The National Archives appears to have confirmed that more than 5,000 emails may exist in which then-vice president Joe Biden used pseudonyms while discussing government and personal matters, a newly released letter shows.
The agency made the disclosure in an email response last year to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Southeastern Legal Foundation, which requested emails connected to known aliases for Biden, including Robin Ware, Robert L. Peters, and JRB Ware. The foundation released the response from the National Archives after it filed a lawsuit this week demanding the agency release the emails.
"We have performed a search of our collection for Vice Presidential records related to your [June 9, 2022] request and have identified approximately 5,138 email messages, 25 electronic files and 200 pages of potentially responsive records that must be processed in order to respond to your request," the National Archives told the foundation in June 2022 following the FOIA request, according to the lawsuit.
While the National Archives has not handed over any of the email records it has in its possession, previously uncovered emails to Biden's pseudonymous accounts have undermined the president's claim that he maintains an "absolute wall" between his official work and his son Hunter's business dealings.
In a May 2016 email to Biden's alias account under the name Robert Peters, a staffer for the then-vice president discussed an upcoming phone meeting between Biden and then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko. Hunter Biden, who at the time was on the board of Ukrainian energy giant Burisma Holdings, was copied on the email.