Hunter Biden traveled to at least 13 countries with VP dad: ‘I can catch a ride with him’
FIRST ON FOX: Hunter Biden traveled to at least 13 countries with his then-vice president father when he was leading his now-defunct firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, a Fox News Digital review found.
Video footage, which first aired on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime,’ along with Secret Service records and messages previously reported from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, show that Hunter, who co-founded Rosemont Seneca in 2009 with Devon Archer and Christopher Heinz, accompanied then-Vice President Joe Biden during official trips to Europe, Central America, Africa and Asia.
In April 2010, Hunter proposed meeting state officials in Serbia with his business associate Mark Doyle, who was a registered foreign agent for Serbia at the time, saying he could ‘catch a ride’ with his father — ‘JRB’ — during an official trip to Belgium and Spain.
‘How about we go over around May 10th,’ Hunter wrote in an email to Doyle. ‘JRB will be in Madrid and I can catch a ride with him and fly over to Serbia and back with you.’
Doyle, who formerly served as a senior adviser to then-Sen. Joe Biden and the national finance director of Biden’s unsuccessful presidential run in 2008, later responded that ‘the Ambassador,’ referring to Serbian Ambassador to the United States Vladimir Petrovic, wanted to ‘start putting together a full day for you with Tadic and potential investors,’ referring to Serbian President Boris Tadic.
Eric Schwerin, then-president of Rosemont Seneca, replied to Hunter and Doyle explaining that ‘Hunter would like to try and get to Serbia right after going to Madrid with his Dad,’ and that while he didn’t have a ‘specific investment opportunity to pitch,’ he was hoping to talk ‘in general about Rosemont Seneca and the investment opportunities,’ according to a previous Fox News Digital report.
The meeting apparently fell through, however, after Hunter told Petrovic in an email on April 29, 2010, that there had been a ‘change in the schedule of my other travel in Europe.’
A few days later, Schwerin suggested in an email to Hunter that he speak with a potential client in Spain during his time there with his father, though it’s not clear if that discussion ended up taking place.
Hunter requested Secret Service protection in Belgium during the time Biden was visiting from May 5 to May 7, 2010, according to records first published in a September 2020 report from Senate Republicans.
Years later, Biden ended up traveling to Serbia, and Hunter was scheduled to ride in the vice president’s limo upon their arrival in the Serbian capital of Belgrade on Aug. 16, 2016, according to emails.
Two days earlier, on Aug. 14, Hunter informed his associate, Serbian diplomat Vuk Jeremic, in an email that he would be in Belgrade and even invited him in the vice president’s motorcade.
‘I will be there and expect if you are able that we can spend time together while I am at the Hyatt,’ Hunter wrote. ‘Please call or email if you have an issue entering the hotel- I’ll make sure we can spend time together and maybe you could come with me in motorcade to airport if you have time.’
Jeremic, who served as the president of the United Nations General Assembly from 2012 to 2013, was unsuccessfully running for U.N. Secretary General at the time of the emails and had apparently used his connections as president of the Center for International Relations and Sustainable Development, a Belgrade-based think tank, to introduce Rosemont Seneca to potential partners in Mexico and China, according to multiple emails from 2014 and 2015.
For instance, Archer informed Hunter in a September 2014 email that Jeremic could connect them with the Mexican state-owned oil company Pemex and ‘will be helpful in securing exploration allocation in the privatization. He is up for Secretary General in 2016.’
And in December 2015, Jeremic offered to connect Hunter and Schwerin with Ye Jianming, the then-chairman of the now-defunct China-backed company CEFC China Energy, during a private dinner in D.C., although Rosemont Seneca was already exploring going into business with CEFC by then.
In early June 2010, Hunter accompanied his father to Egypt, Kenya and South Africa at the World Cup in Johannesburg, South Africa, according to an itinerary of the trip. During a June 8, 2010, email exchange between Hunter and Chris Buccini, a longtime Biden friend and business associate, Hunter said, ‘We head to Africa on the 5th. Arrive Egypt the 6th depart the 8th for Kenya and arrive Rustenberg SA on the 10th I believe’ and asked whether their schedule will ‘overlap’ during trip.
Due to logistics of the trip, Hunter was not able to take up Buccini on his invite to meet up at his friend’s place, saying, ‘I would love to buddy, but I think it will be impossible for us to travel outside of Dads package/ delegation.’
‘We arrive Jo’burg go directly to opening ceremony and JRB has bi-lats with govt officials and then next day we go to US- UK game and depart for home right after,’ Hunter said. ‘Please let your friends know how much we appreciate the offer and that we (the Hunter Biden family) would love to stop by and say hello when we return in August.’
In February 2013, Hunter traveled with his dad to Germany for the Munich Security Conference, video shows. Biden mentioned his son during his speech at the conference, saying he and his family supported ‘healthy competition’ with China.
‘My son, who is with me today, a 40-year-old man, will not, when he is my age, be looking at China as a sworn enemy,’ the vice president said. ‘I believe there is healthy competition from a growing, emerging China, which I would argue is in the interest of all of us.’
Later that year, Hunter introduced his dad to his Chinese business partner, Jonathan Li, after he and his father flew to Beijing on Air Force Two, Hunter first admitted to The New Yorker in 2019.
