Carlson Asked Unexpected Person for Favor for His Son

Late last year, reports began surfacing about an unconfirmed, eyebrow-raising email exchange between Hunter Biden and Fox host Tucker Carlson, who now regularly skewers the president's son on his program. The emails—originally leaked online by pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood after being found on a laptop said to have belonged to Biden—were curious because it showed a previously friendly relationship between the two men and their wives. Close enough that, in 2014, Tucker and Susie Carlson felt comfortable in asking Biden to write a letter of recommendation for their son, Buckley, to Georgetown University. Via forensic analysis, the Washington Post confirmed the emails' authenticity (and corroborated new ones), with the paper noting they "reveal the extent to which Carlson was willing to turn on a former associate as he thrives in a hyperpartisan media world."

The Post notes that Susie Carlson originally penned a message to Biden, asking if he'd be willing to look over Buckley's resume or meet with him to chat. Tucker Carlson added: "He loves Washington for all the right reasons ... and really wants to go to school here." Biden agreed to write the letter, eliciting the following response from Susie Carlson: "Tucker and I have the greatest respect and admiration for you. Always!" It's not clear if Biden ever actually wrote the letter, or whether Buckley got into Georgetown—he ended up attending the University of Virginia—but the Post notes how Biden and Carlson's "unlikely connection ... illustrates the ways Washington works, or at least used to, with odd alliances combining forces to help one another with personal favors." Carlson apparently tried to return the favor to his neighbor a year later.

That's when Biden frantically emailed him about his name possibly being on a leaked list of names associated with the Ashley Madison adult website, and a news story about to break on it with the Daily Mail. "Just lost my s--- on the editor over there," Carlson wrote to Biden, adding: "Let me know if there's anything Susie and I can do to help." Carlson concedes to the Post he was once friendly with Biden, and says that Biden's current troubles stem from his addictions. "I feel bad for him. I've said that many times, and I mean it," Carlson notes. The Guardian notes that reaction to this news touches on one theme in particular: hypocrisy on Carlson's part. "The story here is that Tucker Carlson is the living embodiment of the unearned, privileged elitism that Tucker Carlson derides on his show every night," journalist Radley Balko tweeted. "The Hunter Biden part is just gravy." More on their history here. (More Tucker Carlson stories.)