New disclosures from Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop appear to show that President Biden’s troubled son and some of Hunter’s business associates were deeply involved in advocating for Ukrainian interests in the United States during the time that Mr. Biden served as vice president. Republicans say that this and other emails prove that the president was, in fact, involved in a bribery scheme as described by a federal whistleblower complaint. 

One April 2014 email sent by the first son to his close friend and business partner, Devon Archer, included a detailed memo analyzing the political and economic landscape of Ukraine that the younger Mr. Biden called “thoughts after doing some research.” That same month, Mr. Biden joined the board of a Ukrainian natural gas company, Burisma Holding — despite having no professional experience in the energy sector. Burisma would go on to pay the future first son more than $80,000 a month. 

In a subsequent email sent to Mr. Archer just one day after his Ukraine memo, the younger Mr. Biden refers to “my guys [sic] upcoming travels” just one week before the then-vice president traveled to Ukraine in an official capacity. The email’s existence was first reported by the New York Post’s Miranda Devine. 

In 2018, Mr. Archer was convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud for swindling $60 million out of a Native American tribe. The charges were unrelated to anything to do with Ukraine. Last week, Mr. Archer lost his appeal and he could soon be headed to prison.

According to sources who spoke with the Washington Examiner, the whistleblower report detailing an alleged “bribery scheme” involving the president — which is currently in FBI custody — shows that the elder Mr. Biden is the “big guy” that Ukrainian officials were referring to when discussing bribes to American citizens in exchange for access to the nation’s energy sector. 

The whistleblower report claims that a “foreign national” was involved in planning a $5 million bribe. That foreign individual, according to the sources who spoke to the Examiner, was the owner of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky. Mr. Zlochevsky was allegedly calling Mr. Biden the “big guy” who received money as a part of the first son’s dealings in the Eastern European nation.

When the president was asked on Thursday about the accusation that he had received a bribe, he joked with reporters, saying, “Where’s the money?”

“It’s a bunch of malarkey,” Mr. Biden then added following a press conference at the East Room of the White House. 

Republicans in Congress have launched sweeping investigations into the allegations of corruption. In addition to the House Oversight Committee’s aggressive investigation, the former chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Johnson, teamed up with the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Grassley, to lead their own inquiry into the first son’s foreign business dealings. 

Mr. Johnson recently told Fox News that the email messages between the younger Mr. Biden and Mr. Archer occurred around the same time “when Devon Archer and Hunter Biden were trying to get on the board of Burisma and get their $3, $4 million worth of payday trying to prove their worth.” Mr. Johnson claimed it was “obvious Hunter Biden is selling access to information.” 

“Does that have anything to do with some of the classified documents Vice President Biden was squirreling away in his residence?” Mr. Johnson asked. “I don’t know, but it looks incredibly suspicious.”

Just days before the 2022 midterm elections, Messrs. Johnson and Grassley released what they called “investigative material” related to the first son’s foreign transactions with federal prosecutors. In total, they submitted more than 200 bank records tying the younger Mr. Biden to Communist China. 

“If you are conducting a full and complete investigation, you should already possess these records. In the case that you are not and do not possess these records, we suggest that you review them in detail,” the two men wrote in a letter to the United States attorney’s office in Delaware, which is still investigating allegations of tax evasion and illegal firearms ownership on the part of the first son.