Hunter Biden-tied Delaware companies that received $34M in taxpayer money under scrutiny ahead of plea hearing
Companies tied to first son Hunter Biden and based in his home state of Delaware got at least $34 million in taxpayer money while his father Joe was vice president, a new analysis has found, revealing a new dimension to the Biden family’s record of wheeling and dealing.
Hunter’s overseas business interests have long been a source of controversy since The Post detailed the contents of his abandoned laptop in October 2020.
But a pair of reports published Monday and Tuesday by Delaware newspaper The News Journal have shed light on the 53-year-old’s activities closer to home following the onset of the Great Recession.
At the time, Delaware and the Obama administration were rolling out a wave of subsidies in a bid to rejuvenate the then-stagnant economy, and President Biden’s decades-long tenure as a US senator from the First State meant his son had access to dozens of contacts across state government.
Some of the Delaware firms that Hunter latched on to have underdelivered on their promise — or gone under completely.
In 2009, Hunter Biden co-founded investment and advisory firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, which had a keen interest in green energy projects across the state.
Notably, one of the other Rosemont Seneca co-founders, Devon Archer, is expected to give testimony to the Oversight Committee next week.
Here is a look at some of the companies Hunter Biden had notable interactions with during that turbulent economic time.
Fisker Automotive
Back in April 2010, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell’s Democratic administration unveiled a $22 million award to Fisker Automotive, a now-defunct firm in which Rosemont Seneca invested. (Markell, the current US ambassador to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, has been nominated by Joe Biden to be his envoy to Italy and San Marino.)
The Delaware grant award came on the heels of a 2009 announcement from then-Vice President Biden that the Energy Department had greenlit a federal loan to Fisker in the hopes of establishing mass hybrid vehicle production.
Hunter Biden indicated in a December 2009 email to money manager Wayne Kimmel that Rosemont Seneca Partners had investments in the startup, which filed for bankruptcy in November 2013.
“It’s our fund that’s in the [Fisker] deal,” he wrote in the email. “Cool company, right.”
“Very cool company,” Kimmel responded, “and the COO is super!”
In July 2010, another investment banker emailed the younger Biden to give his “sincere thanks for any and all help provided concerning Fisker.”
By 2013, Fisker had missed a $10 million federal loan payment and was out of business by the next year. Its CEO blamed the company’s troubles on struggles with battery supplies and inability to raise sufficient funds.
After Fisker’s bankruptcy, Hunter Biden later had a call with the Markell administration to connect him with “Chinese investors” who were interested in a plant that Fisker had attempted to renovate to produce hybrid vehicles, The News Journal reported.
Hunter Biden later cancelled plans to tour the facility with the governor and the investors.
Bloom Energy
In 2009, an entity owned by the University of Delaware purchased property that was previously a Chrysler facility to set up the STAR Campus (Science, Technology, and Advanced Research).
Hunter Biden took note of this in an April 2009 email to Wade Randlett, who served on Obama’s transition team.
“We are currently in discussion with them [the university] to place an assembly plant for a clean tech company and a research facility for a world-leading medium tension voltage electrical transmission company,” Hunter Biden wrote in the email. “… Also, we would be very interested in assisting in any private capital raise.”
Roughly 14 months later, Markell announced a deal between the state and the University of Delaware to make Bloom Energy an anchor tenant on that campus.
As part of the deal, Bloom Energy, known for developing fuel cells to convert natural gas into electricity, planned to construct its East Coast assembly plant at the former Chrysler facility and have a workforce of at least 900 in the First State.
In return, the university and Delaware subsidized the company’s efforts, including a $12 million grant and $1 lease per year over the next 25 years, The News Journal reported.
Notably, one of the construction contracts Bloom Energy awarded for its endeavor reportedly went to Hill International, a company that James Biden had done work for around the same time.
Bloom Energy ultimately was unable to hold up its promise to employ at least 900 Delawareans, resulting in the company returning $1.5 million of the $12 million grant.
Although it is not fully clear how involved Hunter Biden was in the behind-the-scenes workings that went into the deal, he did appear to know some of the key players and have knowledge about it before the general public.
DuCool and Aqua Sciences
Rosemont Seneca sometimes appeared to operate as a broker of sorts between the University of Delaware and green tech firms.