Biden traveled to Beijing on Dec. 3, 2013, due to a scheduled meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. During the trip, Hunter arranged for a brief handshake between Li and his father in the lobby of the hotel where the U.S. delegation was staying, and then Hunter met up with Li privately, The New Yorker reported at the time.
A transcribed interview with longtime Hunter Biden business partner Devon Archer was released earlier this month, revealing that Biden did more than a handshake with Li. According to Archer, they also had coffee together.
At the time, Hunter’s Rosemont Seneca firm and James Bulger’s firm Thornton Group LLC were securing their partnership with Li’s firm Bohai Capital in order to later launch Bohai Harvest RST (BHR), which is controlled by Bank of China Limited.
BHR was registered less than two weeks after Biden and Hunter’s trip to China.
Hunter also traveled with Biden to Japan on Dec. 2 and South Korea on Dec. 5 during the same Asia trip, although he didn’t travel back home with his father. Instead, he went to the Philippines with the World Food Program, where he served as chairman.
‘And as I speak, my son has just boarded — my grown son has just boarded a plane, an aircraft — he’s heading to the Philippines,’ Biden said during a speech in Seoul on Dec. 6, 2013. ‘His name is Hunter Biden. He’s chairman of the World Food Program U.S.A, and he’s going there out in the field, like so many of you did.’
Secret Service records show that Hunter requested protection during the Asia trip, including in the Philippines, from Dec. 6 to Dec. 9, 2013.
Hunter also requested Secret Service protection during his April 3, 2014, trip to Lake Como, Italy, when he met with Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky, shortly before his appointment to Burisma’s board, according to findings by the Committee on Oversight and Accountability.
Two years later, Hunter and his family accompanied Biden on his Thanksgiving trip to Croatia and Italy. Hunter appeared in several family photos with his father in Rome during the vice president’s official trip in late November 2015, according to Marco Polo. The Washington Free Beacon reported at the time that the trip abroad cost taxpayers over $300,000, not including the Air Force Two flights.
Three months after the Italy trip, on Feb. 24, 2016, Hunter emailed his Mexican business partner while apparently en route to Mexico aboard Air Force Two.
‘We are arriving late tonight on Air Force 2 to MX City. We will be there for Thursday – I’m attending meeting w/ President N w/ Dad,’ Hunter wrote to Miguel Magnani, Fox News Digital reported last year.
Hunter invited Magnani to greet the vice president upon landing, but in the same email, Hunter expressed indignation with Magnani, accusing him of going silent on their business partnership despite Hunter giving him access to his father, according to emails Fox News Digital previously reported on.
‘I have brought every single person you have ever asked me to bring to the F’ing White House and the Vice President’s house and the inauguration and then you go completely silent,’ Hunter wrote in the email.
‘I don’t know what it is that I did but I’d like to know why I’ve delivered on every single thing you’ve ever asked – and you make me feel like I’ve done something to offend you.’ he continued.
Hunter had previously introduced Magnani to his father during a White House tour on Feb. 26, 2014. White House visitor logs show that Magnani and Magnani’s father, Miguel Aleman Velasco, visited the West Wing on Feb. 26, 2014, and Biden was later photographed with Hunter giving Velasco and Magnani a tour of the White House Brady Press Briefing room.
Two months after Hunter’s Mexico trip, on April 29, 2016, he was recorded meeting with Italy’s then-prime minister, Matteo Renzi, during another trip to the country with his father.
In addition to flights during the Obama administration, Hunter received scrutiny earlier this year for accompanying his dad and aunt, Valerie Biden Owens, to Ireland due to the Biden family’s foreign business dealings and dual investigations.
Hunter has also attended several White House state dinners recognizing foreign leaders in Washington, D.C. In June, Hunter attended a dinner for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and in December 2022 he was at the dinner welcoming French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte.
During the Obama administration, Hunter also attended several state dinners. According to an archived version of the Obama website and emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, he attended dinners for state leaders from the U.K., India, France, Italy, Africa, Mexico, Germany and China, among others.
Fox News host Jesse Watters aired footage Monday of Hunter in Germany, Japan, China, South Korea and Italy during his father’s visits abroad.
Watters reported that Hunter wouldn’t use the same Air Force Two staircase as his father and was often recorded already sitting in his dad’s motorcade by the time the vice president got off the plane.
‘Taxpayers funded Hunter’s business travel so the Biden family could sneak around the world and get rich,’ Watters said.
The Fox News host said the Biden White House has refused to hand over the flight manifests from his vice presidency.
The 2020 report by Senate Republicans revealed that Hunter dropped his Secret Service protection soon after joining the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings, despite his father still having years left in his term as vice president.
‘The Committees found that Hunter Biden scheduled travel as a protectee after joining Burisma’s board in May 2014,’ the report said. ‘The Committees also determined that Hunter Biden declined USSS protection after a scheduled July 8, 2014, trip to Michigan City, Ind. At this time, the Committees have not determined why Hunter Biden declined USSS protection after July 8, 2014.’
Watters suggested that Hunter dropped the protection because ‘the Bidens knew what they were doing was wrong.’
The White House and Hunter’s lawyer Abbe Lowell did not respond to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.