Joe Concha on Hunter Biden scandal: 'Makes Watergate look like a smash and grab'
Fox News contributor Joe Concha joined 'The Faulkner Focus' to discuss new questions surrounding Biden's ties to his son's overseas business dealings, the media's coverage of the alleged scheme and a new Trump ad targeting Biden's 2024 candidacy.
Following Devon Archer’s bombshell congressional interview last week alleging President Biden’s deep involvement with Hunter Biden’s business dealings, a new light is being cast on his son’s longtime business partner who stands to know even more.
Eric Schwerin visited the Obama White House and then-Vice President Biden’s residence at least 36 times between 2009 and 2016, likely to make him the next target of the House Oversight Committee’s investigation into the Biden family’s business dealings.
Schwerin was the founding partner and managing director of Hunter's now-dissolved firm Rosemont Seneca Partners when he was appointed by then-President Obama to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, an independent U.S. government agency, in early 2015.
"Eric asked for one of these the day after the election in 2008," Hunter revealed about Schwerin’s appointment in an email on March 13, 2015.
From left to right, Eric Schwerin, Devon Archer, Hunter Biden and President Biden. (Fox News)
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Schwerin was reappointed to the commission in January 2017.
The number of Schwerin's visits to the White House could be much higher than 36 if any of his meetings fell under its voluntary disclosure policy exception of "purely personal guests," due to his handling of the Biden family’s personal finances.
"The White House will not release access records related to purely personal guests of the first and second families (i.e., visits that do not involve any official or political business)" the Obama administration’s archived website says.
Hunter’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle, who was married to the president’s son from 1993 to 2017, revealed in a memoir in June 2022 that Schwerin "managed almost every aspect of our financial life."
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Hunter Biden, exits the J. Caleb Boggs Federal Building in Delaware on July 26, 2023. (Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Hunter also acknowledged that Schwerin was a "close confidant and counsel" to his father in a February 2014 email thread with Schwerin, Fox News Digital previously reported.
Peter Schweizer, the president of Government Accountability Institute and an expert on Hunter's business dealings, told "Sunday Morning Futures" host Maria Bartiromo on Sunday that "If Devon Archer was the sort of business guy, the deal guy in how you structure this, Eric Schwerin was the money guy."
One of Schwerin's visits to the White House - in November 2010 - was a sit-down with Biden in the West Wing. Schwerin also visited Biden’s residence at least 15 times for various holiday receptions, including the Dec. 12 holiday reception in 2015 that came a couple of days after Biden’s infamous 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.
According to White House visitor logs, Schwerin attended the reception along with Hunter, Archer 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 previously reviewed by Fox News Digital.
Longtime Hunter Biden business partner Eric Schwerin, pictured here, has been named in many articles about Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings. (Eric Schwerin/ Facebook Screenshot)
On March 2, 2012, Schwerin met with Hunter and former Colombia President Andrés Pastrana Arango at Vice President Biden’s Naval Observatory residence, according to an entry in Hunter’s personal calendar previously reported by the New York Post.
Later the same day, Hunter, whose Rosemont Seneca had entered a contract months earlier with OAS, a Brazilian construction company with Colombian interests, scheduled a lunch at Café Milano with Arango and Juan Esteban Orduz, the president of Colombian Coffee Federation, the Post reported.
In April 2015, one month after his initial appointment in the U.S. government, Schwerin visited Vice President Biden’s residence for what the visitor logs labeled a "meeting."
The visitor log for April 15 does not list who he met with or whether Vice President Biden was present, but the timing will likely spark some questions from Republicans on the House Oversight Committee due to the meeting taking place one day before Vice President Biden’s infamous dinner at Café Milano with multiple business associates of Hunter, including top Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi.
Schwerin also appears to have been present at the Café Milano dinner.
Archer confirmed last week that Vice President Biden showed up at the upscale Georgetown restaurant on April 16 and "had dinner" with several of Hunter’s business associates including "Vadym P. from Burisma," blowing the lid off the narrative that the Biden campaign and Biden White House repeatedly pushed denying then-Vice President Biden attended the dinner.
At center, Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, arrives for closed-door testimony with the House Oversight Committee at the O'Neill House Office Building July 31, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Schwerin also visited with several of Biden’s aides throughout the tenure of the Obama-Biden administration, including his first documented visit at the Obama White House in late 2009 with Evan Ryan, who is married to Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken and is currently serving as the White House cabinet secretary.
She was also in frequent communication with Hunter and Schwerin throughout the administration about White House events, including the Mexico State Dinner and the annual "Easter Egg Roll" in 2010.
