While his father was vice president, Hunter Biden tried to enlist the help of the U.S. State Department on an energy deal in Italy for Burisma, the Ukrainian company where he held a lucrative job.

Records show that Hunter Biden wrote at least one letter to the U.S. ambassador to Italy in 2016 looking for help on behalf of Burisma, according to a report from The New York Times Tuesday.

Hunter Biden’s attorney, Abbe Lowell, said his client had “asked various people” for an introduction between Burisma and the president of the Italian region in which they wanted to do business.

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“No meeting occurred, no project materialized, no request for anything in the U.S. was ever sought, and only an introduction in Italy was requested,” Mr. Lowell said in a statement.

However, The Times noted that Embassy officials seemed uneasy about the request, and one Commerce Department official responded, “I want to be careful about promising too much.”

“This is a Ukrainian company and, purely to protect ourselves, [the United States government] should not be actively advocating with the government of Italy without the company going through the [Department of Commerce] Advocacy Center,” the official wrote.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday that “the president has never done business with his son and he was not aware of this.”

“This is something Hunter Biden has to speak to. He’s a private citizen and I’m going to just have to leave it there,” she said.

The outlet said this report has been a long time coming — the documents were originally sought in a 2021 Freedom of Information Act request but were only handed over after the president dropped out of the presidential race and only after The Times sued.

The State Department told The Times that the release of the documents after the elder Biden dropped out was just a coincidence.

This all comes after prosecutors said last week that Hunter Biden was hired by a Romanian businessman who had been accused of corruption and was trying to “influence U.S. government policy” during his father’s time as vice president.

The younger Biden also faces his federal tax evasion prosecution in California next month, which includes the money he made while sitting on the Burisma board from 2013 to 2018 and from other foreign businesses. High-profile attorney Mark Geragos has joined the defense team.

Hunter Biden has not been charged with any foreign lobbying crimes.