Elizabeth Warren became flustered when asked an ethics question that was an indirect reference to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, serving on a Ukrainian gas company board.
The Massachusetts senator and 2020 Democrat asserted that a similar kind of behavior would not be allowed under a Warren administration, before saying that she did not know whether the situation would violate her ethics plan.
When a reporter asked Warren whether her ethics plan would allow her vice president’s son or daughter to serve on the board of a foreign company, but without directly referencing the Bidens, Warren responded “no” before quickly walking back her assertion.
“I don’t know. I mean, I’d have to go back and look at the details,” Warren said.
When he was vice president, Biden threatened to withhold U.S. aid to Ukraine if that country did not fire a prosecutor who was investigating a gas company that had Hunter Biden on its board. President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July phone call to look into Biden’s demand and the firing. Reports of the call and a whistleblower complaint about the call prompted a wave of Democratic House members and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to support a formal presidential impeachment inquiry.
Warren has made combating corruption a cornerstone of her presidential campaign.
“When you see a government that works great for those with money and connections and doesn’t work for much of anyone else, that’s corruption plain and simple, and we need to call it out for what it is,” she said in a New York City speech last week that drew around 20,000 people.
Warren introduced an anti-corruption bill this year that would, among other reforms, make the president and vice president subject to conflict of interest measures. Her campaign’s plan to end corruption expands on the bill.
The Warren campaign did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment about what she thinks of Hunter Biden taking the gas company job. A Warren spokesperson reportedly said that “the [ethics] bill doesn’t prevent any children of a VP from serving on a company’s board.”
Warren has declined to directly criticize her primary opponents on matters outside of policy disagreements, often saying that she is running her own campaign when asked about her primary rivals on the campaign trail.
Several recent state and national Democratic primary polls show Warren slightly ahead of Biden, who has long been the front-runner in the race.
FLAG: Senator Elizabeth Warren appears uncharacteristically flustered when asked if her ethics plan would allow her Vice President’s son to serve on the board of a foreign company: “No,” she said. “I don’t know. I mean I’d have to go back and look at the details.” #nhpolitics pic.twitter.com/EksLlMEsew
— Nicole Sganga (@NicoleSganga) September 25, 2019
