President Joe Biden is confident Hunter Biden didn’t break any laws despite an ongoing criminal investigation by the Justice Department and believes his son and brother James didn’t do any unethical business deals with China, according to the White House.
Ron Klain, the president’s chief of staff, made these claims on ABC’s This Week during an interview with George Stephanopoulos. Klain was asked if Biden is confident that his son didn’t break the law, and the chief of staff said yes.
“Of course the president is confident that his son didn’t break the law,” Klain said. “But most importantly, as I said, that’s a matter that’s going to be decided by the Justice Department, by the legal process. It’s something that no one at the White House has involvement in.”
Klain was asked if Biden is confident that his family didn’t cross any ethical lines when receiving millions of dollars from Chinese businessmen.
“The president is confident that his family did the right thing,” Biden’s chief of staff replied. “But again, I just want to be really clear — these are actions by Hunter and his [Joe Biden’s] brother. They’re private matters. They don’t involve the president. And they certainly are something that no one at the White House is involved in.”
Klain claimed that “neither the president nor any of us at the White House have had any contact with the Justice Department about” its investigation into Hunter Biden.
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The New York Times reported on Saturday that “several people familiar with the situation” said that “people close to the president” have “no visibility” into the Hunter Biden inquiry.
White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield was asked on Thursday whether the White House stood by Biden’s debate comments suggesting that there was nothing unethical about Hunter Biden’s business dealings and that his son had not made any money in China.
“We absolutely stand by the president’s comment, and I would point you to the reporting on this, which referenced statements that we made at the time that we gave to the Washington Post who worked on this story,” Bedingfield said, despite clear evidence that Hunter Biden had received millions from Chinese businessmen.
Executives from the Chinese Communist Party-linked CEFC energy company “paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by” Hunter Biden and James Biden, the Washington Post confirmed last week, following similar reporting by the Washington Examiner and others. The outlet said new documents, which include “a signed copy of a $1 million legal retainer, emails related to the wire transfers, and $3.8 million in consulting fees that are confirmed in new bank records and agreements signed by Hunter Biden — illustrate the ways in which his family profited from relationships built over Joe Biden’s decades in public service.”
Bedingfield also declined to say whether there had been internal conversations about Biden pardoning his son or brother, saying “that’s not a hypothetical I’m going to entertain.” When asked if the president thought Hunter or James had broken any laws, she said only that “we point to statements that were made in the fall of 2020 when we addressed these questions.”
Hunter Biden said in early December 2020 that he was “confident” he handled his affairs “legally and appropriately.” The Biden-Harris transition team said at the time that the president-elect was “deeply proud of his son, who has fought through difficult challenges, including the vicious personal attacks of recent months, only to emerge stronger.”
Biden claimed during the October 2020 debate that “my son has not made money” in China.
Last week, Sens. Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson expounded upon the conclusions of a September 2020 report they had released that detailed extensive financial connections between Hunter Biden and China, Ukraine, and elsewhere — a report dismissed by Democrats as part of an effort to spread Russian disinformation.
The report stated that “treasury records acquired by the Chairmen show potential criminal activity relating to transactions among and between Hunter Biden, his family, and his associates with Ukrainian, Russian, Kazakh and Chinese nationals.”
The New York Times reported last month that Hunter Biden’s foreign work is being scrutinized under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.
Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, along with many in the media, dismissed without evidence the Hunter Biden laptop story as a Russian disinformation operation.
The New York Times also reported on Saturday that Biden has “confided to his inner circle” that Trump should be prosecuted and that he has “said privately” that Attorney General Merrick Garland should “act less like a ponderous judge and more like a prosecutor who is willing to take decisive action” related to the Capitol riot.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates insisted that Biden “is immensely proud of the attorney general’s service in this administration and has no role in investigative priorities or decisions.”
Klain denied ever hearing Biden express that he wanted Trump prosecuted.
“I’ve never heard the president say that — advocate the prosecution of any person,” Klain claimed on Sunday, adding that “the president has confidence in the attorney general to make those decisions, and that’s where those decisions should be made.”
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In October, Biden urged the Justice Department to prosecute anyone who defied subpoenas from Capitol riot investigators.
“I do, yes,” Biden said to reporters when asked if the DOJ should prosecute anyone who resisted subpoenas from the House select committee. “I hope that the committee goes after them and holds them accountable criminally,” the president said.
The Justice Department distanced the agency from the president at the time.
“The Department of Justice will make its own independent decisions in all prosecutions based solely on the facts and the law. Period. Full stop,” DOJ spokesman Anthony Coley told the Washington Examiner.
Garland said in early March that the Justice Department’s investigation into the Capitol riot is the “most urgent” in the department’s history.
