Schwerin-Transcript.pdf

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY, 5

joint with the 6

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 7

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 8

WASHINGTON, D.C. 9

INTERVIEW OF: ERIC SCHWERIN 14

Tuesday, January 30, 2024 17

Washington, D.C. 19

The interview in the above matter was held in room 6480, O'Neill House Office 22

Building, commencing at 10:02 a.m. 23

Present: Representatives Comer, Jordan, Biggs, Gaetz, Spartz, and Raskin. 24

Appearances: 1

For the COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY: 5

, SENIOR COUNSEL 7

, DEPUTY STAFF DIRECTOR 8

, COUNSEL 9

, CHIEF COUNSEL FOR INVESTIGATIONS 10

, DIGITAL DIRECTOR 11

, GENERAL COUNSEL 12

, STAFF DIRECTOR 13

, COUNSEL 14

, MINORITY CHIEF COUNSEL 15

, MINORITY POLICY DIRECTOR 16

, MINORITY DEPUTY CLERK AND PROFESSIONAL STAFF MEMBER 17

, MINORITY COUNSEL 18

, MINORITY STAFF DIRECTOR19

For the COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY: 1

, GENERAL COUNSEL 3

, DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL 4

, COUNSEL 5

, COUNSEL 6

, CHIEF COUNSEL FOR OVERSIGHT 7

, PROFESSIONAL STAFF MEMBER 8

, MINORITY OVERSIGHT COUNSEL 9

, MINORITY CHIEF OVERSIGHT COUNSEL 10

, MINORITY PROFESSIONAL STAFF MEMBER 11

For the COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS: 15

, CHIEF OVERSIGHT COUNSEL 17

, SENIOR PROFESSIONAL STAFF MEMBER18

For ERIC SCHWERIN: 1

THOMAS M. FARAH, ESQ. 3

WILLIAM J. FARAH, ESQ. 4

Berke Farah, LLP 5

710 8th Street NW, Suite 620 6

Washington, D.C. 20001 7

Mr. . We're going to go on the record. 1

Good morning. 2

This is a transcribed interview of Eric Schwerin. Chairman Comer and Chairman 3

Jordan, of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability and Judiciary Committee 4

respectively, have requested this interview as part of the committees' impeachment 5

inquiry and investigation into the Biden family's extensive receipt of money from foreign 6

nationals and foreign companies, as well as the impeachment inquiry. 7

Would the witness please state your name for the record? 8

Mr. Schwerin. Eric Schwerin. 9

Mr. . On behalf of the committees, I want to thank you, Mr. Schwerin, 10

for appearing here today. The committees appreciate your appearance for the 11

interview. 12

My name is , and I am general counsel for the Committee on 13

Oversight on behalf of Chairman Comer. 14

I will now ask everyone else in the majority and minority, committees, including 15

the members and the staff, to please introduce yourself as well. 16

Chairman Comer. James Comer. 17

Mr. . , with the House Judiciary Committee, Mr. Jordan's 18

staff. 19

Mr. Jordan. Jim Jordan, Ohio 4. 20

Ms. . Chairman Jordan's staff. 21

Mr. . , Chairman Comer's staff. 22

Mr. Biggs. Andy Biggs, Arizona 5. 23

Mr. . , Chairman Jordan's staff. 24

Ms. . , with Ranking Member Nadler's staff on the House 25

interview. 1

First, our questioning today will occur in rounds. The majority will ask questions 2

for 1 hour, and then the minority staff will also have the opportunity to ask questions for 3

the following hour. This will go on until we finish the rounds and we conclude with all of 4

our questions. 5

Typically, we take a short break at the end of each hour, but if you would like to 6

take a break apart from that, please just let us know and we're happy to accommodate 7

you. 8

As you can see, there are official reporters here. They are taking down 9

everything we say to make a written record, so we ask that you give verbal responses to 10

all of our questions. Do you understand that? 11

Mr. Schwerin. Yes. 12

Mr. . To ensure that the court reporter can make a clear record, we 13

will do our best to limit the number of people directing questions to you during any given 14

hour to just those people whose staff turn it is to ask questions. So, if the majority is 15

asking questions, only majority staff or members should be asking you questions; same 16

with minority. 17

It's also important that we don't talk over one another or interrupt each other if 18

we can help it. So that goes for everybody that's here present today. 19

We encourage witnesses who appear before the committee to freely consult with 20

counsel if they so choose. It's my understanding that you are accompanied by counsel. 21

And counsel has already introduced themselves, so I won't ask you to state your names 22

again. We do thank you for being here today. 23

We want you to answer our questions in the most complete and truthful manner 24

possible, so we will take our time. If you have any questions or if you do not understand 25

one of our questions, please just let us know and we're happy to repeat it. 1

If you honestly don't know the answer to a question or do not remember, it is best 2

not to guess. Please give us your best recollection. And it's okay if you learned 3

information from someone else; just indicate how you came to know the information. 4

If there are things you don't know or can't remember, just say so, and please 5

inform us who, to the best of your knowledge, might be able to provide a more complete 6

answer to the question. 7

You should also understand that, by law, you are required to answer questions 8

from Congress truthfully. There are various Federal criminal statutes that are relevant 9

to the integrity of congressional interviews, including making false statements and 10

perjury. 11

Do you understand that? 12

Mr. Schwerin. Yes. 13

Mr. . This also applies to questions that are posed by congressional 14

staff during an interview. Do you understand that? 15

Mr. Schwerin. Yes. 16

Mr. . Witnesses who knowingly provide false testimony could be 17

subject to criminal prosecution for perjury or making false statements. Do you 18

understand that? 19

Mr. Schwerin. Yes. 20

Mr. . Furthermore, you cannot tell half-truths or exclude information 21

necessary to make statements accurate. You are required to provide all information 22

that would make your response truthful. A deliberate failure to disclose information can 23

constitute a false statement. 24

Do you understand that? 25

Mr. Schwerin. Yes. 1

Mr. . Is there any reason you are unable to provide truthful answers to 2

today's questions? 3

Mr. Schwerin. No. 4

Mr. . Additionally, if you choose to confer with your attorney in a 5

sidebar or if there are any interruptions or interjections from your attorney or the 6

minority, the majority's time will be paused for the duration of those interruptions. 7

This is the end of my preamble. Is there anything the minority would like to add? 8

Ms. We just thank the witness for joining us today. 9

Mr. William Farah. We have an opening statement. 10

Mr. . Yes, sir. You are more than welcome to read in your opening 11

statement at this time. Thank you. 12

Mr. Schwerin. Thank you for the opportunity to say a few words before I answer 13

your questions today. 14

For those of you who were not present when I met with the members of the 15

House Oversight Committee staff on March 31st of last year, I want to provide some 16

background on myself and, based on my personal recollections, address President Biden's 17

knowledge of the business affairs of his son Hunter Biden. 18

I first came to Washington, D.C., in 1993 for graduate school and began working as 19

a career civil servant at the U.S. Department of Commerce in 1995, where I focused on 20

international trade issues. I continued working there through 2002, serving both 21

Democratic and Republican Secretaries of Commerce. 22

While working for the Commerce Department, I was detailed to the White House 23

under President Clinton to serve as liaison to the business community. It was during my 24

time working at the Commerce Department that I met and became friends with Hunter 25

Biden, who was working there as well. 1

After I left the government, I joined Hunter Biden at a law and lobbying firm he 2

had co-founded, representing both not-for-profit and corporate clients. During this 3

time, I was also appointed by the Bush administration to serve on a Federal industry trade 4

advisory committee focused on telecommunications trade policy. 5

In 2009, I co-founded Rosemont Seneca Partners along with Hunter Biden and 6

other colleagues from diverse backgrounds in business and financial services. Rosemont 7

Seneca Partners was a consulting and investment firm that offered business development 8

and public policy advisory services to a wide range of clients. 9

As I discussed with the Oversight Committee staff when we met last year, from 10

2009 to 2017, I performed a number of administrative and bookkeeping tasks for 11

then-Vice President Joe Biden related to his household finances. I also helped him and 12

his accountants in their preparation of his taxes and his annual financial disclosure 13

statements. 14

In the course of performing these duties, I had the ability to view transactions 15

both into and out of Vice President Biden's bank accounts while he was Vice President. 16

Based on that insight, I am not aware of any financial transactions or compensation that 17

Vice President Biden received related to business conducted by any of his family 18

members or their associates, nor any involvement by him in their businesses -- none. 19

The Oversight Committee's letter to me from February 8th of last year said the 20

committee is, quote, "investigating President Biden's knowledge of and role in Hunter's 21

foreign business deals," end quote. 22

I cannot recall any requests for Vice President Biden to take any official action on 23

behalf of any of Hunter's clients or his business deals, foreign or domestic. In fact, I am 24

not aware of any role that Vice President Biden, as a public official or a private citizen, 25

had in any of Hunter's business activities -- none. 1

As it relates to my own interactions with Vice President Biden, I never asked him 2

to take any official actions for the benefit of Hunter's clients or any other client. 3

Furthermore, I have no recollection of any promises or suggestions made by Hunter or 4

myself to any clients or business associates that his father would take any official actions 5

on their behalf -- none. 6

In my discussions with the Vice President concerning his personal finances, he was 7

always crystal-clear that he wanted to take the most transparent and ethical approach, 8

consistent with both the spirit and the letter of the law. 9

Given my awareness of his finances and explicit directions he gave to his financial 10

advisors, the allegation that he would engage in any improper conduct to benefit himself 11

or his family is preposterous to me. 12

I'm now happy to answer any of your questions. 13

Mr. . Yes, sir. The clock now reads 10:11 a.m. The majority's time 14

will start. 15

EXAMINATION 16

BY MR. : 17

Q I know you touched on a few of these issues in your letter with your 18

background, but we're just going to go back through it, if that's okay. 19

A Sure. 20

Q Can you please tell us about your educational background? 21

A Yes. I went to The University of Pennsylvania and got a bachelor's degree 22

there. I went to The George Washington University and got a master's in international 23

affairs. 24

Q Do you have any licenses, currently or previously? 25

A I am a licensed securities broker, Series 7, 63, 79, and 24. 1

Q You're not an attorney, correct? 2

A I am not. 3

Q And, then, could you tell us about -- and, again, you touched on this in your 4

letter, but if you could just -- for the record, if you could go through some of your 5

government experience that was prior to 2014. 6

A Yeah. So, in 1995, I joined the Commerce Department. I worked in the 7

International Trade Administration. 8

Towards 1997, I went and started working directly for the Secretary of Commerce, 9

first in the Office of Business Liaison and then in the Office of Policy and Strategic 10

Planning. I was focusing on international trade issues. 11

I was detailed in 1998, I believe, to the White House to work as the business 12

liaison to the White House under President Clinton. 13

And I worked for 2 years for Secretary Don Evans in his policy planning staff, 14

working on international trade issues there. 15

Q When did you meet Hunter Biden? 16

A I believe it was 1999, at the Commerce Department. We were working 17

together. 18

Q And how long did you work together there? 19

A Through the end of the Clinton administration, so -- 20

Q After the Clinton administration, can you explain to the committees how it is 21

that you developed a private business relationship with Hunter Biden, how that 22

developed? 23

A We were friends when we were working at the Commerce Department. 24

We remained friends even after he left and I remained at the Commerce Department. 25

He had left to start a law and lobbying firm, and we had discussions about me potentially 1

joining it. And so he had asked me to do so, and I did. 2

Q What was that lobbying firm? 3

A What was the name of it? 4

Q Yes, sir. 5

A It was Oldaker, Biden & Belair. 6

Q Did there come a time when you joined that lobbying firm? 7

A Yeah. It was April of 2002, I believe. 8

Q At that point, were you a registered lobbyist? 9

A Once I joined and started working on lobbying clients, I did register as a 10

lobbyist, yes. 11

Q How long did you and Hunter Biden work at Oldaker? 12

A Through, I believe it was, 2008. Until August of 2008. 13

Q Why is it that you and Hunter Biden left Oldaker? 14

A We had decided earlier in that year that we wanted to do something 15

different. There were some partners that were older at that time, and they were 16

thinking of -- we were trying to transition. We didn't think they were going to be around 17

much longer working in that firm, and so we decided that we wanted to do that and start 18

our own firm. 19

Q Okay. What was the firm that you initially started with Hunter Biden? 20

A It was called Seneca Global Advisors. 21

Q And Seneca Global Advisors, was it just you and Hunter Biden, or were there 22

others involved as well? 23

A There were others involved. It was probably five or six of us, if I recall. 24

Q Regarding Seneca Global Advisors, was there also a company called 25

Rosemont Capital that was involved with that company? 1

A So it was not until later, in 2009, that Seneca Global Advisors ultimately 2

merged with Rosemont Capital to form what was then called Rosemont Seneca Partners. 3

Q So, just so I have it, Seneca Global Advisors merges with Rosemont Capital to 4

form Rosemont Seneca Advisors. 5

A Rosemont Seneca Partners -- 6

Q Partners. Excuse me. 7

A -- was the top level of it, yes. 8

Q And who were the partners at Rosemont Seneca Partners then? 9

A It was myself, Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, Chris Heinz, and a woman named 10

Arlene Busch. 11

Q What services did Rosemont Seneca Partners provide? 12

A It was both an investment firm and also an advisory firm, and the advisory 13

services were business development and public policy advisory services. 14

Q Did Rosemont Seneca Partners do any lobbying? 15

A I do not believe it did, no. 16

Q And when you say it was an investment firm, what do you mean? 17

A There were a number of investments that the firm itself made and then 18

investment funds that were created. So Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners is one 19

example of that. So -- 20

Q What was your role at Rosemont Seneca Partners, your title? 21

A I believe I was president. 22

Q What about Hunter Biden? 23

A I think he had the role -- the title of chairman. 24

Q I want to talk about a couple other companies. We'll go through the 25

companies in more detail a little bit later -- 1

A Sure. 2

Q -- probably in the second hour, but I'm just trying to get an understanding of 3

the primary companies that are involved here. 4

Can you explain how Owasco, P.C., came into the picture as well? 5

A Owasco, P.C., was Hunter's solely owned personal corporation. I believe it 6

was created in 2006. So it was prior to Seneca Global Advisors; that's when we were at 7

Oldaker Biden. And it was the entity that he used to hold his interest in the various 8

other businesses that we would've had. 9

Q What about Owasco, LLC? 10

A Owasco, LLC, was created later. I don't remember the exact date, but, you 11

know, probably 2015-ish. And that was created on the advice of our accountant, 12

because, as Owasco, P.C., was a corporation, it was better to have an LLC that could hold 13

investment interests versus having it be done through a corporation. 14

Q So it's fair to say Owasco, LLC, was a holding company for Owasco, P.C.? 15

A They were two separate entities, not related. They were solely owned by 16

Hunter, but they were not connected. 17

Q What about Skaneateles? 18

A Skaneateles was an entity that Hunter and I created together prior to 19

starting Seneca Global Advisors that would hold our interest in Seneca Global Advisors. 20

And these were all created based on consultations with our accountants on the best way 21

to structure this. 22

Q These companies that I'm describing now -- so the ones you just 23

described -- is it fair to say that you would have at least access to the bank accounts for 24

those particular companies? 25

A Certainly Skaneateles, Owasco, and I think what was called Rosemont 1

Seneca Advisors. I think the Rosemont Seneca bank accounts -- I think the primary 2

access for that was through the New York office that we had. 3

Q But you had an understanding of wires being sent to those companies, for 4

instance, or for the money coming in, the cash flow coming in to those types of -- those 5

companies that you just named? 6

A Yes. 7

Q All right. 8

So those are companies that you're working with Hunter Biden. And you formed 9

this, I want to say, in the beginning of the Obama administration, approximately, 10

many -- some of those companies that we just described? 11

A Some were formed in 2008, some in 2009. 12

Q But, primarily, that's kind of when these companies are forming, is the 13

beginning of the Obama administration? 14

A Yes. 15

Q Now, there are other companies I want to talk about very quickly that I don't 16

think you had access to and bank accounts that I don't think you were necessarily familiar 17

with, and I just want to confirm that before I talk about them. 18

So, first off, there is the Rosemont Seneca Bohai account. Did there come a time 19

when you became familiar with the Rosemont Seneca Bohai account? 20

A Yes, there was. 21

Q Or, company. 22

A Later on, yes. 23

Q And when you say "later on," that's because Rosemont Seneca Bohai was 24

later investigated by DOJ and the Feds for potential criminal wrongdoing, correct? 25

A I think it was because Devon Archer was being investigated for criminal 1

wrongdoing, and he owned Rosemont Seneca Bohai, so they were looking at that entity 2

that he owned. 3

Q So Devon Archer owns Rosemont Seneca Bohai and is -- and, to your 4

knowledge, does Devon Archer -- he was the one who was controlling the Rosemont 5

Seneca Bohai account? 6

A That's correct. 7

Q And the same goes for Rosemont Seneca Thornton? That would've been 8

an account, based upon your knowledge, that Devon Archer was controlling? 9

A Yes. And I did not even know that that existed as an account at the time. 10

It was only later that I found out it existed. 11

Q And then the same for Robinson Walker, LLC, account? You didn't have 12

access or visibility into that particular bank account either, did you? 13

A I did not. 14

Q And when it comes to the Lion Hall Group, did you have access into the Lion 15

Hall Group's account? 16

A I did not. 17

Q Okay. 18

So the foreign money that the -- just so you're aware -- that the Oversight 19

Committee talks about, this $24 million we were able to trace to the Bidens and the Biden 20

business associates and $15 million that we traced to the Bidens, primarily most of it, 21

almost all of it, goes into these four bank accounts where you did not have visibility. 22

So it's fair to say that, while Hunter Biden was operating Rosemont Seneca 23

Advisors, Rosemont Seneca Partners, Seneca Global Advisors, you had access and visibility 24

into those, but you did not have access and visibility into Rosemont Seneca Bohai, 25

Rosemont Seneca Thornton, the Lion Hall Group, or -- 1

Mr. . Robinson Walker. 2

BY MR. : 3

Q -- Robinson Walker, LLC. Thank you. 4

You didn't have access and visibility into those, correct? 5

A Correct. 6

Q All right. 7

So it's fair to say, you didn't know that, for instance, Hunter Biden was getting -- 8

Mr. William Farah. Can I object? You keep saying "it's fair to say," and I think 9

that's causing -- you're kind of leading him in this and characterizing his testimony. If 10

you could just ask the question. 11

Mr. . I'll ask the question the way I want to ask the question. There's 12

no -- 13

Mr. William Farah. But when you say "it's fair to say" -- when you say "it's fair to 14

say," that's characterizing his answer. 15

Mr. . I'll ask the question again, but -- 16

Mr. William Farah. Okay. 17

Mr. . -- there's no objections for leading witnesses here. 18

Mr. William Farah. I don't think it's leading the witness. I think it's 19

characterizing his testimony for him. 20

Mr. . Using the term "it's fair to say" is a fairly common way to talk in 21

these deposition scenarios. If you don't like it, we can work it out on a 22

question-by-question basis. 23

Mr. William Farah. Okay. 24

BY MR. : 25

Q Did you know that Hunter Biden was getting paid from Kazakhstan to pay for 1

his Porsche into the Rosemont Seneca Bohai account? 2

A I learned about it after the fact. 3

Q But when it happened, you didn't know? 4

A No. 5

Q And did you know that Elena Baturina sent over a $3 million wire to the 6

Rosemont Seneca Thornton account? 7

A I did not know at the time, no. 8

Q So it's fair to say there were -- I'll strike that. 9

You did not know that there were certain wires that were sent -- million-dollar 10

wires, for instance -- to accounts that Hunter Biden was receiving the money -- you didn't 11

know about all of the money that Hunter Biden was receiving at the time? 12

A I wouldn't characterize the fact that -- from my understanding, if money 13

went into Rosemont Seneca Biden (ph), I wouldn't say that Hunter Biden was receiving it. 14

It was an account that Devon owned. So Hunter was not receiving it through Rosemont 15

Seneca Bohai or the -- I don't believe Hunter had any ownership of the entities you 16

mentioned. So I'm not sure that I would agree that Hunter was receiving that money. 17

Q So you're saying that Hunter never received any of the Burisma money that 18

was deposited into Rosemont Seneca Bohai? 19

A I'm not saying that. I did not say -- I was -- you said Hunter received money 20

into Rosemont Seneca Bohai, that he didn't own it. It may have come out of Rosemont 21

Seneca Bohai to him, but I just want to make that clear. 22

Q Were you ever paid by Burisma? 23

A I was not. 24

Q Were any of your companies -- Rosemont Seneca Partners, Seneca Global 25

Advisors, or any companies that you were affiliated -- ever paid by Burisma? 1

A I don't believe so. 2

Q Were you ever paid by Blue Star Strategies? 3

A Me personally? 4

Q Or any of your companies? 5

A I don't believe so. 6

I want to just make the distinction -- and I don't believe this is the case, but in 7

"paid," sometimes there are reimbursements and things like that that got -- not income 8

or compensation for anything. 9

Q But Burisma was never a client of Rosemont Seneca Advisors, correct? 10

A Correct. 11

Q Burisma was never a client of Rosemont Seneca Partners? 12

A Correct. 13

Q And Burisma was never a client of any of your other companies? 14

A Correct. 15

Q When did you become aware that Hunter Biden began serving on the board 16

of Burisma? 17

A He had first told me that there was a possibility that he would join the 18

Burisma board. I believe it was maybe 2 months before he actually joined. I did not 19

hear anything more about it until there was actually a press report and he had joined the 20

board. So it was -- I believe that was either April or May of 2014. 21

Q How did it come up that he told you he was going to join the board? 22

A Well, on which occasion? When he first told me -- 23

Q The first time. 24

A -- he was thinking about it? 25

Q The first time he was thinking about it. 1

A I think we were just sitting there and he mentioned it to me. 2

Q Where did this take place? 3

A I don't recall the location. Probably the office, but I don't know. 4

Q Did he mention how much he was going to get paid? 5

A He did not. 6

BY MS. : 7

Q Good morning, Mr. Schwerin. 8

So what was your understanding of Mr. Biden's role on the board of Burisma? 9

A Say that again. I'm sorry. 10

Q What was your understanding of Mr. Biden's role on the board of Burisma? 11

A That he was a board member. When he first told me about it, he said that 12

he was being -- that his role was focused on government and legal affairs. 13

Q And do you know how Mr. Biden was approached to serve on the board of 14

Burisma? 15

A I believe it was through Devon, is my understanding. 16

Q Through Devon Archer? 17

A Yes, correct. 18

Q And when did you learn that Mr. Archer served on the board of Burisma? 19

A I believe it was right around the same time -- you know, March/April 2014. 20

Q When Hunter told you 2 months before he was appointed to the board that 21

he kind of was thinking about whether or not to join the board, was that the first time 22

that you had ever heard of Burisma as a company? 23

A Yes. 24

Q And did you ever discuss Mr. Biden's work with Burisma with him? 25

A Ever? 1

Q Correct, ever. 2

A Yes. 3

Q And what did those discussions entail? 4

A They mostly were related to, I think, more administrative, logistical things. 5

You know, I think we talked probably a few times when there were some press issues 6

related to Burisma -- I'm sure we'll get into that -- but it didn't go into any of the 7

substance of what was going on with the company. 8

Q And your understanding was that he was on the board to help with 9

government and legal affairs. Is that right? 10

A Governance. 11

Q Governance? 12

A Yes. Yes. 13

Q And what services was he supposed to provide? 14

A The understanding I had was that Burisma was interested in potentially 15

soliciting -- going to Western markets to solicit investment and, at that time, needed 16

advice on how to structure a board that was going to be compliant and that would be 17

attractive to Western investment. 18

Hunter, at that time, was of counsel to Boies Schiller, and I know that he 19

encouraged them to hire Boies Schiller to help with a lot of those functions. 20

Q And did you ever get a sense of how much Burisma was paying Mr. Biden for 21

his board position? 22

A Yes, I did. 23

Q And when did you become aware of how much he was paid? 24

A I think soon after he joined, he told me about it and we had a discussion, and 25

I think he told me how much he was getting paid. 1

Q And how much did he tell you he was getting paid by Burisma? 2

A My recollection was that it was a million dollars a year. 3

But there was also a finder's fee that he and Devon were paying to somebody who 4

helped -- I later learned -- who found this position, who ultimately Devon had -- was 5

referred to by Devon to get this position. So it was a little less than a million a year, 6

because they were paying this person a finder's fee. 7

Q And the finder's fee, did you ever get a sense of how much that was that 8

they were paying? 9

A I don't recall specifically. I believe it was a third, but I'm not sure. 10

Q And do you know who they were paying that finder's fee to? 11

A I believe it was a guy named Alex Kolarski (ph). 12

Q And did you know Alex -- I didn't hear the last name -- Ko- 13

A Kolarski (ph), I believe, if I recall. Yeah. 14

Q Did you know who he was? 15

A I did not know who he was. Somebody that Devon had known. 16

Q Did you ever interact with him? 17

A I don't believe so. 18

Q During Mr. Biden's tenure on the board of Burisma, did his payment ever 19

change, how much they were paying him per year? 20

A Yes. At one point, I believe it got reduced by half. 21

Q And what can you tell us about that reduction in his pay? 22

A Not -- I -- 23

Q When did it occur? 24

A Oh. I don't recall. It was probably a year or two into it, into the 25

representation. 1

Q And were you involved with the negotiations regarding the new fee? 2

A I wasn't involved in the negotiation. I do remember that somebody had 3

sent the new agreement to us that he had -- in order to be executed. 4

Q Okay. 5

And I'll enter the email with the new agreement as exhibit No. 1. It's a March 19, 6

