After the Great Recession, the government pledged to rebuild Delaware’s battered economy by subsidizing a wave of green tech companies.
In 2010, Hunter Biden became a common thread among many companies seeking government help, according to an investigation of emails leaked by a Wilmington computer repairman in 2020 from a hard drive that appeared to have come from Hunter Biden’s private laptop.
The politically explosive leak to an associate of then-President Donald Trump led to a series of news reports and public scrutiny largely surrounding Hunter Biden’s foreign industry deals.
So far, little has been paid for Hunter Biden’s Delaware deals.
But the emails show how Hunter Biden served as an intermediary for the local incentives of various corporations, connecting them with state and University of Delaware officials.
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For at least one other company, now-defunct electric car maker Fisker Automotive, Hunter Biden’s own company is an early investor.
And for others, Bloom Energy added, Hunter Biden possessed the early wisdom of the company and its employees, though there is no direct evidence in the emails that he played a role in their dealings with the state.
Along with Bloom, Hunter Biden met with an official at the little-known election-power firm more than a year before he reached his questionable deal with Delaware. Months after the meeting, he wrote about discussions to set up a meeting floor for an anonymous “clean tech” company at the location of Bloom’s eventual Delaware home.
In total, the emails imply that Hunter Biden, and his investment and advisory firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners, had ties to the corporations and business figures involved in many of Delaware’s most ambitious economic growth efforts in recent years.
Some of those same figures also served as political donors to the Bidens.
Given the importance of Biden’s call in Delaware, the revelations raise questions about whether state officials were within the government’s management at the time. Jack Markell favored corporations connected to Hunter Biden.
Jessica Tillipman, a professor of government contract law at George Washington University, said the revelations, while “ugly,” appear to be violations of the law. However, they give the appearance of favoritism, he said.
“Most other people in politics who care about Array’s ethics . . . they’re rushing into this situation,” said Tillipman, who is also associate dean of studies on public procurement law at her university. “But Hunter Biden doesn’t look like most other people. “
Beyond the Bidens, the emails highlight examples of warm relations among Delaware force agents in an era of prolific subsidy efforts, a way of doing business that critics of the so-called Delaware Way have long complained about and has guided state policy.
For Hunter Biden, state officials want to prioritize their clients’ projects, according to his emails.
In one message, a member of the Delaware Office of Economic Development promised to “do everything” for two of Hunter Biden’s consumer companies, called DuCool and Aqua Sciences, as they planned to move to Delaware.
In another, Alan Levin, then director of the office of growth, tried to cheer up customers of a green energy company promoted by Hunter Biden by claiming it came from the “office of the vice president,” a claim likely erroneous, according to the emails.
The company, owned by Wade Randlett, a prominent political donor and former member of Obama’s presidential transition team, sought to place a bag of select energy infrastructure at the Delaware City refinery site. In the end, he failed, but not until months after helping the company with hopeful Delaware officials, Levin added.
Asked why he connected the task with then-Vice President Joe Biden, Levin pointed to the economic crisis that hit Delaware in 2010, noting that “we’re coming out of the worst recession since the Great Depression. “
“If the mention of the vice president’s office in the email is true, it’s probably an effort on my part to restore the company’s credibility because I sought to create as many jobs as possible,” Levin said in an email.
Levin said more than ever there had been “pressure” in his office to give preferential treatment to companies connected to the Bidens.
However, when they were doing business, Hunter Biden’s clients and colleagues noticed his relationships with government officials.
In one case, Randlett introduced his green energy business to Markell with a “mutual friend,” Hunter Biden.
In another, Rosemont Seneca worker Michael Muldoon announced that the company was dating Delaware officials on a draft proposal for a prospective client.
“We are working intensively with a team from the University of Delaware, in coordination with corporations and state government, to locate clean technology corporations to populate a generation park. . . on the site of a former Chrysler plant,” the draft proposal read.
Muldoon assigned it to Hunter Biden in a November 2010 email, in which he described the University of Delaware as one of Rosemont Seneca’s “strategic partners. “
After passing it on to Hunter Biden, Muldoon said he “did it for $15,000 for presentations” to strategic partners. It’s an obvious reference to Rosemont Seneca’s fees for connecting corporations with the University of Delaware.
“Let me know if it rings a bell and I’ll post it,” Muldoon said in the email to Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden then asked if the proposal would “come with fees of good fortune and equity,” according to the emails.
