Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden grew visibly frustrated when asked by local Wisconsin press about his family’s business dealings.
Son Hunter Biden’s foreign business connections are the subject of renewed interest after alleged emails between himself and a top executive at Ukrainian energy firm Burisma Holdings became public in which the younger Biden had apparently offered to set up a meeting with his father.
Republicans, such as Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, have seized on the emails as evidence the Bidens profited off of the patriarch’s last name, Johnson releasing a statement on Senate Homeland Security Committee letterhead. Johnson heads the panel and led the inquiry into Hunter Biden’s business ties to Ukraine and China.
But Joe Biden told Southeast Wisconsin ABC-affiliate WISN12 Tuesday there was no legitimacy to Johnson’s claims.
“This is the same garbage — Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s henchmen,” he said. “It’s a last-ditch effort in this desperate campaign to smear me and my family.”
The two-term vice president and Delaware’s 36-year senator cited Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney’s insistence last month before the emails were published that Johnson was at risk of misusing his power by investigating the Bidens as “an effort to damage political opponents.”
“Even the man who served with him on that committee, the former nominee for the Republican Party said there was no basis to this. The vast majority of the intelligence people have come out and said there’s no basis at all,” Biden said. “Ron should be ashamed of himself.”
Biden’s campaign has denied the candidate officially met with Ukrainian businessman Vadym Pozharskyi in 2015, but Biden allies concede it is possible he informally spoke with Pozharskyi on the sideline of a U.S.-Ukraine event.
Johnson is pushing the FBI for more details regarding its own investigation into the Bidens after the bureau declined to answer some of his questions.
