Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden says he doesn’t know what his son Hunter Biden was doing on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, but that his relatives wouldn’t be conducting foreign business if he’s elected president.
“I don’t know what he was doing. I know he was on the board. I found out he was on the board after he was on the board and that was it,” Mr. Biden, a top 2020 Democratic presidential contender, said in a new interview with “Axios on HBO” posted on Sunday.
Asked if it’s something he wants to get to the bottom of, Mr. Biden said: “No. Because I trust my son.”
“There’s nothing on its face that was wrong,” he said. “Look, if you want to talk about problems let’s talk about Trump’s family. I mean, come on.”
Hunter Biden’s position on the board of Burisma Holdings while his father was vice president has become a key issue in House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry. Congress is probing whether President Trump improperly pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into conducting investigations, including into the Bidens’ business interests in Ukraine, and the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
“You know there’s not one single bit of evidence [to say] anything done was wrong … but you keep asking me these questions,” Mr. Biden said. “But I’m not worried about it. Look, the American public knows me.”
Mr. Biden vowed that if elected, his family members would not be engaged in foreign business “because of what’s happened in this administration.”
“No one’s going to be seeking patents for things from China,” he said, alluding to presidential adviser and daughter Ivanka Trump. “No one’s going to be engaged in that kind of thing.”
Hunter Biden has since stepped down from his lucrative position on the board. He said he doesn’t regret holding the post, but acknowledged that his father’s name and political clout likely played a role in his landing the job.
Mr. Biden has consistently defended his son. He called a man at a campaign event in Iowa a “damn liar” last week after the man had brought up Hunter Biden.
The former vice president said later that he probably shouldn’t have challenged the man to a push-up contest, after the man had also invoked Mr. Biden’s age.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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