Hunter Biden asked State Department to help with Ukrainian energy company project when dad was VP, records show

Hunter Biden asked the State Department for help with a project involving Ukrainian energy company Burisma while his father President Joe Biden was vice president, according to newly-released records.

Documents and records obtained by The New York Times show that, in 2016, the president’s son sent at least one letter to the US ambassador to Italy on behalf of the Burisma, the gas company that he sat on the board of at the time.

Burisma was having trouble gaining regulatory approval for a geothermal project in Tuscany when Hunter waded in by writing a letter to John Phillips, the US ambassador in Rome in 2016, according to The Times.

Officials in Italy were said to be “uneasy” with Biden’s letter and an official based in the US embassy in Rome responded: “I want to be careful about promising too much.

“This is a Ukrainian company and, purely to protect ourselves [the United States Government] should not be actively advocating with the government of Italy without the company going through the [Department of Commerce] Advocacy Center.”

The project never got off the ground.

Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell told The Independent in a statement that the president’s son made “a simple introduction” to Phillips “and others” which was “normal and proper practice.”

He said: “No meeting occurred, no project materialized, no request for anything in the US was ever sought, and only an introduction in Italy was requested.

“The letter, as well as those written by others at Burisma, sought nothing more than an introduction, as hundreds of businesses do every year to ambassadors and embassies.”

The Independent has contacted the State Department and the White House for comment.

A White House spokesperson told The Times the president was not