Email exchanges between Joe Biden’s family and business associates show the Bidens planning to cash in on the family name in an academic venture with the University of Delaware while discussing ways to carefully distance Joe himself from financial documents outlining the deal.
Team Biden was to receive $12.5 million for the establishment of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware (UD), which launched shortly after Joe Biden left the vice presidency in 2017. The arrangement meant a nice payday for the Bidens and their associates. And, as it turned out, the launch of the Biden Institute coincided with a bonanza in foreign money donations for the university. Correspondences show that UD wanted Joe Biden to raise funds for the university after his institute opened.
In the weeks and months following the opening of the Institute, UD received foreign cash donations totaling more than $33 million, including $6.7 million from China. Of that sum, three gifts came directly from the Chinese Communist government.
In a series of email exchanges that included Hunter Biden, Valerie Biden Owens (Joe’s sister who called Hunter Biden the “central person” in the UD plans), two of Owens’s daughters (Joe’s nieces), and various Biden business associates, they discussed ways that they could benefit from Biden’s academic ventures and having “the Biden Foundation” or a “family member” sign a Memorandum of Understanding (“MOU”) “on behalf of the VP.” Emails from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop show that UD and Team Biden negotiated ways to compensate Biden family members, including Joe Biden’s sister Valerie Biden Owens.