It’s Complicated: Joe Biden’s Meeting with His Son’s Business Partners

More details emerge from the discreet dinner in 2015 that left a potentially compromising trail for President Joe Biden.

“I have never discussed, with my son or my brother or with anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses. Period.” Biden’s statement challenged even the most credulous soul back when Biden was a candidate for the White House. He tried to portray the image of a Chinese wall between himself, as Barack Obama’s vice president, and his son, whom he was taking on official visits.

One particularity: Hunter Biden had a devastating crack-cocaine addiction and was in a partnership with Christopher Heinz and Devon Archer in an investment fund firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners. Christopher Heinz, John Kerry’s stepson, is the son of the wealthy widow of the well-known heir to the H.J. Heinz Company, of ketchup fame.

What father wouldn’t be interested in knowing how his son’s business is doing when he is tormented by addiction — which Hunter himself correctly labeled as a “depravity” — especially a loving father like Biden?

To get rid of Donald Trump, many Americans, including journalists, overlooked the embarrassing personal content and politically compromising material of a laptop that Hunter took to have fixed, for which he ever returned.

Trump and Rudy Giuliani tried several ways to raise questions of illegalities in Hunter’s dealings with Burisma Holdings Ltd., one of Ukraine’s largest natural gas companies, precisely in a country where Joe Biden had an important role because of the conflict with Russia.

Trump’s first impeachment was due to a call he placed to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, trying to coerce him into giving more information about his electoral opponent. Trump was not convicted, but Hunter Biden’s connection with Burisma did not deliver what Trump was aiming for. However, the case is far from over and new revelations about the laptop’s content disconcerts Joe Biden.

Most importantly: On April 15, 2015, Joe Biden went to a dinner party organized by his son in a private room at Café Milano, a restaurant that rightly prides itself on being frequented by the most powerful people in Washington. Businessmen from Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan were present — all of Hunter’s contacts — in addition to the Mexican ambassador.

“Dad will be there but keep that between us for now,” Hunter wrote in an email to Michael Karloutsos, son of the then-head of the Greek Orthodox Church. “The reason for the dinner is ostensibly to discuss food security,” a subject that the gifted son also dominated, having contacts with the United Nations World Food Program.

“Treating ostentatiously,” as everyone knows, means creating a respectable facade for more plump contacts or to disguise undue favoritism.

What harm could there be in Joe Biden’s dining with foreign businessmen if he was following the protocols for the position he held as vice president? None, if his son was not involved and the guest list was made up of impeccable names.

Among those present was an executive for Burisma Holdings Ltd., and the company paid $80,000 per month for the honor of having Hunter Biden — especially his last name — on the board.

Late and former Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov and his wife, Yelena Baturina, were also invited. She had placed $3.5 million into Rosemont Seneca, the investment fund firm managed by Hunter, Devon and Christopher — Kerry’s stepson would eventually drop out, concerned about the potential complications of the Ukrainian connection.

To what extent can this compromise Biden? For now, very little.

Joe Biden has maintained an impeccable image so far, even abstaining from jokes he makes that have given rise to complicated verbal slips.

Survey averages show Biden with a 54.2% approval rate. Mass vaccination has practically controlled the pandemic in the U.S., and the tsunami of public money fuels an economic recovery so strong that the biggest problem is that of rising prices due to excess demand. Inflation is almost a blessing under the current circumstances — in the medium term, however, it can create serious problems.

As long as the country is recovering, the economy is going well and the president is enjoying positive popularity, the dinner party which should have been “kept between them” only confirms that Biden was not exactly truthful when he said that he had never talked about his son’s business.

But Hunter — and his abandoned laptop — are not going to disappear into the horizon. His tax returns are being investigated with the utmost secrecy, and the Republican opposition will not let deals that may be nebulous go unnoticed, if confirmed.

The New York Post is digging through the case and releasing details as they emerge, while the more traditional press agencies remain in love with Biden and are not as forward. The New York Post revealed the content of another email found on Hunter’s laptop: His pay at Burisma was cut in half two months after Biden left the vice presidency.

Burisma must be regretting the decision they made to have Hunter on the board.