America First Legal (AFL) has been notified by the Biden-Harris Department of Justice (DOJ) that President Biden’s lawyers and President Obama’s legal representatives have claimed an extension under the Presidential Records Act, 44 U.S.C. § 2208(a)(3)(B), delaying the public release of records from Joe Biden’s time as Vice President, including records relating to Hunter Biden and his foreign business dealings, by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
In other words, Biden, Obama, and NARA are concealing these potentially explosive records until the day after the 2024 election, November 6, 2024.
In August 2022, AFL launched a multi-front FOIA investigation, seeking records from NARA related to President Biden’s time as Vice President and Hunter Biden’s corrupt foreign business dealings.
In September 2022, AFL filed a lawsuit against NARA to obtain these records after NARA refused to comply. To date, this lawsuit has uncovered documents revealing evidence that:
- Then-Vice President Biden used a personal email address for official government business;
- Hunter Biden should have registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), and the Obama Administration had concerns about Hunter Biden’s appointment to Burisma;
- The Office of the Vice President (OVP) coordinated directly with Hunter Biden and his firm, Rosemont Seneca, for press inquiries;
- Then-Vice President Biden personally signed off on the statement given in response to reporters about whether Hunter’s appointment to Burisma undermines the Vice President’s credibility in pushing anti-corruption measures in the country;
- The Biden family shared influence and access to the White House with their family and friends;
- Hunter Biden used his family name to leverage access to the White House and played a role in planning high-profile White House events.
Now, just a month before the 2024 Presidential election, President Biden’s lawyers and President Obama’s legal representatives are delaying the release of documents that include “email messages with James Biden …, Lion Hall …, and [Hunter’s firm] Rosemont Seneca,” about “photographs from a White House visit of Vice President Biden with James Biden [and] preparation of Vice President and Biden’s final tax forms and financial disclosures for the year 2015.”
This is deeply alarming because:
- The Presidential Records Act typically provides the incumbent President, or the President and Vice President who were in office when the records were created, 60 working days to review and assert claims of constitutionally based privilege over the records before their release. 44 U.S.C. § 2208(a)(1)(A), (a)(3)(A).
- Accordingly, these records should have been released by September 23, 2024.
- Under 44 U.S.C. § 2208(a)(3)(B), they may invoke a 30-working-day extension “by filing with the Archivist a statement that such an extension is necessary to allow an adequate review of the record” for “a claim of constitutionally based privilege against disclosure.”
- In this case, invocation of the 30-working-day extension delays the release until the day after Election Day.
- An extension had not been invoked in this case until now.
- President Biden’s lawyers and President Obama’s legal representatives have had since June to review these records, so it is not credible that they need an additional 30 working days to review them for executive privilege.
- This would not be the first time that political operatives have attempted to cover up a potential October Surprise right before a presidential election.
NARA’s June 27, 2024 notification related to a tranche of then-Vice President Biden’s records that would have been released last week. The Presidential Records Act invocation pushes the deadline to November 6, 2024 (the day after Election Day).
Again, NARA described these “Biden Vice Presidential records” as “email messages with James Biden …, Lion Hall …, and [Hunter’s firm] Rosemont Seneca,” about “photographs from a White House visit of Vice President Biden with James Biden [and] preparation of Vice President and Biden’s final tax forms and financial disclosures for the year 2015.”
In 2015, Hunter Biden was receiving regular payments from Ukrainian gas company Burisma and from Gabriel Popoviciu, a Romanian businessman under prosecution. Special Counsel Weiss has since revealed evidence that Hunter “received compensation from a foreign principal who was attempting to influence U.S. policy and public opinion and cause the United States to investigate the Romanian investigation.” Would the photos of Jim Biden at a White House visit relate to the Romanian President visiting then-Vice President Biden at the White House in 2015?
In 2015, James Biden and his firm, Lion Hall, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in “loans” from Hynansky, a big Joe Biden campaign donor who received federal loans for his business expansion into Ukraine. How might the records relating to the preparation of Biden’s 2015 tax forms and financial disclosures relate to alleged “loan repayments” from his brother?
President Biden’s lawyers and President Obama’s legal representatives arbitrarily invoked a statutory extension meant for executive privilege review obviously to prevent their public release until after the election.
Statement from Dan Epstein, America First Legal Vice President:
“NARA has arbitrarily deferred to former President Obama and current President Biden’s requests to delay disclosure of likely embarrassing records until after the election that shows then-Vice President Biden’s communications with Rosemont Seneca and financial disclosures that may reveal profits from Burisma through Rosemont!” said Dan Epstein.
Read the filing and letter here and here.