2017, email from Mr. Pozharsky to Mr. Biden and Mr. Schwerin. 7

Mr. . Why don't we make the statement 1 and this 2? I'm sorry. 8

Ms. . Great. Okay. 9

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 1 10

was marked for identification.] 11

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 2 12

was marked for identification.] 13

Mr. William Farah. Can you tell us the source of this document, please? 14

Ms. . Yeah. So the source of that document, it was attached to an article 15

in the New York Post dated May 26, 2021, titled, "Hunter Biden's Ukraine salary was cut 16

two months after Joe Biden left office." 17

Mr. William Farah. So this was from a news article. 18

Ms. . Correct, uh-huh. 19

Mr. William Farah. I don't see how we can respond to questions about this 20

particular email because I don't think it's been authenticated. 21

Ms. . I'll go ahead and ask Mr. Schwerin some questions -- 22

Mr. William Farah. Yes. 23

Ms. . -- about this -- 24

Mr. William Farah. Fine. Just -- 25

Ms. . -- email, and -- 1

Mr. William Farah. -- we're not authenticating the document itself. 2

Mr. . Yeah, we're not asking you to authenticate it. 3

Mr. William Farah. Okay. Good. 4

BY MS. : 5

Q Do you remember receiving -- have you had sufficient time to review? I'm 6

sorry. 7

A No, I have not. 8

Q Please take your time. 9

A Yeah. 10

Q And was this the correspondence you were referring to when you said you 11

were sent the new agreement? Do you remember this? 12

A Yeah, I don't remember this exact email, but, as I said, I do remember that I 13

was sent the agreement, yes. 14

Q And who is Mr. Pozharsky? 15

A He -- my recollection is, he was -- he worked for Burisma, and one of his 16

responsibilities was the board of directors. So he was the point person to be the liaison 17

between the company and the board members. 18

Q And before receiving this email on March 19, 2017, had you ever engaged 19

with Mr. Pozharsky before? 20

A Yeah, I believe before this date I had. So, yes. 21

Q Any in-person interactions with Mr. Pozharsky? 22

A I think I met him once or twice in D.C. 23

Q Okay. 24

And so, if you look at the top of the email there, it says, "Hope you are well." 25

This is from Mr. Pozharsky. "Following several communications with Eric, please find 1

attached the new director agreement for execution, as well as the resignation letter (that 2

we ask all our directors to sign as per our usual practice) and the correspondent BoD 3

resolution." 4

Are you the -- I'm assuming you are the "Eric" in this paragraph. Is that correct? 5

A I would assume so, but yeah. 6

Q And had you had several communications with Mr. Pozharsky before this 7

agreement came to your inbox? 8

A I believe so. I don't recall the specifics of it. I believe that, at the time, 9

Vadym was trying to connect with Hunter directly and he was not able to do so, and then 10

he called me. So that was probably the genesis of this. 11

Q And when you spoke to Mr. Pozharsky when he couldn't get a hold of Hunter 12

Biden, did you discuss the new agreement? Did you discuss the new compensation? 13

A I think he told me what it was. 14

Q Okay. 15

Mr. . Do you think his compensation was being reduced by half because 16

his dad was no longer the Vice President? 17

Mr. Schwerin. My recollection at the time -- I don't recall why they were doing 18

it. They never said it to me, anything, but -- 19

Mr. William Farah. Well, they didn't say. 20

Mr. Schwerin. They didn't say. 21

Mr. William Farah. Yeah. 22

Mr. Schwerin. I don't know. 23

Mr. . Were his duties reduced? 24

Mr. Schwerin. I'm sorry? 25

Mr. . Were his governance duties reduced in half? 1

Mr. Schwerin. I don't know. 2

Mr. . Did you ever have any communications with Hunter Biden that his 3

salary was being cut in half because his dad was no longer the Vice President? 4

Mr. Schwerin. I never -- no, I did not. 5

Mr. . Do you think that's why, though? 6

Mr. Schwerin. I don't know. 7

Mr. William Farah. That calls -- 8

Mr. Schwerin. Yeah, I don't know. 9

Mr. William Farah. That calls for him to speculate. 10

Mr. Schwerin. I honestly don't know. 11

BY MS. : 12

Q And at what point in time did you talk to Hunter Biden about this new 13

agreement? 14

A Probably -- I don't recall, but I'm sure fairly soon after this. 15

Q And did you discuss with him that his salary would be cut in half from 16

Burisma? 17

A I mentioned it, and -- yes, I did mention it to him. 18

Q And what was his reaction to that? 19

A I don't recall his specific reaction. 20

Q And if you go to the third paragraph -- 21

Mr. William Farah. Well, if you could ask a question, rather than referring him to 22

the document, because, again, we don't know if this is an authentic document or not. 23

Ms. . Yeah, I'm going to read part of the email into the record, and then 24

I'll ask him a question about that specifically and ask if he remembers. 25

Mr. William Farah. Okay. 1

BY MS. : 2

Q So, in the third paragraph, it states, "Unfortunately, Hunter and I didn't get 3

to meet in Washington during my recent visit. However, as I conveyed to Eric, we are 4

very much interested in working closely together, and the remuneration is still the 5

highest in the company and higher than the standard director's monthly fees. I am sure 6

you will find it both fair and reasonable." 7

Did you meet Mr. Pozharsky when he was in Washington? 8

A I met him on a few occasions in Washington. I can't remember if it was 9

surrounding this or not. 10

Q And do you remember if in any of your in-person meetings with 11

Mr. Pozharsky you discussed this 2017 director's agreement and the reduced 12

compensation? 13

A I don't remember if I did it in person or he had called me. 14

Q And did you have an understanding of how Mr. Biden's salary from Burisma 15

rated up against the other board of directors' payments? 16

A I don't recall that. 17

Q Did it surprise you that he was receiving the highest fee? 18

A No, not necessarily, one way or another. Yeah. 19

Q And do you know if Hunter Biden was providing more services than other 20

directors to Burisma? 21

A I don't know. 22

Q In the email, Mr. Pozharsky -- I read this as one of the first excerpts. It 23

stated, "that we ask all our directors to sign as per our usual practice." 24

Do you know if every year he was asked to sign a new director's agreement? 25

A I don't recall how often he signed a new agreement, but it was on a 1

somewhat regular basis. Whether a 1-year or 2-year, I'm not sure. I don't know. 2

Q And was this your only involvement with any of the director's agreements 3

that Hunter Biden may or may not have signed? 4

A I believe so. I'm not sure. 5

Q And you said that the only reason you were involved with this specific 6

director's agreement was because Mr. Pozharsky could not get a hold of Mr. Biden? 7

A Or at least couldn't meet with him or -- yes, that's correct. 8

Q Did you have a sense, when Mr. Biden received money from Burisma, did it 9

go directly into his personal bank account or did it go into a different account? 10

A From when he first was appointed to the Burisma board through, I 11

think -- that would be April/May 2014 to, I believe it was, 2015 or 2016 -- now I'm trying 12

to -- but it went through Rosemont Seneca Bohai. 13

At the point when -- prior to -- right prior to Devon's indictment, we switched it, 14

and so then the invoices and the billing all went to Owasco, P.C. 15

Q And why did the payments originally go to Rosemont Seneca Bohai? 16

A I don't know. It was something that I assume Hunter and Devon discussed. 17

I don't know why that decision was made. 18

Q And so, when the money went into the Rosemont Seneca Bohai account, 19

then did it go directly from Rosemont Seneca Bohai into Mr. Biden's personal accounts? 20

A The -- and this was all -- I only learned about this after -- and this was right 21

around Devon's indictment, as we tried -- 22

Q Uh-huh. 23

A But Hunter did not draw down the amount of money from Rosemont Seneca 24

Bohai. So it didn't -- you know, if there was a payment of $25,000, just using that as an 25

example of a number, into Rosemont Seneca Bohai, Hunter didn't get $25,000 out. I 1

know that he just drew it down as needed. 2

Q And do you know if the Rosemont Seneca Bohai entity -- did it make any 3

investments with Burisma money on Hunter Biden's behalf? 4

A I didn't know it at the time. After the fact, I think they did make, like, an 5

investment in one -- I know there was one company called, like, American Well or 6

something like that, I think. 7

Q And when you say that Hunter Biden would draw it down, did that mean 8

that that money would then go into his personal bank account? 9

A Yes. 10

Q And would that be taxed as income? 11

A I don't recall how -- 12

Mr. William Farah. I don't think he's qualified to -- 13

Mr. Schwerin. Yeah. I don't recall how it was taxed. 14

Mr. William Farah. -- know what's taxable income and what's not. 15

Mr. Schwerin. Yeah. 16

BY MS. 17

Q Okay. 18

And then you said, after Devon Archer's indictment, or prior to his indictment, 19

then the money switched to go to the Owasco account? Is -- 20

A Correct. 21

Q -- that correct? 22

A Yes. 23

Q And can you explain why you changed it -- or Hunter Biden changed it to go 24

to the Owasco account? 25

A Well, it was on the advice of an accountant to do that. But I don't think 1

that Rosemont Seneca Bohai account was active anymore because of the investigation 2

into Devon. 3

Q Uh-huh. 4

A So the decision was made to pay Hunter directly into Owasco. 5

Q And when did you begin helping or assisting Mr. Biden with the money that 6

he was receiving from Burisma regarding whether or not it was taxable? 7

A Ask the question again, please. 8

Q When did you become involved with helping Mr. Biden with his finances? 9

I'll start out with that. 10

A Oh, in general with his finances? 11

Q In general, and then -- 12

A Yeah. 13

Q -- we can go into Burisma. 14

A Okay. 15

That would probably date back to our time at Oldaker, Biden & Belair, like -- I can't 16

remember -- 2004 or '05, even 2006. Just, I've always sort of helped in general, to help 17

him organize his finances and make sure he had all the documents that he needed to file 18

the taxes and interface with his accountants. 19

Q And I know you kind of gave a brief explanation of what you did to help 20

Mr. Biden with his finances. Can you give us any more color on what actions you took, 21

what services you provided? 22

Mr. William Farah. Which "Mr. Biden" are you talking about here? 23

Ms. . Hunter Biden. 24

Mr. William Farah. Hunter Biden. 25

Mr. Schwerin. Yeah. I mean, we had our business entities and personal 1

accounts. We all had the same accountant that we worked with. And so a lot of the 2

business income flowed into Hunter's personal information, so I would work with the 3

accountants to help them organize that. Our office helped Hunter -- with his assistance, 4

helped with bill-paying. So we sort of helped supervise that. 5

But, you know, in general, had an awareness of the money that was -- any money 6

that Hunter was receiving, and making sure that that was all organized and sent to the 7

accountants to prepare tax returns every year. 8

Mr. Jordan. Did you do it for everyone in the company, or did you just do it for 9

Hunter? 10

Mr. Schwerin. Just for Hunter. 11

Ms. . And I'll mark as exhibit No. 3 -- this is a January 16, 2017, email from 12

Mr. Schwerin to Hunter Biden. And this was produced to the Ways and Means 13

Committee by the IRS whistleblowers. 14

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 3 15

was marked for identification.] 16

Mr. William Farah. And you said this was produced by the whistleblower? 17

Ms. . Correct. 18

Mr. William Farah. What form was it? Was it an affidavit or a declaration? 19

Was it under oath? 20

Ms. . It was produced as an email to the Ways and Means Committee. 21

Mr. William Farah. So -- and the whistleblower produced this based on what 22

information that was available to him? 23

Ms. . So the whistleblowers, Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and 24

Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, were both working on the Hunter Biden investigation for the 25

IRS. And so they had access to these documents per that investigation, and they 1

produced them to the Ways and Means Committee. And the Ways and Means 2

Committee has since made these documents public. 3

BY MS. : 4

Q Have you had sufficient time to review? 5

A I think so, yes. 6

Q And, Mr. Schwerin, did you send this email to Mr. Biden as part of how you 7

were assisting him with his finances? 8

A I believe so, yes. 9

Q And do you remember sending this email to him? 10

A I remember sending an email like this, yes. 11

Q Okay. 12

And we'll take a look at the second line there. It states, "In 2014, your taxes 13

reported $847,328 in income. (To be amended at $1,247,328.)" 14

Do you know where the increased amount of income came from? Do you have a 15

sense of where that came from? 16

A Between the 847- and the one million -- yeah. 17

Q Yes, sir. 18

A Yeah. That was based on -- my recollection of the background on this email 19

was this was while Hunter was going through his divorce, and he asked for, sort of, 20

readouts that he could use to interface with his attorneys and his soon-to-be-ex-wife's 21

attorneys. 22

In the process of -- again, right after Devon was indicted and we sort of did some 23

forensic accounting of what was going on with Rosemont Seneca Bohai and worked with 24

tax attorneys, this was based on advice provided by those tax attorneys based on the 25

information we had at the time. 1

Q So the tax attorneys said that he needed to amend his 2014 -- 2

A That was the advice that they gave, yeah. 3

Q And then in the -- 4

Mr. Jordan. I think the question was, where was the source of the income 5

that -- the gulf between the 800,000 number and the 1.2 million number? Do you know 6

the source of that income? 7

Mr. Schwerin. Yeah. I mean, I think it -- it says here too. It's Burisma. 8

Mr. Jordan. Okay. 9

BY MS. : 10

Q We'll read that into the record. 11

A Yeah. 12

Q It says, "In 2014 you joined the Burisma board and we still need to amend 13

your 2014 returns to reflect the unreported Burisma income. That is approximately 14

$400,000 extra so your income in 2014 was closer to $1,247,328." 15

Did I read that correctly? 16

A Yes. 17

Q And do you know why Hunter Biden failed to include the additional $400,000 18

from Burisma in his 2014 taxes? If you know. 19

A I don't -- it was based on a review that we had done, along with these tax 20

attorneys, of what the transactions with Rosemont Seneca Bohai were. And their 21

recommendation was that he amend. But it was also -- it was based on limited 22

information we had at the time, but that was what the recommendation was. 23

Q And following you sending this email, did you take any actions to assist 24

Hunter Biden with amending his 2014 tax return? 25

A No. 1

Q Okay. And was this the end of your engagement on Mr. Biden's 2014 2

taxes? 3

A The 2014 taxes had already been filed, and I -- yes. But, other than this 4

reminder -- I don't know if there were other reminders -- but that was the extent of it. 5

Q And I want to go back and focus on Hunter Biden's tenure on the board and 6

events that were happening during that time period and your involvement with Burisma 7

as well as Blue Star Strategies. 8

A Uh-huh. 9

Q So were you aware at the time that Hunter Biden joined the board of 10

Burisma that the company's owner, Mykola Zlochevsky, was under investigation? 11

A I was not, no. 12

Q Did you ever become aware of that? 13

A I think it was first through some -- a press report at some point that that was 14

the case. And that was my first -- I believe that was my first awareness. 15

Q And when did you become aware of that, if you remember? 16

A I don't remember when that first press report occurred. 17

Q And did you ever have the occasion to meet Mr. Zlochevsky? 18

A I did not. 19

Q Did you ever speak with him on the phone? 20

A I did not. 21

Q Ever email or correspond in any other sort of medium? 22

A I don't believe so. 23

Q And you had said earlier that you did correspond with the corporate 24

secretary, Mr. Pozharsky. Is that correct? 25

A That's correct. 1

Q And you said you met him in person a couple of times, you believe? 2

A I believe, yes. 3

Q Do you remember when those meetings would have occurred? 4

A I don't. 5

Q Do you ever remember meeting Mr. Pozharsky at Cafe Milano for dinner? 6

A I did not. 7

Q You did not attend any of those Cafe Milano dinners? 8

A Well, I think I know what you're responding to, but maybe you could be 9

more specific so I don't assume. 10

Q Yes. So there was an early Cafe Milano dinner in 2014 where the Vice 11

President stopped by. Hunter Biden was there and some of his business associates, as 12

well as some of his foreign business associates, including Mr. Pozharsky. Did you attend 13

that dinner? 14

A I did not. 15

Q And there was another dinner on April 28th -- or, not April 28th, but -- in 16

April of 2015 at Cafe Milano. Do you remember attending a dinner around that time? 17

A And who was there? I just want to -- 18

Q The Vice President, Mr. Biden -- Hunter Biden -- some of his business 19

associates, including Mr. Archer. 20

A Yeah, I was not there. No. 21

Q Okay. 22

Did you ever get a sense of who all was on the board of Burisma? 23

A I did know -- yes, I knew the names of people who were on the board, sure. 24

Q Okay. And did you know that a former Polish President was on the board 25

of Burisma? 1

A Yes, I did. 2

Q And you said you understood that Mr. Archer was on the board as well? 3

A That's correct, yes. 4

Q Do you know if Mr. Archer and Mr. Biden -- Hunter Biden -- began their 5

board tenures at around the same time? 6

A Yes. I believe it was -- maybe there was a month difference or so, but, 7

yeah, I believe it was around the same time. 8

Q Did you ever obtain an understanding of what Mr. Zlochevsky was under 9

investigation for? 10

A Not with a great degree of specificity. I believe it had something to do with 11

the oil and gas licenses that Burisma had acquired. 12

Q Okay. Did you ever become aware that a U.K. court, a British court, had 13

seized $23 million in Mr. Zlochevsky's assets? 14

A I believe I learned that at one point, yes. 15

Q And, then, based upon some actions by the Prosecutor General's Office in 16

Ukraine, which was being led by Prosecutor General Yarema, the assets were unfrozen. 17

Did you ever hear or learn of that? 18

A I believe so, yes. 19

Q And about when did you learn that? Do you remember? 20

A I don't recall. 21

Q And, then, after Prosecutor General Yarema, there was a new Prosecutor 22

General, Viktor Shokin, and he came on in February 2015. 23

Were you following the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's investigation of Burisma or 24

Zlochevsky at that time? 25

A Other than knowing there was one, I did not follow it with any more 1

specificity than that. 2

Q And did you ever discuss the investigation with Mr. Biden -- Hunter Biden? 3

A I don't believe so. If I did, it was probably just in the context of, you know, 4

there was press going on about it. 5

Q And did you ever speak with Mr. Archer about the investigation? 6

A Probably to the same extent. 7

Q And on September 24, 2015, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey 8

Pyatt, gave a speech where he pushed the Prosecutor General's Office to prosecute 9

Zlochevsky. Do you remember that speech occurring? 10

A I don't remember that speech occurring. I do remember some 11

conversations or hearing about it from -- you know, whether it was Devon or Hunter, I 12

don't recall. 13

Q So you remember possibly communicating with Mr. Archer or Mr. Biden 14

about the contents of Ambassador Pyatt's speech? Or what did you discuss? 15

A I don't remember the discussion or communicating. I just remember 16

hearing about it, that there -- so -- 17

Q Do you remember if Mr. Biden, in his capacity as a board member of 18

Burisma, was getting updates about the investigation? Or what was his knowledge, if 19

you know? 20

A I can't recall that. 21

Q And then at some point you and Mr. Archer and Mr. Biden began engaging 22

with Blue Star Strategies. Is that correct? 23

A Well, there were different levels of engagement and times of engagement, I 24

think -- 25

Q Uh-huh. 1

A -- between those three people, so myself and the two. So I want to -- 2

Q Okay. So let's start with -- 3

A Yeah. 4

Q -- when was the first time that you ever engaged with Blue Star Strategies? 5

A As a firm as a whole? 6

Q Correct. 7

A Probably when they were -- when it was -- at inception. I knew both Sally 8

Painter and Karen Tramontano from -- I knew Sally from the Commerce Department, and 9

I knew Karen from the Clinton White House. So they had become friends of mine. And 10

so I knew -- you know, we had stayed friends and engaged since then, and so I obviously 11

knew what types of work they did and that they had an entity called Blue Star. 12

Q And, then, do you know how Mr. Archer got introduced to Blue Star 13

Strategies? 14

A Yes. I believe I did that. Devon was approached to join a board of a 15

European bank, and I had suggested to Devon that he talk to either Karen or Sally, 16

someone at Blue Star, because they had an expertise in Europe, and I thought before he 17

joined he should talk to them and get their advice on whether it made sense or not. 18

Q And when did the engagement -- did you ever reach out to Blue Star 19

Strategies regarding Burisma? 20

A From my recollection, it was Devon who first -- because he had been talking 21

to them about this bank board position -- 22

Q Uh-huh. 23

A -- it was Devon who originally approached them about potentially 24

representing Burisma. I think I heard about it pretty soon afterwards. But that's, I 25

believe, how that occurred. 1

Q And was there a request from Burisma to either Mr. Biden or Mr. Archer that 2

they help obtain a U.S.-based government affairs firm or PR firm? 3

A I don't -- I did not know of any requests from them. I believe -- my 4

recollection is, it may have come more from someone like Devon, because there was 5

some bad press around it -- 6

Q Uh-huh. 7

A -- and there was a thought there was a need for a crisis communications 8

firm, which was one of the things that Blue Star did. 9

Q When you say "bad press," what do you mean by that? 10

A I think there was some bad press surrounding the owner of Burisma, I 11

think -- what we were just talking about earlier. 12

Q And the investigation of Mr. Zlochevsky? Is that correct? 13

A Yes, correct. 14

Q And when did you become involved with Blue Star Strategies in relation to 15

Burisma? 16

A I think it was shortly after Devon had suggested that they become engaged. 17

I -- my recollection -- the only recollection I have in that part of the engagement is that I 18

got looped in as there was some negotiations going on related to the agreement. 19

Q Uh-huh. 20

A It was not Devon's -- Devon's experience was much more in finance and Wall 21

Street, and it was not his experience, really, how some of these advisory consulting 22

contracts were put together. And so, because I could sort of -- I became a go-between, 23

sort of, between Devon and Sally and Karen, and Devon was also talking to Burisma. So 24

that's how. 25

Q And when you say you were "looped in," because of your experience doing 1

these sort of advising contracts? Is that correct? 2

A Yeah, since most of my work was for Rosemont Seneca Advisors, which was 3

the advisory business that we had had. So I think Devon asked me to sort of help with 4

that. 5

Q Okay. And I just want to make sure that it's clear. So you were the 6

go-between between Blue Star and Mr. Archer? Is that correct? 7

A I believe so. I also think that there were a series of emails where Vadym 8

was in as well. So I just sort of got caught up in all of that. 9

Q And we can enter one of those as exhibit No. 4, I believe. 10

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 4 11

was marked for identification.] 12

BY MS. 13

Q This is a November 2, 2015, email from Mr. Archer to Mr. Schwerin that 14

CC'ed Mr. Biden, and the subject line is "Revised Burisma Proposal, Contract and Invoice." 15

And this was another email that was produced by the IRS whistleblowers to the 16

Ways and Means Committee, and the Ways and Means Committee has since made these 17

documents public. 18

Please take your time to review. 19

Have you had sufficient time to review? 20

A Yeah. We're good. 21

Q So, if you turn to the second page of the exhibit, at the very bottom, it is an 22

email from Jesica Lindgren to Mr. Archer. And it says, "Dear Devon, please see attached 23

our revised proposal, contract and initial invoice for Burisma Holdings. Please let us 24

know if you have any questions." 25

And then Devon Archer sends it on and says, "For review." 1

Is that correct? 2

A That's what it looks like, yes. 3

Q Okay. 4

And if you turn to the first page, at the very bottom, there's an email from 5

Mr. Pozharsky. It's to Mr. Archer, with you and Mr. Biden CC'ed. 6

That paragraph, it says, "Hope you are well. Thank you for the docs provided. I 7

have analyzed them most carefully and came up with the following observations: the 8

first thing is that the suggested scope of work is largely lacking concrete tangible results 9

that we set out to achieve in the first place, mostly focusing on the process. Also, it 10

doesn't offer any names of top US officials here in Ukraine (for instance, US Ambassador) 11

or Ukrainian officials (the President of Ukraine, chief of staff, Prosecutor General) as key 12

targets for improving Nikolay's case and his situation in Ukraine." 13

Do you know what concrete, tangible results Burisma was looking to achieve 14

through Blue Star? 15

A No. I'm not sure, no. 16

Q Did you ever become aware of what the goal of hiring Blue Star Strategies 17

was for Burisma? 18

A I mean, I've since reviewed some of the stuff. I don't recall whether I knew 19

it at the time or not. 20

Q And when you became aware of what the goal was for hiring Blue Star, what 21

was that goal? 22

A The goal that Burisma -- 23

Q Yes, the goal that Burisma had. 24

A I can't speak to what they -- what they thought it was. I don't know. 25

Q Did you ever get an understanding of why Burisma hired Blue Star 1

Strategies? You personally. 2

A The recollection I have is that it was much more done at the -- that Devon 3

was much more interested in hiring Blue Star and convinced Burisma that it's something 4

that they should do, rather than Burisma wanting to do it and having a specific goal in 5

mind to do that. 6

Q And in that paragraph there -- 7

Mr. Jordan. What was Devon's role? 8

Mr. Schwerin. I'm sorry, sir? 9

Mr. Jordan. What was Mr. Archer's objective there? 10

Mr. William Farah. If you know. 11

Mr. Schwerin. I mean, I think it was generally it was more of a crisis 12

communications role. I mean, there was definitely some, as I said, some bad press 13

around the owner of Burisma and that -- 14

Mr. William Farah. You're speculating, aren't you? 15

Mr. Schwerin. Yes. 16

BY MS. : 17

Q And in the last part of that paragraph, it says, "as key targets for improving 18

