the News, is part of a trove of 3.39 million pages of evidence seized by federal agents during the 2016 election as part of a securities fraud investigation targeting some of Hunter Biden’s business partners. These documents are now in Congress’s possession.

The June 2014 document, not found on Hunter Biden’s laptop seized in 2019, was instead held by his closest business associate, Devon Archer, who is now cooperating with the House GOP impeachment probe of President Joe Biden. It offers a detailed view of how Hunter Biden, his business partners, and his colleagues at Boies Schiller & Flexner intended to leverage Washington influence—from the State Department to Congress—to pressure Ukrainian authorities into dropping their criminal investigation of Burisma.

A Strategic Memo and Political Influence

At the time, Joe Biden, as Vice President, was tasked by President Barack Obama with overseeing U.S.-Ukraine policy. The memo outlined several key figures in Washington whom the Burisma legal campaign aimed to contact, including Amos Hochstein, a longtime adviser to Joe Biden. Hochstein continues to work for Biden in his presidential administration.

The plan’s primary goal was to engage U.S. officials in Washington to brief them on Burisma’s significance to Ukraine’s future and the detrimental impact of a legal challenge on U.S. and Ukrainian national interests. This effort was part of a broader strategy to change the narrative around Burisma, which the Obama-Biden State Department had deemed corrupt and suspected of bribery, as testified during President Donald Trump’s 2019 impeachment.

The memo detailed strategies for mitigating Burisma’s legal risks at the moment it added Hunter Biden to its board, paying him millions from 2014 to 2017. “Burisma has been advised that it is the subject of a criminal investigation…the investigation is politically motivated,” the draft memo stated. This assertion has drawn congressional investigators’ attention, as Democrats have previously claimed Burisma was not under scrutiny when then-Vice President Joe Biden sought the firing of Ukraine’s lead prosecutor in 2015, linking that demand to a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee for Ukraine.

The Fallout and Congressional Investigations

By May 2014, Hunter Biden had received direct information about the criminal investigation’s status from top Burisma executives. An email from a Burisma executive detailed ongoing criminal probe evidence, including “official letters” citing misappropriation and embezzlement charges under the Ukrainian Criminal Code.

These memos are the latest evidence suggesting Ukrainian authorities were investigating Burisma and its founder when Vice President Biden traveled to Kyiv in December 2015. During that visit, Biden tied U.S. aid to the firing of Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, part of an anti-corruption push. Biden later boasted on C-SPAN that he demanded Shokin’s firing to release the aid.

Emails from November 2015 show top Burisma official Vadym Pozharskyi revealing that hiring Blue Star Strategies aimed to close cases against Burisma’s founder, Mykola Zlochevsky. Documents from IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, along with Devon Archer’s testimony, indicate Burisma was actively working to undermine the investigation while then-Vice President Biden led U.S. Ukraine policy.

After Shokin’s dismissal in early 2016, his successor shut down the Burisma investigation. An email chain among Blue Star Strategies executives and Hunter Biden’s associate Eric Schwerin celebrated the end of the probe. “We won and in less than a year. Yea!!!!” Blue Star’s Sally Painter wrote to Schwerin.

Hunter Biden’s emails also show he was instrumental in securing the retainer for Boies Schiller, leveraging his incoming board position at Burisma. He expressed a desire for his involvement to remain financially untraceable, emphasizing he did not want any Burisma payments to be tracked back to him.

Our Take

The revelations about Hunter Biden’s involvement in Burisma’s legal strategy and the broader efforts to influence U.S. policy underscore significant ethical and legal concerns. The use of political connections to shield a company from criminal investigation challenges the integrity of public office. These actions highlight the need for transparency and accountability in government dealings, ensuring that political influence is not misused for personal or corporate gain.