The two aides who mistakenly packed up classified documents from the White House during Joe Biden's transition out of the vice presidency in 2017 were brought into his office at Hunter Biden's recommendation, according to bombshell new revelations.
The previously unnamed staffers, referred to as "Executive Assistant" and "Staff Assistant 3" in the recent report by Special Counsel Robert Hur, have now been identified as Kathy Chung and Anne Marie Muldoon. And both women were essentially hired by Hunter Biden himself during the Obama administration.
Chung had worked with Hunter at the Commerce Department in the early 2000s. In 2012, as Biden's "primary gatekeeper" position opened up, Hunter proposed his former colleague for the sensitive role managing his father's staff and handling his personal affairs.
"I just met with your Dad again and he officially offered me the job," Chung emailed Hunter in June 2012. "I cannot thank you enough for thinking about me and walking me thru this."
Two years later, it was Hunter again who recommended that Chung bring on Muldoon, his own personal aide at his firm Rosemont Seneca, as an office assistant. Muldoon's husband had previously worked for Hunter as well.
The cozy family ties persisted as the two women took control of the incoming and outgoing paperwork in Biden's vice presidential office suite. Records show they routinely fielded requests from Hunter, assisting with travel logistics for him and his business partners at Rosemont Seneca.
Between 2012 and 2015, a staggering 921 emails generated from Biden's office involved communications with Hunter or his firm, according to records from the National Archives.
In one August 2016 instance cited in visitor logs, Muldoon escorted a nephew of notorious Boston mobster Whitey Bulger into the West Wing just after he partnered with Hunter on an investment fund bankrolled by Chinese state-owned firms.
The cozy relationship continued right up through Biden's departure from office. Just a month after Chung and Muldoon packed up over 180 classified documents into 15 boxes, Hunter tried recruiting Chung directly, writing to her: "Come work with me so that I can make everybody money."
Instead, Chung stuck with the elder Biden, following him to his newly established Penn Biden Center where that first batch of mishandled classified materials was uncovered in November 2022.
While both Chung and Muldoon have avoided criminal charges from Hur, their role in sparking the entire classified documents saga has raised fresh scrutiny over Hunter Biden's priorities and business dealings while his father was vice president.
"The issue of Hunter Biden's cozy relationship with these aides could break into the open during Hur's March 12 testimony on the Hill," the New York Post reported. "Sources say lawmakers will press him on whether he investigated Hunter or his uncle Jim to see if either of them gained access to the stolen White House docs."
The House Oversight Committee has already subpoenaed Hur's full investigative files as part of its impeachment inquiry, citing concerns "that President Biden may have retained sensitive documents related to specific countries involving his family's foreign business dealings."
For his part, President Biden has downplayed the document mishandling as an innocent mistake by his former "staff," stating: "I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing."
However, the revelations that those very staffers were essentially hired through his son, and maintained close ties to Hunter's business associates during their White House tenure, have added a new layer of scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest.
It also appears to contradict Biden's portrayal of an arm's-length separation between his official duties and his family's private business ventures - a narrative repeatedly undermined by the parade of discoveries on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop.
While the President may claim ignorance, the evidence continues mounting that his son and associates operated in remarkably close proximity to his vice presidential office and official government business. And their unforced errors appear to be the seeds of his current legal predicament over classified documents.
