The New York art gallery representing Hunter Biden’s exorbitantly expensive painting collection sold his artwork to a Democratic-donor socialite whom President Biden appointed to a special U.S. commission of international significance.
Despite the assurance of the Biden administration that the president’s son, for ethical reasons, would be left in dark about the identity of his buyers, Hunter later discovered the identities of two of them, sources told Business Insider. One of those two clients received a presidential privilege in the form of a commission placement.
The buyer in question was California investor and philanthropist Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, who contributed $13,414 to the Biden campaign and $29,700 to the Democratic National Campaign Committee this year, Insider reported.
Biden announced Hirsh Naftali’s appointment to the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad in July 2022 — eight months after Hunter’s art debuted at the gallery. The commission is an independent agency of the U.S. government; it's tasked with reporting on cemeteries, monuments, and historic buildings in Eastern and Central Europe that involve American heritage.
A spot on the commission was highly coveted by Democratic elites, Insider noted. Eric Schwerin, Hunter Biden’s longtime business associate, landed the role in 2015 via appointment by President Obama. An email from that year found on Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop indicated that the president’s son might have helped facilitate Schwerin's nomination, the outlet said.
“Eric asked me for one of these the day after the election in 2008,” Hunter told a cousin, who had written asking about a similar appointment for her mother.
Insider did not confirm whether the commission assignment happened before or after the painting was purchased, although it uncovered via internal documents from the gallery that one person paid $875,000 for his art.
The White House and Hunter Biden’s lawyers did not answer Insider‘s requests for clarification on the timeline.
“Hunter Biden is a private citizen who is entitled to have his own career as an artist,” Ian Sams, a White House spokesperson, told the publication. “We are not involved in his art sales, and any buyers of his art are not disclosed to the White House.”
Abbe Lowell, Hunter Biden’s attorney, said that his client found out that Hirsh Naftali and the second person bought his art because they were friends.
“The gallery sets the pricing and handles all sales based on the highest ethical standards of the industry and does not disclose the names of any purchasers to Mr. Biden,” Lowell said.
In 2021, Hunter Biden, lacking formal training, suddenly declared himself a self-taught artist. He put his paintings and collages on the commercial market, charging anywhere from $75,000 to $500,000 for a single piece. The sky-high price tags had the media asking questions about the ethics of the situation and whether potential purchasers could exploit it to buy favor with the Bidens.
To quell objections, the White House unveiled an arrangement by which the identities of buyers and bidders would be hidden from Hunter Biden and the public, under the supervision of New York gallery owner Georges Bergès.
“Names of buyers are strictly confidential,” Bergès insisted to Insider in response to the recent update. “Any attempt to get them is illegal and will be reported to the proper authorities.”
Even Walter Shaub, the head of the Office of Government Ethics under President Obama, said it didn’t pass the smell test in 2021.
"This royally sucks,” he tweeted in July 2021. “I'm disgusted. A lot of us worked hard to tee him up to restore ethics to government and believed the promises. This is a real 'f*** you' to us — and government ethics."
Shaub noted to CNN at the time that the art world is “an industry that's notorious for money-laundering.”
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