Newly surfaced emails reported this week show Ron Klain, President Biden's powerful White House chief of staff, solicited financial help from Hunter Biden back in 2012 in a desperate bid to get funds for the Vice President's Residence Foundation while Joe Biden was Vice President and Klain was chairman of the VPRF.
The emails from Klain to Hunter ask the now-first son for help to "tackle a piece of unpleasant business" — apparently getting donations — show Klain worried about the public finding out about the situation and looking to keep the issue "low low key" after Klain apparently found himself needing some cash for the VPRF.
Via Fox News Digital:
"The tax lawyers for the VP Residence Foundation have concluded that since the Cheney folks last raised money in 2007 and not 2008, we actually have to have some incoming funds before the end of this fiscal year (i.e., before 9/30/12 – next week) to remain eligible to be a 'public charity,'" Klain said in an email to Hunter.
"It's not much – we need to raise a total of $20,000 – so I'm hitting up a few very close friends on a very confidential basis to write checks of $2,000 each," Klain continued. "We need to keep this low low key, because raising money for the Residence now is bad PR – but it has to be done, so I'm trying to just collect the 10 checks of $2,000, get it done in a week, and then, we can do an event for the Residence Foundation after the election."
Hunter then forwarded the email a few hours later to his longtime business partner, Eric Schwerin, who helped manage a majority of Hunter's finances. Schwerin responded by telling him that they could "discuss this and some other bills on Monday" and asked whether Hunter thought "they would take a corporate check from Owasco," which appeared to be referring to Hunter's law firm, Owasco PC.
And while it's not evident whether Hunter eventually did donate through his law firm or another source, the VPRF's tax filings reviewed by Fox News Digital do show that Klain landed $20,500 worth of contributions in 2012, just barely beating the minimum amount Klain said he needed for the VPRF.
Ron Klain solicited money from Hunter Biden for VP residence in 2012, emails show: 'Keep this low low key' https://t.co/86ZCpe007o
— Abigail Marone ???? (@abigailmarone) April 5, 2022
The whole situation — both Klain being caught off-guard by the need to raise funds and Hunter Biden's involvement while his father was serving as VP — are made more interesting by the investigations into Hunter Biden's taxes and other financial dealings and Klain's public defense of Hunter Biden as recently as Sunday.
On ABC's This Week, Klain declared that President Biden is "confident his son didn't break the law," which raises more questions of why the White House chief of staff is doing public relations work for Hunter and his cracked-out, under-investigation past that has punctuated President Biden's run for president and time in office.
On the Biden family corruption scandal, White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain says, "Of course the president is confident his son didn't break the law." pic.twitter.com/kn1WHZRDya
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 3, 2022
As Townhall reported last year, it was revealed that the feds delayed action on its investigation of Hunter Biden's taxes until after the 2020 election due to concerns that it would be seen as "political" to enforce the law equally and not give special consideration to Hunter Biden.
Now, as Katie has reported, there are escalating questions and revelations from Republicans in Congress about how Hunter Biden handled foreign business deals and, even more importantly, how Joe Biden was involved in them — as VP, a private citizen, and now as President of the United States.