Hunter Biden Asked State Department to Help Ukrainian Gas Company Burisma

Hunter Biden asked the U.S. State Department for help as he attempted to arrange a deal for a Ukrainian gas company in Italy during his father’s vice presidency, according to a report.

In 2016, Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy seeking help on behalf of the company, Burisma, where he was a board member, according to The New York Times. At the time, Burisma was having problems getting regulatory approval for a geothermal energy project in Tuscany, a businessman involved in the project told the Times.

Biden asked “various people” including John Phillips—the U.S. ambassador in Rome at the time—if they could set up an introduction between Burisma and the president of the Tuscany region, according to Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell. “No meeting occurred, no project materialized, no request for anything in the U.S. was ever sought and only an introduction in Italy was requested,” Lowell told the Times. He further described the letter as a “proper request.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.