Nikolay's case and his situation in Ukraine." 19

In this email exchange, did you ever understand what Mr. Pozharsky meant by 20

"improving Nikolay's case"? 21

A I did not, no. 22

Q Did you know if it referred to his ongoing investigation by the Prosecutor 23

General's Office in Ukraine? 24

A I mean, I -- 25

Mr. William Farah. I think he already answered the question. 1

Mr. Schwerin. Yeah. The general sense I had on why Blue Star was engaged 2

was from a crisis communications role; that, you know, from the U.S. perspective, there 3

was concern that there was some bad press around the owner of Burisma. So that was 4

really the extent I had of knowledge. 5

BY MR. : 6

Q Do you know if they were going to interact with the State Department 7

officials on behalf of Burisma? 8

A I do not -- I did not know that. No. 9

Q And do you know if they did interact with State Department officials on 10

behalf of Burisma? 11

A I later learned, I mean, that there were some meetings that they did have at 12

the State Department. 13

Q And that was part of their representation, correct? 14

A I didn't know that at the time, and I don't know -- I was not intimately 15

involved to know why that might have been later on in their representation. 16

Q So, if they're not going to interact with the State Department, I mean, what 17

type of crisis communications advisory services can they provide? I mean, this is an 18

individual based overseas; it's an overseas entity. What's some Washington, you know, 19

strategic affairs -- 20

Mr. William Farah. Are you asking him as an expert witness? Are you asking -- 21

Mr. . No, he's not an expert witness. What are you talking about? 22

Mr. William Farah. You're asking what services could they have provided. 23

What's the question? 24

BY MR. : 25

Q I'm trying to drill down on what you mean by "crisis communications." I 1

mean, what type of crisis communications are they going to provide for a company in, 2

you know, Ukraine and the director overseas? 3

A Yeah. My familiarity with Blue Star Strategies was that they had clients in 4

Eastern Europe and had an expertise there. 5

[11:02 a.m.] 1

Mr. . Okay. 2

Mr. Schwerin. And I also knew -- one thing that I thought was that was part of 3

their investigate -- their -- not investigate -- their engagement -- was that they were going 4

to try and understand better what these allegations were and how to respond to them. 5

Mr. Biggs. Can I ask a question? 6

The last line of the paragraph that was read to you that mentions "key targets for 7

improving Nikolay's case," and you basically said you didn't have any knowledge about 8

Nikolay's case. 9

Is that fair, to characterize it that way? 10

Mr. Schwerin. Please say that again. I'm sorry. 11

Mr. Biggs. Yeah. Is it fair to characterize your -- well, I don't want to 12

mischaracterize it. 13

What did you mean, your comments with regard to "key targets for improving 14

Nikolay's case," that particular phrase? 15

Mr. Schwerin. I don't think I -- 16

Mr. William Farah. It's not his. 17

Mr. Schwerin. I didn't say that. 18

Mr. William Farah. It's not his statement. 19

Mr. Bishop. No, I realize that, but he answered a question directly related to 20

that language. 21

And so my question for you is, were you not curious as to 22

what Nikolay -- "improving Nikolay's case" was? I mean, you read this, I assume, at the 23

time. 24

Mr. Schwerin. I don't recall reading that piece of it. I got engaged specifically 25

on -- at the top here. So I don't recall whether I was -- recall any of the specifics of that. 1

Mr. Biggs. So you don't recall ever talking about something that might be 2

alluded to, "key targets for improving Nikolay's case"? You don't remember anything 3

about that at all? 4

Mr. Schwerin. My goal -- my recollection of the goal in trying to get this contract 5

done was that Blue Star was a firm that I knew well and trusted; that there was bad press 6

surrounding Burisma. I knew that if they got engaged that they were people, someone I 7

trusted, that would be able to help deal with that issue. And so beyond that, the level of 8

specifics I don't recall getting into at all. 9

Mr. Biggs. Okay. So I guess my question for you is, otherwise, knowing that 10

there's bad press surrounding him, you're trying to facilitate a contract, but otherwise 11

you weren't curious as to what was the genesis of the bad press? 12

Mr. Schwerin. I knew that there were allegations against the owner of Burisma. 13

Because I was not involved day to day with Burisma, I did not know 14

this -- what -- anything more than that they were allegations. 15

I was hopeful that by engaging Blue Star, they were a group that I trusted, to know 16

that they could come back and say here's what's really going on. 17

And that would be -- that was my interest. 18

Mr. Biggs. Okay. And so when you say you knew these were allegations, you 19

didn't know specific -- any specifics at all what those allegations consisted of? 20

Mr. Schwerin. No. I think I said before I -- there were allegations that I 21

understood that the owner of Burisma had potentially mis-acquired oil and gas licenses. 22

And I was aware -- I also was aware there was something about $23 million in the U.K., I 23

mean, based on a very vague point. 24

But I didn't have the ability to get any more information beyond that, and I didn't 25

have any more information beyond that. 1

Mr. Biggs. And you don't recall reading after really the -- that particular 2

paragraph, you don't -- 3

Mr. Schwerin. I don't, no, yeah, yeah. 4

BY MS. : 5

Q Did you ever have any discussions with Mr. Hunter Biden or Mr. Archer 6

about the consequences or the effects that the ongoing investigations of Mr. Zlochevsky 7

was having on Burisma? 8

A Probably not the effect it was having on Burisma. I probably had -- my 9

recollection was I would have had conversations with either Devon or Hunter that this 10

was not good press for either of them. 11

Q And when you mean not good press for them, what did you mean by that? 12

A That they were on the board of a company where there were allegations 13

against the owner. That's not a good thing. 14

Q So they were worried how that would reflect upon them, meaning Mr. Biden 15

and Mr. Archer? 16

A I don't know if they were worried. It was something that I thought was not 17

a good thing for them. 18

Q Did you ever have any discussions with Mr. Pozharsky about the effects that 19

the ongoing investigation into Mr. Zlochevsky was having on Burisma? 20

A I don't recall. 21

Q And so turning back to the email here. In the paragraph that we were just 22

looking at it talked about how Mr. Pozharsky said how the proposal lacked concrete 23

tangible results. It didn't include any names of officials. 24

Then, if you turn to the second page, the first paragraph, it says, "If, however, this 25

is done deliberately to be on the safe and cautious side, I can understand the rationale." 1

Did you understand what Pozharsky meant by "the safe and cautious side"? 2

A I don't -- I'm not sure what he meant by that, no. 3

Q And you used that same phrase in your response to Mr. -- well, it looks like 4

it's in response to Mr. Archer and Mr. Biden on the first page. 5

You say, "I would tell Mr. Pozharsky that this is definitely done deliberately to be 6

on the safe and cautious side and that Sally and company understand the scope and 7

deliverables. And that we will be having regular (daily, weekly, monthly) opportunities 8

be in through conference calls or memos to be continually refining and updating the 9

scope." 10

Did I read that correctly? 11

A Yes, you read it correctly. 12

Q And do you remember sending this email or -- 13

A I don't remember sending this email. I know I've seen it before. 14

What I do recall from the time was, you know, my personal -- I was not being paid 15

by Burisma. So my interest was much more in, you know, what was going on 16

press-wise, and my interest was just getting this contract in place so that Blue Star could 17

get to work. 18

Q And do you remember what you meant by your use of "to be on the safe and 19

cautious side"? 20

A I think there was a discrepancy, a misunderstanding on how contracts like 21

this are normally written. I think my recollection is that Vadym or Burisma wanted, you 22

know, a very specific list of action items. 23

I know, having done a lot of the advisory work, that it doesn't make sense from 24

the consulting point of view to have specific lists of things to do because until you can get 25

in there and understand more about the project, you don't want to have a, you know, 1

one specific goal. It might change a month later, 2 months or 3 months later. 2

And so I know from my experience in dealing with clients that it's not useful from 3

their point of view, from the consultant's point of view, to lock yourself into or make 4

the -- have the client believe that you're going to be doing something, you know, have 5

one particular goal that may change as things evolve. 6

Q And in the next couple of sentences in that paragraph, it says, "And if all 7

parties in fact understand the true purpose of the BS engagement and all are our joint 8

efforts, it's okay and we should proceed immediately. My only concern is for us to be on 9

the same page re our final goals." 10

A Yeah, yeah. 11

Q Did you know what Mr. Pozharsky meant when he said "our final goals"? 12

A I don't recall. 13

Q Do you remember if everyone got on the same page regarding the final 14

goals? 15

A I don't recall. 16

Q And then further down on that page, in the last paragraph of that email, it 17

says, "The scope of work" -- this is Mr. Pozharsky -- "The scope of work should also 18

include organization of a visit of a number of widely recognized and influential current 19

and/or former U.S. policymakers to Ukraine in November aiming to conduct meetings 20

with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay's issue to the Ukrainian 21

top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any cases/pursuits against 22

Nikolay in Ukraine." Then it says, "Looking forward to your feedback," and he signs off. 23

Why did Mr. Pozharsky want Blue Star to arrange for current or former U.S. 24

policymakers to visit Ukraine? 25

A I don't know why Vadym would have thought that. I don't know. 1

Q And when you read this portion of the email where it says that "aiming to 2

conduct meetings with and bring positive signal/message and support on Nikolay's issue 3

to the Ukrainian top officials above with the ultimate purpose to close down for any 4

cases/pursuits against Nikolay," did you have an understanding of what the ultimate 5

purpose was? 6

A No. I didn't -- you know, Burisma may have had plenty of ideas about why 7

they wanted to engage. That was not my interest. That was not -- again, I wasn't paid 8

by Burisma. I mean, they could have been wrong. 9

In getting Blue Star engaged, I thought ultimately they could help get to the 10

bottom of what, you know, these allegations were, whether they were true or not. 11

That was my interest in it. I feel like I probably ignored whatever Burisma was 12

saying because I wanted somebody that I trusted to help figure out if what they were 13

saying was true or not. 14

Q And during your engagement with Blue Star in relation to Burisma, did you 15

ever come to learn or know that the ultimate purpose for Burisma of hiring Blue Star was 16

to close down the cases or pursuits against Mr. Zlochevsky? 17

A I don't believe so. I mean, I don't know what Burisma's ultimate goal was 18

in that. 19

Q And returning to your response on the first page, you said, "We'll be having 20

regular (daily, weekly, monthly) opportunities to be in through conference calls or memos 21

to be continually refining and updating the scope." 22

Did Blue Star reengage with you, Ms. Painter, or Ms. Tramontano about how the 23

scope of work was going for Burisma? 24

A I think occasionally I got general updates on, you know, if there was 25

something specific about the, you know, the legal case, something had been solved or not 1

solved. I think Sally or Karen would let me know about that. But that was very 2

infrequent. 3

Q And when you engaged with Blue Star, was it always with Mr. Archer and 4

Mr. Biden? 5

A When I engaged with Blue Star, was it with -- 6

Q Correct, on the Burisma issue. 7

A Ask the question again. I'm not sure I know what you're asking. 8

Q So when you engaged with Blue Star on the Burisma issue, was it always with 9

Mr. Archer and Mr. Biden? 10

A Engaged in what way? You're saying by phone? Email? Meeting? 11

Q Email, phone, in meetings. 12

A I mean, there were some communications that Karen or Sally would have 13

directly with me without Devon or Hunter involved. 14

Ms. . And the majority's hour's up. So we'll go off the record. 15

[Recess.] 16

Ms. . We can go on the record. 17

EXAMINATION 18

BY MS. : 19

Q Good morning, Mr. Schwerin. My name is . Again, I'm with 20

the House Judiciary Committee, minority staff. 21

I want to thank you again for being here this morning. 22

I will try to keep my questions as succinct as possible, but there's a chance I might 23

ask to you repeat some things that were in your statement or that you testified about in 24

the earlier hour just to make sure we have a clean record. So I appreciate your patience 25

on that. 1

Also, today we've covered a span that has included Joe Biden being a Senator, Vice 2

President, President, a private citizen. So I'm going to refer to him as Joe Biden. It's 3

not a sign of disrespect in any way. It's just to make the transcript a little bit cleaner. 4

So, Mr. Schwerin, you testified that you became friends with Hunter Biden during 5

the Clinton administration. Is that correct? 6

A Yes. 7

Q When you worked at Commerce? 8

A Yes. 9

Q So when Joe Biden was elected Vice President in 2008, you'd known him for 10

close to a decade, right? 11

A Correct. 12

Q And in your statement you noted that you started handling some of the 13

bookkeeping and administrative tasks for Joe Biden shortly after he became Vice 14

President. Is that correct? 15

A Correct. 16

Q What does that entail? 17

A When he first became Vice President he was -- it was a time of transition. 18

Previous, when he was a Senator, he was just living in Delaware and commuting back and 19

forth. When he became Vice President, he now was going to be in D.C. much more and 20

also maintaining his residence in Delaware. 21

And, in addition, I think he had found out that Secret Service would be reviewing 22

all of his mail. There would be delays in the mail, which included bills and things 23

coming. 24

So he was looking for some help to sort of get reorganized in his personal finances 25

in a way that would help him in this new environment that he had. 1

So I sat down with him and sort of helped walk him through it so we could get 2

things on auto pay, set up his accounts in a way that we have one account where all the 3

household finances were coming out of and we had a couple of accounts that were more 4

savings accounts, that were for discretionary spending. But to sort of help him organize 5

and put together that setup and then help monitor the bills, make sure that everything 6

was getting paid on a regular basis. 7

Q So you were helping him stay responsible for the day-to-day personal 8

finances like paying bills, for example. 9

A Correct. 10

Q Making sure the lights stayed on in Delaware, for example. 11

A Yes, correct. 12

Q Those kinds of financial tasks. 13

Why did you agree to take on this role for Joe Biden? 14

A I was good friends with Hunter. I had gotten to know then-Vice President 15

Biden well over that 10-year period before that. He had asked to do it as a favor. It's 16

something that I had been doing for Hunter and so for the business. I knew it was 17

something that I could do pretty easily. I knew that they needed somebody that they 18

trusted, and they trusted me. 19

They were looking for somebody also that was in Washington, D.C. So there was 20

sort of a narrow group of people. It sort of seemed obvious to me that I should -- could 21

be helpful. 22

Q And you weren't paid to take on this role, correct? 23

A I was not, no. 24

Q And you weren't expecting any political favors for taking on this role, 25

correct? 1

A No, I was not. 2

Q So you spent approximately 8 years, the length of his Vice Presidency, 3

managing the books and doing these administrative tasks for Joe Biden, correct? 4

A Correct. 5

Q And during those 8 years, did you ever witness Joe Biden engage in any 6

illegal activity? 7

A I did not. 8

Q Did you see Joe Biden engage in unethical activity? 9

A I did not. 10

Q Any suspicious activity at all? 11

A I did not. 12

Q And was it your opinion in these engagements with Joe Biden that he tried 13

to manage his finances transparently and keep everything aboveboard? 14

A Yes. 15

Q And it was never your understanding that money coming into Joe Biden's 16

personal accounts needed to be hidden or covered up in anyway. Is that correct? 17

A That's correct. 18

Q And in performing these services for him, did you have to communicate with 19

Joe Biden somewhat regularly? 20

A Yes. 21

Q So would this entail regular communications like emails or phone calls, for 22

example? 23

A Yes. 24

Q And in these communications, Joe Biden never tried to elicit information 25

about his son's business ventures, correct? 1

A That's correct. 2

Q And you never discussed how Joe Biden's policy decisions would impact your 3

or Hunter Biden's business ventures, correct? 4

A That's correct. 5

Q And you're not aware of Joe Biden taking any official actions to advance his 6

son's business interests, correct? 7

A Correct. 8

Q And you never tried to elicit political favors from Joe Biden during this time 9

to benefit your business ventures, correct? 10

A Correct. 11

Q And to the best of your knowledge, Hunter never asked his father for such 12

political favors to advance his business ventures, correct? 13

A Correct. 14

Q And during this time did you ever witness Hunter's business associates 15

deposit money into Joe Biden's accounts? 16

A I never did. 17

BY MS. : 18

Q Okay. Mr. Schwerin, I want to turn back to what's been marked as exhibit 19

3. 20

A Okay. 21

Q It's the January 16th, 2017, email describing certain tax liabilities that 22

Mr. -- that Hunter Biden owed. 23

A Which one is it? 24

Q It's the -- 25

A Oh, okay. Perfect, yeah. 1

Mr. William Farah. Which one? This one? 2

Mr. Schwerin. Yeah. 3

Mr. William Farah. Okay. 4

BY MS. : 5

Q You said in the earlier hour that you sent this email because Hunter Biden 6

was going through a divorce and he needed help understanding his financial situation. 7

Is that a fair summary of what you said? 8

A That's correct, yes. 9

Q Okay. And, in fact, you regularly helped Hunter Biden manage his financial 10

situation. Is that fair? 11

A That's correct, yeah. 12

Q Okay. His finances could be confusing. Is that fair to say? 13

A Complex, yes. 14

Q Complex. 15

A Yes. 16

Q And they were complex, and Hunter Biden was a busy individual, correct? 17

A Correct. 18

Q In the prior hour, you were asked a number of questions about the 2014 tax 19

liability and the question about the recommendation that the liability be amended. 20

Are you familiar with the events that were going on in Mr. -- in Hunter Biden's life 21

in 2014 and 2015? 22

A Yes. 23

Q What was happening at that time? 24

A Even starting back to August of 2013 was when his brother, Beau, was 25

diagnosed with brain cancer and was told he had 15 months to live. And so I guess from 1

August -- Beau was alive from August 2013 to May of 2015. 2

During that time Hunter was away a lot to care for his brother, go to Houston to 3

take him for medical appointments, he's go back and forth to Delaware. He obviously 4

was very concerned about getting to spend as much time with him as possible. 5

Hunter was also at the same time he had been in and out of recovery from alcohol 6

addiction at that time. So between those two things, there was just a lot going on. I 7

was concerned about both things. 8

Q And is it fair to say that Hunter Biden was focused on Beau Biden's illness 9

and ultimate death, as well as his substance abuse issues, more than his finances? 10

A Yes. 11

Q And is it fair to say that in light of his focus being on his personal situation, 12

he might not have been tracking what money was being paid to him when? 13

A Correct, yeah. 14

Q And as you said, even under good circumstances, so circumstances where he 15

wasn't distracted, he still needed help because his complex -- his finances were complex. 16

A Yes, correct. 17

Q Okay. I want to turn to the discussion that we had earlier about Blue Star 18

Strategies. 19

Taking a couple of steps back, and I know you said some of this in the earlier hour, 20

but, as Larson said, I'm going go through it a little bit again just to make a clean record. 21

When did you first meet Karen Tramontano? 22

A I don't know exactly. I believe it was when -- either the tail end 23

of -- probably when I was in the White House, I would say. So that's 1998. 24

Q Okay. And she was the -- she is now the CEO of Blue Star Strategies, 25

correct? 1

A Correct. 2

Q So in 2014-2015 you'd known her for a little over 15 years. 3

A Correct. 4

Q And Sally Painter, same thing. You met her in the late '90s, correct? 5

A Yeah, I met her probably before Karen, the mid-'90s even. 6

Q So you'd known her for 15-plus years -- 7

A Correct. 8

Q -- by the time the Burisma matter came up. 9

A Correct. 10

Q Okay. Ms. Tramontano is considered a foreign policy expert. Is that fair 11

to say? 12

A Yes. 13

Q And I think you said she had particular expertise in Central Europe. 14

A Correct. 15

Q And the same with Ms. Painter? 16

A Yes. 17

Q Okay. Is it fair to say that you introduced Devon Archer to Ms. Tramontano 18

and Ms. Painter because of their Central Europe expertise? 19

A Yes. 20

Q Are you aware that Ms. Tramontano and Ms. Painter testified before the 21

Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee in 2020? 22

A Yes. 23

Q Are you broadly familiar -- 24

A Just broadly familiar that they did. That's all. 25

Q During her testimony, Ms. Tramontano said that she never spoke with Joe 1

Biden about Burisma. 2

Do you have any information to contradict her statement? 3

A I do not. 4

Q Okay. Ms. Painter also said that she never had a conversation with Joe 5

Biden about Burisma. Do you have any information to contradict her statement? 6

A I do not. 7

Q Okay. Ms. Tramontano also said that Vice President Biden never directed 8

any of her actions with respect to Burisma. Do you have any information to contradict 9

that statement? 10

A I do not. 11

Q And Ms. Painter also said that Vice President Biden never directed any of her 12

actions with respect to Burisma. Do you have any information to contradict that 13

statement? 14

A I do not. 15

Q Do you have any information to suggest that Vice President Biden ever took 16

any action with respect to Ukraine because of the influence of Blue Star Strategies? 17

A I do not. 18

Q Do you have any information suggesting that Vice President Biden ever took 19

any action with respect to Burisma specifically -- 20

A I do not. 21

Q -- because of the influence of Blue Star Strategies? 22

A I do not. 23

Q Do you have any information to suggest that Joe Biden ever took any action 24

with respect to Ukraine because of Hunter Biden's role on the Burisma board of 25

directors? 1

A I do not. 2

Q And do you have any information to suggest that Joe Biden ever took any 3

action with respect to Burisma specifically because of Hunter Biden's role on the Burisma 4

board of directors? 5

A I do not. 6

Q Do you have any knowledge of Hunter Biden ever asking Joe Biden to take 7

any action with respect to Ukraine because of his role on the Burisma board of directors? 8

A I do not. 9

Q And do you have any knowledge of Hunter Biden ever asking Joe Biden to 10

take any action with respect to Burisma specifically? 11

A I do not. 12

Q Did you ever, in the course of Hunter Biden and Devon Archer's work on the 13

board of Burisma, did you ever have any concerns that they were being asked to do 14

anything illegal? 15

A I did not. 16

Q Did you have any concerns that they were being asked to do anything 17

unethical? 18

A I did not. 19

Ms. . Okay. Thank you. 20

BY MR. : 21

Q Mr. Schwerin, we talked a little bit about Viktor Shokin who was once the 22

Prosecutor General of Ukraine. His former Deputy Prosecutor General, Vitaliy Kasko, 23

explained that to press outlets that in 2014 through 2015, including under the tenure of 24

his boss, Viktor Shokin, Ukrainian prosecutors had shelved probes into Burisma and 25

Mykola Zlochevsky. 1

Do you have any reason to doubt Mr. Kasko's assessment? 2

A I have no reason to doubt it, no. 3

Q And Devon Archer, whom we talked about in the previous round, who was a 4

member of the board of Burisma, is that right? 5

A That's correct. 6

Q I don't know if you're aware, but he came and did a transcribed interview 7

before this committee in July of last year. 8

As part of his transcribed interview, he explained that assets of Mr. Zlochevsky, 9

which had been frozen in the United Kingdom, were unfrozen in January 2015 because of 10

a lack of cooperation by Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office. 11

Do you have any reason to disagree with Devon Archer's assessment? 12

A I don't, no. 13

Q And Mr. Archer further explained that his understanding was that Shokin 14

was, quote, "good for Burisma," and that Burisma felt it had Prosecutor General Shokin, 15

quote, "under control." 16

Do you have any reason to doubt Mr. Archer's assessment of Prosecutor General 17

Shokin? 18

A I just want to be clear, this is not based on my personal knowledge of what 19

they're saying, but I don't have a reason to doubt that that is correct based on Devon 20

saying it. 21

Q And this is the same Viktor Shokin whose resignation or firing was called 22

upon by a bipartisan and international coalition, which included then Vice President 23

Biden. Am I correct? 24

A That's my understanding. 25

Q I want to talk to you a little bit about the various business entities that my 1

Republican colleagues asked you about at the top of their hour. They went through a 2

list of business entities and asked you a variety of questions about them. 3

Now, you previously came before this committee staff in March 31st of 2023 for 4

multiple hours to answer questions about these same business entities. Is that fair? 5

A That's correct. 6

Q And during that interview you were asked about those entities and you 7

explained which ones you were involved in, which ones you were not involved in, which 8

ones you had information about, which ones you did not have information. Is that 9

correct? 10

A That's correct. 11

Q And is that consistent with the information you gave during the first hour of 12

questions by my Republican colleagues? 13

A Yes. 14

Q Okay. In other words, you had already provided explanations about your 15

involvement or noninvolvement with these entities back in March? 16

A Correct. 17

Q And so I want to go back just very briefly over a few of them. 18

You were asked questions Yelena Baturina. 19

You had no business involvement with Yelena Baturina. 20

A I did not, no. 21

Q But was it your understanding that Devon Archer had business dealings with 22

Yelena Baturina? 23

A Yes. 24

Q Now, Mr. Archer, when he came before the committee in July of last year, 25

explained that Hunter Biden quote, "was not involved in business with Yelena Baturina" 1

and that any business dealings with Yelena Baturina were, quote, "completely out of his 2

portfolio," that being Hunter Biden's portfolio. 3

Do you have any reason to disagree with Devon Archer's assessment? 4

A No. 5

Q You were asked about Rosemont Seneca Bohai, RSB, by my Republican 6

colleagues. Devon Archer, again, in his July 31st interview explained that Hunter Biden 7

had, quote, "no position" with Rosemont Seneca Bohai. 8

Do you have any reason to disagree with Devon Archer's testimony? 9

A I do not. 10

Q And finally, you discussed the formation of Rosemont Seneca Partners. Am 11

I correct in understanding that Rosemont Capital had a 50 percent interest in Rosemont 12

