Joe Biden unwittingly helped finance Hunter's trysts with Russia-linked escorts
President Joe Biden apparently unwittingly financed his son’s participation in an escort ring tied to Russia, records from a copy of Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop show.
Hunter Biden spent over $30,000 on escorts, many of whom were linked to ".ru" Russian email addresses and worked with an “exclusive model agency" called UberGFE during a 3 1/2 month period between November 2018 and March 2019.
He managed to do so thanks in part to Joe Biden committing to wiring him a total of $100,000 to help pay his bills from December 2018 through January 2019.
In one instance, Joe Biden wired his son $5,000 while he was actively engaged with an UberGFE escort. In another, texts indicated Hunter Biden convinced his father to wire him $20,000 to finance his stay at a New York City drug rehabilitation program that he never checked into.
"What's wrong with you?" Hunter told the Washington Examiner shortly after this story was published.
There is no suggestion in these messages that Joe Biden knew what his son was spending his support payments on.
Hunter Biden's text exchange with "Eva," his primary point of contact for the Russian-linked escort agency UberGFE on Feb. 27, 2019.
Hunter Biden disclosed in text messages with a woman named Eva, the go-between who served as his primary point of contact for UberGFE, that his accounts were temporarily frozen at one point because his attempted payments to her "girls" with Russian email accounts were too much of a "red flag" for his bank. Eva refers to him as Robert in the messages, which is his birth name.
A 2020 Senate report by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Ron Johnson (R-WI) said: “Hunter Biden paid nonresident women who were nationals of Russia or other Eastern European countries,” and records note some of these transactions are linked to what “appears to be an Eastern European prostitution or human trafficking ring.”
The report said Hunter Biden “sent thousands of dollars” to people either involved in “transactions consistent with possible human trafficking” or “potential association with prostitution.” Some of the women “subsequently wired funds they have received from Hunter Biden to individuals located in Russia and Ukraine.”
Grassley and Johnson sent a 2019 letter to the director of the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network requesting “all Suspicious Activity Reports” tied to Hunter Biden and his businesses.
Many of the previously unreported records cited in this story, including Hunter Biden's communications with his father, were located in a password-protected iPhone XS backup found on a copy of his abandoned laptop. The iPhone was saved to Hunter Biden’s computer on Feb. 6, 2019. Konstantinos "Gus" Dimitrelos, a cyber forensics expert commissioned by the Washington Examiner, located the password to the iPhone backup during his examination of the hard drive.
In one instance, Joe Biden wired his son $5,000 less than three hours before he filmed a dispute with an escort over a $10,000 payment at a cottage in Boston, Massachusetts.
Hunter Biden's text exchange with "Eva," his primary point of contact for the Russian-linked escort agency UberGFE on Jan. 18, 2019.
Hunter Biden requested Eva send one of her escorts to his cottage during the early hours of Jan. 18, 2019. A few hours after the escort arrived, he texted Eva asking how much it would cost for another 8 hours of the escort’s time.
Eva said the total charge for 16 hours would be $9,500. At 5:17 p.m. that day, Eva directed that he wire the funds to a bank account linked to a woman with a Russian email address.
Less than 90 minutes later, at 6:31 p.m., Hunter Biden received an email informing him that "Joseph R Biden Jr." had sent him $5,000 through Cash App. Joe Biden's then-assistant Richard Ruffner texted Hunter Biden that same minute informing him he "was only able to do $5000 because the weekly limit is $7,500."
Left: Hunter Biden text exchange with Joe Biden (Junior) on Jan. 17 and 18, 2019. Right: Email Hunter Biden received on Jan. 18, 2019.
Ruffner did not respond to a request for comment.
Joe Biden texted his son at 9:52 p.m. asking if the payment came through. But he didn't receive a response that evening.
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Hunter Biden, however, exchanged messages with Eva beginning at 9:21 p.m. in what appears to be a dispute over payment.
Hunter Biden's text exchange with "Eva," his primary point of contact for the Russian-linked escort agency UberGFE on Jan. 18, 2019.
In an 83-second video retrieved by the Washington Examiner that Hunter Biden filmed and sent to Eva, he can be heard having a conversation with the escort, asking if he had ever hurt her.
“Is anything hurt on you? Anything? I was literally saying I’m sorry that it took so long to give you $10,000,” he can be heard saying. “Do you have any bruise? Anything? Have I ever touched you in a bad way? Ever? Have I asked you every time if I could touch you? Every time.”
“Sweetheart, look at me. You cannot talk to me that way and say things like that. Because I’m more respectful than anyone you’ve ever met. Are you OK?” he asked.
Hunter Biden added after he sent the video that the woman speaks no English and that she was “frustrated.”
Eva responded: “All good.”
