A longtime adviser to former Vice President Joe Biden denied the existence of an alleged meeting between Biden and a senior official at Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian energy firm where his son Hunter held a lucrative position on the board.
A week after the New York Post reported emails that showed Biden, now the Democratic presidential nominee, met Ukrainian businessman Vadym Pozharskyi in April 2015, Amos Hochstein, who served as an adviser to Biden on Ukrainian affairs issued the most forceful denial yet that such an interaction ever took place.
“He never met with Biden. Never,” Hochstein, who served as special envoy for international energy affairs from 2014-2017, told TIME in a report published Wednesday.
The New York Post published a series of stories using the contents of information found in a laptop and hard drive that purportedly belongs to Hunter Biden. The laptop was dropped off at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware, last year but was never claimed back by the owner.
John Paul Mac Isaac, the computer repair shop owner, said he gave the materials to the FBI but also made a copy and gave it to President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who has been sharing the information.
The New York Post reported on an email that suggested Pozharskyi and Joe Biden had met and “spent some time” together, thanks to an introduction by Hunter.
If the meeting had occurred, it would contradict previous statements from Joe Biden, who has repeatedly said he never spoke to any of his family members or relatives about their private business affairs. It also would have taken place months before Biden pressed then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to fire Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin, who was dismissed in March 2016, who appeared to be sitting on a dormant investigation into Burisma.
Biden’s campaign has only denied that the former vice president met with Pozharskyi as described in the New York Post report. The denial was based on “Biden’s official schedules from the time.” Politico reported on Wednesday that former Biden senior advisers “said that while there was never an official meeting, it’s technically conceivable that Pozharskyi would have approached Biden on the sidelines of some broader U.S.-Ukraine event.”
Neither Biden nor his son Hunter has disputed the authenticity of the emails obtained from a laptop and hard drive.
Democrats, including House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, and former intelligence officials have claimed the Hunter Biden laptop story is part of a Russian disinformation campaign.
On Tuesday, a federal law enforcement officer confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the Justice Department and FBI do not believe the Hunter Biden laptop was connected to a Russia disinformation effort, siding with Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.
Bill Evanina, who leads the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, released an intelligence assessment in early August warning that Russia was using a number of measures to denigrate Joe Biden’s White House prospects.
