Hunter Biden’s lawyer defends him after report says he sought State Department assistance for Ukrainian company

Hunter Biden’s lawyer denies his client acted inappropriately after a new report said the president’s son sought help from the State Department as a board member of Ukrainian company Burisma when Joe Biden was vice president.

Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s lawyer, said in a statement that in 2016, his client and others asked several people, including then-ambassador to Italy John R. Phillips, if they could help make a presentation to the president of Tuscany about a geothermal energy. project that Burisma wanted to do in the region.

“No meetings took place, no projects materialized, no orders for anything in the U.S. were requested, and only an introduction in Italy was requested,” Lowell said.

Lowell said it was a “proper request” and that it was no different than “hundreds of similar requests for instructions that companies make to ambassadors every year, it would be unlikely to have triggered any registration requirement, and if it ever had, the work clearly would have fallen within exceptions for commercial transactions.”

He appeared to be referring to the requirement that people register when they lobby the US government on behalf of foreign interests under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

The State Department referred questions about Hunter Biden’s correspondence to his legal representatives. “We have no further comment on the production of these documents as it is part of ongoing litigation,” the department said. “Generally speaking, individuals often seek counseling and support services from the Department. The Department evaluates these requests based on their merits and acts accordingly.”

The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing State Department records, that Hunter Biden sought assistance from the US government for Burisma. The records included a letter among documents released as part of a major Freedom of Information Act request of State Department records from Hunter Biden to the U.S. ambassador to Italy, the report said, although the Times said the actual text of the letter was redacted.

NBC News has not obtained these documents.

The State Department confirmed that the documents were released as part of an ongoing Freedom of Information Act request and would be made available to the public in the coming weeks.

A White House spokesperson told NBC News that Biden was unaware when he was vice president that his son was contacting the U.S. Embassy in Italy on behalf of Burisma.

NBC News previously reported that the Justice Department’s investigation, which began in 2018 during the Trump administration, found no reason to bring charges related to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings or any other related wrongdoing. Multiple congressional investigations into Hunter Biden’s business dealings have also failed to substantiate allegations of criminal conduct by the president or his son.

Lowell said the letter in question “sought nothing more than an introduction, as companies do every day.”

“If it weren’t for the fact that this is from Hunter Biden, no one would write about this normal and appropriate practice,” he said.

According to the Times, a Commerce Department official based at the U.S. Embassy in Rome told Hunter Biden at the time that the U.S. government should not be “actively advocating with the government of Italy” without Burisma going through a program of the Department of Commerce to support American companies that want to do business with foreign governments.

The Times reported that the project never came to fruition, which Lowell confirmed.

U.S. Attorney David Weiss, appointed by Donald Trump, began investigating Hunter Biden in 2018 and was named special counsel last year by Attorney General Merrick Garland.

The investigation led to two indictments against Hunter Biden: in Delaware on weapons-related charges and in California on tax-related charges. Hunter Biden is expected to stand trial next month in the California case.

He was found guilty of three felony gun charges in Delaware in June and is scheduled to be sentenced in the case on Nov. 13.