Seneca Partners and then Seneca Global Advisors had a 50 percent interest in Rosemont 13

Seneca Partners? 14

A Yes. I believe that the actionable entity that Rosemont 15

Capital -- that -- there was -- I think it was, like, RRE3 (ph), LLC, but it was owned by 16

Rosemont Capital. 17

Q Okay. So earlier I think there was some discussion of whether it was a 18

merger. I just want to be clear. You never had an interest in Rosemont Capital, did 19

you? 20

A No, I did not. 21

Q And Hunter Biden never had an interest in Rosemont Capital, did he? 22

A He did not. 23

Ms. . We can go off the record. Thank you. 24

[Recess.] 25

Mr. . Let's go back on the record. 1

Ms. . Mr. Schwerin, I want to go back to our discussion about your 2

involvement with Blue Star related to Burisma. 3

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 5 4

was marked for identification.] 5

BY MS. : 6

Q And I'm going to enter as exhibit No. 5, this is the email from Mr. Archer to 7

Mr. Pozharsky, with you and Mr. Biden cc'd on it. It includes the agreement that we 8

spoke of before, that we discussed. 9

I know it's a longer document. I'll point you to where I'd like to discuss, but feel 10

free to take your time to review. 11

[Pause.] 12

Are you ready? 13

A Yeah. 14

Q Everyone has the exhibit? 15

So, if we turn to the memorandum, "Exhibit 305B" on the top, and if you look on 16

the second full paragraph, I'll read it into the record. 17

It says, "Given the current challenges, this is a Crisis Communications approach 18

that would roll out over the next two months, including a trip to Kiev proposed for early 19

to mid-December. 20

"During the first two months, we will: 1) work to support the closing of the 21

company file in Ukraine; and, number 2) develop the scope of work, goals and objectives 22

for the remainder of the annual contract to best meet reputational and business goals. 23

We look forward to your comments and further discussions with you." 24

Did you read this memorandum when you received it? 25

A I don't -- I don't recall reading it, no. 1

Q Okay. And you were looped in to review contracts such as that? Is that 2

correct? 3

A This is the signed agreement or this is the -- 4

Q This is the memorandum. The revised proposal contract and initial invoice 5

for Burisma Holdings, this would be the revised proposal. 6

A Yeah, I don't recall reading it. 7

Q So you weren't responsible for reviewing this proposal, you were just 8

responsible for reviewing the contract? 9

A I was -- I wasn't responsible for either. 10

Q Okay. 11

A I was just trying to be helpful in getting the two sides to an agreement 12

because I was most interested in getting them -- Blue Star engaged and getting to work. 13

Q And how did you kind of broker the deal between the two sides if you 14

weren't involved with the proposal or the contract? 15

A I think, as we discussed previously and looking at that other email, that was 16

the type of engagement that I had was, if there was an issue, trying to resolve it. And I 17

don't know that there was necessarily an issue with this or that I needed to be asked to 18

help resolve it. 19

Q And did you have an understanding of how Blue Star's approach to reaching 20

number 1 and number 2 here? 21

A I don't recall having that understanding, no. 22

Q Did you ever come to know that they would be engaging with U.S. 23

Government officials? 24

A That they would be or that they had? 25

Q They would be. 1

A I don't recall that, no. 2

Q Okay. If you turn to page 4 -- 3

A Uh-huh. 4

Q -- underneath the heading "3. Government Relations in the U.S. and 5

Ukraine." First sentence says, "The Blue Star approach to government relations 6

leverages relationships in government, the private sector and civil society so that our 7

clients can expand into other markets, build support for the business model, and 8

advocate policy that supports expansion." 9

The top sentence of the next paragraph is, "In the U.S., Blue Star would work 10

closely with the Departments of State and Commerce as they are effective champions for 11

U.S. investors and with investments abroad, especially given the critical geopolitical 12

importance of Ukraine at this time." 13

Then if you go down further on that page, it lists individuals at the U.S. 14

Department of Commerce and U.S. Department of State. 15

Looking at the list of specifically Commerce and State, do you see anyone on that 16

list that you know that Blue Star met with or that you came to learn they did meet with? 17

A That they came to meet with? 18

Q Uh-huh. 19

A I think later, well after the fact, just in press reports, I think I understood that 20

they met with Catherine Novelli. 21

Q Okay. 22

A That's the only one I can think of off the top of my head. 23

Q Do you know if they met with Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt? 24

A I don't recall. 25

Q And what about a State Department official named Amos Hochstein? 1

A I believe later on I learned that they did, yes. 2

Q So was Blue Star's role here to get access to U.S. officials that were in the 3

Obama-Biden administration? 4

A That was not my understanding of the role. I mean, again, I would not 5

have -- my understanding of the role was to get engaged, be able to figure out what was 6

going on regarding these allegations. And so whatever -- I trusted Blue Star that 7

whatever they had to do to do that was appropriate. 8

Q And so did you know that they were going to reach out to these officials to 9

meet with them? 10

Mr. William Farah. I think he already answered the question twice. 11

Mr. Schwerin. Yeah, I don't recall. 12

Ms. . You don't recall? 13

Mr. Schwerin. Yes. 14

Ms. . You never learned that they were going to -- 15

Mr. William Farah. I think he answered the question three times. 16

Ms. . I'm just asking the question. 17

Mr. William Farah. You're asking it repeatedly. 18

Ms. . I'm going to go ahead and ask the question again. 19

Mr. . Let her ask the questions. Come on. 20

Mr. Schwerin. I learned later -- and, again, just based on press reports -- that 21

they did do that. 22

Ms. . Okay. Did you ever get a readout of any of these meetings that 23

occurred? 24

Mr. Schwerin. I don't recall. I mean, it's possible, but I don't recall. 25

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 6 1

was marked for identification.] 2

BY MS. : 3

Q And I'll mark as exhibit No. 6, this is a November 5th, 2015, email from 4

Mr. Biden to Mr. Pozharsky, with Devon Archer and Mr. Schwerin, cc'd. 5

This is the same chain that you were looking at the first round but it just 6

includes -- it now adds Mr. Pozharsky back in. 7

A Okay. 8

Q And please take your time to review. 9

A Okay. 10

[Pause.] 11

Q Are you ready, sir? 12

Okay. We've gone through Mr. Pozharsky's email, which starts, again, on the 13

bottom of page 1 here. And then if you go directly above, it is Mr. Biden's response to 14

Mr. Pozharsky. 15

Mr. Biden says, "Let me have one final call with them and verify once more that 16

they understand the scope so we can all feel that the retainer is in line with the work 17

required. I trust Sally and Karen implicitly so I believe we are all aligned but I want to 18

have one last conversation with them to confirm before we proceed." 19

Do you know if Mr. Biden reached out to Ms. Painter and Ms. Tramontano at this 20

point in time? 21

A I can't recall. 22

Q Did have you any communications with Ms. Painter or Ms. Tramontano 23

around this time? 24

A I believe I would. I don't really remember the content of them. But yeah. 25

Q If you had reached out to them at around this time, would it have been 1

regarding the scope of work, the agreement, or -- 2

Mr. William Farah. He answered he doesn't recall. 3

Mr. Schwerin. Yeah, I don't recall the specifics of what it would have been. 4

BY MS. : 5

Q Okay. Then if you go an email above, Mr. Pozharsky responding to 6

Mr. Biden, "Thank you, Hunter! And of course, if you and Devon feel comfortable that 7

they will deliver what in real terms we are talking about, we should disregard the wording 8

or the scope and move further with signing and starting actual work. 9

"Also, Eric, have you got any feedback from Sandwig with regard to visas issue and 10

also with regard to his possible involvement in the trip to Kiev event?" 11

Who is "Sandwig" in this email? 12

A I believe they're referring to John Sandweg. 13

Q And what was Mr. Sandweg's role in -- with regards to Burisma? 14

A John was a -- had his own consulting firm, he was a lawyer at his own 15

consulting firm, and he's a former Obama administration official who was at the 16

Department of Homeland Security. And he provided consulting services for people who 17

had issues with visas or green cards or, you know, anything related to those types of 18

immigration issues. 19

Q Do you know how Mr. Sandweg got involved with Burisma? 20

A I don't know directly if Devon was aware of John. He was somebody that I 21

had known through mutual friends. I don't know where the suggestion came that John 22

be engaged, but so I -- that's about all I recall about that. 23

Q And if you know, did you have an understanding of what Mr. Sandweg's role 24

was to be in this matter? 25

A I think -- in this matter, meaning what specifically? 1

Q Burisma. 2

A I think that my recollection was that Burisma engaged his firm because the 3

owner of Burisma had some issues getting a visa into the United States. 4

Q And from this email, it says, "Also, Eric, have you got any feedback from 5

Sandwig?" 6

Were you in communication with Mr. Sandweg regarding Burisma visa issues? 7

A My recollection is that in the initial period of the engagement, that I was also 8

helping make the introduction from Vadym to John. And Vadym and at one point kept 9

wanting to have me a little more engaged. I think I extricated myself soon after. But, 10

yes, there were emails like this about that. 11

BY MR. : 12

Q Where were you all officing? Were you in the same office together with 13

Hunter Biden and -- 14

A And myself? 15

Q Yeah. 16

A Yes. 17

Q Okay. And what was the name of that organization at the time? 18

A That was Rosemont Seneca Partners. 19

Q Okay. And so you were essentially doing this ad hoc or -- 20

A The -- going back to the -- particularly related as I talked to you about the 21

Blue Star thing, I was -- I was doing it from the point of view of trying to help Hunter out. 22

Q Okay. Just as a favor? 23

A Yeah. I mean, he was a friend and business partner. 24

As I talked about in the last session, this was -- this is November 2015. I was 25

concerned about him. His brother had just passed away. He was going through his 1

own alcohol and drug addiction issues. And so if there were things that I could do to 2

help him -- 3

Q Okay. 4

A -- in his recovery, you know, I could jump in and make things a little easier, I 5

was happy to do that. 6

Q Okay. 7

BY MS. : 8

Q And you said at one point you were involved with -- I believe you said 9

connecting Mr. Pozharsky to Mr. Sandweg. Is that correct? 10

A I don't know if I was the first person who connected him, but I got involved 11

in the -- as a go-between initially, yes. 12

Q And then you said you extricated yourself from that. Is that correct? 13

A I tried to. I think I did. But yes. 14

Q Okay. And then the last part of the sentence that I keep rereading, it says, 15

"Also, with regard to his possible involvement in the trip to Kiev event." 16

What was the "Kiev event"? 17

A I have no recollection. I don't know what that is referring to. 18

Q And when it says "with regard to his possible involvement," was that 19

directed at Mr. Sandweg -- 20

A I don't know. 21

Q -- that he was involved? 22

A I don't know. 23

Q You don't know. Okay. 24

A Yeah. 25

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 7 1

was marked for identification.] 2

BY MS. : 3

Q And so I'll now move to -- I'll mark as exhibit 7 this November 3rd, 2015, 4

email from Mr. Schwerin to Mr. Pozharsky, cc'ing Mr. Archer and Mr. Biden. Subject line 5

is "Visa Denial." 6

[Pause.] 7

Are you ready? 8

A Okay. 9

Q You'll notice that this email was sent on November 3rd, 2015, the same day 10

as the message from Pozharsky where he refers to, "Eric, have you got any feedback from 11

Sandwig." Just kind of setting up the timeframe there. 12

A Uh-huh. 13

Q So were you responsible for at that point in time for receiving feedback from 14

Mr. Sandweg on the visa issue? 15

A I don't know if I was responsible, but I was involved. 16

Q And then it looks like you -- this email chain, it begins with from John 17

Sandweg to Mr. Schwerin. And so looks like you are forwarding Mr. Sandweg's email on 18

to Mr. Pozharsky and Mr. Archer and Mr. Biden. Is that correct? 19

A That's what it looks like, yes. 20

Q Okay. And if you look at the second paragraph in your email to 21

Mr. Pozharsky, it says, "John recommends that Nikolai reapply for his visa but that we 22

wait until his legal status in Ukraine has been resolved as the reapplication may require 23

Nikolai to go to the Embassy in Kiev personally. 24

"He does feel that since the original cancellation occurred in March of 2014 it is 25

solely related to the political issues associated with his service in the cabinet and not 1

anything to do with him personally that the reapplication may not be a difficult process." 2

So is this in regards to Mr. Zlochevsky's personal visa? 3

A That's my -- yeah, I believe that's correct. 4

Q And then you say up above, "He is going to confirm that Nikolai's wife and 5

daughter are in the same situation." 6

And so was Mr. Zlochevsky, his wife, and daughter trying to obtain visas? 7

A Yeah. Rereading this, that seems to be the recollection I have. But, yeah, 8

this is -- again, we're 8 years ago. 9

Q Yeah. 10

A Trying to -- 11

Q And it says that Mr. Sandweg was recommending that he wait to reapply for 12

his visa until his legal status in Ukraine has been resolved. 13

Do you remember what Mr. Sandweg was referring to by the "legal status in 14

Ukraine"? 15

A I don't remember. I can read it, but I don't know. 16

Q Do you know if it involved the case against Mr. Zlochevsky at the Prosecutor 17

General's Office? 18

A I don't know with any certainly. The only legal thing -- that's the only legal 19

status I know of, but -- 20

Q And then down below, "In any event, we should discuss timing as part of the 21

overall strategy regarding not only the visa but also the legal and PR issues that Blue Star 22

will be handling." 23

Did you have an understanding at this point in time what legal and PR issues that 24

Blue Star was handling? 25

A I may have. I don't recall. 1

Q Do you know if Mr. Zlochevsky ever had his visa issue resolved? 2

A I don't know. 3

Q And do you know how Mr. Sandweg came to learn this information that he 4

put in his email and then you forwarded on to Mr. Pozharsky? 5

A No, no, I do not. 6

Q You don't know the process that Mr. Sandweg used? 7

A I do not, no. 8

BY MR. : 9

Q Who's paying Sandweg at this point? 10

A I don't recall specifically, but it wasn't -- it was not us. 11

Q Okay. 12

A So -- 13

Q Do you think anyone was, or was he also doing it as a favor? 14

Mr. William Farah. He said, "I don't know. 15

Mr. Schwerin. I don't know. 16

Mr. William Farah. He didn't know. 17

Mr. Schwerin. I don't know. 18

He does these as a business. So I believe he was paid, but I don't recall 19

specifically. 20

Mr. . Okay. 21

Ms. . And was this the only other engagement you had with Zlochevsky's 22

visa issues? I know you said you had extricated yourself from the Mr. Sandweg and 23

Burisma involvement. 24

Mr. Schwerin. I don't -- I don't remember.25

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 8 2

was marked for identification.] 3

Ms. . So I'll offer as exhibit No. 8. This is a document timeline that the 4

IRS investigators and FBI investigators put together. 5

Agent Ziegler gave it to the Ways and Means Committee, and they have since 6

made it public. 7

Mr. William Farah. Can we discuss the authentication of the document? 8

Ms. . I'm sorry. What did you say, sir? 9

Mr. William Farah. When did the -- can we discuss the authentication of the 10

document and its legitimacy? Because it's not clear to me when this was prepared. 11

Ms. . So the IRS investigators and the FBI investigators put this document 12

together during the course of their investigation. And then Mr. Ziegler provided this to 13

the Ways and Means Committee. 14

Mr. William Farah. And it reflects their impressions of what they heard? 15

Ms. . It is a timeline of actual documents that they obtained through 16

search warrants, public sourcing. And they put this all into a timeline right here. 17

Mr. William Farah. And was it submitted under oath or any sort of legal 18

proceedings? 19

Mr. . Yes, there was an affidavit that accompanied it. 20

Mr. William Farah. There was an affidavit that accompanied. Okay. 21

Mr. . These whistleblowers, in case you didn't hear, I mean, they were so 22

outraged by the treatment that Hunter Biden was afforded that they came to the 23

committee as whistleblowers and they provided voluminous amounts of documents. 24

Were you following that? 25

Mr. William Farah. Is that a question? 1

Mr. . No, I'm asking if you were following that. 2

Mr. William Farah. I'm not a witness here. 3

Mr. . Okay. But you're sort of asking us questions, like, to authenticate 4

it. And there's sort of a big body of information. 5

Mr. William Farah. Right. You know, I'm just trying to make certain this is a 6

document that can be authenticated. That's all. 7

Mr. . Okay. Authenticated for what purpose? I mean, we're not going 8

to trial. 9

Mr. William Farah. Well, you're going to ask him questions. And I'm just 10

assuming you're going to ask him questions about the facts this discusses. You're not 11

going to ask him to confirm the accuracy of the document itself. 12

So you can certainly read from the document and ask him questions, but his 13

answers don't indicate that he's necessarily agreeing that this is an accurate, 14

contemporaneous statement as to what the investigators learned. 15

Mr. Castor. 16

BY MS. : 17

Q Mr. Schwerin, have you had sufficient time to review? I'm going to point 18

you to specific messages. 19

A That's fine. 20

Q And I know it may be a little hard to read. 21

A Sure. 22

Q So we'll take our time. 23

If you turn to page 3 of the document, the page numbers are at the bottom in the 24

middle. And I'm looking at the first blue row. 25

Mr. William Farah. Can you see that? 1

Mr. Schwerin. Uh-huh. 2

BY MS. : 3

Q And this depicts a calendar entry on November 6th, 2015, "RHB: Meeting 4

with Amos Hochstein." 5

Do you know who Amos Hochstein is, Mr. Schwerin? 6

A I know that he was a U.S. Government official in the Obama administration. 7

Q And were you involved in Mr. Biden's meeting with Mr. Hochstein at all? 8

A I don't think I -- I don't -- I did not attend it, to my recollection. 9

Q And did you ever learn that Mr. Biden had met with Mr. Hochstein? 10

A I don't recall. 11

Q Did he ever discuss what occurred at the meeting with you? 12

A I don't recall. 13

Q You don't recall? 14

A Yeah. 15

Q And on page 3, we're going to stick with page 3, there are several emails 16

between you, Sally Painter, Rob Walker, and Mr. Biden in November 2015 about the 17

elections in Romania and trying to set up a meeting with the Romanian ambassador. 18

Do you know who Rob Walker is? 19

A I do know, yes. 20

Q And have you ever been in business with him? 21

A I have. 22

Q Okay. And can you explain your business relationship with Mr. Walker? 23

A Rob was -- we had, I think, first started working with Rob. He had worked 24

with us a little bit at Oldaker Biden, and Belair. 25

Q Uh-huh. 1

A And when we set up what became Rosemont Seneca, he also worked with us 2

through that. And, ultimately, we formed Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, of 3

which he became a partner of that. 4

Q And was Mr. Walker involved at all with Blue Star or Burisma to your 5

knowledge? 6

A Not -- no, I don't believe so. 7

Q Okay. So right underneath the blue row that we just read, there is a 8

"November 6th, 2015, Schwerin email to Sally Painter. Regarding Romanian 9

Ambassador. Schwerin discusses texting with SM" -- and the investigators use SM as a 10

code name for Hunter Biden -- "and SM requested Painter call today and try to set up a 11

meeting for 'him with the Ambassador.' SM is representing a Romanian client through 12

the law firm Boies Schiller." 13

Did you have any understanding of who Mr. Biden was representing? 14

A A little bit. 15

Q And what can you tell us about that, sir? 16

A At one point, I don't remember exactly when, I know that Rob had 17

approached me that there was an opportunity to have a Romanian businessman as a 18

client for our advisory business. 19

And as Rob explained it a little bit, if somebody was having legal issues in 20

Romania, it didn't seem like something I thought that our advisory business was doing or 21

did do. And so we did not ultimately take that engagement under Rosemont Seneca 22

Advisors. 23

I recall it sort of went away for a while. And at some point afterwards, Rob 24

and/or Hunter, I can't remember who told me, said that Hunter was going to be working 25

on this via Boies Schiller, which made sense to me. It was a legal issue. A law firm 1

should be involved. 2

Q And the entry here says that you were discussing that you had sent text 3

messages with Mr. Biden regarding his desire to meet with the ambassador. 4

Do you know why it was important that he wanted to meet with the ambassador? 5

A I don't know why it was important. I do know, recall that at the beginning 6

of the engagement Hunter had said to me, "I want to go meet with the Romanian 7

ambassador." 8

And my recollection is that Sally Painter had a good relationship with him and that 9

we had asked her to help set that meeting up. 10

Q With the ambassador? 11

A With the Romanian ambassador to the U.S., yes, correct. 12

Q Okay. And so it was going to be Ms. Painter who arranged the meeting. 13

Is that correct? 14

A I believe so, yes. 15

Q And do you know if at the time the Romanian ambassador was supposed to 16

be in the U.S. on official business? 17

A No, this was the -- he was based here. 18

Q Based here. Okay. 19

A He was based in Washington, D.C., he was Romanian ambassador to the U.S. 20

Q And then if you go, there's going to be three entries in between, and then 21

I'm going to go to a November 10th, 2015, entry. 22

It says, "November 10, 2015 Schwerin email to SM," Hunter Biden. "Forwarded 23

email from Sally Painter regarding Romanian update on position nominations/elections. 24

Blue Star Strategies is closely monitoring the developments," end quote. 25

Do you know why Blue Star was closely monitoring the developments? 1

A I don't. 2

Q You never asked any questions or ever found out why they were -- 3

A I don't recollect that part of this, no. 4

Q Do you know how the Romanian elections would have related to Blue Star's 5

work to Burisma? 6

A I don't think Blue Star was doing any work related to this issue with 7

Romania. The only thing I recollect at all was Sally's involvement in just helping set up 8

that meeting. 9

Q And if you go down further on the page, there are two blue entries, and I'm 10

looking two above that, on November 18th, 2015. It says, "Schwerin email to Mayer 11

scheduling for SM including call to arrange meeting between SM and Romanian 12

Ambassador to the U.S." 13

Do you have any recollection of who Mayer is that you're referring to here? 14

A Yeah, that was our assistant, Joan Mayer. 15

Q Joan Mayer. And who did Joan work for? 16

A She worked for Rosemont Seneca Advisors for Hunter and myself. 17

Q And so she was involved with all of your scheduling needs. Is that correct? 18

A Correct. 19

Q Okay. And then if you look at that blue line right under there, it says, 20

"November 24th, 2015, Event, Burisma/Blue Star Strategies kickoff call with 21

Archer/Sportsman/Sally Painter/Schwerin/Seb Momtazi/Vadym Pozharsky, and others." 22

Then you look one below, and it's the meeting with the Romanian ambassador, 23

November 30th, 2015. "SM event, meeting with Romanian Ambassador." 24

Was it just Mr. Biden that met with the Romanian ambassador, to your 25

knowledge? 1

A I was not there, so I don't know. I believe so, but I was not there. I 2

couldn't tell who else was there. 3

Q And did you ever have any discussions with Mr. Biden about his meeting 4

with the Romanian ambassador? 5

A Not that I recall. 6

Q Sticking with this page, we're going to go up a little bit on page 3 to right 7

below the second blue entry. 8

It says, "November 14th, 2015, Schwerin email to Archer/Sally Painter/ Karen 9

Tramontano/others. Discussions about Biden going to Ukraine and 'timing of a trip.'" 10

A Which one is this? I'm sorry. 11

Q So on page 3, I'm looking right underneath the second blue entry. 12

A Got it. 13

Q And November 14th, 2015. I'll read it again. "Schwerin email to 14

Archer/Sally Painter/Karen Tramontano/others. Discussions about Biden going to 15

Ukraine and 'timing of a trip.'" 16

A I'm not seeing it. I apologize. 17

Q That's okay. Take your time. 18

Mr. Thomas Farah. It's below this -- 19

Mr. Schwerin. Oh, I'm looking at the wrong blue. Got it. 20

BY MS. : 21

Q And you see where I just read from? 22

A Yes. 23

Q It says, "Discussions about Biden going to Ukraine and 'timing of a trip.'" 24

Do you know which Biden this was referring to? 25

A I do not, no. 1

Q It was around this time the Vice President, Vice President Joe Biden, was 2

planning a trip to Ukraine. 3

Do you know if that was in regards to that trip? 4

A I don't. Without having the original email, it's hard for me to even refresh 5

my memory on this. 6

Q And do you know if around this time Hunter Biden was planning a trip to 7

Ukraine? 8

A I don't believe so. 9

Q Okay. And do you remember what you meant by "timing of a trip"? 10

A I do not. 11

Q Then, on the same page, one more on this page, it is one, two, three below 12

the last blue line. 13

A Okay. 14

Q And it is on December 2nd, 2015. 15

It says, "December 2, 2015, Sean Keeley email to SM/Archer/Vadym 16

Pozharskyi/Schwerin/Seb Momtazi. White House hosted a conference call regarding VP 17

trip to Ukraine and Blue Star Strategies memo with the minutes of the call with 18

attachment. Attachment is Blue Star Strategies memo with the minutes of the call with 19

attachment Blue Star Strategies memo regarding U.S. Vice President Biden's Trip to 20