Muldoon responded affirmatively in a response, he had added “equity and %” “project by project”.
Delaware’s economy suffered a series of massive layoffs in 2010, some of which took position before the national economic downturn.
They came from the reorganization of banks, DuPont’s footprint in the state, and the closure of the Delaware City refinery and two auto plants.
Delaware lawmakers and government officials responded with a plan to shift the state’s task base away from reliance on the chemical industry and classical manufacturing.
The two shuttered plants were key to the plans.
At the former Chrysler plant in Newark, referenced in Muldoon’s email, the state intended to build a high-tech mall that could be populated largely through green tech companies.
Ten miles to the east, at a vacant General Motors auto plant, state officials pinned their hopes on a single company, in which Hunter Biden is an investor.
In April 2010, Markell’s management announced a $22 million award for Fisker Automotive to build a line of plug-in hybrid cars at GM’s former auto plant near Newport, Delaware.
The state grant, which included a loan and a grant, was in addition to investments in Fisker made in the past through the federal government and Hunter Biden’s own company.
In October 2009, then-Vice President Joe Biden announced that the U. S. Department of Energy would be able to do so. The U. S. government had approved a large federal loan request for Fisker that would give the electric vehicle company more than a billion dollars, provided it met production targets.
The announcement was made before a crowd of auto personnel and lawmakers at a rite at GM’s shuttered plant, which now houses an Amazon fulfillment center. There, Biden said Fisker’s loan would allow “some of the most productive staff in the world to get their jobs back. “
“This is seed capital that will pass to the American customer in billions and billions of dollars in new jobs,” Biden said at the time.
Two months later, in December 2010, Hunter Biden indicated that his company’s “fund” was also an investor in Fisker.
He made the comment in an email, in which he connected Wayne Kimmel, a Philadelphia fund manager, to Rosemont Seneca’s investment in Fisker’s operations.
“It’s our background that’s in (Fisker’s) deal,” he said in the email to Kimmel. “Good company, right?
In a separate email, a spouse of Rosemont described Kimmel and Hunter Biden as “old friends” who in the past had worked together through Kimmel’s company, ETF Venture Funds.
Kimmel responded to requests for comment.
Those in Hunter Biden’s circle weren’t the only ones hoping for Fisker’s ample good fortune at the time. Across Delaware, many saw the company’s presence in the state as the first positive economic sign after an era of stable recessionary decline.
Those hopes rose until 2010, when Fisker finalized his state and federal awards and began renovating GM’s aging auto plant to meet its production needs.
In an exhibition move in May of that year, Fisker even took his luxury sports sedan, called the Karma, to a Jaguar dealership in Wilmington for a public “opening. “
The following month, a federal bankruptcy judgment approved the sale of the former GM plant, commonly known as the Buis plant, to Fisker.
A few weeks later, Barry Yerger, an investment banker at Barley Mill Asset Management, emailed Hunter Biden to express “sincere thanks for all things Fisker, especially Wayne’s arrival. “
“Also, congratulations on finalizing the boxwood plant move,” Yerger said, referring to the sale of GM’s former assets to Fisker.
Yerger declined to comment on this story, so it’s unclear who he congratulated on the sale of the assets and why.
In 2011, initial enthusiasm around Fisker faded after the company failed to reach production milestones similar to its federal debt, forcing the Energy Department to suspend further loan disbursements. The following year, the scenario worsened when Fisker’s battery filed for bankruptcy.
In early 2013, the company failed to pay its debts, prompting its board to promote the Energy Ministry’s loan rights, according to allegations in an upcoming lawsuit under the Misrepresentation Law.
Then, in April of that year, Fisker lost $10 million in the federal loan.
The following November, Fisker himself filed for bankruptcy, ending his tenure in Delaware before he had produced a one there.
Four years later, Fisker CEO Henrik Fisker blamed the company’s failure on the bankruptcy of its battery and its inability to raise more cash afterwards.
“If we had gotten the cash (from more investors), we would have been (in Delaware) as the original company,” he said in an interview with The News Journal in 2017.
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In court documents declaring Fisker’s bankruptcy, Hunter Biden separately indexed among the company’s creditors, as did 3 investment budgets with Rosemont’s call and indexed addresses that matched those of Rosemont Seneca Partners.
Fisker’s investors, though creditors, also included the politically committed venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield.
Fisker’s demise also dealt a blow to the reputation of the investment firm, whose managing spouse, Raymond Lane, was then chairman of Fisker’s board of directors.
