Hunter Biden was quite the world traveler when his father was vice president. Judicial Watch uncovered Secret Service records showing he traveled to China five-time and also visited Moscow. But we didn’t get all the records, so we were forced to go to court to find out more.
We just filed a FOIA suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records relating to travel by Hunter Biden. (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:20-cv-02094)).
Specifically, we want records on the dates and locations of Hunter Biden’s international and domestic travel during the period he received a U.S. Secret Service protective detail.
We sued after the U.S. Secret Service, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, provided incomplete responses to our February 7, 2020, FOIA request for the travel records and then failed to respond to repeated follow-up efforts to discuss the incomplete response. The FOIA request is for:
Records reflecting the dates and locations of travel, international and domestic, for Hunter Biden while he received a USSS protective detail. In your response, please note whether his travel was on Air Force One or Two, or other government aircraft, as applicable and whether additional family members were present for each trip.
The records produced with the incomplete response show that, for the first five and a half years of the Obama administration, Hunter Biden traveled extensively with a Secret Service protective detail. The records show that, between January 31, 2011, and July 8, 2014, Hunter Biden received Secret Service protection for 411 separate domestic and international trips, including to 29 different foreign countries. He received protection while visiting China five times.
The response is incomplete because it did not include any travel after July 8, 2014. Vice-President Biden left office in January 2017, and the request sought records of travel-related protection through the present.
Vice President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden reportedly flew on Air Force Two for an official trip to Beijing in December 2013. The records we ferreted out from the Secret Service show Hunter Biden arrived in Tokyo on December 2, 2013, and departed for Beijing two days later. While it is typical for the families of the president and vice president to travel with them, questions have been raised about whether Hunter Biden used the government trip to further his business interests.
Hunter Biden’s December 2013 trip to China received new examination in 2019 because he was forming a Chinese private equity fund, Bohai Harvest RST (BHR), in which he still reportedly retains a 10 percent share.
During the last year and a half of the Obama administration, Hunter Biden served on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings while his father was heading up Ukraine policy. We have pushed hard for the accountability and a full accounting on these issues through six lawsuits and dozens of FOIA requests related to Hunter Biden’s dealings with the Ukrainian Burisma Holdings and the Chinese BHR Partners.
Given the Burisma-Ukraine-China influence-peddling scandals, Hunter Biden’s extensive international travel during the Obama-Biden presidency, including at least five trips to China, raises serious questions about where else he traveled in the final two and a half years of the Obama administration. The Secret Service’s incomplete response to our straightforward FOIA request on Hunter Biden’s travel has forced us to go to court – once again – to fight for the public’s right to know.
Author: Judicial Watch
Judicial Watch, Inc., a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law. Through its educational endeavors, Judicial Watch advocates high standards of ethics and morality in our nation’s public life and seeks to ensure that political and judicial officials do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American people. Judicial Watch fulfills its educational mission through litigation, investigations, and public outreach. Visit Judicial Watch at https://www.judicialwatch.org/
