Yes, these are NEW emails about Hunter Biden, and somehow (yet not surprisingly) they are even more insane than the last half dozen rounds of revelations.

Insider obtained emails indicating that Hunter Biden asked for a $2 million annual retainer plus "success fees" to help unfreeze Libyan assets during the Obama administration. The communications offer "a window into the mechanics of Beltway influence peddling and the stock that was put in Biden's political connections," as my colleague writes.

The Obama administration froze up to $15 billion in assets during Muammar Gaddafi's rule. In 2015, long after Gaddafi's ouster and death, two Democratic donors with business in the Persian Gulf pitched Hunter Biden about joining their cause.

The two donors were frank in discussing Hunter Biden's connections: "Since he travels with dad he is connected everywhere in Europe and Asia where M.Q. [Gaddafi, also spelled Qaddafi] and LIA [Libya Investment Authority] had money frozen. He said he has access to highest level in PRC [China], he can help there," Sam Jauhari, one donor, wrote in January 2015 to Mohammed al-Rahbani, another donor.

Nothing appears to have come from the conversations: The White House declined to provide a statement to Insider. An attorney for al-Rahbani said his client "knows to a certainty that he never spoke to and has no recollection of talking about Hunter Biden."

This was apparently one of the emails from these Democratic donors:

The first email, dated January 28, 2015, was sent from Sam Jauhari, a Democratic donor with businesses in the Persian Gulf, who was helping spearhead the Libya project. It was addressed to Sheikh Mohammed al-Rahbani, another Obama campaign donor involved in the proposal. In the email, Jauhari is frank about what Biden would bring to the table, and what he says Biden wanted in return.

Here was that email. Read it slowly. Take it in. Consider that this offer of pay-to-play and quid pro quo was during the time that Joe ("The Big Guy") Biden was Vice President of the United States and ask yourself how the media would cover this if it was someone like Donald Trump, Jr. instead of a Biden:

'Per phone conversation I met with #2 son. He wants $2 [million] per year retainer +++ success fees. He wants to hire his own people - it can be close circle of people for confidentiality. His dad is deciding to run or not.

His positives are he is Chairman of UN World Food Program, son of #2 [Joe Biden] who has Libya file, access to State, Treasury, business partner SofS [Secretary of State] J. [John] Forbes K [Kerry] son and since he travels with dad he is connected everywhere in Europe and Asia where M. Q. [Muammar Qaddafi] and LIA [Libya Investment Authority] had money frozen. He said he has access to highest level in PRC [China], he can help there.

His negatives are that he is alcoholic, drug addict - kicked [out] of U.S. Army for cocaine, chasing low class hookers, constantly needs money-liquidity problems and many more headaches.

We should meet in Gstraad or London to decide next steps.'

There is one thing factually wrong about this email that I have to note.

Hunter was kicked out of the Navy Reserve, not the Army.

Let's continue:

Biden's apparent offer to provide "access to the highest level" in the Chinese government is also telling. China, which was attempting to strengthen its position in Africa, had been a particular source of frustration for Libya's new government, which was struggling to free up $15 billion in foreign assets that had been frozen by Obama during the Qaddafi regime. In 2013, according to The New Yorker, Hunter Biden had traveled with his father on an official visit to Beijing, where he had arranged for the vice president to briefly meet one of his business partners in the lobby of the American delegation's hotel.

Sam Jauhari, the Democratic donor who spoke to Hunter Biden about the Libya deal, photographed with then-Vice President Joe Biden at a fundraising event.Personal archive

Such access may, in fact, have been worth the price that Biden was cited as quoting. Two people close to the negotiations told Insider that the "$2 per year retainer" mentioned in the email meant $2 million. "My recollection was that anything that had to do with Hunter started at $2 million," said one. Jauhari and his partners, according to other documents obtained by Insider, expected to pocket as much as 5% of whatever sanctioned money they could free up for Libya. That meant a possible payday in the hundreds of millions. It's unclear whether any "success fees" for Biden would have been pegged in some way to those proceeds.

Again, imagine that details had released about this type of backdoor deal with Jared Kushner or Ivanka Trump. Imagine the headlines. Imagine what you would be told from the newsrooms for weeks and months on end.

And rightly so!

This was only half of the story. Let's turn to the second email, which was dated Feb. 16, 2016, where Jauhari and al-Rahbani got a report by DC lawyer John Sandweg, who previously worked as the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Obama. Sandweg had apparently contacted Biden's team about the whole Libya deal.

I spoke with HB's team yesterday. They are interested in the project, but emphasized that for them to get involved, the team (lobbyists, lawyers and PR) would need to be a small group of folks they have a tight relationship with. They do not want a large group involved and they only want people with whom they have a close relationship with due to the sensitivities surrounding their involvement.

Doesn't this make your stomach sick? This is an attempt to use the wayward son of the then-VP as leverage, and it was being actively sought by that son.

You know, the son that Joe has vigorously defended, even as both of them fail to acknowledge things like their daughter/granddaughter that Hunter had with a prostitute.

America, when are you going to care about the House-of-Cards-level corruption that's happening, or is do the people in question not have orange enough skin??

You know stuff like this happens in every administration, not just the ones you like.

But to see it happen regularly at the highest levels – and so visibly – with a "meh" reaction from the media and the public is INSANE.

Neither Jauhari nor an attorney for Hunter Biden responded to Insider's requests for comment. The White House declined to provide a statement. Martin Auerbach, an attorney for al-Rahbani, said his client "has no recollection of seeing those emails contemporaneously" and "knows to a certainty that he never spoke to and has no recollection of talking about Hunter Biden."

In the past, both Joe and Hunter Biden have repeatedly said they never discussed the younger Biden's clients, and there is no evidence that Hunter Biden ever used his relationship with his father to deliver anything of substance for his clients.

I guess we've forgotten about that Bobulinski guy and others who have claimed otherwise.

This may be the most revealing sentence in the entire article about how big money and Washington lobbying works:

There is no mention of ethics, only optics.

I'll end by pointing out that our dear president – that 50-year career politician who has never employed anyone in his life – and his extended family have seemingly gotten very, very wealthy through magic, dumb luck, and eating ice cream!

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