Watchdog wants top Biden official to turn over messages after Hunter emails found
Rachel Schilke
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A government watchdog filed a public records request to receive emails between Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s private email and a government address.
Evidence from Hunter Biden’s laptop showed communications between himself and Blinken when he served as deputy secretary of state in the Obama administration. Emails on the laptop reviewed by the Washington Examiner showed that Blinken and Biden corresponded and set up personal meetings using Blinken’s private AOL email address when he served as deputy secretary of state. Email threads were then forwarded to the government address of Blinken’s then-personal assistant, Linda Landers, so she could schedule the meetings.
ANTONY BLINKEN SET UP MEETINGS WITH HUNTER BIDEN USING PRIVATE EMAIL ADDRESS
The Functional Government Initiative, a group that monitors government dysfunction, told the Washington Examiner that it filed a Freedom of Information Act request on Wednesday, asking for the emails sent between Blinken’s then-personal email address to his state.gov address, Landers’s state.gov address, and the state.gov address of former Secretary of State John Kelly, who served under President Barack Obama from 2013 to 2017.
In 2015, Biden asked Blinken to get together to get his “advice on a couple of things,” to which Blinken set up a meeting using an AOL address instead of his state.gov address. At the time, Biden had been working for 13 months on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company that Biden was on the board of despite not having any experience in the industry.
The emails setting up a time and date were then forwarded in two directions: Biden sent the exchange to Devon Archer, a fellow member of the Burisma board, while Blinken forwarded the emails to Landers.
Landers, using her state.gov address, later reached out to Biden, telling him to “advise on best times for you next week and we’ll try to accommodate.” The pair later met for lunch in July, and it is unclear what conversations Blinken and the younger Biden had during their lunch meetings.
Pete McGinnis, communications director for the Functional Government Initiative, told the Washington Examiner that the organization was launching an investigation to see if Blinken “violated rules to conduct government business with a private email.”
“Not only do these emails suggest that Antony Blinken may have been improperly using his private email to conduct government business, but also they confirm a cozy relationship with Hunter Biden,” McGinnis said.
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The revelation of the emails came after the House Judiciary Committee learned from ex-CIA acting Director Michael Morell that Blinken had “triggered” a letter from 51 former intelligence officials that sought to discredit Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation.
“FGI has launched an investigation to delve further into his use of private email to see what else he may have done for Hunter’s business ventures and if there are further indications that he violated rules to conduct government business with private email,” McGinnis said.