Supported by
First Batch of Biden Emails Undercuts G.O.P. Claims
House Republicans have suggested that President Biden used an email alias to abuse his office and cover it up, but an initial tranche of the messages reveals banal content and personal information.
Reporting from Washington
When House Republicans pressing to impeach President Biden discovered that the government had redacted emails in which he had used aliases to communicate while he was vice president, they demanded to see the full copies, alleging a cover-up of explosive evidence of wrongdoing.
Even Democrats were alarmed about the content of the correspondence, Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and the chairman of the Oversight Committee, claimed in media interviews, saying they might link the president to Hunter Biden’s business dealings in Ukraine.
“They fear there are many more emails sitting in the National Archives that had been redacted with Hunter Biden’s name on it,” Mr. Comer told Newsmax, “and I think you’re going to see a lot of Democrats hit the panic button when we get those emails that haven’t been redacted.”
In fact, the first 14 pages of unredacted material yielded little for Democrats to panic about. The redactions were to black out personal information — things like Mr. Biden’s 8 a.m. appointment with his personal trainer and a lunch with his grandchildren — according to people familiar with the emails turned over to the oversight panel this week by the National Archives.
The emails are only a fraction of the more than 5,000 the Archives say exist in which Mr. Biden used a series of aliases — “Robin Ware,” “Robert L. Peters” and “JRB Ware” — to communicate, and Republicans say they may yet uncover the evidence they are seeking that he abused his office. Their existence had been known for two years, but it was not until the Archives revealed that they included redactions that Mr. Comer began publicly demanding their full release.
The fresh scrutiny of the emails offers a window into the Republican playbook as they push forward with their impeachment inquiry against Mr. Biden, in which top G.O.P. lawmakers make provocative claims without concrete evidence, sowing a vague public narrative of nefarious conduct that turns out to be exaggerated — or simply false.
Advertisement