Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are seeking unrestricted access to emails from President Joe Biden's time as vice president where he used a pseudonym.
Representative James Comer, chair of the committee, sent a letter to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) on Thursday seeking a number of documents including used pseudonyms including Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware.
The move comes amid House Republicans' ongoing probe into the business dealings of the president's son, Hunter Biden, and GOP allegations that the president was involved in those dealings.
"Joe Biden has stated there was 'an absolute wall' between his family's foreign business schemes and his duties as Vice President, but evidence reveals that access was wide open for his family's influence peddling," Comer said in a statement on Thursday.
The White House has repeatedly denied that Biden had any involvement in Hunter Biden's business affairs and Republicans have struggled to produce a "smoking gun" tying the president to any wrongdoing.
Newsweek has reached out to the White House via email for comment.
Emails and Redactions
Information about the emails where Biden used a pseudonym is limited. The House Oversight Committee wants "unrestricted special access" to a NARA case record that was first made public in June.
That record contained four emails. Two were withheld and two others had redactions. The committee also wants to see "Email Messages To and/or From Vice President Biden and Hunter Biden related to Burisma and Ukraine."
Two of those emails were sent from then-Biden aide John Flynn to the then vice president on May 27, 2016 and June 15, 2016. Hunter Biden was a carbon copied recipient on those two emails.
Biden's Pseudonyms
The House Oversight Committee is also seeking "all unredacted documents and communications in which then-Vice President Joe Biden used a pseudonym" and the pseudonyms the committee listed are "Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware."
Those names were used by then Vice President Biden as pseudonyms for private email addresses during his time as vice president, according to a report from The New York Post in July 2021.
Newsweek attempted to reach out to the email address cited in that 2021 report—Robert.L.Peters@pci.gov—but received a bounce back early on Friday morning.
Emails to Hunter Biden
Hunter Biden was carbon copied on two of the emails House Republicans are seeking and in his letter on Thursday, Comer drew attention to the email on May 27, 2016, which had included an attached copy of Biden's schedule referencing a phone call Biden had with then Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko.
"It is concerning to the Committee, however, that this document was sent to 'Robert L. Peters;—a pseudonym the Committee has identified as then Vice-President Biden," Comer's letter said.
"Additionally, the Committee questions why the then-Vice President's son, Hunter Biden—and only Hunter Biden—was copied on this email to then-Vice President Biden," the letter added.
At the time that email was sent, Hunter Biden was sitting on the board of Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma. He served on the board from 2014 to 2019.
Thomas Gift, founding director of the Centre on U.S. Politics at University College London, told Newsweek it was too early to predict what Republicans might find in the documents they're seeking.
"Any excuse Republicans can muster to throw out the name 'Hunter Biden' in a House Oversight Committee, they're going to take," Gift said.
"Although they still don't have a 'smoking gun' drawing a direct line to Joe Biden, they've been able to marshal enough evidence that voters are paying attention," he said.
"It's premature to say what Republicans may—or may not—find with their latest request for emails," Gift went on. "But that may ultimately be secondary to the simple fact that they're keeping the story in the headlines. Republicans want the knee-jerk response to every criticism of Trump's legal woes to be: 'But what about Hunter Biden?'"
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Darragh Roche is a U.S. News Reporter based in Limerick, Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. politics. He has ... Read more