Ukraine Next Week." 21

Did you attend this briefing? 22

A I did not. 23

Q Did you ever receive a readout of what occurred on the briefing -- on the 24

call? 25

A I don't believe I did, no.1

[12:42 p.m.] 1

BY MS. 2

Q And do you know who Sean Keeley is? 3

A I believe he worked with Blue Star, but I do not know. 4

Q Did you interact with him? 5

A I don't recall. I mean, probably at various times, but I don't 6

really -- someone I hadn't remembered for 8 years. So I'm not sure what the interaction 7

was. 8

Q And so after this call, the Vice President is gearing up for his trip to Ukraine. 9

Did you know that the Vice President was going to Ukraine between I believe it was like 10

the 6th and the 9th of December 2015? 11

A I don't recall the specifics of it now today, but it's possible I knew at the time. 12

Q It's possible that you knew at the time? 13

A It's possible, yes. 14

Q And were you aware -- this is from Devon Archer's testimony to the 15

Oversight Committee. He was in Dubai on December 4th, 2015, 2 days after the briefing 16

with the White House with Burisma executives. Were you in Dubai at that same time? 17

A I was not. 18

Q And Mr. Archer told the committee that at the meeting in Dubai, the 19

Burisma executives asked Mr. Biden for help with relieving some of the pressure they 20

were under and then he made a call to D.C. Are you familiar with this testimony at all? 21

A I'm familiar that he testified to that effect, yes. 22

Q Okay. And then later on in his testimony he said that when Hunter Biden 23

made a call to D.C. on December 4th 2015, he was calling his dad. Do you remember 24

that testimony? 25

A I do not. 1

Q You do not remember that testimony? 2

Mr. . I'm sorry. I believe that mischaracterizes what the testimony 3

was. 4

Mr. . Well, he said that and then he went out of the room and came back. 5

Ms. . Can we just ask for a page cite for the transcript maybe? 6

Mr. . Yes. 7

Ms. . Page 34 through 36 of the Archer transcript. 8

Ms. . Thank you. 9

Ms. . Do you need a copy, ? We've got a copy of the transcript 10

for you if you need it. 11

Ms. . I would welcome that. Thank you, . 12

Mr. . Are we marking that as an exhibit? 13

Ms. . We can if you want to and offer them a copy of the transcript. 14

Mr. . Is that what we want to do here? Did you want a copy of the 15

transcript or are you -- 16

Mr. William Farah. Yeah. 17

Okay. What page are we on? 18

Ms. . 36. 19

Mr. . Page 36. 20

Mr. Schwerin. 36? 21

Mr. . Yes. 22

BY MS. : 23

Q Okay. So I'll read for the record. I'm on page 36, line 14 and 15. It says, 24

"Question: What did Hunter Biden do after he was given that request? 25

Answer: Listen, I did not hear this phone call, but he -- he called his dad," end 1

quote. 2

Did I read that correctly? 3

A That's what it says here on the paper, yes. 4

Q Okay. Okay. So on December 4th, 2 days after the White House briefing, 5

Hunter Biden, according to Devon Archer, called his dad after he was given a request by 6

Burisma executives to help alleviate the pressure. 7

And then, are you aware that Vice President Biden then went to Ukraine? 8

A I'm aware now, today. I don't know if I was aware at the time. 9

Q And are you aware that on December 9th, 2015, he gave a speech before the 10

Ukrainian Parliament, the Vice President? 11

A Again, I'm aware today, yes, of that. 12

Q And then at that time, he told the Ukrainian President, Mr. Poroshenko, that 13

if the President is not fired, you are not getting the money in regards to the loan 14

guarantee that he was supposed to sign while he was over in Ukraine. 15

Did you ever become aware of this episode? 16

A I mean, there -- no, I mean, there are press reports, you know, in the recent 17

past -- I mean recent few years about that comment, but that's my only awareness of it. 18

Q And then while the President of Ukraine on December 10th, 2015, 19

Ms. Painter and Ms. Tramontano testified to some Senate committees that on 20

December 10th, 2015, they had a meeting with Mr. Hochstein. And I believe you said 21

that you were aware that at some point they had met with Mr. Hochstein. Is that 22

correct? 23

A That's correct. 24

Q And you never received a readout of the contents of their meeting? 25

A Not to my recollection. I don't know. 1

Q Okay. And then on December 16th, 2015, Ms. Tramontano and Ms. Painter 2

also testified that they met with Ambassador Pyatt. And I believe is that on the list of 3

names on this proposal that you thought maybe that had met with Ambassador Pyatt? 4

Is that correct? 5

A Yeah. I don't know if I said -- Catherine Novelli was the only one I knew for 6

certain. I'm not sure about the others. 7

Q Okay. And did you ever come to learn during your engagement with Blue 8

Star and Burisma that they had met with Ambassador Pyatt? 9

A Today I don't recall that, but it's possible. 10

Q And were you aware that at the time that these meetings were occurring, 11

Blue Star and Burisma kind of took issue with the substance of a speech that Ambassador 12

Pyatt gave in September of that year? 13

A I have a recollection that there was an issue with that, correct. 14

Q And Blue Star was saying that they were working to kind of understand if it 15

was the State Department's official position that Zlochevsky needed to be prosecuted or 16

if it was just Ambassador Pyatt. 17

Do you ever remember a statement to that effect from Blue Star or Burisma? 18

A I don't recall more than that he gave a speech and people were unhappy 19

with it. 20

Q And then on March 1st, 2016, is when Ms. Tramontano met with Ms. Novelli. 21

You said you remember that at some point they had met with Ms. Novelli. Is that 22

correct? 23

A Yeah. After the fact, yes. Correct. 24

Q And you never got a readout of what occurred at that meeting? 25

A I don't recall getting one, no. And this is worth reemphasizing, that, you 1

know, I was not paid by Burisma. This was not a priority for me. You know, we had 2

our own business to run, and there was a lot else going on given Bo's death and Hunter's, 3

you know, addictions. There was a time certainly 8 years ago where, yeah, this was a 4

low priority. So that is -- it's important to give you that context to these questions. 5

Q And you said your only engagement with regards to Blue Star and Burisma 6

was being looped into review the contract. Is that correct or -- 7

A That's my main recollection. I mean, I think that there were -- as I said to 8

you, there were occasional updates on, yes, you know, we've settled this one issue or not. 9

But, you know, again, I trusted Blue Star that if they were handling things, that I didn't 10

need to be very involved in it. 11

Q And did you also understand that, at some point, Blue Star went to Ukraine 12

to talk to Ukraine officials? 13

A I don't recall knowing that contemporaneously. I may have -- I know after 14

the fact that they did go at least once. 15

Q And do you have any recollection of who they met with while in Ukraine? 16

A I do not. 17

Q You do not. Okay. 18

So as exhibit 10 I'll mark this July 10th, 2016, email from Ms. Tramontano to 19

Mr. Schwerin regarding a letter to the prosecutor general. 20

A Do I have this yet or no? 21

Q You do not have that yet, sir. 22

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 10 23

was marked for identification.] 24

BY MS. : 25

Q Okay. And so in this email, Ms. Tramontano is sending you a letter that 1

they wanted Mr. Biden to sign. Do you know why they just didn't directly go to 2

Mr. Biden? 3

A Yeah. I think this time, sort of very similar we had asked earlier today 4

about, you know, Vadym and the contract. You know, if they were -- Hunter was not in 5

the office very much. Either -- at this point, I think he was in Delaware a lot more, and 6

people knew that I could help get his signature on stuff. It was just easier to go to me. 7

So that's the reason. 8

Q And if you look at the email, the second paragraph, it says, "Depending on 9

the result of the court, we may use the letter in a subsequent interview, but we will 10

discuss with you, HB, and others before proceeding to the next step." 11

Do you know if this letter was ever issued -- 12

A I don't. 13

Q -- or sent? 14

Did you ever have -- she said that we'll discuss with you, HB, and others before 15

proceeding to the next step. Did you ever have a discussion with Ms. Tramontano about 16

the next steps? 17

A Not that I recall. 18

Q And what was your involvement here at this point in time? Was it just to 19

get Mr. Biden to sign the letter, or did you have other engagements where they were 20

needing to discuss the next steps with you? 21

A My belief is I would -- I probably just wanted him to sign the letter and then 22

moved on to my other stuff to do. 23

Q Okay. And as exhibit 11, this will be an October 11th, 2016, email from 24

Sally Painter to Mr. Schwerin, with the subject line "Zlochevsky article with UKR press." 25

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 11 1

was marked for identification.] 2

BY MS. : 3

Q Please take your time to review it. 4

So on October 11th, 2016, I'm looking at the 11:24 a.m. email from Ms. Painter. 5

Do you see where I'm looking at? 6

So she is forwarding on an article titled "The Interior Ministry confirmed that 7

Zlochevsky is no longer wanted." 8

And in her email, she says, "We won and in less than a year." 9

What did you understand Ms. Painter to mean when she said we won? 10

A I mean, again, my understanding of the engagement was related to the legal 11

issues surrounding the owner of Burisma, and my understanding was that that was 12

resolved. 13

Q And so was the goal to get the case dropped against Mr. Zlochevsky? 14

A Whatever -- I don't know if that was the goal. It's my understanding that 15

the goal was to figure out the problem and solve it, and that's what Blue Star was doing. 16

Q And then right up above, you respond to Ms. Painter, "Awesome work. 17

Congrats to you and Karen." 18

And Ms. Painter then responds to you, "Thanks. You brought us in, so take a 19

victory lap." 20

When you said awesome work, what did you think that Sally Painter had done to 21

get this accomplished? 22

A I don't know what they did to get it accomplished. They said that they 23

won, and I was congratulating them on that. 24

Q And when they won, meaning that Zlochevsky was no longer under 25

investigation. Is that correct? 1

A Yeah, I would have read the article. That's what I would have -- that would 2

have been the inference from that. 3

Q And I believe you had testified earlier that the concern here was that the 4

investigation of Mr. Zlochevsky would look bad for Mr. Hunter Biden and Mr. Archer. Is 5

that correct? 6

A Yeah, that's correct. 7

Q So now that that investigation had gone away, then was that concern 8

alleviated? 9

A Yeah. My main concern was that there was bad press. So if there was no 10

more press because of this, that would be a good thing. 11

Q And you said my main concern. Did Mr. Hunter Biden or Mr. Archer ever 12

tell you that that was their concern? 13

A No, they did not. 14

Q They did not? 15

A No. 16

Q Did you ever have any correspondence with individuals in the White House 17

regarding Burisma? 18

A On press-related matters I did, yes. That's one thing. 19

Q Who did you correspond with regarding those? 20

A Kate Bedingfield. 21

Q Kate Bedingfield. And had you known Ms. Kate Bedingfield prior to your 22

engagement with her on this issue? 23

A Yes, I had. 24

Q And how did you know Ms. Bedingfield? 25

A She was a staffer for Vice President Biden. And as part of the role that I 1

had with Vice President Biden's finances, when they released his tax returns every year to 2

the press, I usually had to engage with them to ask to make sure if they had any questions 3

or something, that they were putting together any sort of talking points on that. So 4

that's one just I know example of where I had already engaged with Kate. 5

Q Okay. This will be the last exhibit I enter. But exhibit No. 12, this is a 6

December 4th through 9th, 2013, email chain between Mr. Schwerin and Ms. Bedingfield. 7

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 12 8

was marked for identification.] 9

BY MS. : 10

Q I know it's a bit of a longer chain, so I'll make sure to direct you where I'm 11

looking. 12

Okay. If you turn to the last page of the exhibit, page 6, there is an email from 13

you to Ms. Bedingfield with the subject line "Quotes." 14

Do you remember how this communication started? Did she ask you for a quote 15

or did you just voluntarily provide this? 16

A No, I don't remember how the conversation started. Usually, I mean, there 17

were not many instances of this, but if there are press articles about Burisma, and they 18

would get an inquiry from the press, the White House, the Vice President's office, they 19

would -- their policy was not to respond unless it directly related to the Vice President. 20

And if it only related to Hunter, they would leave it to his spokespeople to respond. 21

So it would be instances, and I don't think there were many, where I would get a 22

call, hey, there's this article. What are the facts we need to know to decide whether we 23

need to respond? 24

So it's possible that that was one of the cases where Kate had reached out to me 25

to see what was going on. 1

Q And in the, you know, other pages of this exhibit, it talks about a New York 2

Times story, as well as a Wall Street Journal story, and these stories were coming out 3

before Vice President Biden was going to Ukraine in December. And the stories were 4

regarding Hunter Biden's position on the board of Burisma while the Vice President is 5

working to combat corruption in Ukraine. 6

Do you kind of -- does that jog your memory about the context of this 7

conversation? 8

A My general recollection of what was going on, yes. I've been refreshed by 9

these emails recently. 10

Q And so were you surprised when Ms. Bedingfield reached out to you wanting 11

a quote? 12

A I was -- just to be clear, my recollection is that I was not providing quotes to 13

her. I was providing what quotes were being used to provide -- that we were 14

going -- we, the larger Hunter Burisma team, was providing to the reporters. 15

Q Okay. So this would have been what you were providing to the reporters, 16

correct? 17

A Yeah. It was actually -- FTI Consulting was hired by -- my recollection is 18

they were hired by Boies Schiller to do the press around this issue. 19

Q Okay. 20

A And so FTI was the one that would be providing these quotes to the press. 21

Q Okay. And so what was your involvement here with the quotes? Did you 22

come up with the quotes? Did you talk to Mr. Biden about the quotes? 23

A I don't believe I talked to Hunter about it. I don't know what my 24

involvement was. I know that I was on a few calls with FTI while they were coming up 25

with a strategy for this. 1

Q Okay. And so FTI Consulting was the one writing these quotes. Is that 2

your recollection? 3

A That's my recollection, yes. 4

Q Okay. And then right above the quote, if you go to the next page, you ask 5

Ms. Bedingfield, "Will you call me when you get a chance? I am in office or on cell." 6

Did you have a call with Ms. Bedingfield around this time that you can recall? 7

A I don't recall. 8

Q And do you know what the concern was? I know we talked about this a 9

little bit, but it's on the heels of the Vice President's trip to Ukraine. What was the 10

concern that these articles were coming up and they needed quotes from you and from 11

the White House? 12

A Yeah, and these quotes were not from me. I just want to be clear. 13

Q Yeah. 14

A What was the concern on my part or -- 15

Q What was the general concern that they needed to have these quotes, the 16

reporters needed to have these quotes? 17

A I don't know. 18

Mr. William Farah. Are you asking what was in the article? 19

Ms. . Correct. What was the context that these were being provided in? 20

Mr. Schwerin. I can't recall. 21

Mr. . Were you surprised the Vice President didn't recuse himself from 22

this portfolio? 23

Mr. William Farah. I think that causes him to speculate. 24

Mr. . No. I asked were you surprised. 25

Mr. Schwerin. I don't recall what I thought at that time. I really don't. 1

BY MR. : 2

Q But this is a sticky situation here. I mean, the Vice President's son is on the 3

board of Burisma, an energy company. He's getting paid a million a year. The 4

company is under investigation, and the Vice President is taking a direct role in some of 5

these matters. 6

A I don't recall having any thoughts on that either way at that time. 7

Q Did you have any communications with the Vice President's office about 8

that? 9

A The Vice President's office? 10

Q Yes. 11

A When Hunter first joined the board, and whenever it was, in 2014, his 12

counsel, who had learned the information, reached out to me to find out what was going 13

on. I too did not really know what was going on, so we were trying to figure it out. 14

And I think it was based on a press inquiry the same way. 15

Q Did you make a suggestion that maybe the Vice President should recuse? 16

A I didn't. I wasn't -- I didn't feel like it was my place. I was just answering 17

questions. 18

Q But, I mean, you were a trusted advisor to the Vice President and his family. 19

So certainly it wouldn't be out of place for you to make a recommendation. 20

A I did not do that. I don't know that would have been my place, but I did not 21

do that. 22

Chairman Jordan. His counsel, you mean the Vice President's counsel reached 23

out to you? 24

Mr. Schwerin. Yes. 25

Chairman Jordan. Well, that's what underscores point. The counsel to 1

the Vice President's reaching out to you, and you didn't offer your thoughts on what 2

should happen? 3

Mr. Schwerin. No. She asked for the facts, and I provided the facts, and that 4

was their decision to make. 5

BY MR. : 6

Q At the time, Burisma was under investigation, supposedly, correct? 7

A You're saying the first call when Hunter first joined the board? I was not 8

aware they were under investigation. 9

Q Around the time of the Vice President's visit to Ukraine in December -- 10

A This one that you're talking about here? 11

Q Yeah. 12

A I don't -- I can't recall if they were. I can't recall that specifically. 13

Q Okay. 14

A I believe that's the case. That's why the press reports were being written. 15

Q Right. Can you recall that the Vice President, you know, spoke about that 16

when he was in Ukraine? 17

A I don't recall that, no. 18

Q And there was a discussion of whether the loan guarantee would be 19

conditioned on firing Shokin, the prosecutor? 20

A I don't recall that from that time at all, no. 21

Q Okay. Do you subsequently recall that the Vice President discussed that? 22

A I mean, I know that from press reports in recent years that that was the 23

case. 24

Q He sort of gave this swashbuckling statement at the Council on Foreign 25

Relations about how he, you know, he told Ukrainians they needed to fire the prosecutor, 1

and if they didn't fire the prosecutor, they weren't going to get the $1 billion loan 2

guarantee. Are you familiar with that? 3

A I read those press reports and saw them, yes. 4

Q Looking back on that, isn't that a little bit of an ethical quandary? Because 5

you've got the son of the Vice President on the Burisma board, and you've got the Vice 6

President, you know, wading into whether the prosecutor -- 7

Mr. William Farah. Are you asking him to opine on a legal matter, a matter of 8

legal ethics? 9

BY MR. : 10

Q I'm asking you, don't you think this was a quandary, an ethical quandary? 11

A I didn't think about that at the time, no. 12

Q So you thought everything was just perfectly, perfectly fine? 13

A Well, I didn't -- I didn't have an opinion one way or another. I was not 14

involved directly with Burisma. I also assumed that that type of advice was something 15

that he would consult with his counsel on, and that was not, you know, something that I 16

thought I had to think about. 17

Q And at this point in time, in the -- you know, we understand that Hunter 18

Biden was dealing with some personal issues at the time. Was he present and engaged 19

on Burisma business at this point in time or was he detached? 20

A As he was dealing with his addiction, he went into periods of relapse and 21

recovery. I can't match up exactly which, but, you know, he was definitely engaged with 22

Burisma business at certain times. And if there were times when he was -- had relapsed 23

and he needed to deal with his own personal health, I think he may have taken a step 24

back. 25

Q Okay. And do you happen to remember, during this point in time, when 1

the Vice President was traveling to Ukraine, when you were speaking with the Vice 2

President's comm staff, whether Hunter was present and engaged or whether he was 3

taking a step back? 4

A I think from what we had just established, right, this is the same time that 5

Hunter and Devon were in Dubai. So he was engaged. He was at a board meeting, 6

yeah. 7

Chairman Jordan. Can we go back to No. 11, exhibit 11? 8

I think in the first hour -- this is the one where there was the congratulatory 9

exchange. I think in the first hour you said when Blue Star Strategies was retained, you 10

said you weren't sure of what the deliverables were. You were focused on the public 11

relations aspect of it. 12

When did you learn -- when did you learn what the deliverables actually were? 13

Mr. Schwerin. I don't know that I ever specifically learned what the deliverables 14

were. You know, I had -- I was deferring to Sally and Karen that they were working with 15

Burisma and trying to figure out what needed to be solved, and I was hoping that they 16

would do that. 17

Chairman Jordan. So Zlochevsky taken off the wanted list, you didn't know that 18

that was a deliverable until you got this email? 19

Mr. Schwerin. I think that's correct, yes. 20

BY MR. : 21

Q We're going to now switch gears and go back to a discussion of some of the 22

corporations and companies going back to 2014, 2015. 23

If you could pull up exhibit 9, which is the transcript, and I'll direct you to page -- 24

A This one? 25

100

Q Yes, sir. 1

And I'll direct you to page 64, please. It'll be line 17, beginning -- let me know 2

when you're there. 3

A Uh-huh. 4

Q This is the transcript of Devon Archer. And during the interview of 5

Mr. Archer, the committee asked Mr. Archer questions about payments that were going 6

into the RSB account. And the question was: "So then what was the purpose of the 7

Porsche payment? 8

"Answer: It was -- that's a business matter between them. 9

"Question: Them being who? 10

"Answer: Hunter and Kenes. 11

"Question: So -- 12

"Answer: That's why I clarified the point. Like, I wasn't, like, doing this 13

banking. Hunter was a corporate secretary of RSB. We had a handshake 50/50 14

ownership, and he conducted, you know, banking business with the COO." 15

My question to you is, did you know that Hunter Biden, in 2014, 2015 time period, 16

was the corporate secretary of Rosemont Seneca Bohai? 17

A I didn't know that. I didn't -- I still to this day do not know that. It's just 18

based on Devon's testimony. 19

Q Did you know that there was a 50/50 ownership of Rosemont Seneca Bohai, 20

a handshake, as described by Mr. Archer? 21

A I did not know that. 22

Q And you only came to know about the bank records into the Rosemont 23

Seneca Bohai account later after Devon Archer gets investigated by the DOJ, and you're 24

trying to assess Hunter Biden's potential income. Do I have that correct? 25

101

A Yes. When Hunter -- I'm sorry. When Devon was being investigated by 1

the DOJ, and I tried to figure out that, I received Excel spreadsheets from Devon of the 2

banking information and relied on that. It was only later in Devon's trial that I think 3

those bank records were released publicly, and that was the first time I saw them. 4

Q So just to be clear, you never saw the bank records for Rosemont Seneca 5

Bohai until Devon Archer's trial? 6

A Correct. I had asked for them from Devon. All I got was the spreadsheet 7

with transactions on it. 8

Q And with regard to Rosemont Seneca Thornton, were you aware that 9

Rosemont Seneca Partners was a beneficial owner of Rosemont Seneca Thornton? 10

A I was not. 11

Q Based upon the information I provided you here today, there were a number 12

of different items or financial transactions or corporate records that you just didn't have 13

visibility into with Rosemont Seneca Bohai or Rosemont Seneca Thornton, correct? 14

A Correct. And just to clarify on the Rosemont Seneca Thornton too, and I've 15

learned this after the fact, I think Devon was the only one who knew that that entity still 16

existed and had a bank account. And I don't think that he -- he didn't do that with the 17

knowledge of any other -- of the partners, is my understanding. 18

Q With regard to Rosemont Seneca Partners and Rosemont Seneca Advisors, 19

can you again just describe the relationship between the two companies? 20

A Rosemont Seneca Advisors was a wholly owned affiliate of Rosemont Seneca 21

Partners. The way we had set it up was that Rosemont Seneca Partners was the overall 22

holding company, for lack of a better term, and had two affiliates -- wholly owned 23

affiliates, Rosemont Seneca Advisors, which is where I concentrated most of my time and 24

effort and did most of the work. We had also set up an entity called Rosemont Seneca 25

102

Principal Investments with the idea that that would be the entity that would be -- hold 1

the investment, hold ownership stakes in any of the funds that were set up. That never 2

ended up happening. That entity never really did anything, so -- 3

Q And Hunter Biden was your partner in both Rosemont Seneca Partners and 4

Rosemont Seneca Advisors, correct? 5

A Correct. 6

Q Approximately between 2011 and 2014, are you able to say what the 7

approximate revenue that Rosemont Seneca Partners and/or Advisors was receiving 8

during that timeframe? 9

A I can't. I can't recall. 10

Q Was it in the millions? 11

A My guess is probably one or two million, but I don't have it in front of me. 12

It was probably not more than that. 13

Q Annual, correct? 14

A Correct, yes. 15

Q And those companies didn't perform lobbying services. Those companies 16

provided advising, right? 17

A Rosemont Seneca Advisors, yes, that's what it did, correct. 18

Q But it specifically would not perform lobbying services because the Obama 19

administration did not want Hunter Biden and/or you performing lobbying services, 20

correct? 21

A We were never told that explicitly. We chose not to. 22

Q But that's why you left -- one of the reasons why you left Old Acre? 23

A No. We had decided to leave Old Acre well before -- I mean, months 24

before Joe Biden was selected as Obama's running mate. We had decided that we 25

103

wanted to transition out of that business anyway. 1

Q Can you just explain to us what advising means versus lobbying? What are 2

the services that would be provided to advise versus the difference between lobbying? 3

A Yes. So as an example, a number of our clients were what are called 4

alternative investment funds, so private equity funds, infrastructure funds and the like. 5

There was a need for those funds to have an understanding of what was going on in 6

