Top Biden campaign aide’s husband gave Hunter Biden rapid response help as Burisma scandal swirled
Fox News
FIRST ON FOX: A top aide for President Biden’s re-election campaign is married to a consultant who helped advise Hunter Biden as he was receiving increased public scrutiny regarding his lucrative position on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings.
Elizabeth Alexander, the communications director for first lady Jill Biden, went on temporary leave last month to help lead the messaging arm of Biden’s campaign. She previously served as the president’s spokesperson when he was in the Senate and when he was vice president. She also worked on the president’s 2020 campaign as a senior adviser for communications.
Alexander got married in 2010 to David Wade, a Yale University lecturer and public affairs strategist who served as the chief of staff to then-Sen. John Kerry and to the State Department under the Obama administration.
Wade left the State Department on June 17, 2015, and started a consulting firm called GreenLight Strategies a couple months later, according to his LinkedIn. On Sept. 14, 2015, Wade reached out to Eric Schwerin, the president of Hunter’s now-dissolved Rosemont Seneca Partners, about helping Hunter and the firm with “rapid response.”
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“Eric: not sure if you’ve done any more thinking on your end, but I wanted to come back to you on what we talked about the other day,” Wade said, appearing to refer to Burisma based on other emails that would follow. “My sense is that the initial project would take me probably 30 hours or so to do the meetings/conference calls with you and Hunter and anyone else you thought could be helpful in the orbit to do the research and map all the potential issues that might come up and then I’d draft talking points and back-up documents and quotes – all the collateral documents – to have on hand as a playbook for rapid response – all the collateral documents we’d want – so that the team would be ready.”
Wade requested $10,000 for the initial project, and Schwerin forwarded the request to Hunter, saying that he and Devon Archer were on board with the proposal. Archer also served on Burisma’s board with Hunter.
The email to Schwerin came after correspondence earlier that year when Hunter told Wade he heard that he was making the jump from the State Department to the private sector and that he was “always just a phone call away.”
“If you have time, I’d definitely like to pick your brain for advice,” Wade said to Hunter. “Elizabeth and I both look forward too [sic] catching up.”
Two weeks after Wade’s email to Schwerin, Hunter was scheduled to have a meeting with Wade on Oct. 1, 2015, according to an email of his schedule, which was also sent to Schwerin.
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One week later, Hunter was scheduled to have a phone call with Wade and possibly Schwerin.
Days later, on Oct. 14, 2015, Schwerin sent an email to Hunter, Wade and Archer about how they were preparing to respond to multiple questions from the Wall Street Journal.
“Hunter/Devon/David,” Schwerin wrote. “Sending simultaneously to all for comments. Just wanted to do some if asked talking points that I would provide on background to the WSJ.”
“Thanks Eric. Great stuff, as always,” Wade responded. “My gut would be to tweak these slightly – and obviously if these don’t make sense for various reasons, I have zero pride of authorship.”
The partners discussed how to explain that Hunter was in the process of transitioning off the Burisma Holdings board after joining the Burisma Geothermal board earlier that year.
Two days later, Schwerin sent an email to Hunter and Wade discussing how they should respond to questions about “whether there is a conflict of interest with Hunter’s role on the Board vis a vis the VP’s policy.”
Part of their drafted statement read, “Hunter welcomes the scrutiny towards Burisma and its shareholders and is confident that they have operated in accordance with Ukrainian law.”
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On Nov. 19, 2015, Schwerin emailed Hunter, Archer, Sebastian Momtazi, who also had a Burisma.com email address, and Joan Mayer about Wade’s invoice “for his work related to the Burisma article, etc.”
“I think he’ll continue to work on that project as part of this invoice if it is required. Let me know what entity you think will pay for that,” Schwerin said of Wade.
On Dec. 5, 2015, Wade was copied on emails between Vadim Pozharskyi, a top Burisma executive, and another consultant discussing “draft answers” to an inquiry by The New York Times.
Fast forwarding to the Biden administration, Fox News Digital reviewed White House visitor logs and learned that he has visited at least five times over the last couple years. Three of the events appear to be larger events, including the annual July 4th celebration. Two of the visits, June 4, 2022, and Dec. 19, 2021, show the point of contact for the visits was an aide to first lady Jill Biden. It is unclear who Wade was actually meeting during the visits.
Alexander, Wade, Hunter’s lawyer, the White House, and the Biden campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.
The revelations come after Fox News Digital previously reported that at least two of the Biden campaign’s national co-chairs, Democratic Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., have past ties to the embattled first son, who is the subject of a federal investigation.
Fox News Digital also recently reported that Hunter Biden and his business partners with ties to Burisma attended a December 2015 holiday party hosted by the then-Vice President Biden just a few days after he returned from his famous trip to Ukraine, where he threatened to withhold $1 billion in U.S. aid if the country’s leaders did not fire their top prosecutor.
After Biden returned to Washington from his short trip to Ukraine, he hosted a holiday party at the vice president’s Naval Observatory residence on Dec. 12, 2015, where Hunter and several of his business partners from his now-dissolved investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners were also in attendance, records show.
According to White House visitor logs, Hunter visited the White House on Dec. 12, 2015, with Rosemont Seneca co-founder Devon Archer, Rosemont Seneca President Eric Schwerin, and Sebastian Momtazi, an associate who worked in Rosemont Seneca’s New York City office with Archer. Archer, who was also on the Burisma board with Hunter, and Momtazi both had Burisma.com email addresses, according to emails reviewed by Fox News Digital.
A couple months after the holiday party, Hunter Biden thanked a top Burisma Holdings executive for birthday gifts he described as “far too extravagant,” Fox News Digital previously reported.
“V- Thanks so much,” Hunter wrote, referring to top Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi. “Let Nikolay know how much I appreciate his friendship and loyalty. I truly believe in what we are doing and I’m proud to say I am a part of this organization. And I am so glad you and I are on the same team.”
“Finally- thank NZ for the beautiful birthday gifts it was far too extravagant but much appreciated,” he added, referring to Burisma’s founder and its former president, Mykola Zlochevsky. “Let’s talk tomorrow or Saturday about the editorial- I have a few ideas I’d like to share.”
Fox News’ Aubrie Spady contributed to this report.