Hunter Biden emails were said to be shopped around in Ukraine for $5 million, while Giuliani met with officials and businessmen there last year

• Emails said to belong to Joe Biden's son Hunter were shopped around in Ukraine last year, while Rudy Giuliani met with officials and businessmen there, sources told Time magazine in a Wednesday report.
• Two people told Time that they were approached with the emails — with one saying the asking price was $5 million — and that the person making the offer already had a buyer in mind: President Donald Trump's allies.
• The New York Post shared emails purportedly involving Biden last week, saying they were obtained through Giuliani, who in turn said he obtained them through a laptop that was left at a repair shop in Delaware last year.
• The FBI is investigating whether the leaked emails are part of a foreign intelligence operation, and more than 50 former intelligence officers said they believed Russia could be involved.

Emails said to belong to Joe Biden's son Hunter were shopped around in Ukraine last year, while Rudy Giuliani met with officials and businessmen there, sources told Time magazine in a Wednesday report.

Two people told Time they were approached with emails, though they declined to say who made the offers in May and September of last year. They also said they did not know whether the emails were real or whether they were the same material that was published last week by the New York Post.

The Post shared emails last week that purportedly belonged to Hunter Biden, saying they were obtained through Giuliani, an attorney for President Donald Trump, who in turn said he obtained them through a laptop that was left at a repair shop in Delaware last year. One of the emails appeared to refer to a meeting between Joe Biden and an advisor to Burisma, a firm that once did business with Hunter Biden. The Biden campaign has denied such a meeting took place.

No other news organization has been able to verify the emails' authenticity. The FBI is investigating whether the emails are part of a foreign intelligence operation, and more than 50 former intelligence officers said they believed Russia could be involved.

Both people Time interviewed said that they did not know whether the emails obtained by Giuliani were from the same source who approached them but that the Post's coverage had reminded them of the encounter.

One of the people also told Time the person making the offer expressed interest in selling the material to Trump's Republican allies — for $5 million.

"I walked away from it, because it smelled awful," the person said, according to Time.

Giuliani traveled to Europe last year, meeting with numerous officials, businessmen, and former law-enforcement officers from Ukraine. Despite his claims, there is no evidence of wrongdoing by Joe Biden in Ukraine.

Time said the practice of selling or leaking private communications had become increasingly common in Ukraine over the past year, causing the government to pass a law banning it.