Kleiner Perkins’ main political connections came from former Vice President Al Gore, who was then one of the company’s senior wives, as well as John Doerr, another company wife and major Democratic Party donor.
Doerr also served on President Barack Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Council, which was then tasked with advising the president on “economic stimulus packages,” according to a February 2009 White House statement.
Finally, management spent $90 billion on blank energy investments in 2009, according to a White House study released toward the end of Obama’s term.
While Fisker’s loss represented a severe blow to Delaware’s production economy, some saw it as a potential opportunity.
Levin, then the state’s economic development director, said Hunter Biden Markell after the bankruptcy to put the governor in touch with “Chinese investors” interested in getting the auto plant.
In response, the governor’s team arranged a visit. Hunter Biden later canceled it, Levin said.
Levin said he never disclosed the names of the investors, so it’s unclear if they resurfaced later.
But, in Fisker’s subsequent bankruptcy process, two Chinese played a key role in allocating the company’s assets and liabilities.
In October 2013, a month before the bankruptcy filing, the federal government held an auction for Fisker’s $169 million of notable debt in the Department of Energy loan.
At the time, the federal government was the company’s largest creditor. As such, he had the first lien on Fisker’s assets.
Delaware’s taxpayers ranked third, the federal government and the now-bankrupt Silicon Valley Bank.
During the live auction, only one company submitted a bid to buy yields on the loan balance of nearly $170 million, according to a series of facts released as part of the False Claims Act lawsuit.
That company, called Hybrid Technology, a Delaware LLC controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Richard Li, according to multiple reports.
Their bid will be just $25 million.
At the time, many thought that the sharp reduction paid for by the loan was an indication of Fisker’s monetary problems. But federal investigators would later say Li’s company had rigged the auction, causing the debt to be sold too low and defrauding taxpayers of millions of dollars.
In 2020, Hybrid Technology settled the claims and agreed to pay the $29 million.
In the months following the bankruptcy filing, Fisker’s enduring assets were also auctioned off. These included the Newport auto plant, then valued at more than $40 million.
Bidders at the auction included Hybrid Technology and Wanxiang America Inc. , a branch of China’s largest auto portion maker at the time.
Wanxiang won the festival with a bid of $149 million. But the acquisition left many Delaware citizens unsafe.
While Fisker had stated his goals of repairing the Newport auto plant as an anchor of production jobs, Wanxiang’s plans were less certain.
In June 2014, Levin told the News Journal that Markell’s management was in talks with Wanxiang, but that the company had yet to “what use of boxwood would be in its most productive corporate interest. “
In an obvious reaction to the uncertainty, and most likely in preparation for the upcoming election, Thomas Gordon, then New Castle County Administrator, proposed that the county purchase the county for $9. 9 million.
His plan to turn the facility into a distribution center linked to an expanded port of Wilmington.
Gordon assigned his No. 2, David Grimaldi, to execute the plan and, in June 2014, Grimaldi announced the county’s intentions to Levin, according to emails received with an open records request.
But Levin rejected the concept in his emailed response, and “strongly” urged the county to “wait for Wangxiang to interest them. “
Grimaldi in reaction said the county and state “agree to disagree. “
“We will send the offer letter to Wanxiang momentarily as there does not appear to be any need for a meeting,” Grimaldi said in an email to Levin.
Recalling the occasions in a 2019 interview, Grimaldi said the county hired a prominent land-use attorney to draft an acquisition agreement. Grimaldi then flew to Wanxiang’s Chicago to announce the sale.
Wanxiang officials have been responsive, Grimaldi said.
“But, when I came back here, they sent me an email saying that you Delaware people want to speak with one voice,” he said. “It turns out there was someone in the state who was pushing our deal. “
Grimaldi declined to speculate whether he might have worked against the county’s proposed acquisition.
Markell responded to requests for comment on stories in this series.
In the end, New Castle County never bought ownership of the auto plant, which was empty until 2017. That year, Wanxjiang unceremoniously sold the 142 acres to a local Delaware growth corporation.
The assets, once a pillar of the state’s production sector, have since been rebuilt as Amazon’s hub.
When reached for comment, Grimaldi expressed sadness that the county’s plan became a reality, as there has been a proliferation of intermediate distribution warehouses in Delaware over the years since the county attempted to acquire the former GM property.
“We didn’t know it at the time, but we were on the cusp of a real estate boom in distribution centers,” he said. “It was the most productive time to do this. “