Joe Biden denies meeting Burisma official as purported Hunter Biden emails leaked

Joe Biden says he never discussed his son Hunter's business dealings with Burisma, a Ukrainian energy firm

Credit: Reuters

Joe Biden’s campaign has denied a report that he met an official from Burisma, the Ukrainian energy firm his son worked for, while he was vice president.

The New York Post published emails it said were given to the newspaper by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.

It was claimed that on April 17, 2015 Vadym Pozharskyi, a Burisma board adviser, wrote an email to Hunter Biden, thanking him for inviting him to Washington, and for "giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together."

In a statement Mr Biden’s campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said: "We have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place."

The emails were reportedly found on a laptop computer abandoned at a repair shop in Delaware last year.

According to the New York Post the repair shop owner discovered them and contacted the FBI, who took the computer in December.

The shop owner also reportedly made a copy of the hard drive, which found its way to Mr Giuliani, according to the New York Post.

Last year, Mr Trump was impeached over allegations he sought to pressure Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, to launch an investigation into the Bidens and Burisma. The president was later acquitted after a Senate trial.

Mr Biden has always maintained he never discussed his son’s business dealings with Burisma while he was handling Ukraine policy for the Obama administration.

Mr Bates, the Biden campaign spokesman, said: "Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees…have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official US policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing.

"The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of this story."

Tim Murtaugh, spokesman for the Trump campaign, said: "The Biden campaign does not dispute the authenticity of the emails published by the New York Post, which serves to confirm that they are real.

"Americans deserve a full accounting of the conversations Joe Biden had with Hunter, and what Joe Biden discussed with Vadym Pozharskyi."

A spokesman for Facebook said it was acting to reduce the spread of the New York Post story until its accuracy had been confirmed.

The spokesman said: "I want to be clear that this story is eligible to be fact checked by Facebook’s third-party fact checking partners. In the meantime, we are reducing its distribution on our platform."

Donald Trump Jr, the president’s son, wrote on Twitter: "Has anyone pointed out that the FB comms guy is admitting that they are censoring the Hunter Biden news story *BEFORE* it is fact checked by their hacks???"