President-elect Joe Biden’s family and administration will be required to abide by a strict code of conduct to avoid any embarrassing ethical conflicts.
Incoming White House communications director Kate Bedingfield told reporters Friday that Biden had promised during the campaign that his family would be held to an ethics code if he won the Nov. 3 election.
“He was a core part of the Obama-Biden administration, which was a White House that saw eight years free of any kind of ethics issue or scandal. And that’s the kind of leadership that President-elect Biden is going to bring to his White House as well,” Bedingfield said during a transition telebriefing.
Potential problems with the Biden family were thrust into the national spotlight after President Trump’s interest in the business dealings of Biden’s son in Ukraine prompted an impeachment investigation last summer. Hunter Biden accepted a $50,000-a-month role with Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, despite having no experience in the energy sector, while his father was vice president and overseeing U.S. foreign policy in the region.
Then, in October, a tranche of emails and photographs purportedly from Hunter Biden’s laptop were released, suggesting, among other allegations, that he had offered to arrange a meeting between a Burisma executive and his father in 2015.
Joe Biden was asked about his family’s business ties during an interview with CNN Thursday.
“My son, my family, will not be involved in any business, any enterprise that is in conflict with or appears to be in conflict, where there’s appropriate distance from the presidency and government,” Biden said.
On Friday, Bedingfield foreshadowed that there would be “more fulsome announcements about ethics codes and how it will apply to employees.”
“I would expect that those are announcements that we will make in the coming weeks and months, but you can be assured that President-elect Biden is committed to the highest levels of ethical conduct in his White House,” she added.
