Update 1 p.m.: The Biden campaign released a statement denying that a meeting between Joe Biden and the Burisma adviser took place. The statement did not deny the veracity of the emails and other documents revealed by the New York Post."The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about critical elements of this story," Biden spokesman Andrew Bates told Politico. "Moreover, we have reviewed Joe Biden's official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place."> .@JoeBiden spox Andrew Bates responds to @nypost story on Hunter Biden pic.twitter.com/DNT3odmANv> > -- John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) October 14, 2020A Ukrainian adviser to Burisma Holdings thanked Hunter Biden for the "opportunity" to meet with then-vice president Joe Biden in an email obtained by the New York Post.Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company, from 2014 to 2019 while his father headed the Obama administration's Ukraine policy. Some Obama administration officials were concerned that the position could create the appearance of a conflict of interest, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report released in September.The author of the email is Burisma adviser Vadym Pozharskiy, who has met with U.S. lawmakers in the past. If the meeting did in fact occur, it would contradict claims by Joe Biden that he has "never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.""Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together," Pozharskiy wrote to Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015. "It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure."The email was part of a trove of documents provided to the Post by Rudy Giuliani, former New York mayor and attorney to President Trump. The documents were recovered from a laptop computer dropped off at a repair shop in Delaware in April 2019, and include sexually-explicit photos and video of Hunter Biden.A lawyer for Hunter Biden commented to the Post that Giuliani "has been pushing widely discredited conspiracy theories about the Biden family."President Trump has repeatedly alleged that Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian government in December 2015 to fire former head prosecutor Victor Shokin, who had conducted a probe of Burisma over alleged corruption, in order to protect Burisma from scrutiny. Biden has vehemently denied the allegation.However, Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings have drawn increased scrutiny. The Senate Intelligence Committee report on the matter showed that Hunter Biden engaged in "potential criminal activity" with financial transactions between "Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals."
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