From: "Mesires, George R." <[email-masked]>
To: "R. Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2019 07:35:58 +0000

HB - I tried to clean up the first bit. I got about 1/2 way down. Think about what you want to do to tighten it up. Call me if you want (even in middle of night). Otherwise I will be up at the crack of dawn but not sending him anything without talking to you.

“You asked whether you think my father’s decision to run for President is influenced by a concern that negative stories about me would make the American people not vote for my dad. In short, no. And here’s why.

The American people- Republicans Democrats, Southerners, Northerners, Farmers, Lawyers, Cops, and cab drivers love my dad and respect him. They don’t all agree with some of his political beliefs, but I can tell you they do genuinely love him and admire and respect him because they remind them of their dad who lost a wife and child when they were just infants, but never stopped loving them.  He reminds them of the brother who always showed up just when you needed him most, no matter what.  He reminds them of the grandfather who held the whole family together when the center of his world fell out from beneath him ... again.  He reminds them of the son who looked at his mom and dad and said when I grow up I want to be just as tough and smart as you, mom. And I want to be as courageous and generous as you, dad.  He gives them hope that they can face the same adversities and tragedies and stumbles and embarrassments as all families, and do it with grace and compassion and so much strength.

They know that our family has experienced the same agony and joy many families will face to some degree in their lives.  The only difference for our family is all the ups and downs have been played out on the television and through the tabloids. But because of that, out family has been made unbreakable.  No one in my family has ever asked, nor even thought to ask their blood, “Would you still love me if I…?”   And it has made us understand that the one thing that binds us all — not just my family — everyone you will ever meet — is what it is to feel pain and how even the smallest gesture of genuine kindness and love can make you hope for a better day.

The reason people love my Dad is because he’s the son they hope to raise; he’s the parent they hope to be; he’s the brother and friend we all look up to. They love him because he is as real an American as they are. He’s not perfect. He’s he’s got a temper; he spoils his grandkids, he loves my Mom almost too much and he still thinks he can still make me angrier than anyone on earth sometimes. There’s nobody I want to make more proud of me than my Dad, and there’s no-one that I know who can ever be more proud of me and my whole family.

My Dad has never asked anyone of us to be less human. He just taught us all what it means to be a good man in a hard world. He taught me what his mom and dad taught him “Always remember nobody is better than you but you are better than nobody.”
Every Biden knows there’s nothing that they could do to make anyone in our family stop loving them. And finally always be kind to the people in pain.

#### I only got down editing to here. Haven’t done below this line:
———-

That's a long way of answering your question whether my dad is

.... which I promise isn't anything but a sad moment in 23 years of loving and being loved by someone I still love and respect, or my brother’s death and how the whether you think the work i've chosen two do in my career that like being a Jesuit Volunteer for a year after college running an emergency service shelter living on 80 dollars a month in wages made my dad question my judgment any more than as 38 year old Yale Law graduate who was before that a banker and after that a government employee at the department of commerce as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University masters program in the School of Foreign Service, or the five years I worked as a valet parking cars at night  to help pay for college or unloading rail cars of frozen beef every summer 12 hours a day or as waiter (who was demoted to bus boy) or how about when I was the Chairman of the Board of the US World Food Program that supports over half the budget of the largest humanitarian organization in the world or for free because the former board members like bob dole and George McGovern and current people like one of my mentors Sandy BERGER asked me to. I've liked some jobs more than others.  I like the stuff I did for free better than the stuff that’s supported me and Kathleen since we had my oldest daughter Naomi in my first year of law school.  I loved lobbying for my Jesuit University clients.  I was extremely proud of goin g to the senate as a young lawyer with Jesuit University Presidents of inner City Schools who were asking for help from the federal government to get things like mobile dental clinics in Detroit  in the 90’s at a time when Detroit proper didn’t have a single dentists office within the city limits.  I loved helping trial lawyers lobby shut down the manufacture and distribution of Oxycontin by Purdue Pharma. One of my favorites was accepting George W. Bush’s appoint meant to be Vice Chairmen of the Board of Amtrak.  I loved and still love how hard and smart the people that actually run the railroads worked.

And Chris seeing that you actually had the nerve to ask a 49 year old man and father of 5 if my Dad may not run for President because its been reported during my divorce that i've gone strip clubs, or whether I went to rehab and quit drinking when my brother asked me to when I 33 years old because he said it took up too much time we could be spending together, or that I relapsed when Beau died and Kathleen and I separated 2 months later— the answer I=s No and what a stupid fucking question.  You think that any American is not  going to vote for my dad because my wife and I lost our shit after 23 years of marriage when the kindest most generous most loving man either of was will ever know died at 46.  No again.   You think there’s a family in America that doesn’t have a loved one that's struggled with alcoholism or addiction- you think my dad’s less proud of me or more proud of me for never giving up on it and never feeling ashamed of things people shouldn’t be ashamed of.

George R. Mesires
Partner
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