Joe Biden said that his family members, including Hunter Biden, would not engage in any foreign business if he wins the presidency in 2020.
That’s not because Hunter did anything wrong as a board member of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, the former vice president said, but due to questionable business activities of President Trump’s children.
“They will not be engaged in any foreign business because of what’s happened in this administration,” Biden said of Hunter Biden and brother James Biden, in an Axios on HBO interview that aired Sunday. “No one’s going to be seeking patents for things from China. No one’s going to be engaged in that kind of thing.”
Hunter Biden was on the board of Burisma while Joe Biden, 77, worked on Ukrainian policy while vice president. House Democrats launched impeachment proceedings against Trump after revelations of a phone call in which Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate the Bidens, which Democrats argue Trump did for personal political interests rather than legitimate policy reasons.
Trump and his allies suggest that Joe Biden acted in Hunter’s interest when he conditioned $1 billion in aid to Ukraine on firing an official who was investing Burisma, but many international organizations at the time wanted the prosecutor removed for other reasons, and there is no evidence that Biden acted with the intention of helping his son.
Biden has, however, faced criticism for allowing Hunter to take a position that could create conflict of interest issues. Several of his Democratic presidential primary competitors said they would not want their vice president’s son or daughter to serve on a foreign board.
Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump, who is a senior adviser in the White House, obtained more than a dozen trademarks from China while she worked in the Trump administration.
Biden claimed ignorance of his son’s work on the board.
“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,” Biden told Axios.
Biden said in an October interview that he does not discuss business interests with his children, but that he told Hunter when he learned of the position, “I sure hope to hell you know what you’re doing.”
The former vice president added that he does not feed the need to get to the bottom of his son’s business dealings.
“Unless there was something that was on its face that was wrong. There’s nothing on its face that was wrong,” Biden said.