Washington so that they could better assess their portfolio companies and how policy 7

would affect it. 8

And so, I mean, that was advisory work we would do for those funds. And they 9

also might make introductions for those funds to people who they could do business 10

with. 11

Mr. . I think our hour's up. 12

Off the record. 13

[Recess.]14

104

[2:09 p.m.] 2

Mr. . Back on the record. 3

BY MR. : 4

Q Mr. Schwerin, before we get back into the questions, I just wanted to make 5

sure the record was clear about certain things, starting with exhibit 8 that my Republican 6

colleagues introduced in establishing what exhibit 8 is and is not. 7

A This? 8

Q Yes. 9

I think in reference to exhibit 8 you were asked about emails, text messages, 10

calendar entries. And I just want to ask you, are there actually any emails, text 11

messages, or calendar entries in exhibit 8? 12

A No. 13

Q Exhibit 8 is just a sum -- purports to be a summary of other documents. Is 14

that fair? 15

A That's correct. 16

Q And you were not provided a copy of the underlying documents that purport 17

to be summarized in exhibit 8. Is that fair? 18

A I was not, no. 19

Q And my Republican colleagues referenced an affidavit that an IRS agent gave 20

describing this exhibit, and I wanted to be clear about what that exhibit says. 21

That exhibit says that, as part of their investigation, case investigators, who are 22

unnamed, unnamed case investigators went through various records and put together a 23

summary of items that they found interesting or relevant. So in other words, they went 24

and picked among a universe of documents the ones that they wanted to summarize. 25

105

They then provided a summary -- I'm sorry. They then prepared a summary that was 1

over 2,100 line items. They then went to that summary that had 2,100 line items and 2

picked the ones that they wanted to provide to Congress. 3

And so it is those kind of cherry-picked examples that are included in exhibit 8. 4

So out of a universe of documents, some unnamed investigators prepared one summary 5

and then picked from that summary these four pages that were shown to you as 6

exhibit 8. 7

And I want to be clear. My Republican colleague was reading to you certain 8

entries from exhibit 8 on page 3. And in reading the Cellmark description, she read to 9

you, for example, for the one November 6th, November 6th, 2015, Walker email. 10

But, in fact, before that description, there are the three letters, s-c-r: And that 11

appears in most of the entries that she read to you. 12

Though she did not read those three letters, SCR, I wanted to ask you, do you have 13

any idea what SCR means? 14

A I have no idea. 15

Mr. Just for the record, I wanted to ask my Republican colleagues if 16

they have any idea what SCR means. 17

Mr. . We're not here to answer your questions, . 18

Mr. . So I'm hearing no explanation for what scr means, which just 19

highlights the fact that this is a summary prepared by unknown investigators based on 20

unknown underlying documents. 21

BY MR. : 22

Q And one of the entries for November 6th, 2015, was a calendar invite; 23

another one for November 24th was a calendar entry. 24

Mr. Schwerin, just because a meeting is on a calendar, does that mean that 25

106

the meeting actually happened? 1

A No, it does not. 2

Q In fact, it happens with some frequency that a calendar has an entry on it for 3

a meeting that gets canceled or never happens for whatever reason. Isn't that fair? 4

A Correct. 5

Q So it would be unfair, based on your knowledge and experience, to assume 6

that just because a calendar invite or a calendar entry is mentioned on this document, 7

that the referenced meeting actually happened? 8

A That's correct. Yeah, I would also say that I was -- frequently am not always 9

cc'd on Hunter's calendar, which doesn't mean that I necessarily attended as well. 10

Q And then during my Republican colleagues' round of questioning, they went 11

back to this question of Rosemont Seneca Bohai and Hunter Biden's role in it. And they 12

read to you from the transcript of Devon Archer. 13

Mr. . What exhibit number was that again? 14

Ms. No. 9. 15

Mr. . Exhibit 9. 16

They read to you an excerpt on page 64 in which -- on page 64 in which Devon 17

Archer answers "Hunter was a corporate secretary of RSB." That's at the bottom of 18

page 64. Do you see that? 19

Mr. Schwerin. Yes. 20

Mr. . What they didn't read to you was the clarification that Mr. Archer 21

gives just two pages later, on page 66, which I would like to read for the record. 22

So during the Republican round of questioning, they read from page 64. Just two 23

pages later, on page 66, "Question: I think you said it a second ago, that Hunter Biden 24

was the corporate secretary of RSB. Do you know that to be true, or are you recalling a 25

107

document you've been shown after the fact? 1

"Mr. Archer: I was shown a document after the fact. 2

"Question: And you hadn't seen that document before? 3

"Answer: I had not seen that document before. 4

"Question: To your independent knowledge, did Hunter Biden ever have any 5

official position with RSB? 6

"Answer: Just -- no, just equity. 7

"Question: Handshake equity? 8

"Answer: Handshake equity. 9

"Question: So you're saying there's no -- he had no -- he, being Hunter Biden, 10

had no position with RSB, Rosemont Seneca Bohai? 11

"Answer: Right." 12

So I just want to be clear that on page 67, Mr. Archer was asked unequivocally 13

whether Hunter Biden had a position with Rosemont Seneca Bohai, and his answer was 14

no. 15

Similarly, my Republican colleagues, during their questioning, asked you 16

on -- about page 36, which was in reference to a phone call that took place on 17

December 3rd or 4th of 2015, that -- placed by Hunter Biden that Mr. Archer described in 18

his transcribed interview. 19

And what they omitted to -- so they read to you: "Question: What did Hunter 20

Biden do after he was given that request? 21

"Answer: Listen, I did not hear this phone call, but he called his dad." 22

What they didn't read to you is the clarification that happens just the next 23

question. 24

"Question: How do you know that? 25

108

"Answer: Because he -- because I think Vadym told me. But, again, it's unclear. 1

I just know that there was a call that happened there, and I was not privy to it. 2

"Question: What did Vadym tell you about the call? 3

"Answer: Just that -- just that they -- quote, 'we called D.C.'" 4

And on the very next page, there is a question: "He told you expressly he called 5

his father or that he called D.C.?" 6

And Mr. Archer responds, "D.C., D.C." 7

In other words, the very next page of the transcript that my Republican colleagues 8

didn't read to you, Mr. Archer very clearly said that his testimony is not that Hunter Biden 9

called his father but that he was told that Hunter Biden called D.C. 10

And, in fact, throughout this transcribed interview, Hunter -- Devon Archer 11

repeatedly talked about the D.C. team, which he describes, for example, on page 101. 12

He's asked: "Question: Is it fair to say that there was a whole D.C. team that 13

handled public affairs on behalf of Burisma? 14

"Answer: Yes. 15

"And that D.C." -- I'm sorry. 16

"And that D.C. team was firms like Boies Schiller, Blue Star Group, this lobbyist 17

who was brought in to do the DHS issue. Is that fair? 18

"Answer: Fair. 19

"Question: That's not Joe Biden. 20

"Answer: No, that's not -- that's not the D.C. team. 21

"Question: You mean Joe Biden is not the D.C. team. 22

"Answer: Right." 23

So I just wanted to make clear for the record what exhibit 8 is and is not. 24

Doesn't include any actual emails, messages, calendar entries. 25

109

And wanted to be clear about what exhibit 9, the transcript of Devon Archer's 1

transcribed interview, actually says when one reads the whole context from Mr. Archer's 2

statements. 3

BY MS. : 4

Q Hi, Mr. Schwerin. My name's . I'm with the minority staff for the 5

Oversight Committee. 6

I want to return to your emails with Ms. Bedingfield. I'm sorry, that's exhibit -- 7

Ms. . That is 12. 8

Ms. . Exhibit 12. 9

BY MS. : 10

Q First, to be clear, Joe Biden is not on these emails. Is that correct? 11

A That's correct. 12

Q And your testimony today has been that, at that point, Vice President Biden 13

did not have any involvement with Hunter Biden's businesses. Is that correct? 14

A That's correct. 15

Q So if someone were to conclude from your emails with Ms. Bedingfield that 16

Joe Biden had any involvement in Hunter Biden's business dealings, would that be an 17

incorrect conclusion? 18

A Sorry. Say that one more time. 19

Q If someone were to conclude from your emails with Ms. Bedingfield that Joe 20

Biden had any involvement in Hunter Biden's business dealings, would that be an 21

incorrect conclusion? 22

A Yes, that would be incorrect. 23

Q In fact, quoting from her notes about what then-Vice President Biden had 24

said when asked, Ms. Bedingfield writes to you that the Vice President stated in an 25

110

interview with a Bloomberg reporter, in part, quote, "I don't talk to my son about his 1

business, and my children don't talk to me about mine." 2

This is consistent with what you have already told us. Namely, that to your 3

knowledge, Joe Biden had no role in Hunter Biden's business dealings. Is that right? 4

A That's right. 5

Q And the official statement from the Vice President's communication staff 6

said, in part, quote, "Hunter Biden is a private citizen and a lawyer. The Vice President 7

does not endorse any particular company and has no involvement with this company." 8

This statement is also consistent with what you've already testified to. That is, to 9

your knowledge, Joe Biden had no role in Hunter Biden's business dealings. Is that 10

correct? 11

A That's correct. 12

Q In fact, there isn't anything in your correspondence with Ms. Bedingfield that 13

contradicts the Vice President's statement, that he did not talk to Hunter Biden about his 14

businesses and he had no involvement in Hunter Biden's work with Burisma. Is that 15

correct? 16

A That's correct. 17

Q I'd like to introduce an article into the record. Okay. I believe this will be 18

exhibit 13. 19

[Scherwin Exhibit No. 13 20

was marked for identification.] 21

BY MS. : 22

Q This article was written by James Risen, who is referenced in your emails 23

with Ms. Bedingfield. The article was written on September 25th, 2019. It appeared in 24

The Intercept, and it was entitled, "I wrote About the Bidens and Ukraine Years Ago. 25

111

Then the Right-Wing Spin Machine Turned the Story Upside Down." 1

I want to read a little bit from the article starting with the first paragraph. "It's 2

strange to see my journalism twisted, perverted, and turned into lies and poisonous 3

propaganda by Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and their enablers. But that's what has 4

happened to a news story I wrote 4 years ago." 5

And again, this was in 2019. 6

Then I'd like to read the last sentence on the third page. "Still, when Joe Biden 7

went to Ukraine, he was not trying to protect his son -- quite the reverse." 8

And then continuing on to the final page. "The then-Vice President issued his 9

demands for greater anticorruption measures by the Ukrainian Government despite the 10

possibility that those demands would actually increase, not lessen, the chances that 11

Hunter Biden and Burisma would face legal trouble in Ukraine. 12

"When it first was published, my 2015 story seemed to have little impact, other 13

than to irritate Joe Biden and his staff. It ran inside the printed edition of the Times, not 14

on the front page. 15

"But somebody obviously read my piece, as well as others like it, because 16

questions about the Bidens and Ukraine suddenly came roaring back this year." Again 17

2019. 18

"Giuliani, Trump, and their lackeys began spreading the false accusation that 19

Biden had traveled to Ukraine to blackmail the government and force officials to fire the 20

country's chief prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, to derail an investigation into Burisma. 21

"In May when this issue began to surface, The Intercept's Robin (sic) Mackey 22

wrote an excellent piece debunking the lies in the new pro-Trump version of the Biden 23

story. In the process, he provided greater detail than I had included in my 2015 story. 24

He wrote that Shokin had been forced from office at Biden's urging because he had failed 25

112

to thoroughly investigate corruption and stifled efforts to expose embezzlement and 1

misconduct by public officials. 2

"Biden did threaten to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees unless Shokin 3

was ousted, but that was because Shokin had blocked serious anticorruption 4

investigations, not because he was investigating Burisma." 5

So my question is: Do you have any knowledge of -- information that would run 6

contrary to what Mr. Risen had written? 7

A I do not. 8

Q Thank you. 9

BY MS. : 10

Q Mr. Schwerin, I want to return to the discussion from the prior hour about 11

the timing of the Vice President -- then-Vice President Biden's trip to Ukraine in 12

December 2015. Do you recall those questions? 13

A Yes. 14

Q The suggestion -- there was reference to an event in Dubai around 15

December 3rd or 4th involving Devon Archer and Hunter Biden and some individuals from 16

Burisma. And then the suggestion was made that Joe Biden then traveled to Ukraine 17

the following week following some phone call from Hunter Biden. 18

Do you recall that line of questioning? 19

A Yes, I do recall that. 20

Q And I think my co-counsel here already dealt with the fact that we don't 21

actually have any evidence that such a call was made. But putting that aside, I want to 22

look at the timing of that trip more generally. 23

Are you generally familiar with the process that has to be undertaken before the 24

Vice President can travel internationally? 25

113

A Yes, I've done Presidential advance. 1

Q Okay. Can you describe your understanding of that process? 2

A It usually would be prepared months in advance. It can be done in little 3

less time, but working with the embassy. There is usually a pre-advance trip that goes 4

out, then an advance trip, and it can take, you know, 4 to 6 weeks, particularly given 5

security concerns and Secret Service needing to fly out. So it's an involved process. 6

Q The President can't -- the Vice President can't just travel internationally at 7

the drop of a hat, right? 8

A Not to my knowledge, yes. 9

Q And I want to introduce as exhibit 14 the actual announcement from the U.S. 10

Embassy in Ukraine that the Vice President would be traveling to Ukraine. The 11

announcement is dated November 13, 2015, and it says that he will travel to Ukraine the 12

week of December 7th, 2015. 13

[Scherwin Exhibit No. 14 14

was marked for identification.] 15

BY MS. : 16

Q Have you had a minute to review? 17

A Yeah. 18

Q And so just to read off of this announcement, it says "Vice President Joe 19

Biden will travel to Ukraine the week of December 7th, 2015," correct? 20

A Yes. 21

Q And the date down at the bottom says that it was posted by U.S. Embassy 22

Kyiv, 13 November 2015, correct? 23

A Yes. 24

Q So that was several weeks before the Vice President traveled, correct? 25

114

A Yes. 1

Q And that was several weeks before whatever happened in Dubai? 2

A That's correct, yes. 3

Q Okay. I want to look at the speech that Joe Biden actually gave when he 4

was in Ukraine before the Rada. 5

A Okay. 6

Q Are you generally familiar with the speech? 7

A I'm not. 8

Q We'll introduce it as exhibit 15. 9

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 15 10

was marked for identification.] 11

BY MS. : 12

Q And to save you time, I can tell you we're going to look at page 7. You're 13

welcome to take as long as you want to review it. 14

A Okay. 15

Q So broadly speaking, the majority has made reference to this earlier today. 16

The allegations against Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner -- or the majority shareholder of 17

Burisma, were that he was a corrupt oligarch. Is that fair to say? 18

A I think that that's what the allegation is, yes, correct. 19

Q Roughly -- one, two, three -- the fourth full paragraph down on this page, it 20

begins with the word "oligarch," I'm going to read that into the record. Says, "Oligarchs 21

and non-oligarchs must play by the same rules. They have to pay their taxes, settle their 22

disputes in court -- not by bullying judges. That's basic. That's how nations succeed in 23

the 21st century." 24

Did I read that right? 25

115

A You did. 1

Q So if Joe Biden was trying to protect Burisma or protect Zlochevsky, he 2

wasn't doing a very good job, right, because he's actually attacking oligarchs in this 3

speech? Is that fair to say? 4

A Yes. 5

Q He's criticizing oligarchs and corruption associated with them, correct? 6

A That is correct, yes. 7

Q Okay. In the paragraph above that, I'm not going to read the whole thing, 8

but about halfway through, there's a line that says, "The Office of the General Prosecutor 9

desperately needs reform." Do you see where it says that? 10

A Yes, I do. 11

Q And the general prosecutor at the time that Vice President Biden gave this 12

speech, which was, again, December of 2015, was Viktor Shokin, correct? 13

A I know that now, yes, correct. 14

Q The suggestion has been made that Joe Biden's criticisms of Mr. Shokin were 15

somehow made either at the behest of Hunter Biden or to help Hunter Biden in 16

connection with his work with the Burisma board. And I just want to note for the record 17

that that is -- that that is actually United States official policy at the time that Shokin 18

should be ousted. Is that -- 19

A I wasn't aware of what the official policy was, but -- 20

Q Okay. I'm going to go through and introduce -- sorry. Strike that and 21

withdraw. 22

In 2019 to 2020, there were a number of investigations that Congress conducted 23

into this, and I'm going to introduce testimony from -- three, four -- five individuals who 24

spoke to this very point just to make the record clear. 25

116

And I realize you might not be familiar with all of these. I'll tell you it was 1

testimony taken by the House Intelligence Committee, by the Homeland Security and 2

Governmental Affairs Committee, and by the Foreign Affairs Committee and the 3

Committee on Oversight and Reform. So different investigations. 4

A Okay. 5

Q I want to start with testimony from George Kent. Are you generally familiar 6

with who George Kent is? 7

A I know that he was a former State Department official. 8

Q He testified before the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on 9

October 15th, 2019. We'll introduce that as exhibit 16. 10

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 16 11

was marked for identification.] 12

BY MS. : 13

Q I think we've given you a big excerpt, but we're actually just going to look at 14

the -- we're not introducing the whole transcript because it's several hundred pages long. 15

We're just going to look at something on the very first page of the actual transcript 16

section. 17

A Okay. 18

Q Lines 15 to 17 on this transcript, it reads: "Question: And is it fair to say 19

that it was the U.S. Government's official position that Shokin needed to go? 20

"Answer: Yes." 21

Did I read that correctly? 22

A Yes. 23

Q Moving on, I want to introduce testimony from Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt. 24

This was given before the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on 25

117

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020. 1

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 17 2

was marked for identification.] 3

BY MS. : 4

Q Again, it's a long excerpt. We're going to look at this bottom of page 62 to 5

the top of page 63. Line 19, Ambassador Pyatt says, "We certainly believed that dealing 6

with that systemic corruption, including the deeply corrupt relationship between 7

Ukrainian oligarchs, the political system, the media, the Presidency was not going to 8

be broken under the approach that Prosecutor General Shokin was pursuing. 9

"Question: And that was the view of the U.S. Government? 10

"Answer: That was the policy of the U.S. Government. 11

"Question: So was the policy advocating for the dismissal of Prosecutor General 12

Shokin formulated by Vice President Biden in an effort to assist his son? 13

"Answer: No. As I said, it was formulated by the interagency process in all of 14

its glory." 15

Did I read that correctly? 16

A You did. 17

Q Moving on, I want to introduce as exhibit 18 testimony from the -- testimony 18

of Fiona Hill and David Holmes, which was taken on November 21st, 2019, before the 19

House Select Committee on Intelligence. 20

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 18 21

was marked for identification.] 22

BY MS. : 23

Q We're going to look at the top of page 64, line 3. This is actually -- I'm 24

sorry. 25

118

The witness, Mr. Holmes, says, "My understanding is that the prosecutor general 1

at the time, Shokin, was not at that time pursuing investigations of Burisma or the Bidens. 2

"Question: And, in fact, removing the corrupt prosecutor general was part of the 3

United States' anticorruption policy. Isn't that correct? 4

"Answer: That's correct. And not just us but all of our allies and other 5

institutions who were involved in Ukraine at the time." 6

Did I read that correctly? 7

A You did. 8

Q We have two more to go. 9

I'll introduce as exhibit 19 testimony from Kurt Volker. This is dated October 3rd, 10

2019. It was taken by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee on 11

Oversight and Reform, and Committee on Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House. 12

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 19 13

was marked for identification.] 14

BY MS. : 15

Q We're going to look at what's marked as page 330. Line 6: "And I believe 16

you said that -- you testified earlier that there's no doubt in your mind that Vice President 17

Biden was acting completely on the -- I'm paraphrasing -- but on the up-and-up in terms 18

of his recommendation to get rid of Prosecutor General Shokin. Is that right? 19

"Answer: Correct. He was executing U.S. policy at the time and what was 20

widely understood internationally to be the right policy, right." 21

Did I read that correctly? 22

A You did. 23

Q And finally, we'll introduce as exhibit 20 testimony from Marie "Masha" 24

Yovanovitch, former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine. This was taken on October 11th, 25

119

2019, again by the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the Committee on 1

Oversight and Reform, and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House. 2

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 20 3

was marked for identification.] 4

BY MS. : 5

Q And we're going to look at the excerpt on the bottom of page 101. Starting 6

on line 20, Ambassador Yovanovitch says, "So Vice President Biden, the IMF" -- which I'll 7

represent to you is the International Monetary Fund -- "pretty much every country that is 8

present in Ukraine all felt that Mr. Shokin as prosecutor general was not doing his job. 9

"Question: Which led to calls to oust him? 10

"Answer: Yes." 11

Did I read that correctly? 12

A You did. 13

Q Thank you for bearing with me. 14

So having seen these transcript excerpts, would you agree that it was official U.S. 15

policy that Viktor Shokin should be ousted? 16

A Based on these experts' testimony, yes. 17

Q And you have no evidence that Joe Biden, then Vice President -- then-Vice 18

President Biden, his call to oust Shokin was made in response to any request whatsoever 19

from Hunter Biden, correct? 20

A No. I have no evidence of that. 21

Q Okay. 22

120

[2:36 p.m.] 1

Ms. . All right. And I will have exhibit 21. 2

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 21 3

was marked for identification.] 4

Ms. So I've entered and given to you a letter sent to Chairman Comer by 5

Lev Parnas. The letter is dated July 18th, 2023, and I'm going to read some excerpts 6

from the letter. 7

I'll start by reading the first paragraph: "Dear Chairman Comer, as I have been 8

closely following the developments in Congress' investigations into both Donald Trump 9

and Joe Biden, I believe I can place the facts in context for you. I write to you as a 10

concerned American who wishes only to share the information that I know to be true, so 11

that we can lay to rest the conspiracy theories about Biden's supposed corruption in 12

Ukraine once and for all." 13

And then I'm going to jump down to the bold header that says, "Here are the facts 14

as I know them to be true," at the bottom of page 1. 15

"In November 2018, I was approached by Rudy Giuliani, who asked me about my 16

contacts in Ukraine and if I could verify some information he had received about Joe 17

Biden. A video had recently been shared online in which Biden, being interviewed by 18

the Council on Foreign Relations, said that in 2016 he had pressured Ukraine's President 19

Petro Poroshenko to fire his Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin. Giuliani told me he had 20

discussed with then-President Trump not only Biden's statements in the video, but also 21

his discovery that Biden's son, Hunter, was on the board of the Ukrainian energy company 22

Burisma and that Shokin was supposedly looking into possible corruption in the company. 23

When Giuliani spoke to me, he got very excited and said, quote, 'This is the smoking gun 24

he'd been looking for', end quote -- meaning he saw it as a way to discredit the Bidens." 25

121

And I'll continue to the next-to-last paragraph on the same page 2. The last 1

sentence. 2

"Even though Shokin was trying to push the narrative that he had lost his job 3

because of the pressure Joe Biden had put on President Poroshenko to fire him, when 4

asked directly by Giuliani, he conceded that there was no evidence of either Hunter or Joe 5

Biden doing anything that interfered with Ukrainian law." 6

Finally, I will read from the last page of the letter, starting with the first full 7

paragraph on the last page. 8

"Throughout all these months of work, the extensive campaigns and networking 9

done by Trump allies and Giuliani associates, including the enormously thorough 10

interviews and assignments that I undertook, there has never been any evidence that 11

Hunter or Joe Biden committed any crimes related to Ukrainian politics. Never during 12

any of my communications with Ukrainian officials or connections to Burisma did any of 13

them confirm or provide concrete facts linking the Bidens to illegal activities. In fact, 14

they asked me multiple times why our team was so concerned with this idea. The truth 15

is that everyone, from Giuliani and the BLT Team to Devin Nunes and his colleagues, to 16

the people at FOX News, knew that these allegations against the Bidens were false. 17

There has never been any factual evidence, only conspiracy theories spread by people 18

who knew exactly what they were doing. With all due respect, Chairman Comer, the 19

narrative you are seeking for this investigation has been proven false many times over by 20

a wide array of respected sources. There is simply no merit to investigating this matter 21

any further. I hope my letter has provided you with additional clarity on this point." 22

And I will conclude by noting for the record that committee Democrats have 23

requested that the committee issue a subpoena to Rudy Giuliani, but Chairman Comer 24

has refused to do so. 25

122

BY MR. : 1

Q Mr. Schwerin, are you familiar with a February 12th, 2016, letter from 2

members of the U.S. Senate Ukraine Caucus, a bipartisan caucus, to President Poroshenko 3

of Ukraine? 4

A No. 5

Q Well, in that letter, which was signed, again, by a bipartisan group of U.S. 6

Senators, which included Republican Senators Rob Portman, Mark Kirk, and Ron Johnson, 7

the Senators urged then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko -- and this is in February 8

of 2016 -- to, quote, "press ahead with urgent reforms to the Prosecutor General's 9

Office." 10

And, Mr. Schwerin, are you familiar with the October 3rd, 2019, podcast of The 11

Vicki McKenna Show? 12

A I am not, no. 13

Q Well, on that podcast -- again, the October 3rd, 2019, episode of The Vicki 14

McKenna Show -- Senator Ron Johnson, one of the Republican signatories of that letter, 15

appeared. And in his interview, he stated, "The whole world, by the way, including the 16

Ukrainian Caucus, which I signed the letter -- the whole world felt that this -- that Shokin 17

wasn't doing a good enough job. So we were saying, hey, you've got to rid yourself of 18

corruption," end quote. 19

Mr. . We're off the record. 20

[Recess.] 21

Mr. . Go back on the record. 22

Just a couple housekeeping items. The gigantic chart we handed you, just for the 23

record, was prepared by Federal criminal law enforcement investigators -- sworn law 24

enforcement investigators for their work on their case. Wasn't prepared for Congress. 25

