The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) has acknowledged that it has about 5,400 emails that may show President Joe Biden used pseudonyms while he was vice president.
The emails were requested by the Southeastern Legal Foundation (SLF), a nonprofit constitutional legal group, in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The SLF is seeking the emails because they believe they could show that Biden may have provided government information to his son, Hunter Biden.
The SLF has sued the NARA for the release of the emails. The group’s general counsel, Kimberly Hermann, said in a statement that “the American public deserves to know what is in” the emails.
The NARA has not yet released the emails to the SLF. However, in a letter to the SLF, the NARA’s director of archival operations division, Stephannie Oriabure, said that the agency has identified “approximately 5,138 email messages, 25 electronic files and 200 pages of potentially responsive records” that need to be processed before they can be released.
The NARA’s acknowledgement of the emails comes as Rep. James Comer, the chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, has also demanded that the agency release records from Biden’s time as vice president that overlap with his son’s activities in Ukraine. Comer has specifically asked for emails that were signed with the pseudonyms “Robert Peters,” “Robin Ware,” and “JRB Ware.”
The release of these emails could shed light on whether Biden used his position as vice president to benefit his son’s business interests. It is also possible that the emails could contain other sensitive information.
The NARA has not yet said when it will release the emails to the SLF or to Comer. However, the agency has said that it is “committed to transparency and accountability” and that it will “work expeditiously” to process the records.
