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FIRST ON FOX: A longtime Biden family friend has raked in more than half a million dollars from a pro-Biden super PAC, a Fox News Digital review of federal filings has found.
Mark Doyle, a former Joe Biden aide who discussed foreign business opportunities with Hunter Biden within his emails, has funneled the six-figure sum from the Unite the Country super PAC to his Chicago-based firm, Prairie Avenue Advisors, since late 2019.
Doyle acts as board chairman of Unite the Country, a leading pro-Biden committee formed in the fall of 2019 after Biden reversed his opposition to such entities as his campaign’s fundraising lagged behind several of his Democratic rivals.
Unite the Country has steered more than 40 payments to Doyle’s firm, including nearly $570,000 for fundraising consulting and slightly more than $8,000 in travel reimbursements, between September 2019 and June 2022, Federal Election Commission records show.
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The Unite the Country super PAC formed after Biden’s fundraising lagged behind his Democratic opponents during the 2020 election.
(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)
Unite the Country expanded its operations last summer by launching a dark money nonprofit arm called Unite the Country Now to promote Biden’s presidential agenda, Axios reported. Doyle and Amanda Loveday, the super PAC’s chief of staff, are behind the group.
“Unite the Country Now allows us to expand our efforts beyond our election work to educating Americans about how President Biden and his administration is getting America back on track, and building better opportunities for middle-class Americans,” Loveday said of its operations.
It is unclear if Doyle’s firm also receives payments from the nonprofit. He did not respond to a Fox News Digital inquiry on his payments from the super PAC.
Doyle, meanwhile, is a close family friend of the Bidens. The Democratic operative served as a senior adviser to Biden when he was in the Senate and later acted as the national finance director for Biden’s failed 2008 presidential campaign.
Doyle also discussed foreign business opportunities with Hunter Biden, his emails show.
Fox News Digital previously reported on multiple exchanged emails between Doyle, who was registered as a foreign agent on behalf of the Republic of Serbia at the time, and Hunter Biden early in his dad’s first term as vice president during the Obama administration, where they plotted a potential business meeting with then-Serbian President Boris Tadic and Serbian “high net worth individuals.”
According to a disclosure filed with the Department of Justice, Doyle was registered as a foreign agent through the same Chicago-based firm as Unite the Country and he principally dealt with Serbian Ambassador to the United States Vladimir Petrovic, who Hunter Biden met for the first time in February 2010 alongside Tadic’s National Security Advisor Jovan Ratkovic.
“I met with Tadic’s Chief of Staff Thursday[sic] when I was there and he asked about you. The Ambassador must have relayed your conversation,” Doyle wrote in an April 2010 email, referring to Petrovic.
“I think you mentioned that you spoke to them about putting you in front of high net worth individuals and they are ready to do that, and to have you meet Tadic as well. I am going there with Milan in May, and I think they are looking for you to join,” Doyle continued. “My sense from Vladimir is that they are very willing to help you with your fund. If you have interest you can just call Vladimir direct, you don’t need me in the middle. I think it could be good for you and the fund to go.”
Hunter Biden responded a few hours later joking that “Markie in the Middle” will be the name of the “reality show” he will be producing and expressed interest in the meeting.
“How about we go over around May 10th. JRB will be in Madrid and I can catch a ride with him and fly over to Serbia and back with you,” Hunter wrote, referring to his dad by his initials.
Doyle followed up a few days later alerting Hunter that Petrovic, who was serving as the Serbian Ambassador to the United States at the time, “wants to start putting together a full day for you with Tadic and potential investors.”
“They are ready to get people who can commit immediately when you are there, very serious people from what I understand,” Doyle added.
Other emails that followed included Hunter Biden’s longtime business partner, Eric Schwerin, who visited the White House at least 27 times during the Obama administration, and Petrovic himself.
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Schwerin emailed Hunter and Doyle about a week later about the Serbia trip and said, “Hunter would like to try and get to Serbia right after going to Madrid with his Dad.”
“The Madrid trip should end on Sunday the 9th so he could likely get to Belgrade Sunday night and stay the 10th and 11th (not sure how much time he needs and if he could depart on the afternoon of the 11th or would depart afternoon of the 12th),” Schwerin added.
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Hunter responded three days later in late April 2010 saying there was a “change in the schedule” to his travels in Europe that week, and he didn’t think he could make the trip on the week of May 11, but noted that he would like to make a visit another time during the spring.
Petrovic followed up a week later apologizing for his late response and informed Hunter that he had some “preliminary conversations with some business people in Serbia” and that he thinks Hunter “would find some opportunities” when he visited in the future.
Based on previous Fox News Digital reporting, it is unclear whether Hunter or Schwerin ended up visiting Serbia or taking Petrovic up on his offer to meet with wealthy business individuals in Serbia. However, emails show that Hunter, Schwerin and Petrovic continued to communicate after Petrovic become a D.C. .lobbyist after leaving the ambassadorship.
Fox News Digital’s Houston Keene contributed to this report.
