JUST TYE NEWS
In late November 2014 — before the rest of the world knew that American Martin O’Connor was about to be released from detention in Turkey — the U.S. embassy in Istanbul sent an email to the State Department that was then forwarded to senior advisers to then-Vice President Joe Biden, the Obama White House point man for many foreign policy crises.
“The lead attorney for Mr. O’Connor reports that the court granted the detention appeal and he expected Mr. O’Connor to be released from jail today, barring any unforeseen problems,” the U.S. embassy in Istanbul wrote in an email that got forwarded to top Obama administration security and diplomacy officials, including current Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland. “Mr. O’Connor will not be allowed to leave the country until his next hearing which is set for December 11, 2014. The lawyer expressed confidence that he will be able to leave after that hearing. The attorney is handling his release arrangements, pick up and temporary housing near his law firm’s office. Istanbul consular plans to speak with Mr. O’Connor after his release.”
State Department officials forwarded the information to the vice president’s office, where Biden aide Colin Kahl (now President Biden’s Undersecretrary of Defense for Policy) sent it to the private email account robinware456@gmail.com. It wasn’t just any private account. It was one of three pseudonym accounts used by Joe Biden.
Soon after the then-vice president would forward the information to his globetrotting son Hunter Biden with the subject line “Fwd: Mr. O’Connor Being Released from Detention today.”
The email is one of more than a dozen that Just the News obtained and reviewed over the last two years showing how Joe Biden’s personal email accounts were sometimes used during his first White House tenure to forward government information or discuss government business with his son.
The practice is now at the center of the expanding congressional investigation into the Bidens’ foreign business dealings as House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer demands the National Archives turn over unredacted copies all emails Joe Biden sent his son and Hunter’s top business partners during his time in the Obama administration.
“The Committee’s need for these Vice-Presidential records is specific and well- documented,” Comer wrote Thursday to Colleen Shogam, the head of the the National Archives and Records Administration. “The Committee seeks to craft legislative solutions aimed at deficiencies it has identified in the current legal framework regarding ethics laws and disclosure of financial interests related to the immediate family members of Vice Presidents and Presidents— deficiencies that may place American national security and interests at risk.”
You can read the full letter here.
Comer’s inquiry was prompted by an email quietly released in January as part of the Obama presidential archives. In it, a White House staffer writes Joe Biden on a personal pseudonym email account named Robert L. Peters about a planned call with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The staffer copied Hunter Biden’s email address at Rosemont Seneca Partners.
At the time, Hunter Biden served on the board of a Ukrainian gas company called Burisma Holdings that was deemed to be corrupt by the Obama-Biden State Department.
“Boss–8:45am prep for 9am phone call with Pres Poroshenko. Then we’re off to Rhode Island for infrastructure event and then Wilmington for UDel commencement,” the staffer wrote the then-vice president. “Nate will have your draft remarks delivered later tonight or with your press clips in the morning.”
