Joe Biden's secretary of state pick Tony Blinken is set to face questions over ties to Hunter at confirmation hearings as guitar-playing, soccer-loving, French-speaking film noir fan steps into spotlight
President-elect Joe Biden's pick for secretary of state, Tony Blinken, will likely receive questions from Senate Republicans over meetings he had with Hunter Biden.
Fox News Channel reported Tuesday that Hunter Biden reached out to Blinken while he was serving on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
Blinken was then deputy secretary of state.
President-elect Joe Biden's pick for secretary of state, Tony Blinken, will likely receive questions from Republican senators about meetings he had with Hunter Biden during the last administration
Hunter Biden's (left) business dealings in Ukraine and China became a rallying cry for Republicans trying to entangle President-elect Joe Biden (right) in accusations of corruption
SOCCER FAN: Blinken (top row, second from right) was known for playing soccer in Washington with U.S. officials, diplomats and journalists
Blinken (right), photographed in high school, aspired to be a filmmaker and even had a production credit on a vampire film starring Lili Taylor and Christopher Walken. He also played in a Parisian jazz band and has two singles on Spotify
'Have a few minutes next week to grab a cup of coffee? I know you are impossibly busy, but would like to get your advice on a couple of things,' Hunter Biden asked Blinken in a May 22, 2015 email.
The emails were released due to a Freedom of Information Act request.
'Absolutely,' Blinken replied.
Several follow-up emails were exchanged discussing logistics, Fox News Channel reported.
Then, a separate emails from Blinken's assistant listed a 3:30 p.m. meeting with Hunter Biden on his schedule for May 27, 2015.
That meeting and another between Blinken and Hunter Biden in July 2015, were flagged by Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson who requested President Donald Trump's State Department under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for more information in November 2019.
November was the month leading up to the House of Representatives impeaching Trump over his scheme to pressure the Ukrainian president into announcing an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden, holding up military aid Congress approved for the country.
Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, continued to investigate Hunter Biden's business dealings, issuing a report in September 2020, just weeks before the presidential election.
The report didn't include blockbuster information, but a continued drip, drip, drip about the younger Biden's decision to go into business in Ukraine and China while his father was serving as vice president.
During Senate confirmation hearings, Republicans will not doubt play up Blinken's meetings with Hunter Biden, while Democrats will point to the nominee's years of experience.
Blinken's also gotten attention for being one of the more interesting men in Washington.
In a 2013 profile of him in The Washington Post, writer Jason Horowitz described Blinken's background as a 'life story that reads like a Jewish high-society screenplay that the onetime aspiring film producer may have once dreamed of making.'
Blinken is the son of a New York powerhouse investment banker, Donald, and an arts advocate, Judith.
They split and she remarried Samuel Pisar, a renowned lawyer and author, who moved the family to Paris.
The French-speaking went Blinken went to Harvard where he wrote for the Crimson.
Later, as he was interested in both writing and politics, Blinken interned for The New Republic.
He played in Parisian jazz band and, later in life, would bring out his guitar to jam to blues and Beatles covers with President Barack Obama's White House press secretary Jay Carney.
He has two singles, Lip Service and Patience, that are currently on Spotify.
Blinken was also interested in film.
He has a producer credit on the movie 'The Addiction' starring Lili Taylor and Christopher Walken.
IMDB described the film by saying, 'A New York philosophy grad student turns into a vampire after getting bitten by one, and then tries to come to terms with her new lifestyle and frequent craving for human blood.'
In Paris, Blinken tried to launch a film festival and hosted director Spike Lee.
Blinken decided to pursue law instead, attending Columbia and becoming active in Democratic political circles. Blinken joined the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration.
He would go on to marry first lady Hillary Clinton's scheduler Evan Ryan.
Like President Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton attended Blinken's wedding.
He joined Biden's Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff during the Bush 43 years.
Before entering the Obama administration, once Biden was picked for vice president, Blinken would play a weekly soccer game with U.S. officials, diplomats and journalists, The Guardian reported.
Blinken worked for Vice President Biden first and then became Obama's deputy national security adviser and then the administration's deputy secretary of state.
'Tony Blinken is a superstar and that's not hyperbole,' Biden told The Washington Post in 2013. He joked that 'the president recognized that after four years with me and stole him.'
Biden added that Blinken 'could do any job, any job.'
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