Blinken and wife emailed frequently with Hunter Biden, raising questions about role in laptop cover story
Fox News
Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a meeting with Hunter Biden at the State Department in July 2015 when he was serving as the deputy secretary of state in the Obama-Biden administration and Hunter was on the board of Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, according to emails reviewed and verified by Fox News Digital.
The ties between Blinken and Hunter Biden could face increased scrutiny after former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell testified to the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees last week that Blinken, as President Biden’s then-campaign senior adviser, “played a role in the inception” of the public statement signed by intelligence officials claiming Hunter’s abandoned laptop was part of a Russian disinformation campaign just weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
Emails from the infamous abandoned laptop that Blinken sought to discredit show that Hunter has ties to Blinken and his wife, Evan Ryan, dating back over a decade, having scheduled meetings with him while he was on the board of Burisma and Blinken was deputy secretary of state.
In an email on May 22, 2015, Hunter tried to schedule a meeting with Blinken, so he could get the deputy secretary of state’s “advice” on some things.
“Have a few minutes next week to grab a cup of coffee?” Hunter asked. “I know you are impossibly busy, but would like to get your advice on a couple of things.”
“Absolutely,” Blinken replied. “I’m just about to land in Tokyo en route back DC from Burma. I’ll be in office from Tuesday on. Copying Linda in my office to find a good time. Look forward to seeing you. Tony.”
Hunter then forwarded Blinken’s response to his business partner and fellow Burisma board member, Devon Archer.
“Roger,” Archer responded.
Several emails then followed discussing logistics. An email from Blinken’s then-assistant, Linda Landers, on May 27, 2015, listed Blinken’s schedule for that day.
“I’m trying to schedule you after Tony’s afternoon White House meeting, are you available around 345 or 4pm, TBC?” Landers, wrote. “Can you come to the Department for coffee, and see his new digs?”
“I should be-let me know and I’ll be wherever is easiest for him,” Hunter responded.
Hunter also forwarded a response from Blinken’s assistant to Archer, saying, “FYI.”
The meeting at the State Department was initially set for 3:30 p.m. and then moved to 4 p.m. on May 27, 2015. But at the time of the emails, Hunter’s older brother, Beau Biden, had been admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland because of a recurrence of brain cancer. Beau died on May 30, 2015, and the meeting between Hunter and Blinken reportedly didn’t take place at that time.
However, the meeting was later scheduled for July 22, 2015, according to an emailed schedule from Hunter Biden’s assistant.
“12:00-1:30pm- Lunch with Tony Blinken (State Department),” Hunter’s schedule read. “Enter at main entrance (‘Diplomatic Entrance’), 22nd & C St, NW. Proceed to receptionist area where Kenny Matthews will be waiting to escort you to Tony’s office.”
Later that day, Blinken told Hunter in an email it was “great to see” him and “catch up.”
“You will love this,” Blinken wrote to Hunter on July 22, 2015, “after you left, Marjorie, the wonderful african american woman who sits in my outer office (and used to be Colin Powell’s assistant) said to me: ‘He sure is pleasant on the eyes.’ Tell you wife.”
It’s unclear what was discussed during the meeting. Fox News Digital’s inquiries sent to the White House, Hunter’s lawyer and the State Department on Sunday were not returned.
It appears that Hunter first tried to connect with Blinken on June 16, 2010, when he asked Blinken’s wife, current White House cabinet secretary Evan Ryan, for his non-government email address.
“Can I get Toni’s non-govt email? Hunter asked. “I want to send him something. Thanks.”
Ryan, who worked at the White House at the time and later went to work at the State Department, according to her LinkedIn, then provided Blinken’s personal email address to Hunter. She previously worked for Biden as his deputy campaign manager during his unsuccessful presidential run between 2007 and 2008.
RATCLIFFE: HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP WAS A PARTISAN DOMESTIC ‘DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGN’
In March 2010, Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner, Eric Schwerin, emailed Hunter about a couple White House events and said he “Talked to Evan,” referring to Evan Ryan, about them and how many tickets the Office of the Vice President would be allotting for guests.
“OVP has 250 tix to the Easter Egg Roll and your Mom has an additional 200. Family, etc is coming out of your Mom’s allotment,” Schwerin said in the email to Hunter. “Evan is handling your Dad’s and we can pass on names to her for outreach purposes. Let’s discuss. I don’t think we have 50 spots, but if we had 20 or so names we’d probably be fine.”
