Hunter Biden’s lobbyist friend had more visits to Obama WH than known: report

First son Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner — who also managed his family’s financial affairs — made more visits to both the Obama White House and then-Vice President Biden’s official residence than previously known.

Eric Schwerin dropped in at the executive mansion and the Naval Observatory in Washington on at least 36 occasions in total between 2009 and 2016, according to an analysis published Monday by Fox News.

The Post initially reported in April 2022 that Schwerin visited the White House and vice president’s residence at least 19 times while Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s second-in-command. Eight additional visits from 2016 subsequently were discovered in visitor logs by Fox News.

Schwerin had a friendly relationship with the scandal-plagued first son for years. He served as the managing director of the now-defunct investment firm Rosemont Seneca Advisors, which Hunter Biden helped co-found — though the pair may have met while working in the Commerce Department during the Clinton administration.

Schwerin had also been part of Hunter’s lobbying shop, Oldaker, Biden & Belair, where he worked from 2002 to 2008, disclosure forms show. 

Prior to Obama’s election, the-then senator from Illinois pursued more than $3.4 million in congressional earmarks for Hunter’s clients, the Washington Post reported in August 2008, weeks after Obama tapped Joe Biden as his running mate.

During Obama’s second term, the 44th president tapped Schwerin to serve on the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad in 2015, before reappointing him in the final days before he left office in 2017.

Schwerin’s visits to the Naval Observatory included one trip for a Dec. 12, 2015, holiday reception, Fox News reported. Among the other attendees were Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer. The reception took place days after the then-vice president had returned from Ukraine, where he threatened to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees if the country’s top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, was not ousted.

That prosecutor was scrutinizing energy giant Burisma Holdings, where Hunter Biden and Archer had board seats.

In April of 2022, House Republicans asked Schwerin to divulge all communications involving President Biden and Hunter Biden since 2009, as well as a list of Schwerin’s positions in Biden family companies.

In addition to being colleagues, emails from Hunter Biden’s former laptop and testimony from the first son’s own ex-wife indicate that Schwerin was deeply involved in the family’s finances.

Emails from the abandoned hard drive show Schwerin moving money on behalf of Joe and Hunter while helping the latter handle family expenses. Schwerin received Joe Biden’s “Delaware tax refund check” while he was vice president and he and Hunter talked by phone about Joe Biden’s mortgage.

In February 2014, the then-second son advised Schwerin to describe himself as a “close confidant and counsel” to the elder Biden in a letter of recommendation Schwerin was penning on Joe Biden’s behalf.

“I would tone down the ‘he and my son’ parts,” Hunter wrote. “I think it’s better to just focus on the fact that you have been a close confidant and counsel to him and just say somewhere something like ‘as a business partner with my son at Rosemont Seneca…’”

Kathleen Buhle, who divorced Hunter Biden in 2017 after 24 years of marriage, wrote in her memoir “If We Break,” published last year, about encountering Schwerin at a cocktail party in the Dominican Republic.

“Eric had managed almost every aspect of our financial lives, so our relationship was an awkward one,” wrote Buhle, who described Schwerin as her former husband’s “business partner”. “One born out of mutual need, perhaps. But I trusted him.”

In February of this year, The Post reported that Schwerin was also involved in the transfer of Joe Biden’s Senate papers to the University of Delaware in March 2010 — a haul which may have included “sensitive” and “classified” documents.

By December 2017, Hunter had fallen out with Schwerin and attempted to cut ties with him.

“I terminated you as an at will employee for gross negligence. Also if you continue to sit with friends of mine and relationships that are mine and defame me I will sue you for defamation of character and embezzlement and for the debt with you still have not contributed your supposed 25% share of,” Hunter wrote on Dec. 12, 2017. “ … We are no longer just done as business partners you should consider moving to somewhere in Florida I’ll never go. Naples is perfect you can live in perpetual time share with your parents and talk about what a horrible person I am.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Attempts to reach Schwerin were not immediately successful.