Post confronts Jake Sullivan with ex-WH stenographer’s Biden ‘corruption’ claim
WASHINGTON — President Biden’s top national security aide Jake Sullivan was asked point-blank Monday if he was part of an influence-peddling conspiracy benefitting Biden’s family — after a former White House stenographer made the accusation earlier this month and demanded to speak to the FBI and a Delaware grand jury.
Sullivan, 46, gave a single-word answer — “no” — when asked by The Post if stenographer Mike McCormick was correct to allege he corruptly assisted Biden family business interests in Ukraine.
McCormick recently outed Sullivan as an anonymous vice presidential press source who touted to reporters possible US aid to Ukraine’s natural gas industry on Air Force Two while flying to Kyiv on April 21, 2014, days after then-second son Hunter Biden secretly joined the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma.
The Post asked Sullivan about McCormick’s allegation at the regular White House press briefing.
“On Ukraine, I wanted to give you the opportunity to respond to a former White House stenographer who this month outed you as [the] anonymous senior administration official who briefed reporters on Air Force Two en route to Ukraine in 2014,” a Post reporter began.
“He says that you spoke about giving aid to the Ukrainian [natural] gas industry just after the second son had secretly joined the board of a Ukrainian gas company. He says he considers you part of a corrupt influence-peddling conspiracy,” The Post continued.
“[McCormick] wants to testify to a Delaware grand jury about it. Do you have a response to that? And were you part of a corrupt influence peddling operation involving the Biden family in Ukraine or any other country?”
After his single-word response, Sullivan moved on to another reporter.
He did not challenge the stenographer’s identification of him as the anonymous official who talked about possible US support for Ukraine’s gas industry three days after Hunter reportedly joined Burisma, where he was paid up to $1 million per year despite no relevant industry experience. The gas company disclosed Hunter had joined the board weeks later.
“Jake Sullivan is lying about not being involved in Joe and Hunter’s Burisma corruption,” McCormick told The Post on Monday.
The former stenographer says that US Attorney for Delaware David Weiss should use a grand jury investigating Hunter Biden for possible tax fraud and lying about his drug use on a gun-purchase form, among other issues, to determine his father’s role in far-flung business ventures involving wealthy foreigners who often interacted with the then-vice president.
McCormick noted that on May 21, 2014, one month after his stopover in Ukraine, Joe Biden visited Cyprus, where Burisma’s corporate headquarters were located.
As sitting vice president, Joe Biden also attended an April 16, 2015, dinner at DC’s Cafe Milano with his son and a small group including Burisma executive Vadym Pozharskyi, a three-person Kazakhstani delegation, and the Russian billionaire Yelena Baturina and her husband, the former mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov.
The meeting formed the basis of The Post’s first October 2020 bombshell from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, though the Biden campaign vaguely denied the report at the time.
Baturina allegedly paid $3.5 million to a firm associated with Hunter Biden in February 2014 as she sought out US property investments.
Baturina and another Russian billionaire who sought out US property investments with Hunter have avoided President Biden’s sanctions against Russia’s business elite over the more than one-year war in Ukraine.
McCormick came forward against Sullivan shortly before significant blows to two Cabinet members related the the Biden family’s foreign income.
Last week, an IRS whistleblower who supervised the tax investigation of Hunter Biden for three years informed Congress that he wants to brief legislators on an alleged coverup featuring “preferential treatment” and alleged false testimony to Congress by Attorney General Merrick Garland about the independence of Weiss to bring charges without the approval of other DOJ leaders.
NBC reported Friday that there is “growing frustration” among FBI agents about the sluggish pace of Weiss’ charging decision — after the bureau reportedly finished most of its work on the case one year ago.
On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee revealed that former CIA acting director Mike Morell said in a closed-door deposition that Secretary of State Antony Blinken, at the time a Biden campaign adviser, inspired the letter by 51 former spy agency officials who falsely suggested The Post’s reporting on documents from Hunter’s laptop was the byproduct of Russian misinformation.
McCormick, the former stenographer, openly admits he’s a supporter of former President Donald Trump, who is seeking a rematch against Biden in 2024.
His decision to out Sullivan as an anonymous official who was speaking under the condition of anonymity may be unprecedented.
Sullivan — described in a transcript as an anonymous “senior administration official” on the April 21 flight to Kyiv — said Biden would “discuss with [Ukrainian officials] medium- and long-term strategies to boost conventional gas production, and also to begin to take advantage of the unconventional gas reserves that are in Ukraine,” according to McCormick.
Asked for details, the Biden aide said the US was interested in providing “technical assistance to help [Ukraine] be able to boost production in their conventional gas fields, where presently they aren’t getting the maximum of what they could be” while offering “technical assistance relating to a regulatory framework, and also the technology that would be required to extract unconventional gas resources; and Ukraine has meaningful reserves of unconventional gas according to the latest estimates.”
In December of that year, amid broader Obama administration support for Ukraine, Congress approved $50 million to support the country’s energy sector, including the natural gas industry, including “to develop medium- and long-term plans to increase energy production and efficiency to increase energy security by helping Ukraine reduce its dependence on natural gas imported from the Russian Federation.”
President Biden’s role in son Hunter and brother James Biden’s international business dealings is under investigation by the Republican-led House Oversight Committee, whose chairman, Rep. James Comer, said Sunday that up to 12 Biden relatives may have benefited from foreign cash.
Joe Biden repeatedly met with his relatives’ associates during his eight-year vice presidency.
In addition to the 2015 dinner featuring Burisma’s exec and Russian and Kazakhstani associates, he met as sitting vice president in 2013 with the incoming CEO of BHR Partners, Jonathan Li, during an official trip to China’s capital just 12 days before the investment fund was registered, according to the Wall Street Journal. Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children.
The current status of Hunter’s 10% stake in the state-backed firm, which says it manages nearly $2.2 billion in assets, remains unclear.
In a different Chinese venture, which began roughly two months before Biden left office as VP in 2017 and continuing into 2018, Hunter and James Biden received at least $4.8 million from entities associated with CEFC China Energy, according to a Washington Post review of laptop records.
Joe Biden was referred to as the “big guy” in communications regarding the CEFC deal, according to two of Hunter’s former associates, and an email in May 2017 said he was due a 10% cut. Comer (R-Ky.) has questioned whether the CEFC venture began while Joe Biden was still vice president.
Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski says he personally discussed the CEFC venture with Joe Biden in May 2017 and an October 2017 email from Hunter Biden’s laptop identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a call about Chinese energy company CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas.
The first family’s pursuit of overseas income allegedly began even before Joe Biden took office as vice president in 2009.
James Biden allegedly boasted about selling influence to his brother, who was then the ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as he and Hunter Biden sought to take over a hedge fund based in New York in 2006, according to the book “The Bidens: Inside the First Family’s Fifty-Year Rise to Power” by Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger.
“Don’t worry about investors,” James Biden allegedly told a corporate executive. “We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden… We’ve got investors lined up in a line of 747s filled with cash.”
After his father assumed the presidency, Hunter Biden launched an art career seeking as much as $500,000 for his novice works. The House Oversight Committee is demanding that Hunter’s SoHo art dealer Georges Berges hand over a list of buyers.