Hunter Biden text exchange with his sister-in-law Hallie Biden on Jan. 17, 2019.
Hunter Biden claimed he was so broke he couldn’t afford to rent a pair of skis in a text to his sister-in-law Hallie Biden one day before he filmed the video with the escort.
Eva chased Hunter Biden for payments over the following six weeks. He told her on Feb. 27, 2019, that he was unable to make any payments to people with Russian email addresses because they were too much of a “red flag” for his bank.
"That is what got my accounts frozen and reviewed by bank,” he said before arranging to meet one of Eva’s escorts in Queens and pay her in cash.
Hunter Biden spent over $30,000 with Russian escorts linked to Eva and UberGFE between Nov. 26, 2018, and March 10, 2019, according to Wells Fargo wire receipts, Zelle receipts, PayPal notices, and pictures of cashier checks located on his abandoned laptop. Eva directed him to make payments to bank accounts linked to Russian email addresses 11 times during that time frame.
Hunter Biden said a $6,000 payment he made to an UberGFE escort on Dec. 29, 2018, was for "Detox," according to a Wells Fargo wire transfer receipt located on the laptop.
Hunter Biden also performed a Google search for "dc russian escorts" and visited the UberGFE website to search for escorts in Boston from his iPhone XS, according to the backup located on a copy of his abandoned laptop.
The real names of the escorts he hired through UberGFE are not clear. He and Eva referred to the women with English names such as “Jessie,” “Glenda,” “Grace,” “Darla,” and “Kirsten” when they arranged services over texts.
When it came time to pay, Eva directed Hunter Biden to wire funds to bank accounts linked to women with distinctly Eastern European names.
Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy told the Washington Examiner: “We can all sympathize with Biden’s love for his troubled son while recognizing that he was shoveling prodigious sums of money to Hunter Biden when the neon lights were flashing that Hunter was compromised and using the money to become ever more compromised — and with Russia, of all places.”
Left: Hunter Biden text exchange with "Eva" on Dec. 12, 2018. Right: Hunter Biden authorizing PayPal make a $3,000 payment to a Russian email account on Dec. 12, 2018.
“Joe Biden is a textbook example of why applicants with family members who maintain shady ties with foreign actors, particularly those connected to authoritarian anti-American regimes with highly capable intelligence services, get rejected when applying for a security clearance,” he said.
It is not clear who runs UberGFE. The group is not registered as a business entity anywhere in the United States, according to a Nexis public records search. The group claims on its website that it has staff in Ukraine, its site was created by developers from Kyiv, and its “head office of operators” is in that country.
Hunter Biden's text messages with Richard Ruffner on Jan. 18, 2019.
The UberGFE website was a “.net” site, which dubbed the organization “RealGFE” as early as 2014, but it began to redirect to the current “.com” site around August 2016. It still called itself “RealGFE” until sometime after September 2017, after which it embraced its current “UberGFE” name. From 2014 until the summer of 2016, the group listed apparent locations in “Moscow - St. Petersburg - Kiev.”
UberGFE did not respond to requests for comment sent to the phone numbers and email addresses listed on its website.
Hunter Biden appeared broke for much of the time between November 2018 and March 2019. He owed $37,000 in alimony each month, was being hounded by his ex-wife to resolve a $112,805 IRS tax lien, and was in and out of costly rehabilitation programs to treat his addiction to crack cocaine.
The $41,500 Hunter received each month for his work as a director for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma was not enough to cover his obligations — one of his personal bank accounts posted negative balances during this period. He had insufficient funds to make payments on his Porsche, he had accumulated over $800,000 in unpaid bills, and he was reduced to begging his friends and family to transfer him cash so he could afford simple luxuries such as cab rides.
Hunter Biden text exchange with Joe Biden (Junior) on Dec. 5 and 6, 2018.
Hunter Biden texted his father on Dec. 5, 2018, asking him to help pay for his monthly alimony and his daughters’ rent, tuitions, healthcare, and other day-to-day costs.
“75 being wired today,” Joe Biden texted his son the following day.
Hunter Biden confirmed his father’s wire made it to his account on the evening of Dec. 7, 2018. He lamented that he was draining his father's savings during the first time in his life he was able to build up a nest egg.
Hunter Biden text exchange with Joe Biden (Junior) on Dec. 7, 2018.
Federal tax returns filed by Joe Biden, when he was no longer in public office, show an adjusted gross income of $4.58 million in 2018 and $985,233 in 2019. The July 2019 public disclosure form listed him as president of CelticCapri, where he received a $425,000 salary, and as a University of Pennsylvania professor, where he was paid $540,484. He also listed “speaking and writing engagements” totaling $2.78 million.