“More importantly, OVP has 12 spots to fill for the Mexico State Dinner in May and needs to send in their names by Monday,” he continued. “Evan is looking for any suggestions. Hispanic Americans or just any outreach related suggestions. Obviously they won’t have trouble filling this number but is still looking for suggestions.”
A couple months later Hunter and Ryan exchanged emails about the Mexico State dinner guest list and she sent him the seating chart for his table.
In August 2010, Ryan emailed Hunter asking if he was still in New York City, prompting Hunter to say he was at “office in TriBeCa” referring to the neighborhood in New York City and that he was taking the Acela train home that evening.
“Tony’s headed this way, we are staying and having dinner w his parents. I’m so sorry I messed up w your vm, when Danielle told me she’d found a phone number for you I thought that was why you were calling,” Ryan said. “We are back next week, are you guys around for dinner?” It is unclear if they met up for dinner when they returned to Washington, DC.
Later that year in October, Ryan emailed Hunter and his business partner, Eric Schwerin, asking Hunter to call her when he lands, noting that she knew he was traveling.
Later that month, White House visitor logs show Schwerin met with Ryan at the White House’s Old Executive Office Building (OEOB).
In a June 2011 email with the subject line “Party” Schwerin emails Hunter saying, “Put Evan Ryan down as a ‘yes’ for Thursday. I think Tony too.” It is unclear what “party” the email was referring to.
A month earlier, Schwerin emailed Hunter and Rosemont Seneca Partners assistant Anne Marie Person, asking her to “put lunch with Evan Ryan down on the schedule for Wednesday.” It is unclear whether the lunch occurred or what was discussed if the lunch occurred.
In 2013, Hunter Biden attended a book event at Cafe Milano, a Georgetown institution often frequented by political leaders, ambassadors, lobbyists, etc. According to a Flickr album from November 2013, the book event was for Clint Hill, a former Secret Service agent whose notoriety comes from being the first agent to react to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, leaping out of a car behind Kennedy’s limo and racing towards his limo. The photo album includes a picture of Hunter Biden, Evan Ryan, Hill, and former Ambassador Lloyd Hand.
In July 2016, Joan Mayer, who says she was the vice president of Hunter’s now-defunct investment firm Rosemont Seneca Advisors from 2008 to 2017, emailed Schwerin and Hunter saying Ryan tried calling Hunter, but his phone went to voicemail.
The revelations of Hunter’s ties to Blinken and his wife come amid House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, R-Ohio, sending a letter to Blinken last Thursday, notifying him that the committees are “examining that public statement signed by 51 former intelligence officials that falsely discredited a New York Post story regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop as supposed Russian disinformation.”
“In his transcribed interview, Morell testified that on or around October 17, 2020, you reached out to him to discuss the Hunter Biden laptop story,” they wrote. “According to Morell, although your outreach was couched as simply gathering Morell’s reaction to the Post story, it set in motion the events that led to the issuance of the public statement.”
“Morell further explained that one of his two goals in releasing the statement was to help then-Vice President Biden in the debate and to assist him in winning the election,” they wrote. “Based on Morell’s testimony, it is apparent that the Biden campaign played an active role in the origins of the public statement, which had the effect of helping to suppress the Hunter Biden story and preventing American citizens from making a fully informed decision during the 2020 presidential election.”
Morell also said that he received a call from Biden’s White House counselor Steve Ricchetti, who was serving as the chairman of the 2020 campaign at the time, following the October 22 debate. Morell said the call was to thank him for spearheading the letter.
Jordan and Turner gave Blinken until May 4 to identify the people he communicated with about drafting the statement and produce all documents referring to the statement.
Meanwhile, the White House fired back at congressional Republicans for investigating the matter.
“Instead of working with President Biden on the issues that matter most to the American people like lowering costs or tackling gun violence, House Republicans are weaponizing their power to go after their political opponents and re-litigate the 2020 election with misleading claims,” White House spokesman Ian Sams told Fox News Digital. “This is all happening as they move ahead on a dangerous plan to push America into default and an economic crisis.”
Sams added: “The American people see these House GOP attacks for what they are: political stunts intended to hurt President Biden, and House Republicans would be wise to instead focus on doing their job, raising the debt ceiling to avoid an economic catastrophe, and working together with the President to make actual progress on important issues.”
Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Haley Chi-Sing contributed to this report.