In 2010, this included the air conditioning company DuCool USA and the water treatment firm Aqua Sciences
“I promise to pull out the stops,” an official in the Delaware Economic Development Office emailed Hunter Biden in 2010 after he thanked her for a meeting to explore “opportunities DE has to offer.”
His assistance came at a time when both companies were seeking a grant from the Obama Energy Department as well as regulatory changes and a state manufacturing site through talks with the Delaware Economic Development Office.
Hunter and his associate Eric Schwerin were looped into the new venture by the lobbyist Doug Davenport, according to emails found on the laptop.
Then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu in March 2010 announced $100 million in funding for so-called “green technology” projects, which included a provision for “energy efficient cooling technologies and air conditioners.”
AquaSciences founder and CEO Abe Sher immediately emailed his associate, DuCool President Dan Forkosh and a McKinsey employee to apparently draft a concept paper before April 2.
Davenport then cc’d Hunter and his associate the exchange, telling them, “I will keep you guys in the loop — knowing full well that you don’t work on this federal stuff,” a March 25, 2010, email shows.
It’s unclear what happened next, but on April 12, Hunter and Schwerin received congratulatory emails from Sher and Patricia Cannon, who worked at the Delaware Economic Development Office, for having arranged a meeting about DuCool and Aquascience’s technologies.
“Meetings today were spectacular! Thank you again. We are in the car driving back and will immediately follow up and, of course, keep you posted,” Sher said in an email to the pair that also included Davenport.
“Please know that we are here for you and you [sic] customers from a statewide perspective! I promise to roll out the red carpet:),” Cannon wrote in a separate email to Hunter Biden and Eric Schwerin.
The company leaders and Hunter’s team got to work drafting a memorandum of understanding for the Delaware office and provided officials with a business plan — later helping to coordinate with a member of Markell’s cabinet.
In subsequent emails, Cannon noted Sher and Davenport had taken interest during another meeting in a similar project to theirs “especially as it relates to the federal funding that was involved.”
“What a month we have had in DE, boys — just the beginning!” Davenport said in an email to Hunter and Schwerin as final drafts of the confidential business plan circulated.
Years later, following the death of Hunter’s brother Beau Biden to brain cancer, Sher sent the then-second son a condolence email that also offered to help campaign for his father if he ran in the 2016 election.
“First, I wanted to send you and your family my deepest condolences on the passing of your brother. I saw you speak and you literally made me cry,” Sher wrote on June 29, 2015. “Your eloquence and composure were ethereal given the circumstances. What a blessing to have a family such as yours. Your Dad clearly set the family’s priorities correctly and YOU are all a model for all of us.”
“Speaking of your Dad, in the event that he decides to run for President, I want you to know that you will have my full backing and I would be happy to host an event for him in my home in Bal Harbour, Florida. He is a great man and it is evident in the way that he raised his children,” Sher also said.
DuCool filed for bankruptcy months later on October 15, 2015, court records show. Davenport went on to work as a senior adviser on Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
The emails raise questions about whether Markell’s administration unduly favored companies linked to Hunter Biden.
“Most people in politics that care about ethics … take pains to avoid this situation,” George Washington University government contracts law professor Jessica Tillipman told the News Journal. “But Hunter Biden doesn’t seem like most people.”
Then-Delaware economic development director Alan Levin told the outlet that he did not correspond with Hunter Biden about the state’s deals with Fisker Automotive or Bloom Energy. In the latter case, Levin said the Bloom Energy connection came from Delaware’s chief environmental regulator, Collin O’Mara.
However, Levin did claim in an April 2010 email to Randlett that another lead on a potential green energy deal “came to us … through the Vice President’s Office.”
“If the mention of the VP’s Office in the email was authentic, it was probably an effort by me to add credibility to the venture again because I wanted as many jobs created as possible,” Levin emailed the News Journal.
The Post has contacted representatives for the University of Delaware, Levin, Hunter Biden, and Bloom Energy.
Hunter Biden is set to appear in federal court on Wednesday in Wilmington after reaching a deal with federal prosecutors to plead guilty to two misdemeanor counts of willful failure to pay federal income taxes and enter a pretrial diversion agreement for illegal possession of a firearm while addicted to illicit drugs.