123

Wasn't prepared for any sort of partisan proceedings. 1

So the idea that this document contains cherry-picked emails and other related 2

messages isn't fair. These documents were considered relevant by the law enforcement 3

officials working their case. 4

The reference -- we were asked a question during the last round about the initials 5

SCR: which show up, and we've been able to refresh our own recollection that that 6

stands -- those are the initials of the agent who entered the information. So there's an 7

FBI agent, who we're not going to put on the record to spare that public servant, but those 8

are the initials of an agent. 9

The one other item we would point out, there was a lot of -- you know, these 10

deposition transcripts introduced from the 2019 impeachment. These obviously are 11

cherry-picked -- cherry-picked excerpts for these various witnesses. And I would like to 12

just note for the record that the question is, what was the U.S. Government's position prior 13

to Hunter Biden calling D.C.? And I think the record is certainly mixed. And these 14

officials who are -- certainly Yovanovitch, as a political appointee, is obviously looking back 15

on this through the lens of politics. 16

So with that, I'll turn it over to my colleague, . 17

Mr. . Thank you, sir. 18

BY MR. : 19

Q Going back to Rosemont Seneca Partners and Rosemont Seneca Advisors, 20

I'm just trying to get an estimate of about approximately how much those companies 21

were making in revenue, I'll just say 2011 to 2015-ish, around that timeframe. I believe 22

you said the approximate amount would be probably a million to 2 million. Do I 23

have -- is that what you said? 24

A That is what I said. It's an estimate. Yes. 25

124

Q Can you give us a little background on how someone who has an advisory 1

company, do you take a retainer? Do you bill hourly? How does that work with 2

clients? 3

A We had a retainer agreement where we would bill a certain amount per 4

month, a fixed rate. It was not hourly. 5

Q So you would get a monthly payment from a client? 6

A Correct. 7

Q And then that monthly payment would stay approximately the same per 8

month, even -- let's say you put in a ton of work one month, and then the next month you 9

put in less work, would it approximately be about the same month payment for the 10

retainer? 11

A It was the same. The contract would be for x-thousand dollars a month for 12

12 months, and it would stay the same for the length of that contract. 13

Q And the monthly retainer for a client, can you give an approximate amount? 14

Approximately how much would be charged to a client per month on average? 15

A I think it's depending on the client. It could vary between 5,000 a month 16

and 25,000 a month. 17

Q And part of the reason that you're able to charge that amount per month is 18

because you do have a strong educational background, correct? 19

A Yes. 20

Q You have a strong background working in, I'll say somewhat high-level 21

positions in the Federal Government, right? 22

A Correct. 23

Q You have different licenses that you've obtained through your financial 24

background, correct? 25

125

A Correct. 1

Q And now I want to get to when you first started doing these administrative 2

and bookkeeping tasks for Vice President Biden. 3

How did it come about -- and I'm just going off your letter -- in 2009 approximately 4

that you started doing these administrative and bookkeeping tasks? 5

A Yeah. I think I said -- I mentioned before the -- because the Vice President 6

was transitioning into a new role and he was moving from just one residence in Delaware, 7

he was going to have two, both his home in Delaware and then at the Naval Observatory, 8

and be traveling a lot, he -- he knew that he needed to have a different system set up to 9

make sure that he could stay on top of his household finances. 10

I don't recall who thought of the suggestion, whether it was myself or Hunter or 11

the Vice President, but there was a discussion that I would be a good person to do that. 12

I had sort of handled -- I'd done that with Hunter personally but also with our business 13

and had that skill set, and the Vice President had known me for 10 years personally and I 14

think trusted me. So that was how it originated. 15

Q What did that entail doing regularly? Like, did you have to get his mail and 16

open the mail and go through and make sure the bills were paid? How did that work? 17

A Well, what we tried to do initially -- "we" meaning myself and the Vice 18

President -- was set up as many of the bills through autopay online and have as many of 19

the bills come via email to avoid having to deal with the U.S. mail, because I think the 20

Secret Service was scanning it and there were huge delays. 21

For the bills that could not be done that way, there were paper bills, and the 22

Secret Service would give the bills or any mail to the Vice President. He would go 23

through it, figure out what was personal to him, what were bills that needed to come to 24

me, and then those would be handed off to me, and I would take care of them or have a 25

126

discussion with him on how to take care of them. 1

Q How were the bills separated personal to him versus what would go to you, 2

Mr. Schwerin? 3

A He did that. 4

Q But what was the basis? Like, what was the -- what was the -- did you 5

notice that certain bills came to you versus other bills that he retained? 6

A I believe if there were any bills, they would come to me. So when I say 7

personal, if it was a handwritten letter from, you know, a cousin, he would keep that. 8

But anything that was related to his household finances, in general, would come to me. 9

Q So you were in charge of basically all of his household finances, then, at least 10

as far as bills are concerned? 11

A Correct. 12

Q What accounts were being used to pay for Joe Biden's household finances? 13

A So there was one account that was the primary account for that, and I had 14

authority for that account along with him. And that account was just -- that was the 15

main account where his income went into it, and we had budgeted out that there was 16

going to be enough income coming for the regular expenses, you know, including the 17

cable bill, the utility bill, and so forth. 18

Q Just so I have it correct, you were on an account with -- a bank account with 19

Joe Biden? 20

A I had signing authority for it, yes. 21

Q And you were also on accounts with Hunter Biden, correct? 22

A I also had signing authority for -- of some of Hunter's accounts too, yes. 23

Correct. 24

Q For Hunter Biden, you had both -- signing authority for both personal and 25

127

corporate accounts, correct? 1

A For some of his personal accounts, yes. 2

Q And some of the corporate accounts, correct? 3

A Yes. Correct. Yes. 4

Q This account that you had with the President, what bank was it with? 5

A It was with SunTrust Bank. 6

Q Did you have any other type of signatory authority over any other bank 7

accounts with Joe Biden? 8

A No. I had no other signatory authority. I had -- did have the ability 9

to -- online access to a couple of other accounts that were more like savings, discretionary 10

accounts. 11

Q How many accounts? 12

A I believe there were two others, is my recollection. 13

Q You said those were savings accounts? 14

A I don't want to mischaracterize it. They were not everyday household 15

discretionary bill payment. It could have been a checking account that was used for that 16

purpose, but that was not the majority -- the bills were not being paid out of that. 17

Q What banks were those with? 18

A I believe one might be TD Bank and I believe one might be M&T Bank. 19

Q I just want to make sure I have this right. You had signatory authority over 20

an account that was a SunTrust account? 21

A Correct. 22

Q And then you had online access to two other accounts that weren't your 23

everyday personal checking accounts. They were a TD Bank account and an M&T Bank 24

account? 25

128

A Correct. 1

Q Other than those three accounts, did you have access to any other bank 2

accounts of Joe Biden's? 3

A Not that I recall. It's possible, but those are three in my mind at this point 4

that I still remember. 5

Q So if he has other accounts than those three bank accounts, you wouldn't 6

have had access to them, that you can recall? 7

A If he had had an account, I had the ability to get all of the statements as we 8

were preparing the tax returns and the financial disclosure statements. So even if I 9

didn't have access -- online access, there was a process at the end of the year where we 10

would gather all that information together. 11

Q Who is we? 12

A He and I or -- you know, he and I. 13

Q Did Hunter Biden have any authority over any of these accounts? 14

A Not to my recollection. 15

Q But you can't say for certain he did not? 16

A I can't say for certain. 17

Q Did Hunter Biden and Joe Biden have any bank accounts together? 18

A Not to my recollection. 19

Q Did Joe Biden have any credit cards? 20

A Yeah, I think so. 21

Q And did you have access to those accounts? 22

A If he did, I would have, yes. 23

Q And do you remember which credit card company that was through? 24

A I do not. 25

129

Q Did Hunter Biden have credit cards? 1

A Did he have credit cards? Yes. 2

Q And which companies were those through? 3

A That's a good question. I know he had a banking account at USAA, and I 4

think maybe a Bank of America card and potentially Chase. But those are -- oh, and 5

then there was a bank at Wells Fargo. I don't know if they were credit or debit, but to 6

the best of my recollection, those were the -- 7

Q Do you recall any times where Hunter Biden made any type of payments for 8

his dad for anything? 9

A Nothing -- I do not recall anything. It's possible there were small things 10

here and there, but I don't recall anything major. 11

Can I just ask you to clarify the one question? 12

Q Sure. 13

A Payments that were -- that he paid for and was not paid back or reimbursed 14

for, or -- 15

Q Any payments that may have been reimbursed later, any payments that you 16

can recall that Hunter Biden made for Joe Biden. 17

A Yeah. I do know that they -- that Hunter had a -- I think it was with 18

AT&T -- cell phone account, and his dad had a phone line on that account. Like a friends 19

and family account. So Hunter would pay the full bill and his dad would reimburse him 20

for his line for it. 21

Mr. . What number is this? 22

Mr. . We are on 22. 23

Ms. . Twenty-two. 24

Mr. . Twenty-two. 25

130

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 22 1

was marked for identification.] 2

Mr. . I'm not going to ask you to authenticate it. 3

Mr. William Farah. Okay. Noted. 4

BY MR. : 5

Q I'm just going to read into the record and ask if this refreshes your memory 6

of any time that Joe Biden owed Hunter Biden money. 7

I'm going to read it into the record. This is exhibit 22. 8

"Subject: FYI. From: Eric Schwerin. To: Hunter Biden at Rosemont 9

Seneca. 10

"Your dad's Delaware tax refund check came today. I am depositing it in his 11

account and writing a check in that amount back to you since he owes it to you. Don't 12

think I need to run it by him, but if you want to, go ahead. If not, I will deposit 13

tomorrow." 14

Does this refresh your recollection of any other payments that Hunter Biden may 15

have made on behalf of his father, and then it appears that a refund check was then paid 16

back to Hunter Biden? 17

A Yeah. My recollection is that that's what this is referring to. That this is, I 18

think, 2010. I think that there were a number of months -- and I don't know the 19

amount, but probably no more than 6 -- where Hunter had been paying his dad's cell 20

phone bill, and we were going to have his dad pay him back once that happened. I think 21

his dad reimbursed him on a monthly basis, but there was like a 6-month -- as we initially 22

got set up, I think that's what this is referring to. 23

Q How many hours -- this seems like a lot of work that you're doing here, 24

getting all of the documents, making sure that the bills are being paid, compiling all of 25

131

these bank statements. And how many hours did this take you to do? 1

A On a -- 2

Q On an annual basis. 3

A I don't know how much on an annual basis, but it didn't take a lot of time in 4

that a lot of things were very automated. I mean, a lot of it was by autopay. 5

And the real work probably came in tax season and financial disclosure statement 6

time. But since, again, most of it was online, it really just involved printing something 7

off, emailing it to the accountant. You know, it was only if there was some specific issue 8

that came up where he, you know, wanted something different or out of the ordinary to 9

happen, but there were plenty of times where it just was going on a normal cycle. 10

Q And was there any discussion about you being paid for this work? 11

A I don't recall any. 12

Q It would seem that, given your experience and how much you do charge a 13

typical client for your services, this seems to be quite the service for the Vice President. 14

A Well, I mean, I looked at it as doing a favor for a friend, and this was very 15

different from the work that we did on a daily basis with Rosemont Seneca Advisors, and 16

as I said, it didn't take that much time. The goal was to set it up in a way where it didn't 17

take either him or myself very much time at all if it was being run properly. 18

Q And was there ever a discussion between you and Hunter Biden or you and 19

the Vice President where there was the issue of the same person who is overseeing 20

Hunter Biden's financial records is also overseeing Joe Biden's financial records? 21

A No more than, I think, Hunter saying to me, look -- or to his dad -- Eric did a 22

good job helping me set this up, so I would recommend that, you know, we do -- he do 23

the same for you. 24

Q Isn't it an issue that you were getting quite a bit of access to the White 25

132

House too? I mean, during your time when the Obama administration, reports are that 1

you went to the White House over 30 times. 2

So just from an optics standpoint, you're doing free work for the Vice President 3

doing all his financials. Hunter Biden is your partner in business. You're overseeing all 4

of his financials. You're advisors. You're not lobbyists, but you're getting all this access 5

to the White House. Isn't that problematic? 6

A I don't know -- a lot of those visits, as far as I'm concerned, were -- and 7

remember -- were related to helping the Vice President with his finances. So there were 8

times I would go over there and sit down with him, particularly as we -- on these annual 9

bases for these meetings, but also, a lot of it was to go pick up these bills. 10

So a lot of times I would get a call from his assistant who would say, the Vice 11

President has bills that he needs to get to you. I would be in the neighborhood, and I 12

would say, sure, I'll stop by. 13

The intent a lot of times was his assistant would run out and give them to me. 14

Invariably, I found that I'd get there and they would say, we're swamped. We can't even 15

get out of here. Let me quickly clear you in. You can come in and pick them up and go. 16

So I feel like that -- my recollection is that was a lot of those visits to the White 17

House. 18

Q Did you ever facilitate any of your clients for Rosemont Seneca Advisors or 19

Rosemont Seneca Partners getting visits to the White House? 20

A I don't recall any. It's possible, but I do not recall. 21

Mr. . Did you ever provide names to the Vice President's office for 22

dinners or -- you know, if they were asking for names to suggest for dinners or anything 23

like that or tickets for events? 24

Mr. Schwerin. Certainly for -- yeah. Well, for social events, whether they're, 25

133

you know, Easter Egg Rolls or, you know, holiday parties, we did provide names to people, 1

and a lot of them were personal friends or friends of Hunter's and Kathleen's. It ran the 2

gamut. 3

Mr. William Farah. Would you clarify? Was that to the Vice President or to his 4

office? 5

Mr. . The Vice President's office. 6

Mr. William Farah. The Vice President's office. 7

Mr. . I would imagine the Vice President wasn't coordinating with you 8

for attendance at events, right? 9

Mr. Schwerin. It was just staff. 10

Mr. It was his staff? 11

Mr. William Farah. I just want to be clear. 12

Mr. Schwerin. Yeah. 13

BY MR. : 14

Q And you went to those events as well, right? 15

A I went to some of them, yes. 16

Q What kind of events did you go during that administration at the White 17

House? 18

A At the White House or the Naval Observatory or both? 19

Q Both. 20

A I know that I went to a number of Hanukkah parties that they had or just 21

holiday parties at the Naval Observatory. I'm trying to think what else. I think there 22

were some times when we were invited to a state arrival ceremony on the South Lawn for 23

somebody. Those types of things. 24

Q Would people ever reach out to you to get tours at the White House? 25

134

A Yes, they did. 1

Q And you would facilitate that as well? 2

A If we could be helpful, yes. Sure. 3

Mr. . What about your clients? 4

Mr. Schwerin. I don't recall any specific clients that would have done that. 5

Again, it's possible, but I don't -- you know, if someone we knew asked if they could get 6

something that was, you know, available publicly, we were happy to help facilitate, do 7

that. You know, the same way someone would call a Member of Congress' office to get 8

a White House tour or something like that, so -- 9

Mr. . But you weren't the Vice President's office. You weren't that 10

congressional office. 11

Mr. Schwerin. No, no. 12

Mr. You were Hunter Biden and your own separate business, right? 13

You weren't a part of the White House, right? 14

Mr. Schwerin. Correct. Right. 15

Mr. . Okay. 16

BY MR. : 17

Q This SunTrust account where you are the only -- where you're the signatory 18

authority over it with Joe Biden, if we were to subpoena this account, is your testimony 19

here that the only deposits into this account would be Federal Government employment 20

deposits? 21

A The only deposits? 22

Q Yes. 23

A Well, no. I mean, I don't know if -- I can't say that Jill wouldn't have put 24

money in that she owed him for something that they were going back and forth with or, 25

135

you know, a grandchild or someone wouldn't have put money in. The only income that 1

was in there was from that source, in my recollection. 2

Q And did he have this checking account prior to when you added -- you were 3

added as signatory authority? 4

A I believe he did, yes. 5

Q Do you know how many total bank accounts he has? 6

A I don't know the total number. I remember there was three banks, but I 7

doubt it was more than four or five at those three banks. 8

Q Did you ever have any conversations with Hunter Biden or anyone else about 9

jobs for Joe Biden post-Vice Presidency? 10

A I don't know about jobs per se, but we did have discussions as to 11

what -- about what his dad might be doing post-Vice Presidency. 12

Q And what were some of those discussions? 13

A You know, there was two efforts, I know, going on related to the University 14

of Delaware and the University of Pennsylvania. There was a point in which I and 15

Hunter were a little more involved in the discussions related to the University of 16

Delaware, and there were institutes set up and whether -- how it would all be structured 17

and things like that. 18

Q Were you or Hunter also going to get a position with any of those 19

post-employment nonprofits or with the University of Delaware or University of 20

Pennsylvania? 21

A I don't recall if that would be the case, no. 22

Q After you performed -- well, while you were performing free services for the 23

Vice President, you were appointed to a commission, correct? 24

A Yes. I was appointed to a commission, correct. 25

136

Q What was it? 1

A It was the U.S. Commission on the Preservation of America's Heritage 2

Abroad. 3

Q Who proposed you for that position? 4

A I believe that there was a conversation when the Vice President was 5

first -- you know, in 2009, when he first got into office, I think one of his staff said to me 6

that, you know, would you be interested in being on one of these boards or commissions? 7

I understood that -- my assumption was that it was something that, you know, the Vice 8

President had signed off on, but I would think it was someone from the staff who said, we 9

can put your name forward to Presidential Personnel, and they would, you know, give 10

you a call about this. 11

Mr. . And when were you appointed to that board? 12

Mr. Schwerin. It was not till in the second term of the Obama administration. 13

Mr. . May 10, 2015, does that sound right? 14

Mr. Schwerin. If you think that that sounds about right, yes. 15

BY MR. : 16

Q Did you have any discussions with anyone about Vice President Biden taking 17

a role on any corporate boards? 18

A Not to my recollection. I don't think so. 19

Q What about book deals? 20

A Say that again. I'm sorry. 21

Q Book deals. Book deals. 22

A Oh, book deals. Oh, yes. I think -- at one point, I think an agency had 23

reached out to me -- I'm not sure why they did, but -- about -- that they wanted to 24

represent the Vice President on a book deal. I don't think they ever did, but -- 25

137

Q How did you come to meet Vuk Jeremic? 1

A What about him? 2

Q Vuk Jeremic, how did you come to meet him? 3

A That was through Devon. I don't know how they developed a relationship, 4

but I think I met him a few times via Devon. 5

Q Do you recall when you first met him in person? 6

A I don't, no. I don't even want to -- I think I met him at least once or twice, 7

but I can't even be sure. 8

Q And have you heard of a person by the name of Jonathan Li? 9

A Yes. 10

Q How do you know Jonathan Li? 11

A Jonathan Li was the CEO of BHR Partners, which was a Chinese private equity 12

fund. 13

Q Did you ever meet Jonathan Li? 14

A Yes. 15

Q Where? 16

A I met him both in the U.S. and China. 17

Q When you met him in the U.S., who was with you? 18

A I think the very first time I met him -- I think Hunter and I met him -- I don't 19

know if we met him for the first time together or the first time I met him. I think there 20

was a lunch and Hunter was there as well. I don't know who else. I can't remember 21

who else was with us. 22

Q Was the Vice President there? 23

A He was not. 24

Q And what was discussed at that meeting? 25

138

A If I recall, it was very -- it was, you know, 2010, 2011, and I think Jonathan 1

was telling us about Bohai, which was his private equity fund at the time, and he was just 2

sort of talking about his thoughts about what he would like the next iteration of Bohai to 3

be. 4

Q What was that? 5

A What was his vision? 6

Q Yes. 7

A He wanted to have a -- from my understanding and remembrance, Bohai 8

was the very first Chinese private equity fund, and the fund had already been invested, 9

and money was being returned back to investors. So he didn't want to just have Bohai 10

fund II. He wanted to bring on additional partners to grow the fund and sort of get onto 11

the next stage and make it something more -- you know, more interesting to him. 12

Q And did you receive a share of Bohai? 13

A I did not receive a share until I think it was probably 2017. Hunter and I 14

owned 10 percent -- 10 percent of it together through Skaneateles. 15

Q And you sold your shares to Hunter Biden at some point? 16

A Yes, correct. 17

Q Do you remember when approximately that was? 18

A It would have been -- we unwound our businesses in September of 2017. It 19

took until March of 2019 to go through all the legal things. So, I mean, officially, it was 20

March of 2019. 21

BY MR. : 22

Q What was the percentage of ownership between you and Hunter of 23

Skaneateles? 24

A Oh, Hunter had 75 percent, I had 25 percent. 25

139

Q Okay. When you sold your stake in BHR to Hunter, how much did you sell it 1

to him for? 2

A So we had a number of businesses together. 3

Q Okay. 4

A And so there was no cash exchange. I took the RSP investments business, 5

he got the BHR and the Rosemont Seneca Advisors business. So it was just a swap -- an 6

even swap of entities. 7

Q Okay. And as a financial professional yourself, what did you value your 8

percentage stake in BHR? When you're valuing up all your assets to do this swap, 9

presumably you did some valuations. What did you value your stake and your portion 10

of BHR to be? 11

A I believe that the valuation of it was based on the registered capital that was 12

put into the -- there was a valuation that BHR had done, how much each person's share 13

would be, but I thought that -- thought it was -- about $450,000 was the value of our 10 14

percent, and that was 10 percent of the management company of BHR. 15

Q Okay. So if you had 25 percent, roughly around 100,000? 16

A I guess that's the math. Yeah. 17

Q Okay. 18

A Yeah. 19

Mr. . What was your involvement with CEFC, the Chinese 20

conglomerate? 21

Mr. Schwerin. Extremely limited. I was only in one meeting. It was, I believe, 22

the first meeting that Hunter had had with CEFC. 23

Q Do you recall when that was? 24

A I don't recall the date. I thought it was maybe 2016, but I'm not sure. 25

140

Mr. . And this will be No. 23, for the record. 1

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 23 2

was marked for identification.] 3

Mr. . And, again, I'm not going to ask you to authenticate it. 4

BY MR. : 5

Q Let me know when you're ready. 6

A Yeah. Thanks. 7

Q Looking at this document, exhibit 23, it's a -- subject line, "Draft CEFC 8

Document." From, it appears to be you, to Hunter Biden, dated July 1st of 2016. 9

Do you recall what document RSP -- I assume that's Rosemont Seneca 10

Partners -- would have with CEFC? 11

A I do not. 12

Q So looking at this, you don't recall drafting any documents or -- 13

A I do not, no. 14

Q But based upon -- what I understand, the documents related to Rosemont 15

Seneca -- the person who would have Rosemont Seneca documents would be Hunter 16

Biden or his attorney, correct? 17

A That's my belief, yes. 18

Q You don't currently retain documents related to Rosemont Seneca? 19

A No. Hunter got all of those when we unwound our business. Yes. 20

BY MR. : 21

Q Did you ever ride on Air Force Two? 22

A Once. 23

Q When was that? 24

A I think it was December of 2016. Yeah. The end of the Obama 25

141

administration. So, yes, December of 2016. 1

Q Okay. And where did you go? 2

A To New York for a taping of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert." 3

Q Do you know the name Miguel Aleman? 4

A I do. 5

Q And Carlos Slim? 6

A Yes, I do. 7

Q Just wondered if you've seen the public reporting that there's pictures with 8

Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and them. Have you seen those pictures? Are you 9

familiar with those reports? 10

A I'm aware of those press reports, yes. 11

Q As far as the coordination of getting them into the White House to see Joe 12

Biden, did you have any involvement with getting them access to the White House? 13

A My recollection was -- I don't believe I did, one. Number two, I don't 14

believe it was the White House. I thought it was the Naval Observatory, but -- 15

