Hunter Biden met with his father multiple times while working for a Romanian real estate tycoon accused of corruption — an effort that netted Joe Biden’s second son and associates “millions” of dollars, a source close to the arrangement told The Post.
The timing of the meetings between the then-vice president and his son have raised questions about the “full truth” of the involvement with Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings, critics said.
The calendared gabfests between father and son were found during a search of a laptop hard drive which Hunter Biden abandoned in a Delaware repair shop in April 2019, and fly in the face of past denials from President Biden that he had no part in his son’s overseas business dealings.
Hunter Biden began working for Gabriel Popoviciu in the spring of 2015, insiders say. The Romanian wanted Hunter Biden’s help fighting a conviction stemming from his purchase of a 550-acre parcel of government-owned land for a steep discount.
Emails on the abandoned laptop show Hunter handled the businessman via his law firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP.
A person familiar with the arrangements told The Post the president’s son had a side pocket agreement directly with Popoviciu that raked in “millions” for himself and associates.
Popoviciu also hired former FBI director Louis Freeh to help the embattled businessman avoid jail time. Freeh called Hunter Biden directly in July 2015, just two hours before Hunter was scheduled to meet with his dad at the Naval Observatory — the vice-president’s official residence — emails from the laptop show. It’s unclear what was discussed on the call.
“Does this still work for you,” Hunter Biden’s office manager Joan Peugh said in a July 29 email titled “12:00pm call with Louis Freeh.”
“I’m going to yoga at 5:15 if you are done with your dad in time,” she offered.
Biden family confidante Mark Gitenstein, a longtime donor to the president who worked on the Obama/Biden transition team in 2008 was also enlisted in the Popoviciu effort, a search of the laptop shows.
Gitenstein, who served as ambassador to the country from 2009 to 2012, and is now the US Ambassador to the European Union, credited his relationship with Joe Biden for the prestigious Romania posting, emails show.
He has donated more than $15,000 to Joe Biden’s various campaigns, stretching back to the mid 1990s. In the 1980s he worked as Chief Counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee from 1981 to 1989 — a period when Joe Biden was the top Democratic member.
“I was so taken by the Biden ‘family’ I ended up working for them for 13 years. And in some respects I feel like I have never left,” he said in a June 2015 Facebook post, eulogizing Beau Biden, who had recently died of brain cancer.
When Romanian President Klaus Iohannis came to Washington D.C. in September 2015, Gitenstein helped facilitate a meeting between the then-Vice President Biden and the Romanian leader.
Hunter Biden met with Gitenstein four times in 2015 and 2016, with at least some of the meetings coming after he began working for Popoviciu, frequently huddling with the ambassador at the Four Seasons in Washington D.C., according to his calendar.
At the request of Eric Schwerin, the president of Hunter Biden’s investment firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, Gitenstein put out feelers to see if a possible change to Romanian law could help Popoviciu — reaching out to his diplomatic successor, Hans Klemm and other embassy staff.
“Just checked with folks in Romania,” Gitenstein wrote to Hunter Biden and Schwerin on Jun 9, 2016. “Looks like this will not help your client because it is not retroactive,” he added on the June 16th.
“Thanks, Mark. We’ll keep this to ourselves,” Schwerin wrote back to him after receiving the intel.
A Gitenstein representative said the ambassador “did not represent Popoviciu, nor did he act on his behalf.”
Hunter Biden, Eric Schwerin, and Boies Schiller Flexner LLP did not respond to request for comment from The Post. Gottlieb — who now works as a Partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher also did not respond to request for comment from The Post.
Hunter flew to Romania on an overnight British Airways flight on Nov. 15, 2016, for a two day trip to press Popoviciu’s case with the country’s National Anticorruption Directorate (DNA) — and was set to have “breakfast with dad” at Joe Biden’s official residence at the US Naval Observatory just two days after his return.
Hunter Biden also enlisted Klemm, a career diplomat, with the help of Michael Gottlieb, a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, where Hunter was also serving as “of counsel.” When Hunter visited Romania, Gottlieb, who was pals with the ambassador, set up a meeting between Hunter, himself, Klemm and Klemm’s wife Mari, emails show.
“It would be just you and me for meeting — casual over lunch dinner- just to inform him of the project we are working on- no asks involved,” Hunter Bien said to Gottlieb in a Nov 11 2015 email — a reference to the Popoviciu case.
On behalf of Hunter Biden, Gottlieb pressed Klemm to broker a meeting with the DNA.
“I have reached out to Klemm and asked him to help us broker the meeting,” Gottlieb said in a May 17, 2016 email to Hunter Biden and other business partners. “The Embassy has reached out to DNA to request the meeting. The first question we got back from DNA (within minutes) was whether this was about the Popoviciu case,” he wrote to them all again the next day.
DNA ultimately declined to meet with Hunter Biden and Gottlieb “citing Romanian regulations that prohibit them from meeting to discuss a pending/ongoing case,” Gottlieb said in a May 26 email.
Reps for Popoviciu’s former legal team insisted the reach out to US officials was kosher.
“It is standard and preferred protocol for US lawyers traveling to a foreign country to meet with a foreign government to reach out in advance to the US embassy to seek assistance and advice, and to ensure that the embassy is informed of their activities. In fact, the failure to do so would be considered inappropriate by embassies around the world,” a spokesman said.
On March 29, 2016, Hunter Biden met with the Klemm, then the ambassador to Romania, in Washington D.C. at the Afghan restaurant Lapis.
On March 30, his calendar shows yet another meeting at the Naval Observatory.
Despite Hunter’s efforts, Popoviciu was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, but fled and has been living as an outlaw in the England, while the Romanian government continues to try and extradite him back to face justice. He did not respond to request for comment from The Post.
Hunter Biden is currently facing a sprawling federal investigation covering potential taxes violations and money laundering. Experts previously told The Post Hunter Biden’s failure to register as a foreign agent, was almost certainly a violation of the federal Foreign Agent Registration Act.
“Professionals with the State Departments Foreign Services have the responsibility to represent the interests of the United States government and the America people, not the financial interests of the grifter son of a sitting Vice President,” Sen Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) told The Post.
“It is now obvious that Joe Biden lied repeatedly to the American people when he said he never discussed business dealings with Hunter. The American people deserve to know the full truth about the financial dealings of Biden Inc. and how those transactions compromised the President and possibly members of our foreign service,” he added.
Staten Island GOP Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee, vowed that Republicans would “get answers and accountability.”
“It’s been one disturbing story after another on Hunter Biden’s shady association with foreign entities. If the Department of Justice and the FBI won’t investigate these countless accusations of corruption and hold the Biden family to account, House Republicans will,” she said.
HUNTER’S CALENDAR
July 29, 2015
12 p.m. call with former FBI chief Louis Freeh, who is repping Popoviciu
Same day meeting with Joe Biden at his father’s US Naval Observatory residence
March 29, 2016
Meeting with US Ambassador to Romania Hans Klemm in Washington D.C.
Meeting with Joe Biden at the US Naval Observatory
November 17, 2015 Returns from trip to Romania
November 19, 2015 “Breakfast with dad” at the US Naval Observatory
Source: Hunter Biden laptop