Hunter Biden solicited another $20,000 from his father on Jan. 2, 2019, to fund his stay at a New York City detox program and sober house. He had urged his father a few days prior to ignore members of their family who “invariably will criticize and doubt me (and you the ‘enabler’).”
Joe Biden texted his son at 1:07 p.m. on Jan. 2, 2019: “Just called Mel he will get 20 to your account this afternoon tomorrow morning at latest. He will contact me when transfer goes through."
Hunter Biden acknowledged he received the funds from his father at 7:09 p.m. that evening: “It went through dad- thank you it means a lot to me and I am very grateful.”
It does not appear Hunter Biden ever checked into the New York City recovery program. A little over two hours after Joe Biden committed to wiring $20,000 to his son, Hunter Biden made plans to leave New York City and stay at a Massachusetts cottage owned by his Boston-based psychiatrist, Keith Ablow.
Left: Hunter Biden text exchange with Joe Biden on Jan. 2, 2019. Right: Hunter Biden text exchange with Keith Ablow on Jan. 2, 2019.
Hunter Biden’s former assistant Katie Dodge said in a Jan. 17, 2019, email that Joe Biden would be covering his son’s bills “in the short-term as Hunter transitions in his career.”
Dodge included a document in the email showing Hunter Biden had accumulated $819,000 in unpaid bills, including business expenses, legal fees, unpaid taxes, credit card debt, and other personal expenses.
Hunter Biden had lamented in a text message to Eva that he just spent $3,000 on a ”disappointing” UberGFE escort who “did absolutely nothing” just hours before he requested $20,000 from his father on Jan. 2, 2019.
One of his last known contacts with Eva came on March 9, 2019, when he offered to wire her $2,500 to spend five hours with a woman he referred to as Julia.
“I don’t have Julia,” Eva responded. “She left. To her country.”
Hunter Biden text exchange with "Eva" on Jan. 2, 2019.
Hunter Biden also had an iMessage exchange on Oct. 28, 2018, with a woman named “Vicky,” whom he eventually apparently blocked. The woman used a couple of Russian words and claimed she had been deported after allegedly attempting to visit him.
He first told her they did not seem to understand each other, adding, “I understand you want to come see me. I said I would live [sic] that. You said send me money. I said where. ... You give you name but no exact location. … You say buy ticket but never explain what airline and when.”
“I understand your Reports, but you do not understand me. I had the weak internet, and I practically could not catch вай фай [Russian for “Wi-Fi”] and then my account blocked in general,” Vicky replied. “Sitting there expecting you, I was taken away in separations, I was very напуганна [Russian for “scared”] and I cried constantly. after 6 hours I was deported back.”
Hunter Biden text conversation with "Vicky" between Oct. 25, 2018 and Oct. 28, 2018.
The 2021 bookThe Bidens said that “Hunter’s payments to a number of Eastern European women” had “drawn the interest of the FBI’s counterintelligence division” due to “concerns that they could be used to compromise him with evidence of embarrassing activities.”
Hunter Biden references prostitution during this general time frame in his memoir, Beautiful Things.
"I exchanged L.A.’s $400-a-night bungalows and their endless parade of blingy degenerates for the underbelly of Connecticut’s $59-a-night motels and the dealers, hookers, and hard-core addicts — like me — who favored them," he wrote.
Hunter Biden was married to Kathleen Buhle Biden from 1993 until their divorce in 2017, and they had three daughters. He has since married South African filmmaker Melissa Cohen.
Kathleen Buhle Biden pointed to her ex-husband "spending extravagantly" on prostitutes and strip clubs in a February 2017 court filing.
In July 2019, the New Yorker wrote Hunter Biden “denied hiring prostitutes and said he hadn’t been to a strip club in years.”
“The context here is that Democrats put the country through two years of anxiety on the false, Democrat-fabricated claim that Biden’s predecessor was an agent of the Kremlin,” McCarthy said. “And of course, when compelling evidence arose that Biden is actually entangled in his son’s foreign business dealings, despite having denied even discussing them, Biden apologists responded with their standard deceptive deflection — it’s all Russian disinformation.”
McCarthy added: “Now, however, we learn that it was Russian information — Hunter’s reckless payments of thousands of dollars he'd received from his willfully blind father to sordid businesses with Russian email accounts — that Biden apologists were suppressing in the weeks before the 2020 election.”
Hunter Biden recorded himself in early December 2018 boasting that his father will adopt political positions at his command.
“My dad respects me more than he respects anyone in the world, and I know that to be certain,” Hunter said, adding that his father “thinks I’m a god.”
"We have great confidence in our son. I am not concerned about any accusations made against him. It used to get to me. I think it's kind of foul play," he said. "But look, it is what it is, and he's a grown man. He is the smartest man I know — I mean from a pure intellectual capacity. And as long as he's good, we're good."