Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from Myah Ward. Send tips | Subscribe here| Email Eli | Email Lauren Biden world, writ large, has long maintained that the president’s son, HUNTER BIDEN, acted in compliance with the law as he undertook various business ventures overseas. But that doesn’t mean they haven’t repeatedly fretted the political blowback from those ventures. Newly-released emails from JOE BIDEN’s tenure as vice president show his aides scrambling to respond in 2014 to ethics questions about his son joining the board of a Ukrainian energy company. They also reveal how the White House kept close tabs on reports that Hunter Biden was forced out of the Navy Reserve after testing positive for cocaine. The messages — which were released last week by the National Archives in response to a lawsuit filed by America First Legal, a group founded by DONALD TRUMP adviser STEPHEN MILLER — suggest that Hunter Biden’s decision to work for Burisma blindsided the White House at the time. They indicate that then-Vice President Biden’s spokesperson KENDRA BARKOFF spoke with Hunter Biden as press queries flooded into the White House, State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine. “What exactly are they asking?” Hunter Biden wrote to Barkoff a short time later. “For the time being I’d just refer them to my office. FYI I joined the board of Burisma Holdings Ltd….an independent/private natural gas producer in Ukraine along with the former president of Poland. I think the press release is on their web site.” The documents provide a window into how Hunter Biden and the current Biden White House are likely to try to counteract House GOP investigations into Burisma, Hunter’s laptop and other Hunter-related matters. For example, after Barkoff forwarded an email from Buzzfeed’s MAX SEDDON asking if the arrangement represented a conflict of interest for the vice president, Hunter Biden replied: “Interesting. Burisma is completely independent of Ukrainian government with an independent board of directors….I joined the board as legal adviser and Burisma also engaged the law firm I am of counsel to Boies Schiller Flexner on matters pertaining to corporate governance, transparency and expansion.” The emails show Barkoff also grew impatient with the vice president’s acting national security adviser at the time, JEFF PRESCOTT, when he took almost three hours to respond to her request to discuss the new Hunter Biden role. When he said he’d be tied up for a while around noon, Barkoff shot back: “Actually, Jeff, this message was from this morning....” One email released by the Archives is from Russian TV network NTV. In it, producer NATALYA USENKO lavished Hunter Biden with praise, while asking for an interview with his father. “Mr. Hunter Biden has recently become a member of Committee of Directors of Burisma company. We would like to congratulate him and wish him good luck!” Usenko wrote. “Would you be so kind to help us to organize an interview with Mr. Joseph Biden so that he could tell us his attitude towards and tell us if it will influence the foreign policy of the USA.” “What a charming letter!” the VP’s communications director, SHAILAGH MURRAY, commented to colleagues. (No interview was granted.) The Archives doesn’t respect “off the record” designations often customary in exchanges with the press, so we can see Barkoff’s response to ABC’s ANN COMPTON pressing for confirmation on whether Hunter Biden consulted the White House counsel’s office before taking the Burisma gig. “Off the record: The lawyers weren’t consulted because Hunter is a private citizen and the VP has no association with this company,” Barkoff wrote. “OFF the record doesn’t help. I would however be willing to use this with or without quoting YOU,” Compton replied. Beyond illustrating the mini-scramble that the vice president’s office had to endure to handle the inquiries, the tranche of documents also provides insight into how future disclosures about Hunter Biden may proceed. The Archives appear to be treating the president’s son as a third party and not claiming privacy or deliberative exemptions for him. His email address from the time was even left in the released messages. Under federal law, the Archives can withhold many internal Obama White House deliberations from public view until 2029. Three more batches of records are due out from the Archives over the next couple of months. MESSAGE US — Are you ELIZABETH KELLY, special assistant to the president for economic policy? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
| 