Q Did people ever come to you to have a meeting or get access to the Naval 16

Observatory as well? 17

A To have a meeting there? An official meeting of some sort, or -- 18

Q Any sort of meeting. 19

A Not a meeting, no. I mean, the only thing related to the Naval Observatory 20

would be there were holiday parties there so, you know, from that point of view, but no 21

official meetings at all. 22

Q Okay. But did people ever contact you to get access to the Naval 23

Observatory, even whether it be for a party? 24

A For a party? 25

142

Q Right. 1

A I think there were people who definitely had -- knew that the Vice President 2

had holiday parties -- 3

Q Okay. 4

A -- and had said, hey, I'd be interested in attending that at some point. So 5

yes. 6

Q Okay. So they would reach out to you and say, I'm interested in attending, 7

and then you would communicate that over to the VP's office? 8

A Well, I would mostly clear it with Hunter, and -- you know, this person 9

reached out to me and said they want to be invited to this holiday party. Is it something 10

you want to pass on -- we should pass on? 11

Q Okay. Got it. 12

Were you at that meeting when Miguel Aleman and Carlos Slim -- do you know 13

who else was there? Were you there? 14

A I was not there, no. 15

Q Okay. Do you know who else was there for those meetings? 16

A I think that Jeff Cooper was probably there as well, is my recollection. 17

Q Okay. Got it. 18

BY MR. : 19

Q Going back to Jonathan Li, I don't think we got into the meeting in China. I 20

think you said there were two meetings. The second time, I thought you said you met 21

him in China. Did I have that correct? 22

A You did. I don't know there were two meetings. I mean, there may have 23

been more. I went to China a few times when I was -- when Hunter and I had the share 24

of BHR for board meetings. So I saw him there for board meetings. 25

143

Q You saw Jonathan Li at board meetings? 1

A Yes. 2

Q And Hunter Biden would attend those as well? 3

A Hunter and I never attended a BHR board meeting together. I was not 4

there with him at the same time. Normally, if he was not able to go, that's why I went 5

instead. 6

Q And then when you were compiling all of the documents for Vice President 7

Biden, did he ever give any loans, that you can recall? 8

A Not -- when I was compiling the documents, not that I recall. 9

Q So he never gave any loans based upon the bank records that you reviewed? 10

A That's correct, yes. And I should differentiate what -- the period of time 11

that I -- from 2009 through the end of 2016 is when I had -- you know, was the period of 12

time that I helped him with the taxes and financial disclosure forms. 13

The -- through 2017, I still was helping him with his household finances. That 14

was a transition year as he was becoming a private citizen. So because taxes are due in 15

the end of -- in 2018 for 2017, I was no longer doing that. So certainly through the 2016 16

tax period, I don't recall any loans that he made. 17

Q All right. So if there were loans made in 2017, you wouldn't have seen 18

them potentially? 19

A Potentially. That's correct, yes. 20

BY MR. : 21

Q Do you have any access to any of Joe Biden's corporate accounts? 22

A Well, he had no corporate accounts when he was Vice President. 23

Q Okay. 24

A And you're saying post-Vice Presidency? 25

144

Q At any time, did you ever have access to any of his -- 1

A Yeah. He had a corporate account once he became a private citizen, and I 2

did have some access to that for a period of time in 2017. 3

Q Do you remember when you stopped having access to that corporate 4

account? 5

A Sometime in 2017 -- towards the end of 2017 when I stopped this role with 6

him. 7

Q Okay. In December of 2014, looks like you transmitted over Tony 8

Blinken -- Antony Blinken's personal email address at Hunter's request. Why did you 9

send that over? 10

A My assumption is that Hunter had asked me for Tony's email address and I 11

sent it to him. 12

Q Were you good friends with Mr. Blinken? I guess, like, how did you have 13

his personal email address? 14

A Yeah. I had known Tony as a friend. He and I both worked in the Clinton 15

White House together. So yes. 16

Q And did Hunter ever tell you why he needed the email address? 17

A I don't recall that he did, no. 18

Q Do you know if Hunter ever met with Mr. Blinken while he was a 19

government official during that time period? 20

A My recollection is that there was a -- I think a lunch that he had over in 21

Tony's office during that time period, yes. 22

Q Is that the only time that you think -- 23

A I'm sorry? 24

Q Is that the only time you think he met with Mr. Blinken? 25

145

A I think it was the only time, yes, that I can think of. Yes. 1

Q Okay. 2

BY MR. : 3

Q How did your arrangement with the Vice President and former Vice 4

President, how did it come to an end in terms of you managing his -- 5

A We had had a discussion because he was -- I guess, 2017 -- I knew him 6

becoming a private citizen would be a lot of transition for him, and so he and I talked 7

about it, and I said, let me help you get -- you know, make this transition, and then you 8

can pass it off to someone else. 9

Q So it was an amicable -- 10

A Yes. 11

Q -- separation? 12

A Yes. 13

Q And do you still keep in contact with the now-President? 14

A I do not. 15

Q And why not? 16

A Because I've been advised by counsel, due to all the investigations going on, 17

it's probably best for us not to talk. 18

Q Okay. But prior to the prospect of any investigations, when was the last 19

time you had spoken to him? 20

A I don't recall. I think it was probably the beginning of the campaign. So 21

was that 2019, maybe. 22

Q Okay. And do you still consider yourself a friend of the family? 23

A I do, yes. 24

Q Okay. How did your relationship come to an end with Hunter Biden? 25

146

A So throughout 2017, the -- you know, it was obvious that Hunter was doing 1

more stuff, whether it was CEFC or some of the stuff with Romania, and doing less work 2

on the Rosemont Seneca Advisors side. Also, given some of the press during his divorce 3

regarding his addiction problems and some of the other stuff, I think it was -- there was 4

not much of a pathway forward for us to be continuing to do that work. So we had 5

some discussions about how to do sort of an orderly transition to do different things. 6

Over the course of 2017, you know, his addiction was worsening throughout that 7

period. I was hoping that we could unwind in a way that was sort of more -- you know, I 8

don't even want to say amicable but, you know, just where there's an orderly transition. 9

But I think by 2017, his addiction was just at a point where it just got too much 10

and, you know -- so I think the actual way was, in 2017, he said I was fired, but -- yeah. 11

So I moved out of the office, and then we just started the process, through lawyers, to do 12

it. 13

Q Were you working for him at that point where he was able to fire you? 14

A No. No. He said that, but it was not true. I mean, it was the craziness of 15

his addiction, is my guess. 16

Q Okay. 17

A No. We were partners, so -- but I got the message that we just needed to 18

end it at that point. 19

Q Okay. And there was -- you know, there was a news account -- I'm sure 20

you're familiar with it -- where he accused you reportedly of negligence and defamation. 21

What was that about? 22

A Hunter was very angry at me and a lot of people who were trying to get him 23

help with his addiction, and he lashed out in any way that he could, and that was one of 24

the ways he did. 25

147

Q Okay. And he was just mad at you for trying to get him help? 1

A Yes. Yeah. I mean, I was talking to, you know, friends and his family 2

members, his children. You know, there was a big effort to try and get him help, and he 3

didn't like that people were trying to do that. 4

Q Okay. And have you mended fences with him since 2017? 5

A I have not talked to him since then. 6

Q Okay. So that was the last time you -- 7

A Yeah. I think maybe there was one conference call we did with an attorney 8

in 2019 as we were finalizing the separation which he may have been on, but that would 9

have been the last time. 10

Q Okay. Are you familiar with a loan that Rob Walker made to Hunter Biden 11

for $50,000? 12

A I think vaguely, yes. Yes. It rings a bell. 13

Q And I don't think we need to introduce the exhibit. We've all talked about 14

it in other interviews. But there's a 302 -- an FBI 302 with Rob Walker where he says 15

that he made a loan to Hunter Biden for $50,000, and he comments that you, Schwerin, 16

told Rob Walker that -- you know, good luck getting that money back. 17

A Yeah. 18

Q Do you recall that? 19

A That sounds right, yes. Correct. 20

Q Was that the only loan that you were aware of that he made to Rob Walker? 21

A That Rob made to Hunter? 22

Q I'm sorry. That Hunter made to Rob Walker. 23

A I believe so, yeah. I knew that Rob had loaned him money. I don't know 24

if it was one loan or two loans or it was just that $50,000 loan, but yes. 25

148

Q And the reason you mentioned to Mr. Walker good luck getting that paid 1

back was why? 2

A Because Hunter was in full-blown drug addiction and any money he got in 3

was immediately going to go towards drugs. 4

Q Okay. Are there any other similar loans that an individual may have made 5

to Hunter Biden where you had the same type of awareness? 6

A I don't recall with specificity, but there may have been, yeah. At that point, 7

Hunter was asking people for money, and then he was telling people he'd pay them back, 8

and that was -- you know, I didn't believe that would be the case. 9

Q Okay. 10

BY MR. : 11

Q Did you ever meet with any U.S. ambassadors during the Obama-Biden 12

administration? 13

A Any U.S. ambassadors to a foreign country? 14

Q Correct. 15

A Not that I can recall. The only one -- I mean, a former U.S. ambassador, as 16

a friend, was Mark Gitenstein, but I don't know that -- any that were currently in office. 17

I might have, but I just don't recall. 18

Q Okay. On April 24th of 2014, it was reported that Hunter Biden met with a 19

Chinese ambassador with Jonathan Li. Were you there for that meeting? 20

A I don't believe so. 21

Q Do you know if Hunter met with a Chinese ambassador with Jonathan Li? 22

A I don't recall. 23

Q Did you ever meet with any foreign ambassadors? 24

A I believe there were probably one or two at least, yes. 25

149

Q Okay. Who did you meet with? 1

A I believe I met with the Omani ambassador to the U.S. 2

Q Okay. 3

A And I believe -- I remember Hunter and I going to meet with the Qatari 4

ambassador to the U.S. at one point. Those are the two off the top of my head. 5

Q Okay. Was the Omani ambassador meeting in February of 2014? 6

A I don't know the date, but that could be about right. 7

Q Does that sound like the right timeframe? 8

A It sounds like the right timeframe, sure. 9

Q Okay. What was the nature of the visit? 10

A We had met her at a friend's wedding. 11

Q Who is her? 12

A Oh, the Omani ambassador. 13

Q And what was her name? 14

A I remember her first name is Hunaina. I can't remember her last name off 15

the top of my head. al-Mughairy. al-Mughairy? Something like that. 16

Q Okay. And what was the nature of the visit? 17

A I think there were a variety of reasons. We had met her at this wedding. 18

We were talking, and she said, I'd love for you to come over to the embassy. I think that 19

was also at a period in time where -- whether it was for Rosemont Realty or Rosemont 20

Seneca Technology Partners, there was an effort to try and see if it was worth trying to 21

solicit sovereign wealth funds for investment into investment products. And so we were 22

trying to just sort of do some due diligence and try and figure out, you know, their 23

interest level. 24

Q Got it. Okay. Who was at that meeting? 25

150

A I believe -- I know I was there. I don't remember anyone else. Hunter 1

may have come as well. I can't remember. 2

Q Okay. Are you aware -- and then the Qatari meeting, do you remember 3

when that happened? 4

A I don't remember when that happened. It was probably around the same 5

time. 6

Q Okay. February 14th of 2014, does that sound right? 7

A Sounds about right. 8

Q Okay. And then who was there for that meeting? 9

A I believe that was Hunter and myself. 10

Q Okay. And what was the nature of that meeting as well? 11

A I think it was very similar. We were just trying to assess what types of 12

things the Qatari sovereign wealth fund was investing in, and we had clients that were 13

third-party funds that were looking to raise money. We had, you know, potentially 14

some of our own funds. 15

And, you know, you go into those meetings and you say, you know, what 16

industries are you looking for? What types of funds do you invest in? What's the 17

process? And just have that conversation. 18

Q Did Hunter ever travel to Doha to speak at a conference where it was either 19

the Omani or Qatari Embassy paid for his flight over to Doha? 20

A I don't know -- recall -- I know he went to Doha for a conference. 21

Q Okay. To speak at a conference? 22

A Yes. 23

Q And what was the conference about? 24

A I don't know. I know he went to a conference, but I don't know. 25

151

Q Was there any discussion at your meetings with the Qatari or Omani 1

Ambassador about speaking at that conference? 2

A I don't -- no, I don't remember. I think, if my recollection is correct, Hunter 3

may have met with the Qatari Ambassador or talked to him on the phone a second time 4

after we had that meeting, and that may have been when that invitation was issued. 5

Q Okay. And then I don't know if I mixed up my question or what, but 6

just -- do you have any awareness of the embassy -- any sort of embassy ever paying 7

expenses for Hunter Biden? 8

A I don't know of any specific awareness, no. 9

Q Okay. And then I want to go back to something you said earlier. The 10

mechanics -- just on the mechanics of the payment -- the reimbursement for the wireless 11

bill. 12

How did the mechanics go of Joe Biden reimbursing Hunter Biden as far as making 13

the payment? 14

A I'd write a check out of Joe Biden's account and deposit it in Hunter's 15

account. 16

Q Okay. So you would write the check? 17

A Yeah. 18

Q Okay. Do you remember how much that check was for? 19

A It was 100, 120 bucks a month. What a regular cell phone bill would be. 20

Q Okay. And it's your recollection that it was about 6 months? That was 21

the only timeframe that Hunter was making the payment for Joe Biden's wireless bill? 22

A That was my recollection, yeah. 23

Q Okay. 24

BY MR. : 25

152

Q Do you know if Joe Biden had a U.S. Senate Federal Credit Union account? 1

A Oh, he did. Yes. Correct. 2

Q Did Hunter Biden have the same? 3

A I think so. I don't recall. 4

Q Did Joe Biden have a Washington First bank account? 5

A No, I don't believe so. 6

Q In this SunTrust account where you had signatory authority, would you also 7

see any transactions between Jim Biden or Sara Biden and Joe Biden at any point? 8

A No, I don't believe so. 9

Q So it'd be atypical for them to have transactions with each other? 10

A It was a very vanilla, boring account. The salary check went in and, you 11

know, a set 10 to 15 expenses went out every month. It was not -- nothing that I ever 12

recall that was really beyond that. 13

Q And I have to ask this question a different way. I'm just going to ask you to 14

please be patient. 15

You don't have any recollection of a loan from James or Sara Biden or any of their 16

companies that Joe Biden gave them that you can recall? 17

A I don't recall, no. 18

BY MR. : 19

Q There looks to be sort of regular payments to a China Construction Bank for 20

$7,500 out of the Rosemont Seneca Advisors account. Do you have any -- what those 21

wires were for -- what those regular payments were for to a China bank? 22

A I do not, no. 23

Q Did you ever have -- 24

A I know you provided us with those documents. I don't -- 25

153

Q -- Chinese clients that banked over there that were clients of Rosemont 1

Seneca Advisors? 2

A We had no -- no. I don't -- this was an outgoing payment, correct, from us 3

to the China Construction Bank? 4

Q That's right. 5

A Yeah. I don't recall what that would be for. 6

Q And then I -- 7

A Just one -- it did not have the payee? It just had the bank, correct? When 8

I looked at this document last night, that's -- 9

Q Right. So I was just wondering what -- who you were paying -- 10

A I can't identify -- 11

Q -- in China. 12

A I don't recall who the -- I do not. 13

Q Okay. 14

A Not with any certainty, I don't. 15

Mr. . Could Hunter Biden send any payments through Rosemont 16

Seneca Advisors if he wanted to? 17

Mr. Schwerin. He probably could have. I don't recall any instances when he 18

did. 19

BY MR. : 20

Q And then when you were talking earlier, you said that Seneca Global 21

Advisors ended in around the 2009 period. 22

How long did the Seneca Global Advisors bank accounts continue to operate for? 23

A I don't know. It didn't end in 2009. We -- Seneca Global Advisors held the 24

interest in Rosemont Seneca Partners. So as long as Rosemont Seneca Partners 25

154

existed -- oh, I shouldn't say as long as. 1

There was a point when we closed down a couple of the entities to make it -- to 2

make them -- they were duplicative. There were some duplicative entities. So we 3

went through at some point, I don't know, maybe 2014, '15, and closed down a few of 4

them. And so we probably would have closed down Seneca Global Advisors, and I think 5

then Skaneateles ended up holding the interest in Rosemont Seneca Partners. But 6

Seneca left -- existed until that happened. 7

155

[3:47 p.m.] 1

BY MR. : 2

Q So it was not -- but it wasn't doing anything for since 2009. 3

A It was holding the interests in Rosemont Seneca Partners. 4

Q For who? 5

A For myself and Hunter and Arlene Busch. We owned 50 percent of 6

Rosemont Seneca Partners, the three of us, through Seneca Global Advisors. 7

Q Got it. Okay. So why were there payments from Rosemont Seneca 8

Advisors to Seneca Global Advisors? 9

A Because Seneca Global Advisors owned 50 percent of ultimately Rosemont 10

Seneca Advisors. So, when Rosemont Seneca Advisors made distributions to the 11

partners of Seneca Global Advisors, they would pay them that way. 12

Q But wouldn't the payments go from Rosemont Seneca Advisors to Rosemont 13

Seneca Partners and then to Seneca Global Advisors? 14

A They wouldn't. The way that the agreement -- we had an agreement 15

written -- there was a waterfall. So there was a set amount of money that went into 16

Rosemont Seneca Advisors that immediately went out to Seneca Advisors, and anything 17

over that, then, went into Rosemont Seneca Partners to be paid to all the partners. 18

Q And who was responsible for paying the taxes -- filing the taxes and paying 19

the taxes for Rosemont Seneca Advisors? 20

A I think Rosemont Seneca Advisors is a disregarded entity, so I don't think it 21

paid any taxes. It all flowed through as a passthrough. 22

Q Rosemont Seneca Advisors was -- 23

A Was -- 24

Q -- wasn't an entity? 25

156

A -- 100 percent owned by Rosemont Seneca Partners. So Rosemont Seneca 1

Partners would -- I'm trying to go back. But one of them -- one of those was 2

disregarded. I believe we filed -- if I recollect, I believe we filed the taxes via Rosemont 3

Seneca Partners, at that level. 4

Q But wasn't Rosemont Seneca Advisors collecting the fees that you were 5

doing through the advisory work? 6

A It was, yes. 7

Q But you didn't file tax returns for Rosemont Seneca Advisors? 8

A If an entity -- my understanding -- if an entity is 100 percent owned by 9

another entity, that entity -- the taxes are paid at the top level. 10

BY MR. : 11

Q The committees have identified an email address associated with 12

"Robinware456" with Joe Biden. Is that your understanding as well? 13

A It's -- say that one more time. 14

Q "Robinware456," an email address associated with that name? 15

A Yes. 16

Q That's Joe Biden? 17

A Correct. 18

Q How about "Hurricane5155"? 19

A No, that's not his. 20

Q Who is that? 21

A I believe that's Valerie Biden. 22

Q "261penn"? 23

A That was Beau. 24

Q The "Robert.L.Peters," that was Joe Biden? 25

157

A That's my understanding from -- I never used that email, so I don't know, but 1

that's my understanding from later on. 2

Q Are you familiar with any other names that Joe Biden would use, where you 3

corresponded with any other names that Joe Biden would use? 4

A I believe, when I personally emailed him, it was through that "Robinware" 5

email address. 6

Q And is that a private account, or is that a government account? 7

A That's a private Gmail account. 8

Q And you would email him from a private Gmail account as well? 9

A Correct. Yes. 10

Mr. . Can I just ask one more followup? Is that all right? 11

Mr. Yeah. You've got 4 minutes -- 3 minutes. 12

Mr. Okay, good. I'll make it quick then. 13

BY MR. : 14

Q Yeah, I just -- what company did you all sell to Burnham? 15

A What company did we sell to Burnham? I believe it was Rosemont Seneca 16

Advisors. 17

Q Okay. And how much did you sell Rosemont Seneca Advisors to Burnham 18

for? 19

A It was -- the agreement was that it was being sold for a predetermined 20

salaries that we would receive for a certain period of time. 21

Q Okay. 22

A Once Burnham blew up after Devon's indictment, the agreement was moot, 23

and it reverted back to -- Rosemont Seneca Advisors reverted back to Skaneateles. I 24

don't recall that it was even a year of that relationship with Burnham. 25

158

Q What were the salaries that you were paid? 1

A I can't recall off the top of my head. 2

Q Where did you collect the salaries to? Like, where did you collect your 3

salary from Burnham? 4

A They -- I don't recall if they were paid at the Burnham level or the Rosemont 5

Seneca Advisors level. I'm not sure. 6

Q What does that mean? 7

A You said where were they -- 8

Q Yeah. So, when Burnham paid you the salary that you agreed upon for 9

selling your advisory business, how did they pay you? Burnham to -- was it to your 10

personal account, or was it to one of your entities? 11

A No -- and that's what I was saying. I don't recall -- and it may have been 12

one and both -- whether we were salaried employees of Burnham that would then go to 13

our personal accounts -- 14

Q Okay. 15

A -- or whether Rosemont Seneca Advisors, which was owned by Burnham, the 16

salaries were being paid by Rosemont Seneca Advisors. But either way, it went to our 17

personal accounts. 18

Q Okay. Okay. Got it. 19

And if there were payments from Rosemont Seneca Advisors to Burnham, what 20

would those be for? 21

A I don't recall. There was also -- the way that the agreement was 22

structured, there were certain expenses that Rosemont Seneca Advisors had to pay to 23

Burnham for -- if there was a discrepancy in the income -- I don't recall the specifics of the 24

agreement, but I do recall at some point we had to pay Burnham for maybe a deficit in 25

159

what the income was or something. I'm not sure. 1

Q Okay. And when did you sell RSA to Burnham? 2

A I don't recall the -- I don't recall the date. 3

Q Okay. 4

Jake? 5

BY MR. : 6

Q Did you know -- did you ever meet Henry Zhao? 7

A Yes. Probably once. 8

Q And he was affiliated with the Harvest Group, or Harvest Fund? 9

A Yeah. 10

Q What was the business relationship between your entities and the Harvest 11

Group? 12

A Harvest one of the partners in BHR. It was the "H." It was Bohai Harvest 13

Rosemont. What the "H" stands for, that was his -- 14

Q And where did you meet Mr. Zhao? 15

A I was over in China, I believe, for a BHR board meeting, and I think he had 16

hosted a lunch for a bunch of people there, and so I met him there. I think it was the 17

only time I met him. 18

Q Were you ever familiar with any interest in Henry Zhao wanting to do any 19

kind of side -- other arrangement with Hunter Biden besides the BHR deal? 20

A I -- say that one more time, just to be clear. 21

Q Are you aware of any arrangement that Henry Zhao approached Hunter 22

Biden with besides the BHR agreement? 23

A I think there was some -- from what I recall, there was some interest on 24

Harvest's part in operating a U.S.-based mutual fund, and because Burnham operated 25

160

mutual funds, there was some interest in doing that with Burnham. 1

Q Okay. Thank you. 2

Mr. . Our hour's up. Off the record. 3

Thank you. 4

[Recess.] 5

Ms. . We can go back on the record. Thanks. 6

BY MS. : 7

Q Mr. Schwerin, do you recall more precisely at what point in 2017 you were 8

no longer managing Joe Biden's finances? 9

A I believe it was December, but I'm not sure. 10

Q And by the summer of 2017, were you starting to wind down that financial 11

relationship? 12

A No. And I think it was -- it was -- 13

Q Continued? 14

A -- pretty consistent for much of 2017. 15

Q Okay. Thank you. 16

BY MR. : 17

Q And your work assisting then-Vice President Joe Biden with his personal 18

finances, that was unrelated to your work with Hunter Biden? 19

A Correct. 20

Q And then just some housekeeping. 21

I'd like to introduce for the record exhibit 24, the February 12, 2016, letter from 22

members of the U.S. Senate Ukraine Caucus to Petro Poroshenko, the President of 23

Ukraine, urging President Poroshenko to, quote, "press ahead with urgent reforms to the 24

Prosecutor General's Office." 25

161

It was signed by a bipartisan group of Senators, including Republican Senators Rob 1

Portman and Ron Johnson. And, as we discussed previously, Senator Johnson described 2

this as his support for, at the time, for the firing of Prosecutor General Shokin. 3

[Schwerin Exhibit No. 24 4

was marked for identification.] 5

BY MR. : 6

Q And then I wanted to go over exhibit 22 and 23, which my Republican 7

colleagues discussed with you in the last round. 8

Am I correct that you are not in a position to authenticate these emails, which are 9

at this point 13 years old and 7 years old? 10

Mr. William Farah. I believe that was stipulated at the time by -- 11

Mr. Yes. 12

Mr. William Farah. -- majority counsel. 13

BY MR. : 14

Q And based on the markings on these exhibits, these appear to be emails 15

from the website hunterbidenlaptopemails.com, which is a website operated and 16

maintained by Garrett Ziegler, former Trump White House administration official who 17

worked for Peter Navarro, who, according to press reports, got what he purports to be a 18

copy of the hard drive from Hunter Biden's laptop from Rudy Giuliani. 19

And if I'm incorrect about that, if my Republican colleagues would correct me on 20

the record, I'd appreciate it. 21

Hearing nothing, I'll assume that these are from that website. 22

And, with that, Mr. Schwerin, I think we've asked you before, but this transcribed 23

interview is being conducted pursuant to an impeachment inquiry into President Joe 24

Biden, so I want to ask you: Are you aware of any evidence of any wrongdoing by 25

162

President Biden? 1

A I am not. 2

Q Thank you very much. 3

Ms. . We can go off the record. 4

Mr. William Farah. That's it. 5

Mr. Schwerin. Thank you. 6

[Whereupon, at 4:07 p.m., the interview was concluded.]7

163

Certificate of Deponent/Interviewee 1

I have read the foregoing ____ pages, which contain the correct transcript of the 4

answers made by me to the questions therein recorded. 5

_____________________________ 9

Witness Name 10

_____________________________ 13

Date 14

Memorandum: ERRATA Sheet Attachment to the Transcript of Mr. Eric Schwerin’s Interview

Before the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and House

Committee on the Judiciary (January 30, 2024)

Date: March 4, 2024

Re: Submitted Corrections by Mr. Eric Schwerin’s Counsel to the Transcript of Mr.

Schwerin’s Interview Before the House Committee on Oversight and

Accountability and House Committee on the Judiciary (January 30, 2024)

ERRATA

Page Line Change

4 6 Change "710" to "701"

19 14 Change "Rosemont Seneca Biden (ph)" to "Rosemont Seneca"

102 23 Change "Old Acre" to "Oldaker"