"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, referring to Ryan. "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."
Eric Schwerin sent Hunter Biden an email about two upcoming White House events and mentioned that he talked with Evan Ryan, Blinken's wife, about tickets to the events. (Fox News)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his wife Evan Ryan arrive for the White House state dinner for South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol at the White House on April 26, 2023 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
In 2016, Schwerin met with Steve Ricchetti, who was Biden’s chief of staff at the time and is currently White House counselor, at least twice in room 272 on Feb. 29 and room 276 on Aug. 17 at the Old Executive Office Building.
In one September 2015 email, Schwerin tells Hunter to look at his "text about Slim and Azcaraga scheduling," appearing to refer to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and Emilio Azcarraga, another billionaire in Mexico running Televisa, a mass media and entertainment company.
"I can work it with Steve R if you want," Schwerin said, referring to Ricchetti. "Timing would be interesting and I can discuss with you offline if you want more. Will probably take awhile to coordinate schedules but can't imagine it would be until October if we started process now."
Hunter arranged a video conference the following month with his father and Carlos Slim, whom Hunter was seeking to do business with at the time on Oct. 30, 2015.
Less than a month after the video conference, Slim and a couple of Hunter's business associates attended a meeting with then-Vice President Biden, Hunter and Hunter’s business partner and family friend Jeff Cooper at the vice presidential residence at Number One Observatory Circle, Washington, D.C., according to photos dated Nov. 19, 2015 and published by The Daily Mail.
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Schwerin also met with Anne Marie Person, who served as a general assistant at Rosemont Seneca until 2014 before joining Biden's office, at least three times between February and June 2016, a Fox News Digital review found.
According to White House visitor logs, Schwerin met Person in Vice President Biden's "West Wi[ng]" office on Feb. 24, April 8, and June 9. It is unclear if Biden was present for the meetings. Person was also the point of contact for a West Wing tour Schwerin took in August 2015.
Person is the sister of Francis "Fran" Person, a longtime Biden aide who left the White House a few months after his sister joined Biden's office in May 2014. He served as an advisor to Biden between 2009 and 2014, when he traveled to 49 of the 50 countries Biden visited, including China.
Fran Person, a former adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, unsuccessfully ran for Congress in South Carolina's 5th Congressional District in 2016. (Fran Person/YouTube screenshot)
FOX Business previously reported on Fran's ties to Hunter and Schwerin and that Rosemont Seneca had a financial stake in a company run by Fran and a Chinese executive with ties to officials at some of the highest levels of the Communist Party of China.
In 2017, Schwerin emailed Hunter a breakdown of all his financial stakes, which included an equity stake in multiple Washington, D.C.-based affiliates of the China-based Harves Century Group.
Person previously claimed that "Hunter Biden, Rosemont Seneca Advisors or any affiliate or associate have never held any equity in any Harves affiliated company," despite multiple emails from Hunter and Schwerin contradicting this claim. The Harves website was taken down, and Fran deleted his Linkedin shortly after previous reporting.
When Fran unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2016, then-Vice President Biden attended multiple fundraisers for him while Hunter and Schwerin were simultaneously working behind the scenes to solicit donations for his campaign and secure business deals for his company in China, Fox News previously reported.
Both Person siblings kept in frequent contact with Hunter and Schwerin during their Obama-Biden administration roles using their government emails.
In addition to Person and Ricchetti, Schwerin made three other visits with staffers from Vice President Biden's office in 2016. Schwerin met with John McGrail, who was a counselor to Biden, on July 15 and Sept. 9 at the White House.
He also met with Kaitlyn Demers, who was serving as an associate counsel in Biden's office in 2016, on June 28. She was serving as a special assistant to President Biden and then-chief of staff Ron Klain until last August.
White House Legislative Affairs Director Louisa Terrell, left, walks with White House debt limit negotiator Steve Ricchetti to a House Democrat caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol on May 31, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Fox News Digital previously reported about Schwerin's cozy relationship with Biden's office when he was vice president.
In 2015, Schwerin worked closely with Kate Bedingfield, who was serving as Biden's communications director and who recently left the Biden administration in the same role to join CNN, in trying to quash a Bloomberg News story about Hunter, according to emails published in March.
Emails also showed that Schwerin fielded book deal requests for the elder Biden and worked on his tax returns, as well as managed bill payments between the father and son duo.
