House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., said on Thursday that a 2015 "damning picture" of then-Vice President Joe Biden with an adviser linked to Hunter Biden is "further evidence" that the current president was aware of his son's corrupt dealings in Ukraine.
The photo in question, taken aboard Air Force Two en route to Ukraine, is of Joe Biden being briefed by then-State Department official Adam Hochstein, who is currently special presidential coordinator to Biden.
At the time, Hochstein was in communication with Hunter Biden and his associates at Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings Ltd., Stefanik asserted. And this particular flight shuttled Biden to Kiev in December 2015 to meet with Ukrainian leaders, the meeting where he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if they did not fire top prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Burisma at the time, she said.
"This damning picture of then Vice President Joe Biden on Air Force Two en route to Ukraine is just further evidence that Biden & senior officials knew of Hunter Biden's corrupt foreign business dealings," Stefanik posted to X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter.
The photo "is just further evidence that Biden and senior officials in the Biden administration not only knew of Hunter Biden's corrupt foreign business dealings, but also that Joe Biden was intimately involved while Vice President," Stefanik said later in a statement to Fox News.
"At the time of this photo, Hochstein was in communication with Hunter Biden and Burisma where Hunter served on the board," she added in her statement to Fox. "We also know that this photo was taken on Air Force Two ahead of Joe Biden's now infamous meeting with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, where Biden threatened to have aid withheld if a Ukrainian prosecutor investigating Burisma was not fired.
"All evidence points directly to Joe Biden being deeply compromised," she said. "House Republicans will leave no stone unturned in our investigations into Biden's involvement in his family's influence peddling scheme."
Fox News reported in June that it had obtained emails that showed Hunter Biden and his associates contacting Hochstein for guidance in 2014 about a new tax on energy companies in Ukraine.
Hochstein told Congress in 2020 that he "raised concerns with Vice President Biden, as well as with Hunter Biden" in October 2015, and "that Hunter Biden's position on Burisma's board enabled Russian disinformation efforts and risked undermining U.S. policy in Ukraine."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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