"Sorry - too much indecision and I was dealing all afternoon with JRB's taxes (but solved a big issue - so it was all worth it)," Schwerin wrote in an email to Hunter on April 9, 2010, referring to the elder Biden, whose full name is Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.
"Your Dad's Delaware tax refund check came today," Schwerin told Hunter in an email on June 10, 2010. "I am depositing it in his account and writing a check in that amount back to you since he owes it to you. Don't think I need to run it by him, but if you want to go ahead. If not, I will deposit tomorrow."
President Biden, left, and his son Hunter Biden attend the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House on April 10, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
"Your Dad just called me (about his mortgage) and mentioned he'd be out a lot soon and not really back until Labor Day so it dawned on me it might be a good time (also he could use some positive news about his future earnings potential!)," Schwerin wrote on July 6, 2010.
On Dec. 9, 2016, Schwerin demanded Hunter refill his bank account in order to pay for an array of forthcoming autopay bills, including an AT&T bill in the amount of $190 for "JRB."
Hunter has previously claimed that he and his father shared a bank account.
Schwerin also served with Hunter for several years on the board of advisers for the Philadelphia-based project development firm ABD Group.
Fox News Digital previously reported that John Nevergole, the co-founder and current CEO of ABD Group, was tapped earlier this year to serve another term on President Biden's Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa (PAC-DBIA), which advises the president on African engagement through the Department of Commerce.
John Nevergole, co-founder and CEO of the Philadelphia-based project development firm ABD Group. (YouTube screenshot/U.S. Department of Commerce)
Nevergole previously worked as a senior adviser to Rosemont Seneca and strategized with him on brokering multiple business deals in Western Africa while Biden was vice president.
Schwerin and Hunter were also instrumental in helping President Biden’s current campaign co-chair, Democratic Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, fundraise for his successful 2010 Senate bid, using their network of in-state and out-of-state business associates to contribute to Coons' campaign, Fox News Digital reported in April.
In addition to managing the finances for the Bidens, Schwerin was instrumental in the planning process for Biden's life after the Obama administration, including the Biden Institute and library at the University of Delaware.
Schwerin was copied on dozens of emails discussing Biden's future after the Obama administration and was in communication with Biden's sister and longtime campaign manager, Valerie Biden Owens, in July 2016, telling Hunter, Owens, longtime Biden confidante Ted Kaufman, and Delaware’s now-chief deputy attorney general Alexander Mackler that he and Hunter had a meeting with multiple University of Delaware officials, Fox News Digital reported in February.
Biden has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of his son's business dealings.
The news of Schwerin's frequent trips to the Obama White House comes days after Archer spoke with the House Oversight Committee, alleging that the elder Biden sat in on more than two dozen business calls with his son as vice president.
Devon Archer, a former business associate of Hunter Biden, gets into an elevator as he arrives for closed-door testimony with the House Oversight Committee at the O'Neill House Office Building July 31, 2023, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Schwerin is not accused of any crime but has faced pressure from House Republicans to provide documents relating to his business dealings with the first family.
More than a dozen House Republicans sent a letter to Schwerin in April 2022 inquiring about an email regarding funds from a tax refund check that Schwerin apparently transferred to Hunter from his father’s account.
"An email obtained by Committee Republicans shows that in 2010, while serving as president of Hunter Biden’s company, you received then-Vice President Biden’s tax refund check and facilitated the transfer of that amount to Hunter because now-President Biden owed money to his son," the letter stated. "This raises questions about how much money President Biden owed his son and what role his son played in managing the President’s finances. Committee Republicans request additional information regarding this transaction and any other instances of President Biden owing money to his son, Hunter."
"If President Biden and Hunter are sharing funds or if President Biden is in debt to his son—the American people deserve to know it especially in light of the millions of dollars Hunter’s businesses have received from countries adversarial to U.S. interests," the letter read.
Schwerin and the White House did not respond to Fox News Digital's requests for comment.
Robert Hunter Biden at Carlingford Castle, Co Louth, during his trip to the island of Ireland with his father. (Photo by Brian Lawless/PA Images via Getty Images)
Schwerin made headlines earlier this year after classified documents were discovered at Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, residence and his former office at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement.
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Fox News Digital found that in March 2010, Biden’s vice presidential office expressed concerns to Schwerin in an email about the University of Delaware’s terms for the "deed of gift" for his Senate papers "due to the political sensitivities" that could arise from releasing the papers to the public.
Biden has repeatedly defended not releasing his Senate papers to the public. Under a revised agreement with the university, they will not be released until two years after he retires from public life, or unless he gives express consent.
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